Source: The UnPopulist
by Andy Craig
“‘When you have a [television] network and you have evening shows, and all they do is hit Trump,’ complained the most powerful man in the world while onboard Air Force One, returning from a white-tie dinner with King Charles III last week. ‘They’re licensed. They’re not allowed to do that.’ As ever, the statement was unvarnished in its egotism, dropping the pretense that Trump’s latest attack on free speech had anything to do with the distasteful reaction in some quarters to the shocking murder of Charlie Kirk. Instead, fresh from Windsor Castle, Trump put on full view his impulse for a gilded lèse-majesté — avenging the alleged defamation of himself as head of state.” (09/20/25)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/trumps-censorship-binge-after-kirks
Source: New York Post
“Dem Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Sunday refused to rule out caving to President Trump’s demand for a ‘clean’ stopgap funding bill — no poison pills attached — to avert a partial federal shutdown. The senior New York senator and most other Democrats in the chamber had rejected a ‘clean’ GOP-backed House bill Friday to keep the government’s lights on. Instead, they backed their own bill that would have averted a partial shutdown while achieving their demands on health care and restricting Trump’s ability to freeze funding. But Schumer, pressed Sunday about whether he would be on board with the Republicans’ ‘clean’ spending patch if time runs out, to avoid a shutdown, would not deny the possibility.” (09/21/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/09/21/us-news/schumer-refuses-to-rule-out-caving-to-trump-in-government-shutdown-fight/
Source: The American Conservative
by Harrison Berger
“Reports that TikTok will transfer an 80 percent stake in its U.S. operations to Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreessen Horowitz are celebrated in Washington as a strategic victory over China, where its parent company is based. But a closer examination of the deal reveals a different winner: the foreign government of Israel and its lobby in the United States.” (09/21/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/how-israel-captured-tiktok/
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Germany’s air force says it has scrambled two Eurofighter jets to track a Russian reconnaissance aircraft after it had entered neutral airspace over the Baltic Sea. In a statement, the air force said its ‘quick reaction alert force’ was ordered on Sunday by NATO to investigate an unidentified aircraft flying without a plan or radio contact. … Tensions have been heightened in recent weeks by a series of airspace violations along NATO’s eastern flank. Romania said last week that its radar detected a Russian drone, prompting it to scramble fighter jets. Earlier this month, Poland reported that it had shot down several drones during a Russian aerial attack on Ukraine, marking the first time NATO forces have directly engaged in that conflict.” (09/21/25)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/21/germany-scrambles-jets-after-russia-military-aircraft-flies-over-baltic-sea
Source: Quillette
by Angel Eduardo
“In the 1982 film Blade Runner, a group of synthetic humans called replicants abandon their various posts off world and make an illegal return to Earth. Their motives become clear in a pivotal scene in which their leader, Roy Batty, meets Eldon Tyrell, the designer who created them. Batty tells Eldon, ‘I want more life, Father.’ Replicants are designed to live for only four years and Batty’s time is running out. And his life has been far too short for him to experience everything he knows that life can offer. While most of us have far longer lives, we share that same tragic limitation. … Art can’t give us immortality, but it can give us something better. It can give us what Roy Batty longed for: more life.” (09/19/25)
https://quillette.com/2025/09/19/art-and-the-search-for-immortality/
Source; Washington Post
“The Trump administration’s border czar, Tom Homan, was caught on tape accepting a bag filled with $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents in Texas in September 2024, when he was a private citizen, according to two people familiar with the matter and a government document confirming the existence of the probe. At the time, Homan was being floated for a top immigration job in the incoming administration and allegedly took the money from agents posing as businessmen in exchange for helping the men land contracts related to immigration enforcement if President Donald Trump won the election, the people said. The Justice Department in the final months of the Biden administration launched a bribery investigation into Homan, but the Trump administration shut it down this year, citing a lack of ‘credible evidence’ and calling it a ‘political investigation.'” (09/21/25)
https://archive.is/9aNay
Source: Reason
by Tosin Akintola
“For a variety of reasons, the U.S. is the most significant illicit drug market in the world, with the most drug users. Though 45 percent of Americans describe the problem of drugs in the U.S. as ‘extremely serious,’ drug use is a growing trend. … Since most traffickers to the U.S. are citizens, killing suspects at sea is a hollow show — attacking supply while ignoring the demand that fuels it.” (09/19/25)
https://reason.com/2025/09/19/americans-like-drugs-killing-drug-traffickers-wont-change-that/
Source: Los Angeles Times
by Christopher Ketcham
“[Nicholas] Carr has argued, correctly, that with its endless distractions and fragmented structure, its flashing rabbit-holes, its emphasis on speed and constant switching (between subjects, links, pages, images, etc.), the internet causes cognitive damage, a rewiring of the brain so that we’re less able to ponder and meditate, to think at length and complexly — to go deep. … Now comes AI, and we face a new disaster for human cognition, as the prospect of artificial intelligence-induced imbecility is confirmed in study after study of the use of large-language models such as ChatGPT.” (09/21/25)
https://archive.is/o5iEx
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Sinn Féin will back Catherine Connolly to be the next president of Ireland, the party has announced. Party president Mary Lou McDonald made the announcement on social media ahead of a much anticipated press conference in Dublin. She said the independent TD got their support as someone who would ‘champion a united Ireland, stand up for Ireland’s place in the world as a defender of neutrality and human rights, and speak out for fairness and economic justice,’ Connolly has already been backed by some left-wing parties, including Labour, the Social Democrats and People Before Profit.” (09/20/25)
https://archive.is/KlAZC
Source: Unattended Baggage
“Orange Snowflake makes mean talky people go away.” (09/20/25)
https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-310-orange-snowflake-makes
