Source: The Realist Review
by James W Carden
“[A]t the heart of the new Progressive foreign policy is a very old and very tired idea indeed, and one that is shared with equal fervor by corporate Democrats such as Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Jake Sullivan, and the legacy media: That the post-World War II global order must be defended against all comers. Progressives like Sanders and AOC are able to separate themselves from corporatists like Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer by camouflaging their principal concern—the preservation of American global ‘leadership’—through repeated references to their own parochial social concerns. In other words, the foreign policy alternative politicians like Sanders and his proteges within certain precincts of what I call Restraint, Inc. (including the Center for International Policy, the Institute for Policy Studies, and most (but not all) of the researchers and scholars at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft) is no alternative at all.” (10/16/26)
https://therealistreview.substack.com/p/the-pluralism-gap
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
“I have come to believe that James Talarico, the Democrats’ Senate candidate in Texas, is generally sincere in his beliefs. I trust he won’t take that as a compliment. Like most admirers of Donald Trump, like teachers who believe they are underpaid, like people who believe that the sun is a fiery chariot driven by Apollo, etc., Talarico sincerely believes things that are not true.” (10/16/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/james-talarico-billionaires-capitalism/
Source: New York Times
“Prosecutors who had failed to convict Mr. Simpson of murder have given little credence to the notion of an accomplice. The police, too. Many people considered the details of Mr. Simpson’s hypothetical confession a fantasy, part of a desperate effort to cash in on his waning fame and notoriety amid growing money struggles and scrapes with the law. But today, more than 30 years after the ‘trial of the century,’ newly uncovered evidence suggests that Mr. Simpson’s account should not have been so readily dismissed. A New York Times examination, based on recently unsealed court files, interviews and other evidence, details long-hidden information about the missing murder weapon, Mr. Simpson’s supposed efforts to cover up the crime, as well as the possibility of an accomplice. … The double murder prosecution of Mr. Simpson, who was acquitted by a jury, remains one of the most scrutinized cases in popular culture, spawning endless theories.” (10/18/26)
https://archive.is/kUNf4
Source: The American Conservative
“Andrew Day and Luke Nicastro discuss the Trump-Putin diesel deal, the Trump-Zelensky spat, the ‘energy ceasefire’ that wasn’t, Ukraine’s grim prospects this winter, and a new book on progressive foreign policy edited by Matt Duss, A World for All.” (10/16/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/tac-right-now-trump-turns-on-zelensky/
Source: The Daily Economy
by David Hebert
“Nobel laureates helped explain how expectations shape spending decisions, inflation, and the effectiveness of economic policy. Yes, that feels obvious.” (10/16/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/expectations-matter-this-years-economics-nobel-explains-why/
Source: Exiled Policy
by Jason Pye
“A religious undecided voter questioned James Talarico on abortion.” (10/16/26)
https://exiledpolicy.substack.com/p/the-bible-doesnt-prohibit-abortion
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“An 80m (263ft) luxury vessel has been repeatedly spotted in satellite images off North Korea’s Wonsan coast from July to mid-October this year. What stands out is the 50m swimming pool along the deck, with a cluster of waterslides at one end. After sitting idle for months at a maintenance facility, it relocated in early July to waters off a strip of coastline known as the Kalma Peninsula. This is close to Wonsan, a seaside resort with a sprawling villa used by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his family. It was not the only large vessel on the move. A handful of others were also repeatedly seen near Kim’s villa, in satellite images analysed by the BBC. The vessels are widely believed to be used by Kim and his family.” (10/17/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cmy4xnyyg1lyo
Source: The Dispatch
“Our Populist Hissy Fit Needs to Stop | Ruminant.” (10/17/26)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/remnant/our-populist-hissy-fit-needs-to-stop-ruminant/
Source: Law & Liberty
by Jon Miltimore
“An intelligent, attractive former student commits a ghastly murder, reasoning that he is doing society a favor by ridding the world of a greedy capitalist. He is eventually taken into custody by authorities, jailed, and tried. This scenario does not describe Luigi Mangione, the affluent 28-year-old who recently admitted to killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in 2024 in an apparent message to the health-insurance industry. The tale is far older: it describes Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s nineteenth-century masterpiece Crime and Punishment.” (10/16/26)
https://lawliberty.org/dostoevsky-and-the-mangione-mind/
Source: The American Prospect
by Robert Kuttner
“On Wednesday, the Consumer Price Index for September came in hotter than expected. Inflation was up at an annual rate of 3.7 percent. Gasoline prices rose 34 percent over the past year, and home heating oil is up a staggering 74 percent. Combined with other factors, this news spooked the stock market. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell by 2.7 percent. Then on Thursday, the Producer Price Index (PPI) report clocked a wholesale price rise of 1.3 percent just in September, an increase of 6.3 percent over the past year, and the largest 12-month increase since December 2022. The other factors signaling deep trouble include a bond market that keeps bidding up rates on long-term Treasury securities, now the highest since 2002, reflecting expectations of more inflation, and increasing interest costs throughout the economy. This in turn adds to consumer and small-business pain and increases borrowing costs for the heavily leveraged tech sector.” (10/16/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/10/16/perfect-economic-storm-trump-inflation/
