“The government shutdown has focused debate on the vast sum ($136 billion in 2025, as projected by the Congressional Budget Office) that the federal government spends to annually subsize continually skyrocketing Obamacare health insurance premiums. The Wall Street Journal reports that regardless of how that fiscal tug-of-war turns out, health insurance premiums paid by Americans are expected to rise another 8% or 9% next year. The mega-health insurers are leading the charge for more subsidies because this money lands right in their pockets. … In 2024, 11.7 million people, more than one-third of those covered by Obamacare, had no medical claims. They, or taxpayers, paid a lot in premiums — for nothing.” (10/22/25)
“Protesters set a police car on fire and hurled glass bottles at officers in Dublin, Ireland, on Tuesday night after an illegal migrant was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a 10-year-old Irish girl who was in state care. The violence erupted outside the City West Hotel, a sprawling former hotel-turned migrant center where an illegal migrant (who had deportation orders standing against him) is accused of attacking the girl late Sunday night. Irish police, An Garda Síochána, said that six people were arrested during the clashes and one female police officer suffered a foot injury. Police said their officers were subject to ‘sustained attacks’ as they tried to cordon off the building. Nearly 300 police were dispatched to the area in Saggart.” (10/22/25)
“U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat this week to slap [American buyers of goods from] Colombia with tariffs over its drug policy marked a sharp escalation in his feud with a country that has long been one of Washington’s closest Latin American allies. It was also a rejection of an established idea about countering the narcotics business: that free trade can make legitimate exports more attractive than drug trafficking. Trump’s latest comments marked a new low in relations between Washington and Bogota, which Trump accuses of being complicit in the illicit drug trade. ‘They don’t have a fight against drugs — they make drugs,’ Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. Petro has objected to the U.S. military’s strikes against vessels in the Caribbean, which have killed dozens of people and inflamed tensions in the region. Many legal experts and human rights activists have also condemned the extraordinary series of military actions.” (10/22/25)
“When President Donald Trump announced that the CIA had been authorized to conduct operations inside Venezuela, just as US drones struck another small boat off Venezuela’s coast, few people in the United States realized that much of this militarization begins on the soil of a land denied its own sovereignty: Puerto Rico. The island that has lived under US rule since 1898 is once again being used as a staging ground for US militarism, this time for Washington’s latest ‘war on drugs’ narrative, masking a campaign of coercion against Latin America’s independent governments. After invading Puerto Rico in 1898, the United States quickly turned the island into a strategic military outpost: the ‘Gibraltar of the Caribbean,’ with naval bases in Ceiba, Roosevelt Roads, and Vieques designed to dominate the eastern Caribbean and protect the new artery of empire: the Panama Canal.” (10/22/25)
“The U.S. military conducted its eighth strike against an alleged drug vessel, [murdering] two people, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday. The Tuesday night strike occurred in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The seven previous strikes all targeted vessels in the Caribbean. According to Hegseth in a social media post, the strike [murdered] two people, bringing the death toll from all the [murders] to at least 34 people. In a brief video released by Hegseth, a small boat, half-filled with brown packages, is seen moving along the water. Several seconds into the video, the boat explodes and is seen floating motionless on the water in flames. In his post, Hegseth took the unusual step of equating the alleged drug traffickers to the group behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attack. ‘Just as Al Qaeda waged war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people,’ Hegseth said, adding ‘there will be no refuge or forgiveness — only justice.'” (10/22/25)
“If Zohran Mamdani is elected mayor and implements the changes he is promising, expect the city’s financial condition and public safety to deteriorate rapidly. Think criminal bedlam, antisemitic rioters allowed full rein, and cutbacks to basic city services. In such a crisis, desperate New Yorkers will look to Albany, where the governor has virtually unlimited power to curb the mayor’s authority or remove him, even if no crime has been committed. There is a safety valve, if a governor is willing to use it. Before removing a mayor, state law requires the governor to present grievances against the mayor at a formal hearing. Even so, the governor’s decision is final, not subject to review by any court. … In the event a mayor is removed, the public advocate acts as mayor until a special election is held within 80 days.” (10/22/25)
“Side effects of different antidepressants have been ranked for the first time, revealing huge differences between drugs. Academics looked at the impact medications had on patients in the first eight weeks after starting treatment, with some causing patients to gain up to 2kg in weight or vary heart rate by as much as 21 beats every minute. Around eight million people in the UK take antidepressants. Researchers warned the gulf in side effects could affect people’s health and whether they could stick to their prescription. They said nobody reading this should stop their treatment, but have called for antidepressants to be closely matched to the needs of each person. ‘There are big differences between [antidepressants] and this is important not just for individual patients, but large numbers of people are taking them, so even modest changes could have a big effect across the whole population,’ said researcher Prof Oliver Howes.” (10/22/25)
“Houthi rebels released a dozen United Nations international staffers Wednesday and allowed three others to move freely within the U.N. compound after detaining them in the facility in Yemen’s capital over the weekend, according to the world body. The 12 international staffers departed Sanaa on a U.N. humanitarian flight, with some relocating to Jordan to continue their work there. More than 50 U.N. staffers are still detained by the Houthis as well as other non-government and civil society personnel from various diplomatic missions. ‘The UN, at all levels, continues to be seized with the matter and is in constant contact with the relevant authorities in Sana’a and with concerned Member States and partners to secure their release,’ the office of U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. ‘We renew the Secretary-General’s call for their immediate and unconditional release.'” (10/22/25)
“One of the acts that brought Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to national prominence was when footage emerged of her chasing down the gun control activist and school shooting survivor David Hogg, accusing him of being funded by George Soros, and boasting that she was carrying a gun. That is very far from the only utterly deranged thing Greene has said or done over the years. … since ‘being howling mad’ is basically a requirement for winning a Republican primary in the age of Trump, Greene was elected to the House of Representatives in 2020. Yet now Greene has emerged as something of a Republican voice of reason, at least by the standards of MAGA in 2025, perhaps the lowest bar imaginable.” (10/22/25)
“The United States has significantly increased its military presence across the Caribbean under U.S. Southern Command, deploying bombers, warships and Marines as part of an expanded campaign [using supposed] drug-trafficking and so-called ‘narco-terrorist’ networks operating near Venezuela [as the basis for an attempt to distract us from other things]. In addition to seven strikes on boats [alleged without evidence] to be carrying narcotics, the Trump administration has built up thousands of troops in the region. War Secretary Pete Hegseth this month announced the creation of a new counter-narcotics Joint Task Force operating near Southern Command, saying it was established ‘to crush the cartels, stop the poison, and keep America safe.'” (10/21/25)
