“As Politico and other news outlets reported over the past week on old posts written by progressive US Senate candidate Graham Platner and a tattoo he got while in the military, pollsters with the University of New Hampshire were speaking to Mainers about their views on the state’s Democratic primary, in which Platner is now facing Gov. Janet Mills along with several other candidates. Despite the media onslaught, UNH’s Pine Tree State Poll revealed on Thursday that voters in Maine heavily favor Platner, who has spent the past two months since his campaign launch speaking to overflow crowds about his platform — one that is focused on making life more affordable for Maine families, shifting the Democratic Party away from corporate interests and toward the needs of working people, and ensuring corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share to provide for the needs of all Mainers.” (10/23/25)
“You could be forgiven for not realizing there’s a government shutdown going on, the second-longest one in U.S. history in fact. Between ICE terror campaigns, revenge prosecutions, summary executions of Caribbean (and now Pacific) fishing boat crews, and the literal destruction of the East Wing of the White House, there isn’t a lot of bandwidth for the void of federal appropriations and the furlough of over 750,000 employees. Republicans are very much trying to conceal the shutdown from the general public. President Trump dubiously got the troops paid, and he’s trying to figure out how to pay air traffic controllers to prevent flight delays. There have been vindictive cuts to spending projects in blue states and attempted layoffs of federal workers, but the layoffs have been blocked, and stopping infrastructure projects that have yearslong timelines isn’t immediately felt.” (10/23/25)
“The United Nations chief delivered a strong defense of science and meteorology on Wednesday, praising the U.N. weather agency for helping save lives by keeping watch for climate disasters around the world. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke to the World Meteorological Organization as science faces an assault in the United States: President Donald Trump’s administration has led an anti-science push, and Trump has called climate change ‘a con job.’ A longtime advocate for the fight against global warming, Guterres spoke at a special WMO meeting aimed to promote early-warning systems that help countries rich and poor brace for floods, storms, forest fires and heat waves. ‘Without your long-term monitoring, we wouldn’t benefit from the warnings and guidance that protect communities and save millions of lives and billions of dollars each year,’ he said, alluding to ‘the dangerous and existential threat of climate change’.” (10/22/25)
“The president says the sound of bulldozers at the East Wing is ‘music to my ears.’ ‘You probably hear the beautiful sound of construction to the back,’ Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday from a podium overlooking his newly paved ‘Rose Garden Club’ terrace, alongside the new ‘Presidential Walk of Fame’ featuring gold-framed portraits of his predecessors (and an ‘autopen’ for Joe Biden). ‘You hear that sound?’ he said, raising his hand to his ear as if to savor the clamor from construction of the new $300 million White House ballroom that began Monday. ‘Ahhh, that’s music to my ears. I love that sound. Other people don’t like it, I love it.’ It was a wry jab at Trump-deranged critics of his big, beautiful ballroom, who are losing their minds over his beautification of the White House.” (10/22/25)
“Law enforcement officials have made more than 1,000 arrests and found dozens of missing children in Memphis, Tennessee, as part of President Donald Trump’s crime crackdown in the notoriously violent city, Fox News Digital learned Wednesday. ‘From arresting more than 100 gang members to locating more than 70 missing children, our brave federal agents and local authorities are doing incredible work to protect the good people of Memphis,’ Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wednesday in comment to Fox News Digital. ‘Tolerating crime is a choice: under President Trump, we refuse to accept the victimization of innocent American citizens and will continue making our cities safe again.'” (10/23/25)
“So-called King, Donald Trump, ran in two contested Republican primaries. He ran three times in a general election. He was elected twice, and his party recently won a Republican Congress. In contrast, in 2020, Joe Biden did not run a typical campaign. He avoided the public, staying ensconced in his basement. He outsourced his campaign to Democratic politicos, donors, and a sycophantic media. No red state ever sought to remove Joe Biden or Kamala Harris from their 2024 ballots. In contrast, twenty-five blue states attempted to take Trump off their ballots. In 2021, Joe Biden’s DOJ and FBI raided then-former-President Trump’s home. They found only 102 classified documents among some 14,000 seized, but nevertheless indicted him. There was no such SWAT raid on Biden’s multiple repositories of illegally removed classified documents.” (10/23/25)
“International Criminal Court judges on Thursday rejected a challenge to jurisdiction in the case of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who is accused of involvement in dozens of killings as part of his so-called war on drugs when in office. Defense lawyers for the 80-year old Duterte argued that because the Philippines left the court before prosecutors opened a formal investigation into the mass killings, the ICC didn’t have the authority to continue with the proceedings. A pretrial panel of judges dismissed the motion. Countries can’t ‘abuse’ their right to withdraw from the Rome Statute ‘by shielding persons from justice in relation to alleged crimes that are already under consideration,’ the 32-page decision says. Prosecutors announced in February 2018 that they would open a preliminary investigation into the violence.” (10/23/25)
“The ancient Greeks told of a proud young hunter called Narcissus, son of a river god and a nymph, famed for his great beauty. His was a cautionary tale, like Icarus with a sharper jawline, and it was from his story the word ’narcissism’ sprang. Centuries later, his namesakes — narcissus flowers — still poke their nodding heads out of the soil every spring, and his character flaws remain just as prevalent among the mortals and self-designated demigods who rule over us now. Pride, cruelty, hubris and ignorance rule the day, but we have no winged Nemesis to restore the cosmic order. Instead, we in the peasantry are consigned to the machinations of a mad king, his scheming courtiers and a cold, preening pretty boy. Handsome, hollow and obsessed with aesthetics, Pete Hegseth, the current secretary of defense, is a modern-day Narcissus.” (10/22/25)
“Of all the countries in Europe, Poland grapples with deep inconsistencies in its approach to both Russia and to Ukraine. As a result, the pro-Europe coalition government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk is coming under increasing pressure as the duplicity becomes more evident. In its humanitarian response to Ukraine since the war began in 2022, Poland has undoubtedly been one of the most generous among European countries. Its citizens and NGOs threw open their doors to provide food and shelter to Ukrainian women and children fleeing for safety. By 2023, over 1.6 million Ukrainian refugees had applied for asylum or temporary protection in Poland, with around 1 million still present in Poland today. That of course aligns with Poland’s consistently hawkish line and deep seated mistrust of Russia, dating back to the partition of Poland in 1939 …” (10/22/25)
“Despite being Asia’s oldest continuous democracy, Japan has been far behind the region’s other countries in electing a woman leader. That changed Tuesday when Takaichi Sanae, a conservative in Japan’s long-dominant party, became the nation’s first female prime minister. Despite the ceiling-busting triumph, however, this former drummer in a heavy-metal band got off on the wrong foot with a comment that helps explain why so few Japanese women enter politics or buck a cultural norm that sees women primarily as caregivers. In a speech, Ms. Takaichi asked everyone to ‘work like a horse,’ and then added, ‘I myself will cast aside the idea of ‘work-life balance.’. I’ll work, work, work, work, and work.’ While perseverance is a highly admired trait in Japan … public reaction forced her to clarify that she was speaking only about members of the Liberal Democratic Party like herself.” (10/21/25)
