Source: Dispatch
by Carroll Doherty

“When Democrats dream about how big their ‘blue wave’ might be on November 3, they tend to draw on historical comparisons: Can the party replicate its success of 2018, when Democrats picked up 40 seats in the House but failed to take back the Senate, or perhaps even 2006, when Democrats swept to majorities in both chambers? Perhaps no one is more bullish on the party’s prospects than Democratic pollster John Anzalone, who recently reached all the way back to 1994 in search of a possible precedent. This election ‘feels much more like 1994 than any other cycle I have been through in 40 years,’ Anzalone wrote on X. Now that was a wave election.” (10/22/26)

https://thedispatch.com/article/republicans-1994-midterms-newt-gingrich/

Source: Grist
by Matt Simon

“Until recently, you’ve had no choice but to be a passive participant in the electrical grid, paying exorbitantly for the juice that flows into your home. But you’re about to play a much more active role — if you’re not already — and get paid to send power from your home battery or electric vehicle to the energy system. Even if you’re a renter, you may be able to buy solar panels that plug into a wall outlet, turning your balcony into your own tiny power plant. Earlier this month, a punishing California heat wave showed just how this more flexible grid can help absorb spikes in demand.” (10/22/26)

https://grist.org/solutions/california-just-showed-how-home-batteries-will-radically-remake-the-grid/

Source: Washington Monthly
by David Masciotra

“Here’s a grim reality that few would have predicted in the 1990s: Neo-Nazi rhetoric and ideology have found a place in American political discourse. You don’t have to believe America is fascist to become alarmed that crackpot rhetoric has found its way into the national dialogue. Review the ravings of Timothy McVeigh, watch footage of a neo-Nazi rally, or even sit down with a 1998 movie like American History X, the story of a skinhead played by Edward Norton, and you will discern a disturbing pattern. Beyond epithets, the vocabulary of lunacy and hatred is now part of our vernacular.” (10/22/26)

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/10/22/the-rhetorical-triumph-of-the-neo-nazis/

Source: Libertarian Institute
by Joseph Solis-Mullen

“One of the most persistent myths about war is that it is sometimes inevitable. States are carried along by the impersonal forces of history: the balance of power, alliance commitments, ideological antagonisms, the rise and decline of great powers, et cetera. Leaders may make mistakes along the way, but these are trivia, for the ultimate outcome was determined by circumstances beyond their control. And while it is true the international environment constrains the choices available to statesmen, sometimes severely, constraints are not immutable laws, and circumstances do not make decisions. But the false and persistent narratives are politically useful to the powerful, for the invocation of historical necessity serves to excuse the decisions of those who possess the power to make war and obfuscate their ultimate responsibility for having failed to do otherwise.” (10/22/260

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/war-is-a-policy-not-an-inevitability/

Source: CounterPunch
by Peter Rodgers

“On September 28, Brent crude climbed more than 2 percent after President Donald Trump rejected an Iranian proposal to end the conflict and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Six days earlier, speaking before the United Nations, Trump had presented two possibilities: a deal with Tehran or the ‘annihilation of the Islamic Republic’. Even after rejecting the proposal, he said negotiations could continue. One president retained the power to bargain, refuse or escalate; millions of people were left to live with the consequences. That gap between who decides and who pays is the subject of the Iran war. It has a name: war livestock.” (10/22/26)

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/10/22/war-livestock-when-power-treats-people-as-expendable/