“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)
“Before D-Day, Eisenhower quietly composed a handwritten note taking personal blame for the operation’s failure—he was smart enough to know that success was uncertain and that he might not be in a position to talk about it afterward; Donald Trump, a dog-ate-my-homework guy if ever there were one, takes personal responsibility for precisely nothing. Eisenhower led Allied forces to victory in World War II and at the time of his retirement outranked George Washington (who received a posthumous promotion in 1976), but he was buried in a standard-issue soldier’s coffin and lay in state with no decorations on his field jacket except his two distinguished service medals and the Legion of Merit; Trump is a draft-dodging coward currently hard at work building himself a triumphal arch like some kind of limp Caesar.” (10/23/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“There are Polymarket ads in fortune cookies. / And pop-ups in our prayers. / There are paywalls on the monasteries, / and the monks are millionaires. / Well little Johnny’s gone to war. / He joined the McMarines. / The Iranians must be liberated / and blown to smithereens. / Light a candle in the chapel, John, / and pray to Western God, / and listen to the homily / the preacher wrote with Claude: / ‘Oh Western God, please guide our drones,’ the pious Johnny prayed. / ‘That we may safely bomb their schools / and turn their children gray.’ / The candle disappeared from sight / a minute into Johnny’s prayer, / and was replaced with hologram ads / for DraftKings and Wayfair.” (10/25/26)
“Serving as the world’s policeman in a highly contested environment like the strait is a resource-intensive mission even for the U.S. Navy – one that involves deploying significant air platforms, air defense systems and ships on a continuous basis to perform a variety of tasks, from coordinating sea lanes and protecting vessels from Iranian attacks to ensuring search-and-rescue assets are available if ships are disabled. The U.S. military is fully capable of doing this work, but stretched out over an indefinite period of time, the mission will exacerbate the depletion of precision-guided munitions the Pentagon needs for other potential conflicts.” (10/23/26)
“The current narrative would have you believe that higher education is a dying institution. Experts consistently claim that a four-year degree is no longer worth the investment, warning that artificial intelligence (AI) is on the verge of rendering human labor obsolete. The prevailing message dictates that machines will soon dominate the workforce, leaving the next generation with no viable career paths. But a recent Gallup poll reveals a contrasting reality. While public anxiety is high, the job market tells a different story. According to a recent Gallup study, a staggering 80% of employers prefer to hire candidates with a college degree, even for roles that do not explicitly require one. Furthermore, six in 10 employers express a high level of confidence in higher education. While public trust in institutions has undeniably plummeted, the people actually handing out paychecks still find immense value in the university system.” (10/24/26)
