Source: Fox News
by Mehek Cooke

“The United States government shutdown drags on, marking a pivotal moment in America’s fiscal and constitutional history. President Donald Trump, the negotiator-in-chief, isn’t blinking. He’s swinging the axe at bloated, Democrat-run bureaucracies that have taken trillions from hardworking Americans for decades. While Nancy Pelosi and her party claim ‘chaos’ and Trump is turning crisis into clarity — freezing $26 billion in blue-state pork, halting green-energy pet projects and directing departments to prepare reduction-in-force plans as part of a broader review of spending and accountability. Those plans are now in motion: the Office of Management and Budget confirmed that federal layoffs have begun, with cuts underway in Health, Homeland Security and Commerce.” (10/15/25)

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trump-using-government-shutdown-do-something-no-president-has-ever-done

Source: The Intercept
by Alain Stephens

“They keep carving out calendar space for Charlie Kirk — days of remembrance, resolutions, flag orders — demanding the hush and reverence reserved for real moral witnesses. Congress moved to mark today as a ‘National Day of Remembrance;’ the White House ordered flags at half-staff after his death; towns are issuing local proclamations like it’s a civic sacrament. … The goal of the far right, Christian nationalists, and white supremacists in this moment is clear: to fix Kirk in the public imagination where Dr. King once stood. But the point isn’t to honor a tradition of justice — it’s to replace it entirely.” (10/14/25)

https://theintercept.com/2025/10/14/charlie-kirk-remembrance-mlk/

Source: Cato Institute
by Norbert Michel

“Populists from both major U.S. political parties have ditched the founding American principles that are integral to the nation’s economic and social development. … These principles, though imperfectly implemented, have proven invaluable to Americans. Tragically, the populists’ positions have been based on myths and deceit from the beginning. They insist that somewhere around the 1970s, the American middle class was hollowed out. As this story goes, policy makers’ blind adherence to free-market ideology triggered the catastrophe by killing the U.S. manufacturing sector. Those lucky few Americans who could find new jobs took low-paying ones in the service sector, and personal-income growth flatlined for the next five decades. It’s difficult to explain just how much is wrong with this story. For starters, Americans’ income growth over the past five decades has not been stagnant. It’s been great — and not just for the rich.” (10/14/25)

https://www.cato.org/commentary/americas-middle-class-has-not-been-hollowed-out-far-it

Source: Niskanen Center
by Rachel Levine & Liza Reed

“Permitting reform has reemerged as a priority in the 119th Congress as lawmakers seek to address the gap between stagnant energy supply and surging demand that is pushing prices higher. Today’s permitting processes are not streamlined, and reform has long eluded lawmakers seeking to cut red tape for new critical infrastructure builds. Negotiations on the Energy Permitting Reform Act (EPRA) got close to a deal, but collapsed toward the end of the 118th Congress. Despite the deepening partisan divisions that have led to a shutdown of the federal government, lawmakers still have an opportunity to score a trifecta of energy-related reforms that would promote clean-firm generation, common sense updates to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and streamline permitting for nationally significant transmission lines.” (10/14/25)

https://www.niskanencenter.org/permitting-reform-is-back-and-heres-how-congress-can-get-it-done-this-time

Source: In These Times
by Sare Myklebust & Saqib Bhatti

“In the United States, we are living through a time of crisis. We’re witnessing a U.S.-backed genocide as Palestinian children are being starved. Our government is disappearing immigrants and U.S. citizens alike because of the color of their skin and their willingness to speak truth to power. Millions lack basic healthcare, companies are kicking families out of their homes and most of us are paid barely enough to survive. We’re living on the edge, terrified and traumatized. Meanwhile, the perpetrators of this unbearable status quo (billionaires, their companies and the government structures they now control) are using our money to fund these injustices while building their fortunes. Pension funds (totaling $6.1 trillion in state and local defined-benefit funds alone, as of March) are among the largest pots of our money that private equity firms and other financial players use to make themselves richer while ravaging our communities.” (10/15/25)

https://inthesetimes.com/article/strategy-to-stop-billionaires-pensions-retirement-gaza-palestine