“Recently, Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, warned that Pyongyang could take strong retaliatory measures if Seoul continues activities it considers provocative. To casual observers, this may appear to be just another routine exchange of verbal threats between the two Koreas. However, a closer examination of the current situation suggests that something unusually significant may be unfolding on the Korean Peninsula.” (10/28/26)
Source: Liberal Currents
by Silvaria Lysandra Zemaitis
“There is no shortage of agreement that liberalism, in the face of fascist authoritarianism and reactionary backslide, is in crisis. And there has been no end of rationalizations, responses, and reactions to this crisis, both from within and from without. These range from the reactionaries themselves, who (at least the more articulate ones) claim that liberalism has produced atomization, social decay, and national disintegration, to the farther left, who claim that liberalism has been a destabilizing economic force that has placed economic efficiency over human flourishing, and to those within liberalism itself, where some argue that liberalism has prioritized identity or self-expression over promoting a unified vision of the good life. While the quality and veracity of those critiques vary, I do believe that liberalism, as a political program, has not been good enough at answering them.” (10/28/26)
“A new ad running to support Democrat senatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan has been widely denounced as anti-Semitic for suggesting that Jews are taking food from Americans. The ad is the work of Rebellion PAC, a political action committee co-founded by The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur. Uygur has now struck out at CNN over a panel discussion that trashed the segment and called it clearly defamatory. For a torts teacher, the claim popped this story to the top of my pile, and I thought it was worthy of addressing. The CNN segment is manifestly not defamatory. Whatever grievance that he may have with the network, it is not a legal one.” (10/28/26)
“Proposition 40, in California, calls itself — in the title — a one-time tax. But does anyone truly believe that? … The Democratic Socialists of America have endorsed it, not just because it’s a tax targeted against the rich — but because they want it to be much more than a one-time thing. Those who love total government are insatiable in their lust for other people’s money.” (10/27/260
“Just three decades ago, Serbia was the most warmongering place in Europe. On Sunday night, its capital, Belgrade, was the scene of a celebration of peace and joy after parliamentary elections turned out an autocratic ruling party, in a win for a student movement that has no leader and largely put up nonstudent candidates. Most of the student movement’s winning candidates hold doctorate degrees, of whom 44% are women. The Student List, as it’s called, now faces the task of bringing transparency and accountability to a government soaked in crony corruption. Its success in better governance could ricochet across the Balkan states after centuries of violent ethnic rivalries. ‘Serbia is a normal country again,’ Andjela Markovic, a nurse from Belgrade, told the London-based Financial Times. ‘We proved that we can be just like any other nation, where people love their country and love each other even when they disagree.'” (10/27/26)
“Customs and Border Protection (CBP) insists that it has the right to search Americans’ private data without a warrant when entering the country. But ordered to explain one of these searches by a judge, the agency is now trying to wiggle out from under the microscope, invoking its own data privacy. On Friday, Judge Leonie M. Brinkema in the Eastern District of Virginia ordered CBP to explain the seizure of a local psychiatric nurse’s phone and laptop at Washington Dulles International Airport. CBP argued that the court should seal this information from both the public and the nurse himself in order to protect ‘privileged law enforcement information.’ Brinkema initially agreed …. After reading the filings, the judge declared on Tuesday afternoon ‘that most of the redacted information is not privileged law enforcement information and should not be sealed.'” (10/27/26)
“At a campaign rally over the weekend, President Trump dismissed Americans’ concerns over high oil and gas prices, claiming that it’s a small price to pay for the hundreds of billions of dollars ‘we’ are making from these higher prices. ‘We’re making a fortune,’ he said. ‘Hundreds of billions of dollars. Trillions of dollars.’ People are paying a little bit more for gas, he explained, but it doesn’t matter because ‘we’ are making so much money. The question is, ‘Who is ‘we’?’ We know it is not the American people.” (10/27/26)
“For the last twenty years, politics was our most fascinating news story and the most interesting thing on the Internet. Now, one senses huge portions of the electorate would rather take baths in battery acid than listen to even one more word from a politician. Americans have by now been screwed over so many times that the problem may no longer be that the government doesn’t work. It’s that government doesn’t work, and we can’t shut up about it. Other countries manage to deliver lousy economies and naked corruption without so much talking. Can’t we just be Mexico or Paraguay and have peace and quiet while things mostly go to hell?” (10/27/26)
“In mid-September, the next generation of movement [sic] candidates assembled in Washington, D.C. (where they’re on track to be sworn into Congress next year) to scheme how to most effectively bring working-class politics into the halls of power. The group includes Chris Rabb from Pennsylvania, Melat Kiros from Colorado, Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier from New York, Adam Hamawy from New Jersey and Donavan McKinney from Michigan. All were endorsed by local chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) except for Hamawy, who had the backing of socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders [I-VT] and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [D-NY]. Each of them won their Democratic primaries this year in heavily blue districts with essential locks to win the general in the November 3 elections.” (10/27/26)
