“If you’re a sane Republican – and yes, I do believe such people exist – the past week had to be monumentally embarrassing. President Donald Trump, who’s terrible at pretending to be a conservative, tried to bribe U.S. voters by saying every adult would receive a $5,000 ‘Trump Dividend’ if Republicans win the midterm elections. If it weren’t a complete con, that would cost about $1.3 trillion at a time when the national debt has surpassed $40 trillion. So much for fiscal conservatism. The president made the embarrassing kickback offer Sept. 9 during an equally embarrassing Republican midterm convention that centered around idolatry of Trump. At the event in Dallas, he implored GOP voters: ‘Pretend that I am on the ballot.’ Does that make you feel good if you’re a Republican?” (09/13/26)
“Indonesian rescuers say about 130 passengers and crew are missing after a ferry carrying more than 240 people sank in bad weather in the Java Sea. At least 113 people were rescued, and the bodies of six passengers were recovered as the search operation expanded in waters around the vessel’s last known position. The Indonesian passenger ship carrying 243 people was reported missing after losing contact early on Sunday during bad weather. … Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands, relies heavily on ferries as a key mode of transportation, with sea routes more affordable and readily available than air travel. However, safety standards are not always rigorously enforced, resulting in a relatively high accident rate.” (09/13/26)
“In a Thursday address at the GOP midterm convention that exalted President Donald Trump and demeaned his opponents as ‘extremists who openly hate our nation,’ Vice President JD Vance hardly spoke about foreign policy. He did not mention the war in Iran directly, and he only brought up foreign policy as an example of an issue that divides the party’s base. He urged voters not to ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’ because ‘you happen to disagree with us on a policy issue here or there.’ The acknowledgement of foreign policy as a divisive issue in the MAGA coalition is a stark retreat for Vance, who staked his 2023 endorsement of Trump on the fact that ‘he started no wars despite enormous pressure from his own party and even members of his own administration,’ framing the president’s America First record as a much-needed deviation from decades of bipartisan hawkishness.” (09/11/26)
“Jay discusses giving kids a head start in life by keeping them off of tablets and teaching them skills :: Dave Ridley came out with an audiobook :: Caller lost use of legs after meth-related car accident and gained a new meaning for his life :: 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center caused by the FBI :: TSA and Flock have killed the fourth amendment :: Correcting your citizenship status to take your rights back from the feds :: Lindsay Clancy, should her drs be accountable? :: Jury rights and red flag laws :: Just asking questions about the Holocaust :: Riley got 5% of the vote in his state rep run :: SignalTrace, new business like Flock :: Green language the language of synchronicity :: They don’t listen to the constitution anyway :: VT has fewer people than NH but more homeless :: 2026-09-12 Hosts: Bonnie, Jay Noone, Riley O’Bill.” (09/12/26)
“Bin Laden’s plan was to trap the U.S. in expensive, foreign quagmire wars that would trigger a domestic economic collapse. It was patterned on the strategy that the local mujahideen, he and other foreign fighters, and the U.S. and its allies had used to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Not only does bin Laden’s strategy continue apace long after his 2011 death, but it also spawned an even more effective means of destroying America from within. Bin Laden’s attacks turned the U.S. government into an engine for the destruction of America, inducing it to implement policies that have devastated the country and immiserated its people.” (09/11/26)
“A federal judge issued a stay forbidding the administration from asking those seeking jobs in the federal government to say how they would help carry out presidential executive orders, in what some saw as a test of ‘loyalty’ to President Trump. U.S. District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr., a Clinton appointee to the court in Massachusetts, sided with labor unions that argued asking the question was an unconstitutional politicization of federal jobs. The question, the third in a series of four essay questions, was added to the hiring process last year in response to a Trump executive order. It asked applicants to say how they would advance such orders and to name one or two in particular. ‘The plaintiffs are likely to succeed in showing that Question Three is neither related to an important government interest nor narrowly tailored to promote that interest,’ the judge wrote.” (09/12/26)
“A Massachusetts judge could not cajole the Lindsay Clancy jury into a verdict; an ICE agent faces federal charges for lying about a shooting; Kyrsten Sinema faces trial for stealing a man.” (09/11/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler
“After another summer of heatwaves and wildfires, Spain is petitioning the EU to create a climate adaptation fund. In a letter sent to the EU’s climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, the Spanish minister for the ecological transition Sara Aagesen Muñoz said that Europe needs a blanket strategy to help its member states cope with climate change, and to mobilize the ‘resources needed to deliver the necessary investments.’ The mobilizing strategy favored by Muñoz is a permanent windfall tax on energy companies, many of which have cashed in on higher gas and oil prices resulting from the wars in Ukraine and Iran. … The fairness of windfall taxes, of course, is one of the most questionable things about them. As the Portuguese finance ministry said when introducing its windfall levy, the elevated profits of oil and gas providers this year have resulted ‘solely from external market conditions.’ So why punish them?” (09/11/26)
“A growing consumer push to buy Canadian and boycott U.S. products is reshaping supermarket shelves in Canada, forcing grocers to improve country-of-origin labeling and secure new sources of supply. In Ontario, the president of independent grocer Vince’s Market, Giancarlo Trimarchi, turned to Facebook to show customers that most produce on the shelves of his stores is Canadian after receiving angry emails and comments about the grocer stocking U.S. produce. A bitter trade war between the United States and Canada has made consumers more conscious of where their dollars go. ‘Buy Canadian’ movements started last year after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on Canadian goods. They have intensified in recent weeks after trade talks broke down and Trump signed an executive order to change the name of to Lake America.” (09/12/26)
