10/20 -- Palestine: Israeli Regime Says It Will Stop Violating Gaza Ceasefire Terms For Now; Police State Bounty Hunters
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Thomas L. Knapp
Oct 20, 2025, 6:30:14 AM (7 days ago) Oct 20
to Freedom News Daily
Freedom News Daily, 10/20/25
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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
1) Palestine: Israeli Regime Says It Will Stop Violating Gaza Ceasefire Terms For Now
2) Bolivia: Paz wins presidential runoff
3) Trump calls on Russian, Ukrainian regimes to freeze war at current battle lines
4) IL: Women thwart gang members’ attempt to abduct man
5) VT: State senator resigns over racist Young Republican chat messages
6) “No Kings” protests draw huge crowds across US
7) Drug groups unveil advances in treating most difficult breast cancers
8) Polymarket: Bitcoin’s Odds Of Dipping Below $100,000 This Month Stand At 52%
9) Trump Commutes Fraud Sentence of Ex-GOP Congressman George Santos
10) Zimbabwe’s Ruling Party Resolves to Extend President’s Term to 2030
11) Morocco: Gen Z protesters demand accountability and education reform
12) TX: Regime hit with a pair of lawsuits for its app store age verification requirements
13) IL: ISU faculty member flips Turning Point USA tables on campus
14) France: Thieves break into Louvre in daring daytime heist, steal “priceless jewellery”
15) Utah Senator Lee revives crusade against public lands
16) Trump says he’ll think about Kremlin’s Russia-Alaska tunnel pitch
17) Wrongfully imprisoned for more than 40 years, US man now faces deportation to India
18) UK: Police looking into whether Prince Andrew enlisted officer to dig up dirt on accuser Giuffre
19) CA: Disgraced Bay Area sheriff uses ultimate loophole to get 90% of salary for life
20) MD: Business owner shoots, kills burglar
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Police State Bounty Hunters
22) “No Kings” Redux: Necessary But Insufficient (and Somewhat Misdirected)
23) Harsh Lessons Christian Nationalists Could Learn from Folk Horror
24) Going Full Venezuela
25) Playing Chicken with the Federal Budget: The Rational Stupidity of Shutdowns
26) Reviving the integrity of prosecutors
27) Frightening Ideas
28) Gen Z Is Taking to the Barricades
29) They Said The Massacres Would Stop When The Hostages Were Released; They Haven’t
30) Straight Whiskey and Dirty Politics
31) Why John Bolton probably WON’T pay big if found guilty in his documents case
32) How Trump’s advent and the internet killed the media’s agenda-setting power
33) Democrats Have Let Republicans Become the “Peace” Party
34) The Pro-Massacre, Pro-Segregation, Pro-Eugenics Administration
35) A Big Question Remains
36) A New Pacific Trade Highway
37) To 2025 Democrats, the extremist is Fetterman, not Mamdani
38) California’s Latest Dumb Gun Law is a Ban on Glocks
39) Émile Zola’s Realism Without Radicalism
40) You Have Entered the Incumbent Zone
41) Trump Keeps Overreaching: Will It Backfire?
42) President Trump Goes to War!
43) No, Trump did not “end” the war in the Congo. It’s as bloody as ever.
44) The Absurdity of Democracy
45) The Direct Path to Affordable Medicines
46) Why Myanmar’s Military Dictatorships are Fascist Regimes
47) Terminators and Parrots: AI in the Era of GPTs
48) A Hill of Beans to Die On
49) How Chicago Residents Are Resisting Trump’s ICE Invasion of the City
50) Trump Must Say No to Tomahawks for Ukraine
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Unattended Baggage, episode 314
52) Free Talk Live, 10/18/25
53) The Good Fight, 10/18/25
54) The Tom Woods Show, episode 2701
55) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 10/17/25
56) Serious Trouble, 10/17/25
57) The Intercept Briefing, 10/17/25
58) The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan, 10/17/25
59) System Update, episode 533
60) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/17/25
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
0) Year-End Fundraiser Update
THANK YOU to subscribing contributors DH, PD, and AN, and supporters SZ, TL, and EL! Their contributions over the weekend, totaling $133, bring our year-end fundraiser total (as of 5:30 am on Monday) to $675.50!
Our goal is $5,501. Thanks to supporter GL’s generous “matching funds” offer, we only have to raise half that amount from our other readers. $2,075 to go … so please, support the freedom movement’s daily newspaper today at:
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Have a great day!
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
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1) Palestine: Israeli Regime Says It Will Stop Violating Gaza Ceasefire Terms For Now
Source: Bloomberg
“Israel said it had resumed a truce with Hamas in Gaza after heavy fighting over the weekend, with the sides accusing each other of breaching a deal brokered by US President Donald Trump. Around 9:30 p.m. Israel time on Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces said it had ‘begun renewed enforcement of the ceasefire’ and warned it would ‘respond firmly to any violation.’ Israel launched strikes against Hamas in Gaza and suspended aid shipments on Sunday after blaming the Iran-backed militant group for an ambush that killed two soldiers in the southern part of the strip. … Hamas said it remained committed to the truce and that it had lost contact with, and therefore couldn’t be held responsible for, any Palestinian fighters operating in Rafah. Trump suggested that could be true.” (10/20/25)
https://archive.is/CyB2l
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2) Bolivia: Paz wins presidential runoff
Source: Associated Press
“Rodrigo Paz, a centrist senator who was never a nationally prominent figure until now, won Bolivia’s presidential election on Sunday, preliminary results showed, galvanizing voters outraged by the country’s economic crisis and frustrated after 20 years of rule by the Movement Toward Socialism party. … Paz and his popular running mate, ex-police Capt. Edman Lara, gained traction among working-class and rural voters disillusioned with the unbridled spending of the long-ruling Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party but wary of [former president Jorge “Tuto”] Quiroga’s radical 180-degree turn away from its social protections.” (10/20/25)
https://apnews.com/article/bolivia-runoff-election-jorge-quiroga-rodrigo-paz-ef7643d07d8968452cdce784e75a7810
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3) Trump calls on Russian, Ukrainian regimes to freeze war at current battle lines
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“United States President Donald Trump has called for Russia and Ukraine to freeze the war along current battle lines – a proposal that would see Moscow keep large areas of Ukrainian territory. Trump told reporters late on Sunday that the two sides should just stop fighting and resolve the ‘details’ over territory at future talks. The current front line runs through the Donbas region, an industrial hub. … The US president, who had promised to swiftly end the war between Russia and Ukraine, is set to meet his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Hungary in the coming weeks.” (10/20/25)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/20/trump-calls-on-russia-and-ukraine-to-freeze-war-at-current-battle-lines
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4) IL: Women thwart gang members’ attempt to abduct man
Source: CBS News
“Two federal immigration agents were attacked while [attempting to kidnap a man] Sunday morning in Bolingbrook in Chicago’s southwest suburbs, police said. Shortly before 10 a.m., Bolingbrook police responded to the 100 block of Williamsburg Lane for a report of a battery. Police said two immigration agents told officers they were trying to [abduct] a 46-year-old man in a parking lot, when two females approached and began hitting them in the head. The females and the man agents were [abducting] fled the scene and went inside a nearby home, police said. The agents declined medical attention. No one was in custody Sunday afternoon.” (10/19/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/immigration-agents-attacked-bolingbrook-arrest/
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5) VT: State senator resigns over racist Young Republican chat messages
Source: Washington Post
“A Vermont state senator has resigned over his involvement in a Young Republican group chat after racist and antisemitic messages shared among its members were made public. Republican Samuel Douglass announced his resignation, effective Monday, in a lengthy statement Friday, adding that he was ‘deeply sorry for the offense’ caused by his comments. Politico had reported on the leaked Telegram messages from a group chat including Young Republican leaders from Vermont, New York, Arizona and Kansas. The messages spanned 2,900 pages of chats over a roughly seven-month period and contained racist comments and jokes about gas chambers, torture and rape, according to Politico. Douglass, a first-term state senator, was the only elected official in the chat, the outlet reported.” (10/18/25)
https://archive.is/FbKYW
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6) “No Kings” protests draw huge crowds across US
Source: Axios
“Nearly 7 million protesters gathered across the U.S. on Saturday to take part in rallies against President Trump and his administration. … More than 2,700 events were planned as part of the protests across 50 states as of Saturday, as well as several internationally, including in London, Paris, Rome and Lisbon, Portugal. … GOP lawmakers condemned the movement as ‘a hate America rally’ and cast blame on the protests for the continued government shutdown.” (10/18/25)
https://archive.is/4voTQ
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7) Drug groups unveil advances in treating most difficult breast cancers
Source: Financial Times [UK]
“AstraZeneca, Daiichi Sankyo and Gilead have made big advances in treating the hardest-to-tackle type of breast cancer, boosting prospects for tens of thousands of patients a year. The drugmakers are unveiling trial results for existing blockbuster drugs in ‘triple negative’ breast cancer — so-called because it is not one of the three main types. These include the first ever study showing a medicine can extend the life of patients who cannot be treated with immunotherapy drugs, the majority of triple negative cases.” (10/19/25)
https://archive.is/LOn49
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8) Polymarket: Bitcoin’s Odds Of Dipping Below $100,000 This Month Stand At 52%
Source: AOL
“Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) has a 52% chance of falling below $100,000 this month, according to data from prediction platform Polymarket. Bitcoin’s price has been on a downward trend, returning to levels unseen in months. Polymarket’s data reveals a growing belief among traders that Bitcoin could be on the brink of a major correction. The bearish prediction has sparked discussions across the crypto community, with the data also showing a 39% surge in bearish sentiment.” (10/18/25)
https://www.aol.com/articles/bitcoins-odds-dipping-below-100-210231063.html
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9) Trump Commutes Fraud Sentence of Ex-GOP Congressman George Santos
Source: Common Dreams
“Continuing his pattern of pardoning allies and prosecuting adversaries, President Donald Trump on Friday commuted the prison term of former Republican Congressman George Santos, who was less than three months into a seven year sentence for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. ‘George Santos was somewhat of a ‘rogue,’ but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren’t forced to serve seven years in prison,’ Trump wrote on his Truth Social network. Once again, Trump randomly attacked Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s (D-Conn.) admitted lie about taking part in the US invasion and occupation of Vietnam. Blumenthal was a Marine stationed stateside during the war, in which Trump (who has been derided as ‘Capt. Bone Spurs’) avoided serving.” (10/18/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-pardons-george-santos
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10) Zimbabwe’s Ruling Party Resolves to Extend President’s Term to 2030
Source: US News & World Report
“Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF party plans to amend the constitution to extend President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s term by two years to 2030, a move opposition politicians have condemned as unlawful. The proposal, adopted at a party conference late on Saturday, would prolong the 83-year-old president’s second five-year term, currently set to end in 2028. The resolution comes amid a succession battle within ZANU-PF, where Mnangagwa’s main internal rival, former army general Constantino Chiwenga, has been accused of treasonous acts.” (10/19/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-10-19/zimbabwes-ruling-party-resolves-to-extend-presidents-term-to-2030
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11) Morocco: Gen Z protesters demand accountability and education reform
Source: SFGate
“Refusing to let the coming wave of fanfare around December’s Africa Cup of Nations overshadow their demands, protesters in Morocco urged a boycott of soccer matches at the country’s new stadiums. On Saturday, they reiterated previous demands and called for the release of demonstrators arrested during earlier Gen Z 212 protests. After an eight-day pause, hundreds of young demonstrators took to the streets on Saturday as part of an effort to show they remained committed to protesting corruption and subpar healthcare and education. In several cities — including Casablanca and Tangier — hundreds of young protesters once again voiced anger at elected officials, demanding the ouster of Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch, who they called corrupt. The protests, smaller in numbers, came eight days after King Mohammed VI in a speech at Morocco’s parliament did not address the Gen Z 212 protests directly.” (10/18/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/morocco-s-gen-z-protesters-demand-accountability-21107848.php
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12) TX: Regime hit with a pair of lawsuits for its app store age verification requirements
Source: Engadget
“Texas could have a serious legal battle on its hands thanks to an age verification law for app stores that it recently enacted. In response to the Texas App Store Accountability Act, the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) filed a lawsuit that argues the new order goes against First Amendment rights. The not-for-profit trade association has Amazon, Apple and Google amongst its members. The law goes into effect on New Year’s Day and requires app store users to verify their age before downloading apps or making in-app purchases.” (10/18/25)
https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/texas-hit-with-a-pair-of-lawsuits-for-its-app-store-age-verification-requirements-164940290.html?src=rss
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13) IL: ISU faculty member flips Turning Point USA tables on campus
Source: New York Post
“An Illinois State University faculty member was arrested after allegedly flipping a Turning Point USA table on campus this week, viral video shows. The accused vandal, Derek Lopez, was caught on camera speaking to a man standing near the table, which had been set up by students in the group to promote political YouTuber and comedian Alex Stein’s Oct. 20 event at the university, according to video, local police and various X posts about the ugly incident. ‘Well, you know, Jesus did it, so you know I gotta do it, right?’ Lopez, 27, of El Paso, IL (a teacher’s assistant and graduate student at the university) tells the man before the footage shows him tossing the table over, sending pins, flyers and other items rocketing into the air.” (10/18/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/10/18/us-news/illinois-state-university-faculty-member-flips-turning-point-usa-tables-on-campus/
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14) France: Thieves break into Louvre in daring daytime heist, steal “priceless jewellery”
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“A team of thieves broke into the Louvre in the heart of Paris on Sunday and stole ‘priceless’ historical jewellery, said France’s interior minister, as the world-renowned museum closed for the day. French authorities later said they recovered one piece of jewellery, which was apparently dropped by the robbers as they made their escape. … French authorities confirmed they found the 19th-century crown that once belonging to Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III. The crown features golden eagles and is covered in 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds, according to the museum’s website.” (10/19/25)
https://www.france24.com/en/france/20251019-louvre-robbery-shuts-down-world-renowned-museum-for-a-day-french-culture-minister-says
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15) Utah Senator Lee revives crusade against public lands
Source: SFGate
“Republican Sen. Mike Lee is back with another bid to reshape America’s public lands — and this time, he’s framing it as a border security initiative. The Border Lands Conservation Act, introduced a day after the federal government shutdown began Oct. 1, is the latest in a long line of the Utah senator’s proposals to roll back federal land protections. On paper, the bill reads like an rescue plan — a response to what Lee called, in a news release, ‘environmental destruction on federal public lands as a result of the Biden Administration’s open-border policies.’ He says the bill will safeguard parks, forests, and wildlife refuges from trash, vehicle abandonment and wildfires supposedly linked to border crossings. If passed, the proposal would hand sweeping authority over millions of acres of federal wilderness to the Department of Homeland Security. (10/18/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/national-parks/article/mike-lee-border-lands-conservation-act-wilderness-21104891.php
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16) Trump says he’ll think about Kremlin’s Russia-Alaska tunnel pitch
Source: CNBC
“President Donald Trump said Friday that a Russian proposal for Elon Musk and his tunneling business, the Boring Company, to build an undersea rail tunnel through the Bering Strait was ‘interesting’ and he’d have to think about it. ‘That’s an interesting one,’ Trump said when asked about the suggested tunnel from Russia to Alaska. ‘We’ll have to think about that. I hadn’t heard that.’ … Kirill Dmitriev, an investment envoy for Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggested in posts on Musk’s social media platform X that the project would be partly funded by Moscow. Dmitriev said it would be ‘a 70-mile link symbolizing unity.’ A tunnel like this would traditionally cost an estimated $65 billion to build, said Dmitriev, who is head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, adding that The Boring Company and its technology could potentially reduce those costs to $8 billion and complete the project within eight years.” (10/17/25)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/17/musk-trump-putin-tunnel-russia-alaska.html
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17) Wrongfully imprisoned for more than 40 years, US man now faces deportation to India
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“After serving 43 years in prison for a murder he did not commit, Subramanyam ‘Subu’ Vedam was finally free. New evidence had exonerated him earlier this month of the murder of his former roommate. But before he could reach his family’s arms, Mr Vedam was taken into custody by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who want to deport him to India — a country he has not lived in since he was a baby. Now, Mr Vedam’s legal team is fighting a deportation order and his family is determined to get him out of custody, for good. His family are now working to navigate a new and ‘very different’ situation, his sister Saraswathi Vedam told the BBC.” (10/18/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgz85g6pj0o
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18) UK: Police looking into whether Prince Andrew enlisted officer to dig up dirt on accuser Giuffre
Source: ABC News
“London police are probing whether Prince Andrew asked an officer assigned to him as a bodyguard to dig up dirt on sexual assault accuser Virginia Giuffre. The Metropolitan Police said it was ‘actively looking into’ media reports that Andrew in 2011 sought information to smear Giuffre by asking an officer on the force to find out if she had a criminal record. The report by the Mail on Sunday followed Buckingham Palace’s announcement Friday that Andrew agreed to relinquish use of Duke of York and other remaining royal titles after emails emerged showing he had remained in contact with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein longer than he previously admitted.” (10/19/25)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/police-prince-andrew-enlisted-officer-dig-dirt-accuser-126657819
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19) CA: Disgraced Bay Area sheriff uses ultimate loophole to get 90% of salary for life
Source: SFGate
“Former San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus retired with full pension and benefits on Tuesday just hours after the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to remove her from office following multiple investigations within the past year. Corpus retired ‘under duress’ so she could retain health benefits for herself and her children, according to ABC7 News reporter Danny Noyes. He posted on X, saying she texted him: ‘I will be okay! They don’t deserve me.’ Supervisor David Canepa confirmed the validity of Corpus’[s] retirement, explaining to KTVU-TV that under county protocol, Corpus will receive her pension, which reportedly includes 90% of her paycheck and benefits upon retirement.” (10/17/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/san-mateo-county-sheriff-corpus-retirement-21106609.php
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20) MD: Business owner shoots, kills burglar
Source: CBS News
“A business owner in Baltimore’s Canton neighborhood shot and killed a man during a burglary at his jewelry store early Thursday morning, police said. … Baltimore police described it as a commercial burglary at the jewelry store across the street and confirmed the store owner shot and killed a 39-year-old man. Police have yet to identify the man who died. … Maryland law includes the Castle Doctrine, which allows the use of force to protect your home, but that force must be proportional to the perceived threat.” (10/17/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/southeast-baltimore-jewelry-store-fatal-shooting/
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Police State Bounty Hunters
Source: CounterPunch
by John W Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead
“Masked gunmen. Tasers. Tear gas. Pepper spray. Unmarked vehicles. Intimidation tactics. Brutality. Racial profiling. Children traumatized. Families terrorized. Journalists targeted. Citizens detained. Disabled individuals, minors, the elderly, pregnant women, military veterans — snatched off the streets. Private property destroyed. This is not a war zone. This is what now passes for law-and-order policing by ICE agents in Trump’s America—and it is not making America safer or greater. What began as an agency tasked with enforcing immigration law has metastasized into a domestic terror force. … Make no mistake: this is not how a constitutional republic operates. It is how a dictatorship behaves when it decides the rule of law — in this case, the Bill of Rights — is optional.” (10/17/25)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/10/17/police-state-bounty-hunters/
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22) “No Kings” Redux: Necessary But Insufficient (and Somewhat Misdirected)
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“The first ‘No Kings’ rally, I wrote then, was largely a Democratic ‘campaign event for the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential election. Those of who oppose Trump but aren’t Democrats came along for the ride. Our support was co-opted whether we liked it or not.’ If anything, the second event took on an even more ‘vote — and by the way, vote Democrat’ tone. Despite the increased and welcome focus on Trump’s foreign military misadventures and domestic martial law moves, there was still plenty of ‘Yes Kings’ signage and sloganeering. One speaker, believe it or not, even devoted a minute or two to praising Joe Biden’s (and before him, Donald Trump’s) COVID-19 monarchical pretensions and decrying the ‘No Kings’ protesters of that era … many of whom, unfortunately, reverted to their own prior ‘Yes Kings’ advocacy on January 20, 2025.” (10/19/25)
https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20088
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23) Harsh Lessons Christian Nationalists Could Learn from Folk Horror
Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid
“Christianity is back and it’s more violent than ever. I speak of course of the late capitalist tent house revival of Christian Nationalism amongst the decaying ruins of Washington DC. Using the demonic, Caligula-esque Emperador Trump like a pedophilic battering ram, a bunch of millenarian lunatics with a barely literate interpretation of the Bible have found themselves in the highest echelons of political influence in this country and their vulgar reach can be felt throughout the decidedly big government and hyper-interventionist policies of MAGA 2.0, from the transgender genocide to the Zionist reinvention of the Middle East. But there’s a catch and it’s one likely to catch up with the Evangelical set with a vengeance far sooner than later.” (10/18/25)
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2025/10/harsh-lessons-christian-nationalists.html
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24) Going Full Venezuela
Source: Persuasion
by Quico Toro
“I could feel the panic attack set in the second the suggestion was made. ‘Would you go cover the No Kings protests on the 18th?’ my editor asked, reasonably enough. My heart started pounding, my palms sweating. ‘I’d rather slit my wrists,’ I wrote back. Because in my head, 25 years had vanished. I was back in Caracas, in 2000, planning to go to the very first pro-democracy, anti-Chávez protests, and things were about to go very wrong indeed. It wasn’t quite the first time. Reading American news these days, everything feels like a flashback. Or a callback.” (10/18/25)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/no-kings-and-the-echo-of-venezuela
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25) Playing Chicken with the Federal Budget: The Rational Stupidity of Shutdowns
Source: The Daily Economy
by Michael Munger
“Government shutdowns might look irrational, but they follow a familiar script. When political types gain more from the standoff than the solution, collisions become routine.” (10/17/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/playing-chicken-with-the-federal-budget-the-rational-stupidity-of-shutdowns/
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26) Reviving the integrity of prosecutors
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“Now nine months into his second term, President Donald Trump may be setting a new norm in law enforcement. Under his watch, prosecutors in the U.S. Justice Department have indicted three people who Mr. Trump believes have done him wrong: former FBI Director James Comey, current New York Attorney General Letitia James, and, on Thursday, his former national security adviser, John Bolton. The courts may yet declare all three to be not guilty of charges against them. Yet the possibility of prosecutorial misconduct, such as for vindictiveness, has supercharged efforts to reset the norms of integrity (that is, pursuing justice over ‘winning’) that most prosecutors have honored for decades. For now, much of that norm-resetting is at the state level, where millions of felonies and misdemeanors are handled each year by more than 2,300 prosecutor’s offices.” (10/17/25)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2025/1017/Reviving-the-integrity-of-prosecutors
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27) Frightening Ideas
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“An old post by Steve Landsburg offered three examples of actions by one person that another objected to but that did no physical damage. He asked whether the psychic cost to the objector should be considered relevant to public policy, whether the answer was the same for all three and, if not, why not. The first of the three was someone reading pornography and someone else being upset by the knowledge that pornography was being read. The third was someone raping an unconscious victim in a way that did no physical harm. Why, Steve asked, do we have different reactions to those cases and is the difference justified? Discussing reactions to the post with my daughter, I commented that the people who were angry about it, mostly online, struck me as either stupid or evil.” (10/17/25)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/frightening-ideas-913
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28) Gen Z Is Taking to the Barricades
Source: Foreign Policy
by Christian Caryl
“Remember the kids of Generation Z? You know — that notorious cohort of entitled, lazy, and apathetic people that Boomers so love to mock? Over the past two years, members of Gen Z across Asia, Africa, and Latin America have been taking to the streets, covertly organizing revolutions and dethroning entrenched rulers. Quite a few of those involved in the uprisings have paid with their lives — another indicator that these events are worth taking seriously. … Some observers might dismiss this new wave of activism as irrelevant to the future of established democracies. But such complacency might be ill-advised. If this new revolutionary movement has demonstrated anything, it’s that no one should underestimate its infectiousness.” (10/17/25)
https://archive.is/3qbI1
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29) They Said The Massacres Would Stop When The Hostages Were Released; They Haven’t
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Last year I banged out an angry rant about the way Israel supporters would yell ‘release the hostages!’ at anyone who talked about the latest massacre of Palestinian civilians, saying Hamas was to blame for the killing because of their refusal to release the Israeli captives, and that it would all stop once the hostages are free. I’m remembering that essay today because the hostages are free, but the massacres are continuing. On Friday Israel reportedly blew up a vehicle carrying a Palestinian family of eleven people, including seven children. The IDF gave its usual excuse for the massacre: the civilians were deemed to have crossed an invisible line into a forbidden zone which made the Israeli soldiers feel unsafe. They did this exact same thing constantly during the last ‘ceasefire’ as well.” (10/18/25)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/10/18/they-said-the-massacres-would-stop-when-the-hostages-were-released-they-havent-stopped/
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30) Straight Whiskey and Dirty Politics
Source: EconLog
by Daniel Smith
“In the early 20th century, America was buzzing with Progressive Era reforms aimed at taming the excesses of industrialization. One landmark was the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906, hailed as a victory for consumer safety. It banned poisonous ingredients in food and drink, required accurate labeling, and cracked down on imitations. But when it came to whiskey, was it truly about protecting the public from deadly adulterants? Or was it a classic case of dirty politics, where special interests use government power to disadvantage competitors?” (10/17/25)
https://www.econlib.org/econlog/straight-whiskey-and-dirty-politics/
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31) Why John Bolton probably WON’T pay big if found guilty in his documents case
Source: New York Post
by staff
“John Bolton has pleaded ‘not guilty’ on 18 counts of illegally hoarding or sending sensitive national-security information, charges that could bring decades in prison — and if the feds have the evidence they claim, the case seems open-and-shut. Figuring out where justice lies is a bit tougher. … Bolton, a former UN ambassador and national security adviser, has long been a friend of these pages. Yet if he truly used his AOL account to email classified info to his wife and daughter, they seemingly have him dead to rights. Thing is, the public doesn’t get to know what’s beneath ‘classified’ and ‘top secret’ labels — and over-classification is a notorious problem in Washington, as Jim Bovard noted in these pages when it was President Donald Trump in Team Biden’s crosshairs.” (10/17/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/10/17/opinion/why-john-bolton-probably-wont-pay-big-if-guilty-in-his-documents-case/
-----
32) How Trump’s advent and the internet killed the media’s agenda-setting power
Source: Washington Post
by George F Will
“A sound of morning silence is coming to Atlanta. The sound of newspapers landing on sidewalks in residential neighborhoods will vanish when, at year’s end, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, joining a national trend, stops publishing print editions. Turning trees into paper, marking it with ink, trucking it to people who deliver it to readers — soon this laboriousness might be as forgotten as men with tongs lugging large slabs of ice for home iceboxes. The waning of the 400-year era of newspapers is, however, about cultural changes more momentous than the efficiency and convenience of written words presented digitally.” (10/17/25)
https://archive.is/yf9PX
-----
33) Democrats Have Let Republicans Become the “Peace” Party
Source: Common Dreams
by Sam Rosenthal
“When President Donald Trump announced that he had helped broker an end to Israel’s onslaught in Gaza, it marked the achievement of a goal many anti-war activists had been struggling toward for two years. Few were bothered by the fact that it was Trump who ultimately presided over the cessation of violence; the goal was always to end the bombing, by any means possible. Whether this deal amounts to a lasting end to violence in the region is all but certain; already, Israel has attacked and killed Palestinians in an apparent breach of the agreement’s terms. But, with a hostage swap underway, there is some reason to believe that this merciless, apocalyptic phase of the genocide in Gaza is coming to an end. As this fragile ‘ceasefire’ takes hold, it is worth considering what this apparent diplomatic success means for Trump, his foreign policy going forward, and for his opposition.” (10/18/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/democrats-republicans-peace-party
-----
34) The Pro-Massacre, Pro-Segregation, Pro-Eugenics Administration
Source: Liberal Currents
by Dan Holtmeyer
“The Trump administration is seeking to rewind the clock on an entire century of legal — and moral — progress.” (10/17/25)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-pro-massacre-pro-segregation-pro-eugenics-administration/
-----
35) A Big Question Remains
Source: Pierre Lemieux
by Pierre Lemieux
“Assume it is true that fentanyl is exported from Venezuela to America, even if experts deny it. Assume that blowing up suspected smugglers on small boats in international waters is legal, and that the soldiers who do it will not, in 5, 10, or 15 years, be prosecuted (we know since the Nuremberg trials that ‘obeying orders’ is not a legal justification for crimes, and it is also true in American law). Ignore that the higher-ups, if they escape prosecution, will not be roasting in hell for all eternity for disobeying the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ if traditional Christian beliefs are true. There still remains a big question — in fact, a whole set of related one[s] — about the very justification for these operations, which is to ‘stop the poison, and keep America safe,’ to borrow the words of the Secretary of Defense.” (10/17/25)
https://pierrelemieux.substack.com/p/a-big-question-remains
-----
36) A New Pacific Trade Highway
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott
“When President Trump announced a new 100% tariff on Chinese imports, in retaliation for Beijing’s latest export controls on rare earth elements, markets saw only the headline risk. But the real story lies beyond the ticker: a structural reordering of global trade. The world’s supply chains, long anchored to the Chinese mainland, are splintering. Capital is scattering across Asia’s periphery, and shipping routes that once followed predictable trans-Pacific lines are being redrawn into a new web of uncertainty and opportunity. Alongside an eastward turn worth $100 billion in investment, the trends of the last 30 years of global financial flows are being upended.” (10/17/25)
https://fee.org/articles/a-new-pacific-trade-highway/
-----
37) To 2025 Democrats, the extremist is Fetterman, not Mamdani
Source: Fox News
by David Marcus
“It was quite a week for the Democrat Party. On Wednesday night, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, once fringe figures, held a CNN town hall to promote their socialist agenda. The next night, zany Zhoran Mamdani, the darling of the far left, took to the debate stage as the leading candidate for New York City mayor. We also learned from Axios that plots are afoot to primary Sen. John Fetterman [D-PA] from the left. Even though the hoodie-rocking senator votes 95% of the time with Democrats, he calls out communism and supports Israel. In today’s Democrat Party, those positions are a bridge too far. What is becoming increasingly clear is that Democrat Socialists of America-backed Mamdani is not an ‘extreme’ Democrat. He’s just a normal one. The outlier today is Fetterman and any other Democrat who will not genuflect to the new socialist power structure.” (10/18/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/david-marcus-2025-democrats-extremist-fetterman-not-mamdani
-----
38) California’s Latest Dumb Gun Law is a Ban on Glocks
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille
“Last year, then-Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris insisted in a presidential debate that she is a gun owner and that she and her running mate, Tim Walz, were ‘not taking anybody’s guns away, so stop with the continuous lying about this stuff.’ Later, she elaborated with 60 Minutes interviewer Bill Whitaker that she owned a Glock pistol that she had fired at the shooting range. Maybe Harris should have checked with lawmakers in California where she was once attorney general and which she represented in the U.S. Senate. That state just banned the sale of Glock pistols. True, state officials won’t take away Kamala’s pistol or those already owned by other Californians, but that’s cold comfort for anybody looking to purchase new products from the popular gunmaker.” (10/17/25)
https://reason.com/2025/10/17/californias-latest-dumb-gun-law-is-a-ban-on-glocks
-----
39) Émile Zola’s Realism Without Radicalism
Source: Law & Liberty
by Zachary D Stone
“A giant of nineteenth century literature, Émile Zola’s life and writings show that realism can be an antidote to the pathology of radicalism.” (10/17/25)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/emile-zolas-realism-without-radicalism/
-----
40) You Have Entered the Incumbent Zone
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“The aim of elections is not to guarantee any particular outcome. Yet, protecting incumbents means seeking a very, very particular outcome. Elections should make sure that — above all else — the voting public shapes the government. Definitely not that the government shapes the public. By drawing fancy lines for districts.” (10/17/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/10/17/you-have-entered-the-incumbent-zone/
-----
41) Trump Keeps Overreaching: Will It Backfire?
Source: The American Prospect
by Robert Kuttner
“Trump’s latest scheme to take universities into receivership, a proposed ‘Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education’, has turned out to be a gift to dithering college presidents. Trump’s offer that they couldn’t refuse, sent on October 1 to nine universities that were expected to be malleable, offered preferential access to federal funding in exchange for compliance with several demands. These included freezing tuition rates for five years, capping international student enrollment, adopting definitions of sex/gender aligned with biological sex, ending consideration of race or gender in admissions and hiring, as well as ‘institutional neutrality’ on political and social issues. But Trump’s scheme was so crass and half-baked that several college presidents politely told him to stuff it. So far, he has no takers. Universities that explicitly rejected the deal citing academic freedom include Brown, MIT, Penn, USC, and Dartmouth.” (10/17/25)
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-10-17-trump-keeps-overreaching-will-it-backfire/
-----
42) President Trump Goes to War!
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Snider
“While couched in the language of fighting drug trafficking into the United States, the Trump administration has made no secret of its desire for regime change in Venezuela. Under the leadership of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with the support of CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Trump’s chief domestic policy advisor, Stephen Miller, Trump’s team has pushed for the removal of Maduro from power. A Trump administration official familiar with policy discussions on the approach to Venezuela told Axios that, though the military build up is ‘about narco-terrorism … if Maduro winds up no longer in power, no one will be crying.’ Another, by comparing it to the American operation against Panama’s Manuel Noriega in 1989, implied that a coup was higher on the agenda.” (10/17/25)
https://original.antiwar.com/ted_snider/2025/10/16/president-trump-goes-to-war/
-----
43) No, Trump did not “end” the war in the Congo. It’s as bloody as ever.
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Dan M Ford
“Earlier this week, Donald Trump made the bold claim that he’s responsible for ending eight wars since taking office this past January — in other words, nearly one war each month of his presidency. Among the wars on his list is the decades-long conflict between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda, which has mired central Africa since the days of the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s in a quagmire conflict involving over one hundred armed groups. But despite Trump’s claim, the DRC-Rwanda conflict is not yet over. And despite belligerent actors taking some positive steps to bring about a lasting peace — including Tuesday’s announcement that the Rwanda-supported M23 rebel group and the DRC have agreed on a mechanism to monitor a fragile ceasefire — the war remains an active conflict between the two neighbors and their allied groups.” (10/17/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/congo-trump-end-war/
-----
44) The Absurdity of Democracy
Source: Free Association
by Sheldon Richman
“If the continuing incompetence of Congress over passing a budget and reopening the U.S. government doesn’t show the absurdity of unlimited representative republicanism, what could do so? Whether or not to extend COVID-era special subsidies for medical insurance appears to be the main issue, but other issues are undoubtedly involved. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. That’s politics. The problem is that the government has its hands in everything. That means a constituency exists for each thing the government does.” (10/17/25)
https://sheldonfreeassociation.blogspot.com/2025/10/if-continuing-incompetence-of-congress.html
-----
45) The Direct Path to Affordable Medicines
Source: Town Hall
by Dr. Wolfgang Klietmann
“Americans can buy iPhones straight from Apple and sneakers straight from Nike. In fact, in almost every industry, it’s perfectly normal for consumers to buy products directly from manufacturers’ websites and have them shipped right to their doors. But medicines are different. For decades, patients have been forced to run through a gauntlet of middlemen, each of whom piles on fees, to get the treatments they need. The additional costs imposed by these wholesalers, insurers, pharmacy benefit managers, and pharmacies have turned the simple act of filling a prescription into a monthly financial crisis for too many families. Fortunately, that could soon change. A handful of pharmaceutical companies recently started selling medicines directly to patients, shipping the drugs right to their porch or mailbox, so long as they have a doctor’s prescription.” [editor’s note: Cool. Now just get rid of the prescription requirement – TLK] (10/18/25)
https://townhall.com/columnists/wolfgang/2025/10/18/the-direct-path-to-affordable-medicines-n2665088
-----
46) Why Myanmar’s Military Dictatorships are Fascist Regimes
Source: Center for a Stateless Society
by Hein Htet Kyaw
“The term ‘fascism,’ as George Orwell once cautioned, has often been diluted, losing its precise meaning and becoming a generic slur. This has led to its misapplication, where its core ideology is overlooked in favour of its more superficial traits, such as authoritarianism and militarism. While these are certainly present in fascist regimes, they are not the sole defining characteristics. However, there are political groups that are accurately identified as fascist. The Myanmar military dictatorships, including the current junta, stand as a particularly fitting and accurate example of a fascist regime.” (10/17/25)
https://c4ss.org/content/60832
-----
47) Terminators and Parrots: AI in the Era of GPTs
Source: Quillette
by Shalom Lappin
“The hyperbole surrounding AGI misrepresents the capabilities of current AI systems and distracts attention from the real threats that these systems are creating.” (10/17/25)
https://quillette.com/2025/10/17/terminators-and-parrots-ai-in-the-era-of-gpts/
-----
48) A Hill of Beans to Die On
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
“To understand the idiotic trade war with China launched by Donald Trump in his second administration, study the idiotic trade war with China launched by Donald Trump in his first administration.” (10/17/25)
https://thedispatch.com/article/trump-china-soybeans-tariffs/
-----
49) How Chicago Residents Are Resisting Trump’s ICE Invasion of the City
Source: In These Times
by Danny Postel
“As ICE wreaks chaos and violence in neighborhoods across Chicago, teams of rapid responders are protecting residents and challenging Trump’s attempted occupation by fighting fear through solidarity.” (10/16/25)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/ice-trump-chicago-immigrants-rapid-response
-----
50) Trump Must Say No to Tomahawks for Ukraine
Source: The American Conservative
by Eldar Mamedov
“The threat of Tomahawks is not primarily a military calculation but a diplomatic cudgel intended to ‘get a deal.’ The back-to-back calls with Zelensky serve as a performance of resolve, a signal to the Kremlin that the administration is serious about altering the conflict’s dynamics. But beneath this surface lies a far more dangerous strategic gambit. The Tomahawk debate is no longer merely about enhancing Ukraine’s strike capability; it has become the central chip in a high-stakes game of coercion between Washington and Moscow, one where the specter of nuclear escalation is being deliberately invoked.” (10/17/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/trump-must-say-no-to-tomahawks-for-ukraine/
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Unattended Baggage, episode 314
Source: Unattended Baggage
“You should’ve bought me an energy drink.” (10/18/25)
https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-314-you-shouldve-bought-me
-----
52) Free Talk Live, 10/18/25
Source: Free Talk Live
“Roger Ver makes a deal :: Skeeter calls to gloat about extortion :: Tim in FL calls about source info vs commentary :: Sarah in NM calls about mayoral debate and homelessness :: no kings protest :: 82nd airstrike by U.S. in Somalia for the year :: caller talks about the papacy :: Dave Ridley calls about court room rituals :: free will :: power corruption :: tribes :: 2025-10-18 Hosts: Stu, Riley, Angelo.” (10/18/25)
https://soundcloud.com/freetalklive/ftl2025-10-18
-----
53) The Good Fight, 10/18/25
Source: Yascha Mounk
“Quico Toro on Charlatans.” (10/18/25)
https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/quico-toro-on-3
-----
54) The Tom Woods Show, episode 2701
Source: The Tom Woods Show
“The Dangers of Losing Normal Childhoods.” (10/18/25)
https://tomwoods.com/ep-2701-the-dangers-of-losing-normal-childhoods/
-----
55) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 10/17/25
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Boat Bombings Take Darker Turn as Top Official Suddenly Resigns.” (10/17/25)
https://newrepublic.com/article/201905/trump-boat-bombings-take-darker-turn-top-official-suddenly-resigns
-----
56) Serious Trouble, 10/17/25
Source: Serious Trouble
“Drake loses his lawsuit, but nobody can take his dignity (because he doesn’t have any); Letitia James is indicted; schools may prohibit ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ swag.” (10/17/25)
https://www.serioustrouble.show/p/drakes-not-like-us-familiar-with
-----
57) The Intercept Briefing, 10/17/25
Source: The Intercept
“Trump’s Gaza Ceasefire Deal Is Already Failing Palestinians.” (10/17/25)
https://theintercept.com/2025/10/17/briefing-podcast-gaza-ceasefire-deal/
-----
58) The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan, 10/17/25
Source: The Weekly Dish
“Charles Murray On Taking Religion Seriously.” (10/17/25)
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/charles-murray-on-taking-religion
-----
59) System Update, episode 533
Source: System Update
“Glenn Takes Your Questions on Major Saudi Arabia Celeb Controversies, Zohran Mamdani and the NYC Debate, Anti-ICE Protests, and More.” (10/17/25)
https://rumble.com/v70fram-system-update-show-533.html
-----
60) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/17/25
Source: Antiwar.com
“SOUTHCOM Chief Steps Down Amid Push Toward Venezuela War, Trump Threatens To ‘Kill’ Hamas, and More.” (10/17/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW4Zd463ecU
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Today's Freedom News:
0) Year-End Fundraiser Update
1) Palestine: Israeli Regime Says It Will Stop Violating Gaza Ceasefire Terms For Now
2) Bolivia: Paz wins presidential runoff
3) Trump calls on Russian, Ukrainian regimes to freeze war at current battle lines
4) IL: Women thwart gang members’ attempt to abduct man
5) VT: State senator resigns over racist Young Republican chat messages
6) “No Kings” protests draw huge crowds across US
7) Drug groups unveil advances in treating most difficult breast cancers
8) Polymarket: Bitcoin’s Odds Of Dipping Below $100,000 This Month Stand At 52%
9) Trump Commutes Fraud Sentence of Ex-GOP Congressman George Santos
10) Zimbabwe’s Ruling Party Resolves to Extend President’s Term to 2030
11) Morocco: Gen Z protesters demand accountability and education reform
12) TX: Regime hit with a pair of lawsuits for its app store age verification requirements
13) IL: ISU faculty member flips Turning Point USA tables on campus
14) France: Thieves break into Louvre in daring daytime heist, steal “priceless jewellery”
15) Utah Senator Lee revives crusade against public lands
16) Trump says he’ll think about Kremlin’s Russia-Alaska tunnel pitch
17) Wrongfully imprisoned for more than 40 years, US man now faces deportation to India
18) UK: Police looking into whether Prince Andrew enlisted officer to dig up dirt on accuser Giuffre
19) CA: Disgraced Bay Area sheriff uses ultimate loophole to get 90% of salary for life
20) MD: Business owner shoots, kills burglar
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Police State Bounty Hunters
22) “No Kings” Redux: Necessary But Insufficient (and Somewhat Misdirected)
23) Harsh Lessons Christian Nationalists Could Learn from Folk Horror
24) Going Full Venezuela
25) Playing Chicken with the Federal Budget: The Rational Stupidity of Shutdowns
26) Reviving the integrity of prosecutors
27) Frightening Ideas
28) Gen Z Is Taking to the Barricades
29) They Said The Massacres Would Stop When The Hostages Were Released; They Haven’t
30) Straight Whiskey and Dirty Politics
31) Why John Bolton probably WON’T pay big if found guilty in his documents case
32) How Trump’s advent and the internet killed the media’s agenda-setting power
33) Democrats Have Let Republicans Become the “Peace” Party
34) The Pro-Massacre, Pro-Segregation, Pro-Eugenics Administration
35) A Big Question Remains
36) A New Pacific Trade Highway
37) To 2025 Democrats, the extremist is Fetterman, not Mamdani
38) California’s Latest Dumb Gun Law is a Ban on Glocks
39) Émile Zola’s Realism Without Radicalism
40) You Have Entered the Incumbent Zone
41) Trump Keeps Overreaching: Will It Backfire?
42) President Trump Goes to War!
43) No, Trump did not “end” the war in the Congo. It’s as bloody as ever.
44) The Absurdity of Democracy
45) The Direct Path to Affordable Medicines
46) Why Myanmar’s Military Dictatorships are Fascist Regimes
47) Terminators and Parrots: AI in the Era of GPTs
48) A Hill of Beans to Die On
49) How Chicago Residents Are Resisting Trump’s ICE Invasion of the City
50) Trump Must Say No to Tomahawks for Ukraine
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Unattended Baggage, episode 314
52) Free Talk Live, 10/18/25
53) The Good Fight, 10/18/25
54) The Tom Woods Show, episode 2701
55) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 10/17/25
56) Serious Trouble, 10/17/25
57) The Intercept Briefing, 10/17/25
58) The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan, 10/17/25
59) System Update, episode 533
60) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/17/25
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1) Palestine: Israeli Regime Says It Will Stop Violating Gaza Ceasefire Terms For Now
Source: Bloomberg
“Israel said it had resumed a truce with Hamas in Gaza after heavy fighting over the weekend, with the sides accusing each other of breaching a deal brokered by US President Donald Trump. Around 9:30 p.m. Israel time on Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces said it had ‘begun renewed enforcement of the ceasefire’ and warned it would ‘respond firmly to any violation.’ Israel launched strikes against Hamas in Gaza and suspended aid shipments on Sunday after blaming the Iran-backed militant group for an ambush that killed two soldiers in the southern part of the strip. … Hamas said it remained committed to the truce and that it had lost contact with, and therefore couldn’t be held responsible for, any Palestinian fighters operating in Rafah. Trump suggested that could be true.” (10/20/25)
https://archive.is/CyB2l
-----
2) Bolivia: Paz wins presidential runoff
Source: Associated Press
“Rodrigo Paz, a centrist senator who was never a nationally prominent figure until now, won Bolivia’s presidential election on Sunday, preliminary results showed, galvanizing voters outraged by the country’s economic crisis and frustrated after 20 years of rule by the Movement Toward Socialism party. … Paz and his popular running mate, ex-police Capt. Edman Lara, gained traction among working-class and rural voters disillusioned with the unbridled spending of the long-ruling Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party but wary of [former president Jorge “Tuto”] Quiroga’s radical 180-degree turn away from its social protections.” (10/20/25)
https://apnews.com/article/bolivia-runoff-election-jorge-quiroga-rodrigo-paz-ef7643d07d8968452cdce784e75a7810
-----
3) Trump calls on Russian, Ukrainian regimes to freeze war at current battle lines
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“United States President Donald Trump has called for Russia and Ukraine to freeze the war along current battle lines – a proposal that would see Moscow keep large areas of Ukrainian territory. Trump told reporters late on Sunday that the two sides should just stop fighting and resolve the ‘details’ over territory at future talks. The current front line runs through the Donbas region, an industrial hub. … The US president, who had promised to swiftly end the war between Russia and Ukraine, is set to meet his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Hungary in the coming weeks.” (10/20/25)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/20/trump-calls-on-russia-and-ukraine-to-freeze-war-at-current-battle-lines
-----
4) IL: Women thwart gang members’ attempt to abduct man
Source: CBS News
“Two federal immigration agents were attacked while [attempting to kidnap a man] Sunday morning in Bolingbrook in Chicago’s southwest suburbs, police said. Shortly before 10 a.m., Bolingbrook police responded to the 100 block of Williamsburg Lane for a report of a battery. Police said two immigration agents told officers they were trying to [abduct] a 46-year-old man in a parking lot, when two females approached and began hitting them in the head. The females and the man agents were [abducting] fled the scene and went inside a nearby home, police said. The agents declined medical attention. No one was in custody Sunday afternoon.” (10/19/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/immigration-agents-attacked-bolingbrook-arrest/
-----
5) VT: State senator resigns over racist Young Republican chat messages
Source: Washington Post
“A Vermont state senator has resigned over his involvement in a Young Republican group chat after racist and antisemitic messages shared among its members were made public. Republican Samuel Douglass announced his resignation, effective Monday, in a lengthy statement Friday, adding that he was ‘deeply sorry for the offense’ caused by his comments. Politico had reported on the leaked Telegram messages from a group chat including Young Republican leaders from Vermont, New York, Arizona and Kansas. The messages spanned 2,900 pages of chats over a roughly seven-month period and contained racist comments and jokes about gas chambers, torture and rape, according to Politico. Douglass, a first-term state senator, was the only elected official in the chat, the outlet reported.” (10/18/25)
https://archive.is/FbKYW
-----
6) “No Kings” protests draw huge crowds across US
Source: Axios
“Nearly 7 million protesters gathered across the U.S. on Saturday to take part in rallies against President Trump and his administration. … More than 2,700 events were planned as part of the protests across 50 states as of Saturday, as well as several internationally, including in London, Paris, Rome and Lisbon, Portugal. … GOP lawmakers condemned the movement as ‘a hate America rally’ and cast blame on the protests for the continued government shutdown.” (10/18/25)
https://archive.is/4voTQ
-----
7) Drug groups unveil advances in treating most difficult breast cancers
Source: Financial Times [UK]
“AstraZeneca, Daiichi Sankyo and Gilead have made big advances in treating the hardest-to-tackle type of breast cancer, boosting prospects for tens of thousands of patients a year. The drugmakers are unveiling trial results for existing blockbuster drugs in ‘triple negative’ breast cancer — so-called because it is not one of the three main types. These include the first ever study showing a medicine can extend the life of patients who cannot be treated with immunotherapy drugs, the majority of triple negative cases.” (10/19/25)
https://archive.is/LOn49
-----
8) Polymarket: Bitcoin’s Odds Of Dipping Below $100,000 This Month Stand At 52%
Source: AOL
“Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) has a 52% chance of falling below $100,000 this month, according to data from prediction platform Polymarket. Bitcoin’s price has been on a downward trend, returning to levels unseen in months. Polymarket’s data reveals a growing belief among traders that Bitcoin could be on the brink of a major correction. The bearish prediction has sparked discussions across the crypto community, with the data also showing a 39% surge in bearish sentiment.” (10/18/25)
https://www.aol.com/articles/bitcoins-odds-dipping-below-100-210231063.html
-----
9) Trump Commutes Fraud Sentence of Ex-GOP Congressman George Santos
Source: Common Dreams
“Continuing his pattern of pardoning allies and prosecuting adversaries, President Donald Trump on Friday commuted the prison term of former Republican Congressman George Santos, who was less than three months into a seven year sentence for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. ‘George Santos was somewhat of a ‘rogue,’ but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren’t forced to serve seven years in prison,’ Trump wrote on his Truth Social network. Once again, Trump randomly attacked Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s (D-Conn.) admitted lie about taking part in the US invasion and occupation of Vietnam. Blumenthal was a Marine stationed stateside during the war, in which Trump (who has been derided as ‘Capt. Bone Spurs’) avoided serving.” (10/18/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-pardons-george-santos
-----
10) Zimbabwe’s Ruling Party Resolves to Extend President’s Term to 2030
Source: US News & World Report
“Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF party plans to amend the constitution to extend President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s term by two years to 2030, a move opposition politicians have condemned as unlawful. The proposal, adopted at a party conference late on Saturday, would prolong the 83-year-old president’s second five-year term, currently set to end in 2028. The resolution comes amid a succession battle within ZANU-PF, where Mnangagwa’s main internal rival, former army general Constantino Chiwenga, has been accused of treasonous acts.” (10/19/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-10-19/zimbabwes-ruling-party-resolves-to-extend-presidents-term-to-2030
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11) Morocco: Gen Z protesters demand accountability and education reform
Source: SFGate
“Refusing to let the coming wave of fanfare around December’s Africa Cup of Nations overshadow their demands, protesters in Morocco urged a boycott of soccer matches at the country’s new stadiums. On Saturday, they reiterated previous demands and called for the release of demonstrators arrested during earlier Gen Z 212 protests. After an eight-day pause, hundreds of young demonstrators took to the streets on Saturday as part of an effort to show they remained committed to protesting corruption and subpar healthcare and education. In several cities — including Casablanca and Tangier — hundreds of young protesters once again voiced anger at elected officials, demanding the ouster of Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch, who they called corrupt. The protests, smaller in numbers, came eight days after King Mohammed VI in a speech at Morocco’s parliament did not address the Gen Z 212 protests directly.” (10/18/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/morocco-s-gen-z-protesters-demand-accountability-21107848.php
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12) TX: Regime hit with a pair of lawsuits for its app store age verification requirements
Source: Engadget
“Texas could have a serious legal battle on its hands thanks to an age verification law for app stores that it recently enacted. In response to the Texas App Store Accountability Act, the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) filed a lawsuit that argues the new order goes against First Amendment rights. The not-for-profit trade association has Amazon, Apple and Google amongst its members. The law goes into effect on New Year’s Day and requires app store users to verify their age before downloading apps or making in-app purchases.” (10/18/25)
https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/texas-hit-with-a-pair-of-lawsuits-for-its-app-store-age-verification-requirements-164940290.html?src=rss
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13) IL: ISU faculty member flips Turning Point USA tables on campus
Source: New York Post
“An Illinois State University faculty member was arrested after allegedly flipping a Turning Point USA table on campus this week, viral video shows. The accused vandal, Derek Lopez, was caught on camera speaking to a man standing near the table, which had been set up by students in the group to promote political YouTuber and comedian Alex Stein’s Oct. 20 event at the university, according to video, local police and various X posts about the ugly incident. ‘Well, you know, Jesus did it, so you know I gotta do it, right?’ Lopez, 27, of El Paso, IL (a teacher’s assistant and graduate student at the university) tells the man before the footage shows him tossing the table over, sending pins, flyers and other items rocketing into the air.” (10/18/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/10/18/us-news/illinois-state-university-faculty-member-flips-turning-point-usa-tables-on-campus/
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14) France: Thieves break into Louvre in daring daytime heist, steal “priceless jewellery”
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“A team of thieves broke into the Louvre in the heart of Paris on Sunday and stole ‘priceless’ historical jewellery, said France’s interior minister, as the world-renowned museum closed for the day. French authorities later said they recovered one piece of jewellery, which was apparently dropped by the robbers as they made their escape. … French authorities confirmed they found the 19th-century crown that once belonging to Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III. The crown features golden eagles and is covered in 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds, according to the museum’s website.” (10/19/25)
https://www.france24.com/en/france/20251019-louvre-robbery-shuts-down-world-renowned-museum-for-a-day-french-culture-minister-says
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15) Utah Senator Lee revives crusade against public lands
Source: SFGate
“Republican Sen. Mike Lee is back with another bid to reshape America’s public lands — and this time, he’s framing it as a border security initiative. The Border Lands Conservation Act, introduced a day after the federal government shutdown began Oct. 1, is the latest in a long line of the Utah senator’s proposals to roll back federal land protections. On paper, the bill reads like an rescue plan — a response to what Lee called, in a news release, ‘environmental destruction on federal public lands as a result of the Biden Administration’s open-border policies.’ He says the bill will safeguard parks, forests, and wildlife refuges from trash, vehicle abandonment and wildfires supposedly linked to border crossings. If passed, the proposal would hand sweeping authority over millions of acres of federal wilderness to the Department of Homeland Security. (10/18/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/national-parks/article/mike-lee-border-lands-conservation-act-wilderness-21104891.php
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16) Trump says he’ll think about Kremlin’s Russia-Alaska tunnel pitch
Source: CNBC
“President Donald Trump said Friday that a Russian proposal for Elon Musk and his tunneling business, the Boring Company, to build an undersea rail tunnel through the Bering Strait was ‘interesting’ and he’d have to think about it. ‘That’s an interesting one,’ Trump said when asked about the suggested tunnel from Russia to Alaska. ‘We’ll have to think about that. I hadn’t heard that.’ … Kirill Dmitriev, an investment envoy for Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggested in posts on Musk’s social media platform X that the project would be partly funded by Moscow. Dmitriev said it would be ‘a 70-mile link symbolizing unity.’ A tunnel like this would traditionally cost an estimated $65 billion to build, said Dmitriev, who is head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, adding that The Boring Company and its technology could potentially reduce those costs to $8 billion and complete the project within eight years.” (10/17/25)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/17/musk-trump-putin-tunnel-russia-alaska.html
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17) Wrongfully imprisoned for more than 40 years, US man now faces deportation to India
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“After serving 43 years in prison for a murder he did not commit, Subramanyam ‘Subu’ Vedam was finally free. New evidence had exonerated him earlier this month of the murder of his former roommate. But before he could reach his family’s arms, Mr Vedam was taken into custody by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who want to deport him to India — a country he has not lived in since he was a baby. Now, Mr Vedam’s legal team is fighting a deportation order and his family is determined to get him out of custody, for good. His family are now working to navigate a new and ‘very different’ situation, his sister Saraswathi Vedam told the BBC.” (10/18/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgz85g6pj0o
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18) UK: Police looking into whether Prince Andrew enlisted officer to dig up dirt on accuser Giuffre
Source: ABC News
“London police are probing whether Prince Andrew asked an officer assigned to him as a bodyguard to dig up dirt on sexual assault accuser Virginia Giuffre. The Metropolitan Police said it was ‘actively looking into’ media reports that Andrew in 2011 sought information to smear Giuffre by asking an officer on the force to find out if she had a criminal record. The report by the Mail on Sunday followed Buckingham Palace’s announcement Friday that Andrew agreed to relinquish use of Duke of York and other remaining royal titles after emails emerged showing he had remained in contact with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein longer than he previously admitted.” (10/19/25)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/police-prince-andrew-enlisted-officer-dig-dirt-accuser-126657819
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19) CA: Disgraced Bay Area sheriff uses ultimate loophole to get 90% of salary for life
Source: SFGate
“Former San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus retired with full pension and benefits on Tuesday just hours after the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to remove her from office following multiple investigations within the past year. Corpus retired ‘under duress’ so she could retain health benefits for herself and her children, according to ABC7 News reporter Danny Noyes. He posted on X, saying she texted him: ‘I will be okay! They don’t deserve me.’ Supervisor David Canepa confirmed the validity of Corpus’[s] retirement, explaining to KTVU-TV that under county protocol, Corpus will receive her pension, which reportedly includes 90% of her paycheck and benefits upon retirement.” (10/17/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/san-mateo-county-sheriff-corpus-retirement-21106609.php
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20) MD: Business owner shoots, kills burglar
Source: CBS News
“A business owner in Baltimore’s Canton neighborhood shot and killed a man during a burglary at his jewelry store early Thursday morning, police said. … Baltimore police described it as a commercial burglary at the jewelry store across the street and confirmed the store owner shot and killed a 39-year-old man. Police have yet to identify the man who died. … Maryland law includes the Castle Doctrine, which allows the use of force to protect your home, but that force must be proportional to the perceived threat.” (10/17/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/southeast-baltimore-jewelry-store-fatal-shooting/
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Police State Bounty Hunters
Source: CounterPunch
by John W Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead
“Masked gunmen. Tasers. Tear gas. Pepper spray. Unmarked vehicles. Intimidation tactics. Brutality. Racial profiling. Children traumatized. Families terrorized. Journalists targeted. Citizens detained. Disabled individuals, minors, the elderly, pregnant women, military veterans — snatched off the streets. Private property destroyed. This is not a war zone. This is what now passes for law-and-order policing by ICE agents in Trump’s America—and it is not making America safer or greater. What began as an agency tasked with enforcing immigration law has metastasized into a domestic terror force. … Make no mistake: this is not how a constitutional republic operates. It is how a dictatorship behaves when it decides the rule of law — in this case, the Bill of Rights — is optional.” (10/17/25)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/10/17/police-state-bounty-hunters/
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22) “No Kings” Redux: Necessary But Insufficient (and Somewhat Misdirected)
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“The first ‘No Kings’ rally, I wrote then, was largely a Democratic ‘campaign event for the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential election. Those of who oppose Trump but aren’t Democrats came along for the ride. Our support was co-opted whether we liked it or not.’ If anything, the second event took on an even more ‘vote — and by the way, vote Democrat’ tone. Despite the increased and welcome focus on Trump’s foreign military misadventures and domestic martial law moves, there was still plenty of ‘Yes Kings’ signage and sloganeering. One speaker, believe it or not, even devoted a minute or two to praising Joe Biden’s (and before him, Donald Trump’s) COVID-19 monarchical pretensions and decrying the ‘No Kings’ protesters of that era … many of whom, unfortunately, reverted to their own prior ‘Yes Kings’ advocacy on January 20, 2025.” (10/19/25)
https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20088
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23) Harsh Lessons Christian Nationalists Could Learn from Folk Horror
Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid
“Christianity is back and it’s more violent than ever. I speak of course of the late capitalist tent house revival of Christian Nationalism amongst the decaying ruins of Washington DC. Using the demonic, Caligula-esque Emperador Trump like a pedophilic battering ram, a bunch of millenarian lunatics with a barely literate interpretation of the Bible have found themselves in the highest echelons of political influence in this country and their vulgar reach can be felt throughout the decidedly big government and hyper-interventionist policies of MAGA 2.0, from the transgender genocide to the Zionist reinvention of the Middle East. But there’s a catch and it’s one likely to catch up with the Evangelical set with a vengeance far sooner than later.” (10/18/25)
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2025/10/harsh-lessons-christian-nationalists.html
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24) Going Full Venezuela
Source: Persuasion
by Quico Toro
“I could feel the panic attack set in the second the suggestion was made. ‘Would you go cover the No Kings protests on the 18th?’ my editor asked, reasonably enough. My heart started pounding, my palms sweating. ‘I’d rather slit my wrists,’ I wrote back. Because in my head, 25 years had vanished. I was back in Caracas, in 2000, planning to go to the very first pro-democracy, anti-Chávez protests, and things were about to go very wrong indeed. It wasn’t quite the first time. Reading American news these days, everything feels like a flashback. Or a callback.” (10/18/25)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/no-kings-and-the-echo-of-venezuela
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25) Playing Chicken with the Federal Budget: The Rational Stupidity of Shutdowns
Source: The Daily Economy
by Michael Munger
“Government shutdowns might look irrational, but they follow a familiar script. When political types gain more from the standoff than the solution, collisions become routine.” (10/17/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/playing-chicken-with-the-federal-budget-the-rational-stupidity-of-shutdowns/
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26) Reviving the integrity of prosecutors
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“Now nine months into his second term, President Donald Trump may be setting a new norm in law enforcement. Under his watch, prosecutors in the U.S. Justice Department have indicted three people who Mr. Trump believes have done him wrong: former FBI Director James Comey, current New York Attorney General Letitia James, and, on Thursday, his former national security adviser, John Bolton. The courts may yet declare all three to be not guilty of charges against them. Yet the possibility of prosecutorial misconduct, such as for vindictiveness, has supercharged efforts to reset the norms of integrity (that is, pursuing justice over ‘winning’) that most prosecutors have honored for decades. For now, much of that norm-resetting is at the state level, where millions of felonies and misdemeanors are handled each year by more than 2,300 prosecutor’s offices.” (10/17/25)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2025/1017/Reviving-the-integrity-of-prosecutors
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27) Frightening Ideas
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“An old post by Steve Landsburg offered three examples of actions by one person that another objected to but that did no physical damage. He asked whether the psychic cost to the objector should be considered relevant to public policy, whether the answer was the same for all three and, if not, why not. The first of the three was someone reading pornography and someone else being upset by the knowledge that pornography was being read. The third was someone raping an unconscious victim in a way that did no physical harm. Why, Steve asked, do we have different reactions to those cases and is the difference justified? Discussing reactions to the post with my daughter, I commented that the people who were angry about it, mostly online, struck me as either stupid or evil.” (10/17/25)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/frightening-ideas-913
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28) Gen Z Is Taking to the Barricades
Source: Foreign Policy
by Christian Caryl
“Remember the kids of Generation Z? You know — that notorious cohort of entitled, lazy, and apathetic people that Boomers so love to mock? Over the past two years, members of Gen Z across Asia, Africa, and Latin America have been taking to the streets, covertly organizing revolutions and dethroning entrenched rulers. Quite a few of those involved in the uprisings have paid with their lives — another indicator that these events are worth taking seriously. … Some observers might dismiss this new wave of activism as irrelevant to the future of established democracies. But such complacency might be ill-advised. If this new revolutionary movement has demonstrated anything, it’s that no one should underestimate its infectiousness.” (10/17/25)
https://archive.is/3qbI1
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29) They Said The Massacres Would Stop When The Hostages Were Released; They Haven’t
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Last year I banged out an angry rant about the way Israel supporters would yell ‘release the hostages!’ at anyone who talked about the latest massacre of Palestinian civilians, saying Hamas was to blame for the killing because of their refusal to release the Israeli captives, and that it would all stop once the hostages are free. I’m remembering that essay today because the hostages are free, but the massacres are continuing. On Friday Israel reportedly blew up a vehicle carrying a Palestinian family of eleven people, including seven children. The IDF gave its usual excuse for the massacre: the civilians were deemed to have crossed an invisible line into a forbidden zone which made the Israeli soldiers feel unsafe. They did this exact same thing constantly during the last ‘ceasefire’ as well.” (10/18/25)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/10/18/they-said-the-massacres-would-stop-when-the-hostages-were-released-they-havent-stopped/
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30) Straight Whiskey and Dirty Politics
Source: EconLog
by Daniel Smith
“In the early 20th century, America was buzzing with Progressive Era reforms aimed at taming the excesses of industrialization. One landmark was the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906, hailed as a victory for consumer safety. It banned poisonous ingredients in food and drink, required accurate labeling, and cracked down on imitations. But when it came to whiskey, was it truly about protecting the public from deadly adulterants? Or was it a classic case of dirty politics, where special interests use government power to disadvantage competitors?” (10/17/25)
https://www.econlib.org/econlog/straight-whiskey-and-dirty-politics/
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31) Why John Bolton probably WON’T pay big if found guilty in his documents case
Source: New York Post
by staff
“John Bolton has pleaded ‘not guilty’ on 18 counts of illegally hoarding or sending sensitive national-security information, charges that could bring decades in prison — and if the feds have the evidence they claim, the case seems open-and-shut. Figuring out where justice lies is a bit tougher. … Bolton, a former UN ambassador and national security adviser, has long been a friend of these pages. Yet if he truly used his AOL account to email classified info to his wife and daughter, they seemingly have him dead to rights. Thing is, the public doesn’t get to know what’s beneath ‘classified’ and ‘top secret’ labels — and over-classification is a notorious problem in Washington, as Jim Bovard noted in these pages when it was President Donald Trump in Team Biden’s crosshairs.” (10/17/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/10/17/opinion/why-john-bolton-probably-wont-pay-big-if-guilty-in-his-documents-case/
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32) How Trump’s advent and the internet killed the media’s agenda-setting power
Source: Washington Post
by George F Will
“A sound of morning silence is coming to Atlanta. The sound of newspapers landing on sidewalks in residential neighborhoods will vanish when, at year’s end, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, joining a national trend, stops publishing print editions. Turning trees into paper, marking it with ink, trucking it to people who deliver it to readers — soon this laboriousness might be as forgotten as men with tongs lugging large slabs of ice for home iceboxes. The waning of the 400-year era of newspapers is, however, about cultural changes more momentous than the efficiency and convenience of written words presented digitally.” (10/17/25)
https://archive.is/yf9PX
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33) Democrats Have Let Republicans Become the “Peace” Party
Source: Common Dreams
by Sam Rosenthal
“When President Donald Trump announced that he had helped broker an end to Israel’s onslaught in Gaza, it marked the achievement of a goal many anti-war activists had been struggling toward for two years. Few were bothered by the fact that it was Trump who ultimately presided over the cessation of violence; the goal was always to end the bombing, by any means possible. Whether this deal amounts to a lasting end to violence in the region is all but certain; already, Israel has attacked and killed Palestinians in an apparent breach of the agreement’s terms. But, with a hostage swap underway, there is some reason to believe that this merciless, apocalyptic phase of the genocide in Gaza is coming to an end. As this fragile ‘ceasefire’ takes hold, it is worth considering what this apparent diplomatic success means for Trump, his foreign policy going forward, and for his opposition.” (10/18/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/democrats-republicans-peace-party
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34) The Pro-Massacre, Pro-Segregation, Pro-Eugenics Administration
Source: Liberal Currents
by Dan Holtmeyer
“The Trump administration is seeking to rewind the clock on an entire century of legal — and moral — progress.” (10/17/25)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-pro-massacre-pro-segregation-pro-eugenics-administration/
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35) A Big Question Remains
Source: Pierre Lemieux
by Pierre Lemieux
“Assume it is true that fentanyl is exported from Venezuela to America, even if experts deny it. Assume that blowing up suspected smugglers on small boats in international waters is legal, and that the soldiers who do it will not, in 5, 10, or 15 years, be prosecuted (we know since the Nuremberg trials that ‘obeying orders’ is not a legal justification for crimes, and it is also true in American law). Ignore that the higher-ups, if they escape prosecution, will not be roasting in hell for all eternity for disobeying the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ if traditional Christian beliefs are true. There still remains a big question — in fact, a whole set of related one[s] — about the very justification for these operations, which is to ‘stop the poison, and keep America safe,’ to borrow the words of the Secretary of Defense.” (10/17/25)
https://pierrelemieux.substack.com/p/a-big-question-remains
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36) A New Pacific Trade Highway
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott
“When President Trump announced a new 100% tariff on Chinese imports, in retaliation for Beijing’s latest export controls on rare earth elements, markets saw only the headline risk. But the real story lies beyond the ticker: a structural reordering of global trade. The world’s supply chains, long anchored to the Chinese mainland, are splintering. Capital is scattering across Asia’s periphery, and shipping routes that once followed predictable trans-Pacific lines are being redrawn into a new web of uncertainty and opportunity. Alongside an eastward turn worth $100 billion in investment, the trends of the last 30 years of global financial flows are being upended.” (10/17/25)
https://fee.org/articles/a-new-pacific-trade-highway/
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37) To 2025 Democrats, the extremist is Fetterman, not Mamdani
Source: Fox News
by David Marcus
“It was quite a week for the Democrat Party. On Wednesday night, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, once fringe figures, held a CNN town hall to promote their socialist agenda. The next night, zany Zhoran Mamdani, the darling of the far left, took to the debate stage as the leading candidate for New York City mayor. We also learned from Axios that plots are afoot to primary Sen. John Fetterman [D-PA] from the left. Even though the hoodie-rocking senator votes 95% of the time with Democrats, he calls out communism and supports Israel. In today’s Democrat Party, those positions are a bridge too far. What is becoming increasingly clear is that Democrat Socialists of America-backed Mamdani is not an ‘extreme’ Democrat. He’s just a normal one. The outlier today is Fetterman and any other Democrat who will not genuflect to the new socialist power structure.” (10/18/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/david-marcus-2025-democrats-extremist-fetterman-not-mamdani
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38) California’s Latest Dumb Gun Law is a Ban on Glocks
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille
“Last year, then-Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris insisted in a presidential debate that she is a gun owner and that she and her running mate, Tim Walz, were ‘not taking anybody’s guns away, so stop with the continuous lying about this stuff.’ Later, she elaborated with 60 Minutes interviewer Bill Whitaker that she owned a Glock pistol that she had fired at the shooting range. Maybe Harris should have checked with lawmakers in California where she was once attorney general and which she represented in the U.S. Senate. That state just banned the sale of Glock pistols. True, state officials won’t take away Kamala’s pistol or those already owned by other Californians, but that’s cold comfort for anybody looking to purchase new products from the popular gunmaker.” (10/17/25)
https://reason.com/2025/10/17/californias-latest-dumb-gun-law-is-a-ban-on-glocks
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39) Émile Zola’s Realism Without Radicalism
Source: Law & Liberty
by Zachary D Stone
“A giant of nineteenth century literature, Émile Zola’s life and writings show that realism can be an antidote to the pathology of radicalism.” (10/17/25)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/emile-zolas-realism-without-radicalism/
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40) You Have Entered the Incumbent Zone
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“The aim of elections is not to guarantee any particular outcome. Yet, protecting incumbents means seeking a very, very particular outcome. Elections should make sure that — above all else — the voting public shapes the government. Definitely not that the government shapes the public. By drawing fancy lines for districts.” (10/17/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/10/17/you-have-entered-the-incumbent-zone/
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41) Trump Keeps Overreaching: Will It Backfire?
Source: The American Prospect
by Robert Kuttner
“Trump’s latest scheme to take universities into receivership, a proposed ‘Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education’, has turned out to be a gift to dithering college presidents. Trump’s offer that they couldn’t refuse, sent on October 1 to nine universities that were expected to be malleable, offered preferential access to federal funding in exchange for compliance with several demands. These included freezing tuition rates for five years, capping international student enrollment, adopting definitions of sex/gender aligned with biological sex, ending consideration of race or gender in admissions and hiring, as well as ‘institutional neutrality’ on political and social issues. But Trump’s scheme was so crass and half-baked that several college presidents politely told him to stuff it. So far, he has no takers. Universities that explicitly rejected the deal citing academic freedom include Brown, MIT, Penn, USC, and Dartmouth.” (10/17/25)
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-10-17-trump-keeps-overreaching-will-it-backfire/
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42) President Trump Goes to War!
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Snider
“While couched in the language of fighting drug trafficking into the United States, the Trump administration has made no secret of its desire for regime change in Venezuela. Under the leadership of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with the support of CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Trump’s chief domestic policy advisor, Stephen Miller, Trump’s team has pushed for the removal of Maduro from power. A Trump administration official familiar with policy discussions on the approach to Venezuela told Axios that, though the military build up is ‘about narco-terrorism … if Maduro winds up no longer in power, no one will be crying.’ Another, by comparing it to the American operation against Panama’s Manuel Noriega in 1989, implied that a coup was higher on the agenda.” (10/17/25)
https://original.antiwar.com/ted_snider/2025/10/16/president-trump-goes-to-war/
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43) No, Trump did not “end” the war in the Congo. It’s as bloody as ever.
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Dan M Ford
“Earlier this week, Donald Trump made the bold claim that he’s responsible for ending eight wars since taking office this past January — in other words, nearly one war each month of his presidency. Among the wars on his list is the decades-long conflict between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda, which has mired central Africa since the days of the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s in a quagmire conflict involving over one hundred armed groups. But despite Trump’s claim, the DRC-Rwanda conflict is not yet over. And despite belligerent actors taking some positive steps to bring about a lasting peace — including Tuesday’s announcement that the Rwanda-supported M23 rebel group and the DRC have agreed on a mechanism to monitor a fragile ceasefire — the war remains an active conflict between the two neighbors and their allied groups.” (10/17/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/congo-trump-end-war/
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44) The Absurdity of Democracy
Source: Free Association
by Sheldon Richman
“If the continuing incompetence of Congress over passing a budget and reopening the U.S. government doesn’t show the absurdity of unlimited representative republicanism, what could do so? Whether or not to extend COVID-era special subsidies for medical insurance appears to be the main issue, but other issues are undoubtedly involved. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. That’s politics. The problem is that the government has its hands in everything. That means a constituency exists for each thing the government does.” (10/17/25)
https://sheldonfreeassociation.blogspot.com/2025/10/if-continuing-incompetence-of-congress.html
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45) The Direct Path to Affordable Medicines
Source: Town Hall
by Dr. Wolfgang Klietmann
“Americans can buy iPhones straight from Apple and sneakers straight from Nike. In fact, in almost every industry, it’s perfectly normal for consumers to buy products directly from manufacturers’ websites and have them shipped right to their doors. But medicines are different. For decades, patients have been forced to run through a gauntlet of middlemen, each of whom piles on fees, to get the treatments they need. The additional costs imposed by these wholesalers, insurers, pharmacy benefit managers, and pharmacies have turned the simple act of filling a prescription into a monthly financial crisis for too many families. Fortunately, that could soon change. A handful of pharmaceutical companies recently started selling medicines directly to patients, shipping the drugs right to their porch or mailbox, so long as they have a doctor’s prescription.” [editor’s note: Cool. Now just get rid of the prescription requirement – TLK] (10/18/25)
https://townhall.com/columnists/wolfgang/2025/10/18/the-direct-path-to-affordable-medicines-n2665088
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46) Why Myanmar’s Military Dictatorships are Fascist Regimes
Source: Center for a Stateless Society
by Hein Htet Kyaw
“The term ‘fascism,’ as George Orwell once cautioned, has often been diluted, losing its precise meaning and becoming a generic slur. This has led to its misapplication, where its core ideology is overlooked in favour of its more superficial traits, such as authoritarianism and militarism. While these are certainly present in fascist regimes, they are not the sole defining characteristics. However, there are political groups that are accurately identified as fascist. The Myanmar military dictatorships, including the current junta, stand as a particularly fitting and accurate example of a fascist regime.” (10/17/25)
https://c4ss.org/content/60832
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47) Terminators and Parrots: AI in the Era of GPTs
Source: Quillette
by Shalom Lappin
“The hyperbole surrounding AGI misrepresents the capabilities of current AI systems and distracts attention from the real threats that these systems are creating.” (10/17/25)
https://quillette.com/2025/10/17/terminators-and-parrots-ai-in-the-era-of-gpts/
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48) A Hill of Beans to Die On
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
“To understand the idiotic trade war with China launched by Donald Trump in his second administration, study the idiotic trade war with China launched by Donald Trump in his first administration.” (10/17/25)
https://thedispatch.com/article/trump-china-soybeans-tariffs/
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49) How Chicago Residents Are Resisting Trump’s ICE Invasion of the City
Source: In These Times
by Danny Postel
“As ICE wreaks chaos and violence in neighborhoods across Chicago, teams of rapid responders are protecting residents and challenging Trump’s attempted occupation by fighting fear through solidarity.” (10/16/25)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/ice-trump-chicago-immigrants-rapid-response
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50) Trump Must Say No to Tomahawks for Ukraine
Source: The American Conservative
by Eldar Mamedov
“The threat of Tomahawks is not primarily a military calculation but a diplomatic cudgel intended to ‘get a deal.’ The back-to-back calls with Zelensky serve as a performance of resolve, a signal to the Kremlin that the administration is serious about altering the conflict’s dynamics. But beneath this surface lies a far more dangerous strategic gambit. The Tomahawk debate is no longer merely about enhancing Ukraine’s strike capability; it has become the central chip in a high-stakes game of coercion between Washington and Moscow, one where the specter of nuclear escalation is being deliberately invoked.” (10/17/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/trump-must-say-no-to-tomahawks-for-ukraine/
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Unattended Baggage, episode 314
Source: Unattended Baggage
“You should’ve bought me an energy drink.” (10/18/25)
https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-314-you-shouldve-bought-me
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52) Free Talk Live, 10/18/25
Source: Free Talk Live
“Roger Ver makes a deal :: Skeeter calls to gloat about extortion :: Tim in FL calls about source info vs commentary :: Sarah in NM calls about mayoral debate and homelessness :: no kings protest :: 82nd airstrike by U.S. in Somalia for the year :: caller talks about the papacy :: Dave Ridley calls about court room rituals :: free will :: power corruption :: tribes :: 2025-10-18 Hosts: Stu, Riley, Angelo.” (10/18/25)
https://soundcloud.com/freetalklive/ftl2025-10-18
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53) The Good Fight, 10/18/25
Source: Yascha Mounk
“Quico Toro on Charlatans.” (10/18/25)
https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/quico-toro-on-3
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54) The Tom Woods Show, episode 2701
Source: The Tom Woods Show
“The Dangers of Losing Normal Childhoods.” (10/18/25)
https://tomwoods.com/ep-2701-the-dangers-of-losing-normal-childhoods/
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55) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 10/17/25
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Boat Bombings Take Darker Turn as Top Official Suddenly Resigns.” (10/17/25)
https://newrepublic.com/article/201905/trump-boat-bombings-take-darker-turn-top-official-suddenly-resigns
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56) Serious Trouble, 10/17/25
Source: Serious Trouble
“Drake loses his lawsuit, but nobody can take his dignity (because he doesn’t have any); Letitia James is indicted; schools may prohibit ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ swag.” (10/17/25)
https://www.serioustrouble.show/p/drakes-not-like-us-familiar-with
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57) The Intercept Briefing, 10/17/25
Source: The Intercept
“Trump’s Gaza Ceasefire Deal Is Already Failing Palestinians.” (10/17/25)
https://theintercept.com/2025/10/17/briefing-podcast-gaza-ceasefire-deal/
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58) The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan, 10/17/25
Source: The Weekly Dish
“Charles Murray On Taking Religion Seriously.” (10/17/25)
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/charles-murray-on-taking-religion
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59) System Update, episode 533
Source: System Update
“Glenn Takes Your Questions on Major Saudi Arabia Celeb Controversies, Zohran Mamdani and the NYC Debate, Anti-ICE Protests, and More.” (10/17/25)
https://rumble.com/v70fram-system-update-show-533.html
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60) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/17/25
Source: Antiwar.com
“SOUTHCOM Chief Steps Down Amid Push Toward Venezuela War, Trump Threatens To ‘Kill’ Hamas, and More.” (10/17/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW4Zd463ecU
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