11/01 -- Russia: Regime says "partial mobilisation" is complete; Why Are Critics Afraid To Confront the Ukraine Lobby?
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Thomas L. Knapp
Nov 1, 2022, 7:03:55 AM11/1/22
to Freedom News Daily
Freedom News Daily, 11/01/22
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Produced by the staff of Rational Review News Digest
https://news.rationalreview.com/
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Today's Freedom News:
0) Year-End Fundraiser Update: Sprint or Marathon?
1) Russia: Regime says "partial mobilisation" is complete
2) Iran: Regime plans show trials for up to 2,000 political prisoners
3) Judge dismisses Meadows lawsuit against Capitol riot exploitation committee
4) Oil slides as China factory gauge slumps; natural-gas futures snap back sharply higher
5) Delta pilots overwhelmingly vote to authorize strike
6) Instagram bug tells some users accounts are suspended
7) SCOTUS: Justices raise doubts on racist college admissions standards
8) Weinstein trial: Woman says two sexual assaults came 17 years apart
9) MI: Cop will stand trial on murder charges in Lyoya killing
10) NASA takes image of "smiling" sun, but it's no laughing matter
11) Mexico: Expert group warns of crisis in missing students case
12) Musk disbands Twitter's board, cementing control over company
13) Report: US to Deploy Nuclear-Capable B-52s to Australia
14) Dow closes lower on Monday, but still posts best month since 1976
15) KS: Ground search of Native American site delayed
16) Singapore: Central bank to trial digital currency
17) Passenger crawls off plane after allegedly being asked to pay for wheelchair service
18) NY: Men exonerated in the Malcolm X killing will receive $36 million
19) AZ: Feds "concerned" about armed people at ballot boxes
20) China: Regime launches third and last component of space station
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Why Are Critics Afraid To Confront the Ukraine Lobby?
22) Why the Ethics of "Would You Kill Baby Hitler?" Are More Important Than You Probably Think
23) Can Elon Musk's Purchase of Twitter Actually Benefit Liberty?
24) The Long, Indecisive War in Ukraine is Reshaping the Political World Map
25) Elon Musk's Paul Pelosi Tweet Shows We're in a Post-Truth World
26) Integrity in Brazil's vote
27) Haiti's Elites Keep Calling for the US Marines
28) Voters care about crime. Here's what lawmakers should do about it.
29) When My Congressman Told Me Weapons Companies Are "Good"
30) Truth Cops
31) Will the Midterms Change Anything?
32) Election Will Decide America's Direction For a Long Time
33) The Crime Wave That Republicans Defend
34) Inflation, High Inflation, Hyperinflation
35) No US Negotiations with Russia
36) Science Misconceived: How the Covid Epoch Wrecked Understanding
37) Three mistakes that will cost Democrats the midterms
38) ATF, Enforcer of Gun Laws, Lost "Thousands of Firearms, Firearm Parts" to Thieves
39) Satoshi Nakamoto's Seminal Bitcoin White Paper Turns 14 Today
40) Underfunded diplomacy is feature (not a bug) of US foreign policy
41) New Study Finds The Rest Of The World Supports China And Russia
42) Another Case for Free Speech [sic]
43) The Nightmare of the Soul
44) Dorothy Day Didn't Do It This Way: What It Really Means to Be Pro-Life in 2022
45) Everyone Is Laughing at the Ridiculous Pelosi Big Lie
46) Ramping Up Government's War on Savings
47) The January 6 committee is just another partisan stunt
48) Lessons from the Russian gas debacle
49) Don't Look Now But Progressives Are About to Expand Their Ranks in Congress
50) Today's Hawkish Discourse Makes the Cuban Missile Crisis's Nuclear Brinkmanship Seem Sane
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Reason Roundtable, 10/31/22
52) EconTalk, 10/31/22
53) The Vital Center, episode 36
54) Conflicts of Interest, episode 343
55) Rising, 10/31/22
56) The Bryan Hyde Show, 10/31/22
57) Tech Tank, season 3, episode 22
58) The Chris Spangle Show, 10/31/22
59) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/31/22
60) Kyle Anzalon on The Scott Horton Show
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
0) Year-End Fundraiser Update: Sprint or Marathon?
Hey, everyone ...
Yesterday was a "zero-dollar day" in our year-end fundraiser. As of 6am Eastern this morning, our total remains at $1,398.
We're more than halfway to our goal of $5,150*, and we just passed one third of the time frame (October 1 thru December 31) to get there, so technically we're ahead of the curve.
But wouldn't it be nice to wrap this thing up early so I can mostly stop yammering about money until next October? If it has to be a marathon, well, okay ... but a sprint to the finish line would be much nicer.
If you value the freedom movement's daily newspaper -- and if you didn't you wouldn't be reading it -- please return some of that value as financial support at:
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
We're $1,177 away from wrapping this up. THANK YOU in advance for helping us do that!
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
* Yes, $1,398 IS more than half of $5,150, because supporter GL has pledged "matching funds" of up to half the goal. Once we've raised $2,275, GL will add another $2,275 and we'll be there. Please help out at:
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
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1) Russia: Regime says "partial mobilisation" is complete
Source: Reuters
"Russia has completed the partial military mobilisation announced by President Vladimir Putin in September, the Defence Ministry said on Monday. 'All activities related to the conscription ... of citizens in the reserve have been stopped,' the ministry said, and no further call-up notices would be issued. Putin announced Russia's first mobilisation since World War Two on Sept. 21, one of a series of escalatory measures in response to Ukrainian gains on the battlefield. Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said at the time that some 300,000 additional personnel would be drafted, and that they would be specialists with combat experience. But the mobilisation has proceeded chaotically, with many highly publicised cases of call-up notices going to the wrong men. Hundreds of thousands have fled Russia to avoid being drafted. ... The announcement on Monday -- day 250 of the war -- did not give a final figure for the number of men called up." (10/31/22)
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-completes-partial-mobilisation-defence-ministry-2022-10-31/
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2) Iran: Regime plans show trials for up to 2,000 political prisoners
Source: The Guardian [UK]
"Iran's judiciary has announced that it will hold public trials for as many as 1,000 people detained during recent protests in Tehran alone -- and more than a thousand others outside the capital -- as international concern grew over Iran's response to the protests that began with the [police murder] of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after her arrest. ... In a sign of the justice being handed out, Mohammad Ghobadlo, a protester who was arrested on the charge of 'corruption on earth' after participating in an anti-government rally, was sentenced to death after just one hearing, his mother said on Monday. 'My son is only 22 years old and he is also ill. They deprived him of having a lawyer and do not allow lawyers to enter the court,' Ghobadlo's mother said in a clip published online." (10/31/22)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/31/iran-to-hold-public-trials-for-up-to-2000-detained-amid-protests
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3) Judge dismisses Meadows lawsuit against Capitol riot exploitation committee
Source: Politico
"A federal judge has thrown out Mark Meadows'[s] year-old lawsuit over subpoenas from the House's Jan. 6 select committee, concluding that the former White House chief of staff was constitutionally barred from bringing it in the first place. In a 27-page ruling issued Monday night, U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols said that the Constitution's 'speech or debate' clause -- which prohibits lawsuits against lawmakers for anything associated with their legislative work -- applied in the case of the committee's subpoenas to Meadows issued in the fall of 2021. 'The record makes clear that the challenged subpoenas are protected legislative acts,' Nichols wrote in the decision. Meadows is likely to appeal the ruling, effectively putting his testimony out of reach for the Jan. 6 select committee, which is slated to dissolve at the end of the year." (10/31/22)
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/31/meadows-jan-6-committee-lawsuit-00064354
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4) Oil slides as China factory gauge slumps; natural-gas futures snap back sharply higher
Source: MarketWatch
"Oil futures fell early Monday, feeling pressure after a weak reading on China factory activity and a widening of COVID-19 curbs by the country. Previously beaten-down natural-gas futures, however, were soaring. ... December Brent crude, the global benchmark, was down $1.12, or 1.2%, at $94.65 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe, while January Brent, the most actively traded contract, declined $1.19, or 1.3%, to $92.58 a barrel. ... Natural-gas futures remained volatile, building on last week's 3.9% rebound. The Monday bounce is a continuation of recent developments around renewed liquefied natural-gas flows, with U.S. prices staring to recover after more than halving over the past two months, said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank." (10/31/22)
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/oil-slides-as-china-factory-gauge-slumps-natural-gas-futures-snap-back-sharply-higher-11667217990
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5) Delta pilots overwhelmingly vote to authorize strike
Source: The Hill
"Delta Air Lines pilots overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike on Monday if a new contract agreement with the carrier is not reached. The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), which represents the pilots, said 99 percent voted to call a strike if necessary, with the vast majority of its members participating. ... Under federal law, pilots cannot go on strike unless a federal government board declares an impasse in negotiations. After a 30-day cool off period, the union can go on strike or the carrier could initiate a lockout. The union on Monday said its pilots are working under a contract negotiated in 2016, and discussions about a new contract that began in April 2019 have not borne fruit." (10/31/22)
https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/3713140-delta-pilots-overwhelmingly-vote-to-authorize-strike/
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6) Instagram bug tells some users accounts are suspended
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
"Instagram users across the world have been reporting issues accessing their profiles. The Meta-owned social network says it is 'looking into' the problem, which has caused some people to be told they are suspended from the platform. DownDetector -- which monitors site outages -- says it has found that thousands of users are affected. Some have been shown a message saying that their account has been shut down for 30 days. A tweet from the official Instagram Communications account said: 'We're aware that some of you are having issues accessing your Instagram account. 'We're looking into it and apologise for the inconvenience.' The company has not yet offered any further details on what has caused the unusual issue." (10/31/22)
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63462082
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7) SCOTUS: Justices raise doubts on racist college admissions standards
Source: SFGate
"The survival of affirmative action in higher education appeared to be in serious trouble Monday at a conservative-dominated Supreme Court after hours of debate over difficult questions of race. The court is weighing challenges to admissions programs at the University of North Carolina and Harvard that use race among many factors in seeking a diverse student body. The court's six conservative justices all expressed doubts about the practice, while the three liberals defended the programs, which are similar to those used by many other private and public universities. Arguments in the North Carolina case topped 2 hours and 45 minutes, having been scheduled for 90 minutes. Following the overturning of the half-century abortion precedent of Roe v. Wade in June, the cases offer a big new test of whether the court now dominated 6-3 by conservatives will jolt the law to the right on another of the nation's most contentious cultural issues." (10/31/22)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Supreme-Court-takes-up-race-conscious-college-17545895.php
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8) Weinstein trial: Woman says two sexual assaults came 17 years apart
Source: WBTV News
"A woman testified Monday that Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted her in a hotel room during the Toronto Film Festival in 1991, then did it again when she went to confront him in the same hotel during the same festival 17 years later. On the witness stand at Weinstein's Los Angeles trial, she said she was a 24-year-old aspiring actor at the 1991 festival and didn't know who Weinstein was before she met him at a party. ... She said she was charmed by Weinstein at first as they discussed books and films. She said the two of them left the party for a glass of wine at a nearby cafe, then she went with him to his room at the Four Seasons Hotel because he said he had a script for a film with a role that would be perfect for him [sic]." (10/31/22)
https://www.wbtv.com/2022/10/31/woman-says-2-weinstein-sexual-assaults-came-17-years-apart/
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9) MI: Cop will stand trial on murder charges in Lyoya killing
Source: Axios
"A Michigan judge ruled Monday that ex-police officer Christopher Schurr must stand trial for shooting and killing an unarmed [b]lack man during an April traffic stop. Judge Nicholas S. Ayoub said there is probable cause to try Schurr for second-degree murder in the death of Patrick Lyoya, who was 26. His killing -- and footage that showed Schurr lying on Lyoya's back before shooting him in the head -- led to protests in Grand Rapids. ... [In his opinion, Ayoub wrote] 'The clear depiction of the incident in the video strongly infers that defendant knew he was pointing the gun and firing it at close range to [Lyoya's] head, which, in turn, is sufficient to establish probable cause to conclude that defendant acted with malice.' 'The only real debatable question here is whether defendant's actions were justified under the law," Ayoub noted." [10/31/22)
https://www.axios.com/2022/10/31/patrick-lyoya-michigan-police-trial
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10) NASA takes image of "smiling" sun, but it's no laughing matter
Source: Fox News
"Despite its seemingly 'smiling' appearance, an image of the grinning sun isn't as cheery as it looks. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory previously caught an image of the sun in ultraviolet light with three dark spots on its surface on Oct. 26, giving the illusion the sun was smiling. The smiling sun followed a partial solar eclipse Tuesday, though the two events were unrelated. What many viewed as a giant pumpkin in the sky, though, consequently prompted a minor geomagnetic storm watch on Saturday. The dark patches, formally called coronal holes, are areas through which fast solar wind gushes out into space. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center issued an alert on Saturday, stating the coronal holes were 'anticipated to enhance and disturb the solar wind environment and lead to unsettled conditions.'" (10/31/22)
https://www.foxnews.com/science/nasa-takes-image-smiling-sun-no-laughing-matter
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11) Mexico: Expert group warns of crisis in missing students case
Source: SFGate
"A group of international experts investigating the 2014 disappearance of 43 students in southern Mexico warned Monday that an attempt by the government to accelerate the results has created a 'crisis' for the investigation and risks diminishing confidence in the outcome. At a crucial stage, the special prosecutor who has led the government's investigation since 2019 resigned in September over apparent interference by the attorney general and the government replaced him with someone unfamiliar with the case. A government Truth Commission report in August muddied the waters by presenting questionable screen captures of message exchanges as evidence, according to the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts. The group was created by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to investigate the abduction and forced disappearance of students from the Ayotzinapa teachers' college in the state of Guerrero." (10/31/22)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Expert-group-warns-of-crisis-in-Mexico-missing-17547596.php
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12) Musk disbands Twitter's board, cementing control over company
Source: CNN
"Twitter's board of directors was dissolved on Thursday following Elon Musk's takeover of the company, according to a securities filing on Monday. The company filing states that all previous members of Twitter's board, including recently ousted CEO Parag Agrawal and chairman Bret Taylor, are no longer directors 'in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement.' Musk, according to the filing, became 'the sole director of Twitter.' ... Almost immediately after Musk completed his $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter on Thursday, Musk terminated at least four of its top executives, including Agrawal." (10/31/22)
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/31/tech/elon-musk-twitter-board/index.html
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13) Report: US to Deploy Nuclear-Capable B-52s to Australia
Source: Common Dreams
"In what critics are calling a 'dangerous escalation,' the United States is reportedly preparing to deploy up to six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to northern Australia, where they would be close enough to strike China. 'The ability to deploy U.S. Air Force bombers to Australia sends a strong message to adversaries about our ability to project lethal air power,' the U.S. Air Force told 'Four Corners', a television program of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), on Sunday. ... Investigative journalist Peter Cronau, however, described the plan, which came with 'no debate [or] discussion,' as 'military madness [that] is fanning tensions with China.'" (10/31/22)
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/10/31/military-madness-us-deploy-nuclear-capable-b-52s-australia-provoking-china
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14) Dow closes lower on Monday, but still posts best month since 1976
Source: CNBC
"Stocks slipped on Monday, but the Dow capped off its best month since 1976 and all the major averages snapped a two-month losing streak. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 128.85 points, or 0.39%, to settle at 32,732.95. The S&P 500 shed 0.75% to finish at 3,871.98, while the Nasdaq Composite tumbled 1.03% to 10,988.15. Markets made a huge comeback in October. The Dow guided those gains, soaring 13.95% for the month." (10/31/22)
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/30/stock-market-news-futures-open-to-close.html
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15) KS: Ground search of Native American site delayed
Source: US News & World Report
"A plan to search for unmarked graves at a former Native American boarding school in Kansas is on hold amid a disagreement between a Shawnee Tribe and state and city officials overseeing the site. The Kansas Historical Society announced last year that the Kansas Geological Survey at the University of Kansas would conduct a ground-penetrating radar survey at the Shawnee Indian Mission in Fairway. However, Fairway officials said last week the proposal was on hold indefinitely after Shawnee Tribe Chief Ben Barnes raised concerns that the tribe was not consulted about the proposal and future plans for the 12-acre (4.86-hectare) site. The Shawnee Tribe pushed last year for a study of the site, formerly known as the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School. It was one of hundreds of schools run by the government and religious groups in the 1800s and 1900s that removed Indigenous children from their families to assimilate them into white culture and Christianity." (10/31/22)
https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2022-10-31/ground-search-of-native-american-site-in-kansas-delayed
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16) Singapore: Central bank to trial digital currency
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
"Singapore's central bank on Monday announced that it was exploring the concept of a purpose-bound digital currency, which can be used to issue government vouchers and payouts among others, though it noted that the case for a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) is 'not compelling for now.' The purpose-bound digital currency is just the first phase of a larger project in partnership with private firms and a move towards establishing the technical infrastructure and competencies needed for a retail CBDC in the future. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in a press release that purpose-bound digital currency would allow senders to specify conditions, such as an expiration date of the voucher and types of shops, when making transfers with its digital currency." (10/31/22)
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3197890/singapores-central-bank-trial-digital-currency-mulls-use-stepping-stone-build-tech-infrastructure
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17) Passenger crawls off plane after allegedly being asked to pay for wheelchair service
Source: Fox Business
"A Jetstar passenger with a disability says she was humiliated after having to crawl off the airplane in order to get to her wheelchair. Video of Australian passenger Natalie Curtis surfaced over the weekend, showing Curtis using her hands to lift her body down the plane's aisle after it landed in Bangkok. After the plane landed, Curtis was reportedly told that she would have to pay extra to use a special wheelchair that fits in the plane's aisle, which would transfer her from her seat to her own wheelchair, according to multiple reports. She said she refused the service because it is normally free, according to local Australian news outlet, 7NEWS Townsville." (10/31/22)
https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/passenger-crawls-off-plane-allegedly-asked-pay-wheelchair-service
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18) NY: Men exonerated in the Malcolm X killing will receive $36 million
Source: National Public Radio [US state media]
"The city of New York is settling lawsuits filed on behalf of two men who were exonerated last year for the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X, agreeing to pay $26 million for the wrongful convictions which led to both men spending decades behind bars. The state of New York will pay an additional $10 million. David Shanies, an attorney representing the men, confirmed the settlements on Sunday. ... Last year, a Manhattan judge dismissed the convictions of Aziz, now 84, and Islam, who died in 2009, after prosecutors said new evidence of witness intimidation and suppression of exculpatory evidence had undermined the case against the men. Then-District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. apologized for law enforcement's 'serious, unacceptable violations of law and the public trust.'" (10/31/22)
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/31/1132757141/the-men-exonerated-in-the-malcolm-x-killing-will-receive-36-million
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19) AZ: Feds "concerned" about armed people at ballot boxes
Source: SFGate
"Reports of people watching ballot boxes in Arizona, sometimes armed or wearing ballistic vests, raise serious concerns about voter intimidation, the Justice Department said Monday as it stepped into a lawsuit over the monitoring. The statement from the Justice Department comes days after a federal judge refused to bar a group from monitoring the outdoor drop boxes in the suburbs of Phoenix. Threats, intimidation and coercion are illegal under the federal Voting Rights Act, even if they doesn't succeed, the government's attorneys wrote. While lawful poll watching can support transparency, 'ballot security forces' present a significant risk of voter intimidation, the court documents state. 'While the First Amendment protects expressive conduct and peaceable assembly generally, it affords no protection for threats of harm directed at voters,' U.S. government attorneys wrote." (10/31/22)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Feds-concerned-about-armed-people-at-Arizona-17547570.php
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20) China: Regime launches third and last component of space station
Source: CBS News
"China on Monday launched the third and final module to complete its permanent space station, realizing a more than decade-long endeavor to maintain a constant crewed presence in orbit. ... Mengtian, or 'Celestial Dream,' joins Wentian as the second laboratory module for the station, collectively known as Tiangong, or 'Celestial Palace.' Both are connected to the Tianhe core module where the crew lives and works. ... Following Mengtian's arrival, an additional un-crewed Tianzhou cargo craft is due to dock with the station next month with another crewed mission scheduled for December, at which time crews may overlap -- Tiangong has room to accommodate six astronauts. (10/31/22)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-space-station-component-mengtian-third-last/
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Why Are Critics Afraid To Confront the Ukraine Lobby?
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Galen Carpenter
"There is a concerted effort in the United States and Europe to intimidate, smear, and silence anyone who dares criticize Ukraine's government or the Biden administration's policy on the Russia-Ukraine war. The latest example was the decision of the Congressional Progressive Caucus to retract an open letter it had sent to the president just days earlier urging him to give higher priority to diplomacy as a way of ending the bloodshed. ... Ukraine and its Western supporters have fostered a campaign of outright neo-McCarthyism, utterly chilling debate regarding policy toward the Zelensky government. The overall pro-Ukraine propaganda campaign was underway long before Russia invaded Ukraine, but it has grown much worse since then. The level of intimidation that Ukraine's Western political and media allies foster, though, pales compared to the menace flowing directly from Kyiv. Zelensky and his colleagues have no tolerance for even the most peaceful opponents, domestic or foreign." (11/01/22)
https://original.antiwar.com/ted_galen_carpenter/2022/10/31/why-are-critics-afraid-to-confront-the-ukraine-lobby-2/
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22) Why the Ethics of "Would You Kill Baby Hitler?" Are More Important Than You Probably Think
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jon Miltimore
"In 2015, New York Times magazine asked, If you could go back and kill Hitler as a baby, would you do it? Readers couldn't reach a majority consensus. Forty-two percent said yes, they'd kill Hitler in his infancy. Twenty-eight percent said they were not sure. Just 30 percent gave a definitive no, saying they would not kill the child. Some say the Baby Hitler question is 'a more dramatic version of the trolley problem,' but there's a key difference: the former scenario involves a clear and explicit act of murder, versus merely flipping a switch to save some lives. ...It's asking a clear question: would you commit murder to save lives? How one answers the Baby Hitler question can reveal a lot about one's moral philosophy." (10/31/22)
https://fee.org/articles/why-the-ethics-of-would-you-kill-baby-hitler-are-more-important-than-you-probably-think/
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23) Can Elon Musk's Purchase of Twitter Actually Benefit Liberty?
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Michael Rectenwald
"Musk is by no means a model for free market libertarians, but his takeover and remodeling of Twitter is no less a significant eventuality in the struggle for liberty against the woke cartel and the state that it supports. What happens on Twitter will not only be a test of Musk's sincerity and resolve but also of the power of the woke cartel's regime for enforcing state dictates and narratives." (10/31/22)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/can-elon-musks-purchase-of-twitter-actually-benefit-liberty/
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24) The Long, Indecisive War in Ukraine is Reshaping the Political World Map
Source: CounterPunch
by Patrick Cockburn
"So far the Ukraine war looks more like the First than the Second World War, in that it is likely to be long and indecisive. (1918 Germany had sought an armistice but no Allied troops had crossed the German frontier). Neither Russia nor Ukraine are likely to win a total victory, though both have the will to go on fighting in the hope of doing so. The prospect of an endless war in Europe should not be surprising, since this has been the pattern in recent wars in Syria, Yemen and Libya. ... Ukraine may appear different as a poor but modern state, but so too were Iraq and Libya before their infrastructures were destroyed." (10/31/22)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/31/the-long-indecisive-war-in-ukraine-is-reshaping-the-political-world-map/
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25) Elon Musk's Paul Pelosi Tweet Shows We're in a Post-Truth World
Source: The Daily Beast
by Matt Lewis
"I'm not naive. The American public has been lied to in the past. And the police and the media sometimes simply get it wrong. But what the right is now asking us to believe, in essence, is that we have no way of verifying or confirming that anything is real. It's possible Donald Trump is still the president. Maybe Tom Brady and the Buccaneers are really 8-0? It's possible that I'm not really writing this. Maybe we are all living in the matrix? We are now in a position where you either (a) believe that the police and the media are conspiring to lie to you to help elect Democrats, or (b) believe the owner of Twitter and the former president's son are wrongly blaming the victim of a violent attack and lying to you to as a service to Republicans. There are, in other words, two Americas." (10/31/22)
https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musks-paul-pelosi-tweet-shows-were-in-a-post-truth-world
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26) Integrity in Brazil's vote
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
"At a time of concern about a global erosion of the rule of law, some of the world's youngest At a time of concern about a global erosion of the rule of law, some of the world's youngest democracies are offering evidence that the ideal of government by the people is both resilient and enduring. The latest example is Brazil, where a tense presidential election concluded Oct. 30 in a peaceful vote for change. The result defied predictions of political violence. It showed that, even in the most deeply divided societies, credible democratic institutions provide a bulwark against the destabilizing effects of disinformation. 'If there is anything Brazilians should appreciate tonight, it is the efficiency and reliability of their voting system,' Valentina Sader, associate director at the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, told the Atlantic Council after the vote." (10/31/22)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2022/1031/Integrity-in-Brazil-s-vote
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27) Haiti's Elites Keep Calling for the US Marines
Source: Foreign Policy
by Jonathan M Katz
"At the end of the first U.S. occupation of Haiti -- a period of brutal domination from 1915 to 1934 -- a critic warned that U.S. forces would not be gone for long. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's State Department had left Haiti in the hands of a man friendly to its core interests: the Haitian conservative Stenio Vincent, whose otherwise fervent nationalism was tempered by a deep affection for U.S.-centric capitalism. The critic, the American journalist and orator William Pickens, wrote in the NAACP's flagship magazine, The Crisis, in June 1935: 'The marines are gone, but the American Financial Adviser is still there, collecting for American creditors, and if opposing Haitian factions start cutting each other's throats with their machetes, [Vincent] may yell for the marines to come and help him protect the money bags.' Now, another yell is coming from Port-au-Prince." (10/31/22)
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/31/haiti-us-intervention-gangs-united-nations/
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28) Voters care about crime. Here's what lawmakers should do about it.
Source: Niskanen Center
by Greg Newburn
"For decades, lawmakers have responded to crime by increasing penalties in the hope that the risk of severe sentences would deter would-be criminals. That strategy hasn't been entirely ineffective; most experts agree it played some role in the U.S. crime drop over the last several decades. Still, severity-centered criminal justice has not delivered the low crime rates its advocates had anticipated. Nor has it provided public safety benefits comparable to the substantial costs of mass incarceration. If crime control is the goal, we can do much better." (10/31/22)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/voters-care-about-crime-heres-what-lawmakers-should-do-about-it/
-----
29) When My Congressman Told Me Weapons Companies Are "Good"
Source: Common Dreams
by Danaka Katovich
"For a year, my neighborhood group Divest Mike has been trying to get in contact with our representative Mike Quigley to talk to him about campaign contributions coming from weapons companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and General Dynamics. We see it as our responsibility to take on the military industrial complex locally, where we have some power to make noise about it. These companies receive over 50% of our annual defense budget and any member of Congress taking money from them, then voting to give them billions of dollars should be held under a microscope by their constituents who care about peace. In the grand scheme of things, the donation amounts from those companies seems really small, so we see it as a reasonable ask for Quigley to stop taking money from them." (10/31/22)
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/10/31/when-my-congressman-told-me-weapons-companies-are-good
-----
30) Truth Cops
Source: The Intercept
by Ken Klippenstein & Lee Fang
"Behind closed doors, and through pressure on private platforms, the U.S. government has used its power to try to shape online discourse. According to meeting minutes and other records appended to a lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is also running for Senate, discussions have ranged from the scale and scope of government intervention in online discourse to the mechanics of streamlining takedown requests for false or intentionally misleading information. ... How disinformation is defined by the government has not been clearly articulated, and the inherently subjective nature of what constitutes disinformation provides a broad opening for DHS officials to make politically motivated determinations about what constitutes dangerous speech." (10/31/22)
https://theintercept.com/2022/10/31/social-media-disinformation-dhs/
-----
31) Will the Midterms Change Anything?
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
by Ron Paul
"While we should support those few politicians who stand up for liberty, we should remember that we cannot rely on politicians alone to restore liberty. Instead, the only way to win back our liberty is to change the political and cultural environment politicians operate in. That is why converting a critical mass of people to libertarianism is crucial." (10/31/22)
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/will-the-midterms-change-anything
-----
32) Election Will Decide America's Direction For a Long Time
Source: New York Post
by Karol Markowicz
"It's not as sexy as 'most important,' but in a few days we'll participate in an 'ideas' election in a way we haven't for a while: Who do we want to be as a country and where do we want to go? Unlike so many presidential elections, this race will not be driven by personality. America has had our share of those over the last 15 years. Whether President Barack Obama or President Donald Trump, people were signing up for the man far more than his actual ideas. But the personalities of the candidates in this midterm election, some good and some bad, are far less relevant than the direction the winners will take us." (10/31/22)
https://nypost.com/2022/10/30/this-ideas-election-will-decide-the-countrys-direction-for-a-long-time/
-----
33) The Crime Wave That Republicans Defend
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
"As my colleague Ryan Cooper explains today, the Republicans have amped up their message on crime, as they do every election season. In the fall of even-numbered years, 30-second ads portray America as a cesspool of danger and filth ... This is as perennial as the changing of leaf colors; it should come as no surprise to Democrats who still haven't found a good way to talk about the issue. But one option popped up last week at an event at the White House. Bracketed by Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Rohit Chopra, President Biden took aim at 'junk fees,' the vague and mysterious surcharges that show up on bank and credit card statements, airfares, cable bills, concert tickets, hotel bookings, gym memberships, and scores of other consumer purchases." (10/31/22)
https://prospect.org/power/corporate-crime-wave-that-republicans-defend/
-----
34) Inflation, High Inflation, Hyperinflation
Source: Cobden Centre
by Thorsten Polleit
"We know that inflation means a loss of purchasing power of money: When there is inflation, you get fewer and fewer goods in exchange for your money. In today's unbacked paper money system--the fiat money system--inflation is chronic, a daily plague, so to speak. The reason: state-sponsored central banks, which have the monopoly of money production, have set themselves the goal of delivering inflation of 2 percent per year. This may seem acceptable at first glance, but not at second glance. Because in doing so, central banks do not preserve the purchasing power of money over time; they deliberately reduce it! They are not currency guardians but currency destroyers. An inflation of 2 percent may seem 'small.' But over time, it leads to a considerable reduction in the purchasing power of money." (10/31/22)
https://www.cobdencentre.org/2022/10/inflation-high-inflation-hyperinflation/
-----
35) No US Negotiations with Russia
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
"Amidst the increasingly degrading situation in Ukraine, a number of American commentators are calling on President Biden to enter into negotiations with Russia in an attempt to resolve the crisis. I've got a better idea: the U.S. government should instead butt out of the crisis entirely. It should immediately stop furnishing military and financial aid to Ukraine, withdraw from NATO, abandon all U.S. military bases in Europe, and bring all U.S. troops home from that part of the world and discharge them into the private sector. That's just the first step." (10/31/22)
https://www.fff.org/2022/10/31/no-u-s-negotiations-with-russia/
-----
36) Science Misconceived: How the Covid Epoch Wrecked Understanding
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Thomas Milovac
"'Trust the science' and 'Follow the science' have been mantras incessantly repeated over media airwaves, in print and on the internet by select scientists, politicians, and journalists for nearly three years now, but have these claims confused political gain for scientific progress? In other words, do these pandemic buzzwords represent sound scientific reasoning or are they the product of misconceptions regarding the accepted pathway of scientific inquiry? The larger issue is that use of these buzzwords may underlie deeper scientific misconceptions with respect to how research does and ought to operate. I discuss three such potential misconceptions of science and explain their relation to the current pandemic." (10/31/22)
https://brownstone.org/articles/science-misconceived-how-covid-epoch-wrecked-understanding/
-----
37) Three mistakes that will cost Democrats the midterms
Source: Fox News
by Matt Gorman
"It didn't have to be this bad. History isn't on President Joe Biden's side heading into the 2022 midterms. The president's party averages a loss of 28 House seats and four Senate seats in midterm elections. The present isn't being kind to Joe Biden either. Inflation is out of control. Gas prices are sky-high from coast to coast. And Biden's reputation for competence hasn't recovered from the Afghanistan debacle, which showed the world his staff really aren't the 'adults in the room' they claim to be. Yet these headwinds only tell half the story. Joe Biden and Democrats have managed to make things worse. From attempting to buy off their base with marijuana pardons to making plumbers pay for the student loans of lawyers, Biden and company have struck out more than the New York Yankees against good pitching." (10/31/22)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/three-mistakes-will-cost-democrats-midterms
-----
38) ATF, Enforcer of Gun Laws, Lost "Thousands of Firearms, Firearm Parts" to Thieves
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille
"With inflation, prices are up pretty much across the board, but if you're looking for a new gun for recreation or self-defense, here's a hint: the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is offering them at an absolute steal. Seriously, the federal agency tasked with enforcing firearms regulations has such poor security that thousands of guns and gun parts once in its possession disappeared in the hands of thieves. And it has yet to fully implement recommended reforms." (0/31/22)
https://reason.com/2022/10/31/atf-enforcer-of-gun-laws-lost-thousands-of-firearms-firearm-parts-to-thieves/
-----
39) Satoshi Nakamoto's Seminal Bitcoin White Paper Turns 14 Today
Source: Bitcoin.com
by Jamie Redman
"Approximately [sic] 14 years ago today, on Halloween, Satoshi Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin to the world by sharing the renowned white paper. Satoshi's invention, shared on metzdowd.com's Cryptography Mailing List, not only solved a problem that had plagued computer scientists for years, but the invention also redefined how people look at money. Furthermore, as a side effect, Satoshi's creation spawned a new digital economy with more than 13,000 cryptocurrency assets, worth just over $1 trillion today." (10/31/22)
https://news.bitcoin.com/satoshi-nakamotos-seminal-bitcoin-white-paper-turns-14-today/
-----
40) Underfunded diplomacy is feature (not a bug) of US foreign policy
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Daniel Larison
"The United States is suffering from a diplomacy deficit after decades of underfunding and neglect of one of the most essential tools of statecraft. Washington has struggled to advance its interests through diplomatic engagement for many reasons, but the main causes have been insufficient resources, lack of political will, and an ingrained hostility in our political culture to negotiated compromises. This neglect of diplomacy not only leaves the United States at a disadvantage in many parts of the world, but it also conditions policymakers to dismiss diplomatic options and fall back on coercive measures in the form of ineffective sanctions and unnecessary military action." (10/31/22)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/10/31/underfunding-diplomacy-is-a-feature-of-us-foreign-policy%EF%BF%BC/
-----
41) New Study Finds The Rest Of The World Supports China And Russia
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
"Australians have been hammered with increasingly aggressive anti-China propaganda, and as a result nearly half of them now say they would be willing to go to war to defend Taiwan from an attack by the mainland, with a third saying they'd support a war against China over the Solomon Islands. A recent Cambridge study found that this hostility toward China has been on the rise in recent years not just in Australia but throughout the 'liberal democracies' of the US-centralized power alliance. But what's interesting is that public opinion is exactly reversed in the much larger remainder of the Earth's population, with people outside the US power cluster just as fond of China as those within that power cluster are hostile toward it. This relationship is largely mirrored with Russia as well." (10/31/22)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/10/31/new-study-finds-the-rest-of-the-world-supports-china-and-russia/
-----
42) Another Case for Free Speech [sic]
Source: The American Conservative
by Peter Van Buren
"God bless Texas. A case the state recently won at the circuit level is almost certainly headed to the Supreme Court. The Texas law, upheld, makes it illegal for social media giants to censor [sic], delete, or otherwise interfere with viewpoints in what is known as content discrimination. If the Supreme Court stands with the circuit court decision, that means Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, et al., would no longer be able to blanket ban 'ideas' such as the Hunter Biden laptop story, or ban users simply because of the point of view they support about vaccinations. The challenges are mighty, but the case is potentially a landmark one for free speech [sic] in the 21st century." (10/31/22)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/another-case-for-free-speech/
-----
43) The Nightmare of the Soul
Source: Law & Liberty
by Spencer A Klavan
"Every good horror movie needs a skeptic. When the terrorized hero runs for help to the relevant authorities, someone is usually there to assure him -- quite reasonably -- that monsters don't exist. The abominations that stalk through these films are dreadful not just because of what they can do, but because of what they are: they are the kind of thing that no one believes in anymore. And if no one believes in them, no one can stop them. This fatal incredulity is a staple of the modern horror movie, going right back to its origins. ... the point of our collective nightmares, the horror stories we tell ourselves this time of year, is not that some boogeyman might jump out from under our beds: it's that some things exist which cannot be explained or drugged away with more and better physical science." (10/31/22)
https://lawliberty.org/the-nightmare-of-the-soul/
-----
44) Dorothy Day Didn't Do It This Way: What It Really Means to Be Pro-Life in 2022
Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid
"People often seem to be quite visibly shocked when I tell them that I consider myself to be Pro-Life. In fact, they often assume I'm joking. The notion of a genderqueer heathen anarcha-feminist being morally opposed to many if not most forms of abortion simply does not compute for people on either side of the rapidly expanding partisan divide, but this wasn't always the case. Before Roe, many of the original Pro-Lifers were left-wing Catholic populists like Eileen Egan and the Berrigan Brothers who marched with Martin Luther King and got thrown in jail for resisting the Draft. ... the Consistent Life Ethic and radical Catholics like Dorothy Day and Ivan Illich formed the foundation for many of my own stateless values even as their church scarred me for life for being an irredeemable pervert." (10/30/22)
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2022/10/dorothy-day-didnt-do-it-this-way-what.html
-----
45) Everyone Is Laughing at the Ridiculous Pelosi Big Lie
Source: Town Hall
by Kurt Schlichter
"'How dare you reject the Official Approved Narrative!' parroted by the regime media about the weird Schiff that went down at Casa de Pelosi the other night. There's only one possible explanation, according to experts, licensed journalists, and our betters -- an underwear-clad MAGA assassin from a hippie commune in Berkeley who is best known for his nudist activism broke into the oddly unguarded mansion of the Speaker of the House, a wealthy woman who has her police force and has not been shy about expounding on the perilous peril she faces from murderous insurrectionists, carrying a hammer and encountered the wide-awake Paul Pelosi, also in his skivvies, who the intruder then let go off and call the cops wherein Mr. Pelosi referred to the guy as his friend." (10/31/22)
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2022/10/31/everyone-is-laughing-at-the-ridiculous-pelosi-big-lie-n2615222
-----
46) Ramping Up Government's War on Savings
Source: American Institute for Economic Research
by Gary M Galles
"There has long been a cottage industry of telling Americans they don't save enough. One of many Wall Street Journal articles in this genre, for instance, was Kelly Greene's 'Workers Saving Too Little to Retire.' The U.S. government's AboutUSA.gov site even included 'Save more' on a list of recommendations for citizens' New Year's resolutions. But our government has long been waging war on savings, making it the cause of, rather than the solution to, low savings rates. As a result, Americans have fewer resources for investment, innovation, technological advancement, and education, which reduces real economic growth and citizens' wellbeing. Recent policies have illustrated this to an impossible-to-miss extent." (10/30/22)
https://www.aier.org/article/ramping-up-governments-war-on-savings/
-----
47) The January 6 committee is just another partisan stunt
Source: Orange County Register
by Susan Shelley
"Since the J6 committee was formed in the summer of 2021, the members have held somber televised hearings expertly produced by a television professional. The committee has issued many statements and press releases. There have been last-minute changes to the schedule of televised hearings, often with great urgency, as if momentous evidence was at last to be made public. And then, nothing. ... The committee could have started by asking for Trump's testimony over a year ago instead of waiting until the end. It will cease to exist in January when the new Congress is sworn in. Why are they just now getting around to sending a subpoena to the former president? The answer can be found in the political calendar." (10/30/22)
https://www.ocregister.com/2022/10/30/the-jan-6-committee-is-just-another-partisan-stunt/
-----
48) Lessons from the Russian gas debacle
Source: EconLog
by Scott Sumner
"Most pundits (including some economists) underestimate the ability of markets to do a 'work around' when the supply of a key good is restricted. We often read that it is technologically impossible to do without X, and that it will take many years to ramp up the production of alternatives. Recall that during Covid we were assured that it would take a long time to produce various quantities of vaccines, masks, Paxlovid, etc., and then production easily blew right by the pessimistic forecasts. I am not suggesting that supply constraints are never a problem (Europe still faces some problems this winter), rather that we should be skeptical about claims of how hard it will take to circumvent those restrictions." (10/30/22)
https://www.econlib.org/lessons-from-the-russian-gas-debacle/
-----
49) Don't Look Now But Progressives Are About to Expand Their Ranks in Congress
Source: In These Times
by Branko Marcetic
"It's been a rough year for progressives, or so the headlines tell us. Pundits have been quick to elegize the left electoral movement after several high-profile primary defeats in New York, Illinois and Texas. 'Left loses momentum'. 'Progressives are in danger of losing influence.' Pundits are 'seeing limits on the political support for their reformist vision of the country' with this year's 'spate of losses' only the 'latest blow to progressive power,' as the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party struggles 'to find a winning formula.' The jubilant mood at the Vermont senator's September roundtable with a group of progressive House primary winners, then, might come as a surprise. 'The Squad' ... is expected to number in the double digits in 2023, with at least four likely inductees poised to safely win blue districts in November." (10/31/22)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/progressives-dark-money-midterms-squad-democrats
-----
50) Today's Hawkish Discourse Makes the Cuban Missile Crisis's Nuclear Brinkmanship Seem Sane
Source: Jacobin
by Branko Marcetic
"In the 1962 US-Soviet nuclear showdown over Cuba, there was no shortage of voices calling for escalation or decrying 'appeasement.' But there was always broad support for the kind of talks that ended up saving the world -- something frighteningly absent today." (10/30/22)
https://jacobin.com/2022/10/cuban-missile-crisis-ukraine-war-nuclear-brinksmanship/
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Reason Roundtable, 10/31/22
Source: Reason
"Twitter Was Already a Hellscape Even Before It Was Set Free." (10/31/22)
https://reason.com/podcast/2022/10/31/twitter-was-already-a-hellscape-even-before-it-was-set-free/
-----
52) EconTalk, 10/31/22
Source: EconTalk
"Michael Munger on Industrial Policy." (10/31/220
https://www.econtalk.org/michael-munger-on-industrial-policy/
-----
53) The Vital Center, episode 36
Source: Niskanen Center
"America's unfinished civil war, with Jeremi Suri." (10/31/22)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/americas-unfinished-civil-war-with-jeremi-suri/
-----
54) Conflicts of Interest, episode 343
Source: Libertarian Institute
"Rep. Ilhan Omar Adopts the War Party's Talking Points." (10/31/22)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/kyle/coi-343-rep-ilhan-omar-adopts-the-war-partys-talking-points/
-----
55) Rising, 10/31/22
Source: The Hill
"Batya Ungar-Sargon and Robby Soave react to the attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, over the weekend." (10/31/22)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/3712265-rising-october-31-2022/
-----
56) The Bryan Hyde Show, 10/31/22
Source: The Bryan Hyde Show
"Manipulators love to put their victims on the horns of a dilemma. As Bretigne Shaffer points out, we shouldn't have to choose between mob justice and the police state." (10/31/22)
https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-62at5-12ff5b2
-----
57) Tech Tank, season 3, episode 22
Source: Tech Tank
"Latino voters, midterm elections, and the effects of misinformation, and disinformation." (10/31/22)
https://shows.acast.com/tech-tank/episodes/latino-voters-midterm-elections-and-the-effects-of-misinform
-----
58) The Chris Spangle Show, 10/31/22
Source: We Are Libertarians
"Filling Health Care Gaps with the Heart and Soul Clinic." (10/31/22)
https://www.chrisspangle.com/p/filling-health-care-gaps-with-the
-----
59) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/31/22
Source: Antiwar.com
"Russia Says US Lowering 'Nuclear Threshold,' US Deploying B-52 Bombers to Australia, and More." (10/31/22)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzrWaVz2zkk
-----
60) Kyle Anzalon on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
"Kyle Anzalone joins Scott this week on Antiwar Radio to provide a quick insight into the status of the American empire's foreign adventurism." (10/30/22)
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/10-27-22-kyle-anzalone-on-washingtons-incompetent-imperialism/
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Today's Freedom News:
0) Year-End Fundraiser Update: Sprint or Marathon?
1) Russia: Regime says "partial mobilisation" is complete
2) Iran: Regime plans show trials for up to 2,000 political prisoners
3) Judge dismisses Meadows lawsuit against Capitol riot exploitation committee
4) Oil slides as China factory gauge slumps; natural-gas futures snap back sharply higher
5) Delta pilots overwhelmingly vote to authorize strike
6) Instagram bug tells some users accounts are suspended
7) SCOTUS: Justices raise doubts on racist college admissions standards
8) Weinstein trial: Woman says two sexual assaults came 17 years apart
9) MI: Cop will stand trial on murder charges in Lyoya killing
10) NASA takes image of "smiling" sun, but it's no laughing matter
11) Mexico: Expert group warns of crisis in missing students case
12) Musk disbands Twitter's board, cementing control over company
13) Report: US to Deploy Nuclear-Capable B-52s to Australia
14) Dow closes lower on Monday, but still posts best month since 1976
15) KS: Ground search of Native American site delayed
16) Singapore: Central bank to trial digital currency
17) Passenger crawls off plane after allegedly being asked to pay for wheelchair service
18) NY: Men exonerated in the Malcolm X killing will receive $36 million
19) AZ: Feds "concerned" about armed people at ballot boxes
20) China: Regime launches third and last component of space station
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Why Are Critics Afraid To Confront the Ukraine Lobby?
22) Why the Ethics of "Would You Kill Baby Hitler?" Are More Important Than You Probably Think
23) Can Elon Musk's Purchase of Twitter Actually Benefit Liberty?
24) The Long, Indecisive War in Ukraine is Reshaping the Political World Map
25) Elon Musk's Paul Pelosi Tweet Shows We're in a Post-Truth World
26) Integrity in Brazil's vote
27) Haiti's Elites Keep Calling for the US Marines
28) Voters care about crime. Here's what lawmakers should do about it.
29) When My Congressman Told Me Weapons Companies Are "Good"
30) Truth Cops
31) Will the Midterms Change Anything?
32) Election Will Decide America's Direction For a Long Time
33) The Crime Wave That Republicans Defend
34) Inflation, High Inflation, Hyperinflation
35) No US Negotiations with Russia
36) Science Misconceived: How the Covid Epoch Wrecked Understanding
37) Three mistakes that will cost Democrats the midterms
38) ATF, Enforcer of Gun Laws, Lost "Thousands of Firearms, Firearm Parts" to Thieves
39) Satoshi Nakamoto's Seminal Bitcoin White Paper Turns 14 Today
40) Underfunded diplomacy is feature (not a bug) of US foreign policy
41) New Study Finds The Rest Of The World Supports China And Russia
42) Another Case for Free Speech [sic]
43) The Nightmare of the Soul
44) Dorothy Day Didn't Do It This Way: What It Really Means to Be Pro-Life in 2022
45) Everyone Is Laughing at the Ridiculous Pelosi Big Lie
46) Ramping Up Government's War on Savings
47) The January 6 committee is just another partisan stunt
48) Lessons from the Russian gas debacle
49) Don't Look Now But Progressives Are About to Expand Their Ranks in Congress
50) Today's Hawkish Discourse Makes the Cuban Missile Crisis's Nuclear Brinkmanship Seem Sane
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Reason Roundtable, 10/31/22
52) EconTalk, 10/31/22
53) The Vital Center, episode 36
54) Conflicts of Interest, episode 343
55) Rising, 10/31/22
56) The Bryan Hyde Show, 10/31/22
57) Tech Tank, season 3, episode 22
58) The Chris Spangle Show, 10/31/22
59) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/31/22
60) Kyle Anzalon on The Scott Horton Show
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
0) Year-End Fundraiser Update: Sprint or Marathon?
Hey, everyone ...
Yesterday was a "zero-dollar day" in our year-end fundraiser. As of 6am Eastern this morning, our total remains at $1,398.
We're more than halfway to our goal of $5,150*, and we just passed one third of the time frame (October 1 thru December 31) to get there, so technically we're ahead of the curve.
But wouldn't it be nice to wrap this thing up early so I can mostly stop yammering about money until next October? If it has to be a marathon, well, okay ... but a sprint to the finish line would be much nicer.
If you value the freedom movement's daily newspaper -- and if you didn't you wouldn't be reading it -- please return some of that value as financial support at:
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
We're $1,177 away from wrapping this up. THANK YOU in advance for helping us do that!
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
* Yes, $1,398 IS more than half of $5,150, because supporter GL has pledged "matching funds" of up to half the goal. Once we've raised $2,275, GL will add another $2,275 and we'll be there. Please help out at:
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
-----
1) Russia: Regime says "partial mobilisation" is complete
Source: Reuters
"Russia has completed the partial military mobilisation announced by President Vladimir Putin in September, the Defence Ministry said on Monday. 'All activities related to the conscription ... of citizens in the reserve have been stopped,' the ministry said, and no further call-up notices would be issued. Putin announced Russia's first mobilisation since World War Two on Sept. 21, one of a series of escalatory measures in response to Ukrainian gains on the battlefield. Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said at the time that some 300,000 additional personnel would be drafted, and that they would be specialists with combat experience. But the mobilisation has proceeded chaotically, with many highly publicised cases of call-up notices going to the wrong men. Hundreds of thousands have fled Russia to avoid being drafted. ... The announcement on Monday -- day 250 of the war -- did not give a final figure for the number of men called up." (10/31/22)
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-completes-partial-mobilisation-defence-ministry-2022-10-31/
-----
2) Iran: Regime plans show trials for up to 2,000 political prisoners
Source: The Guardian [UK]
"Iran's judiciary has announced that it will hold public trials for as many as 1,000 people detained during recent protests in Tehran alone -- and more than a thousand others outside the capital -- as international concern grew over Iran's response to the protests that began with the [police murder] of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after her arrest. ... In a sign of the justice being handed out, Mohammad Ghobadlo, a protester who was arrested on the charge of 'corruption on earth' after participating in an anti-government rally, was sentenced to death after just one hearing, his mother said on Monday. 'My son is only 22 years old and he is also ill. They deprived him of having a lawyer and do not allow lawyers to enter the court,' Ghobadlo's mother said in a clip published online." (10/31/22)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/31/iran-to-hold-public-trials-for-up-to-2000-detained-amid-protests
-----
3) Judge dismisses Meadows lawsuit against Capitol riot exploitation committee
Source: Politico
"A federal judge has thrown out Mark Meadows'[s] year-old lawsuit over subpoenas from the House's Jan. 6 select committee, concluding that the former White House chief of staff was constitutionally barred from bringing it in the first place. In a 27-page ruling issued Monday night, U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols said that the Constitution's 'speech or debate' clause -- which prohibits lawsuits against lawmakers for anything associated with their legislative work -- applied in the case of the committee's subpoenas to Meadows issued in the fall of 2021. 'The record makes clear that the challenged subpoenas are protected legislative acts,' Nichols wrote in the decision. Meadows is likely to appeal the ruling, effectively putting his testimony out of reach for the Jan. 6 select committee, which is slated to dissolve at the end of the year." (10/31/22)
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/31/meadows-jan-6-committee-lawsuit-00064354
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4) Oil slides as China factory gauge slumps; natural-gas futures snap back sharply higher
Source: MarketWatch
"Oil futures fell early Monday, feeling pressure after a weak reading on China factory activity and a widening of COVID-19 curbs by the country. Previously beaten-down natural-gas futures, however, were soaring. ... December Brent crude, the global benchmark, was down $1.12, or 1.2%, at $94.65 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe, while January Brent, the most actively traded contract, declined $1.19, or 1.3%, to $92.58 a barrel. ... Natural-gas futures remained volatile, building on last week's 3.9% rebound. The Monday bounce is a continuation of recent developments around renewed liquefied natural-gas flows, with U.S. prices staring to recover after more than halving over the past two months, said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank." (10/31/22)
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/oil-slides-as-china-factory-gauge-slumps-natural-gas-futures-snap-back-sharply-higher-11667217990
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5) Delta pilots overwhelmingly vote to authorize strike
Source: The Hill
"Delta Air Lines pilots overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike on Monday if a new contract agreement with the carrier is not reached. The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), which represents the pilots, said 99 percent voted to call a strike if necessary, with the vast majority of its members participating. ... Under federal law, pilots cannot go on strike unless a federal government board declares an impasse in negotiations. After a 30-day cool off period, the union can go on strike or the carrier could initiate a lockout. The union on Monday said its pilots are working under a contract negotiated in 2016, and discussions about a new contract that began in April 2019 have not borne fruit." (10/31/22)
https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/3713140-delta-pilots-overwhelmingly-vote-to-authorize-strike/
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6) Instagram bug tells some users accounts are suspended
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
"Instagram users across the world have been reporting issues accessing their profiles. The Meta-owned social network says it is 'looking into' the problem, which has caused some people to be told they are suspended from the platform. DownDetector -- which monitors site outages -- says it has found that thousands of users are affected. Some have been shown a message saying that their account has been shut down for 30 days. A tweet from the official Instagram Communications account said: 'We're aware that some of you are having issues accessing your Instagram account. 'We're looking into it and apologise for the inconvenience.' The company has not yet offered any further details on what has caused the unusual issue." (10/31/22)
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63462082
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7) SCOTUS: Justices raise doubts on racist college admissions standards
Source: SFGate
"The survival of affirmative action in higher education appeared to be in serious trouble Monday at a conservative-dominated Supreme Court after hours of debate over difficult questions of race. The court is weighing challenges to admissions programs at the University of North Carolina and Harvard that use race among many factors in seeking a diverse student body. The court's six conservative justices all expressed doubts about the practice, while the three liberals defended the programs, which are similar to those used by many other private and public universities. Arguments in the North Carolina case topped 2 hours and 45 minutes, having been scheduled for 90 minutes. Following the overturning of the half-century abortion precedent of Roe v. Wade in June, the cases offer a big new test of whether the court now dominated 6-3 by conservatives will jolt the law to the right on another of the nation's most contentious cultural issues." (10/31/22)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Supreme-Court-takes-up-race-conscious-college-17545895.php
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8) Weinstein trial: Woman says two sexual assaults came 17 years apart
Source: WBTV News
"A woman testified Monday that Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted her in a hotel room during the Toronto Film Festival in 1991, then did it again when she went to confront him in the same hotel during the same festival 17 years later. On the witness stand at Weinstein's Los Angeles trial, she said she was a 24-year-old aspiring actor at the 1991 festival and didn't know who Weinstein was before she met him at a party. ... She said she was charmed by Weinstein at first as they discussed books and films. She said the two of them left the party for a glass of wine at a nearby cafe, then she went with him to his room at the Four Seasons Hotel because he said he had a script for a film with a role that would be perfect for him [sic]." (10/31/22)
https://www.wbtv.com/2022/10/31/woman-says-2-weinstein-sexual-assaults-came-17-years-apart/
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9) MI: Cop will stand trial on murder charges in Lyoya killing
Source: Axios
"A Michigan judge ruled Monday that ex-police officer Christopher Schurr must stand trial for shooting and killing an unarmed [b]lack man during an April traffic stop. Judge Nicholas S. Ayoub said there is probable cause to try Schurr for second-degree murder in the death of Patrick Lyoya, who was 26. His killing -- and footage that showed Schurr lying on Lyoya's back before shooting him in the head -- led to protests in Grand Rapids. ... [In his opinion, Ayoub wrote] 'The clear depiction of the incident in the video strongly infers that defendant knew he was pointing the gun and firing it at close range to [Lyoya's] head, which, in turn, is sufficient to establish probable cause to conclude that defendant acted with malice.' 'The only real debatable question here is whether defendant's actions were justified under the law," Ayoub noted." [10/31/22)
https://www.axios.com/2022/10/31/patrick-lyoya-michigan-police-trial
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10) NASA takes image of "smiling" sun, but it's no laughing matter
Source: Fox News
"Despite its seemingly 'smiling' appearance, an image of the grinning sun isn't as cheery as it looks. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory previously caught an image of the sun in ultraviolet light with three dark spots on its surface on Oct. 26, giving the illusion the sun was smiling. The smiling sun followed a partial solar eclipse Tuesday, though the two events were unrelated. What many viewed as a giant pumpkin in the sky, though, consequently prompted a minor geomagnetic storm watch on Saturday. The dark patches, formally called coronal holes, are areas through which fast solar wind gushes out into space. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center issued an alert on Saturday, stating the coronal holes were 'anticipated to enhance and disturb the solar wind environment and lead to unsettled conditions.'" (10/31/22)
https://www.foxnews.com/science/nasa-takes-image-smiling-sun-no-laughing-matter
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11) Mexico: Expert group warns of crisis in missing students case
Source: SFGate
"A group of international experts investigating the 2014 disappearance of 43 students in southern Mexico warned Monday that an attempt by the government to accelerate the results has created a 'crisis' for the investigation and risks diminishing confidence in the outcome. At a crucial stage, the special prosecutor who has led the government's investigation since 2019 resigned in September over apparent interference by the attorney general and the government replaced him with someone unfamiliar with the case. A government Truth Commission report in August muddied the waters by presenting questionable screen captures of message exchanges as evidence, according to the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts. The group was created by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to investigate the abduction and forced disappearance of students from the Ayotzinapa teachers' college in the state of Guerrero." (10/31/22)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Expert-group-warns-of-crisis-in-Mexico-missing-17547596.php
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12) Musk disbands Twitter's board, cementing control over company
Source: CNN
"Twitter's board of directors was dissolved on Thursday following Elon Musk's takeover of the company, according to a securities filing on Monday. The company filing states that all previous members of Twitter's board, including recently ousted CEO Parag Agrawal and chairman Bret Taylor, are no longer directors 'in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement.' Musk, according to the filing, became 'the sole director of Twitter.' ... Almost immediately after Musk completed his $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter on Thursday, Musk terminated at least four of its top executives, including Agrawal." (10/31/22)
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/31/tech/elon-musk-twitter-board/index.html
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13) Report: US to Deploy Nuclear-Capable B-52s to Australia
Source: Common Dreams
"In what critics are calling a 'dangerous escalation,' the United States is reportedly preparing to deploy up to six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to northern Australia, where they would be close enough to strike China. 'The ability to deploy U.S. Air Force bombers to Australia sends a strong message to adversaries about our ability to project lethal air power,' the U.S. Air Force told 'Four Corners', a television program of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), on Sunday. ... Investigative journalist Peter Cronau, however, described the plan, which came with 'no debate [or] discussion,' as 'military madness [that] is fanning tensions with China.'" (10/31/22)
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/10/31/military-madness-us-deploy-nuclear-capable-b-52s-australia-provoking-china
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14) Dow closes lower on Monday, but still posts best month since 1976
Source: CNBC
"Stocks slipped on Monday, but the Dow capped off its best month since 1976 and all the major averages snapped a two-month losing streak. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 128.85 points, or 0.39%, to settle at 32,732.95. The S&P 500 shed 0.75% to finish at 3,871.98, while the Nasdaq Composite tumbled 1.03% to 10,988.15. Markets made a huge comeback in October. The Dow guided those gains, soaring 13.95% for the month." (10/31/22)
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/30/stock-market-news-futures-open-to-close.html
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15) KS: Ground search of Native American site delayed
Source: US News & World Report
"A plan to search for unmarked graves at a former Native American boarding school in Kansas is on hold amid a disagreement between a Shawnee Tribe and state and city officials overseeing the site. The Kansas Historical Society announced last year that the Kansas Geological Survey at the University of Kansas would conduct a ground-penetrating radar survey at the Shawnee Indian Mission in Fairway. However, Fairway officials said last week the proposal was on hold indefinitely after Shawnee Tribe Chief Ben Barnes raised concerns that the tribe was not consulted about the proposal and future plans for the 12-acre (4.86-hectare) site. The Shawnee Tribe pushed last year for a study of the site, formerly known as the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School. It was one of hundreds of schools run by the government and religious groups in the 1800s and 1900s that removed Indigenous children from their families to assimilate them into white culture and Christianity." (10/31/22)
https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2022-10-31/ground-search-of-native-american-site-in-kansas-delayed
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16) Singapore: Central bank to trial digital currency
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
"Singapore's central bank on Monday announced that it was exploring the concept of a purpose-bound digital currency, which can be used to issue government vouchers and payouts among others, though it noted that the case for a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) is 'not compelling for now.' The purpose-bound digital currency is just the first phase of a larger project in partnership with private firms and a move towards establishing the technical infrastructure and competencies needed for a retail CBDC in the future. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in a press release that purpose-bound digital currency would allow senders to specify conditions, such as an expiration date of the voucher and types of shops, when making transfers with its digital currency." (10/31/22)
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3197890/singapores-central-bank-trial-digital-currency-mulls-use-stepping-stone-build-tech-infrastructure
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17) Passenger crawls off plane after allegedly being asked to pay for wheelchair service
Source: Fox Business
"A Jetstar passenger with a disability says she was humiliated after having to crawl off the airplane in order to get to her wheelchair. Video of Australian passenger Natalie Curtis surfaced over the weekend, showing Curtis using her hands to lift her body down the plane's aisle after it landed in Bangkok. After the plane landed, Curtis was reportedly told that she would have to pay extra to use a special wheelchair that fits in the plane's aisle, which would transfer her from her seat to her own wheelchair, according to multiple reports. She said she refused the service because it is normally free, according to local Australian news outlet, 7NEWS Townsville." (10/31/22)
https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/passenger-crawls-off-plane-allegedly-asked-pay-wheelchair-service
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18) NY: Men exonerated in the Malcolm X killing will receive $36 million
Source: National Public Radio [US state media]
"The city of New York is settling lawsuits filed on behalf of two men who were exonerated last year for the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X, agreeing to pay $26 million for the wrongful convictions which led to both men spending decades behind bars. The state of New York will pay an additional $10 million. David Shanies, an attorney representing the men, confirmed the settlements on Sunday. ... Last year, a Manhattan judge dismissed the convictions of Aziz, now 84, and Islam, who died in 2009, after prosecutors said new evidence of witness intimidation and suppression of exculpatory evidence had undermined the case against the men. Then-District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. apologized for law enforcement's 'serious, unacceptable violations of law and the public trust.'" (10/31/22)
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/31/1132757141/the-men-exonerated-in-the-malcolm-x-killing-will-receive-36-million
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19) AZ: Feds "concerned" about armed people at ballot boxes
Source: SFGate
"Reports of people watching ballot boxes in Arizona, sometimes armed or wearing ballistic vests, raise serious concerns about voter intimidation, the Justice Department said Monday as it stepped into a lawsuit over the monitoring. The statement from the Justice Department comes days after a federal judge refused to bar a group from monitoring the outdoor drop boxes in the suburbs of Phoenix. Threats, intimidation and coercion are illegal under the federal Voting Rights Act, even if they doesn't succeed, the government's attorneys wrote. While lawful poll watching can support transparency, 'ballot security forces' present a significant risk of voter intimidation, the court documents state. 'While the First Amendment protects expressive conduct and peaceable assembly generally, it affords no protection for threats of harm directed at voters,' U.S. government attorneys wrote." (10/31/22)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Feds-concerned-about-armed-people-at-Arizona-17547570.php
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20) China: Regime launches third and last component of space station
Source: CBS News
"China on Monday launched the third and final module to complete its permanent space station, realizing a more than decade-long endeavor to maintain a constant crewed presence in orbit. ... Mengtian, or 'Celestial Dream,' joins Wentian as the second laboratory module for the station, collectively known as Tiangong, or 'Celestial Palace.' Both are connected to the Tianhe core module where the crew lives and works. ... Following Mengtian's arrival, an additional un-crewed Tianzhou cargo craft is due to dock with the station next month with another crewed mission scheduled for December, at which time crews may overlap -- Tiangong has room to accommodate six astronauts. (10/31/22)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-space-station-component-mengtian-third-last/
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Why Are Critics Afraid To Confront the Ukraine Lobby?
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Galen Carpenter
"There is a concerted effort in the United States and Europe to intimidate, smear, and silence anyone who dares criticize Ukraine's government or the Biden administration's policy on the Russia-Ukraine war. The latest example was the decision of the Congressional Progressive Caucus to retract an open letter it had sent to the president just days earlier urging him to give higher priority to diplomacy as a way of ending the bloodshed. ... Ukraine and its Western supporters have fostered a campaign of outright neo-McCarthyism, utterly chilling debate regarding policy toward the Zelensky government. The overall pro-Ukraine propaganda campaign was underway long before Russia invaded Ukraine, but it has grown much worse since then. The level of intimidation that Ukraine's Western political and media allies foster, though, pales compared to the menace flowing directly from Kyiv. Zelensky and his colleagues have no tolerance for even the most peaceful opponents, domestic or foreign." (11/01/22)
https://original.antiwar.com/ted_galen_carpenter/2022/10/31/why-are-critics-afraid-to-confront-the-ukraine-lobby-2/
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22) Why the Ethics of "Would You Kill Baby Hitler?" Are More Important Than You Probably Think
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jon Miltimore
"In 2015, New York Times magazine asked, If you could go back and kill Hitler as a baby, would you do it? Readers couldn't reach a majority consensus. Forty-two percent said yes, they'd kill Hitler in his infancy. Twenty-eight percent said they were not sure. Just 30 percent gave a definitive no, saying they would not kill the child. Some say the Baby Hitler question is 'a more dramatic version of the trolley problem,' but there's a key difference: the former scenario involves a clear and explicit act of murder, versus merely flipping a switch to save some lives. ...It's asking a clear question: would you commit murder to save lives? How one answers the Baby Hitler question can reveal a lot about one's moral philosophy." (10/31/22)
https://fee.org/articles/why-the-ethics-of-would-you-kill-baby-hitler-are-more-important-than-you-probably-think/
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23) Can Elon Musk's Purchase of Twitter Actually Benefit Liberty?
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Michael Rectenwald
"Musk is by no means a model for free market libertarians, but his takeover and remodeling of Twitter is no less a significant eventuality in the struggle for liberty against the woke cartel and the state that it supports. What happens on Twitter will not only be a test of Musk's sincerity and resolve but also of the power of the woke cartel's regime for enforcing state dictates and narratives." (10/31/22)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/can-elon-musks-purchase-of-twitter-actually-benefit-liberty/
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24) The Long, Indecisive War in Ukraine is Reshaping the Political World Map
Source: CounterPunch
by Patrick Cockburn
"So far the Ukraine war looks more like the First than the Second World War, in that it is likely to be long and indecisive. (1918 Germany had sought an armistice but no Allied troops had crossed the German frontier). Neither Russia nor Ukraine are likely to win a total victory, though both have the will to go on fighting in the hope of doing so. The prospect of an endless war in Europe should not be surprising, since this has been the pattern in recent wars in Syria, Yemen and Libya. ... Ukraine may appear different as a poor but modern state, but so too were Iraq and Libya before their infrastructures were destroyed." (10/31/22)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/31/the-long-indecisive-war-in-ukraine-is-reshaping-the-political-world-map/
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25) Elon Musk's Paul Pelosi Tweet Shows We're in a Post-Truth World
Source: The Daily Beast
by Matt Lewis
"I'm not naive. The American public has been lied to in the past. And the police and the media sometimes simply get it wrong. But what the right is now asking us to believe, in essence, is that we have no way of verifying or confirming that anything is real. It's possible Donald Trump is still the president. Maybe Tom Brady and the Buccaneers are really 8-0? It's possible that I'm not really writing this. Maybe we are all living in the matrix? We are now in a position where you either (a) believe that the police and the media are conspiring to lie to you to help elect Democrats, or (b) believe the owner of Twitter and the former president's son are wrongly blaming the victim of a violent attack and lying to you to as a service to Republicans. There are, in other words, two Americas." (10/31/22)
https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musks-paul-pelosi-tweet-shows-were-in-a-post-truth-world
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26) Integrity in Brazil's vote
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
"At a time of concern about a global erosion of the rule of law, some of the world's youngest At a time of concern about a global erosion of the rule of law, some of the world's youngest democracies are offering evidence that the ideal of government by the people is both resilient and enduring. The latest example is Brazil, where a tense presidential election concluded Oct. 30 in a peaceful vote for change. The result defied predictions of political violence. It showed that, even in the most deeply divided societies, credible democratic institutions provide a bulwark against the destabilizing effects of disinformation. 'If there is anything Brazilians should appreciate tonight, it is the efficiency and reliability of their voting system,' Valentina Sader, associate director at the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, told the Atlantic Council after the vote." (10/31/22)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2022/1031/Integrity-in-Brazil-s-vote
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27) Haiti's Elites Keep Calling for the US Marines
Source: Foreign Policy
by Jonathan M Katz
"At the end of the first U.S. occupation of Haiti -- a period of brutal domination from 1915 to 1934 -- a critic warned that U.S. forces would not be gone for long. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's State Department had left Haiti in the hands of a man friendly to its core interests: the Haitian conservative Stenio Vincent, whose otherwise fervent nationalism was tempered by a deep affection for U.S.-centric capitalism. The critic, the American journalist and orator William Pickens, wrote in the NAACP's flagship magazine, The Crisis, in June 1935: 'The marines are gone, but the American Financial Adviser is still there, collecting for American creditors, and if opposing Haitian factions start cutting each other's throats with their machetes, [Vincent] may yell for the marines to come and help him protect the money bags.' Now, another yell is coming from Port-au-Prince." (10/31/22)
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/31/haiti-us-intervention-gangs-united-nations/
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28) Voters care about crime. Here's what lawmakers should do about it.
Source: Niskanen Center
by Greg Newburn
"For decades, lawmakers have responded to crime by increasing penalties in the hope that the risk of severe sentences would deter would-be criminals. That strategy hasn't been entirely ineffective; most experts agree it played some role in the U.S. crime drop over the last several decades. Still, severity-centered criminal justice has not delivered the low crime rates its advocates had anticipated. Nor has it provided public safety benefits comparable to the substantial costs of mass incarceration. If crime control is the goal, we can do much better." (10/31/22)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/voters-care-about-crime-heres-what-lawmakers-should-do-about-it/
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29) When My Congressman Told Me Weapons Companies Are "Good"
Source: Common Dreams
by Danaka Katovich
"For a year, my neighborhood group Divest Mike has been trying to get in contact with our representative Mike Quigley to talk to him about campaign contributions coming from weapons companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and General Dynamics. We see it as our responsibility to take on the military industrial complex locally, where we have some power to make noise about it. These companies receive over 50% of our annual defense budget and any member of Congress taking money from them, then voting to give them billions of dollars should be held under a microscope by their constituents who care about peace. In the grand scheme of things, the donation amounts from those companies seems really small, so we see it as a reasonable ask for Quigley to stop taking money from them." (10/31/22)
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/10/31/when-my-congressman-told-me-weapons-companies-are-good
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30) Truth Cops
Source: The Intercept
by Ken Klippenstein & Lee Fang
"Behind closed doors, and through pressure on private platforms, the U.S. government has used its power to try to shape online discourse. According to meeting minutes and other records appended to a lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is also running for Senate, discussions have ranged from the scale and scope of government intervention in online discourse to the mechanics of streamlining takedown requests for false or intentionally misleading information. ... How disinformation is defined by the government has not been clearly articulated, and the inherently subjective nature of what constitutes disinformation provides a broad opening for DHS officials to make politically motivated determinations about what constitutes dangerous speech." (10/31/22)
https://theintercept.com/2022/10/31/social-media-disinformation-dhs/
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31) Will the Midterms Change Anything?
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
by Ron Paul
"While we should support those few politicians who stand up for liberty, we should remember that we cannot rely on politicians alone to restore liberty. Instead, the only way to win back our liberty is to change the political and cultural environment politicians operate in. That is why converting a critical mass of people to libertarianism is crucial." (10/31/22)
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/will-the-midterms-change-anything
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32) Election Will Decide America's Direction For a Long Time
Source: New York Post
by Karol Markowicz
"It's not as sexy as 'most important,' but in a few days we'll participate in an 'ideas' election in a way we haven't for a while: Who do we want to be as a country and where do we want to go? Unlike so many presidential elections, this race will not be driven by personality. America has had our share of those over the last 15 years. Whether President Barack Obama or President Donald Trump, people were signing up for the man far more than his actual ideas. But the personalities of the candidates in this midterm election, some good and some bad, are far less relevant than the direction the winners will take us." (10/31/22)
https://nypost.com/2022/10/30/this-ideas-election-will-decide-the-countrys-direction-for-a-long-time/
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33) The Crime Wave That Republicans Defend
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
"As my colleague Ryan Cooper explains today, the Republicans have amped up their message on crime, as they do every election season. In the fall of even-numbered years, 30-second ads portray America as a cesspool of danger and filth ... This is as perennial as the changing of leaf colors; it should come as no surprise to Democrats who still haven't found a good way to talk about the issue. But one option popped up last week at an event at the White House. Bracketed by Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Rohit Chopra, President Biden took aim at 'junk fees,' the vague and mysterious surcharges that show up on bank and credit card statements, airfares, cable bills, concert tickets, hotel bookings, gym memberships, and scores of other consumer purchases." (10/31/22)
https://prospect.org/power/corporate-crime-wave-that-republicans-defend/
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34) Inflation, High Inflation, Hyperinflation
Source: Cobden Centre
by Thorsten Polleit
"We know that inflation means a loss of purchasing power of money: When there is inflation, you get fewer and fewer goods in exchange for your money. In today's unbacked paper money system--the fiat money system--inflation is chronic, a daily plague, so to speak. The reason: state-sponsored central banks, which have the monopoly of money production, have set themselves the goal of delivering inflation of 2 percent per year. This may seem acceptable at first glance, but not at second glance. Because in doing so, central banks do not preserve the purchasing power of money over time; they deliberately reduce it! They are not currency guardians but currency destroyers. An inflation of 2 percent may seem 'small.' But over time, it leads to a considerable reduction in the purchasing power of money." (10/31/22)
https://www.cobdencentre.org/2022/10/inflation-high-inflation-hyperinflation/
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35) No US Negotiations with Russia
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
"Amidst the increasingly degrading situation in Ukraine, a number of American commentators are calling on President Biden to enter into negotiations with Russia in an attempt to resolve the crisis. I've got a better idea: the U.S. government should instead butt out of the crisis entirely. It should immediately stop furnishing military and financial aid to Ukraine, withdraw from NATO, abandon all U.S. military bases in Europe, and bring all U.S. troops home from that part of the world and discharge them into the private sector. That's just the first step." (10/31/22)
https://www.fff.org/2022/10/31/no-u-s-negotiations-with-russia/
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36) Science Misconceived: How the Covid Epoch Wrecked Understanding
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Thomas Milovac
"'Trust the science' and 'Follow the science' have been mantras incessantly repeated over media airwaves, in print and on the internet by select scientists, politicians, and journalists for nearly three years now, but have these claims confused political gain for scientific progress? In other words, do these pandemic buzzwords represent sound scientific reasoning or are they the product of misconceptions regarding the accepted pathway of scientific inquiry? The larger issue is that use of these buzzwords may underlie deeper scientific misconceptions with respect to how research does and ought to operate. I discuss three such potential misconceptions of science and explain their relation to the current pandemic." (10/31/22)
https://brownstone.org/articles/science-misconceived-how-covid-epoch-wrecked-understanding/
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37) Three mistakes that will cost Democrats the midterms
Source: Fox News
by Matt Gorman
"It didn't have to be this bad. History isn't on President Joe Biden's side heading into the 2022 midterms. The president's party averages a loss of 28 House seats and four Senate seats in midterm elections. The present isn't being kind to Joe Biden either. Inflation is out of control. Gas prices are sky-high from coast to coast. And Biden's reputation for competence hasn't recovered from the Afghanistan debacle, which showed the world his staff really aren't the 'adults in the room' they claim to be. Yet these headwinds only tell half the story. Joe Biden and Democrats have managed to make things worse. From attempting to buy off their base with marijuana pardons to making plumbers pay for the student loans of lawyers, Biden and company have struck out more than the New York Yankees against good pitching." (10/31/22)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/three-mistakes-will-cost-democrats-midterms
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38) ATF, Enforcer of Gun Laws, Lost "Thousands of Firearms, Firearm Parts" to Thieves
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille
"With inflation, prices are up pretty much across the board, but if you're looking for a new gun for recreation or self-defense, here's a hint: the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is offering them at an absolute steal. Seriously, the federal agency tasked with enforcing firearms regulations has such poor security that thousands of guns and gun parts once in its possession disappeared in the hands of thieves. And it has yet to fully implement recommended reforms." (0/31/22)
https://reason.com/2022/10/31/atf-enforcer-of-gun-laws-lost-thousands-of-firearms-firearm-parts-to-thieves/
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39) Satoshi Nakamoto's Seminal Bitcoin White Paper Turns 14 Today
Source: Bitcoin.com
by Jamie Redman
"Approximately [sic] 14 years ago today, on Halloween, Satoshi Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin to the world by sharing the renowned white paper. Satoshi's invention, shared on metzdowd.com's Cryptography Mailing List, not only solved a problem that had plagued computer scientists for years, but the invention also redefined how people look at money. Furthermore, as a side effect, Satoshi's creation spawned a new digital economy with more than 13,000 cryptocurrency assets, worth just over $1 trillion today." (10/31/22)
https://news.bitcoin.com/satoshi-nakamotos-seminal-bitcoin-white-paper-turns-14-today/
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40) Underfunded diplomacy is feature (not a bug) of US foreign policy
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Daniel Larison
"The United States is suffering from a diplomacy deficit after decades of underfunding and neglect of one of the most essential tools of statecraft. Washington has struggled to advance its interests through diplomatic engagement for many reasons, but the main causes have been insufficient resources, lack of political will, and an ingrained hostility in our political culture to negotiated compromises. This neglect of diplomacy not only leaves the United States at a disadvantage in many parts of the world, but it also conditions policymakers to dismiss diplomatic options and fall back on coercive measures in the form of ineffective sanctions and unnecessary military action." (10/31/22)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/10/31/underfunding-diplomacy-is-a-feature-of-us-foreign-policy%EF%BF%BC/
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41) New Study Finds The Rest Of The World Supports China And Russia
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
"Australians have been hammered with increasingly aggressive anti-China propaganda, and as a result nearly half of them now say they would be willing to go to war to defend Taiwan from an attack by the mainland, with a third saying they'd support a war against China over the Solomon Islands. A recent Cambridge study found that this hostility toward China has been on the rise in recent years not just in Australia but throughout the 'liberal democracies' of the US-centralized power alliance. But what's interesting is that public opinion is exactly reversed in the much larger remainder of the Earth's population, with people outside the US power cluster just as fond of China as those within that power cluster are hostile toward it. This relationship is largely mirrored with Russia as well." (10/31/22)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/10/31/new-study-finds-the-rest-of-the-world-supports-china-and-russia/
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42) Another Case for Free Speech [sic]
Source: The American Conservative
by Peter Van Buren
"God bless Texas. A case the state recently won at the circuit level is almost certainly headed to the Supreme Court. The Texas law, upheld, makes it illegal for social media giants to censor [sic], delete, or otherwise interfere with viewpoints in what is known as content discrimination. If the Supreme Court stands with the circuit court decision, that means Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, et al., would no longer be able to blanket ban 'ideas' such as the Hunter Biden laptop story, or ban users simply because of the point of view they support about vaccinations. The challenges are mighty, but the case is potentially a landmark one for free speech [sic] in the 21st century." (10/31/22)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/another-case-for-free-speech/
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43) The Nightmare of the Soul
Source: Law & Liberty
by Spencer A Klavan
"Every good horror movie needs a skeptic. When the terrorized hero runs for help to the relevant authorities, someone is usually there to assure him -- quite reasonably -- that monsters don't exist. The abominations that stalk through these films are dreadful not just because of what they can do, but because of what they are: they are the kind of thing that no one believes in anymore. And if no one believes in them, no one can stop them. This fatal incredulity is a staple of the modern horror movie, going right back to its origins. ... the point of our collective nightmares, the horror stories we tell ourselves this time of year, is not that some boogeyman might jump out from under our beds: it's that some things exist which cannot be explained or drugged away with more and better physical science." (10/31/22)
https://lawliberty.org/the-nightmare-of-the-soul/
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44) Dorothy Day Didn't Do It This Way: What It Really Means to Be Pro-Life in 2022
Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid
"People often seem to be quite visibly shocked when I tell them that I consider myself to be Pro-Life. In fact, they often assume I'm joking. The notion of a genderqueer heathen anarcha-feminist being morally opposed to many if not most forms of abortion simply does not compute for people on either side of the rapidly expanding partisan divide, but this wasn't always the case. Before Roe, many of the original Pro-Lifers were left-wing Catholic populists like Eileen Egan and the Berrigan Brothers who marched with Martin Luther King and got thrown in jail for resisting the Draft. ... the Consistent Life Ethic and radical Catholics like Dorothy Day and Ivan Illich formed the foundation for many of my own stateless values even as their church scarred me for life for being an irredeemable pervert." (10/30/22)
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2022/10/dorothy-day-didnt-do-it-this-way-what.html
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45) Everyone Is Laughing at the Ridiculous Pelosi Big Lie
Source: Town Hall
by Kurt Schlichter
"'How dare you reject the Official Approved Narrative!' parroted by the regime media about the weird Schiff that went down at Casa de Pelosi the other night. There's only one possible explanation, according to experts, licensed journalists, and our betters -- an underwear-clad MAGA assassin from a hippie commune in Berkeley who is best known for his nudist activism broke into the oddly unguarded mansion of the Speaker of the House, a wealthy woman who has her police force and has not been shy about expounding on the perilous peril she faces from murderous insurrectionists, carrying a hammer and encountered the wide-awake Paul Pelosi, also in his skivvies, who the intruder then let go off and call the cops wherein Mr. Pelosi referred to the guy as his friend." (10/31/22)
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2022/10/31/everyone-is-laughing-at-the-ridiculous-pelosi-big-lie-n2615222
-----
46) Ramping Up Government's War on Savings
Source: American Institute for Economic Research
by Gary M Galles
"There has long been a cottage industry of telling Americans they don't save enough. One of many Wall Street Journal articles in this genre, for instance, was Kelly Greene's 'Workers Saving Too Little to Retire.' The U.S. government's AboutUSA.gov site even included 'Save more' on a list of recommendations for citizens' New Year's resolutions. But our government has long been waging war on savings, making it the cause of, rather than the solution to, low savings rates. As a result, Americans have fewer resources for investment, innovation, technological advancement, and education, which reduces real economic growth and citizens' wellbeing. Recent policies have illustrated this to an impossible-to-miss extent." (10/30/22)
https://www.aier.org/article/ramping-up-governments-war-on-savings/
-----
47) The January 6 committee is just another partisan stunt
Source: Orange County Register
by Susan Shelley
"Since the J6 committee was formed in the summer of 2021, the members have held somber televised hearings expertly produced by a television professional. The committee has issued many statements and press releases. There have been last-minute changes to the schedule of televised hearings, often with great urgency, as if momentous evidence was at last to be made public. And then, nothing. ... The committee could have started by asking for Trump's testimony over a year ago instead of waiting until the end. It will cease to exist in January when the new Congress is sworn in. Why are they just now getting around to sending a subpoena to the former president? The answer can be found in the political calendar." (10/30/22)
https://www.ocregister.com/2022/10/30/the-jan-6-committee-is-just-another-partisan-stunt/
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48) Lessons from the Russian gas debacle
Source: EconLog
by Scott Sumner
"Most pundits (including some economists) underestimate the ability of markets to do a 'work around' when the supply of a key good is restricted. We often read that it is technologically impossible to do without X, and that it will take many years to ramp up the production of alternatives. Recall that during Covid we were assured that it would take a long time to produce various quantities of vaccines, masks, Paxlovid, etc., and then production easily blew right by the pessimistic forecasts. I am not suggesting that supply constraints are never a problem (Europe still faces some problems this winter), rather that we should be skeptical about claims of how hard it will take to circumvent those restrictions." (10/30/22)
https://www.econlib.org/lessons-from-the-russian-gas-debacle/
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49) Don't Look Now But Progressives Are About to Expand Their Ranks in Congress
Source: In These Times
by Branko Marcetic
"It's been a rough year for progressives, or so the headlines tell us. Pundits have been quick to elegize the left electoral movement after several high-profile primary defeats in New York, Illinois and Texas. 'Left loses momentum'. 'Progressives are in danger of losing influence.' Pundits are 'seeing limits on the political support for their reformist vision of the country' with this year's 'spate of losses' only the 'latest blow to progressive power,' as the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party struggles 'to find a winning formula.' The jubilant mood at the Vermont senator's September roundtable with a group of progressive House primary winners, then, might come as a surprise. 'The Squad' ... is expected to number in the double digits in 2023, with at least four likely inductees poised to safely win blue districts in November." (10/31/22)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/progressives-dark-money-midterms-squad-democrats
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50) Today's Hawkish Discourse Makes the Cuban Missile Crisis's Nuclear Brinkmanship Seem Sane
Source: Jacobin
by Branko Marcetic
"In the 1962 US-Soviet nuclear showdown over Cuba, there was no shortage of voices calling for escalation or decrying 'appeasement.' But there was always broad support for the kind of talks that ended up saving the world -- something frighteningly absent today." (10/30/22)
https://jacobin.com/2022/10/cuban-missile-crisis-ukraine-war-nuclear-brinksmanship/
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Reason Roundtable, 10/31/22
Source: Reason
"Twitter Was Already a Hellscape Even Before It Was Set Free." (10/31/22)
https://reason.com/podcast/2022/10/31/twitter-was-already-a-hellscape-even-before-it-was-set-free/
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52) EconTalk, 10/31/22
Source: EconTalk
"Michael Munger on Industrial Policy." (10/31/220
https://www.econtalk.org/michael-munger-on-industrial-policy/
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53) The Vital Center, episode 36
Source: Niskanen Center
"America's unfinished civil war, with Jeremi Suri." (10/31/22)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/americas-unfinished-civil-war-with-jeremi-suri/
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54) Conflicts of Interest, episode 343
Source: Libertarian Institute
"Rep. Ilhan Omar Adopts the War Party's Talking Points." (10/31/22)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/kyle/coi-343-rep-ilhan-omar-adopts-the-war-partys-talking-points/
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55) Rising, 10/31/22
Source: The Hill
"Batya Ungar-Sargon and Robby Soave react to the attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, over the weekend." (10/31/22)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/3712265-rising-october-31-2022/
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56) The Bryan Hyde Show, 10/31/22
Source: The Bryan Hyde Show
"Manipulators love to put their victims on the horns of a dilemma. As Bretigne Shaffer points out, we shouldn't have to choose between mob justice and the police state." (10/31/22)
https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-62at5-12ff5b2
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57) Tech Tank, season 3, episode 22
Source: Tech Tank
"Latino voters, midterm elections, and the effects of misinformation, and disinformation." (10/31/22)
https://shows.acast.com/tech-tank/episodes/latino-voters-midterm-elections-and-the-effects-of-misinform
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58) The Chris Spangle Show, 10/31/22
Source: We Are Libertarians
"Filling Health Care Gaps with the Heart and Soul Clinic." (10/31/22)
https://www.chrisspangle.com/p/filling-health-care-gaps-with-the
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59) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/31/22
Source: Antiwar.com
"Russia Says US Lowering 'Nuclear Threshold,' US Deploying B-52 Bombers to Australia, and More." (10/31/22)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzrWaVz2zkk
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60) Kyle Anzalon on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
"Kyle Anzalone joins Scott this week on Antiwar Radio to provide a quick insight into the status of the American empire's foreign adventurism." (10/30/22)
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/10-27-22-kyle-anzalone-on-washingtons-incompetent-imperialism/
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