Source: Asia Times
by Altaf Moti
“The war between the United States and Iran is no longer just a confrontation between Washington and Tehran. A second contest is taking shape alongside and behind it. China is not fighting the United States directly, but its economic, technological and diplomatic links to Iran are complicating Washington’s strategy and ability to win the conflict.” (10/02/26)
https://asiatimes.com/2026/10/the-china-factor-behind-the-iran-war/
Source: SFGate
“President Donald Trump is promising more payments to voters just ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections — this time, to more than 20 million seniors, giving them $90 each to help pay for Medicare premiums. The announcement, made late Friday night by Trump on social media, comes after the president last month said about 1 million people would get rebate checks of $500 for Affordable Care Act premiums. He has also promised on the campaign trail to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections. That pledge (which would require approval from Congress) would likely cost more than $1 trillion, adding to the deficit and worsening inflation. Trump highlighted his $5,000 promise at a rally in Vandalia, Ohio, on Saturday night, and told supporters that 70,000 families in the state would receive the ACA rebates ‘within the next couple of days’.” (10/03/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/trump-announces-90-payments-for-seniors-on-22461222.php
Source: The Dispatch
“Sen. Schmitt’s Failed Attack on Jack Smith.” (10/02/26)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/dispatch-podcast/sen-schmitts-failed-attack-on-jack-smith/
Source: Free Association
by Sheldon Richman
“For laissez-faire liberal Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), political trouble began with ‘the unhesitating belief … that evils of all kinds should be dealt with by the State.’ The fatal first step is a government promise to rescue people from their own bad choices, such as their preference for indolence and other irresponsibility. That was a mistake because, as Spencer wrote elsewhere, ‘The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.’ Shielding people from their folly is not only bad in itself, but it also sets in motion a perverse political dynamic that, if allowed to persist, would doom freedom itself.” (10/02/26)
https://sheldonrichman.substack.com/p/tgif-spencer-foresaw-the-coming-slavery
Source: Town Hall
by Mark Lucas
“The warriors who defend this country must have their votes counted. That requires two things. The first is access. They need the time, the training, and the assistance to register and cast a ballot from wherever the country sends them. The second is protection. Their votes must not be diluted by overseas civilian ballots cast under rules Congress never wrote. The Pentagon has failed on both counts. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is correcting that. Start with access. In 2010 and 2011 I served as an infantry rifle platoon leader in Afghanistan. We operated from a remote combat outpost on the Pakistani border, fighting the Taliban and the Haqqani terror network. Those were the deadliest years of the war. I also ran the Federal Voting Assistance Program for my unit.” (10/03/26)
https://townhall.com/columnists/mark-lucas/2026/10/03/the-pentagon-neglected-its-own-voters-hegseth-is-correcting-it-n2684041
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“We here at the Prospect like to point out the ways in which economic power routinely converts into political power. We saw a particularly gruesome example of that this week. Tech executives converged on D.C. for a lunch with Donald Trump that eventually led to a toothless, completely voluntary AI safety agreement. Public Citizen did the service of tallying up all the money that these executives, their families, or the corporations they lead have given to Trump’s campaign, his super PAC MAGA Inc., his inauguration fund, legal settlements that personally enriched the president, or various vanity projects like the White House ballroom. The total came out to $227 million. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, who accounts for $23 million of that total, substantially devised the ‘morally binding’ self-regulatory compact to police AI models that came out of the meeting, and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang (a mere $1 million) was his key lieutenant.” (10/02/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/10/02/ai-spending-trump-openai-greg-brockman-has-become-punching-bag/
Source: The Hill
“President Trump repeatedly berated Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Saturday over his stance on a daylight savings [sic] bill after posting the Republican Congress member’s cell phone number on social media. In a morning Truth Social post, the president encouraged his supporters to call the senator and urge him to back legislation that would make daylight savings [sic] time the permanent standard time. After Cotton stood by his position in a brief statement shared later Saturday, which didn’t directly mention the president or the leak, Trump went back on the offensive. … Trump blamed the GOP lawmaker for holding up the bill in the upper chamber after the House passed the legislation in July with broad bipartisan support.” (10/03/26)
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6127691-trump-cotton-fued-daylight-savings-posts/
Source: Free Talk Live
“Sal checks in from lunch in Florida on his way to Prague, where he’s speaking at Dark Prague on agorism and crypto anarchy. … Mark Edge is joined by Jody Underwood of Education Options (EdOpt) to talk school choice in New Hampshire. They cover tuition-free charter schools, Education Freedom Accounts, runaway school spending, and why the families who could benefit most are often the hardest to reach.” (10/02/26)
https://soundcloud.com/freetalklive/samep22
