Source: Law & Liberty
by Zachary D Stone
“A giant of nineteenth century literature, Émile Zola’s life and writings show that realism can be an antidote to the pathology of radicalism.” (10/17/25)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/emile-zolas-realism-without-radicalism/
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“The aim of elections is not to guarantee any particular outcome. Yet, protecting incumbents means seeking a very, very particular outcome. Elections should make sure that — above all else — the voting public shapes the government. Definitely not that the government shapes the public. By drawing fancy lines for districts.” (10/17/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/10/17/you-have-entered-the-incumbent-zone/
Source: The American Prospect
by Robert Kuttner
“Trump’s latest scheme to take universities into receivership, a proposed ‘Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education’, has turned out to be a gift to dithering college presidents. Trump’s offer that they couldn’t refuse, sent on October 1 to nine universities that were expected to be malleable, offered preferential access to federal funding in exchange for compliance with several demands. These included freezing tuition rates for five years, capping international student enrollment, adopting definitions of sex/gender aligned with biological sex, ending consideration of race or gender in admissions and hiring, as well as ‘institutional neutrality’ on political and social issues. But Trump’s scheme was so crass and half-baked that several college presidents politely told him to stuff it. So far, he has no takers. Universities that explicitly rejected the deal citing academic freedom include Brown, MIT, Penn, USC, and Dartmouth.” (10/17/25)
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-10-17-trump-keeps-overreaching-will-it-backfire/
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Snider
“While couched in the language of fighting drug trafficking into the United States, the Trump administration has made no secret of its desire for regime change in Venezuela. Under the leadership of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with the support of CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Trump’s chief domestic policy advisor, Stephen Miller, Trump’s team has pushed for the removal of Maduro from power. A Trump administration official familiar with policy discussions on the approach to Venezuela told Axios that, though the military build up is ‘about narco-terrorism … if Maduro winds up no longer in power, no one will be crying.’ Another, by comparing it to the American operation against Panama’s Manuel Noriega in 1989, implied that a coup was higher on the agenda.” (10/17/25)
https://original.antiwar.com/ted_snider/2025/10/16/president-trump-goes-to-war/
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Dan M Ford
“Earlier this week, Donald Trump made the bold claim that he’s responsible for ending eight wars since taking office this past January — in other words, nearly one war each month of his presidency. Among the wars on his list is the decades-long conflict between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda, which has mired central Africa since the days of the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s in a quagmire conflict involving over one hundred armed groups. But despite Trump’s claim, the DRC-Rwanda conflict is not yet over. And despite belligerent actors taking some positive steps to bring about a lasting peace — including Tuesday’s announcement that the Rwanda-supported M23 rebel group and the DRC have agreed on a mechanism to monitor a fragile ceasefire — the war remains an active conflict between the two neighbors and their allied groups.” (10/17/25)
Source: Free Association
by Sheldon Richman
“If the continuing incompetence of Congress over passing a budget and reopening the U.S. government doesn’t show the absurdity of unlimited representative republicanism, what could do so? Whether or not to extend COVID-era special subsidies for medical insurance appears to be the main issue, but other issues are undoubtedly involved. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. That’s politics. The problem is that the government has its hands in everything. That means a constituency exists for each thing the government does.” (10/17/25)
https://sheldonfreeassociation.blogspot.com/2025/10/if-continuing-incompetence-of-congress.html
Source: Town Hall
by Dr. Wolfgang Klietmann
“Americans can buy iPhones straight from Apple and sneakers straight from Nike. In fact, in almost every industry, it’s perfectly normal for consumers to buy products directly from manufacturers’ websites and have them shipped right to their doors. But medicines are different. For decades, patients have been forced to run through a gauntlet of middlemen, each of whom piles on fees, to get the treatments they need. The additional costs imposed by these wholesalers, insurers, pharmacy benefit managers, and pharmacies have turned the simple act of filling a prescription into a monthly financial crisis for too many families. Fortunately, that could soon change. A handful of pharmaceutical companies recently started selling medicines directly to patients, shipping the drugs right to their porch or mailbox, so long as they have a doctor’s prescription.” [editor’s note: Cool. Now just get rid of the prescription requirement – TLK] (10/18/25)
https://townhall.com/columnists/wolfgang/2025/10/18/the-direct-path-to-affordable-medicines-n2665088