Source: Common Dreams
by Melissa Garriga
“Tuesday night’s election results proved that a majority of people in this country do not want war and genocide. Polling overwhelmingly showed that the war on Iran was one of the biggest motivating factors in voting. So why are we about to give the very people voters rejected an unprecedented $1.5 trillion budget to continue their reign of death and destruction? Why are we going to allow Congress to hand over the largest war budget in human history to weapons manufacturers and AI tech billionaires who work at the behest of known war criminals? In the next few weeks, Congress is set to pass what should be viewed as the deadliest piece of legislation of our time (the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)) or the country’s defense budget, as it is more commonly known.” (11/05/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/stop-trump-s-pentagon-budget
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“Jailed Hong Kong opposition activist Joshua Wong Chi-fung has been sentenced to 10 years behind bars for his role in a global campaign to instigate sanctions against mainland China and the city in the aftermath of the 2019 anti-government protests. The High Court ruled on Thursday that Wong and fugitive ex-lawmaker Nathan Law Kwun-chung had partly contributed to the imposition of sanctions and adverse measures against mainland and Hong Kong officials which significantly undermined national security. The 30-year-old, who earlier pleaded guilty to conspiracy to collude with foreign forces, had been scheduled to complete a sentence of four years and eight months for conspiracy to commit subversion on January 7 next year.” (11/05/26)
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3373335/joshua-wong-jailed-10-years-over-bid-instigate-sanctions-beijing-hong-kong
Source: Antiwar.com
“Vance, Trump Admit Iran War Cost Midterms, Saudi Strikes Massacre 12 Civilians, and More.” (11/04/26)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHr7ev8YUqQ
Source: CounterPunch
by Eric Toussaint
“[R]ather than replicating the classic forms of historical fascism, Trump tends to use the state apparatus itself as an instrument of coercion to secure the loyalty of his supporters and to undermine local countervailing powers. He also seeks to control the institutions that produce and disseminate knowledge and information, to weaken countervailing powers and to impose his ideological conception of society. Trump’s imperialist policy therefore does not represent a break with US practices throughout the 20th century. On the contrary, it continues the various methods employed during that period—military interventions, coups d’état, sanctions, economic pressure, support for allied regimes, and control of strategic areas and resources—but with a notable difference in the rhetoric that accompanies them.” (11/05/26)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/11/05/trump-the-hallmarks-of-21st-century-neo-fascism/
Source: Antiwar.com
by Dan Steinbock
“To dominate supply chains, the Trump administration is weaponizing the global AI race. Instead of learning from the lessons of postwar atomic regulation, the administration is reversing them, thereby paving the way for catastrophic risks.” (11/05/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/dan_steinbock/2026/11/04/the-greatest-existential-risk-of-the-early-21st-century/
Source: Freedom and Flourishing
by Dr. Edward W Younkins
“Gerald Gaus’s The Open Society and Its Complexities (2021) is a response to three theses advanced by Friedrich A. Hayek regarding the Open Society. Hayek’s first thesis is that human beings are not made for a free society. Human evolved psychology makes us xenophobic, parochial, and egalitarian in ways that conflict with the diversity and impartiality of an Open Society. The second thesis is that the operation of institutions in the Open Society is so unclear that we cannot rationally evaluate, critique, or justify that type of society. The third thesis is that the Open Society cannot be governed.” (11/05/26)
https://www.freedomandflourishing.com/2026/11/gerald-gaus-and-open-society.html
Source: SFGate
“Six bodies were retrieved from the debris of a building in Kenya’s capital on Thursday, two weeks after the deadly collapse, bringing the confirmed death toll to eight as police said recovery operations were nearing completion. Sixteen people are still believed to be missing since the building fell on Oct. 23. Four people were rescued alive from the 18-story building, which collapsed along a busy commercial street in Nairobi, while its upper floors were still under construction. The ground and basement floors had been rented out to businesses, including an electronics shop, a grocery store, a textile shop and a butchery. Nairobi County Gov. Johnson Sakaja said the building had not been approved for construction and that the renting out of the completed floors was also illegal.” (11/05/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/death-toll-rises-to-5-in-nairobi-collapsed-22513512.php
Source: Washington Monthly
“The morning after the polls closed in the 2026 midterm elections, Washington Monthly Politics Editor Bill Scher and Washington Sun columnist Matt Lewis pored over the results and examined how they impact the futures of the Republican Party and Democratic Party.” (11/04/26)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/11/04/post-midterm-election-edition-of-the-dmz/
Source: The Dispatch
by Phillip W Magness
“Within hours of Tuesday night’s rout, Vice President J.D. Vance had settled on an explanation: “The reason we lost is the war.” It is a convenient story. The war in Iran is unpopular, and the spike in gasoline prices that came with it certainly didn’t help Republicans. But the war is not what caused the blue wave. Tariffs were the millstone that sank the GOP ticket—and the White House had years of warning.” (11/05/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/tariffs-midterms-j-d-vance-donald-trump-republicans/
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton
“Perhaps, when we get right down to it, the threat that Pyongyang and Kim pose to the West is not provided by his dream of the world’s strongest army. Rather, it is one of the strongest arguments still in the world today of what the true fruits of socialism are.” (11/04/26)
https://thepriceofliberty.org/2026/11/04/the-korea-conundrum/
