Reason Interview: Ben Wizner
Source: Reason
“Can the ACLU Serve Progressives and Conservatives?” (10/15/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/10/15/can-the-aclu-serve-progressives-and-conservatives/?nab=1
Author: Thomas L. Knapp
Too Hot to Handle
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler
“Between May 17 and September 30, there were 3,832 deaths in Spain linked to extreme heat, an increase of almost 87% from 2024. Many of these victims had underlying health conditions, 96% were over 65, and almost two thirds were 85 or older. But boiling Spanish summers are not a new phenomenon, nor is the global warming that politicians like to blame whenever fatalities result from extreme weather. The awkward truth for Spain’s Socialist-led government, which has promised to reduce socioeconomic inequality, is that energy poverty is the more decisive factor in heat-related deaths.” (10/15/25)
The Politics of Fear in American History
Source: Liberal Currents
by Guillaume AW Attia
“The failure of liberal-minded politicians to keep government officials accountable is a cause for great fear, especially when those state actors are perceived to be actively and intentionally undermining the public’s sense of security. As the American philosopher Judith Shklar explains, what she calls the ‘liberalism of fear’ regards ‘abuses of public powers in all regimes with equal trepidation.’ Knowing that ‘every page of political history’ teaches that ‘some agents of government will behave lawlessly and brutally in small or big ways most of the time unless they are prevented from doing so,’ a liberalism that considers the propagation of fear in society an evil will worry ‘about the excesses of official agents at every level of government.'” (10/15/25)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-politics-of-fear-in-american-history/
MA: Moulton to challenge Markey for US Senate seat
Source: Seattle Times
“U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, a moderate Massachusetts Democrat, said Wednesday that he will challenge U.S. Sen. Edward Markey for the Democratic nomination in next year’s Senate race, arguing it’s time for the party to embrace a new generation of leadership. The announcement makes the race one of the most anticipated primary contests in the country and pits two of the heavily Democratic state’s top politicians against one another. Markey, who fended off a challenge in 2020 from Rep. Joe Kennedy III in the Senate primary, would be 80 before his third six-year term would begin.” (10/15/25)
Collateral Damage, episode 2
Source: The Intercept
“A Death in the Dark: The Story of Ryan Frederick and Detective Jarrod Shivers.” (10/15/25)
https://theintercept.com/2025/10/15/collateral-damage-episode-two-death-dark/
Antifa in Popular Ontology
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“What do Jimmy Kimmel and the late J. Edgar Hoover have in common? A kink for women’s dresswear? Nope. Both denied the existence of major criminal organizations. Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1924 to 1972, refused to affirm that the Mafia crime syndicate existed. Repeatedly, over the years. Rumors that he was being blackmailed by the Mafia itself, over his own cross-dressing kinks (the mob allegedly had photos), is not affirmed by major historians, who say his denial-of-the-facts was just politics. So when we encounter those rejecting the reality of Antifa, take them with a grain of salt.” (10/15/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/10/15/antifa-in-popular-ontology/
Infant Adoption is Now Tragically Rare
Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan
“Since 2017, I’ve known that international adoption is in decline. But only recently, while writing the introduction to the 15th-anniversary edition of Selfish Reasons, did I realize that both forms of infant adoption in the United States have become incredibly rare. Domestically, birth parents only put about one out of every 200 babies born up for adoption. … Internationally, the situation is even bleaker. In 2004, U.S. international adoptions peaked at 22,988. In 2023, the last available year, the total was just 1,275 — a 94% fall. Two decades ago, the market share of imported adoptees was about 50%. Now it’s about 7%.” (10/15/25)
Myanmar: Junta Chief Admits Election Won’t Be Nationwide as War Continues
Source: US News & World Report
“Myanmar’s junta chief acknowledged on Wednesday that the military-backed administration will be unable to conduct an upcoming general election across the entire country, as a civil war triggered by a 2021 coup rages on. Critics and many Western nations view the election — due to start in late December and the first since the coup — as a sham exercise to legitimise the military’s rule via proxy political parties. Dozens of anti-junta parties are either banned or refusing to take part. The Southeast Asian nation has been in turmoil since the coup, which deposed an elected civilian government and triggered a nationwide armed rebellion that has wrested swathes of territory from the military.” (10/15/25)
Questions for Corbett, 10/15/25
Source: The Corbett Report
“Is the US Government Fascist?” (10/15/25)
Trump’s sacrilegious campaign to put his name on everything
Source: Washington Post
by Theodore R Johnson
“Trump’s approach to the presidency has been the same as his business strategy, one that’s uncommon for democracies: putting his name and personal brand on everything, building monuments to himself along the way. He hung his massive portrait on buildings around the nation’s capital. He has gilded the Oval Office, put his name on the border wall and on federal stimulus checks, and bathed his career and venues in a sea of American flags. Republicans have proposed legislation to make his birthday a federal holiday, carve his face into Mount Rushmore, and rename D.C.’s Metro system and one of its airports after him. These kinds of civil religious measures canonize the man more than the country and its founding ideals. … Similarly, earlier this year, officials assured the public that the grandiosity of the Army’s 250th anniversary parade had nothing to do with its occurrence on Trump’s birthday.” (10/15/25)