Source: Antiwar.com
by M Reza Behnam

“For decades, the architecture of West Asia has rested on a comforting fiction: that Pax Americana could indefinitely manage the region through the policy of offshore balancing, security guarantees to autocrats and the supreme might of the U.S. military. That order is gone. Not bruised, not bending, but wholly vaporized. Washington’s illusion that it could facilely pivot away from the region while maintaining a stranglehold on its security dynamics has collided with the hard reality of enduring quagmires. Current historical events have swept away the geopolitical framework of the past that relied on predictable diplomatic patterns, managed proxy clashes and the arrogant belief that normalization pacts could be achieved while entirely ignoring public sentiment.” (09/30/26)

https://original.antiwar.com/reza_behnam/2026/09/29/the-mirage-of-statecraft-americas-blind-drift-in-west-asia/

Source: Rutherford Institute
by John & Nisha Whitehead

“America, you got fooled. Again. For starters, the war on illegal immigration was never just about illegal immigration. If you fell for that, chances are you’re still falling for the government’s oldest trick: manufacture a crisis, identify an enemy, frighten the public, declare an emergency, and then use the resulting fear to justify another expansion of government power. Terrorism. Crime. Drugs. National security. Illegal immigration. Different threats. Same playbook.” (09/29/26)

https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/first_them_then_us_americas_shift_from_police_state_to_prison_state

Source: American Greatness
by Stu Cvrk

“Merriam-Webster defines a ‘fifth column’ in its original, literal sense: ‘a group of secret sympathizers or supporters of an enemy that engage in espionage or sabotage within defense lines or national borders’. That is a high bar … and almost nothing discussed in American politics today clears it. The term has widened in recent years. Political scientists now treat fifth-column politics as rhetoric, policy, or mobilization against domestic ‘enemies within’. Scott Radnitz of the University of Washington splits it into two types: subversive claims aimed at vulnerable minorities or immigrants and collusive claims aimed at elites said to serve a foreign power. Neither needs a hidden army or single chain of command. Both describe a domestic network—whether organized or not—whose activities, funding, or ideology line up with a foreign adversary, or that treats the U.S. constitutional order as illegitimate and works to replace it from the inside.” (09/30/26)

https://amgreatness.com/2026/09/30/fifth-columns-in-america-part-one/

Source: Los Angeles Times
by Jonah Goldberg

“At the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s recent retreat at Sea Island, Ga., NRSC pollster Erik Iverson insisted that every incumbent GOP senator will be reelected and that Republicans are even on track to pick up a Senate seat. There is no public polling that agrees with this rosy GOP scenario. Ah yes, but the polls are ‘fake’ as Trump likes to say, even though, at the end of August he claimed in an interview that if the election were held today, he would win by ’25 points.’ Meanwhile, Trump’s disapproval ratings in the polls are at record or near record lows. If they were an EKG, doctors would tell the patient to get his affairs in order. But let’s ignore the polls. Given the difficulties with polling and its occasionally spotty record in recent years, skepticism is defensible.” (09/29/26)

https://archive.is/nVfxI