Source: Expression
by Sarah McLaughlin

“On a cursory glance, the latest controversy over French soccer star Kylian Mbappé’s remark about Mao Zedong, and the string of obsequious apologies that followed it, might seem like just that: an ideological controversy, a fight over claims of offensive speech, or an absurd blip in the endless string of culture wars. But treating this as another eye-roll-inducing dustup would be a mistake. That’s because the fallout from Mbappé’s mild comment offers an insightful window into one of the most effective and widespread censorship campaigns today: the pervasive influence over how anyone, anywhere talks about China’s sensitive political issues. Authoritarians control how they are spoken about in life. And, apparently, even in death.” (11/02/26)

https://expression.fire.org/p/after-insulting-mao-zedong-some-offer

Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger

“I have the utmost respect for law professor Jonathan Turley. My admiration for him is reflected by the fact that he has been a speaker at at least two Future of Freedom Foundation conferences. However, I completely disagree with his critique of the concept of jury nullification, which he presented in an article this week entitled, ‘You Have This Superpower,’ which appeared on Turley’s website Res Ipsa Loquitur. Turley maintains that jury nullification constitutes an ‘assault on the integrity of our courts … a direct assault on the very foundation of the American court system.’ Nothing could be further from the truth. In actuality, as the British people and our American ancestors understood so well, jury nullification, which is an inherent part of the jury system, is a protection against the tyranny of one’s own government.” (11/02/26)

https://www.fff.org/2026/11/02/jonathan-turley-is-wrong-on-jury-nullification/

Source: The Bulwark
by Cathy Young

“My own hopes for what Democrats will (and will not) do after Tuesday undoubtedly differ greatly from those of most progressives—who, it should be noted, have not ‘taken over’ the party nearly as much as alarming narratives on the right suggest. But on the election itself, I join both progressives and liberals in wishing for a decisive result. I’m glad to note that some very strong critics of the left share that wish as well—from Andrew Sullivan (‘vote for anyone other than a Republican. … We need to send a deafening message’) to Peggy Noonan (‘Let it be a clear and obvious rebuke—a rejection, a rebellion, a rout’).” (11/02/26)

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/republicans-have-earned-a-rout-2026-midterms-blue-wave

Source: Town Hall
by Mark Lewis

“‘Back in 1836, Houston said to Travis, / ‘Get some volunteers and go, / fortify the Alamo.’ / Well, the men came from Texas, / and from old Tennessee, / And they joined up with Travis, / Just to fight for the right to be free’ … That’s what TEXANS used to believe. And many of us, hopefully most of us, still do. But I’ll bet my last bottom dollar that James Talarico and his Texas Democrats don’t believe it. The question that forms the title of this article is absolutely ridiculous, of course — ridiculous to think that great men like Crockett, Bowie, William Travis, Almaron Dickenson, and approximately 180 other men, who fought and died for freedom against a corrupt military dictatorship from a country that’s now trying to overrun Texas again, it is impossible to think that such men would have given their lives for a … traitor, like James Talarico.” (11/02/26)

https://townhall.com/columnists/marklewis/2026/11/02/did-davy-crockett-and-jim-bowie-die-at-the-alamo-to-put-james-talarico-in-the-senate-n2685688

Source: Law & Liberty
by Neal McCluskey

“How do we know how much a nation values athleticism? Spectacle? Hate for the college down the road and its insufferable student body? For the free-marketeer, the answer might be ‘profit.’ Whatever universities can charge for tickets, broadcast rights, merchandise, stadium beer, and more, balanced by what athletes are willing to play for and fans to pay, yields what college sports is worth. But college athletics might involve goods that transcend profit and loss: thrill of victory and agony of defeat, ‘nonrevenue’ sports we often overlook but love during the Olympics, amateurism, and more. We are also far from a free market in college sports because government is deeply involved, including through state universities and antitrust law.” (11/02/26)

https://lawliberty.org/forum/governing-games/

Source: Brownstone Institute
by Leland Lehrman

“The United States began vaccinating against Covid-19 on 14 December 2020. Two CDC programs were designed and paid to catch any harm that clinical trials had missed. VAERS takes reports from doctors, patients and manufacturers. V-safe sends vaccinated people text messages asking how they feel. Here we follow the paper trail of those two systems from the Christmas 2020 rollout into 2022. The bottom line: The government’s ‘worst case’ for amount of Covid vaccine injury reports assumed 1,000 reports a day. For fourteen months it was double that. For some of those months, it was triple.” (11/02/26)

https://brownstone.org/articles/vaers-and-vsafe-the-worst-case-scenario-twice/