“The English say all bad ideas come from France, but that is unfair to the Germans. The scenes of riot and destruction from France may arise from our Gallic friends’ particular circumstances and peculiar habits, but they reflect Europe’s general malaise — one to which the United States is not immune. The ‘French intifada’ is overthrowing the icons of France. The images are as memorable as the menu at Maxim’s restaurant. A statue of Joan of Arc is defiled with the Palestinian flag. A bust of Marianne, the icon of the French Revolution, is cast to the ground in the trashed city hall of Marseilles. The 19th-century town hall of Limoges goes up in flames. The statistics are as stunning as Maxim’s prices.” (10/24/26)
“We often talk about how much worse the second term has been, and it has been worse. But that is not because they were just innocent men in the first term—their position was simply weaker, then. They were complete outsiders to the practice of politics and had to rely on personnel that did not share their objectives or methods. They began hollowing out that institutional resistance and building relationships that would give them a freer hand. That began right away, in 2017, with things like Kushner’s Dubai slush fund. It is a cliché to note that the abuses of empire frequently end up coming home. What we see in the Trump family instead is decades of cozying up to Gulf ‘monarchies’ and dictatorships coming home. Every ‘common form of Gulf Arab corruption’ is on display in both terms of the Trump administration, and then some.” (10/23/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Sebastian Charleton
“Britain was the cradle of the Industrial Revolution—where cheap, abundant coal fuelled the inventions that built the modern world. Those breakthroughs—railways, modern medicine and electricity—transformed humanity. But we often forget that it was energy, our ability to produce it and (crucially) to store it, that made all of this possible. Yet despite this proud history as the original energy superpower, modern Britain is anything but: it is burdened by crumbling infrastructure, a sclerotic planning system and skyrocketing bills. Central to these energy challenges is our energy insecurity.” (10/23/26)
“In the lead-up to the midterms, Democrats have begun to fuse their messaging on the cost of living with a focus on corruption. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer went so far as to argue that the two reinforce each other. Rep. Jason Crow, Democrat of Colorado, even directly said ‘corruption is why costs are so high.’ It isn’t hard to see why the party wants to talk about both at the same time. As poll after poll has shown, the cost of living is voters’ top concern. Simultaneously, 89% of Americans say that government corruption is widespread. And the Trump administration in particular is astoundingly, breathtakingly corrupt. If Democrats take the House or Senate, they should aggressively investigate the Trump administration’s many misdeeds. But it is also important that Democrats not trick themselves into thinking that focusing on corruption is an adequate solution to lowering costs.” (10/23/26)
“There’s this notion that in France, at least, violent protests are just a part of French culture. A culture warped by the disastrous French Revolution centuries ago? My bet is that, if we inquired deeper, we’d discover that this is not exactly so. That certain groups push violent protest every now and then for reasons of political goals that are not about either social justice or liberty. We in America, who have been blessed with the freest society on the planet, are not quite as prone as Europeans to the vice of violent protest. But we are not immune, and we must start taking virtue — responsible self-government — seriously. Again.” (10/23/26)
Source: Center for International Policy
by Sina Toossi
“The war between the United States and Iran persists in a dangerous strategic stalemate. As Washington maintains a punishing economic and maritime blockade, Tehran continues to restrict passage through the Strait of Hormuz, imposing mounting costs on the United States, its allies, and the global economy. Neither side appears prepared to concede. The Pentagon is sending a third aircraft carrier strike group to the region, while the Trump administration is reportedly considering strikes against Iranian nuclear and energy infrastructure, potentially using the GBU-43/B bomb, known as ‘the mother of all bombs’. Both moves support the possibility of the United States attempting to break this stalemate through force. Iran, meanwhile, has in recent weeks intensified attacks on commercial vessels attempting to transit Hormuz outside its designated route, with strikes becoming more frequent and destructive. Washington appears to be continuing to misread the Iran it is confronting.” (10/24/26)
“I haven’t written much about Elon Musk these past few years. I’m no expert in rocket science, or in cars of any kind. I tended to think of him as a classic robber-baron type, an American immigrant of excessive energy, pragmatism, and nerve. I watched the video of the flying car the other day and it was as mind-blowing as that now routinely re-captured rocket. But genius and character are not often aligned, and he is becoming, it seems to me, dangerous to our democracy and the world.” (10/23/26)
“During the Cold War, the exclave of West Berlin, isolated in the middle of Communist East Germany, was regarded as one of the most dangerous potential flashpoints for a conflict between the Soviet Union and the West. … It is now common for Western security analysts to describe the ‘Suwalki Gap’ in northeast Poland, situated between Kaliningrad and Russia’s ally Belarus, as the most dangerous point in the growing Russia-NATO confrontation. Yet they carefully omit to recall that it was NATO, not Russia, that made it so.” (10/23/26)
“I know a lot of people, all of whom dated around before finding the person they eventually married. Every single one of them, to a person, knows for certain whether or not the people they dated were related to them. No ambiguity, no open question, no qualifiers on their answer – they knew whether or not they’d been fishing off the family pier. That question, however, gets murky for some… apparently. Where most people could definitively say they’d never picked anyone up at Thanksgiving dinner, many Democrats have to think about it, and some still do not know. Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar, representing Mogadishu, is one such person.” (10/24/26)
