Source: American Greatness
by Stu Cvrk

“Failing to prosecute politically connected wrongdoers promptly and with the same severity applied to ordinary citizens emboldens further and more brazen misconduct by the individuals who escape consequence. Furthermore, non-enforcement itself functions as an incentive structure to others contemplating corrupt actions. And a justice system that appears, case after case, to apply one set of rules to the politically connected and another to everyone else breeds cynicism and corrodes public trust in the institutions responsible for enforcing the law. The purpose of this article is to test that well-established pattern against four decades-long case studies plus three additional cases that have matured substantially in the years since the political events that first drew scrutiny. Part I covered Edward Kennedy and the Clintons; this part examines John Kerry, John Brennan, James Comey, Hunter Biden, and the Uranium One case.” (10/16/26)

https://amgreatness.com/2026/10/16/delayed-accountability-in-the-american-political-class-part-two/

Source: Desultory Scribblings
by Tyler Harris

“‘These are the times that try men’s souls’ So wrote Thomas Paine 250 years ago about a long, dark winter when the young nation’s fortunes looked so bleak that many feared it might yet arrive stillborn. Now, the eldest and most celebrated liberal democracy on Earth finds herself again contemplating the grave. Even far on the exurban outskirts of our nation’s capital, a capital now home to the world’s most militarized algae plume, the steady drumbeat of failure wafts out from its source like a relentless, festering wind. It’s enough to make anyone despair.” (10/16/26)

https://tylerjohnharris.substack.com/p/a-long-dark-summer

Source: The Volokh Conspiracy
by Ilya Somin

“Tyranny of the majority is obviously a problem distinctive to democracy. The same goes for rational voter ignorance, which arises from the perverse incentive structure of individual voters, who have only an infinitesimally small chance of influencing electoral outcomes. And, while illiberal forces can and do seize power under authoritarian systems, the pathways democracies (usually involving the electoral process) create for them are distinctive.” (10/17/26)

https://reason.com/volokh/2026/10/17/libertarianism-and-democracy-revisited-a-rejoinder-to-matt-zwolinski/

Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone

“People are manipulated into believing the story that Israel’s existence must be preserved at all cost because of this religious belief or that political ideology. People are manipulated into believing the story that western elections are real and that voting in the two-party system is the only path toward beneficial policies. People are manipulated into believing the story that capitalism is the best possible system, and that socialism always fails (organically, all by itself) because its tenets go against human nature. People are manipulated into believing the story that the US-led liberal world order, while perhaps flawed, is still our best shot at a just and stable world. People are manipulated into believing the story that the mass media are telling us the truth about our society and the world, and that everything works pretty much the way we were taught in school.” (10/18/26)

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/10/18/all-our-problems-are-caused-by-believed-narrative/

Source: The American Conservative
by W James Antle III

“In the last consumer price index report before the midterm elections, inflation was up to 3.7 percent. It’s still a far cry from the 9.1 percent peak under former President Joe Biden, but that offers little comfort to vulnerable congressional Republicans. President Donald Trump’s job approval rating on the economy sits at just 33.8 percent in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. … It is against this backdrop that Republicans will be defending their narrow congressional majorities. And while the polls in some of the most competitive Senate races look iffy, the national electoral environment is indisputably bad for the GOP. These dire conditions have arisen as a result of Trump’s own choices. The biggest driver of the most recent inflation is a spike in energy prices caused by the Iran war.” (10/17/26)

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/trump-like-biden-has-become-a-president-of-inflation-and-war/

Source: New York Post
by staff

“With Democrats poised to regain much of their Washington muscle, it’s ever more urgent to notice how they abused that power so recently. Consider Wednesday’s blockbuster report from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency outlining how nine big banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, used purely political criteria to deny services to perfectly lawful consumers — when getting ‘debanked’ is often a financial death sentence. And the debankers regularly relied on the hatemongering-for-profit Southern Poverty Law Center as an authority for who to ban. This was no small abuse: The OCC investigation covered more than 100,000 consumer complaints and 50,000 internal bank documents. A JPMorgan payment platform booted merchants with ‘MAGA’ and ‘America First’ in their profiles — and another for working with a group whose ‘crime’ was that a member accurately described the Black Lives Matter movement as Marxist.” (10/17/26)

https://nypost.com/2026/10/17/opinion/democrats-debanking-abuses-show-theyre-the-big-threat-to-democracy/