10/06 -- Ukrainian forces launch "biggest drone attack of the war;" Washington is to Blame for Its Own Culture of Political Violence
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Thomas L. Knapp
Oct 6, 2025, 6:23:33 AMOct 6
to Freedom News Daily
Freedom News Daily, 10/06/25
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Today's Freedom News:
0) Year-End Fundraiser Update
1) Ukrainian forces launch “biggest drone attack of the war”
2) Gaza ceasefire talks to start in Egypt
3) Bitcoin Hovers Near Record After Topping $125,000
4) France: Lecornu resigns hours after reveal of new cabinet
5) White House: Mass layoffs of workfare clients will start if shutdown [sic] talks “going nowhere”
6) Japan: Sanae Takaichi set to become first female prime minister
7) Federal appeals court rules Trump can’t repeal 14th Amendment
8) Judge blocks Trump policy to detain abducted migrant children turning 18 in adult concentration camps
9) Pritzger: Trump plans to deploy National Guard in Illinois
10) Google removes gang activity tracking app, following Apple
11) Fake government “shutdown” already cost taxpayers $1.2 billion in pay to employees not working
12) Georgia: Protesters try to storm Tbilisi presidential palace
13) Iran: Regime kills six it alleges carried out attacks on behalf of Israel
14) Newsom uses new Taylor Swift album to troll Donald Trump
15) IL: After being “boxed in” by citizen militia, gang members attempt to murder armed woman in Chicago
16) Italy: Big Crowds, Clashes With Police on Fourth Day of Pro-Palestinian Protests
17) Czech Republic: Billionaire populist Andrej Babis’s party wins parliamentary election
18) Federal judge halts Trump regime’s plan to occupy Portland
19) CA: Top official investigated for using taxpayer money for personal travel
20) Combs sentenced to 50 months behind bars
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Washington is to Blame for Its Own Culture of Political Violence
22) Tariffs Rest on Distrust of Citizens
23) Yes, the Trump administration is eviscerating the due process rights of immigrants
24) Deploying troops to American cities is a clear assault on the Constitution
25) The Sin Nature of Theologians & The Primate Nature of Biologists … Are The Same
26) How Utterly Lost Is The Left [sic]?
27) NATO Must Say No to Ukraine No-Fly Zone
28) The United Police State of America Has Arrived
29) Amid Gen Z’s challenges, an opportunity
30) Europe’s Striking Syndrome
31) Trump Ends the Green Scam; Now the Crying Caucus Is Out of Cash
32) Washington’s Brain Trust Mirage
33) How Many Palestinian Lives Would It Take To Equal One Western Life?
34) The Missing Rules
35) Kindred spirits on the left and right believe in a New Deal fable
36) Dress Codes vs. Codes of Honor
37) Trump uses same strategy to curb Big Pharma, secure Mideast peace
38) Egypt stepping out from Israel’s shadow? It depends.
39) Trump Fabricates a War to Cover Up Murder
40) Democracy is Overrated
41) What the Children of Gaza Might Say to the Children of America
42) Shutdowns as Political Theater
43) Trump Administration Says It Wants to Fight Racial Discrimination in College Admissions — Then Things Got Weird
44) GDP as ideological scam, part 2
45) Trump plan may end Gaza war, but pain of massacre that sparked it will live on
46) Strategy over Optics: Trump’s Most Favored Nation Status on Drug Prices
47) Free Movement Increases Wealth
48) The US Government Doesn’t Want You To Read This Report on Israel’s Business Deals
49) Taxing the Rich and the Survival of Emmanuel Macron
50) This is Stupid
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Fountainhead Forum, episode 365
52) Pink Flame of Liberty, 10/05/25
53) The Good Fight, 10/04/25
54) Unattended Baggage, episode 312
55) Should We Fight Economic Misinformation?
56) Freakonomics Radio, episode 648
57) In The Tank, episode 514
58) Mean Age Daydream, 10/03/25
59) System Update, episode 526
60) Anarcho Agenda, episode 144
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0) Year-End Fundraiser Update
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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) Ukrainian forces launch “biggest drone attack of the war”
Source: Express [UK]
“Ukraine staged one of its biggest attacks [i]n the war on Russia, striking a major explosives plant and the largest oil loading terminal in occupied [sic] Crimea. Both exploded in giant flames – two of multiple targets hit in an overnight onslaught against Vladimir Putin involving more than 250 drones. … Ukrainian drones reportedly ignited the Sverdlov plant in Dzerzhinsk, one of the largest Russian manufacturers of explosives, detonators, munitions components, including aviation bombs, artillery shells, and warheads for missiles. … Russia claimed to have shot down 251 drones – the second highest number of the war.” (10/06/25)
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2117528/ukraine-launches-biggest-drone-attack
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2) Gaza ceasefire talks to start in Egypt
Source: Deutsche Welle [German state media]
“Groups of negotiators from Israel and the United States, as well as representatives from Hamas, have gathered in Egypt to discuss a 20-point plan to bring Israel’s military campaign in Gaza to an end. … Under the proposed framework, Hamas would release the 48 hostages it has been holding since the October 7, 2023, attacks in Israel. About 20 hostages are believed to still be alive. Israel is in turn supposed to return hundreds of Palestinian[ hostage]s it is holding. … The proposal also calls for an immediate ceasefire and an interim Gaza government led by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and overseen by the United States, among other officials.” (10/06/25)
https://www.dw.com/en/middle-east-updates-gaza-ceasefire-talks-to-start-in-egypt/live-74246358
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3) Bitcoin Hovers Near Record After Topping $125,000
Source: Bloomberg
“Bitcoin set a fresh record on Sunday for the first time since mid-August, as the US government shutdown drove investors to safe-haven assets in a migration dubbed the ‘debasement trade.’ The largest digital-asset climbed to $125,689 over the weekend and remained in touching distance of its all-time high on Monday morning in Singapore at about $123,700, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The surge came amid a US government shutdown that’s helped fuel demand for perceived safe-haven assets.” (10/06/25)
https://archive.is/Jzq35
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4) France: Lecornu resigns hours after reveal of new cabinet
Source: Hindustan Times [India]
“French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has resigned hours after appointing new cabinet, reports said. Lecornu, a former defence minister, was appointed by President Emmanuel Macron last month. The unexpected resignation has once again revealed the deepening political crisis in France. … Lecornu, a close ally of Macron, on Sunday appointed his cabinet after weeks of consultations with political parties and the cabinet was set to hold its first meeting on Monday. But Macron’s largely unchanged cabinet announcement triggered a backlash from opposition parties and even his own supporters.” (10/06/25)
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/france-pm-sebastien-lecornu-resigns-hours-after-reveal-of-new-cabinet-101759737574856.html
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5) White House: Mass layoffs of workfare clients will start if shutdown [sic] talks “going nowhere”
Source: Reuters
“The Trump administration will start mass layoffs of federal workers if President Donald Trump decides negotiations with congressional Democrats to end a partial government shutdown are ‘absolutely going nowhere,’ a senior White House official said on Sunday. As the shutdown entered its fifth day, White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CNN’s ‘State of the Union’ program that he still saw a chance that Democrats would back down, averting a costly shutdown and federal employee layoffs that have been threatened by White House budget director Russell Vought. There have been no tangible signs of negotiations between congressional leaders since Trump met with them last week. The shutdown began on Oct. 1, the start of federal fiscal year 2026, after Senate Democrats rejected a short-term funding measure that would keep federal agencies open through Nov. 21.” (10/05/25)
https://archive.is/fk7WB
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6) Japan: Sanae Takaichi set to become first female prime minister
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Japan’s ruling conservative party has elected Sanae Takaichi as its new leader, positioning the 64-year-old to be Japan’s first female prime minister. Takaichi is among the more conservative candidates leaning to the ruling party’s right. A former government minister, TV host and avid heavy metal drummer, she is one of the best known figures in Japanese politics – and a controversial one at that. She faces many challenges, including contending with a sluggish economy and households struggling with relentless inflation and stagnant wages. She will also have to navigate a rocky US-Japan relationship and see through a tariff deal with the Trump administration agreed by the previous government. If confirmed as prime minister, one of Takaichi’s key challenges will be uniting the party after a turbulent few years which saw it rocked by scandals and internal conflicts.” (10/04/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2pmy7m72lo
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7) Federal appeals court rules Trump can’t repeal 14th Amendment
Source: San Diego Union-Tribune
“A federal appeals court in Boston ruled on Friday that the Trump administration cannot withhold citizenship from children born to people in the country illegally [sic] or temporarily, adding to the mounting legal setbacks for the president’s birthright order. A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals became the fifth federal court since June to either issue or uphold orders blocking the president’s birthright order. The court concluded that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claims that the children described in the order are entitled to birthright citizenship under the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment.” (10/03/25)
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2025/10/03/birthright-citizenship-order-blocked/
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8) Judge blocks Trump policy to detain abducted migrant children turning 18 in adult concentration camps
Source: SFGate
“A federal judge has temporarily blocked a new Trump administration policy to keep migrant children in detention after they turn 18, moving quickly to stop transfers to adult facilities that advocates said were scheduled for this weekend. U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras on Saturday issued a temporary restraining order to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to not detain any child who came to the country alone and without permission in ICE adult detention facilities after they become an adult. The Washington, D.C., judge found that such automatic detention violates a court order he issued in 2021 barring such practices. ICE and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security didn’t immediately respond Saturday to emails seeking comment.” (10/04/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/judge-blocks-trump-policy-to-detain-migrant-21084458.php
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9) Pritzger: Trump plans to deploy National Guard in Illinois
Source: SFGate
“The Trump administration plans to federalize 300 members of the Illinois National Guard, Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker said Saturday. Pritzker said the guard received word from the Pentagon in the morning that the troops would be called up. He did not specify when or where they would be deployed, but President Donald Trump has long threatened to send troops to Chicago. ‘This morning, the Trump Administration’s Department of War gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will,’ Pritzker said in a statement. ‘It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a Governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will.’ A spokesperson for the governor’s office said she could not provide additional details. The White House and the Pentagon did not respond to questions about Pritzker’s statement.” (10/04/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/trump-plans-to-deploy-national-guard-in-illinois-21084398.php
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10) Google removes gang activity tracking app, following Apple
Source: The Verge
“Just one day after Apple took down the iOS App Store listing for ICEBlock, Google has confirmed to 404 Media that it has removed a similar app, Red Dot, from the Google Play Store. The company also reportedly said it ‘removed apps that share the location of what it describes as a vulnerable group after a recent violent act against them connected to this sort of app.’ On Thursday, Apple removed ICEBlock and similar apps, including Red Dot, after facing pressure from the Department of Justice. Attorney General Pam Bondi said to Fox News on Thursday that ‘ICEBlock is designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs, and violence against law enforcement is an intolerable red line that cannot be crossed.'” (10/03/25)
https://www.theverge.com/news/791533/google-apple-ice-tracking-app-store-red-dot-iceblock
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11) Fake government “shutdown” already cost taxpayers $1.2 billion in pay to employees not working
Source: Fox News
“The government shutdown costs taxpayers $400 million every day to pay federal employees who are not actively working, totaling $1.2 billion as of Friday, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data published by the office of Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, estimates. … A law passed in 2019 requires furloughed employees receive backpay after a funding agreement is reached and a shutdown ends. The CBO found that the furloughed employees’ daily cost of compensation sits at about $400 million, or a total of $1.2 billion as of Friday.” (10/04/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/schumer-shutdown-already-cost-taxpayers-1-2b-pay-employees-not-working
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12) Georgia: Protesters try to storm Tbilisi presidential palace
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Police in Georgia have clashed with anti-government protesters trying to storm the presidential palace in the capital, Tbilisi. Security forces used water cannons and pepper spray to disperse demonstrators. The Caucasus country has been in crisis since the ruling Georgian Dream party claimed victory in last year’s parliamentary election, which the pro-European Union opposition says was stolen. Since then the government has paused talks on joining the EU. The protest took place on the same day as local elections, which the opposition is largely boycotting following a government crackdown. One organiser had earlier called for leaders of the Georgian Dream party to be arrested. Waving Georgian and EU flags, tens of thousands of protesters marched in central Tbilisi on Saturday.” (10/04/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce86kgnj7zro
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13) Iran: Regime kills six it alleges carried out attacks on behalf of Israel
Source: CBS News
“Iran executed six death-row inmates Saturday it alleged carried out attacks in the country’s oil-rich southwest on behalf of Israel, the latest prisoners to be put to death in a wave of executions believed to be the highest in decades. The executions follow the 12-day Iran-Israel war in June, which ended with Tehran vowing it would target its enemies at home and abroad. However, activists warn Iran often relies on coerced confessions and closed-door trials in its death penalty cases, particularly those involving Israel.” (10/04/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-executes-death-row-inmates-israel/
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14) Newsom uses new Taylor Swift album to troll Donald Trump
Source: SFGate
“Taylor Swift’s surprise midnight Friday album drop has taken over the internet and quickly worked itself into the current biggest personal rivalry in American politics. Gov. Gavin Newsom released a TikTok video Friday afternoon showing a montage of his interactions with President Donald Trump set to Swift’s new song ‘Actually Romantic.’ The video shows Trump’s tweets attacking Newsom captioned with the lyrics, ‘It’s actually sweet, all the time you’ve spent on me.’ The Friday video is only the latest jab in a duel that’s come to epitomize the subterranean lows American political dialogue has reached. Trump has spent the past decade eroding political norms with a constant stream of name-calling, overstatements, outright lies and all-caps social media posts aimed at whoever crosses his mind. Newsom has recently responded in kind, with his own stream of rants and foul-mouthed social media posts, usually aimed at Trump or one of Trump’s followers.” (10/03/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/gavin-newsom-uses-taylor-swift-to-attack-trump-21083446.php
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15) IL: After being “boxed in” by citizen militia, gang members attempt to murder armed woman in Chicago
Source: New York Post
“U.S. Border Patrol agents shot an armed woman in Chicago Saturday after an angry mob tried to attack the law enforcement officers. The group of agents were conducting their routine patrol near 39th Place and South Kedzie Avenue in the city’s South Side ‘when they were attacked and rammed by vehicles and boxed in by 10 cars,’ the Department of Homeland Security said. ‘The officers exited their trapped vehicle, when a suspect tried to run them over, forcing the officers to fire defensively,’ according to DHS, which called the incident ‘an evolving situation’ and noted FBI agents were currently on the scene. The suspect, who is a U.S. citizen, was armed with a semi-automatic weapon, department spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said.” (10/04/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/10/04/us-news/us-border-patrol-agents-shoot-woman-in-chicago-after-they-were-boxed-in-by-cars/
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16) Italy: Big Crowds, Clashes With Police on Fourth Day of Pro-Palestinian Protests
Source: US News & World Report
“Hundreds of thousands of people marched through central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists. People with banners and flags, chanting ‘Free Palestine’ and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organisers said attracted more than 1 million people, while police put the figure at around 250,000. … Towards the end of the march, around 200 people broke away and clashed with officers in riot gear near the St. Mary Major basilica, police said. Officers responded with tear gas and water cannons. In later incidents, protesters set fire to a couple of cars and several rubbish bins, and hurled firecrackers at officers, police said, adding they detained 12 suspects and took down the names of 262 people.” (10/04/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-10-04/mass-rally-in-rome-on-fourth-day-of-italys-pro-palestinian-protests
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17) Czech Republic: Billionaire populist Andrej Babis’s party wins parliamentary election
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Billionaire businessman Andrej Babis has won parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic, although his populist ANO party fell short of an overall majority. ANO received just under 35% of the vote, earning them 80 seats in the 200-seat lower house – up from 72 seats four years ago, according to preliminary results. Babis – who served as prime minister from 2017 to 2021 – is expected to be invited to lead talks on forming a new coalition. ‘This is a historic success,’ Andrej Babis announced to cheering supporters at the ANO headquarters in the suburbs of Prague. He’d entered the building holding aloft a Bluetooth speaker blasting a remix of the 1981 hit ‘Sarà perché ti amo’ by the Italian pop trio Ricchi e Poveri. The same song resounded across the stage as he accepted the applause. Some colleagues – including the former finance minister Alena Schillerova – danced along to the beat.” (10/04/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62qezmr92lo
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18) Federal judge halts Trump regime’s plan to occupy Portland
Source: Politico
“A federal judge blocked President Donald Trump’s call-up of 200 National Guard troops in Oregon, ruling on Saturday that Trump’s claims of daily unrest in Portland were ‘untethered to facts’ and risked plunging the nation into an unconstitutional form of military rule. ‘This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law,’ wrote U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee. Immergut said Trump’s decision to enlist members of Oregon’s National Guard was based on false claims about nightly unrest targeting federal immigration authorities and buildings in Portland. Though Trump described the city as ‘war-ravaged’ and wracked with violence, police said immigration-related protests had been small, manageable and largely peaceful in the days leading up to Trump’s pronouncement.” (10/04/25)
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/04/federal-judge-halts-trump-administrations-call-up-of-national-guard-in-portland-00594308
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19) CA: Top official investigated for using taxpayer money for personal travel
Source: SFGate
“The state’s insurance commissioner — the person who helps advocate for everyday consumers and prevent industry overreach — is under scrutiny after allegations that he has spent exorbitant amounts of taxpayer dollars on questionable expenses. Ricardo Lara, a former legislator in both the state Senate and Assembly, is being probed by the California Fair Political Practices Commission, a bipartisan independent oversight agency. An KGO-TV investigation earlier this year revealed that he racked up expensive receipts on at least a dozen trips, including paying for significant security and high-end dining and hotels, since he assumed office in 2019.” (10/03/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/top-insurance-official-investigated-21081352.php
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20) Combs sentenced to 50 months behind bars
Source: NBC News
“A judge sentenced Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs to 50 months in prison, fined him $500,000 and ordered five years of supervised release. … A jury acquitted Combs of racketeering and sex trafficking charges on July 2, but convicted him on two lesser counts of transporting former girlfriends for prostitution.” (10/03/25)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/live-blog/diddy-sentencing-sean-combs-trial-guilty-verdict-prison-live-updates-rcna234879
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Washington is to Blame for Its Own Culture of Political Violence
Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid
“We start with a tragedy, some pissed-off lonely kid puts down his smartphone and picks up a gun, somebody gets shot, sometimes a politician, sometimes some other species of media personality, but usually it ends up just being a room full of other lonely kids with smartphones. After a lot of frantic finger pointing by the media personalities left standing, it usually becomes clear that the shooter wasn’t actually directly concerned with any of their silly partisan squabbles …. While it is painfully obvious to anyone with half a brain still attached to a functioning conscience that both sides of this country’s manufactured tribal divide are exploiting these tragedies just to score points and rile up their captive constituencies, the notion that the solution to American nihilism is bringing all these jackals together for another war-on-something is even worse.” (10/04/25)
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2025/10/washington-is-to-blame-for-its-own.html
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22) Tariffs Rest on Distrust of Citizens
Source: The Daily Economy
by Donald J Boudreaux
“Protectionism assumes Americans are foolish, squandering opportunities and mismanaging their finances. Free trade reflects confidence in our ability to adapt, compete, and prosper.” (10/03/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/tariffs-rest-on-distrust-of-citizens/
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23) Yes, the Trump administration is eviscerating the due process rights of immigrants
Source: The Watch
by Radley Balko
“When the Trump administration was snatching people off the street and sending them to CECOT — and as it’s now trying to send people to third-party countries where they’re likely to be tortured — the MAGA faithful argued that violent gang members who enter the U.S. illegally don’t deserve due process. They’re now making a similar argument about Trump’s summary executions of alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean …. Let’s say you believe that people who came here illegally or are members of a gang deserve to be sent to an overseas torture prison. (And let’s set aside what that belief says about your humanity.) Without due process, there’s no way to know that the people they sent to CECOT really were violent gang members who entered the country illegally. We had only the administration’s word. And that isn’t much.” (10/03/25)
https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/yes-the-trump-administration-is-eviscerating
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24) Deploying troops to American cities is a clear assault on the Constitution
Source: Orange County Register
by Steven Greenhut
“Overall, the founders wanted to limit the ability of the feds to use military forces against civilians at home. If the Constitution wasn’t clear enough, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 directly bans the authorities from using federal troops for civilian law enforcement unless authorized by Congress. Trump’s efforts to use federal troops on U.S. soil is an affront to our nation’s Constitution and subsequent legal system. Legalities aside, every freedom-loving American should be appalled by the images of masked federal agents grabbing people at courthouses, tackling elderly citizens, roughing up reporters and marching down city streets.” (10/04/25)
https://archive.is/6VOFT
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25) The Sin Nature of Theologians & The Primate Nature of Biologists … Are The Same
Source: The Findings
by Paul Rosenberg
“This is one of those things that needs to be said, even though it’s jarring and unlikely to change public discourse any time soon. Apologies where due. What theologians call ‘man’s sinful nature’ is just about the same thing as the primate chemistry we humans have inherited, however it was that it came to us. (I’ll leave the fights over ultimate origins to others.) Bear in mind, please, that what I’m calling ‘primate nature’ is, in us, more like primate inclinations, and that we also have post-primate inclinations, or in theological terms godly inclinations.” (10/03/25)
https://thefindings.substack.com/p/the-sin-nature-of-theologians-and
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26) How Utterly Lost Is The Left [sic]?
Source: The Weekly Dish
by Andrew Sullivan
“The other day I sat, slack-jawed, reading Kamala Harris’[s] book — which was not easy to do with my eyeballs permanently rolled into the back of my head. … At one point, I even tried to imagine what America would be like today if this woke lawyer had actually won last year. Then it occurred to me that we already kind of know. We actually have a pretty good test case of exactly that: a center-left [sic] lawyer-politician coming to power last year after a massive immigration wave had discredited and ousted the previous incumbent. Enter Keir Starmer, my high school frenemy, and now prime minister. But unlike Harris, Starmer has at least shown signs of understanding his problem …” (10/03/25)
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/how-utterly-lost-is-the-left-960
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27) NATO Must Say No to Ukraine No-Fly Zone
Source: The American Conservative
by Ted Galen Carpenter
“In the past few weeks, Russian drones and jet fighters have repeatedly penetrated the airspace of Poland, Estonia, and other NATO members. Western officials have reacted harshly to those episodes, shooting down intruding drones and, in the case of President Donald Trump, issuing threats to attack even manned Russian aircraft if such incidents continue. NATO leaders and their supporters in the news media are responding to the rising tensions by reviving an idea from the earliest days of the Kremlin’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine: imposing a no-fly zone over that country. It is an especially provocative and dangerous scheme that carries a serious risk of triggering World War III.” (10/04/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/nato-must-say-no-to-ukraine-no-fly-zone/
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28) The United Police State of America Has Arrived
Source: The Intercept
by Ian F Blair
“The consolidation of the new police state has not been announced. There was no press conference declaring that local, state, and federal law enforcement — plus the military — are all marching to the same drum. No news conference featuring a bunch of police captains standing before a microphone to express their commitment to the new regime. But it is here. In the past six months, a quiet, mass reorganization of resources and rules and personnel has rippled across the country in order to enforce the Trump administration’s desires. This realignment is happening swiftly, smoothly and without fanfare. That the police have been so quiet in a historically loud moment should be a dead giveaway that a shift is under way.” (10/04/25)
https://theintercept.com/2025/10/04/united-police-state-of-america/
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29) Amid Gen Z’s challenges, an opportunity
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“From Madagascar and Morocco to Peru this week, from Serbia and Kenya earlier this year to Indonesia and Nepal last month, youth across the globe are calling to account political and economic systems that are not working for them. Young adults in the United States aren’t taking to the streets in such dramatic fashion. But American Gen Zers – generally those between 13 to 28 years of age – are also questioning prevailing priorities and seeking alternative approaches to political and economic challenges. Sixty-one percent of young Americans do not identify with either the Republican or Democratic party, says the Institute for Citizens and Scholars. But they value dialogue with those they disagree with: More than 37% of Gen Z respondents find such conversations ‘interesting and informative,’ compared with only 22% of respondents nationally.” (10/03/25)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2025/1003/Amid-Gen-Z-s-challenges-an-opportunity
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30) Europe’s Striking Syndrome
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler
“The strike that closed almost all of London’s underground network for four days in mid-September is estimated to have cost the UK economy £230 million ($307 million). It was arranged by the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, which campaigns for one of the most exploited groups of workers in British society: the capital’s tube drivers, who work 35 hours a week for £70,000 ($94,000) a year—almost double the national average salary.” (10/03/25)
https://fee.org/articles/europes-striking-syndrome/
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31) Trump Ends the Green Scam; Now the Crying Caucus Is Out of Cash
Source: Town Hall
by Larry Behrens
“It is hard to know what shocks eco-leftists more: that President Trump keeps his campaign promises or that their green gravy train is derailed. Let’s be honest — it’s both. On the campaign trail, President Trump promised he would end the Green New Scam. And now that he’s delivering, Democrats are crying because the taxpayer spigot has finally been shut off. Just this week, the administration canceled nearly $8 billion in so-called ‘clean energy’ grants, and the crocodile tears from the left are flowing like a river.” (10/04/25)
https://townhall.com/columnists/larrybehrens/2025/10/04/trump-ends-the-green-scam-now-the-crying-caucus-is-out-of-cash-n2664452
-----
32) Washington’s Brain Trust Mirage
Source: JimBovard.com
by James Bovard
“Washington politicians and bureaucrats are controlling much of your daily life. The more paternalistic government becomes, the more the state is a symbol of the superiority of some people over everyone else. How much wiser must some people be to entitle them to dictate how everyone else lives?” (10/03/25)
https://jimbovard.com/blog/2025/10/03/washingtons-brain-trust-mirage/
-----
33) How Many Palestinian Lives Would It Take To Equal One Western Life?
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“British police report that one of the two fatalities in the Manchester synagogue attack was caused by gunfire from police. One of the reported injuries was also the result of a stray police bullet. So he killed one person. The Manchester synagogue attacker killed one single person and the entire western world stopped in its tracks to mourn and grieve and weep and denounce, on the same day that Israel killed at least 57 Palestinians and it was completely ignored by western politicians and media. … how many deaths would it have taken? How many Palestinians would have needed to be murdered for it to have risen to the level of interest and attention from western politicians, pundits, and news reporters that we saw them giving to the violent death of one western Jew?” (10/04/25)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/10/04/how-many-palestinian-lives-would-it-take-to-equal-one-western-life-and-other-notes/
-----
34) The Missing Rules
Source: EconLog
by Kevin Corcoran
“Explicit rules are, of course, a part of the social order, but to an even larger degree, our behavior is governed by implicit rules. These rules are never explicitly written down or declared, but we learn them and implement them in our lives nonetheless. We can easily recognize when these rules are broken, even if we can’t actually say what the rule is or where it came from. We just recognize that one simply doesn’t do that.” (10/03/25)
https://www.econlib.org/the-missing-rules/
-----
35) Kindred spirits on the left and right believe in a New Deal fable
Source: Washington Post
by George F Will
“Progressives’ retrospective aspiration for a new New Deal is shared by ‘national conservatives.’ They, enthusiastic about the current administration, also believe government should comprehensively intervene in the economy, politically allocating capital (and therefore opportunity) to improve on the rationality of free markets. But economist George Selgin’s latest book refutes progressives’ triumphalist nostalgia for the New Deal. It thereby demonstrates that ‘national conservatives’ are oblivious regarding the cautionary lessons of Franklin Roosevelt’s experience.” (10/03/25)
https://archive.is/xeHUI
-----
36) Dress Codes vs. Codes of Honor
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
“I will believe that Hegseth is serious about this stuff when Hegseth starts acting like he is serious about it. As a few observers have pointed out, Hegseth’s Beverly Hills, 90210-style sideburns often extend to a length that would be prohibited under military grooming standards. But there is another area of dress convention that Hegseth violates in practically every public appearance, one that is in fact relevant to his current position: the Flag Code. … It forbids wearing the flag as an article of clothing, a rule Hegseth routinely flouts with his dopey flag-lined suits. It specifically forbids using the flag as a handkerchief, which Hegseth does habitually, tucking it into his chest pocket as a decorative pocket square — and surely, surely not because doing so makes it look like he is wearing some kind of military decoration.” (10/03/25)
https://archive.is/Owlc1
-----
37) Trump uses same strategy to curb Big Pharma, secure Mideast peace
Source: Fox News
by Batya Ungar-Sargon
“It was an action-packed week in America that ended with a government shutdown as Democrats and Republicans failed to arrive at a compromise on health care benefits. But despite what you heard from the mainstream media, that wasn’t the big health care story of the week. It was this: On Tuesday, the Trump administration reached a deal with Pfizer to lower the cost of drugs for Americans, reversing decades of unfair pricing in which American patients paid up to four times more than Europeans for drugs that were developed in our own country. Pfizer agreed not to launch new drugs at a higher price in the U.S. than in other wealthy countries. It also agreed to sell drugs to Medicaid at lower prices and to sell drugs at a discount to Americans without insurance.” (10/04/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/batya-ungar-sargon-how-trump-uses-same-strategy-curb-big-pharma-secure-mideast-peace
-----
38) Egypt stepping out from Israel’s shadow? It depends.
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Ted Snider
“Various forces, from tariffs to wars to the emerging multipolar world order, are potentially reshaping the Middle East and its alliances, and Egypt is playing a leading role. However, Egypt’s vision is bumping up against the reality that its dependence on Washington limits those shifting alliances and Egypt’s ability to play a leading role in them. Time will tell how far Egypt can go.” (10/03/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/egypt-israel-arabs/
-----
39) Trump Fabricates a War to Cover Up Murder
Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison
“The president has dressed up his summary executions of alleged criminals by pretending that the U.S. is fighting a war with these groups, but these groups are not engaged in hostilities with our government. They aren’t carrying our armed attacks on our country or our military. Calling them terrorist organizations doesn’t authorize or legitimize the killing Trump has ordered. Branding noncombatants as combatants doesn’t make them lawful targets. The administration has dubbed this a ‘non-international armed conflict’ for the purposes of creating a fig leaf for the president’s murders.” (10/03/25)
https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/trump-fabricates-a-war-to-cover-up
-----
40) Democracy is Overrated
Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders
“Presumably, the point of voting is to change things you don’t like or to make the world a better place by electing the ‘right’ people, but the likelihood that your vote will affect the outcome of an election is vanishingly small. And the ‘right’ people are almost always wrong. Consider that it takes about 3,633,600 drops of water to fill a 40-gallon bathtub (90,840 drops per gallon). Considering that 155,240,953 people voted in the 2024 election, your vote is like a single drop in 43 bathtubs. What are the odds that your drop will fill the forty-third tub? And yet democracy is the only game in town.” (10/03/25)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/democracy-is-overrated
-----
41) What the Children of Gaza Might Say to the Children of America
Source: Common Dreams
by Ralph Nader
“In Gaza, 200,000 Palestinian children have already been murdered by the Netanyahu regime, with American weapons. A survey last year by a British civic group found that 46% of the children in Gaza wanted to die, and over 95% believed they would be killed. This is not surprising. The Israeli genocidal regime has daily bombed tiny Gaza’s 2.3 million residents (the geographical size of Philadelphia) with the TNT equivalent of seven Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs, smashing civilians and their infrastructure from water mains, electricity, fuel supplies, roads, agricultural crops, to hospitals, clinics, schools, housing, and bakeries into bits and pieces of flesh and debris. Imagine the horror, the screams, starvation, chronic diseases, and untreated, bleeding injuries, the huge number of limbs amputated from children, most severed without any anesthesia.” (10/04/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/children-of-gaza-to-us
-----
42) Shutdowns as Political Theater
Source: Law & Liberty
by David Hebert & Paul Mueller
“The question isn’t whether Congress will eventually cobble together a deal; it always does. The real question is, why does this keep happening?” (10/03/25)
https://lawliberty.org/shutdowns-as-political-theater/
-----
43) Trump Administration Says It Wants to Fight Racial Discrimination in College Admissions — Then Things Got Weird
Source: Cato Institute
by Andrew Gillen
“The Trump administration is certainly doing lots of new things, including in higher education. But collecting data to fight discrimination isn’t one of them — we’ve been doing that for decades.” (10/03/25)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/trump-administration-says-it-wants-fight-racial-discrimination-college-admissions-then
-----
44) GDP as ideological scam, part 2
Source: The Peaceful Revolutionist
by David S D’Amato
“If you are struggling at this point to understand why GDP is so important to the substantive conversation about what we want our political-economy to look like, I think it is this: our ruling class has made GDP much less a technical standard than a strict prescriptive standard, under which liberty and the legitimacy of our institutions, etc., are now judged. This is a crucial philosophical distinction. Several years back, during a friendly exchange with a friend who today works at the Cato Institute, I asked whether he could conceive of a legitimately free market, under any definition he preferred, that did not culminate in growth as measured under the GDP ideology. His reply was blunt and reveals much about the way we think politically today: ‘Then what would be the point?'” (10/03/25)
https://dsdamato.substack.com/p/gdp-as-ideological-scam-part-2
-----
45) Trump plan may end Gaza war, but pain of massacre that sparked it will live on
Source: New York Post
by staff
“Hamas’[s] signaling Friday that it will accept the peace plan President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rolled out last week has raised hopes for an end, once and for all, to the ugly war the terrorist group sparked two years ago Tuesday. And that, indeed, it will lead to a permanent peace not just in Gaza but across the Middle East: an end to the nearly 80-year-old Arab-Israeli conflict. Yet even if it does, Jewish pain from the horrific Oct. 7 massacre that ignited the war, and from the antisemitism it unleashed, will long endure.” (10/04/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/10/04/opinion/the-trump-plan-may-end-gaza-war-but-the-pain-of-the-massacre-that-sparked-it-will-live-on/
-----
46) Strategy over Optics: Trump’s Most Favored Nation Status on Drug Prices
Source: Brownstone Institute
by James Lyons-Weiler
“On September 30, 2025, the image of Albert Bourla standing in the White House beside President Donald J. Trump stunned large segments of the public. The moment instantly became a lightning rod, drawing condemnation and confusion from those who remembered the unresolved — and in many cases, still unaccounted for — devastations of the Covid-19 response. My inbox, and those of others who have worked to expose the record, flooded with a single question, usually framed in rage or betrayal: What the F*? This piece is not an apology, nor an attempt to launder history. We must hold multiple truths at once. What happened in 2020 and 2021 was a global institutional collapse, and many of the facts still buried beneath academic soft-pedaling or regulatory capture are not only real — they are documented.” (10/03/25)
https://brownstone.org/articles/strategy-over-optics-trumps-most-favored-nation-status-on-drug-prices/
-----
47) Free Movement Increases Wealth
Source: Free Association
by Sheldon Richman
“In a recent interview with Nathan Goodman of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Professor Michael Clemens, a GMU specialist in migration economics, put forth ‘a strange and striking fact about the world economy.’ A lower-skilled person’s location in the world can make a significant difference in how much wealth he creates, not just for himself but for society in general. According to Clemens, few people appreciate that, say, a poor shoeshiner in Haiti could earn far more money doing the same work in a wealthy American city because his customers, who are rich by world and historical standards, have much to gain by paying the Haitian to free up their time. By the law of comparative advantage, even a CEO who can shine shoes better than anyone would benefit from paying the shoeshiner.” (10/03/25)
https://sheldonfreeassociation.blogspot.com/2025/10/tgif-free-movement-inreases-wealth.html
-----
48) The US Government Doesn’t Want You To Read This Report on Israel’s Business Deals
Source: Reason
by Matthew Petti
“The U.S. government doesn’t want you to read what Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, has to say. In July 2025, the State Department announced that it was going to freeze her assets for her ‘lawfare that targets U.S. and Israeli persons.’ … The U.S. government’s attempts to stop the report from being published in the first place make it especially worth reading. Politicians have long wanted to erode Americans’ right to vote with their wallets, and they’ve used boycotts of Israel as a test case to introduce wide-ranging anti-boycott laws. By accusing the United Nations of ‘lawfare’ for simply printing a report, the government is attacking the right of consumers and investors to hear information that lets them make politically conscious decisions.” (for publication 11/25)
https://reason.com/2025/10/04/the-report-the-u-s-government-doesnt-want-you-to-read/
-----
49) Taxing the Rich and the Survival of Emmanuel Macron
Source: The American Prospect
by Robert Kuttner
“The idea of a wealth tax on society’s richest people is suddenly in vogue, thanks to the political stalemate in France. Economist Gabriel Zucman, who divides his time between Berkeley and Paris, has proposed a wealth tax that maxes out at 2 percent, on France’s top 0.1 percent of households, just 1,800 people, whose wealth exceeds 100 billion euros, about $118 billion. So highly concentrated is wealth in France that the tax would bring in between $15 billion and $25 billion annually, enough to substantially reduce France’s huge budget of close to 6 percent of GDP without unpopular budget cuts. More than anywhere else, France poses that stark choice. … What gives the Zucman tax special resonance at this moment is that three French governments have fallen in the past year over demands for cuts in popular social spending.” (10/03/25)
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-10-03-taxing-rich-emmanuel-macron-france/
-----
50) This is Stupid
Source: The Erick Erickson Show
by Eric-Woods Erickson
“The President of the United States chose to start a trade war, convincing his supporters that other countries were onerously taxing American imports, ignoring the special exemptions made for the United States in many of the laws. Those other nations have responded by buying elsewhere. China, the largest buyer of American soybeans, has decided to snub our farmers. So now you and I will pay American farmers for the soybeans they cannot sell because of the President’s trade policy. ‘But they’ll use the tariff money,’ you say. Except they cannot under American law. … The President will instead find money in the Department of Agriculture budget that he can divert from other purposes and give it to the farmers who would prefer to sell the crops they grew, but now cannot because of the President’s stupid tariffs. Well done, everybody.” (10/03/25)
https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/this-is-stupid
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Fountainhead Forum, episode 365
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Jim Lark on the Libertarian Party, coronavirus, and Charlie Kirk.” (10/03/25)
https://rumble.com/v6zs0t2-ff-365-jim-lark-on-the-libertarian-party-coronavirus-and-charlie-kirk.html
-----
52) Pink Flame of Liberty, 10/05/25
Source: Pink Flame of Liberty
“Becoming the Defendant: Macron v. Owens, the Amended Complaint.” (10/05/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMAAoQLpFQc
-----
53) The Good Fight, 10/04/25
Source: Yascha Mounk
“Quentin Skinner on Liberty.” (10/04/25)
https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/quentin-skinner
-----
54) Unattended Baggage, episode 312
Source: Unattended Baggage
“More Cowbell!” (10/04/25)
https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-312-more-cowbell
-----
55) Should We Fight Economic Misinformation?
Source: Bet On It
“A recording from Bryan Caplan and Richard Hanania’s live video.” (10/03/25)
https://www.betonit.ai/p/should-we-fight-economic-misinformation
-----
56) Freakonomics Radio, episode 648
Source: Freakonomics
“The Merger You Never Knew You Wanted.” (10/03/25)
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-merger-you-never-knew-you-wanted/
-----
57) In The Tank, episode 514
Source: Heartland Institute
“Government Shutdown Standoff: What’s Really at Stake?” (10/03/25)
https://heartland.org/podcasts/government-shutdown-standoff-whats-really-at-stake-in-the-tank-podcast-513/
-----
58) Mean Age Daydream, 10/03/25
Source: Lions of Liberty
“Saudi Arabia’s Glowing Orb Eats Electronic Arts.” (10/03/25)
https://www.lionsofliberty.com/episodes/madd-saudi-arabias-glowing-orb-eats-electronic-arts
-----
59) System Update, episode 526
Source: System Update
“Journalist Ken Klippenstein on Trump’s New Domestic Terrorism Memo; Glenn Takes Your Questions on Bari Weiss’s CBS Role, His Interview with Nick Fuentes, and More.” (10/03/25)
https://rumble.com/v6zttqw-system-update-show-526-q-and-a.html
-----
60) Anarcho Agenda, episode 144
Source: Anarcho Agenda
“I discuss the rapture, and people’s need to escape, and more.” (10/03/25)
https://sites.libsyn.com/94112/anarcho-agenda-ep-144-2025-10-03
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Today's Freedom News:
0) Year-End Fundraiser Update
1) Ukrainian forces launch “biggest drone attack of the war”
2) Gaza ceasefire talks to start in Egypt
3) Bitcoin Hovers Near Record After Topping $125,000
4) France: Lecornu resigns hours after reveal of new cabinet
5) White House: Mass layoffs of workfare clients will start if shutdown [sic] talks “going nowhere”
6) Japan: Sanae Takaichi set to become first female prime minister
7) Federal appeals court rules Trump can’t repeal 14th Amendment
8) Judge blocks Trump policy to detain abducted migrant children turning 18 in adult concentration camps
9) Pritzger: Trump plans to deploy National Guard in Illinois
10) Google removes gang activity tracking app, following Apple
11) Fake government “shutdown” already cost taxpayers $1.2 billion in pay to employees not working
12) Georgia: Protesters try to storm Tbilisi presidential palace
13) Iran: Regime kills six it alleges carried out attacks on behalf of Israel
14) Newsom uses new Taylor Swift album to troll Donald Trump
15) IL: After being “boxed in” by citizen militia, gang members attempt to murder armed woman in Chicago
16) Italy: Big Crowds, Clashes With Police on Fourth Day of Pro-Palestinian Protests
17) Czech Republic: Billionaire populist Andrej Babis’s party wins parliamentary election
18) Federal judge halts Trump regime’s plan to occupy Portland
19) CA: Top official investigated for using taxpayer money for personal travel
20) Combs sentenced to 50 months behind bars
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Washington is to Blame for Its Own Culture of Political Violence
22) Tariffs Rest on Distrust of Citizens
23) Yes, the Trump administration is eviscerating the due process rights of immigrants
24) Deploying troops to American cities is a clear assault on the Constitution
25) The Sin Nature of Theologians & The Primate Nature of Biologists … Are The Same
26) How Utterly Lost Is The Left [sic]?
27) NATO Must Say No to Ukraine No-Fly Zone
28) The United Police State of America Has Arrived
29) Amid Gen Z’s challenges, an opportunity
30) Europe’s Striking Syndrome
31) Trump Ends the Green Scam; Now the Crying Caucus Is Out of Cash
32) Washington’s Brain Trust Mirage
33) How Many Palestinian Lives Would It Take To Equal One Western Life?
34) The Missing Rules
35) Kindred spirits on the left and right believe in a New Deal fable
36) Dress Codes vs. Codes of Honor
37) Trump uses same strategy to curb Big Pharma, secure Mideast peace
38) Egypt stepping out from Israel’s shadow? It depends.
39) Trump Fabricates a War to Cover Up Murder
40) Democracy is Overrated
41) What the Children of Gaza Might Say to the Children of America
42) Shutdowns as Political Theater
43) Trump Administration Says It Wants to Fight Racial Discrimination in College Admissions — Then Things Got Weird
44) GDP as ideological scam, part 2
45) Trump plan may end Gaza war, but pain of massacre that sparked it will live on
46) Strategy over Optics: Trump’s Most Favored Nation Status on Drug Prices
47) Free Movement Increases Wealth
48) The US Government Doesn’t Want You To Read This Report on Israel’s Business Deals
49) Taxing the Rich and the Survival of Emmanuel Macron
50) This is Stupid
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Fountainhead Forum, episode 365
52) Pink Flame of Liberty, 10/05/25
53) The Good Fight, 10/04/25
54) Unattended Baggage, episode 312
55) Should We Fight Economic Misinformation?
56) Freakonomics Radio, episode 648
57) In The Tank, episode 514
58) Mean Age Daydream, 10/03/25
59) System Update, episode 526
60) Anarcho Agenda, episode 144
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0) Year-End Fundraiser Update
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Have a great day!
Yours in liberty,
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Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
-----
1) Ukrainian forces launch “biggest drone attack of the war”
Source: Express [UK]
“Ukraine staged one of its biggest attacks [i]n the war on Russia, striking a major explosives plant and the largest oil loading terminal in occupied [sic] Crimea. Both exploded in giant flames – two of multiple targets hit in an overnight onslaught against Vladimir Putin involving more than 250 drones. … Ukrainian drones reportedly ignited the Sverdlov plant in Dzerzhinsk, one of the largest Russian manufacturers of explosives, detonators, munitions components, including aviation bombs, artillery shells, and warheads for missiles. … Russia claimed to have shot down 251 drones – the second highest number of the war.” (10/06/25)
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2117528/ukraine-launches-biggest-drone-attack
-----
2) Gaza ceasefire talks to start in Egypt
Source: Deutsche Welle [German state media]
“Groups of negotiators from Israel and the United States, as well as representatives from Hamas, have gathered in Egypt to discuss a 20-point plan to bring Israel’s military campaign in Gaza to an end. … Under the proposed framework, Hamas would release the 48 hostages it has been holding since the October 7, 2023, attacks in Israel. About 20 hostages are believed to still be alive. Israel is in turn supposed to return hundreds of Palestinian[ hostage]s it is holding. … The proposal also calls for an immediate ceasefire and an interim Gaza government led by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and overseen by the United States, among other officials.” (10/06/25)
https://www.dw.com/en/middle-east-updates-gaza-ceasefire-talks-to-start-in-egypt/live-74246358
-----
3) Bitcoin Hovers Near Record After Topping $125,000
Source: Bloomberg
“Bitcoin set a fresh record on Sunday for the first time since mid-August, as the US government shutdown drove investors to safe-haven assets in a migration dubbed the ‘debasement trade.’ The largest digital-asset climbed to $125,689 over the weekend and remained in touching distance of its all-time high on Monday morning in Singapore at about $123,700, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The surge came amid a US government shutdown that’s helped fuel demand for perceived safe-haven assets.” (10/06/25)
https://archive.is/Jzq35
-----
4) France: Lecornu resigns hours after reveal of new cabinet
Source: Hindustan Times [India]
“French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has resigned hours after appointing new cabinet, reports said. Lecornu, a former defence minister, was appointed by President Emmanuel Macron last month. The unexpected resignation has once again revealed the deepening political crisis in France. … Lecornu, a close ally of Macron, on Sunday appointed his cabinet after weeks of consultations with political parties and the cabinet was set to hold its first meeting on Monday. But Macron’s largely unchanged cabinet announcement triggered a backlash from opposition parties and even his own supporters.” (10/06/25)
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/france-pm-sebastien-lecornu-resigns-hours-after-reveal-of-new-cabinet-101759737574856.html
-----
5) White House: Mass layoffs of workfare clients will start if shutdown [sic] talks “going nowhere”
Source: Reuters
“The Trump administration will start mass layoffs of federal workers if President Donald Trump decides negotiations with congressional Democrats to end a partial government shutdown are ‘absolutely going nowhere,’ a senior White House official said on Sunday. As the shutdown entered its fifth day, White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CNN’s ‘State of the Union’ program that he still saw a chance that Democrats would back down, averting a costly shutdown and federal employee layoffs that have been threatened by White House budget director Russell Vought. There have been no tangible signs of negotiations between congressional leaders since Trump met with them last week. The shutdown began on Oct. 1, the start of federal fiscal year 2026, after Senate Democrats rejected a short-term funding measure that would keep federal agencies open through Nov. 21.” (10/05/25)
https://archive.is/fk7WB
-----
6) Japan: Sanae Takaichi set to become first female prime minister
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Japan’s ruling conservative party has elected Sanae Takaichi as its new leader, positioning the 64-year-old to be Japan’s first female prime minister. Takaichi is among the more conservative candidates leaning to the ruling party’s right. A former government minister, TV host and avid heavy metal drummer, she is one of the best known figures in Japanese politics – and a controversial one at that. She faces many challenges, including contending with a sluggish economy and households struggling with relentless inflation and stagnant wages. She will also have to navigate a rocky US-Japan relationship and see through a tariff deal with the Trump administration agreed by the previous government. If confirmed as prime minister, one of Takaichi’s key challenges will be uniting the party after a turbulent few years which saw it rocked by scandals and internal conflicts.” (10/04/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2pmy7m72lo
-----
7) Federal appeals court rules Trump can’t repeal 14th Amendment
Source: San Diego Union-Tribune
“A federal appeals court in Boston ruled on Friday that the Trump administration cannot withhold citizenship from children born to people in the country illegally [sic] or temporarily, adding to the mounting legal setbacks for the president’s birthright order. A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals became the fifth federal court since June to either issue or uphold orders blocking the president’s birthright order. The court concluded that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claims that the children described in the order are entitled to birthright citizenship under the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment.” (10/03/25)
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2025/10/03/birthright-citizenship-order-blocked/
-----
8) Judge blocks Trump policy to detain abducted migrant children turning 18 in adult concentration camps
Source: SFGate
“A federal judge has temporarily blocked a new Trump administration policy to keep migrant children in detention after they turn 18, moving quickly to stop transfers to adult facilities that advocates said were scheduled for this weekend. U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras on Saturday issued a temporary restraining order to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to not detain any child who came to the country alone and without permission in ICE adult detention facilities after they become an adult. The Washington, D.C., judge found that such automatic detention violates a court order he issued in 2021 barring such practices. ICE and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security didn’t immediately respond Saturday to emails seeking comment.” (10/04/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/judge-blocks-trump-policy-to-detain-migrant-21084458.php
-----
9) Pritzger: Trump plans to deploy National Guard in Illinois
Source: SFGate
“The Trump administration plans to federalize 300 members of the Illinois National Guard, Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker said Saturday. Pritzker said the guard received word from the Pentagon in the morning that the troops would be called up. He did not specify when or where they would be deployed, but President Donald Trump has long threatened to send troops to Chicago. ‘This morning, the Trump Administration’s Department of War gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will,’ Pritzker said in a statement. ‘It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a Governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will.’ A spokesperson for the governor’s office said she could not provide additional details. The White House and the Pentagon did not respond to questions about Pritzker’s statement.” (10/04/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/trump-plans-to-deploy-national-guard-in-illinois-21084398.php
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10) Google removes gang activity tracking app, following Apple
Source: The Verge
“Just one day after Apple took down the iOS App Store listing for ICEBlock, Google has confirmed to 404 Media that it has removed a similar app, Red Dot, from the Google Play Store. The company also reportedly said it ‘removed apps that share the location of what it describes as a vulnerable group after a recent violent act against them connected to this sort of app.’ On Thursday, Apple removed ICEBlock and similar apps, including Red Dot, after facing pressure from the Department of Justice. Attorney General Pam Bondi said to Fox News on Thursday that ‘ICEBlock is designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs, and violence against law enforcement is an intolerable red line that cannot be crossed.'” (10/03/25)
https://www.theverge.com/news/791533/google-apple-ice-tracking-app-store-red-dot-iceblock
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11) Fake government “shutdown” already cost taxpayers $1.2 billion in pay to employees not working
Source: Fox News
“The government shutdown costs taxpayers $400 million every day to pay federal employees who are not actively working, totaling $1.2 billion as of Friday, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data published by the office of Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, estimates. … A law passed in 2019 requires furloughed employees receive backpay after a funding agreement is reached and a shutdown ends. The CBO found that the furloughed employees’ daily cost of compensation sits at about $400 million, or a total of $1.2 billion as of Friday.” (10/04/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/schumer-shutdown-already-cost-taxpayers-1-2b-pay-employees-not-working
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12) Georgia: Protesters try to storm Tbilisi presidential palace
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Police in Georgia have clashed with anti-government protesters trying to storm the presidential palace in the capital, Tbilisi. Security forces used water cannons and pepper spray to disperse demonstrators. The Caucasus country has been in crisis since the ruling Georgian Dream party claimed victory in last year’s parliamentary election, which the pro-European Union opposition says was stolen. Since then the government has paused talks on joining the EU. The protest took place on the same day as local elections, which the opposition is largely boycotting following a government crackdown. One organiser had earlier called for leaders of the Georgian Dream party to be arrested. Waving Georgian and EU flags, tens of thousands of protesters marched in central Tbilisi on Saturday.” (10/04/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce86kgnj7zro
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13) Iran: Regime kills six it alleges carried out attacks on behalf of Israel
Source: CBS News
“Iran executed six death-row inmates Saturday it alleged carried out attacks in the country’s oil-rich southwest on behalf of Israel, the latest prisoners to be put to death in a wave of executions believed to be the highest in decades. The executions follow the 12-day Iran-Israel war in June, which ended with Tehran vowing it would target its enemies at home and abroad. However, activists warn Iran often relies on coerced confessions and closed-door trials in its death penalty cases, particularly those involving Israel.” (10/04/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-executes-death-row-inmates-israel/
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14) Newsom uses new Taylor Swift album to troll Donald Trump
Source: SFGate
“Taylor Swift’s surprise midnight Friday album drop has taken over the internet and quickly worked itself into the current biggest personal rivalry in American politics. Gov. Gavin Newsom released a TikTok video Friday afternoon showing a montage of his interactions with President Donald Trump set to Swift’s new song ‘Actually Romantic.’ The video shows Trump’s tweets attacking Newsom captioned with the lyrics, ‘It’s actually sweet, all the time you’ve spent on me.’ The Friday video is only the latest jab in a duel that’s come to epitomize the subterranean lows American political dialogue has reached. Trump has spent the past decade eroding political norms with a constant stream of name-calling, overstatements, outright lies and all-caps social media posts aimed at whoever crosses his mind. Newsom has recently responded in kind, with his own stream of rants and foul-mouthed social media posts, usually aimed at Trump or one of Trump’s followers.” (10/03/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/gavin-newsom-uses-taylor-swift-to-attack-trump-21083446.php
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15) IL: After being “boxed in” by citizen militia, gang members attempt to murder armed woman in Chicago
Source: New York Post
“U.S. Border Patrol agents shot an armed woman in Chicago Saturday after an angry mob tried to attack the law enforcement officers. The group of agents were conducting their routine patrol near 39th Place and South Kedzie Avenue in the city’s South Side ‘when they were attacked and rammed by vehicles and boxed in by 10 cars,’ the Department of Homeland Security said. ‘The officers exited their trapped vehicle, when a suspect tried to run them over, forcing the officers to fire defensively,’ according to DHS, which called the incident ‘an evolving situation’ and noted FBI agents were currently on the scene. The suspect, who is a U.S. citizen, was armed with a semi-automatic weapon, department spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said.” (10/04/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/10/04/us-news/us-border-patrol-agents-shoot-woman-in-chicago-after-they-were-boxed-in-by-cars/
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16) Italy: Big Crowds, Clashes With Police on Fourth Day of Pro-Palestinian Protests
Source: US News & World Report
“Hundreds of thousands of people marched through central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists. People with banners and flags, chanting ‘Free Palestine’ and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organisers said attracted more than 1 million people, while police put the figure at around 250,000. … Towards the end of the march, around 200 people broke away and clashed with officers in riot gear near the St. Mary Major basilica, police said. Officers responded with tear gas and water cannons. In later incidents, protesters set fire to a couple of cars and several rubbish bins, and hurled firecrackers at officers, police said, adding they detained 12 suspects and took down the names of 262 people.” (10/04/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-10-04/mass-rally-in-rome-on-fourth-day-of-italys-pro-palestinian-protests
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17) Czech Republic: Billionaire populist Andrej Babis’s party wins parliamentary election
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Billionaire businessman Andrej Babis has won parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic, although his populist ANO party fell short of an overall majority. ANO received just under 35% of the vote, earning them 80 seats in the 200-seat lower house – up from 72 seats four years ago, according to preliminary results. Babis – who served as prime minister from 2017 to 2021 – is expected to be invited to lead talks on forming a new coalition. ‘This is a historic success,’ Andrej Babis announced to cheering supporters at the ANO headquarters in the suburbs of Prague. He’d entered the building holding aloft a Bluetooth speaker blasting a remix of the 1981 hit ‘Sarà perché ti amo’ by the Italian pop trio Ricchi e Poveri. The same song resounded across the stage as he accepted the applause. Some colleagues – including the former finance minister Alena Schillerova – danced along to the beat.” (10/04/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62qezmr92lo
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18) Federal judge halts Trump regime’s plan to occupy Portland
Source: Politico
“A federal judge blocked President Donald Trump’s call-up of 200 National Guard troops in Oregon, ruling on Saturday that Trump’s claims of daily unrest in Portland were ‘untethered to facts’ and risked plunging the nation into an unconstitutional form of military rule. ‘This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law,’ wrote U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee. Immergut said Trump’s decision to enlist members of Oregon’s National Guard was based on false claims about nightly unrest targeting federal immigration authorities and buildings in Portland. Though Trump described the city as ‘war-ravaged’ and wracked with violence, police said immigration-related protests had been small, manageable and largely peaceful in the days leading up to Trump’s pronouncement.” (10/04/25)
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/04/federal-judge-halts-trump-administrations-call-up-of-national-guard-in-portland-00594308
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19) CA: Top official investigated for using taxpayer money for personal travel
Source: SFGate
“The state’s insurance commissioner — the person who helps advocate for everyday consumers and prevent industry overreach — is under scrutiny after allegations that he has spent exorbitant amounts of taxpayer dollars on questionable expenses. Ricardo Lara, a former legislator in both the state Senate and Assembly, is being probed by the California Fair Political Practices Commission, a bipartisan independent oversight agency. An KGO-TV investigation earlier this year revealed that he racked up expensive receipts on at least a dozen trips, including paying for significant security and high-end dining and hotels, since he assumed office in 2019.” (10/03/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/top-insurance-official-investigated-21081352.php
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20) Combs sentenced to 50 months behind bars
Source: NBC News
“A judge sentenced Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs to 50 months in prison, fined him $500,000 and ordered five years of supervised release. … A jury acquitted Combs of racketeering and sex trafficking charges on July 2, but convicted him on two lesser counts of transporting former girlfriends for prostitution.” (10/03/25)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/live-blog/diddy-sentencing-sean-combs-trial-guilty-verdict-prison-live-updates-rcna234879
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Washington is to Blame for Its Own Culture of Political Violence
Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid
“We start with a tragedy, some pissed-off lonely kid puts down his smartphone and picks up a gun, somebody gets shot, sometimes a politician, sometimes some other species of media personality, but usually it ends up just being a room full of other lonely kids with smartphones. After a lot of frantic finger pointing by the media personalities left standing, it usually becomes clear that the shooter wasn’t actually directly concerned with any of their silly partisan squabbles …. While it is painfully obvious to anyone with half a brain still attached to a functioning conscience that both sides of this country’s manufactured tribal divide are exploiting these tragedies just to score points and rile up their captive constituencies, the notion that the solution to American nihilism is bringing all these jackals together for another war-on-something is even worse.” (10/04/25)
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2025/10/washington-is-to-blame-for-its-own.html
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22) Tariffs Rest on Distrust of Citizens
Source: The Daily Economy
by Donald J Boudreaux
“Protectionism assumes Americans are foolish, squandering opportunities and mismanaging their finances. Free trade reflects confidence in our ability to adapt, compete, and prosper.” (10/03/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/tariffs-rest-on-distrust-of-citizens/
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23) Yes, the Trump administration is eviscerating the due process rights of immigrants
Source: The Watch
by Radley Balko
“When the Trump administration was snatching people off the street and sending them to CECOT — and as it’s now trying to send people to third-party countries where they’re likely to be tortured — the MAGA faithful argued that violent gang members who enter the U.S. illegally don’t deserve due process. They’re now making a similar argument about Trump’s summary executions of alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean …. Let’s say you believe that people who came here illegally or are members of a gang deserve to be sent to an overseas torture prison. (And let’s set aside what that belief says about your humanity.) Without due process, there’s no way to know that the people they sent to CECOT really were violent gang members who entered the country illegally. We had only the administration’s word. And that isn’t much.” (10/03/25)
https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/yes-the-trump-administration-is-eviscerating
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24) Deploying troops to American cities is a clear assault on the Constitution
Source: Orange County Register
by Steven Greenhut
“Overall, the founders wanted to limit the ability of the feds to use military forces against civilians at home. If the Constitution wasn’t clear enough, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 directly bans the authorities from using federal troops for civilian law enforcement unless authorized by Congress. Trump’s efforts to use federal troops on U.S. soil is an affront to our nation’s Constitution and subsequent legal system. Legalities aside, every freedom-loving American should be appalled by the images of masked federal agents grabbing people at courthouses, tackling elderly citizens, roughing up reporters and marching down city streets.” (10/04/25)
https://archive.is/6VOFT
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25) The Sin Nature of Theologians & The Primate Nature of Biologists … Are The Same
Source: The Findings
by Paul Rosenberg
“This is one of those things that needs to be said, even though it’s jarring and unlikely to change public discourse any time soon. Apologies where due. What theologians call ‘man’s sinful nature’ is just about the same thing as the primate chemistry we humans have inherited, however it was that it came to us. (I’ll leave the fights over ultimate origins to others.) Bear in mind, please, that what I’m calling ‘primate nature’ is, in us, more like primate inclinations, and that we also have post-primate inclinations, or in theological terms godly inclinations.” (10/03/25)
https://thefindings.substack.com/p/the-sin-nature-of-theologians-and
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26) How Utterly Lost Is The Left [sic]?
Source: The Weekly Dish
by Andrew Sullivan
“The other day I sat, slack-jawed, reading Kamala Harris’[s] book — which was not easy to do with my eyeballs permanently rolled into the back of my head. … At one point, I even tried to imagine what America would be like today if this woke lawyer had actually won last year. Then it occurred to me that we already kind of know. We actually have a pretty good test case of exactly that: a center-left [sic] lawyer-politician coming to power last year after a massive immigration wave had discredited and ousted the previous incumbent. Enter Keir Starmer, my high school frenemy, and now prime minister. But unlike Harris, Starmer has at least shown signs of understanding his problem …” (10/03/25)
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/how-utterly-lost-is-the-left-960
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27) NATO Must Say No to Ukraine No-Fly Zone
Source: The American Conservative
by Ted Galen Carpenter
“In the past few weeks, Russian drones and jet fighters have repeatedly penetrated the airspace of Poland, Estonia, and other NATO members. Western officials have reacted harshly to those episodes, shooting down intruding drones and, in the case of President Donald Trump, issuing threats to attack even manned Russian aircraft if such incidents continue. NATO leaders and their supporters in the news media are responding to the rising tensions by reviving an idea from the earliest days of the Kremlin’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine: imposing a no-fly zone over that country. It is an especially provocative and dangerous scheme that carries a serious risk of triggering World War III.” (10/04/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/nato-must-say-no-to-ukraine-no-fly-zone/
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28) The United Police State of America Has Arrived
Source: The Intercept
by Ian F Blair
“The consolidation of the new police state has not been announced. There was no press conference declaring that local, state, and federal law enforcement — plus the military — are all marching to the same drum. No news conference featuring a bunch of police captains standing before a microphone to express their commitment to the new regime. But it is here. In the past six months, a quiet, mass reorganization of resources and rules and personnel has rippled across the country in order to enforce the Trump administration’s desires. This realignment is happening swiftly, smoothly and without fanfare. That the police have been so quiet in a historically loud moment should be a dead giveaway that a shift is under way.” (10/04/25)
https://theintercept.com/2025/10/04/united-police-state-of-america/
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29) Amid Gen Z’s challenges, an opportunity
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“From Madagascar and Morocco to Peru this week, from Serbia and Kenya earlier this year to Indonesia and Nepal last month, youth across the globe are calling to account political and economic systems that are not working for them. Young adults in the United States aren’t taking to the streets in such dramatic fashion. But American Gen Zers – generally those between 13 to 28 years of age – are also questioning prevailing priorities and seeking alternative approaches to political and economic challenges. Sixty-one percent of young Americans do not identify with either the Republican or Democratic party, says the Institute for Citizens and Scholars. But they value dialogue with those they disagree with: More than 37% of Gen Z respondents find such conversations ‘interesting and informative,’ compared with only 22% of respondents nationally.” (10/03/25)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2025/1003/Amid-Gen-Z-s-challenges-an-opportunity
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30) Europe’s Striking Syndrome
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler
“The strike that closed almost all of London’s underground network for four days in mid-September is estimated to have cost the UK economy £230 million ($307 million). It was arranged by the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, which campaigns for one of the most exploited groups of workers in British society: the capital’s tube drivers, who work 35 hours a week for £70,000 ($94,000) a year—almost double the national average salary.” (10/03/25)
https://fee.org/articles/europes-striking-syndrome/
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31) Trump Ends the Green Scam; Now the Crying Caucus Is Out of Cash
Source: Town Hall
by Larry Behrens
“It is hard to know what shocks eco-leftists more: that President Trump keeps his campaign promises or that their green gravy train is derailed. Let’s be honest — it’s both. On the campaign trail, President Trump promised he would end the Green New Scam. And now that he’s delivering, Democrats are crying because the taxpayer spigot has finally been shut off. Just this week, the administration canceled nearly $8 billion in so-called ‘clean energy’ grants, and the crocodile tears from the left are flowing like a river.” (10/04/25)
https://townhall.com/columnists/larrybehrens/2025/10/04/trump-ends-the-green-scam-now-the-crying-caucus-is-out-of-cash-n2664452
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32) Washington’s Brain Trust Mirage
Source: JimBovard.com
by James Bovard
“Washington politicians and bureaucrats are controlling much of your daily life. The more paternalistic government becomes, the more the state is a symbol of the superiority of some people over everyone else. How much wiser must some people be to entitle them to dictate how everyone else lives?” (10/03/25)
https://jimbovard.com/blog/2025/10/03/washingtons-brain-trust-mirage/
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33) How Many Palestinian Lives Would It Take To Equal One Western Life?
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“British police report that one of the two fatalities in the Manchester synagogue attack was caused by gunfire from police. One of the reported injuries was also the result of a stray police bullet. So he killed one person. The Manchester synagogue attacker killed one single person and the entire western world stopped in its tracks to mourn and grieve and weep and denounce, on the same day that Israel killed at least 57 Palestinians and it was completely ignored by western politicians and media. … how many deaths would it have taken? How many Palestinians would have needed to be murdered for it to have risen to the level of interest and attention from western politicians, pundits, and news reporters that we saw them giving to the violent death of one western Jew?” (10/04/25)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/10/04/how-many-palestinian-lives-would-it-take-to-equal-one-western-life-and-other-notes/
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34) The Missing Rules
Source: EconLog
by Kevin Corcoran
“Explicit rules are, of course, a part of the social order, but to an even larger degree, our behavior is governed by implicit rules. These rules are never explicitly written down or declared, but we learn them and implement them in our lives nonetheless. We can easily recognize when these rules are broken, even if we can’t actually say what the rule is or where it came from. We just recognize that one simply doesn’t do that.” (10/03/25)
https://www.econlib.org/the-missing-rules/
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35) Kindred spirits on the left and right believe in a New Deal fable
Source: Washington Post
by George F Will
“Progressives’ retrospective aspiration for a new New Deal is shared by ‘national conservatives.’ They, enthusiastic about the current administration, also believe government should comprehensively intervene in the economy, politically allocating capital (and therefore opportunity) to improve on the rationality of free markets. But economist George Selgin’s latest book refutes progressives’ triumphalist nostalgia for the New Deal. It thereby demonstrates that ‘national conservatives’ are oblivious regarding the cautionary lessons of Franklin Roosevelt’s experience.” (10/03/25)
https://archive.is/xeHUI
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36) Dress Codes vs. Codes of Honor
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
“I will believe that Hegseth is serious about this stuff when Hegseth starts acting like he is serious about it. As a few observers have pointed out, Hegseth’s Beverly Hills, 90210-style sideburns often extend to a length that would be prohibited under military grooming standards. But there is another area of dress convention that Hegseth violates in practically every public appearance, one that is in fact relevant to his current position: the Flag Code. … It forbids wearing the flag as an article of clothing, a rule Hegseth routinely flouts with his dopey flag-lined suits. It specifically forbids using the flag as a handkerchief, which Hegseth does habitually, tucking it into his chest pocket as a decorative pocket square — and surely, surely not because doing so makes it look like he is wearing some kind of military decoration.” (10/03/25)
https://archive.is/Owlc1
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37) Trump uses same strategy to curb Big Pharma, secure Mideast peace
Source: Fox News
by Batya Ungar-Sargon
“It was an action-packed week in America that ended with a government shutdown as Democrats and Republicans failed to arrive at a compromise on health care benefits. But despite what you heard from the mainstream media, that wasn’t the big health care story of the week. It was this: On Tuesday, the Trump administration reached a deal with Pfizer to lower the cost of drugs for Americans, reversing decades of unfair pricing in which American patients paid up to four times more than Europeans for drugs that were developed in our own country. Pfizer agreed not to launch new drugs at a higher price in the U.S. than in other wealthy countries. It also agreed to sell drugs to Medicaid at lower prices and to sell drugs at a discount to Americans without insurance.” (10/04/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/batya-ungar-sargon-how-trump-uses-same-strategy-curb-big-pharma-secure-mideast-peace
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38) Egypt stepping out from Israel’s shadow? It depends.
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Ted Snider
“Various forces, from tariffs to wars to the emerging multipolar world order, are potentially reshaping the Middle East and its alliances, and Egypt is playing a leading role. However, Egypt’s vision is bumping up against the reality that its dependence on Washington limits those shifting alliances and Egypt’s ability to play a leading role in them. Time will tell how far Egypt can go.” (10/03/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/egypt-israel-arabs/
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39) Trump Fabricates a War to Cover Up Murder
Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison
“The president has dressed up his summary executions of alleged criminals by pretending that the U.S. is fighting a war with these groups, but these groups are not engaged in hostilities with our government. They aren’t carrying our armed attacks on our country or our military. Calling them terrorist organizations doesn’t authorize or legitimize the killing Trump has ordered. Branding noncombatants as combatants doesn’t make them lawful targets. The administration has dubbed this a ‘non-international armed conflict’ for the purposes of creating a fig leaf for the president’s murders.” (10/03/25)
https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/trump-fabricates-a-war-to-cover-up
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40) Democracy is Overrated
Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders
“Presumably, the point of voting is to change things you don’t like or to make the world a better place by electing the ‘right’ people, but the likelihood that your vote will affect the outcome of an election is vanishingly small. And the ‘right’ people are almost always wrong. Consider that it takes about 3,633,600 drops of water to fill a 40-gallon bathtub (90,840 drops per gallon). Considering that 155,240,953 people voted in the 2024 election, your vote is like a single drop in 43 bathtubs. What are the odds that your drop will fill the forty-third tub? And yet democracy is the only game in town.” (10/03/25)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/democracy-is-overrated
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41) What the Children of Gaza Might Say to the Children of America
Source: Common Dreams
by Ralph Nader
“In Gaza, 200,000 Palestinian children have already been murdered by the Netanyahu regime, with American weapons. A survey last year by a British civic group found that 46% of the children in Gaza wanted to die, and over 95% believed they would be killed. This is not surprising. The Israeli genocidal regime has daily bombed tiny Gaza’s 2.3 million residents (the geographical size of Philadelphia) with the TNT equivalent of seven Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs, smashing civilians and their infrastructure from water mains, electricity, fuel supplies, roads, agricultural crops, to hospitals, clinics, schools, housing, and bakeries into bits and pieces of flesh and debris. Imagine the horror, the screams, starvation, chronic diseases, and untreated, bleeding injuries, the huge number of limbs amputated from children, most severed without any anesthesia.” (10/04/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/children-of-gaza-to-us
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42) Shutdowns as Political Theater
Source: Law & Liberty
by David Hebert & Paul Mueller
“The question isn’t whether Congress will eventually cobble together a deal; it always does. The real question is, why does this keep happening?” (10/03/25)
https://lawliberty.org/shutdowns-as-political-theater/
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43) Trump Administration Says It Wants to Fight Racial Discrimination in College Admissions — Then Things Got Weird
Source: Cato Institute
by Andrew Gillen
“The Trump administration is certainly doing lots of new things, including in higher education. But collecting data to fight discrimination isn’t one of them — we’ve been doing that for decades.” (10/03/25)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/trump-administration-says-it-wants-fight-racial-discrimination-college-admissions-then
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44) GDP as ideological scam, part 2
Source: The Peaceful Revolutionist
by David S D’Amato
“If you are struggling at this point to understand why GDP is so important to the substantive conversation about what we want our political-economy to look like, I think it is this: our ruling class has made GDP much less a technical standard than a strict prescriptive standard, under which liberty and the legitimacy of our institutions, etc., are now judged. This is a crucial philosophical distinction. Several years back, during a friendly exchange with a friend who today works at the Cato Institute, I asked whether he could conceive of a legitimately free market, under any definition he preferred, that did not culminate in growth as measured under the GDP ideology. His reply was blunt and reveals much about the way we think politically today: ‘Then what would be the point?'” (10/03/25)
https://dsdamato.substack.com/p/gdp-as-ideological-scam-part-2
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45) Trump plan may end Gaza war, but pain of massacre that sparked it will live on
Source: New York Post
by staff
“Hamas’[s] signaling Friday that it will accept the peace plan President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rolled out last week has raised hopes for an end, once and for all, to the ugly war the terrorist group sparked two years ago Tuesday. And that, indeed, it will lead to a permanent peace not just in Gaza but across the Middle East: an end to the nearly 80-year-old Arab-Israeli conflict. Yet even if it does, Jewish pain from the horrific Oct. 7 massacre that ignited the war, and from the antisemitism it unleashed, will long endure.” (10/04/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/10/04/opinion/the-trump-plan-may-end-gaza-war-but-the-pain-of-the-massacre-that-sparked-it-will-live-on/
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46) Strategy over Optics: Trump’s Most Favored Nation Status on Drug Prices
Source: Brownstone Institute
by James Lyons-Weiler
“On September 30, 2025, the image of Albert Bourla standing in the White House beside President Donald J. Trump stunned large segments of the public. The moment instantly became a lightning rod, drawing condemnation and confusion from those who remembered the unresolved — and in many cases, still unaccounted for — devastations of the Covid-19 response. My inbox, and those of others who have worked to expose the record, flooded with a single question, usually framed in rage or betrayal: What the F*? This piece is not an apology, nor an attempt to launder history. We must hold multiple truths at once. What happened in 2020 and 2021 was a global institutional collapse, and many of the facts still buried beneath academic soft-pedaling or regulatory capture are not only real — they are documented.” (10/03/25)
https://brownstone.org/articles/strategy-over-optics-trumps-most-favored-nation-status-on-drug-prices/
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47) Free Movement Increases Wealth
Source: Free Association
by Sheldon Richman
“In a recent interview with Nathan Goodman of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Professor Michael Clemens, a GMU specialist in migration economics, put forth ‘a strange and striking fact about the world economy.’ A lower-skilled person’s location in the world can make a significant difference in how much wealth he creates, not just for himself but for society in general. According to Clemens, few people appreciate that, say, a poor shoeshiner in Haiti could earn far more money doing the same work in a wealthy American city because his customers, who are rich by world and historical standards, have much to gain by paying the Haitian to free up their time. By the law of comparative advantage, even a CEO who can shine shoes better than anyone would benefit from paying the shoeshiner.” (10/03/25)
https://sheldonfreeassociation.blogspot.com/2025/10/tgif-free-movement-inreases-wealth.html
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48) The US Government Doesn’t Want You To Read This Report on Israel’s Business Deals
Source: Reason
by Matthew Petti
“The U.S. government doesn’t want you to read what Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, has to say. In July 2025, the State Department announced that it was going to freeze her assets for her ‘lawfare that targets U.S. and Israeli persons.’ … The U.S. government’s attempts to stop the report from being published in the first place make it especially worth reading. Politicians have long wanted to erode Americans’ right to vote with their wallets, and they’ve used boycotts of Israel as a test case to introduce wide-ranging anti-boycott laws. By accusing the United Nations of ‘lawfare’ for simply printing a report, the government is attacking the right of consumers and investors to hear information that lets them make politically conscious decisions.” (for publication 11/25)
https://reason.com/2025/10/04/the-report-the-u-s-government-doesnt-want-you-to-read/
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49) Taxing the Rich and the Survival of Emmanuel Macron
Source: The American Prospect
by Robert Kuttner
“The idea of a wealth tax on society’s richest people is suddenly in vogue, thanks to the political stalemate in France. Economist Gabriel Zucman, who divides his time between Berkeley and Paris, has proposed a wealth tax that maxes out at 2 percent, on France’s top 0.1 percent of households, just 1,800 people, whose wealth exceeds 100 billion euros, about $118 billion. So highly concentrated is wealth in France that the tax would bring in between $15 billion and $25 billion annually, enough to substantially reduce France’s huge budget of close to 6 percent of GDP without unpopular budget cuts. More than anywhere else, France poses that stark choice. … What gives the Zucman tax special resonance at this moment is that three French governments have fallen in the past year over demands for cuts in popular social spending.” (10/03/25)
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-10-03-taxing-rich-emmanuel-macron-france/
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50) This is Stupid
Source: The Erick Erickson Show
by Eric-Woods Erickson
“The President of the United States chose to start a trade war, convincing his supporters that other countries were onerously taxing American imports, ignoring the special exemptions made for the United States in many of the laws. Those other nations have responded by buying elsewhere. China, the largest buyer of American soybeans, has decided to snub our farmers. So now you and I will pay American farmers for the soybeans they cannot sell because of the President’s trade policy. ‘But they’ll use the tariff money,’ you say. Except they cannot under American law. … The President will instead find money in the Department of Agriculture budget that he can divert from other purposes and give it to the farmers who would prefer to sell the crops they grew, but now cannot because of the President’s stupid tariffs. Well done, everybody.” (10/03/25)
https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/this-is-stupid
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Fountainhead Forum, episode 365
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Jim Lark on the Libertarian Party, coronavirus, and Charlie Kirk.” (10/03/25)
https://rumble.com/v6zs0t2-ff-365-jim-lark-on-the-libertarian-party-coronavirus-and-charlie-kirk.html
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52) Pink Flame of Liberty, 10/05/25
Source: Pink Flame of Liberty
“Becoming the Defendant: Macron v. Owens, the Amended Complaint.” (10/05/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMAAoQLpFQc
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53) The Good Fight, 10/04/25
Source: Yascha Mounk
“Quentin Skinner on Liberty.” (10/04/25)
https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/quentin-skinner
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54) Unattended Baggage, episode 312
Source: Unattended Baggage
“More Cowbell!” (10/04/25)
https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-312-more-cowbell
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55) Should We Fight Economic Misinformation?
Source: Bet On It
“A recording from Bryan Caplan and Richard Hanania’s live video.” (10/03/25)
https://www.betonit.ai/p/should-we-fight-economic-misinformation
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56) Freakonomics Radio, episode 648
Source: Freakonomics
“The Merger You Never Knew You Wanted.” (10/03/25)
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-merger-you-never-knew-you-wanted/
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57) In The Tank, episode 514
Source: Heartland Institute
“Government Shutdown Standoff: What’s Really at Stake?” (10/03/25)
https://heartland.org/podcasts/government-shutdown-standoff-whats-really-at-stake-in-the-tank-podcast-513/
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58) Mean Age Daydream, 10/03/25
Source: Lions of Liberty
“Saudi Arabia’s Glowing Orb Eats Electronic Arts.” (10/03/25)
https://www.lionsofliberty.com/episodes/madd-saudi-arabias-glowing-orb-eats-electronic-arts
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59) System Update, episode 526
Source: System Update
“Journalist Ken Klippenstein on Trump’s New Domestic Terrorism Memo; Glenn Takes Your Questions on Bari Weiss’s CBS Role, His Interview with Nick Fuentes, and More.” (10/03/25)
https://rumble.com/v6zttqw-system-update-show-526-q-and-a.html
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60) Anarcho Agenda, episode 144
Source: Anarcho Agenda
“I discuss the rapture, and people’s need to escape, and more.” (10/03/25)
https://sites.libsyn.com/94112/anarcho-agenda-ep-144-2025-10-03
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