Source: The Daily Economy
by Jeffrey L Degner
“Australia tried to end smoking with punitive taxes. Instead, it created a lucrative trade for smugglers and a wave of violent attacks on retailers.” (10/13/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/australias-tobacco-taxes-have-sparked-a-criminal-turf-war/
Source: SFGate
“Esmeralda Soria has seen immigration enforcement throughout her life. Born to immigrant farmworkers in the Central Valley, the state assemblymember has spent her entire life in California’s agricultural powerhouse. Yet even for her, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids that shook the valley last week took her by surprise. ‘I have never experienced anything like this,’ Soria said in an SFGATE interview Sunday. ‘Just all of a sudden, now we’re seeing ICE go rogue’. Federal agents have spent the past week sweeping the Central Valley, with local immigrant advocates reporting officers conducting widespread, warrantless detentions, targeting gas stations and Mexican bakeries as farmworkers start their day. People have reportedly been detained without any warrants for their arrest. The chaos turned violent when an off-duty ICE officer allegedly passed out drunk and assaulted a Fresno homeowner only to get shot himself, according to police.” (10/13/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/centralcalifornia/article/ice-raid-midterm-election-22473510.php
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Two ships have been hit in drone attacks off Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, with one of them sinking, Prime Minister Rumen Radev said. The Ukrainian-owned Chelsea 3, which was sailing under a Maltese flag, was hit by three drones and damaged about 18 nautical miles (33km) off Bulgaria at about 1:30am on Tuesday (22:30 GMT on Monday), Radev said. Radev said its 15-man crew, seven of them Ukrainians and eight Azerbaijanis, was rescued. Five crew members received medical assistance, and no one was seriously injured. He added that one crew member from the ship that sank was also rescued.” (10/12/26)
Source: Pink Flame of Liberty
“Keith Thompson’s Honeypot LIKE A BOSS.” (10/12/26)
Source: UnHerd
by Thomas Fazi
“Since the 2016 Russiagate fiasco, it has become standard practice among Western elites, especially in Europe, to blame every unwelcome election result — and above all every ‘populist’ rebuke to their rule — on Russian ‘disinformation’ and ‘interference’. The campaign has escalated dramatically since 2022. We are told that Russia has for years been running a vast influence operation aimed at manipulating helpless voters. Yet the evidence that this operation has reached, let alone swayed, any meaningful number of them is scant to say the least.” (10/12/26)
Source: Town Hall
by Derek Hunter
“The bowl-cut leftist in Texas, James Talarico, came off the milk carton and returned to the world of the living over the weekend. Where he was remains a mystery, as does why he was gone. What isn’t a mystery is why the corporate media didn’t really cover the story much or question anything related to a candidate in the highest-profile Senate election in the country disappearing for almost two weeks. The ‘official story’ is that Talarico, a very odd person to begin with, simply had the flu. I’ve had the flu, and it’s not fun. It also doesn’t put people in bed for two weeks and rob you of the ability to make any public appearances, if only via video chat. … Was he at a mental health facility for inpatient treatment after a breakdown?” [editor’s note: Obviously not, or he and Hunter would likely have been roomies – TLK] (10/13/26)
Source: SFGate
“A 29-year-old reality television star was shot and killed early Sunday morning in downtown Oakland. Police were called to the 200 block of 14th Street in Oakland at approximately 1:30 a.m. on a report of a shooting, the Oakland Police Department told SFGATE in a statement. When officers arrived, they found Mackayla Paige, a Richmond resident, with a gunshot wound. Paige was transported to the hospital where she later died of her injuries, OPD said. A woman, also from Richmond, was arrested in connection with the shooting, OPD said. … Paige, also known as ‘Kash,’ was featured in several reality series on Now That’s TV, a subscription streaming network.” (10/12/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/reality-tv-shooting-kash-22474234.php
Source: Lions of Liberty
“Why Some Rise Above Their Circumstances While Others Fall to Them.” (10/12/26)
Source: Law & Liberty
by Cory L Andrews
“Civil society, for Locke, begins with a surrender. In the state of nature, anyone may punish a wrong done to the community. In society, that power passes to a common authority, and only the sovereign may avenge public wrongs. Blackstone put the same idea in the language of the common law: private wrongs are the injured party’s to redress, public wrongs are the Crown’s. The Framers absorbed the distinction and gave it a specific constitutional home: ‘The executive Power,’ Article II begins, ‘shall be vested in a President.’ One pocket of private prosecution, however, survives that settlement. … Under the False Claims Act’s qui tam provisions, a private plaintiff or ‘relator’—with no injury of her own, no office, and no constitutional oath—may sue in the name of the United States, litigate the government’s claim, and keep up to 30 percent of what she recovers.” (10/13/26)
Source: Independent Institute
by Nikolai G Wenzel
“In these times of runaway public debt and perennial crisis in public finances, the wealth tax is a bad idea that just won’t go away. Just a year ago, the prudent Swiss rejected a steep inheritance tax. France—thanks to political machinations in a hung Parliament, rather than deep conviction or prudence—rejected the resuscitation of its failed wealth taxes (1982-1987 and 1989-2012). The UK floated a similar proposal, which went nowhere. Since 2022, Spain has had a ‘temporary solidarity tax on big fortunes’. Alas, this isn’t just a European game. … Perhaps the main problem is that bad policy proposals are being driven by bad economics, with the imprimatur of high-profile scholars.” (10/12/260