HUGE THANKS to supporters CF, MJ, DH, and PD! Their $65 in donations over the weekend bring our annual fundraiser total to $990.50!
Our goal is $5,503, but thanks to supporter GL’s “matching funds” pledge, we only have to raise $2,751.50 from everyone else.
Everyone else means you. We’re a reader-supported publication. You’re a reader. So …
… and have a great Monday!
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
Source: SFGate
“President Donald Trump on Monday directed the government to bolster federal research into women’s health, a move pushed by his wife, first lady Melania Trump. The order creates a new women’s health division at the National Institutes of Health and a White House task force to focus on the issue. That panel was set to hold its first meeting Monday after the Trumps held a Rose Garden signing ceremony. Meanwhile, Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander adults have become more disillusioned with Trump and Republicans as the Nov. 3 midterm elections approach, according to a new AP-NORC/AAPI Data poll, giving Democrats a substantial edge on major issues like the economy and health care.” (10/19/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/the-latest-democrats-gain-ground-with-aapi-22483319.php
Source: Liberal Currents
“The Department of Homeland Security’s decision to raid U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s residence is continuous with President Donald Trump’s birther politics and immigration obsessions, but it also touches on elemental constitutional issues—similar to the issues that once sparked the English Civil War. And what does it mean for the imminent U.S. elections? Samantha Hancox-Li is joined by Adam Gurri, publisher of Liberal Currents.” (10/18/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/ilhan-omar-vs-regime-politics-neon-liberalism-95-with-adam-gurri/
Source: Independent Institute
by Stephen P Halbrook
“The pattern was consistent: where the government required citizens to disarm, it supplied the protection itself. At other times, the government required citizens to arm themselves, such as in colonial times when going to church. ‘Sensitive places’ was never meant to be a blank check. … If the government takes no steps to prevent armed aggressors from entering a place, calling it a ‘sensitive’ location is meaningless and reckless joke.” (10/19/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/10/19/sensitive-places-issue-coming-to-a-head/
Source: CNBC
“China’s economic growth accelerated to 4.5% in the third quarter from a year earlier, as robust foreign demand for the country’s technological goods largely offset drags from a deepening property slump and sluggish consumer demand. Third-quarter growth beat Reuters-polled economists’ expectation of a 4.4% expansion, and was also higher than the three-year low of 4.3% in the second quarter.” (10/19/26)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/19/chinas-economic-growth-quickens-to-4point6percent-as-exports-surge-stimulus-rolls-out.html
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Connor Echols: Trump Turns on Zelensky as Iran War Threat Grows.” (10/18/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/blog/the-kyle-anzalone-show-guest-connor-echols-trump-turns-on-zelensky-as-iran-war-threat-grows/
Source: The Dispatch
by Henry Begler
“What are we to make of Allen Ginsberg, and of Howl, on the 70th anniversary of its publication? The poem seems to belong more to popular culture than high culture, closer to Elvis or Easy Rider or ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ than Elizabeth Bishop or John Berryman. … Ginsberg’s magnum opus is brash, insistent, and unsubtle. It has never attracted the kind of critical scrutiny that other 20th-century poetry has …. Changing sexual mores have done to the Beats in this century what sniffy articles in National Review and Partisan Review failed to do in the last one: made them uncool, cringey, Bad Boyfriend Literature. … But Howl endures, and part of what keeps it alive these seven decades on is its pure musical quality. … it is perhaps the best-sounding American poem of the century.” (10/19/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/allen-ginsberg-howl-counterculture/
Source: Town Hall
by Mark Lewis
“A Canadian friend of mine, who is currently teaching in China, recently sent me an interesting video. It recorded a dark-skinned man who spoke perfect English, telling how he and his family, in 1996, immigrated to Canada. They ‘went through the process’, legally, to become Canadian citizens, working hard, earning what they got, and honoring the country. That kind of immigrant most countries don’t mind having. But, he said, ‘it was a whole lot different back then’. The man on the video was very respectful and said, several times, in his two-minute video, ‘I say this very respectfully’. But his message was, ‘When you come to Canada, please stop doing s**t; it makes the rest of us look bad’.” (10/19/26)
https://townhall.com/columnists/marklewis/2026/10/19/a-message-from-canada-about-immigration-n2684884
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Barack Obama has said congresswoman Ilhan Omar is under federal criminal investigation simply because she’s an outspoken critic of the President Donald Trump. ‘The full weight of the federal government is being brought down on a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president,’ the former US president wrote on X, calling the probe ‘so appalling’. The White House defended the inquiry, saying the justice department was ‘focused on restoring law and order’. Last week, homeland security agents searched the Minnesota Democrat’s Washington DC home as part of an investigation into her immigration status. Born in Somalia, Omar moved to the US with her family as a child. US media outlets have reported that the probe is tied to her American citizenship and whether she lied about her age when she arrived in the US in 1995.” (10/19/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr15jl7dd42vo
Source: The Atlantic
“Are We Too Political?” (10/18/26)
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/10/are-we-too-political/689011/
Source: Big Head Press
by Scott Bieser
Cartoon. (10/19/26)
https://www.quantumvibe.com/strip?page=2611
