“The Consumer Price Index for September increased at an annual rate of 3.0 percent, the Labor Department reported this morning. This was an increase from 2.9 percent in August, 2.7 percent in July, and around 2.3 percent this past spring, before Trump’s perverse policies began to bite. Inflation of 3 percent doesn’t seem too bad, but it conceals a great deal of softness in the economy. That weakness will be sufficiently worrisome for the Fed to likely proceed with its planned quarter-point rate cut when the Federal Open Market Committee meets next week. But after that, both inflation and unemployment are likely to worsen, leaving the Fed with no good options. On the inflation front, Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs have yet to fully bite, but their impact is likely to increase over time.” (10/24/25)
“Antony Beevor is a British historian, and a good one. He has written several histories, mostly military history, and he tends to be very objective in his writing, which too many historians today are not. If you enjoy reading history, especially military history, I recommend Beevor’s books. One of his books is simply entitled Russia, where he examines the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Bolshevik takeover of that country. The book, as you would expect, contains much information about the ideas of Vladimir Lenin, the first dictator of ‘the new Russia’ (eventually USSR), and Beevor’s analysis of Lenin is excellent. Let me share with you three quotes from Beevor’s book about Lenin (about Lenin’s leftist, communist philosophy), and you compare any parallels between Lenin and today’s American Democratic Party.” (10/23/25)
“It’s been more than nine months now since my friend, famed cartoonist Jules Feiffer, died, a week before his 96th birthday after continually warning me that the evil spirit that had descended on this country was leaving him frightened and dispirited. He was glad, he told me, that he was old and close to the end in an era he considered more dangerous than the Civil War and more treacherous than the Reconstruction era. He had, he insisted, lost both heart and hope. I found that difficult to take too seriously. After all, hadn’t he survived the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the McCarthy-era Red Scare, the nightmare of Vietnam, and the ‘Hard Year’ of 1968, while being dubbed the greatest political satirist of his time?” (10/23/25)
“More than three weeks into the federal government shutdown, Democratic and Republican leaders still refuse to talk to each other about how to end it. That impasse is reflected in a recent poll that found 2 out of 3 Americans do not trust the U.S. political system to solve the country’s divisions. Despite that popular view, many people are still finding ways to work together, exercising local agency to address pressing community issues. One example is the case of Three Rivers, Michigan, where Monitor staff writer Scott Baldauf found that shared concerns over contaminated water are helping dissolve partisan distrust. Similar ‘kitchen-table pragmatism,’ as one source described it, is evident through much of small-town and rural America. Now, several mainstream philanthropies are supporting such efforts with the hope of creating new civic models.” (10/22/25)
“I attended the downtown local No Kings Day festivities in Northampton, Massachusetts, and estimate that some 1,500 people came out. I liked the crowds, but the character and will of the people rather collided with the self-serving ambitions of Democratic Party speakers who hogged microphones that might have been given to ordinary people. The potential for a spontaneous, free-flowing expression of public feeling remained unrealized. What does No Kings Day represent? How does a loosely affiliated collection of organizations achieve a viable identity, a sense of unity, and a vision that goes beyond a mutual feeling that we ought to do something (anything!) as fascist momentum gathers in all its ugly certainty? If it were up to me I would not have any public speeches at No Kings Day delivered by Democratic Party office holders.” (10/23/25)
“A standing rule among broadcast professionals is to never minimize or mock domestic violence. Over 10 million incidents of domestic abuse are believed to occur annually, with victims seeking help less than 40% of the time. It is also common knowledge among broadcasters that every program that calls serious attention to domestic violence elicits responses from many victims, some of whom seek help. To minimize or mock abuse is to add to the burden of the victims desperately trying to figure out an exit from their peril. … After former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki appeared on the most recent episode of ‘I’ve Had It,’ — titled ‘The Devil Wears MAGA’ — backlash erupted, because there are still some unwritten rules, and Psaki violated the one that concerns domestic abuse by asserting she was worried that second lady Usha Vance was a victim of abuse.” (10/23/25)
“U.S. Vice President JD Vance criticized on Thursday a symbolic vote in Israel’s parliament the previous day about annexing the occupied West Bank, saying it amounted to ‘an insult’ and went against the Trump administration policies. Hard-liners in the Israeli parliament had narrowly passed a preliminary vote in support of annexing parts of the West Bank — an apparent attempt to embarrass Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while Vance was still in the country. The bill, which required only a simple majority of lawmakers present in the house on Wednesday, passed with a 25-24 vote. But it was unlikely to pass multiple rounds of voting to become law or win a majority in the 120-seat parliament. Netanyahu, who is opposed to it, also has tools to delay or defeat it. Before departing Israel, Vance also unveiled new details about U.S. plans for Gaza, saying he expected reconstruction to begin soon in some ‘Hamas-free’ areas of the territory.” (10/23/25)
“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)
