“Much like the phrase ‘will you disavow the Muslim Brotherhood,’ the phrase ‘we’re taking our country back’ is an interesting one for its implications. It presupposes 1) there is a group collectively understood as ‘we’; 2) this group once had possession of the United States; 3) this group no longer has possession of the United States; 4) because it was taken away by another group; and 5) it must be taken back. This is all interesting stuff for sure, especially when one considers that the ‘we’ implicit in the phrase is, if you interrogate it long enough, white people—specifically white Christian people, specifically white Christian men, specifically wealthy white Christian men. Especially when one considers that this group, as a matter of political and institutional reality, is the most over-represented, over-coddled, over-defended, and over-privileged group in the nation, maybe in human history. ” (10/25/26)
“The media coverage of the contest between incumbent Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and her challenger, City Councilmember Nithya Raman, is in one respect surprising. That a mayoral contest, which may result in Bass’s ouster, in America’s second-largest metropolis has drawn widespread coverage is no surprise, particularly since Raman’s membership in the Democratic Socialists of America appears to make the election one more test of the extent of socialism’s rise, particularly in urban America. But that the coverage has often focused on the internal divisions within DSA between those locals that prioritize the kinds of mass outreach inherent in electoral politics, and other locals and the organization’s national committee, which have a more sectarian focus on ideological purity, is indeed surprising, at least in publications that hardly qualify as ‘left’. ” (10/26/26)
“For years, people experiencing serious health problems due to Covid vaccination have asked for something fundamental: rigorous scientific investigation into what happened to them, why it happened, and what might help. Many have spent years seeking answers through a fragmented healthcare system, encountering clinicians unfamiliar with their symptoms, struggling to access appropriate evaluation, and trying to find researchers willing to investigate their conditions. Now, the National Institutes of Health has announced a dedicated research effort intended to investigate health problems following vaccination and infection.” (10/25/26)
“If you currently live in the United States, I regret to inform you that you no longer live in a free country. You are no longer a free person. Actually, you haven’t been for quite some time. This may sound harsh with this being the year America celebrated her big Two-Five-Oh. But think about it. Think back to the last time you drove from your home to the grocery store. How many automatic license plate readers did you pass along the way? How many apps logged your route? What information did your car collect about you and anyone who may have accompanied you? When you finally arrived at the store, surely there were cameras, but were they simply there to help catch and deter shoplifters — maybe help police investigate a more serious crime on the off chance one were to occur? Or were those cameras serving other purposes?” (10/24/26)
“Few military figures come off quite so quotable as Confederate cavalry general (and Ku Klux Klan founder) Nathan Bedford Forrest, who said of winning battles, ‘I always make it a rule to get there first with the most men.’ That, of course, also constitutes the conventional rule for winning elections: Get there first (by motivating mail and ‘early’ voters as well as election day voters) with the most votes. … Republicans usually, but not always, get more credit for trying to suppress the Democrat vote than for trying to get out the Republican vote. As this year’s midterm elections approach, that tactic looks a lot like another Nathan Bedford Forrest aphorism. … ‘Whenever you see anything blue, shoot at it, and do all you can to keep up the scare.'” (10/25/26)
“The U.S. Constitution was ratified to create and to restrain the government. It established boundaries beyond which the government may not venture, even when it invokes national security, public order, economic necessity, emergency or the will of a popular majority. Its purpose is not to make government more powerful but to keep the government off the people’s backs. By that measure, the American Constitution is a failure. Formally, the document physically survives, its ceremonies continue, and politicians swear their oaths to abide it. Yet functionally, the government it was designed to restrain has accumulated vast and totalitarian powers that its authors would never recognize.” (10/25/26)
“Far-left professors have long advocated that juries use jury nullification. Georgetown Law professor and MSNBC legal analyst Paul Butler has long advocated that Black jurors engage in nullification in cases involving Black defendants. … The problem of biased jurors has long plagued the legal system. It can work both ways in ignoring the law to refuse or secure convictions. Past cases involving President Trump and other Republicans have raised bias concerns over the jury pool in cities such as Washington, D.C., and New York City. But jury nullification is different; it is a direct assault on the very foundation of the American court system.” [editor’s note: Actually, it IS that very foundation; Turley just doesn’t much like mere peasants defying the lordly lawyer class – TLK] 10/24/26)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“One of the attractive features of World of Warcraft and its competitors is that the virtual world has been constructed to be a place that it is fun to do things in. The real world has not. Some things that need doing are things that people enjoy enough to do them even when not paid to and get done that way. My guess is that the vast majority of all novels written, including at least a few good ones, produce no income for their authors and are not expected to. That is a better model for Utopian socialism than WoW, since there is no market. Producers have some information about what consumers want but not weak incentives to produce it. I doubt however that all, or even most, of the world’s work can get done that way.” (10/23/26)
“Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed recently tried to shut down questions about his family’s documented ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and his own reluctance to draw clear lines on radical Islamist networks by invoking John F. Kennedy’s 1960 campaign. Kennedy faced suspicion that, as a Catholic, he might answer to the Vatican rather than the Constitution. El-Sayed’s comparison does not hold. He is not being targeted simply for being Muslim. He is facing legitimate questions about national security, ideology, and fitness for the Senate that any candidate with this record would face. His refusal to answer them directly is the problem.” (10/23/26)
“J.D. Vance, Vice President of the United States, identifies himself as a post-liberal conservative. Since he is only a heartbeat away from becoming president, I have been thinking that I should read his latest book, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, to see if it sheds any light on how he would be likely to use the powers of the presidency. However, I decided that I should read Hillbilly Elegy first – and am glad that I eventually managed to read it, a decade after its publication. I didn’t manage to get past the Introduction when I first attempted to read it a few years ago, but I now think it deserves its status as a best seller.” (10/25/26)
