10/23 -- US regime's debt hits $38 trillion; Who Would Jesus Bomb? The Gospel According to the Military-Industrial Complex
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Thomas L. Knapp
Oct 23, 2025, 6:24:10 AM (5 days ago) Oct 23
to Freedom News Daily
Freedom News Daily, 10/23/25
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Produced by the staff of Rational Review News Digest
https://news.rationalreview.com/
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Today's Freedom News:
0) Two Things (Hybrid Thursday AND Year-End Fundraiser Update)
1) US regime’s debt hits $38 trillion
2) Top UN court says Israel must allow UN relief agency to supply aid to Gaza
3) US regime imposes sanctions on Russian oil over Putin’s refusal to end war in Ukraine
4) Judge agrees to extend block on federal occupation of Chicago pending SCOTUS ruling
5) Michael Wolff sues Melania Trump over effort to kill tell-all book
6) Colombia: Appeals court overturns conviction of ex-president Uribe for bribery and witness tampering
7) WA: City’s ex-treasurer sentenced to probation, $937k in restitution
8) North Korea: Regime fires short-range ballistic missiles ahead of APEC summit
9) Greece: Dozens arrested over farm fraud scandal
10) Serbia: Man detained after shots fired outside parliament
11) Ireland: Dublin protesters clash with police, burn vehicle after migrant accused of sexually assaulting girl
12) Arizona attorney general sues Mike Johnson for failing to seat Adelita Grijalva
13) Trump’s new tax hikes would flip US policy on drugs, trade
14) Jailed journalists in Belarus, Georgia win EU’s 2025 Sakharov human rights prize
15) Trump regime admits to two more maritime murders, this time in the Pacific Ocean
16) House Republicans refer Obama CIA Chief Brennan to DOJ
17) Effects of antidepressants on physical health ranked for first time
18) Peru: Regime declares state of emergency amid protests
19) A dozen UN international staffers leave Yemen after being released by Houthis
20) DC: Senile reality TV star begins latest vandalism stunt
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Who Would Jesus Bomb? The Gospel According to the Military-Industrial Complex
22) What’s the Beef Against Hitler?
23) Profits are Social Authentication
24) No Peace, No Plan
25) My Antichrist Lecture
26) Boost Kentucky’s labor market: Reform occupational licensing
27) Expanding FDIC Deposit Insurance Does Not Help Main Street
28) The Dark Righteousness & Dark Priesthood of The Socialists
29) Drumroll for Japan’s first female leader
30) Liberal Principles for a New Environmentalism
31) Curtis Sliwa has a point: Voters want conviction
32) John Bolton’s indictment is serious — don’t treat it like another Trump political ploy
33) Zionists Push Islamophobia Because It’s Easier Than Getting People To Like Israel
34) Don’t Extend Obamacare Subsidies To End the Government Shutdown
35) Yang Zhu and the Freedom of the Self
36) Three Cheers for Liberalism
37) Is Congress stopping millions from saving $4,600 on cheaper health insurance plans?
38) Trump’s most underrated diplomatic win: Belarus
39) The Kids Can’t Focus
40) 1929 and All That AI: The Struggle for the Past — and the Future
41) The Oldest Colony, the Newest War: Puerto Rico as a Launchpad for War on Venezuela
42) We Have Not Properly Reckoned with the Economic Insanity of 2020
43) Permit to Harass, Interrupted
44) Will Trump End Sham Democracy Promotions?
45) How Albany Can Stop Mamdani
46) Health Freedom: Deposing Three Monarchs
47) In a World Obsessed With Innovation, What If Most of It Isn’t Real?
48) What Is the State and Who Controls It?
49) The New Republican Voice of Sanity Is … Marjorie Taylor Greene?
50) The engines of state capitalism, part 2
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Collateral Damage, episode 3
52) Reason Interview: Jeff Flake
53) Trump Watch, 10/22/25
54) Quillette Narrated, 10/22/25
55) The Politics of War and the Politics of Peace
56) The Corbett Report, episode 484
57) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 10/22/25
58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/22/25
59) Politics Politics Politics, 10/21/25
60) The Bryan Hyde Show, 10/21/25
61) Soho Forum Debate: Is Oregon Proof That Drug Decriminalization Will Fail?
62) Free Speech Unmuted, 10/21/25
63) Underthrow Podcast, 10/21/25
64) The Lou Perez Podcast, 10/21/25
65) LPA Solidarity Stream, episode 11
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
0) Two Things (Hybrid Thursday AND Year-End Fundraiser Update)
Hey, everyone …
It’s a “Hybrid Thursday” at the freedom movement’s daily newspaper. We’ve got a full email edition (65 items) for you below AND another 30-35 news stories, opinion pieces, and audio/video links lined up for your attention at our web edition:
https://news.rationalrationalreview.com
While you’re there …
Yesterday was, thankfully, NOT a “zero-dollar day” in our year-end fundraiser. Steve tells me that an unnamed supporter donated $10 in cash, in person, at a Nashville-area libertarian event. THANK YOU, unnamed supporter! That brings our total to $685.50 (as of 5:30am on Thursday).
Our goal is $5,501. Thanks to supporter GL’s generous “matching funds” pledge, we only have to raise $2,750.50 from our other readers … so we’re only $2,065 short of wrapping this thing up.
$65 seems like a reasonable “mini-goal” for the day. Please help us get down to the $2,000 mark before tomorrow morning at:
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
The sooner we wrap this fundraiser up, the sooner I stop talking about money entirely for the rest of the year and mostly until NEXT October. THANK YOU in advance for help making that happen!
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
Have a great day!
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
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1) US regime’s debt hits $38 trillion
Source: WSB 95.5 News
“In the midst of a federal government shutdown, the U.S. government’s gross national debt surpassed $38 trillion Wednesday, a record number that highlights the accelerating accumulation of debt on America’s balance sheet. It’s also the fastest accumulation of a trillion dollars in debt outside of the COVID-19 pandemic — the U.S. hit $37 trillion in gross national debt in August this year. The $38 trillion update is found in the latest Treasury Department report, which logs the nation’s daily finances.
https://www.wsbradio.com/news/business/us-hits-38-trillion/XFCL7XOPDY5RHIRCONLJOUZIEU/
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2) Top UN court says Israel must allow UN relief agency to supply aid to Gaza
Source: San Diego Union-Tribune
“The International Court of Justice said on Wednesday that Israel must allow the U.N. aid agency in Gaza, known as UNRWA, to provide humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian territory. The Hague-based court was asked last year by the U.N. General Assembly to determine Israel’s legal obligations after the country effectively banned the agency, the main provider of aid to Gaza, from operating there. Israel ‘is under the obligation to agree to and facilitate relief schemes provided by the United Nations and its entities, including UNRWA,’ ICJ President Yuji Iwasawa said. … Israel has denied it has violated international law, saying the court’s proceedings are biased, and the country didn’t attend hearings in April. However, Israel provided a 38-page written submission for the court to consider. In a written statement, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the opinion and said Israel ‘fully upholds its obligations under International Law.'” (10/22/25)
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2025/10/22/world-court-israel-gaza-aid/
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3) US regime imposes sanctions on Russian oil over Putin’s refusal to end war in Ukraine
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“The US has sanctioned Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia’s two largest oil companies, as the Trump administration increased pressure on the Kremlin to negotiate an end to its war against Ukraine. The sanctions were the first against Russia since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, and were targeted to cut key revenues from oil sales that finance the Russian war machine. … [Donald] Trump, speaking in the Oval Office with the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, on Wednesday, also confirmed he had cancelled a planned summit with Putin in another sign of a breakdown in negotiations between Washington and Moscow.” (10/22/25)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/22/us-sanctions-russia-oil-vladimir-putin-refusal-ukraine-war
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4) Judge agrees to extend block on federal occupation of Chicago pending SCOTUS ruling
Source: Orange County Register
“As the U.S. Supreme Court ponders whether to clear the way for the National Guard in Chicago, a federal appeals court is hearing arguments in California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s challenge to the deployment of troops in Los Angeles. Guard troops could also soon be on the ground in Portland, Oregon, pending legal developments there. … A federal judge in Chicago already blocked deployment of Guard troops to the Chicago area for two weeks. On Wednesday, Judge April Perry agreed to extend that order by 30 days. But she said each party could discuss the extension further before meeting again at 3 p.m. local time, noting they would not be able to issue another one. Still, anything she does could be moot if the U.S. Supreme Court rules in the meantime.” (10/22/25)
https://archive.is/2r0um
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5) Michael Wolff sues Melania Trump over effort to kill tell-all book
Source: New York Daily News
“Author Michael Wolff is suing First Lady Melania Trump in a Manhattan court over her effort to block publication of his planned tell-all book that could include details about her ties to notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, the Daily News has learned. Wolff, who has penned four bestselling books about President Trump, accuses Melania Trump of launching a campaign of threats to intimidate him from digging deeper into the first couple’s friendship with Epstein, according to legal papers obtained by the News. ‘These threatened legal actions are designed to create a climate of fear in the nation so that people cannot freely or confidently exercise their First Amendment rights,’ Wolff’s 17-page claim reads. ‘The threats are also intended to shut down legitimate inquiry into the Epstein matter.’ Wolff filed his complaint against Melania Trump on Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court.” (10/22/25)
https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/10/22/michael-wolff-sues-melania-trump-tell-all-book/
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6) Colombia: Appeals court overturns conviction of ex-president Uribe for bribery and witness tampering
Source: ABC News
“An appeals court on Tuesday overturned the conviction of former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe for bribery and witness tampering for which he had been sentenced to 12 years of house arrest. Uribe, 73, has denied any wrongdoing. He was sentenced in August following a nearly six-month trial in which prosecutors presented evidence that he attempted to influence witnesses who accused the law-and-order leader of having links to a paramilitary group in the 1990s. The court on Tuesday said the conviction had ‘structural deficiencies,’ used vague premises and lacked comprehensive analysis. Two of the three judges on the panel voted to overturn the conviction; the third thought it should be upheld.” (10/22/25)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/appeals-court-overturns-conviction-colombian-president-uribe-bribery-126725434
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7) WA: City’s ex-treasurer sentenced to probation, $937k in restitution
Source: Seattle Times
“The former city clerk and treasurer of a small town in Lewis County was sentenced to five years’ probation and ordered to repay nearly $1 million in city funds that she’d embezzled over the course of nine years. Tamara Clevenger, the former Morton city clerk-treasurer, embezzled $937,584 from taxpayers from 2013 to 2021, according to charging documents. Federal prosecutors sought a 36-month prison sentence followed by three years of probation. A federal judge in Tacoma declined to order any prison time last week.” [editor’s note: If the government of a city of about a thousand people can have a million bucks go missing and not even notice until a state audit, that government has WAY too much money – TLK] (10/22/25)
https://archive.is/ukvak
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8) North Korea: Regime fires short-range ballistic missiles ahead of APEC summit
Source: United Press International
“North Korea fired a flurry of short-range ballistic missiles on Wednesday, Seoul’s military said, a week ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s scheduled visit to South Korea for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. ‘Our military detected several projectiles presumed to be short-range ballistic missiles fired from the Junghwa area of North Hwanghae Province in a northeasterly direction around 8:10 a.m. today,’ Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a text message to reporters. … The launch was North Korea’s fifth of the year, and the first since South Korean President Lee Jae Myung took office in June.” (10/22/25)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2025/10/22/North-Korea-fires-short-range-ballistic-missiles-before-APEC-summit/3641761117743/
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9) Greece: Dozens arrested over farm fraud scandal
Source: Politico
“Greek authorities made dozens of arrests on Wednesday related to Greece’s spiraling farm fraud case, in an investigation led by European prosecutors. Some 37 people suspected of being members of an organized criminal group involved in large-scale agricultural funding fraud and money laundering activities were arrested, and searches were carried out throughout the country, according to a statement by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. In a snowballing scandal, the EPPO is pursuing dozens of cases in which Greeks allegedly received agricultural funds from the European Union for pastureland they did not own or lease, or for agricultural work they did not perform, depriving legitimate farmers of the funds they deserved. POLITICO first reported on the scheme in February.” (10/22/25)
https://archive.is/zJwTp
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10) Serbia: Man detained after shots fired outside parliament
Source: US News & World Report
“Shots were fired outside Serbia’s parliament building in Belgrade on Wednesday and one person was injured, local media reported. A video posted on the NOVA media outlet, the location of which was confirmed by Reuters, showed armed security officers approaching a large tent outside parliament. A few shots were fired and then a fire broke out inside the tent, one of several erected this year by supporters of President Aleksander Vucic during anti-government protests. It was not clear who fired the shots or how the fire started. … N1 TV said a 57-year-old man was wounded by a gunshot and is in a stable condition.” (10/22/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-10-22/shots-fired-outside-serbian-parliament-one-detained
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11) Ireland: Dublin protesters clash with police, burn vehicle after migrant accused of sexually assaulting girl
Source: Fox News
“Protesters set a police car on fire and hurled glass bottles at officers in Dublin, Ireland, on Tuesday night after an illegal migrant was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a 10-year-old Irish girl who was in state care. The violence erupted outside the City West Hotel, a sprawling former hotel-turned migrant center where an illegal migrant (who had deportation orders standing against him) is accused of attacking the girl late Sunday night. Irish police, An Garda Síochána, said that six people were arrested during the clashes and one female police officer suffered a foot injury. Police said their officers were subject to ‘sustained attacks’ as they tried to cordon off the building. Nearly 300 police were dispatched to the area in Saggart.” (10/22/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/world/dublin-protesters-clash-police-burn-vehicle-after-migrant-accused-sexually-assaulting-irish-girl-10
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12) Arizona attorney general sues Mike Johnson for failing to seat Adelita Grijalva
Source: Politico
“Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes filed a lawsuit against House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday for failing to seat Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva. In the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, Mayes asks the court to compel Johnson to swear in Grijalva or allow her to be sworn in by someone else. … Adelita Grijalva, a Democrat, has accused Johnson of slow-walking her swearing-in ceremony because she has vowed to sign on to an effort to force a vote on legislation related to releasing files about the investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.” (10/21/25)
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/21/arizona-attorney-general-lawsuit-mike-johnson-00617211
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13) Trump’s new tax hikes would flip US policy on drugs, trade
Source: Reuters
“U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat this week to slap [American buyers of goods from] Colombia with tariffs over its drug policy marked a sharp escalation in his feud with a country that has long been one of Washington’s closest Latin American allies. It was also a rejection of an established idea about countering the narcotics business: that free trade can make legitimate exports more attractive than drug trafficking. Trump’s latest comments marked a new low in relations between Washington and Bogota, which Trump accuses of being complicit in the illicit drug trade. ‘They don’t have a fight against drugs — they make drugs,’ Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. Petro has objected to the U.S. military’s strikes against vessels in the Caribbean, which have killed dozens of people and inflamed tensions in the region. Many legal experts and human rights activists have also condemned the extraordinary series of military actions.” (10/22/25)
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-colombia-tariffs-would-flip-us-policy-drugs-trade-2025-10-21/
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14) Jailed journalists in Belarus, Georgia win EU’s 2025 Sakharov human rights prize
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“Two journalists, one imprisoned in Belarus and the other in Georgia, have won the European Union’s top human rights honour, the Sakharov Prize, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola announced on Wednesday. Andrzej Poczobut is a correspondent for the influential Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza. He was convicted of ‘harming Belarus’[s] national security’ and sentenced to eight years, which he is serving in the Novopolotsk penal colony. Mzia Amaghlobeli, a prominent journalist who founded two of Georgia’s independent media outlets, was in August convicted of slapping a police chief during an anti-government protest. She was sentenced to two years in prison in a case that was condemned by rights groups as an attempt to curb media freedom.” (10/22/25)
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20251022-jailed-journalists-andrzej-poczobut-from-belarus-mzia-amaglobeli-from-georgia-win-eu-s-2025-sakharov-prize
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15) Trump regime admits to two more maritime murders, this time in the Pacific Ocean
Source: SFGate
“The U.S. military conducted its eighth strike against an alleged drug vessel, [murdering] two people, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday. The Tuesday night strike occurred in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The seven previous strikes all targeted vessels in the Caribbean. According to Hegseth in a social media post, the strike [murdered] two people, bringing the death toll from all the [murders] to at least 34 people. In a brief video released by Hegseth, a small boat, half-filled with brown packages, is seen moving along the water. Several seconds into the video, the boat explodes and is seen floating motionless on the water in flames. In his post, Hegseth took the unusual step of equating the alleged drug traffickers to the group behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attack. ‘Just as Al Qaeda waged war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people,’ Hegseth said, adding ‘there will be no refuge or forgiveness — only justice.'” (10/22/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/trump-administration-announces-another-strike-on-21114304.php
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16) House Republicans refer Obama CIA Chief Brennan to DOJ
Source: Axios
“John Brennan, who was CIA director under Obama, was referred to the Justice Department Tuesday by House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who accused him of lying to Congress about the Steele dossier. The recommendation is a high-profile effort by House Republicans to prosecute a former intelligence official, aligning with President Trump’s broader goals to legally target his political enemies. The Steele dossier, a widely discredited set of memos compiled in 2016 by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, alleged ties between Russia and Trump. … Brennan was reportedly under prior investigation by the current DOJ for allegedly lying about Russia’s involvement, and he has denied any wrongdoing.” (10/21/25)
https://archive.is/qf1Jt
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17) Effects of antidepressants on physical health ranked for first time
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Side effects of different antidepressants have been ranked for the first time, revealing huge differences between drugs. Academics looked at the impact medications had on patients in the first eight weeks after starting treatment, with some causing patients to gain up to 2kg in weight or vary heart rate by as much as 21 beats every minute. Around eight million people in the UK take antidepressants. Researchers warned the gulf in side effects could affect people’s health and whether they could stick to their prescription. They said nobody reading this should stop their treatment, but have called for antidepressants to be closely matched to the needs of each person. ‘There are big differences between [antidepressants] and this is important not just for individual patients, but large numbers of people are taking them, so even modest changes could have a big effect across the whole population,’ said researcher Prof Oliver Howes.” (10/22/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9d65nqgd5zo
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18) Peru: Regime declares state of emergency amid protests
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Peru’s Interim President Jose Jeri has declared a state of emergency in the capital, Lima, to stem a wave of protests that contributed to the recent downfall of his predecessor. In a televised message on Tuesday, Jeri said the emergency in the city would last 30 days. … Under the state of emergency, the government can send the army to patrol the streets and restrict freedom of assembly and other rights. … Dina Boluarte was removed as president by Peru’s Congress on October 10 after an impeachment during which lawmakers said she had been unable to tackle the crime wave. Jeri, the parliament speaker, replaced her immediately and will serve as interim president until July next year.” (10/22/25)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/22/state-of-emergency-declared-in-perus-capital-lima-amid-protests
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19) A dozen UN international staffers leave Yemen after being released by Houthis
Source: SFGate
“Houthi rebels released a dozen United Nations international staffers Wednesday and allowed three others to move freely within the U.N. compound after detaining them in the facility in Yemen’s capital over the weekend, according to the world body. The 12 international staffers departed Sanaa on a U.N. humanitarian flight, with some relocating to Jordan to continue their work there. More than 50 U.N. staffers are still detained by the Houthis as well as other non-government and civil society personnel from various diplomatic missions. ‘The UN, at all levels, continues to be seized with the matter and is in constant contact with the relevant authorities in Sana’a and with concerned Member States and partners to secure their release,’ the office of U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. ‘We renew the Secretary-General’s call for their immediate and unconditional release.'” (10/22/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/a-dozen-un-international-staffers-leave-yemen-21114318.php
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20) DC: Senile reality TV star begins latest vandalism stunt
Source: New York Times
“The facade of the East Wing of the White House came crumbling down on Monday as construction began on President Trump’s 90,000-square-foot ballroom, a project that will transform one of the most recognizable buildings in the world and nearly double the size of the existing structure. … By late afternoon, reporters hanging out in a park near the Treasury Department could see a glimpse of this latest renovation in progress as the long arm of a track excavator reached up and tore the walls clean off the building. Crews of workmen wandered around as detritus — window panes, building blocks and wires — piled up.” (10/21/25)
https://archive.is/Aqh7o
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Who Would Jesus Bomb? The Gospel According to the Military-Industrial Complex
Source: Rutherford Institute
by John & Nisha Whitehead
“For a man supposedly intent on winning a Nobel Peace Prize, Donald Trump spends an extraordinary amount of time waging war, threatening to wage war, and fantasizing about waging war. Notwithstanding his dubious claims about having ended ‘seven un-endable wars,’ Trump has continued to squander the American people’s resources and moral standing by feeding the military-industrial complex’s insatiable appetite for war—preemptively bombing nuclear facilities in Iran, blowing up fishing boats in the Caribbean, and flexing military muscle at every opportunity. Even the Trump administration’s version of ‘peace through strength’ is filtered through a prism of violence, intimidation and strongman tactics. It is the gospel of power, not peace — a perversion of both Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and the U.S. Constitution.” (10/22/25)
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/who_would_jesus_bomb_the_gospel_according_to_the_military_industrial_complex
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22) What’s the Beef Against Hitler?
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Let’s hypothetically eliminate the Holocaust from Nazi Germany. In fact, let’s go further: Let’s eliminate World War II from the equation. Let’s just consider Nazi Germany under Hitler’s rule from 1933 until the beginning of the war on September 3, 1939, when England declared war on Germany. What then? Would American statists today still have a deep antipathy toward Hitler? I don’t think so. Why do I say that? Several reasons. Let’s consider them.” (10/22/25)
https://www.fff.org/2025/10/22/whats-the-beef-against-hitler/
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23) Profits are Social Authentication
Source: EconLog
by Art Carden
“Markets are notable institutions because they make the signals and the solutions especially clear. Profits and losses take people’s ideas out of the world of speculation and into the world of verification. A hunch becomes more than a hunch: either it is authenticated as a good idea or rejected as a bad idea. Suppose a particular type of new toaster is profitable. In that case, it means that after we tally up all the ‘votes’ people cast by spending or saving dollars, there are more votes for making the toaster than for using the necessary resources for something else. In a free market, the question, ‘Who decides?’ has a simple answer. We each do, and in so doing, we all do.” (10/22/25)
https://www.econlib.org/econlog/profits-are-social-authentication/
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24) No Peace, No Plan
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
onald Trump’s grandiosely announced Middle East peace plan might have been a smashing success, except that it is missing two elements: 1) peace; 2) a plan. Like the so-called Abraham Accords, the Israel-Hamas peace plan is a triumph of marketing over substance, packaging over product. Neither of the two central parties to the dispute have, in fact, agreed to any binding terms, and, in fact, neither has signed the 20-point plan. A separate ‘implementation’ document, even more vague than the 20-point plan, was signed by the parties and by their mediators, and that signature commits them to very little beyond a non-enforceable promise ‘to implement the necessary steps’ to end the conflict. … Hamas immediately violated the terms of the supposed agreement by failing to return all of the remains of the hostages; the Israelis, to the surprise of no one, immediately resumed airstrikes in Gaza. No peace. Also, no plan.” (10/22/25)
https://thedispatch.com/article/trump-israel-hamas-no-peace-no-plan/
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25) My Antichrist Lecture
Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander
“Antichrist lectures are the hot new thing in Silicon Valley, but so far they’ve honestly been kind of disappointing. Some people are giving entire lecture series without even revealing who the Antichrist is! You’d expect that to be the bare minimum! We can do better. Earlier this year, at the Manifest forecasting conference in Berkeley, I gave a presentation titled ‘Forecasting Transformative AI Using The Book Of Revelation.’ Given the renewed interest in this topic, I repost it below, in written form, with slight edits. The first two-thirds, including the section on the Antichrist, is free. In deference to the injunction by prior researchers on this topic not to ‘cast one’s pearls before swine,’ the last third (including the Whore of Babylon, the Battle of Armageddon, and the New Jerusalem) will be paywalled.” (10/22/25)
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/my-antichrist-lecture
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26) Boost Kentucky’s labor market: Reform occupational licensing
Source: Bluegrass Institute
by Ed Timmons
“Kentucky’s labor market continues to struggle compared to neighboring states and the national average with an unemployment rate of 4.7% – significantly higher than the national average of 4.3%. In contrast, states like Indiana and Virginia boast unemployment rates of 3.6%; Arkansas and West Virginia stand at 3.8%. A significant factor holding Kentucky back is its occupational licensing system – one of the nation’s most restrictive – which creates unnecessary barriers to employment. Occupational licensing requires individuals to meet state-mandated requirements, including education, training, exams and fees, before they can legally work in certain professions. While licensing is universal for some occupations like physicians and lawyers, Kentucky goes further, licensing 177 of the 254 occupations studied in a national report I coauthored for the Archbridge Institute.” (10/22/25)
https://www.bluegrassinstitute.org/boost-kentuckys-labor-market-reform-occupational-licensing/
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27) Expanding FDIC Deposit Insurance Does Not Help Main Street
Source: Cato Institute
by Norbert Michel
“The ICBA wants people to believe that the nation’s small banks are the backbone of America. At the same time, though, they’re telling everyone that it’s critical to supply these banks with more federal backing.” (10/22/25)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/expanding-fdic-deposit-insurance-does-not-help-main-street
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28) The Dark Righteousness & Dark Priesthood of The Socialists
Source: The Findings Substack
by Paul Rosenberg
“Socialists (by a variety of names) lorded it over the late 20th century by hijacking the sensibilities of Westerners and weaponizing their imperfections. This may sound new to you, but it’s really not; it’s something we’ve all lived with. There’s a long history behind this, of course, but I’ve covered that elsewhere and will leave it aside for today. What matters now is to see how the people of the West have had their virtues used against them, effectively and at length. The first part of this is what I’m calling dark righteousness, and it’s a trick we’ve all seen in practice.” (10/22/25)
https://thefindings.substack.com/p/the-dark-righteousness-and-dark-priesthood
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29) Drumroll for Japan’s first female leader
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“Despite being Asia’s oldest continuous democracy, Japan has been far behind the region’s other countries in electing a woman leader. That changed Tuesday when Takaichi Sanae, a conservative in Japan’s long-dominant party, became the nation’s first female prime minister. Despite the ceiling-busting triumph, however, this former drummer in a heavy-metal band got off on the wrong foot with a comment that helps explain why so few Japanese women enter politics or buck a cultural norm that sees women primarily as caregivers. In a speech, Ms. Takaichi asked everyone to ‘work like a horse,’ and then added, ‘I myself will cast aside the idea of ‘work-life balance.’. I’ll work, work, work, work, and work.’ While perseverance is a highly admired trait in Japan … public reaction forced her to clarify that she was speaking only about members of the Liberal Democratic Party like herself.” (10/21/25)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2025/1021/Drumroll-for-Japan-s-first-female-leader
-----
30) Liberal Principles for a New Environmentalism
Source: Law & Liberty
by Jonathan H Adler
“Congress constructed the edifice of federal environmental regulation atop a pile of misconceptions and mistaken assumptions. Once erected, it has withstood meaningful efforts at reform, and atrophied. However much some existing laws helped address twentieth-century environmental problems, they are increasingly obsolete and ill-suited to today’s environmental challenges. Steven Hayward is absolutely correct that ‘it is long past time for something new,’ and properly identifies many of the key attributes upon which a ‘new environmentalism’ could be built.” (10/22/25)
https://lawliberty.org/forum/liberal-principles-for-a-new-environmentalism/
-----
31) Curtis Sliwa has a point: Voters want conviction
Source: New York Post
by Isaac Schorr
“Pressure is building on Republican mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa to drop his long-shot quest for Gracie Mansion. A stream of prominent Big Apple conservatives — including The Post’s editorial board and Sliwa’s own radio boss, John Catsimatidis — have sagely implored him to step aside and endorse Andrew Cuomo. The absurdity of that sentence underscores the stakes. Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani’s ideas are so backward — and represent such a grave threat to the livelihoods and lives of New Yorkers, and to their city’s moral standing — that an alliance with Cuomo is not just conceivable for many Republicans, but imperative. Polling indicates the former governor is the only one with any chance of sending Mamdani packing — and only if Sliwa drops out.” [editor’s note: Still believe that the only just move is for Cuomo to drop out, and see if that head to head could save the Big Apple from its apparent fate – SAT] [additional editor’s note: It wouldn’t … even if Sliwa won – TLK] (10/21/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/10/21/opinion/curtis-sliwa-has-a-point-voters-want-conviction-and-its-shaping-every-race-across-the-country/
-----
32) John Bolton’s indictment is serious — don’t treat it like another Trump political ploy
Source: The Hill
by David S D’Amato
“If Trump and Clinton were accused of mishandling classified information, Bolton is accused of spreading it. Americans should also understand that people have been convicted for much less in similar cases. The case is an important test for accountability in the national security apparatus and shouldn’t be dismissed as pure politics, either in the District of Maryland or the court of public opinion.” (10/22/25)
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/5565770-bolton-indicted-national-security
-----
33) Zionists Push Islamophobia Because It’s Easier Than Getting People To Like Israel
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Have you ever noticed how whenever you see someone promoting hatred toward Muslims, nine times out of ten it will be someone who supports Israel? There’s a reason for that. Zionists promote Islamophobia because convincing westerners to hate Muslims is easier than convincing them to love Israel. Support for Israel is a hard sell. On paper it’s just a shitty, evil country full of shitty, evil people, and has no redeeming qualities as a state. Nobody can explain how it’s an important ally in a way that makes sense; all the problems they claim it helps solve are problems Israel itself creates with the help of western backing. Unless you’re a devout Jewish Zionist or Christian Zionist there’s nothing about the modern state of Israel you’d naturally be inclined to support.” (10/22/25)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/10/22/zionists-push-islamophobia-because-its-easier-than-getting-people-to-like-israel/
-----
34) Don’t Extend Obamacare Subsidies To End the Government Shutdown
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille
“The federal government’s not-really-a-shutdown lingers on, largely driven by Democrats’ insistence on extending pandemic-era subsidies that conceal the real cost of health coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — better known as Obamacare. It’s not enough that the spending bill under consideration is already bloated with unaffordable goodies that Republicans and Democrats alike support. Democrats have to show themselves battling the Trump administration and see advantage in doing so while fighting to preserve the main legislative accomplishment (bad policy though the ACA is) on which they’ve staked their reputations for over a decade. This is no way to handle spending, let alone to improve health care.” (10/22/25)
https://reason.com/2025/10/22/dont-extend-obamacare-subsidies-to-end-the-government-shutdown
-----
35) Yang Zhu and the Freedom of the Self
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Katrina Gulliver
“Yang Zhu (440–360 BC) was a Chinese philosopher whose ideas were considered daring and transgressive for his time, but can strike us as modern in their focus on individual freedom. His lessons were shared through early texts and referred to by scholars in the following centuries. He lived during the ‘Warring States’ period, the phase of clashes between regional powers in what would later be unified as China. This was a time of not only military conflicts but also intellectual battles. Daoism was emerging as the dominant religious force in China (Buddhism would not arrive for another two centuries), and Yang Zhu’s philosophy reflects a Daoist worldview.” (10/22/25)
https://fee.org/articles/yang-zhu-and-the-freedom-of-the-self/
-----
36) Three Cheers for Liberalism
Source: ProSocial Libertarians
by Andrew Jason Cohen
“Let’s be clear: we are incredibly lucky — even blessed — to live now when so much more than ever is available to us to buy and sell. We have high and low cultural entertainment. We have medicine, healthcare, comfortable clothes, homes, reliable means of transportation, far more career paths than those of us born even in the ‘late 1900s’ could have imagined. The world is better than ever. We have more, we are healthier, and we live longer. All of this is due to liberalism and its requirement to respect humanity.” (10/22/25)
https://prosociallibertarians.substack.com/p/three-cheers-for-liberalism
-----
37) Is Congress stopping millions from saving $4,600 on cheaper health insurance plans?
Source: Fox News
by Stephen Moore & David M Simon
“The government shutdown has focused debate on the vast sum ($136 billion in 2025, as projected by the Congressional Budget Office) that the federal government spends to annually subsize continually skyrocketing Obamacare health insurance premiums. The Wall Street Journal reports that regardless of how that fiscal tug-of-war turns out, health insurance premiums paid by Americans are expected to rise another 8% or 9% next year. The mega-health insurers are leading the charge for more subsidies because this money lands right in their pockets. … In 2024, 11.7 million people, more than one-third of those covered by Obamacare, had no medical claims. They, or taxpayers, paid a lot in premiums — for nothing.” (10/22/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/congress-stopping-millions-from-saving-4600-cheaper-health-insurance-plans
-----
38) Trump’s most underrated diplomatic win: Belarus
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Marik Episkopos
“Rarely are foreign policy scholars and analysts blessed with as crystalline a case study in abject failure as the Western approach to Belarus since 2020. From promoting concrete security interests, advancing human rights to everything in between, there is no metric by which anything done toward Minsk can be said to have worked. But even more striking has been the sheer sense of aggrieved befuddlement with the Trump administration for acknowledging this reality and seeking instead to repair ties with Belarus.” (10/22/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-belarus/
-----
39) The Kids Can’t Focus
Source: The Daily Economy
by Hannah Frankman Hood
“American kids’ ability to focus is under a full-frontal assault, and it should be taken seriously as a national threat. Attacks come from all sides: dopamine triggers and flashy apps, streaming services and immersive games, TikTok reels and endless doomscrolling. Everybody’s talking about falling test scores and America’s ability to keep up with the rest of the world (especially the East) in its academic performance. But no amount of reform is worth a lick if kids can’t focus long enough to read a book.” (10/22/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/the-kids-cant-focus/
-----
40) 1929 and All That AI: The Struggle for the Past — and the Future
Source: The American Conservative
by James P Pinkerton
“Four years from now comes the hundredth anniversary of one of the most momentous events in American history: the stock market crash that began on ‘Black Thursday,’ October 24, 1929, and was followed, of course, by the Great Depression. Historians and other scribblers will help us to recall those events. As always, they will spin them in keeping with their own mental maps. Yet now there’s a new motive force, with its own motives: artificial intelligence (AI). … By common agreement, AI is going to affect everything. And because AI is so all-encompassing, it’s already proving to be a subtle but steady advocate for liberalism. This can be illustrated through a single case study, presented here: how Google AI answers questions about the Crash and the Depression, aiding the related causes of Democratic victory, federal aggrandizement, and lefty [sic] teleology.” (10/22/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/1929-and-all-that-ai-the-struggle-for-the-past-and-the-future/
-----
41) The Oldest Colony, the Newest War: Puerto Rico as a Launchpad for War on Venezuela
Source: Common Dreams
by Michelle Ellner
“When President Donald Trump announced that the CIA had been authorized to conduct operations inside Venezuela, just as US drones struck another small boat off Venezuela’s coast, few people in the United States realized that much of this militarization begins on the soil of a land denied its own sovereignty: Puerto Rico. The island that has lived under US rule since 1898 is once again being used as a staging ground for US militarism, this time for Washington’s latest ‘war on drugs’ narrative, masking a campaign of coercion against Latin America’s independent governments. After invading Puerto Rico in 1898, the United States quickly turned the island into a strategic military outpost: the ‘Gibraltar of the Caribbean,’ with naval bases in Ceiba, Roosevelt Roads, and Vieques designed to dominate the eastern Caribbean and protect the new artery of empire: the Panama Canal.” (10/22/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/puerto-rico-war-venezuela
-----
42) We Have Not Properly Reckoned with the Economic Insanity of 2020
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Connor O’Keeffe
“Even when the pandemic is brought up and re-examined, the focus is usually on the necessity and nature of the government measures put in place to control the spread of the virus or the public’s level of compliance. That is, to be sure, a worthwhile debate. But the government’s economic response is often left out, which can give the impression that — as controversial as the lockdowns or vaccine mandates might have been — the quick and extensive mobilization of the government’s considerable fiscal and monetary powers was one uncontroversial success story of the covid years. It wasn’t, and the lack of controversy surrounding it is disturbing.” (10/22/25)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/we-have-not-properly-reckoned-economic-insanity-2020
-----
43) Permit to Harass, Interrupted
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“Minnesota’s permit to harass has been interrupted — not halted, because a federal court has granted only a preliminary injunction. Nancy Brasel, the district judge, has for now blocked Minnesota’s law requiring grassroots advocacy groups to publicly disclose the names and addresses of their vendors because she expects that this requirement will indeed be ultimately thrown out. Violating, as it does, freedom of speech.” (10/22/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/10/22/permit-to-harass-interrupted/
-----
44) Will Trump End Sham Democracy Promotions?
Source: JimBovard.com
by James Bovard
“The Trump administration has slashed federal spending for democracy promotion efforts around the globe. That rollback of U.S. meddling is perhaps the most positive foreign-policy reform of the Trump presidency. Since 1946, the U.S. government has intervened in more than a hundred foreign elections to assist its preferred candidate or party. Democracy is so important that the U.S. government refuses to stand idly by when foreign voters go astray.” (10/21/25)
https://jimbovard.com/blog/2025/10/21/will-trump-end-sham-democracy-promotions/
-----
45) How Albany Can Stop Mamdani
Source: Town Hall
by Betsy McCaughey
“If Zohran Mamdani is elected mayor and implements the changes he is promising, expect the city’s financial condition and public safety to deteriorate rapidly. Think criminal bedlam, antisemitic rioters allowed full rein, and cutbacks to basic city services. In such a crisis, desperate New Yorkers will look to Albany, where the governor has virtually unlimited power to curb the mayor’s authority or remove him, even if no crime has been committed. There is a safety valve, if a governor is willing to use it. Before removing a mayor, state law requires the governor to present grievances against the mayor at a formal hearing. Even so, the governor’s decision is final, not subject to review by any court. … In the event a mayor is removed, the public advocate acts as mayor until a special election is held within 80 days.” (10/22/25)
https://townhall.com/columnists/betsymccaughey/2025/10/22/how-albany-can-stop-mamdani-n2665284
-----
46) Health Freedom: Deposing Three Monarchs
Source: National Health Federation
by Matt Warnock
“Monarchy derives from the Greek root word ‘mono,’ meaning one, and ‘archon,’ meaning ruler. This week 249 years ago, the American colonies declared their independence from the British monarchy. They fought a seven-year revolutionary war to win it, and another three-year war in 1812 to keep it. We all continue to fight for our freedoms today – the ‘No Kings’ protests on the one hand, and the anti-COVID-19 protests on the other, are symptoms of that struggle. Today, there are at least three central ideas that control our health and health freedom. Each is a single idea that restrains our liberty of conscience, choice, and action.” (10/21/25)
https://thenhf.com/health-freedom-deposing-three-monarchs/
-----
47) In a World Obsessed With Innovation, What If Most of It Isn’t Real?
Source: Persuasion
by Sarah Majdov
“Bullshit jobs aren’t just a phenomenon of bureaucracy. They’re in tech, too.” (10/21/25)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/in-a-world-obsessed-with-innovation
-----
48) What Is the State and Who Controls It?
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Jeffrey A Tucker
“What is the state, from whence does it come, and who controls it? One might suppose these questions have obvious answers. In reality the answer is elusive, not easily identified even by those who are part of the system.” (10/21/25)
https://brownstone.org/articles/what-is-the-state-and-who-controls-it/
-----
49) The New Republican Voice of Sanity Is … Marjorie Taylor Greene?
Source: The American Prospect
by Ryan Cooper
“One of the acts that brought Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to national prominence was when footage emerged of her chasing down the gun control activist and school shooting survivor David Hogg, accusing him of being funded by George Soros, and boasting that she was carrying a gun. That is very far from the only utterly deranged thing Greene has said or done over the years. … since ‘being howling mad’ is basically a requirement for winning a Republican primary in the age of Trump, Greene was elected to the House of Representatives in 2020. Yet now Greene has emerged as something of a Republican voice of reason, at least by the standards of MAGA in 2025, perhaps the lowest bar imaginable.” (10/22/25)
https://prospect.org/2025/10/22/new-republican-voice-of-sanity-marjorie-taylor-greene/
-----
50) The engines of state capitalism, part 2
Source: The Peaceful Revolutionist
by David S D’Amato
“We cannot reasonably expect the modern state to behave as a neutral arbiter or as inherently interested in the maintenance of a free, fair society or marketplace. Taking the state seriously historically and materially means understanding that it is the central engine of corporate power and the version of growth and progress offered by capitalism. And while some forms of intervention are salient to the political class as corporate welfare, much of the state’s power and influence over the economy are less conspicuous, implicit structural buttresses (for example, the promise of bailouts, regulatory advantages, non-fiscal interventions generally).” (10/21/25)
https://dsdamato.substack.com/p/the-engines-of-state-capitalism-part
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Collateral Damage, episode 3
Source: The Intercept
“Blown Cover: The Preventable Murder of LeBron Gaither.” (10/22/25)
https://theintercept.com/2025/10/22/collateral-damage-episode-three-blown-cover/
-----
52) Reason Interview: Jeff Flake
Source: Reason
“What Happened to the Republican Party?” (10/22/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/10/22/what-happened-to-the-republican-party/
-----
53) Trump Watch, 10/22/25
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“Trump’s Release of Two ‘Narco-Terrorists.'” (10/22/25)
https://www.fff.org/freedom-in-motion/video/trump-watch-trumps-release-of-two-narco-terrorists/
-----
54) Quillette Narrated, 10/22/25
Source: Quillette
“Making Fiction Boring.” (10/22/25)
https://quillette.com/2025/10/22/making-fiction-boring-college-writing-mfa-sensitivity-readers/
-----
55) The Politics of War and the Politics of Peace
Source: Law & Liberty
Keynote event address by David Corey at Law & Liberty event. (10/22/25)
https://lawliberty.org/the-politics-of-war-and-the-politics-of-peace/
-----
56) The Corbett Report, episode 484
Source: The Corbett Report
“The Nobel War Prize Strikes Again.” (10/22/25)
https://corbettreport.com/the-nobel-war-prize-strikes-again/
-----
57) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 10/22/25
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Is Screwing His Voters So Badly That It Shocked This MAGA Farmer.” (10/22/25)
https://newrepublic.com/article/202097/trump-screwing-voters-badly-shocked-maga-farmer
-----
58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/22/25
Source: Antiwar.com
“Vance Says Recovering Hostage Bodies Will Take Time, Bill Would Block Venezuela War, and More.” (10/22/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVsd83hwX-I
-----
59) Politics Politics Politics, 10/21/25
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“Is Graham Platner Already Done in Maine? Shame and the Internet (with Josh Jennings and Andrew Heaton).” (10/21/25)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/is-graham-platner-already-done-in
-----
60) The Bryan Hyde Show, 10/21/25
Source: The Bryan Hyde Show
“I’m joined today by Eric Peters from Eric Peters Autos. We talk about the growing necessity of losing our ideological blinders to avoid being swept along with the political bandwagon.” (10/21/25)
https://www.podbean.com/ep/pb-zarv5-199d096
-----
61) Soho Forum Debate: Is Oregon Proof That Drug Decriminalization Will Fail?
Source: Reason
“The Drug Policy Institute’s Kevin Sabet debates Reason‘s Zach Weissmueller.” (10/21/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/10/21/does-oregon-show-that-drugs-should-be-illegal
-----
62) Free Speech Unmuted, 10/21/25
Source: Hoover Institution
“Free Speech and the Future of Legal Education | Eugene Volokh and Jane Bambauer.” (10/21/25)
https://free-speech-unmuted.podbean.com/e/free-speech-and-the-future-of-legal-education-eugene-volokh-and-jane-bambauer-hoover-institution/
-----
63) Underthrow Podcast, 10/21/25
Source: Underthrow
“Why Don’t Socialists Just Build It?” (10/21/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIYbPWCPLe8
-----
64) The Lou Perez Podcast, 10/21/25
Source: Lions of Liberty
“What’s an Indie Flick, Really with Jason Noto.” (10/21/25)
https://www.lionsofliberty.com/episodes/tlpp-whats-an-indie-flick-really-with-jason-noto
-----
65) LPA Solidarity Stream, episode 11
Source: LP Alliance
“LPCO’s New Chair and Vice Chair.” (10/21/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJKmaZSndlc
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Today's Freedom News:
0) Two Things (Hybrid Thursday AND Year-End Fundraiser Update)
1) US regime’s debt hits $38 trillion
2) Top UN court says Israel must allow UN relief agency to supply aid to Gaza
3) US regime imposes sanctions on Russian oil over Putin’s refusal to end war in Ukraine
4) Judge agrees to extend block on federal occupation of Chicago pending SCOTUS ruling
5) Michael Wolff sues Melania Trump over effort to kill tell-all book
6) Colombia: Appeals court overturns conviction of ex-president Uribe for bribery and witness tampering
7) WA: City’s ex-treasurer sentenced to probation, $937k in restitution
8) North Korea: Regime fires short-range ballistic missiles ahead of APEC summit
9) Greece: Dozens arrested over farm fraud scandal
10) Serbia: Man detained after shots fired outside parliament
11) Ireland: Dublin protesters clash with police, burn vehicle after migrant accused of sexually assaulting girl
12) Arizona attorney general sues Mike Johnson for failing to seat Adelita Grijalva
13) Trump’s new tax hikes would flip US policy on drugs, trade
14) Jailed journalists in Belarus, Georgia win EU’s 2025 Sakharov human rights prize
15) Trump regime admits to two more maritime murders, this time in the Pacific Ocean
16) House Republicans refer Obama CIA Chief Brennan to DOJ
17) Effects of antidepressants on physical health ranked for first time
18) Peru: Regime declares state of emergency amid protests
19) A dozen UN international staffers leave Yemen after being released by Houthis
20) DC: Senile reality TV star begins latest vandalism stunt
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Who Would Jesus Bomb? The Gospel According to the Military-Industrial Complex
22) What’s the Beef Against Hitler?
23) Profits are Social Authentication
24) No Peace, No Plan
25) My Antichrist Lecture
26) Boost Kentucky’s labor market: Reform occupational licensing
27) Expanding FDIC Deposit Insurance Does Not Help Main Street
28) The Dark Righteousness & Dark Priesthood of The Socialists
29) Drumroll for Japan’s first female leader
30) Liberal Principles for a New Environmentalism
31) Curtis Sliwa has a point: Voters want conviction
32) John Bolton’s indictment is serious — don’t treat it like another Trump political ploy
33) Zionists Push Islamophobia Because It’s Easier Than Getting People To Like Israel
34) Don’t Extend Obamacare Subsidies To End the Government Shutdown
35) Yang Zhu and the Freedom of the Self
36) Three Cheers for Liberalism
37) Is Congress stopping millions from saving $4,600 on cheaper health insurance plans?
38) Trump’s most underrated diplomatic win: Belarus
39) The Kids Can’t Focus
40) 1929 and All That AI: The Struggle for the Past — and the Future
41) The Oldest Colony, the Newest War: Puerto Rico as a Launchpad for War on Venezuela
42) We Have Not Properly Reckoned with the Economic Insanity of 2020
43) Permit to Harass, Interrupted
44) Will Trump End Sham Democracy Promotions?
45) How Albany Can Stop Mamdani
46) Health Freedom: Deposing Three Monarchs
47) In a World Obsessed With Innovation, What If Most of It Isn’t Real?
48) What Is the State and Who Controls It?
49) The New Republican Voice of Sanity Is … Marjorie Taylor Greene?
50) The engines of state capitalism, part 2
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Collateral Damage, episode 3
52) Reason Interview: Jeff Flake
53) Trump Watch, 10/22/25
54) Quillette Narrated, 10/22/25
55) The Politics of War and the Politics of Peace
56) The Corbett Report, episode 484
57) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 10/22/25
58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/22/25
59) Politics Politics Politics, 10/21/25
60) The Bryan Hyde Show, 10/21/25
61) Soho Forum Debate: Is Oregon Proof That Drug Decriminalization Will Fail?
62) Free Speech Unmuted, 10/21/25
63) Underthrow Podcast, 10/21/25
64) The Lou Perez Podcast, 10/21/25
65) LPA Solidarity Stream, episode 11
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
0) Two Things (Hybrid Thursday AND Year-End Fundraiser Update)
Hey, everyone …
It’s a “Hybrid Thursday” at the freedom movement’s daily newspaper. We’ve got a full email edition (65 items) for you below AND another 30-35 news stories, opinion pieces, and audio/video links lined up for your attention at our web edition:
https://news.rationalrationalreview.com
While you’re there …
Yesterday was, thankfully, NOT a “zero-dollar day” in our year-end fundraiser. Steve tells me that an unnamed supporter donated $10 in cash, in person, at a Nashville-area libertarian event. THANK YOU, unnamed supporter! That brings our total to $685.50 (as of 5:30am on Thursday).
Our goal is $5,501. Thanks to supporter GL’s generous “matching funds” pledge, we only have to raise $2,750.50 from our other readers … so we’re only $2,065 short of wrapping this thing up.
$65 seems like a reasonable “mini-goal” for the day. Please help us get down to the $2,000 mark before tomorrow morning at:
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
The sooner we wrap this fundraiser up, the sooner I stop talking about money entirely for the rest of the year and mostly until NEXT October. THANK YOU in advance for help making that happen!
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
Have a great day!
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
-----
1) US regime’s debt hits $38 trillion
Source: WSB 95.5 News
“In the midst of a federal government shutdown, the U.S. government’s gross national debt surpassed $38 trillion Wednesday, a record number that highlights the accelerating accumulation of debt on America’s balance sheet. It’s also the fastest accumulation of a trillion dollars in debt outside of the COVID-19 pandemic — the U.S. hit $37 trillion in gross national debt in August this year. The $38 trillion update is found in the latest Treasury Department report, which logs the nation’s daily finances.
https://www.wsbradio.com/news/business/us-hits-38-trillion/XFCL7XOPDY5RHIRCONLJOUZIEU/
-----
2) Top UN court says Israel must allow UN relief agency to supply aid to Gaza
Source: San Diego Union-Tribune
“The International Court of Justice said on Wednesday that Israel must allow the U.N. aid agency in Gaza, known as UNRWA, to provide humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian territory. The Hague-based court was asked last year by the U.N. General Assembly to determine Israel’s legal obligations after the country effectively banned the agency, the main provider of aid to Gaza, from operating there. Israel ‘is under the obligation to agree to and facilitate relief schemes provided by the United Nations and its entities, including UNRWA,’ ICJ President Yuji Iwasawa said. … Israel has denied it has violated international law, saying the court’s proceedings are biased, and the country didn’t attend hearings in April. However, Israel provided a 38-page written submission for the court to consider. In a written statement, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the opinion and said Israel ‘fully upholds its obligations under International Law.'” (10/22/25)
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2025/10/22/world-court-israel-gaza-aid/
-----
3) US regime imposes sanctions on Russian oil over Putin’s refusal to end war in Ukraine
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“The US has sanctioned Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia’s two largest oil companies, as the Trump administration increased pressure on the Kremlin to negotiate an end to its war against Ukraine. The sanctions were the first against Russia since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, and were targeted to cut key revenues from oil sales that finance the Russian war machine. … [Donald] Trump, speaking in the Oval Office with the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, on Wednesday, also confirmed he had cancelled a planned summit with Putin in another sign of a breakdown in negotiations between Washington and Moscow.” (10/22/25)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/22/us-sanctions-russia-oil-vladimir-putin-refusal-ukraine-war
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4) Judge agrees to extend block on federal occupation of Chicago pending SCOTUS ruling
Source: Orange County Register
“As the U.S. Supreme Court ponders whether to clear the way for the National Guard in Chicago, a federal appeals court is hearing arguments in California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s challenge to the deployment of troops in Los Angeles. Guard troops could also soon be on the ground in Portland, Oregon, pending legal developments there. … A federal judge in Chicago already blocked deployment of Guard troops to the Chicago area for two weeks. On Wednesday, Judge April Perry agreed to extend that order by 30 days. But she said each party could discuss the extension further before meeting again at 3 p.m. local time, noting they would not be able to issue another one. Still, anything she does could be moot if the U.S. Supreme Court rules in the meantime.” (10/22/25)
https://archive.is/2r0um
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5) Michael Wolff sues Melania Trump over effort to kill tell-all book
Source: New York Daily News
“Author Michael Wolff is suing First Lady Melania Trump in a Manhattan court over her effort to block publication of his planned tell-all book that could include details about her ties to notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, the Daily News has learned. Wolff, who has penned four bestselling books about President Trump, accuses Melania Trump of launching a campaign of threats to intimidate him from digging deeper into the first couple’s friendship with Epstein, according to legal papers obtained by the News. ‘These threatened legal actions are designed to create a climate of fear in the nation so that people cannot freely or confidently exercise their First Amendment rights,’ Wolff’s 17-page claim reads. ‘The threats are also intended to shut down legitimate inquiry into the Epstein matter.’ Wolff filed his complaint against Melania Trump on Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court.” (10/22/25)
https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/10/22/michael-wolff-sues-melania-trump-tell-all-book/
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6) Colombia: Appeals court overturns conviction of ex-president Uribe for bribery and witness tampering
Source: ABC News
“An appeals court on Tuesday overturned the conviction of former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe for bribery and witness tampering for which he had been sentenced to 12 years of house arrest. Uribe, 73, has denied any wrongdoing. He was sentenced in August following a nearly six-month trial in which prosecutors presented evidence that he attempted to influence witnesses who accused the law-and-order leader of having links to a paramilitary group in the 1990s. The court on Tuesday said the conviction had ‘structural deficiencies,’ used vague premises and lacked comprehensive analysis. Two of the three judges on the panel voted to overturn the conviction; the third thought it should be upheld.” (10/22/25)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/appeals-court-overturns-conviction-colombian-president-uribe-bribery-126725434
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7) WA: City’s ex-treasurer sentenced to probation, $937k in restitution
Source: Seattle Times
“The former city clerk and treasurer of a small town in Lewis County was sentenced to five years’ probation and ordered to repay nearly $1 million in city funds that she’d embezzled over the course of nine years. Tamara Clevenger, the former Morton city clerk-treasurer, embezzled $937,584 from taxpayers from 2013 to 2021, according to charging documents. Federal prosecutors sought a 36-month prison sentence followed by three years of probation. A federal judge in Tacoma declined to order any prison time last week.” [editor’s note: If the government of a city of about a thousand people can have a million bucks go missing and not even notice until a state audit, that government has WAY too much money – TLK] (10/22/25)
https://archive.is/ukvak
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8) North Korea: Regime fires short-range ballistic missiles ahead of APEC summit
Source: United Press International
“North Korea fired a flurry of short-range ballistic missiles on Wednesday, Seoul’s military said, a week ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s scheduled visit to South Korea for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. ‘Our military detected several projectiles presumed to be short-range ballistic missiles fired from the Junghwa area of North Hwanghae Province in a northeasterly direction around 8:10 a.m. today,’ Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a text message to reporters. … The launch was North Korea’s fifth of the year, and the first since South Korean President Lee Jae Myung took office in June.” (10/22/25)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2025/10/22/North-Korea-fires-short-range-ballistic-missiles-before-APEC-summit/3641761117743/
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9) Greece: Dozens arrested over farm fraud scandal
Source: Politico
“Greek authorities made dozens of arrests on Wednesday related to Greece’s spiraling farm fraud case, in an investigation led by European prosecutors. Some 37 people suspected of being members of an organized criminal group involved in large-scale agricultural funding fraud and money laundering activities were arrested, and searches were carried out throughout the country, according to a statement by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. In a snowballing scandal, the EPPO is pursuing dozens of cases in which Greeks allegedly received agricultural funds from the European Union for pastureland they did not own or lease, or for agricultural work they did not perform, depriving legitimate farmers of the funds they deserved. POLITICO first reported on the scheme in February.” (10/22/25)
https://archive.is/zJwTp
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10) Serbia: Man detained after shots fired outside parliament
Source: US News & World Report
“Shots were fired outside Serbia’s parliament building in Belgrade on Wednesday and one person was injured, local media reported. A video posted on the NOVA media outlet, the location of which was confirmed by Reuters, showed armed security officers approaching a large tent outside parliament. A few shots were fired and then a fire broke out inside the tent, one of several erected this year by supporters of President Aleksander Vucic during anti-government protests. It was not clear who fired the shots or how the fire started. … N1 TV said a 57-year-old man was wounded by a gunshot and is in a stable condition.” (10/22/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-10-22/shots-fired-outside-serbian-parliament-one-detained
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11) Ireland: Dublin protesters clash with police, burn vehicle after migrant accused of sexually assaulting girl
Source: Fox News
“Protesters set a police car on fire and hurled glass bottles at officers in Dublin, Ireland, on Tuesday night after an illegal migrant was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a 10-year-old Irish girl who was in state care. The violence erupted outside the City West Hotel, a sprawling former hotel-turned migrant center where an illegal migrant (who had deportation orders standing against him) is accused of attacking the girl late Sunday night. Irish police, An Garda Síochána, said that six people were arrested during the clashes and one female police officer suffered a foot injury. Police said their officers were subject to ‘sustained attacks’ as they tried to cordon off the building. Nearly 300 police were dispatched to the area in Saggart.” (10/22/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/world/dublin-protesters-clash-police-burn-vehicle-after-migrant-accused-sexually-assaulting-irish-girl-10
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12) Arizona attorney general sues Mike Johnson for failing to seat Adelita Grijalva
Source: Politico
“Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes filed a lawsuit against House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday for failing to seat Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva. In the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, Mayes asks the court to compel Johnson to swear in Grijalva or allow her to be sworn in by someone else. … Adelita Grijalva, a Democrat, has accused Johnson of slow-walking her swearing-in ceremony because she has vowed to sign on to an effort to force a vote on legislation related to releasing files about the investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.” (10/21/25)
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/21/arizona-attorney-general-lawsuit-mike-johnson-00617211
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13) Trump’s new tax hikes would flip US policy on drugs, trade
Source: Reuters
“U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat this week to slap [American buyers of goods from] Colombia with tariffs over its drug policy marked a sharp escalation in his feud with a country that has long been one of Washington’s closest Latin American allies. It was also a rejection of an established idea about countering the narcotics business: that free trade can make legitimate exports more attractive than drug trafficking. Trump’s latest comments marked a new low in relations between Washington and Bogota, which Trump accuses of being complicit in the illicit drug trade. ‘They don’t have a fight against drugs — they make drugs,’ Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. Petro has objected to the U.S. military’s strikes against vessels in the Caribbean, which have killed dozens of people and inflamed tensions in the region. Many legal experts and human rights activists have also condemned the extraordinary series of military actions.” (10/22/25)
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-colombia-tariffs-would-flip-us-policy-drugs-trade-2025-10-21/
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14) Jailed journalists in Belarus, Georgia win EU’s 2025 Sakharov human rights prize
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“Two journalists, one imprisoned in Belarus and the other in Georgia, have won the European Union’s top human rights honour, the Sakharov Prize, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola announced on Wednesday. Andrzej Poczobut is a correspondent for the influential Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza. He was convicted of ‘harming Belarus’[s] national security’ and sentenced to eight years, which he is serving in the Novopolotsk penal colony. Mzia Amaghlobeli, a prominent journalist who founded two of Georgia’s independent media outlets, was in August convicted of slapping a police chief during an anti-government protest. She was sentenced to two years in prison in a case that was condemned by rights groups as an attempt to curb media freedom.” (10/22/25)
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20251022-jailed-journalists-andrzej-poczobut-from-belarus-mzia-amaglobeli-from-georgia-win-eu-s-2025-sakharov-prize
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15) Trump regime admits to two more maritime murders, this time in the Pacific Ocean
Source: SFGate
“The U.S. military conducted its eighth strike against an alleged drug vessel, [murdering] two people, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday. The Tuesday night strike occurred in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The seven previous strikes all targeted vessels in the Caribbean. According to Hegseth in a social media post, the strike [murdered] two people, bringing the death toll from all the [murders] to at least 34 people. In a brief video released by Hegseth, a small boat, half-filled with brown packages, is seen moving along the water. Several seconds into the video, the boat explodes and is seen floating motionless on the water in flames. In his post, Hegseth took the unusual step of equating the alleged drug traffickers to the group behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attack. ‘Just as Al Qaeda waged war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people,’ Hegseth said, adding ‘there will be no refuge or forgiveness — only justice.'” (10/22/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/trump-administration-announces-another-strike-on-21114304.php
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16) House Republicans refer Obama CIA Chief Brennan to DOJ
Source: Axios
“John Brennan, who was CIA director under Obama, was referred to the Justice Department Tuesday by House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who accused him of lying to Congress about the Steele dossier. The recommendation is a high-profile effort by House Republicans to prosecute a former intelligence official, aligning with President Trump’s broader goals to legally target his political enemies. The Steele dossier, a widely discredited set of memos compiled in 2016 by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, alleged ties between Russia and Trump. … Brennan was reportedly under prior investigation by the current DOJ for allegedly lying about Russia’s involvement, and he has denied any wrongdoing.” (10/21/25)
https://archive.is/qf1Jt
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17) Effects of antidepressants on physical health ranked for first time
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Side effects of different antidepressants have been ranked for the first time, revealing huge differences between drugs. Academics looked at the impact medications had on patients in the first eight weeks after starting treatment, with some causing patients to gain up to 2kg in weight or vary heart rate by as much as 21 beats every minute. Around eight million people in the UK take antidepressants. Researchers warned the gulf in side effects could affect people’s health and whether they could stick to their prescription. They said nobody reading this should stop their treatment, but have called for antidepressants to be closely matched to the needs of each person. ‘There are big differences between [antidepressants] and this is important not just for individual patients, but large numbers of people are taking them, so even modest changes could have a big effect across the whole population,’ said researcher Prof Oliver Howes.” (10/22/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9d65nqgd5zo
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18) Peru: Regime declares state of emergency amid protests
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Peru’s Interim President Jose Jeri has declared a state of emergency in the capital, Lima, to stem a wave of protests that contributed to the recent downfall of his predecessor. In a televised message on Tuesday, Jeri said the emergency in the city would last 30 days. … Under the state of emergency, the government can send the army to patrol the streets and restrict freedom of assembly and other rights. … Dina Boluarte was removed as president by Peru’s Congress on October 10 after an impeachment during which lawmakers said she had been unable to tackle the crime wave. Jeri, the parliament speaker, replaced her immediately and will serve as interim president until July next year.” (10/22/25)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/22/state-of-emergency-declared-in-perus-capital-lima-amid-protests
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19) A dozen UN international staffers leave Yemen after being released by Houthis
Source: SFGate
“Houthi rebels released a dozen United Nations international staffers Wednesday and allowed three others to move freely within the U.N. compound after detaining them in the facility in Yemen’s capital over the weekend, according to the world body. The 12 international staffers departed Sanaa on a U.N. humanitarian flight, with some relocating to Jordan to continue their work there. More than 50 U.N. staffers are still detained by the Houthis as well as other non-government and civil society personnel from various diplomatic missions. ‘The UN, at all levels, continues to be seized with the matter and is in constant contact with the relevant authorities in Sana’a and with concerned Member States and partners to secure their release,’ the office of U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. ‘We renew the Secretary-General’s call for their immediate and unconditional release.'” (10/22/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/a-dozen-un-international-staffers-leave-yemen-21114318.php
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20) DC: Senile reality TV star begins latest vandalism stunt
Source: New York Times
“The facade of the East Wing of the White House came crumbling down on Monday as construction began on President Trump’s 90,000-square-foot ballroom, a project that will transform one of the most recognizable buildings in the world and nearly double the size of the existing structure. … By late afternoon, reporters hanging out in a park near the Treasury Department could see a glimpse of this latest renovation in progress as the long arm of a track excavator reached up and tore the walls clean off the building. Crews of workmen wandered around as detritus — window panes, building blocks and wires — piled up.” (10/21/25)
https://archive.is/Aqh7o
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Who Would Jesus Bomb? The Gospel According to the Military-Industrial Complex
Source: Rutherford Institute
by John & Nisha Whitehead
“For a man supposedly intent on winning a Nobel Peace Prize, Donald Trump spends an extraordinary amount of time waging war, threatening to wage war, and fantasizing about waging war. Notwithstanding his dubious claims about having ended ‘seven un-endable wars,’ Trump has continued to squander the American people’s resources and moral standing by feeding the military-industrial complex’s insatiable appetite for war—preemptively bombing nuclear facilities in Iran, blowing up fishing boats in the Caribbean, and flexing military muscle at every opportunity. Even the Trump administration’s version of ‘peace through strength’ is filtered through a prism of violence, intimidation and strongman tactics. It is the gospel of power, not peace — a perversion of both Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and the U.S. Constitution.” (10/22/25)
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/who_would_jesus_bomb_the_gospel_according_to_the_military_industrial_complex
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22) What’s the Beef Against Hitler?
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Let’s hypothetically eliminate the Holocaust from Nazi Germany. In fact, let’s go further: Let’s eliminate World War II from the equation. Let’s just consider Nazi Germany under Hitler’s rule from 1933 until the beginning of the war on September 3, 1939, when England declared war on Germany. What then? Would American statists today still have a deep antipathy toward Hitler? I don’t think so. Why do I say that? Several reasons. Let’s consider them.” (10/22/25)
https://www.fff.org/2025/10/22/whats-the-beef-against-hitler/
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23) Profits are Social Authentication
Source: EconLog
by Art Carden
“Markets are notable institutions because they make the signals and the solutions especially clear. Profits and losses take people’s ideas out of the world of speculation and into the world of verification. A hunch becomes more than a hunch: either it is authenticated as a good idea or rejected as a bad idea. Suppose a particular type of new toaster is profitable. In that case, it means that after we tally up all the ‘votes’ people cast by spending or saving dollars, there are more votes for making the toaster than for using the necessary resources for something else. In a free market, the question, ‘Who decides?’ has a simple answer. We each do, and in so doing, we all do.” (10/22/25)
https://www.econlib.org/econlog/profits-are-social-authentication/
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24) No Peace, No Plan
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
onald Trump’s grandiosely announced Middle East peace plan might have been a smashing success, except that it is missing two elements: 1) peace; 2) a plan. Like the so-called Abraham Accords, the Israel-Hamas peace plan is a triumph of marketing over substance, packaging over product. Neither of the two central parties to the dispute have, in fact, agreed to any binding terms, and, in fact, neither has signed the 20-point plan. A separate ‘implementation’ document, even more vague than the 20-point plan, was signed by the parties and by their mediators, and that signature commits them to very little beyond a non-enforceable promise ‘to implement the necessary steps’ to end the conflict. … Hamas immediately violated the terms of the supposed agreement by failing to return all of the remains of the hostages; the Israelis, to the surprise of no one, immediately resumed airstrikes in Gaza. No peace. Also, no plan.” (10/22/25)
https://thedispatch.com/article/trump-israel-hamas-no-peace-no-plan/
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25) My Antichrist Lecture
Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander
“Antichrist lectures are the hot new thing in Silicon Valley, but so far they’ve honestly been kind of disappointing. Some people are giving entire lecture series without even revealing who the Antichrist is! You’d expect that to be the bare minimum! We can do better. Earlier this year, at the Manifest forecasting conference in Berkeley, I gave a presentation titled ‘Forecasting Transformative AI Using The Book Of Revelation.’ Given the renewed interest in this topic, I repost it below, in written form, with slight edits. The first two-thirds, including the section on the Antichrist, is free. In deference to the injunction by prior researchers on this topic not to ‘cast one’s pearls before swine,’ the last third (including the Whore of Babylon, the Battle of Armageddon, and the New Jerusalem) will be paywalled.” (10/22/25)
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/my-antichrist-lecture
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26) Boost Kentucky’s labor market: Reform occupational licensing
Source: Bluegrass Institute
by Ed Timmons
“Kentucky’s labor market continues to struggle compared to neighboring states and the national average with an unemployment rate of 4.7% – significantly higher than the national average of 4.3%. In contrast, states like Indiana and Virginia boast unemployment rates of 3.6%; Arkansas and West Virginia stand at 3.8%. A significant factor holding Kentucky back is its occupational licensing system – one of the nation’s most restrictive – which creates unnecessary barriers to employment. Occupational licensing requires individuals to meet state-mandated requirements, including education, training, exams and fees, before they can legally work in certain professions. While licensing is universal for some occupations like physicians and lawyers, Kentucky goes further, licensing 177 of the 254 occupations studied in a national report I coauthored for the Archbridge Institute.” (10/22/25)
https://www.bluegrassinstitute.org/boost-kentuckys-labor-market-reform-occupational-licensing/
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27) Expanding FDIC Deposit Insurance Does Not Help Main Street
Source: Cato Institute
by Norbert Michel
“The ICBA wants people to believe that the nation’s small banks are the backbone of America. At the same time, though, they’re telling everyone that it’s critical to supply these banks with more federal backing.” (10/22/25)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/expanding-fdic-deposit-insurance-does-not-help-main-street
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28) The Dark Righteousness & Dark Priesthood of The Socialists
Source: The Findings Substack
by Paul Rosenberg
“Socialists (by a variety of names) lorded it over the late 20th century by hijacking the sensibilities of Westerners and weaponizing their imperfections. This may sound new to you, but it’s really not; it’s something we’ve all lived with. There’s a long history behind this, of course, but I’ve covered that elsewhere and will leave it aside for today. What matters now is to see how the people of the West have had their virtues used against them, effectively and at length. The first part of this is what I’m calling dark righteousness, and it’s a trick we’ve all seen in practice.” (10/22/25)
https://thefindings.substack.com/p/the-dark-righteousness-and-dark-priesthood
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29) Drumroll for Japan’s first female leader
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“Despite being Asia’s oldest continuous democracy, Japan has been far behind the region’s other countries in electing a woman leader. That changed Tuesday when Takaichi Sanae, a conservative in Japan’s long-dominant party, became the nation’s first female prime minister. Despite the ceiling-busting triumph, however, this former drummer in a heavy-metal band got off on the wrong foot with a comment that helps explain why so few Japanese women enter politics or buck a cultural norm that sees women primarily as caregivers. In a speech, Ms. Takaichi asked everyone to ‘work like a horse,’ and then added, ‘I myself will cast aside the idea of ‘work-life balance.’. I’ll work, work, work, work, and work.’ While perseverance is a highly admired trait in Japan … public reaction forced her to clarify that she was speaking only about members of the Liberal Democratic Party like herself.” (10/21/25)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2025/1021/Drumroll-for-Japan-s-first-female-leader
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30) Liberal Principles for a New Environmentalism
Source: Law & Liberty
by Jonathan H Adler
“Congress constructed the edifice of federal environmental regulation atop a pile of misconceptions and mistaken assumptions. Once erected, it has withstood meaningful efforts at reform, and atrophied. However much some existing laws helped address twentieth-century environmental problems, they are increasingly obsolete and ill-suited to today’s environmental challenges. Steven Hayward is absolutely correct that ‘it is long past time for something new,’ and properly identifies many of the key attributes upon which a ‘new environmentalism’ could be built.” (10/22/25)
https://lawliberty.org/forum/liberal-principles-for-a-new-environmentalism/
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31) Curtis Sliwa has a point: Voters want conviction
Source: New York Post
by Isaac Schorr
“Pressure is building on Republican mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa to drop his long-shot quest for Gracie Mansion. A stream of prominent Big Apple conservatives — including The Post’s editorial board and Sliwa’s own radio boss, John Catsimatidis — have sagely implored him to step aside and endorse Andrew Cuomo. The absurdity of that sentence underscores the stakes. Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani’s ideas are so backward — and represent such a grave threat to the livelihoods and lives of New Yorkers, and to their city’s moral standing — that an alliance with Cuomo is not just conceivable for many Republicans, but imperative. Polling indicates the former governor is the only one with any chance of sending Mamdani packing — and only if Sliwa drops out.” [editor’s note: Still believe that the only just move is for Cuomo to drop out, and see if that head to head could save the Big Apple from its apparent fate – SAT] [additional editor’s note: It wouldn’t … even if Sliwa won – TLK] (10/21/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/10/21/opinion/curtis-sliwa-has-a-point-voters-want-conviction-and-its-shaping-every-race-across-the-country/
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32) John Bolton’s indictment is serious — don’t treat it like another Trump political ploy
Source: The Hill
by David S D’Amato
“If Trump and Clinton were accused of mishandling classified information, Bolton is accused of spreading it. Americans should also understand that people have been convicted for much less in similar cases. The case is an important test for accountability in the national security apparatus and shouldn’t be dismissed as pure politics, either in the District of Maryland or the court of public opinion.” (10/22/25)
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/5565770-bolton-indicted-national-security
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33) Zionists Push Islamophobia Because It’s Easier Than Getting People To Like Israel
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Have you ever noticed how whenever you see someone promoting hatred toward Muslims, nine times out of ten it will be someone who supports Israel? There’s a reason for that. Zionists promote Islamophobia because convincing westerners to hate Muslims is easier than convincing them to love Israel. Support for Israel is a hard sell. On paper it’s just a shitty, evil country full of shitty, evil people, and has no redeeming qualities as a state. Nobody can explain how it’s an important ally in a way that makes sense; all the problems they claim it helps solve are problems Israel itself creates with the help of western backing. Unless you’re a devout Jewish Zionist or Christian Zionist there’s nothing about the modern state of Israel you’d naturally be inclined to support.” (10/22/25)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/10/22/zionists-push-islamophobia-because-its-easier-than-getting-people-to-like-israel/
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34) Don’t Extend Obamacare Subsidies To End the Government Shutdown
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille
“The federal government’s not-really-a-shutdown lingers on, largely driven by Democrats’ insistence on extending pandemic-era subsidies that conceal the real cost of health coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — better known as Obamacare. It’s not enough that the spending bill under consideration is already bloated with unaffordable goodies that Republicans and Democrats alike support. Democrats have to show themselves battling the Trump administration and see advantage in doing so while fighting to preserve the main legislative accomplishment (bad policy though the ACA is) on which they’ve staked their reputations for over a decade. This is no way to handle spending, let alone to improve health care.” (10/22/25)
https://reason.com/2025/10/22/dont-extend-obamacare-subsidies-to-end-the-government-shutdown
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35) Yang Zhu and the Freedom of the Self
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Katrina Gulliver
“Yang Zhu (440–360 BC) was a Chinese philosopher whose ideas were considered daring and transgressive for his time, but can strike us as modern in their focus on individual freedom. His lessons were shared through early texts and referred to by scholars in the following centuries. He lived during the ‘Warring States’ period, the phase of clashes between regional powers in what would later be unified as China. This was a time of not only military conflicts but also intellectual battles. Daoism was emerging as the dominant religious force in China (Buddhism would not arrive for another two centuries), and Yang Zhu’s philosophy reflects a Daoist worldview.” (10/22/25)
https://fee.org/articles/yang-zhu-and-the-freedom-of-the-self/
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36) Three Cheers for Liberalism
Source: ProSocial Libertarians
by Andrew Jason Cohen
“Let’s be clear: we are incredibly lucky — even blessed — to live now when so much more than ever is available to us to buy and sell. We have high and low cultural entertainment. We have medicine, healthcare, comfortable clothes, homes, reliable means of transportation, far more career paths than those of us born even in the ‘late 1900s’ could have imagined. The world is better than ever. We have more, we are healthier, and we live longer. All of this is due to liberalism and its requirement to respect humanity.” (10/22/25)
https://prosociallibertarians.substack.com/p/three-cheers-for-liberalism
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37) Is Congress stopping millions from saving $4,600 on cheaper health insurance plans?
Source: Fox News
by Stephen Moore & David M Simon
“The government shutdown has focused debate on the vast sum ($136 billion in 2025, as projected by the Congressional Budget Office) that the federal government spends to annually subsize continually skyrocketing Obamacare health insurance premiums. The Wall Street Journal reports that regardless of how that fiscal tug-of-war turns out, health insurance premiums paid by Americans are expected to rise another 8% or 9% next year. The mega-health insurers are leading the charge for more subsidies because this money lands right in their pockets. … In 2024, 11.7 million people, more than one-third of those covered by Obamacare, had no medical claims. They, or taxpayers, paid a lot in premiums — for nothing.” (10/22/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/congress-stopping-millions-from-saving-4600-cheaper-health-insurance-plans
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38) Trump’s most underrated diplomatic win: Belarus
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Marik Episkopos
“Rarely are foreign policy scholars and analysts blessed with as crystalline a case study in abject failure as the Western approach to Belarus since 2020. From promoting concrete security interests, advancing human rights to everything in between, there is no metric by which anything done toward Minsk can be said to have worked. But even more striking has been the sheer sense of aggrieved befuddlement with the Trump administration for acknowledging this reality and seeking instead to repair ties with Belarus.” (10/22/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-belarus/
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39) The Kids Can’t Focus
Source: The Daily Economy
by Hannah Frankman Hood
“American kids’ ability to focus is under a full-frontal assault, and it should be taken seriously as a national threat. Attacks come from all sides: dopamine triggers and flashy apps, streaming services and immersive games, TikTok reels and endless doomscrolling. Everybody’s talking about falling test scores and America’s ability to keep up with the rest of the world (especially the East) in its academic performance. But no amount of reform is worth a lick if kids can’t focus long enough to read a book.” (10/22/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/the-kids-cant-focus/
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40) 1929 and All That AI: The Struggle for the Past — and the Future
Source: The American Conservative
by James P Pinkerton
“Four years from now comes the hundredth anniversary of one of the most momentous events in American history: the stock market crash that began on ‘Black Thursday,’ October 24, 1929, and was followed, of course, by the Great Depression. Historians and other scribblers will help us to recall those events. As always, they will spin them in keeping with their own mental maps. Yet now there’s a new motive force, with its own motives: artificial intelligence (AI). … By common agreement, AI is going to affect everything. And because AI is so all-encompassing, it’s already proving to be a subtle but steady advocate for liberalism. This can be illustrated through a single case study, presented here: how Google AI answers questions about the Crash and the Depression, aiding the related causes of Democratic victory, federal aggrandizement, and lefty [sic] teleology.” (10/22/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/1929-and-all-that-ai-the-struggle-for-the-past-and-the-future/
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41) The Oldest Colony, the Newest War: Puerto Rico as a Launchpad for War on Venezuela
Source: Common Dreams
by Michelle Ellner
“When President Donald Trump announced that the CIA had been authorized to conduct operations inside Venezuela, just as US drones struck another small boat off Venezuela’s coast, few people in the United States realized that much of this militarization begins on the soil of a land denied its own sovereignty: Puerto Rico. The island that has lived under US rule since 1898 is once again being used as a staging ground for US militarism, this time for Washington’s latest ‘war on drugs’ narrative, masking a campaign of coercion against Latin America’s independent governments. After invading Puerto Rico in 1898, the United States quickly turned the island into a strategic military outpost: the ‘Gibraltar of the Caribbean,’ with naval bases in Ceiba, Roosevelt Roads, and Vieques designed to dominate the eastern Caribbean and protect the new artery of empire: the Panama Canal.” (10/22/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/puerto-rico-war-venezuela
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42) We Have Not Properly Reckoned with the Economic Insanity of 2020
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Connor O’Keeffe
“Even when the pandemic is brought up and re-examined, the focus is usually on the necessity and nature of the government measures put in place to control the spread of the virus or the public’s level of compliance. That is, to be sure, a worthwhile debate. But the government’s economic response is often left out, which can give the impression that — as controversial as the lockdowns or vaccine mandates might have been — the quick and extensive mobilization of the government’s considerable fiscal and monetary powers was one uncontroversial success story of the covid years. It wasn’t, and the lack of controversy surrounding it is disturbing.” (10/22/25)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/we-have-not-properly-reckoned-economic-insanity-2020
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43) Permit to Harass, Interrupted
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“Minnesota’s permit to harass has been interrupted — not halted, because a federal court has granted only a preliminary injunction. Nancy Brasel, the district judge, has for now blocked Minnesota’s law requiring grassroots advocacy groups to publicly disclose the names and addresses of their vendors because she expects that this requirement will indeed be ultimately thrown out. Violating, as it does, freedom of speech.” (10/22/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/10/22/permit-to-harass-interrupted/
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44) Will Trump End Sham Democracy Promotions?
Source: JimBovard.com
by James Bovard
“The Trump administration has slashed federal spending for democracy promotion efforts around the globe. That rollback of U.S. meddling is perhaps the most positive foreign-policy reform of the Trump presidency. Since 1946, the U.S. government has intervened in more than a hundred foreign elections to assist its preferred candidate or party. Democracy is so important that the U.S. government refuses to stand idly by when foreign voters go astray.” (10/21/25)
https://jimbovard.com/blog/2025/10/21/will-trump-end-sham-democracy-promotions/
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45) How Albany Can Stop Mamdani
Source: Town Hall
by Betsy McCaughey
“If Zohran Mamdani is elected mayor and implements the changes he is promising, expect the city’s financial condition and public safety to deteriorate rapidly. Think criminal bedlam, antisemitic rioters allowed full rein, and cutbacks to basic city services. In such a crisis, desperate New Yorkers will look to Albany, where the governor has virtually unlimited power to curb the mayor’s authority or remove him, even if no crime has been committed. There is a safety valve, if a governor is willing to use it. Before removing a mayor, state law requires the governor to present grievances against the mayor at a formal hearing. Even so, the governor’s decision is final, not subject to review by any court. … In the event a mayor is removed, the public advocate acts as mayor until a special election is held within 80 days.” (10/22/25)
https://townhall.com/columnists/betsymccaughey/2025/10/22/how-albany-can-stop-mamdani-n2665284
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46) Health Freedom: Deposing Three Monarchs
Source: National Health Federation
by Matt Warnock
“Monarchy derives from the Greek root word ‘mono,’ meaning one, and ‘archon,’ meaning ruler. This week 249 years ago, the American colonies declared their independence from the British monarchy. They fought a seven-year revolutionary war to win it, and another three-year war in 1812 to keep it. We all continue to fight for our freedoms today – the ‘No Kings’ protests on the one hand, and the anti-COVID-19 protests on the other, are symptoms of that struggle. Today, there are at least three central ideas that control our health and health freedom. Each is a single idea that restrains our liberty of conscience, choice, and action.” (10/21/25)
https://thenhf.com/health-freedom-deposing-three-monarchs/
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47) In a World Obsessed With Innovation, What If Most of It Isn’t Real?
Source: Persuasion
by Sarah Majdov
“Bullshit jobs aren’t just a phenomenon of bureaucracy. They’re in tech, too.” (10/21/25)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/in-a-world-obsessed-with-innovation
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48) What Is the State and Who Controls It?
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Jeffrey A Tucker
“What is the state, from whence does it come, and who controls it? One might suppose these questions have obvious answers. In reality the answer is elusive, not easily identified even by those who are part of the system.” (10/21/25)
https://brownstone.org/articles/what-is-the-state-and-who-controls-it/
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49) The New Republican Voice of Sanity Is … Marjorie Taylor Greene?
Source: The American Prospect
by Ryan Cooper
“One of the acts that brought Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to national prominence was when footage emerged of her chasing down the gun control activist and school shooting survivor David Hogg, accusing him of being funded by George Soros, and boasting that she was carrying a gun. That is very far from the only utterly deranged thing Greene has said or done over the years. … since ‘being howling mad’ is basically a requirement for winning a Republican primary in the age of Trump, Greene was elected to the House of Representatives in 2020. Yet now Greene has emerged as something of a Republican voice of reason, at least by the standards of MAGA in 2025, perhaps the lowest bar imaginable.” (10/22/25)
https://prospect.org/2025/10/22/new-republican-voice-of-sanity-marjorie-taylor-greene/
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50) The engines of state capitalism, part 2
Source: The Peaceful Revolutionist
by David S D’Amato
“We cannot reasonably expect the modern state to behave as a neutral arbiter or as inherently interested in the maintenance of a free, fair society or marketplace. Taking the state seriously historically and materially means understanding that it is the central engine of corporate power and the version of growth and progress offered by capitalism. And while some forms of intervention are salient to the political class as corporate welfare, much of the state’s power and influence over the economy are less conspicuous, implicit structural buttresses (for example, the promise of bailouts, regulatory advantages, non-fiscal interventions generally).” (10/21/25)
https://dsdamato.substack.com/p/the-engines-of-state-capitalism-part
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Collateral Damage, episode 3
Source: The Intercept
“Blown Cover: The Preventable Murder of LeBron Gaither.” (10/22/25)
https://theintercept.com/2025/10/22/collateral-damage-episode-three-blown-cover/
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52) Reason Interview: Jeff Flake
Source: Reason
“What Happened to the Republican Party?” (10/22/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/10/22/what-happened-to-the-republican-party/
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53) Trump Watch, 10/22/25
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“Trump’s Release of Two ‘Narco-Terrorists.'” (10/22/25)
https://www.fff.org/freedom-in-motion/video/trump-watch-trumps-release-of-two-narco-terrorists/
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54) Quillette Narrated, 10/22/25
Source: Quillette
“Making Fiction Boring.” (10/22/25)
https://quillette.com/2025/10/22/making-fiction-boring-college-writing-mfa-sensitivity-readers/
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55) The Politics of War and the Politics of Peace
Source: Law & Liberty
Keynote event address by David Corey at Law & Liberty event. (10/22/25)
https://lawliberty.org/the-politics-of-war-and-the-politics-of-peace/
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56) The Corbett Report, episode 484
Source: The Corbett Report
“The Nobel War Prize Strikes Again.” (10/22/25)
https://corbettreport.com/the-nobel-war-prize-strikes-again/
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57) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 10/22/25
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Is Screwing His Voters So Badly That It Shocked This MAGA Farmer.” (10/22/25)
https://newrepublic.com/article/202097/trump-screwing-voters-badly-shocked-maga-farmer
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58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/22/25
Source: Antiwar.com
“Vance Says Recovering Hostage Bodies Will Take Time, Bill Would Block Venezuela War, and More.” (10/22/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVsd83hwX-I
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59) Politics Politics Politics, 10/21/25
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“Is Graham Platner Already Done in Maine? Shame and the Internet (with Josh Jennings and Andrew Heaton).” (10/21/25)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/is-graham-platner-already-done-in
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60) The Bryan Hyde Show, 10/21/25
Source: The Bryan Hyde Show
“I’m joined today by Eric Peters from Eric Peters Autos. We talk about the growing necessity of losing our ideological blinders to avoid being swept along with the political bandwagon.” (10/21/25)
https://www.podbean.com/ep/pb-zarv5-199d096
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61) Soho Forum Debate: Is Oregon Proof That Drug Decriminalization Will Fail?
Source: Reason
“The Drug Policy Institute’s Kevin Sabet debates Reason‘s Zach Weissmueller.” (10/21/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/10/21/does-oregon-show-that-drugs-should-be-illegal
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62) Free Speech Unmuted, 10/21/25
Source: Hoover Institution
“Free Speech and the Future of Legal Education | Eugene Volokh and Jane Bambauer.” (10/21/25)
https://free-speech-unmuted.podbean.com/e/free-speech-and-the-future-of-legal-education-eugene-volokh-and-jane-bambauer-hoover-institution/
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63) Underthrow Podcast, 10/21/25
Source: Underthrow
“Why Don’t Socialists Just Build It?” (10/21/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIYbPWCPLe8
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64) The Lou Perez Podcast, 10/21/25
Source: Lions of Liberty
“What’s an Indie Flick, Really with Jason Noto.” (10/21/25)
https://www.lionsofliberty.com/episodes/tlpp-whats-an-indie-flick-really-with-jason-noto
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65) LPA Solidarity Stream, episode 11
Source: LP Alliance
“LPCO’s New Chair and Vice Chair.” (10/21/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJKmaZSndlc
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