“From President Donald Trump on down, Republicans are very comfortable contending that Muslim immigration threatens America and that the liberal crusade for diversity is national suicide. They love running against El-Sayed, even in the 49 states where he’s not on the ballot. … This isn’t a swerve away from the GOP’s midterm message. It is the message: Foreigners are undermining America from within, and Democrats won’t stop them. (Never mind that El-Sayed was born in Rochester Hills.) Teepell was very much in line with the Trump-era Republican rhetorical strategy to demonize the ‘other.’ Where he went wrong was, in part, failing to go toe to toe with one of the most skillful extemporaneous talkers in Democratic politics.” (10/21/26)
“Voters are concerned about high food and gas prices, and [Vivek] Ramaswamy is out here trying to use his opponent’s childhood trauma as some kind of cudgel. Perhaps the Ohio Republican was inspired by his party’s leader, President Donald Trump, who now spends his days at campaign rallies talking about what a nice rump he thinks Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio has. … Vile rhetoric and behavior won’t gain any of the GOP candidates a single vote. But I do applaud them for being their true selves.” (10/21/26)
“I was hiking on a nature park that cuts through 45 miles of Northern Virginia, crisscrossing grassy terrain, wetlands, wooden bridges, and goldenrod, and then a dozen promontories offering the most unnatural of sights: indowless, hulking block-long data centers and their attendant transmission lines and substations. I heard ‘the hum’ of the centers before I saw them; their sound resembled a horde of cicadas on meth. I felt nervous, and somewhat overwhelmed, as I counted roughly 20 of them in just the two miles I walked on the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad Trail in Loudoun County. Here is the country’s thickest concentration of data centers—233 centers in all, over 3 percent of the county’s overall land mass. Data Center Alley, as it’s called, is a harbinger of what is to come in this country if tech hyperscaling continues unchecked.” (10/21/26)
“By the time this is published, we will be within two weeks of Election Day. To be more descriptive, in California we might say that on November 3 we will reach the end of the first half. During election season’s second half, also lasting 30 days, trained professionals will busily count ballots, cure ballots, and process ballots postmarked before but received after the end of the first half. There are good reasons to suppose the results aren’t going to be desirable for any Californian who wants lower taxes and more efficient government spending. The nightmare scenario is that those voters most likely to reject more state and local ballot initiatives that will enact higher taxes and more wasteful spending will be less likely to vote.” (10/21/26)
“The war in Ukraine can be ended permanently on terms that protect Ukraine’s statehood, meet Russia’s security concerns, and lay the foundation for a durable European security order. As another round of negotiations gears up in Norway, I propose a settlement concluded as a single package, signed by Ukraine and Russia, adopted by a vote of the United Nations Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter. It would be guaranteed jointly by the five permanent members of the Council together with other states that choose to join. The proposal rests on the principle of indivisible security set out in the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter of Paris. The package would have four core commitments.” (10/21/26)
“What do you tell a child attending public school when her teacher singles out and disparages her religion? That is the question parents of Muslim children in Texas schools might soon confront. The Texas State Board of Education has approved new social studies standards taking effect in 2030 that require teachers to denigrate the religion of Islam with biased, ahistorical, and offensive characterizations. One of the most controversial edits would require students to study ‘the Prophet Mohammed’s brutal military campaigns against Jewish and Christian tribes, the normalization of slavery, and the taking of female captives as harem slaves’. None of these claims stand up to a neutral reading of history.” (10/21/26)
“Governments at all levels have enacted laws that violate the right to contract. In every state, for example, licensing laws obstruct contractual freedom by preventing individuals who do not have a license from contracting with people who nevertheless want their services. Consider a law in North Dakota stating that only those who have obtained a license to teach from the state may enter into contracts to teach — not only in public schools, but also in private ones. Why shouldn’t the head of a private school be free to employ anyone he regards as capable of teaching? He, after all, has the strongest possible incentive to make sure that parents who pay for schooling will receive the best instruction. That is precisely the issue in a lawsuit brought by Capstone Classical Academy, a private school, along with a parent and a teacher, challenging North Dakota’s licensing law.” (10/21/26)
“If we return to the cradle of Western civilization in ancient Greece and Rome, we find an idea of liberal education as one that befits a free person and citizen, in contrast to a servile education that fitted one for a life of a specific line of work or trade. The proper curriculum for such an education was always a matter of lively debate, but it was widely agreed that such study should cultivate our minds, our speech, and our character in ways that expanded our freedom, making us more fit for various forms of self-governance and human flourishing. This ideal of the liberal arts seeks the truth for its own sake, to be sure, but understands this as expanding our freedom to flourish in both public and private life, not as a laissez-faire quest for more truth simpliciter.” (10/21/26)
“In many traditional cultures, ancient civilizations, and folklore traditions, a name is not viewed as a mere label, it is considered an intrinsic part of a person’s soul, essence, or spiritual makeup. Because the name represents the core of the being, possessing it was believed to allow a sorcerer, spirit, or enemy to manipulate, curse, or summon that person. To protect themselves, many cultures practiced name avoidance. People often used nicknames, public titles, or ‘noa’ (ordinary/allowed) names in daily life while keeping their true or spiritual name hidden from strangers or enemies. … The DSM, psychiatry’s diagnostic manual, defines most conditions by clusters of symptoms, not by any identified mechanism. In 2013 Thomas Insel, then director of America’s National Institute of Mental Health, said as much. He wrote that the manual’s categories lacked validity, and his institute began moving its research away from them. The labels are not even reliable.” (10/21/26)
