Source: Washington Monthly
by Garrett Epps

“Last week, Donald Trump dropped virtual ‘bombs’ on American citizens, demolished a prized symbol of American democracy and leadership, and demanded $230 million in reparations from taxpayers for what he calls unlawful attacks on him. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Trump does not wish to rule as a king or impose an authoritarian regime. People around him very much want the latter. He may think that this is his aim. But it is not. Some have suggested that the MAGA movement is creating a civil war between the red and blue states. But not Trump. The president is at war with the United States — the entire country — all of us. He seeks not to rule but to destroy.” (10/27/25)

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/10/27/trump-is-a-wartime-president/

Source: Our Future
by Sulma Arias

“My heart swells as I think of the more than 7 million people who poured into the streets for No Kings rallies last Sunday. In every corner of our country, in more than 2,500 communities, people showed up to say they will not let authoritarians decide our fate or our future. From the tens of thousands who marched in New York and Chicago to the lone woman who stood on her streetcorner in Beckley, West Virginia with handmade signs and a broad smile for all to see, people are saying loud and clear we will not give in to tyrants or masked goons. ‘I think you need to show your face to your actual neighbors,’ said the West Virginian, Kendra Sullivan. ‘We’re just like everybody else: We are America.’ Like Kendra, these protesters share what People’s Action calls the spirit of Joyous Rebellion.” (10/26/25)

https://ourfuture.org/20251026/we-protested-now-what

Source: Bet On It
by Elizabeth Kirk & Ryan Hanlon

“Bryan Caplan is right about one big thing: the collapse of intercountry adoption is tragic, given that there remain hundreds of thousands of children in need of families – and there are plenty of families open to adopting them. The demographics of who is being placed for intercountry adoption have changed in recent years (trending older, most have medically complex special needs) as infants are no longer available, but as Caplan’s post made clear, the big change has been the 95+% decline in the overall number of adoptions. That is not a rounding error — it is a policy failure that has left children waiting and families in limbo. … He proposes we ‘drastically curtail or abolish the welfare state’ so that more women would place infants for adoption. Against the backdrop of our research, it’s not clear that this would have such an effect.” (10/27/25)

https://www.betonit.ai/p/a-better-path-forward-for-infant

Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone

“At some point capitalism lost the ability to give us new things that we need and started giving us new things we don’t need, and now it’s giving us new things we never needed and don’t even really want. Nobody needs all this generative AI crap. We were doing fine with online search functions and the ability to write and make art for ourselves. Only the most shallow and vapid of individuals find any appeal in the idea of talking to a chatbot like a companion, consuming ‘art’ generated by a computer program, or letting the technology of some plutocratic megacorporation do their thinking, researching and expressing for them.” [editor’s note: At least AI can probably write better poetry than Johnstone – TLK] (10/26/25)

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/10/26/capitalism-is-shoving-ai-down-our-throats-because-it-cant-give-us-what-we-actually-want/

Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Lipton Matthews

“Lawrence Mead’s Political Breakdown (2025) is not a book of partisan skirmishing or quick diagnoses. It is instead a cultural meditation on why the United States, a society that once seemed uniquely dynamic, confident, and cohesive, now struggles to maintain the very norms that powered its rise. For Mead, the story of American decline is not simply about inequality, polarization, or stagnant wages, though these are real enough. It is about the erosion of the ethic of individualism that once held the society together. The United States — unlike many other nations — thrived because it demanded that its citizens take responsibility for themselves. … The problem today, Mead insists, is that these norms no longer command the same authority. What was once a shared cultural foundation has fractured, and the resulting void has left Americans unable to sustain progress or govern themselves effectively.” (10/27/25)

https://mises.org/mises-wire/recognizing-roots-current-us-political-turmoil

Source: Common Dreams
Medea Benjamin & Nicolas JS Davies

“On October 4th, 2025, in an interview with Axios, President Donal Trump stressed that one of the main goals behind his Gaza plan was to restore Israel’s international standing. ‘Bibi took it very far and Israel lost a lot of support in the world,’ Trump said. ‘Now I am gonna get all that support back.’ Under Trump’ s plan, a supposed ceasefire took effect on October 10th. But Israel only withdrew from less than half of the Gaza strip, and killed at least 93 people in the next two weeks, after killing at least that many per day for the previous two years. Israel has only allowed 15% of the humanitarian aid called for in the plan to enter Gaza, and has kept the critical Rafah crossing from Egypt into Gaza closed.” (10/27/25)

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/us-gaza-genocide-complicity