Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, 11/02/26
Source: Politico
“Haley Stevens caps a bizarre midterm cycle.” (11/02/26)
Author: Thomas L. Knapp
VAERS and VSAFE: The “Worst Case Scenario” Twice
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Leland Lehrman
“The United States began vaccinating against Covid-19 on 14 December 2020. Two CDC programs were designed and paid to catch any harm that clinical trials had missed. VAERS takes reports from doctors, patients and manufacturers. V-safe sends vaccinated people text messages asking how they feel. Here we follow the paper trail of those two systems from the Christmas 2020 rollout into 2022. The bottom line: The government’s ‘worst case’ for amount of Covid vaccine injury reports assumed 1,000 reports a day. For fourteen months it was double that. For some of those months, it was triple.” (11/02/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/vaers-and-vsafe-the-worst-case-scenario-twice/
Uganda: Regime Says It Has Started Withdrawing Troops From Somalia
Source: US News & World Report
‘Uganda said on Monday it had begun withdrawing its troops from Somalia as part of a phased drawdown that will end an almost two-decade deployment helping Mogadishu fight the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab insurgency. Uganda has about 4,500 troops deployed in Somalia under the African Union-mandated AU Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM), according to state media, though it is unclear how many additional forces are deployed under a separate bilateral arrangement.” (11/02/26)
Dave Benner on The Kyle Anzalone Show
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Dave Benner from Liberty Vault joins us for a blunt end-of-week rundown on the war in Iran, the midterm backlash building around it, and why the administration’s promise that it won’t become a forever war is landing with a thud for a lot of voters.” (11/01/26)
Trump Is Dealing With a Different North Korea
Source: Antiwar.com
by Kyle Anzalone
“With all of President Donald Trump’s wars – Iran, Yemen, Ukraine, Nigeria, Somalia, Venezuela, and cartels – it’s easy to lose track of what is happening on the Korean Peninsula. However, since Trump returned to the White House, a series of developments on the Korean Peninsula have increased the risk that a relatively minor border incident could escalate into a much larger conflict. The first, and potentially most important, was a policy shift by Pyongyang that began before Trump returned to the White House. North Korea abandoned its longstanding goal of reunification with South Korea, moving toward treating the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) as an international border.” (11/02/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/kyle_anzalone/2026/11/01/trump-is-dealing-with-a-different-north-korea/
Entrepreneurship in Five Words
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by George Ford Smith
“The future’s inherent uncertainty is an absolute we face every moment of our lives, but how people deal with it varies as widely as the weather. No one can guarantee tomorrow but we all have to decide what to do today. It is from this condition that entrepreneurship arises.” (11/02/26)
The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 11/02/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Fury Erupts as GOP Leaks About His Rallies Take Humiliating Turn.” (11/02/260
https://newrepublic.com/article/217423/trump-fury-erupts-gop-leaks-rallies-take-humiliating-turn
Are You Tired of Winning Yet?
Source: Liberal Currents
by Kiran Pfitzner
“The Trump administration has chosen to forget that airpower provides no way to force a favorable peace.” (11/02/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/are-you-tired-of-winning-yet/
More grocery stores in Europe report fridge and freezer temperature spikes as apparent cyberattacks continue
Source: CBS News
“Grocery store chains in at least three European countries reported unexpected temperature spikes Monday in refrigerators and freezers that ruined food — the second time in less than a month that similar incidents have raised concerns about cyberattacks on increasingly interlinked infrastructure. Netherlands-based food retailer Ahold Delhaize and Colruyt in Belgium both said an IT incident overnight had sent temperatures inside fridges and freezers in dozens of their stores in Belgium and Luxembourg soaring, while Swedish chains ICA and Coop reported similar spikes, with one outlet explicitly blaming a cyberattack, according to the Reuters news agency. The incidents come less than three weeks after several French supermarket chains said they were hit by a cyberattack that sent refrigerator temperatures surging as high as 122 degrees Fahrenheit in hundreds of outlets.” (11/02/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/europe-grocery-store-refrigerator-freezer-cyberattack-hack-food-wasted/
Andrew Day on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
“Scott interviews Andrew Day from The American Conservative about what’s happening with the Iran war.” (11/01/26)
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/10-30-26-andrew-day-on-the-iran-war-eight-months-in/