Source: Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
“Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on Thursday filed a lawsuit against Pfizer and its CEO, Albert Bourla, accusing the drugmaker of misleading consumers about the safety and effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine. … Uthmeier filed the lawsuit in state court, alleging that Pfizer told consumers its COVID-19 vaccine was safe while failing to disclose potential risks, including heart inflammation and other adverse events. Pfizer, according to the lawsuit, urged people to get the shot to protect others, even though the company never tested whether the vaccine stopped the virus from spreading. … Pfizer said in a statement the state’s allegations have no merit and that it would respond to the suit in due course.” [editor’s note: While Uthmeier is a grandstanding pol with a history of frivolous publicity-seeking and political corruption, there does seem to be a case here; the discovery phase should prove quite interesting – TLK] (10/01/26)
https://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/business/article317458055.html
Source: The Hill
by Jeff Hoopes
“Forbes recently dropped its 2026 Forbes 400 list: The 400 richest Americans today are worth a combined $8 trillion. Elon Musk, at the tip-top of the list, is worth an estimated $908 billion. If you spend your life thinking about taxes, as I do, a list like this naturally raises the wealth-tax question. One might think such a list would make an argument in favor of wealth taxation. If you think hard about the numbers, however, it actually shows how bad some arguments are in its favor.” (10/01/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/6118919-forbes-400-wealth-tax-rebuttal/
Source: Fox News
by Mike Davis
“In October 2024, the High Court of American Samoa, an unincorporated territory of the United States, issued a staggering ruling that received little media attention. The justices ruled that, since American Samoa is unincorporated, the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms does not apply there. The ruling allowed a near-total gun ban to take effect. President Donald Trump and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum can and must reverse this immediately. The issue of territories is obscure, so some background is helpful. The United States has 50 states and several territories, including Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa. The District of Columbia also is not a state; however, unlike the other territories, it receives three electoral votes for the presidency pursuant to the 23rd Amendment.” (10/01/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/mike-davis-american-gun-free-zone-didnt-know
Source: The Hill
“The Supreme Court announced Thursday it will decide the legality of President Trump’s mandatory detention policy, putting one of his banner immigration programs on the justices’ docket for their upcoming term. The Trump administration argues it can detain people without bond if they’re found to be in the country unlawfully, even if they have been living on U.S. soil for years. It’s a significant expansion of the government’s immigration powers. The push has fueled thousands of cases claiming the policy exceeds federal law, creating an avalanche of work for judges across the country, who are racing to keep up. The case marks another major confrontation between the Trump administration and the conservative-majority court. However, the justices opted against taking up a broader legal question of whether Trump’s policy violates constitutional due process protections. As of now, the court will only decide if the policy follows federal law.” [editor’s note: Under the “supreme” federal law — the US Constitution — it’s literally impossible to “be in the country unlawfully” – TLK] (10/01/260
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/6122542-supreme-court-mandatory-detention-policy-trump
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“Are Data Centers Going to Flip Ohio Blue? Checking in on the Midterms One Month Out (with Kirk Bado).” (10/01/26)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/are-data-centers-going-to-flip-ohio
Source: CounterPunch
by Melvin Goodman
“There is no greater myth regarding American exceptionalism than the view that only the United States has always seen the promotion of ‘liberal democracy’ as part of its national identity. In actual fact, the United States pledges itself to ‘liberal democracy’ the world over only when its military designs are compromised or stymied. The model was President Woodrow Wilson’s ‘war to end all wars’ during World War I. When Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany in 1917, he famously stated that the ‘world must be made safe for democracy.’ Wilson understood that the American people were not interested in a conflict as part of a larger geopolitical battle, but would rally around the idea of a moral crusade to permanently eliminate militarism and establish a lasting global peace.” (10/01/26)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/10/01/the-american-mythology-of-liberal-democracy/
Source: Quartz
“The Labor Department reported Thursday that seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims fell by 1,000 to 197,000 for the week ending September 26, the lowest reading since mid-July. The prior week’s figure was revised up by 1,000, from 197,000 to 198,000. The four-week moving average of claims slipped 2,500 to land at 200,000, a level that irons out the noise of weekly fluctuations. That figure was also revised up by 250 from the prior week, to 202,500. Continuing claims — a measure of insured unemployment and a proxy for the number of people currently receiving benefits — fell by 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.701 million for the week ending September 19, the lowest since March 2023, according to Bloomberg. The insured unemployment rate held at 1.1%.” (10/01/260
https://qz.com/us-jobless-claims-197000-lowest-mid-july-100126
Source: The Anarchist Experience
“Rich and Riley discuss the new twist in the Lindsay Clancy saga, and why do modern women suck.” (10/01/26)
https://theanarchistexperience.wordpress.com/2026/10/02/the-anarchist-experience-600/
Source: Cato Institute
by Ryan Bourne & Nathan Miller
“The 10-year Treasury yield exceeded 5.3 percent yesterday—its highest intraday level since 2002. It has risen by roughly half a percentage point this month. Given the scale of the US debt that needs refinancing and projections for ongoing annual federal deficits, such a surge in government borrowing costs could be a big deal for US interest spending levels and, ultimately, the path of the debt itself.” (10/01/26)
https://www.cato.org/blog/persistently-higher-treasury-yields-could-add-trillions-debt-over-10-years
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“About one-third of the world’s people are between the ages of 14 and 29, the largest youth generation in history. And in recent years, this demographic bulge (dubbed Generation Z) has certainly created history. By tapping social media’s ability to both lament and liaise, youth-led protests have toppled corrupt leaders from Bangladesh to Bulgaria and pushed democratic reforms in institutions from colleges to courts. The latest example: student demonstrations in France over the poor quality of that country’s high schools. As the United Nations declared two years ago, ‘Young people are powerful forces for promoting integrity’. If the worldwide decline in democracy is ever reversed, credit might first go to this global cohort of fresh-faced netroots. One budding success could be in Serbia. Since 2024, the southeastern European country has experienced one the world’s most admired student-led uprisings.” (09/30/26)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0930/When-students-rise-up-integrity-might-prevail
