Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Anatol Lieven

“During the Cold War, the exclave of West Berlin, isolated in the middle of Communist East Germany, was regarded as one of the most dangerous potential flashpoints for a conflict between the Soviet Union and the West. … It is now common for Western security analysts to describe the ‘Suwalki Gap’ in northeast Poland, situated between Kaliningrad and Russia’s ally Belarus, as the most dangerous point in the growing Russia-NATO confrontation. Yet they carefully omit to recall that it was NATO, not Russia, that made it so.” (10/23/26)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/kaliningrad-nato-russia/

Source: Law & Liberty
by Rachel Lu

“Lois Lowry’s Building 903 projects readers into a desiccated, post-literate world.” (10/23/26)

https://lawliberty.org/book-review/a-world-without-stories/

Source: Town Hall
by Derek Hunter

“I know a lot of people, all of whom dated around before finding the person they eventually married. Every single one of them, to a person, knows for certain whether or not the people they dated were related to them. No ambiguity, no open question, no qualifiers on their answer – they knew whether or not they’d been fishing off the family pier. That question, however, gets murky for some… apparently. Where most people could definitively say they’d never picked anyone up at Thanksgiving dinner, many Democrats have to think about it, and some still do not know. Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar, representing Mogadishu, is one such person.” (10/24/26)

https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2026/10/25/some-democrats-hook-up-with-family-members-all-want-to-screw-you-n2685258

Source: Cato Institute
by Walter Olson

“I believe that this lawsuit is abusive in its intentions and borders on frivolous in its arguments, and that it is destined for defeat in the courts should it reach the merits. It borders on frivolous because it attempts to stretch a federal statute, the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), beyond recognition by snipping language from the law’s preamble and treating it as if it creates vast and open-ended new duties that the federal government can enforce on states. That is not a natural reading of the text, nor is it one that courts have taken. If accepted, it would suddenly federalize many issues of local election administration.” (10/23/26)

https://www.cato.org/blog/doj-sues-prevent-certification-alaska-senate-winner-its-democrat

Source: Foreign Policy
by Michael Hirsh

“With U.S. President Donald Trump’s approval rating at record lows amid high inflation spiked by an unpopular war, many pundits view the upcoming midterm elections as the only serious emergency brake left for the nation. But even if, as expected, Democrats win substantial victories in the House and possibly the Senate—and if Trump doesn’t follow through on his threats to call it fraud and somehow nullify the vote—the nation may still be heading into a political morass. Rather than rallying around a common direction—other than opposition to Trump—the Democratic Party appears to lack anything like a coherent governing philosophy or compelling leadership.” (10/23/26)

https://archive.is/1hmFO