“Should this be seen as the Hans Christian Andersen story, in which the narcissistic emperor is finally exposed as a naked fool by a truth-telling child? Donald Trump is certainly all of these things: narcissistic, naked in his support for Putin and a fool. But the parallel doesn’t quite work because it hasn’t taken a child to reveal this. He has done it himself, in plain sight …. a better literary parallel might be Ian Fleming’s James Bond novel Goldfinger, in which the evil Auric Goldfinger attempts to stage his theft from Fort Knox with the help of a group of American mafia bosses, one of whom is the gloriously named Pussy Galore.” (10/19/26)
“This month, journalist Catherine Herridge is in the fight of her life — and the stakes for the country could not be higher. The former Fox and CBS reporter has long been one of the most prominent investigative journalists in the U.S., particularly on national security stories. She is now on her last appeal to the Supreme Court, attempting to protect the most vital prerequisite of the free press: confidentiality of sources. At issue is a 2017 story that aired on Fox News concerning a Virginia-based training firm patronized by Pentagon officials. Herridge exposed ties of the University of Management and Technology to the Chinese military. It was the kind of difficult, complex story that made Herridge such a respected figure in her profession. The subject of the story, University of Management and Technology founder Yanping Chen, sued, claiming that the exposure had led to her loss of employment.” (10/19/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Right-wing and left-wing interventionists and interventionist mainstream-press commentators are up in arms over President Trump’s decision to ease economic sanctions against Russia in connection with the Russian government’s agreement to supply diesel fuel to the United States. The notion is that nothing — not even the midterms — must be permitted to interfere with the Cold War II racket that holds that Russia is an aggressor nation that is hell-bent on conquering the world and, therefore, that it is necessary to target the Russian populace with severe impoverishment and even death by starvation or illness with ever-more economic sanctions. … In the eyes of national-security statists, it is imperative that we continue hewing to the official narrative. Russia is coming to get us, just like before.” (10/19/26)
“Before his nitrogen execution last year, Anthony Boyd wanted to figure out a way to help people understand the horror he was about to experience. He told me to watch his legs. When he couldn’t go any further, he was going to lift up his legs one final time. Once and for all, he wanted to settle that nitrogen executions were neither quick nor humane. The State of Alabama controlled the gas, the mask, the restraints, the room. Boyd had nothing left to control but himself… his legs. At approximately 5:57 p.m., the nitrogen began flowing. Boyd clenched his fist. He raised his head. Then he lifted his legs several inches, exactly as he had promised me. By my watch, he fought for his life for at least sixteen minutes, maybe even closer to nineteen depending on when the gas actually entered the mask.” (10/19/26)
“The government raid on Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington home last week is yet another example of the president abusing his authority to go after his political foes. It also shows how the vile anti-immigrant sentiment that used to mold the fringe of the American tapestry now sits at the heart of power. The Trump administration is reportedly trying to strip Omar of her U.S. citizenship. … This is not the first time that Omar has been targeted. According to the Washington Post, officials scrutinized her record in 2019 and found no evidence of fraud. Has anything changed in the meantime? The biggest difference is that since Donald Trump returned to the White House, the government has not only engaged in mass deportation efforts of undocumented immigrants, but it has also waged war against unquestionably legal immigrants like Omar.” (10/19/26)
“As gratifying as it might be to see unprincipled Trump enablers reduced to minority status after signing off on economy-wrecking tariffs, inhumane immigration detentions, and wars of choice, there’s at least one good reason to dread a Democratic majority too: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts progressive who is spending the run-up to the midterms freaking out over possible consolidation in the condiments business and accusing private equity firms of gutting such shopping-mall favorites as Claire’s and Toys R Us. There’s every reason to believe that a Senate run by Warren and other economic interventionists will waste time, money, and resources trying to prevent a world in which, per the X wag Iowahawkblog, ‘a panopticon conglomerate owns two brands of hot sauce.'” (10/19/26)
“There was a time when the most dangerous thing in a British autumn was a well-aimed conker. Children threaded them on string, soaked them in vinegar, baked them in the oven and smashed them together until one shattered. Knuckles were bruised. Pride was punctured. Nobody died. That was before the clipboard came to town. In South Tyneside the council decided to fell six horse chestnut trees lining a suburban road. The trees had done nothing wrong except produce conkers. A boy had fallen out of one, and children had been throwing sticks to knock the conkers down. The answer was not to teach children to climb with care, or to throw with better aim. It was to remove the trees. Residents protested. The chainsaws won. Elsewhere a head teacher told pupils not to walk under a conker tree without a helmet.” (10/19/26)
“Elissa Slotkin was elected to the Senate in 2024 as a supposed ‘moderate’. But of course we know that, apart from Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, that species of Democratic politician doesn’t exist in Congress anymore. Sure enough, it didn’t take long for Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who served under John Brennan, to show her true colors. The Michigan senator told students at the University of Chicago last week how she plans to use the power that will come to Democrats if they win Senate control in the midterms next month. She wants to unleash a barrage of political investigations on Trump officials in order to frighten young people away from taking jobs in the administration. ‘The people around Donald Trump … have no immunity the way the president does … So you go after the people who do his bidding,’ she told the audience during a live podcast recording Tuesday.” (10/18/26)
“Recently, Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York City announced the launch of a new municipal Strategy to Combat Antisemitism, beginning his video with an oft-repeated Talmudic quote: ‘Whoever saves a single life is considered by scripture to have saved the whole world.’ That lesson is something of a cliché in Reform Jewish circles, and not at all controversial. But given the nature of social media, it shouldn’t be surprising that the replies to Mamdani on Elon Musk’s X were a cesspit of antisemitism, islamophobia, and general hatred. What surprised and even alarmed some observers was how much of the negative reaction came from popular left-wing influencers and journalists.” (10/19/26)
