“The United Nations Security Council on Tuesday extended by six months the mandate of an international security force in Haiti intended to fight powerful armed groups that have taken control of much of the country. Twelve nations voted to renew the mandate of the Gang Suppression Force (GSF) and none voted against. Three nations, however, abstained: China, Russia and Pakistan, whose representatives cited concerns over insufficient funds, personnel and efficacy. The extension is intended to provide security ahead of Haiti’s first election in a decade in December. Armed groups continue to control large parts of the Caribbean nation despite successive international deployments, and the force has struggled to deploy enough troops to carry out its mandate.” (09/29/26)
Source: Chris’s Substack
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra
“Before Russian Radical, both critics and fans of Rand viewed her work strictly as a reaction against her Russian background. Russian Radical fundamentally shifted the interpretive matrix in its focus on those aspects of the Russian context that Rand absorbed. In fairness, then, it’s not as if Russian Radical’s theses were uniquely rejected or ignored by Rand’s critics; many, if not most of her admirers who saw Rand as sui generis, repudiated its theses as well. But in doing so, both the critics and the admirers have bracketed out some of the most sophisticated aspects of Rand’s thought. They are ill-equipped to understand Rand’s historical roots and dialectical sensibilities.” (09/29/26)
“The US Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted restrictions on the deportations of immigrants to countries that are not their own, while agreeing to hear the issue on its merits in December. The conservative-dominated high court granted an emergency request by the Trump administration to suspend a lower court ruling that restricted, but did not outright ban, so-called ‘third-country removals.’ The lower court had said that people targeted with deportation must be given effective notice ahead of time about where they are being sent to allow them to raise concerns about potential persecution. The three liberal [sic] justices on the nine-member panel said they would not have granted the Trump administration’s request.” (09/29/26)
“[W]hat happens when every insurance company gets told that, by law, it must pay for this or that kind of genetic screening? In four words, everyone’s healthcare costs go up. … all of us get to pay for testing we may or may not ever want or need. In a free and open healthcare market, many insurers might cover these tests as part of their normal policies, or offer them as cheap add-on options to those most likely to want them. After all, testing for ovarian cancer is much cheaper than treating ovarian cancer. However, we live in the opposite of a free and open healthcare market.” (09/29/26)
“Israeli troops got a Palestinian family back into their two West Bank homes Monday night—but the return lasted only about 10 minutes, reports Reuters. At that point, more than 100 Israeli [squatters] arrived and attacked soldiers and the Palestinians, even setting fire to the homes in a chaotic scene. ‘Due to the violence, the mission to return the family to their homes was not completed,’ the military said in a statement. Troops had the family go up to a roof when the [squatters] broke in but then evacuated them as the clashes intensified, reports the New York Times, citing witness accounts.” (09/29/26)
“A new report from the Government Accountability Office reveals that federal drug regulators do not have any clear policies or procedures for making scheduling decisions.” (09/29/26)
“Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, who brought two federal indictments against President Donald Trump, told lawmakers on Tuesday that he ‘will not be silenced by continued threats of prosecution’ from the Trump administration and that he believes the rule of law is being threatened like never before. Smith also told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he stands behind the criminal cases he brought against Trump, a Republican, and that he and his team acted without regard to politics. … Republicans sought to cast the prosecution as a political fishing expedition, accusing Smith of bending ordinary procedures in an overzealous pursuit of the president.” (09/29/26)
Source: The Erick Erickson Show
by Erick-Woods Erickson
“Both parties can count on their base. The most loyal Republicans will turn out for anyone with an R beside his name, and the most loyal Democrats will do the same for a D. No party wins with its base alone, though. Most Americans are not party loyalists, and that includes plenty of people who vote in Republican and Democratic primaries. … Those voters, along with the independents who only vote in general elections, decide elections. The parties keep insulting them. Both sides serve up a crap sandwich of a candidate, point across the aisle at the other side’s crap sandwich, and insist you have to eat theirs because the other one is worse. It is no longer a choice between the lesser of two evils. It is a choice between the evils of two lessers, and voters are getting tired of it.” (09/29/26)
“New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday quickly appealed a judge’s decision to cancel previously mailed notices for his second-home tax, triggering an automatic stay of the ruling. ‘The auto stay allows the city to continue, as we have been, with the implementation of the pied-a-terre surcharge and puts the lower court’s order on pause,’ a city official said. Just hours earlier, Judge Wayne Ozzi found that the city failed to follow required procedures before mailing the notices, which he described as ‘arbitrary and capricious, affected by errors of law, and in violation of the recipients’ due process rights,’ according to the ruling. Despite the ruling, Ozzi noted that the policy itself could still survive. He said the city can still apply the tax by removing the current list of taxed properties from its website and posting a corrected list after following the proper procedures.” (09/29/26)
