“A maritime expert planned to visit a Nantucket beach Monday to inspect weathered wooden beams exposed by the weekend’s powerful nor’easter, possibly the remnants of a 19th-century shipwreck buried beneath the island’s southern shore. The Egan Maritime Institute said its exhibits and collections manager would survey the site and send a report to state underwater archaeologists, who then will work with the institute to determine which vessel the wreckage came from. The splintered timbers, fastened together by rusted iron, emerged near an area where remains believed to be from the Warren Sawyer, a wooden schooner lost in 1884, have been found before. Officials from Egan, a nonprofit that operates the Nantucket Shipwreck & Lifesaving Museum, cautioned Monday that the newly exposed wreckage has not been identified with certainty.” (09/28/26)
“Two years ago, Michigan Republican Mike Rogers stood in a grocery store for an advertisement blaming Joe Biden for the price of eggs (without mentioning the bird flu that was jacking prices). This week he’s back in nearly the same folksy jacket telling voters that it’s time for Trump to end his illegal war against Iran so gas prices can come down. Rogers new ad leaves out, of course, the fact that he’d cheered for the war on the day it began in February, claiming Iran was an imminent threat to the United States (it wasn’t and isn’t), and hit multiple rightwing podcasts and media opportunities to demand Americans unite behind Trump in prosecuting the war.” (09/28/26)
“It’s a calculation by Republicans to keep the Senate in session this week. Yes. The Senate was scheduled to meet anyway over the next few days. But the general consensus early last week was that the Senate would be done then, and those facing competitive races would be back home campaigning. Then Wednesday hit. Republicans wanted to stay in Washington. For a very specific reason. And many of them told Senate Majority Leader John Thune [R-SD] as much at their weekly luncheon. ‘Odds are we plan on being here next week,’ said Thune. One Senate aide compared the Senate’s schedule to a cat chasing a beam of light from a laser pointer. But the Senate is in fact meeting.” (09/28/26)
“Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants New Yorkers to think he got DoorDash, one of the country’s biggest food delivery companies, to pay a huge $131.5 million settlement to its workers at his command. ’DoorDash underpaid more than 260,000 workers, and today we are getting that money back,’ he boasted last week. Headlines aside, that’s hardly the full story. Yes, DoorDash made a mistake. The company admitted that $6.6 million in payments never reached NYC Dashers, and that a further $5.7 million arrived late. That’s unacceptable: Gig-delivery workers deserve their earned wages, and the administration was right to ask for compensation and corrections. Yet that doesn’t mean $131.5 million was stolen from workers by a greedy delivery company, as Mamdani suggested Tuesday in a press conference complete with a giant prop check.” (09/28/26)
“Western countries, including the US, will have to make a choice. … One can spend endless hours dissecting October 7th, a fake genocide claim, Hamas, the Palestinians, etc. Or one can make the topic a very simple choice. The West can once again get rid of its Jews, or it can value their role in society and send away those who are fanning the flames against them. One does not have to like Jews. He can list reasons, real or imagined, why he doesn’t like Jewish people. They have all of the money! They control everything! They are rude! Our religion teaches us to hate them! It doesn’t matter. All of us may have affinities or the opposite towards various groups, and far from this being ‘racism’, it is called being normal. If a person acts on these feelings, then his behavior might enter the world of racism.” (09/28/26)
“A British child chess prodigy has become the youngest player in history to earn the woman [sic] grandmaster (WGM) title. Bodhana Sivanandan, 11, from north-west London, secured her third and final WGM norm – a certified title-level performance – while representing England at the 46th Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, the International Chess Federation (FIDE) confirmed. Speaking to FIDE, Sivanandan said she was happy about the achievement but wanted to ‘keep making history’. It is the latest milestone in a remarkable rise for the schoolgirl, who has already become Britain’s youngest women’s [sic] chess champion and the youngest person to represent England internationally in any sport.” [editor’s note: The BBC headline calls her a “woman”; I attempted to fix that, since last I knew an 11-year-old human was still a “child” – SAT] [additional editor’s note: Whether the person in question is either biologically or mentally a “child” or “adult” isn’t something that can be determined by drawing a number out of a hat; all the number indicates is that she is legally a “minor” – TLK] (09/28/26)
“The Trump administration on Monday released new fuel economy standards that relax regulatory requirements for automakers to control pollution from gasoline-powered cars and light trucks. The new rules were released shortly after President Donald Trump rejected an Iranian proposal to open the Strait of Hormuz, sending oil prices soaring.” (09/28/26)
“There are two kinds of elections happening this November, one of them quite strange. The natural focus has been on whether Democrats can win back the House and Senate. That’s the one that matters for the direction of the country. But thanks to California’s primary system, which advances the top two candidates to the general election, eight U.S. House races feature two Democrats taking on one another. Some feature incumbents with nothing more than token opposition, but several follow the main storylines from primary season: whether incumbents have grown too old and disconnected from their constituents to get another term, whether left-wing challengers can usher in a new generation of leadership, and whether big money will dictate voter decisions.” (09/28/26)
“With our semiquincentennial on July 4 now history, we are at the start of our 240th year since the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, the vital document that has long guided our nation and which Leftists fervently seek to dishonor and destroy. Those who are highly knowledgeable about American history are likely familiar with this story: In September 1787, Elizabeth Willing Powel, a premier social figure within the Colonies, approached Benjamin Franklin after the signing of the Constitution. She asked, ‘Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?’ Franklin answered with a reply for the ages, ‘A republic, if you can keep it’. Franklin understood that creating a government of and by the people was a tenuous undertaking.” (09/26/26)
“Organizing and running elections in the United States is left to individual states to determine and oversee. But this month alone, the U.S. Supreme Court has weighed in on these processes multiple times. On Sept. 14, it issued a one-paragraph concurrence limiting proposed federal changes to mail-in voting. Earlier this week, Missouri’s redistricted voting map was back on the emergency docket for the third time this month. And on Friday, the court ruled to allow use of a vast federal database to check voter eligibility. Amid the legalese and partisan arguments surrounding such cases, American voters are both confused and concerned about the trustworthiness of the country’s election processes. … close to half have doubts about election integrity – not a good sign for democracy. But this is precisely what is spurring greater efforts among local election official and volunteers to boost both trust and transparency. And that is a good sign for democracy.” (09/25/26)
