“Most of the shutdown screaming blames President Donald Trump, but Trump’s a big advocate for the CR. Trouble is, it requires a 60 percent Yea vote in the Senate. All but three Democrats voting Nay ensure that the CR will continue to fail. So, Sen. Paul’s continuing Nay vote isn’t the cause really; a switch on his part wouldn’t allow the bill to pass.” [editor’s note: The “nuclear option” has been available to the GOP the whole time; the “shutdown” will end when Republicans want it to – TLK] (10/29/25)
Source: The American Conservative
by Justin Logan & Brandan Buck
“The administration’s public case for its Venezuela policy is insultingly ridiculous. At an October 15 press conference, the president declared that ‘every boat that we knock out, we save 25,000 American lives.’ Considering that there were only around 84,000 overdoses in the United States last year, and that they have so far blown up 10 boats, they should have declared victory and come home seven boats ago. … Trump should stop listening to the hawks in his administration and recall the promises of his second inaugural.” (10/29/25)
“Many of us remember the lies we were told about Weapons of Mass Destruction in the early 2000s. The government’s propaganda machine kicks into gear whenever it wants to grab more power or convince the public to accept what it already planned to do. This isn’t new; it’s been that way since government began. It’s not about truth; it’s about control. As we saw during COVID, the government loves using fear to get what it wants. … Now, we’re watching the same propaganda playbook being used again, this time to stir up another regime-change war, this time with Venezuela.” (10/28/25)
“For years, Americans have been told that ‘compassion’ for the homeless meant writing ever-larger checks – more money, more programs and far less accountability. Now, at last, we have some answers for why homelessness has exploded even amid a tripling of public spending. A groundbreaking investigation, ‘Infiltrated’ (backed by more than 50 pages of documentation from the Capital Research Center in cooperation with Discovery Institute), pulls back the curtain on a vast system of corruption. It reveals how billions in taxpayer funds intended to lift people out of homelessness have instead bankrolled radical activism and anti-American political agendas, betraying both the taxpayers who fund it and the homeless they were meant to help. Despite unprecedented resources, homelessness in the United States now stands at its highest level in U.S. history.” (10/29/25)
“When a scholar is targeted for their expression, the story rarely ends when the headlines fade. The formal investigations wrap up and the social media outrage may die down, but for many, the experience marks a permanent shift in how they think, speak, and interact with others in public. Such cases have profound implications for academic freedom and the state of campus free speech in higher education.” (10/28/25)
“Across the country, cities are rethinking rules that force developers to overbuild parking — and Missouri should follow suit. A new study from Denver shows that eliminating off-street parking minimums boosts housing production, including affordable units. By relaxing these mandates, Missouri communities can free up land, cut costs, and enable more housing.” (10/28/25)
“Governments force banks to report your activity, judge whether you are being suspicious, and close your accounts when you step out of the norm. How? It dates back to 1970. President Richard Nixon had not yet been caught surveilling his political opponents. Instead, Oct. 26, 1970 marks when President Nixon signed the Bank Secrecy Act and set the foundation for a new regime of financial surveillance. Since then, the American public has been forced to endure 55 years of ever-expanding financial surveillance. Congress should not let the Bank Secrecy Act have a 56th anniversary — at least not in its current form.” (10/28/25)
“Has this ever worked? Kind of famously, yes — at least for a while. In the 1930s, as fascist movements stomped across Europe, popular fronts emerged to block the spread. In France and Spain, leftists, centrists and anti-fascist liberals joined forces to beat back the far right, sometimes literally. In the United States, the Communist Party helped bring broad, anti-fascist politics into public life, forming coalitions among Black writers, labor organizers and progressive cultural workers. As historian Bill Mullen writes in Popular Fronts, the period saw ‘an extraordinary rapprochement’ between Black and white members of the U.S. Left — not just in protest, but in culture, art and publishing. ” (10/29/25)
“We are masters at persuading ourselves of what we want to believe. This shapes not just our everyday choices but also our politics and moral reasoning. Crucially, because self-deception operates under the radar of our awareness, it’s much harder to pinpoint and correct than conscious hypocrisy.” (10/28/25)
“In both legal filings and in public, President Donald Trump and his team have made fantastical claims about the calamities that would befall the nation should the Supreme Court curtail his authority to implement global tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. They allege, in the government’s opening brief for a case that will be argued before the court in November, that an adverse decision would devastate the U.S. economy, the federal government’s fiscal position, and the president’s ability to effectuate trade and foreign policy. The goal, it appears, is to pressure the court into issuing a favorable opinion for prudential and institutional reasons, even if the law demands otherwise. Given the legal deficiencies in the Trump administration’s case, this shock-and-awe approach is understandable. Yet it suffers from a serious flaw: The underlying policy claims are ridiculous.” (10/28/25)
