“We start with a tragedy, some pissed-off lonely kid puts down his smartphone and picks up a gun, somebody gets shot, sometimes a politician, sometimes some other species of media personality, but usually it ends up just being a room full of other lonely kids with smartphones. After a lot of frantic finger pointing by the media personalities left standing, it usually becomes clear that the shooter wasn’t actually directly concerned with any of their silly partisan squabbles …. While it is painfully obvious to anyone with half a brain still attached to a functioning conscience that both sides of this country’s manufactured tribal divide are exploiting these tragedies just to score points and rile up their captive constituencies, the notion that the solution to American nihilism is bringing all these jackals together for another war-on-something is even worse.” (10/04/25)
“Protectionism assumes Americans are foolish, squandering opportunities and mismanaging their finances. Free trade reflects confidence in our ability to adapt, compete, and prosper.” (10/03/25)
“When the Trump administration was snatching people off the street and sending them to CECOT — and as it’s now trying to send people to third-party countries where they’re likely to be tortured — the MAGA faithful argued that violent gang members who enter the U.S. illegally don’t deserve due process. They’re now making a similar argument about Trump’s summary executions of alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean …. Let’s say you believe that people who came here illegally or are members of a gang deserve to be sent to an overseas torture prison. (And let’s set aside what that belief says about your humanity.) Without due process, there’s no way to know that the people they sent to CECOT really were violent gang members who entered the country illegally. We had only the administration’s word. And that isn’t much.” (10/03/25)
“Overall, the founders wanted to limit the ability of the feds to use military forces against civilians at home. If the Constitution wasn’t clear enough, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 directly bans the authorities from using federal troops for civilian law enforcement unless authorized by Congress. Trump’s efforts to use federal troops on U.S. soil is an affront to our nation’s Constitution and subsequent legal system. Legalities aside, every freedom-loving American should be appalled by the images of masked federal agents grabbing people at courthouses, tackling elderly citizens, roughing up reporters and marching down city streets.” (10/04/25)
“This is one of those things that needs to be said, even though it’s jarring and unlikely to change public discourse any time soon. Apologies where due. What theologians call ‘man’s sinful nature’ is just about the same thing as the primate chemistry we humans have inherited, however it was that it came to us. (I’ll leave the fights over ultimate origins to others.) Bear in mind, please, that what I’m calling ‘primate nature’ is, in us, more like primate inclinations, and that we also have post-primate inclinations, or in theological terms godly inclinations.” (10/03/25)
“The other day I sat, slack-jawed, reading Kamala Harris’[s] book — which was not easy to do with my eyeballs permanently rolled into the back of my head. … At one point, I even tried to imagine what America would be like today if this woke lawyer had actually won last year. Then it occurred to me that we already kind of know. We actually have a pretty good test case of exactly that: a center-left [sic] lawyer-politician coming to power last year after a massive immigration wave had discredited and ousted the previous incumbent. Enter Keir Starmer, my high school frenemy, and now prime minister. But unlike Harris, Starmer has at least shown signs of understanding his problem …” (10/03/25)
Source: The American Conservative
by Ted Galen Carpenter
“In the past few weeks, Russian drones and jet fighters have repeatedly penetrated the airspace of Poland, Estonia, and other NATO members. Western officials have reacted harshly to those episodes, shooting down intruding drones and, in the case of President Donald Trump, issuing threats to attack even manned Russian aircraft if such incidents continue. NATO leaders and their supporters in the news media are responding to the rising tensions by reviving an idea from the earliest days of the Kremlin’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine: imposing a no-fly zone over that country. It is an especially provocative and dangerous scheme that carries a serious risk of triggering World War III.” (10/04/25)
“The consolidation of the new police state has not been announced. There was no press conference declaring that local, state, and federal law enforcement — plus the military — are all marching to the same drum. No news conference featuring a bunch of police captains standing before a microphone to express their commitment to the new regime. But it is here. In the past six months, a quiet, mass reorganization of resources and rules and personnel has rippled across the country in order to enforce the Trump administration’s desires. This realignment is happening swiftly, smoothly and without fanfare. That the police have been so quiet in a historically loud moment should be a dead giveaway that a shift is under way.” (10/04/25)
“From Madagascar and Morocco to Peru this week, from Serbia and Kenya earlier this year to Indonesia and Nepal last month, youth across the globe are calling to account political and economic systems that are not working for them. Young adults in the United States aren’t taking to the streets in such dramatic fashion. But American Gen Zers – generally those between 13 to 28 years of age – are also questioning prevailing priorities and seeking alternative approaches to political and economic challenges. Sixty-one percent of young Americans do not identify with either the Republican or Democratic party, says the Institute for Citizens and Scholars. But they value dialogue with those they disagree with: More than 37% of Gen Z respondents find such conversations ‘interesting and informative,’ compared with only 22% of respondents nationally.” (10/03/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler
“The strike that closed almost all of London’s underground network for four days in mid-September is estimated to have cost the UK economy £230 million ($307 million). It was arranged by the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, which campaigns for one of the most exploited groups of workers in British society: the capital’s tube drivers, who work 35 hours a week for £70,000 ($94,000) a year—almost double the national average salary.” (10/03/25)
