Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff

“A big reason for the rules of war is to prevent a country that’s losing a conflict from unleashing a last-resort wave of attacks on innocent civilians. After its 4 1/2-year war in Ukraine, Russia appears to fit that description, adding one more justification for the 1949 Geneva Conventions – to which Moscow is legally bound. Civilian casualties in Ukraine were up 37% in the first half of 2026 from the same period last year. And, increasingly, the slaughter is in major cities, away from the most contested territory. ‘I … see the nature of this war changing,’ said Alexander De Croo, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, during a visit to the country last month. ‘Civilian infrastructure is being attacked deliberately and relentlessly, day and night,’ he added. ‘Buses. Trains. Bookshops. Supermarkets. The ordinary places where ordinary people live their lives.’ In addition, Russia’s gloves-off tactics appear to come from orders on high.” (10/02/26)

https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/1002/One-of-Ukraine-s-winning-principles

Source: The Daily Economy
by Caleb S Fuller & Scott Burns

“Trade isn’t complicated. People around the world work to produce things for one another — and protectionism makes that cooperation harder.” (10/02/26)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/keep-the-case-for-free-trade-simple/

Source: American Greatness
by Thaddeus G McCotter

“Like Germany’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), America’s center-left Democrat Party faces a challenge from its extreme flank. Unlike the CDU, which has abandoned its past strategy and adopted one of confrontation, the Democrat Party is sticking with its strategy of co-option (not fusion) with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). But will the Democrat Party’s strategy prove any more successful in staving off its possible extinction than the CDU’s? Presently, the Democrat Party has a ringside seat at the continuing struggle between the GOP establishment and President Trump and his MAGA movement, which constitutes a halting attempt at fusion. This occurs when the party establishment and its insurgents, be they internal or external, join together to defeat a common enemy or promote a common position.” (10/03/26)

https://amgreatness.com/2026/10/03/a-bustle-in-your-hedgerow-two-parties-confront-ideological-insurgencies-part-two/

Source: The UnPopulist
by Gabriel Schoenfeld

“A lesson from the 20th century is that intellectuals sometimes choose to serve monsters. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao all found thinkers willing to sing their praise even as they murdered millions. On the spectrum of evil and death, Donald Trump, a crass, ignorant would-be authoritarian, is not in their league. And yet already, under Trump’s rule, people have died—and already lives are being ruined by the tens of thousands. As all this happens, crankish right-wing intellectuals have been drawn to Trump’s scepter as moths to a flame. A case in point, not exactly a household name but not entirely unimportant, is Chad Pecknold.” (10/02/26)

https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/a-catholic-theologian-signs-up-for

Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone

“They botched another execution in Tennessee. They stuck the prisoner full of seven different syringes, but she didn’t die. She just experienced extreme suffering, minute after excruciating minute, before eventually losing consciousness. Her name is Christa Pike. As of this writing, she is still alive. Pike committed a horrific violent crime as a young woman after a life of nightmarish abuse. She was physically and sexually abused by her mother’s live-in boyfriend, was raped by a neighbor when she was eleven, and attempted suicide at the age of twelve. And now she is on a respirator in a hospital as doctors fight to save her life, presumably so that the state of Tennessee can try to kill her again. It’s all so absurd. People are so cruel to each other.” (10/03/26)

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/10/03/meditations-on-the-botched-execution-of-christa-pike/