10/10 -- Palestine: Israeli forces start pulling back from parts of Gaza under ceasefire deal; Libertarian Realism: Justin Raimondo's Challenge to Empire
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Thomas L. Knapp
Oct 10, 2025, 6:26:48 AMOct 10
to Freedom News Daily
Freedom News Daily, 10/10/25
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Presented by the Liberty International
https://liberty-intl.org/
Produced by the staff of Rational Review News Digest
https://news.rationalreview.com/
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Today's Freedom News:
0) Moving Right Along (Year-End Fundraiser Update)
1) Palestine: Israeli forces start pulling back from parts of Gaza under ceasefire deal
2) Ukraine: “Massive” Russian triggers blackouts and sets high-rise alight
3) Peru: Congress votes to remove President Boluarte
4) US jobless claims — and layoffs — are still low. Unofficially, that is.
5) New York AG Letitia James is Trump “I’m butthurt, so lawfare” campaign’s next target
6) UK regime signs $468 million deal to supply Indian regime with missiles
7) Pope Leo urges US bishops to speak about Trump’s immigration crackdown after being shown migrants’ letters
8) Hungary’s László Krasznahorkai wins Nobel Prize in literature for work confronting “apocalyptic terror”
9) TX: Court blocks government employees’ pre-planned killing of prisoner
10) Fetterman Joins GOP to Kill War Powers Resolution Against Trump’s Caribbean Murder Spree
11) China: Regime tightens rare earth export controls, targets military, semiconductor users
12) Study: The hidden reason scientists say bottled water may not be the cleaner choice
13) Ebola outbreak in Congo shows signs of containment, WHO says
14) Judge gives more time to name new prosecutor in Trump’s Georgia election case
15) Colombia: Petro says US regime forces may have murdered Colombian citizens
16) US Senate strikes deal to vote on more wasteful and unnecessary military spending
17) NYC: Regime files frivolous lawsuit against social media giants
18) Ireland: Presidential Frontrunner Attacks Dublin for Failure to Sanction Israel
19) New Orleans jail escapee agrees to return to Louisiana after being recaptured in Georgia
20) FL: Unlike other grocers, Publix trusts its customers
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Libertarian Realism: Justin Raimondo’s Challenge to Empire
22) Social Security: Instead of Robbing the “Gabillionaires,” Stop Fleecing the “Regular Workers”
23) Let me talk to the longtime libertarians for a minute
24) An Emersonian Guide to Ridding Yourself of Collective Illusions
25) Prediction — What Will End The Shutdown
26) Never in a Million Years: Ten Reasons Why Trump Should Never Be Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
27) DHS Says Videotaping ICE Agents Is Illegal. Federal Courts Disagree.
28) Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
29) Trump Needs an Enemy to Justify His Power Grab; Enter Venezuela
30) The Hidden Risks of the Digital Euro
31) They Can’t Arrest Us All
32) The Doctor Will Kill You Now
33) Beware Trump’s Ceasefire Deal Absent Meaningful UN Action to Halt Israel’s Genocide
34) Is The Housing Affordability Crisis an Illusion?
35) Prediction as the New Meritocracy: Why the Future of Expertise Will Be Measured, Not Claimed
36) AI won’t just take jobs. It will topple governments.
37) Senator Chuck Schumer must end his government shutdown
38) Badger of Economics: Why We Still Need the Austrian School
39) Christian Nationalism is Neither Christian Nor Patriotic
40) Restraint Is Not Weakness
41) As Shutdown Wears On, Trump’s Getting Blamed
42) A “Loaded Gun” Pointed at the Media
43) Empire by Numbers: 392 US Military Interventions Across Every Region of the World
44) Trump Gaza Deal will work: If he keeps pressure on Israel
45) Dems letting Antifa take over their cities; Trump is right to send in federal troops
46) Too Big for the Hermit Kingdom
47) NATO Goes Mad
48) Is a Liberal Realignment Emerging from the Rubble of MAGA Authoritarianism?
49) The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler
50) Student trust in Ivy Leagues is declining — thanks to Harvard, Penn, and Columbia
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) The Libertarian Angle, 10/09/25
52) Conflicts of Interest, episode 844
53) Half the Answer, episode 39
54) Rising, 10/09/25
55) The Political Orphanage, 10/09/25
56) The Fifth Column, episode 527
57) Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, 10/09/25
58) The Good Fight, 10/09/25
59) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 10/09/25
60) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/09/25
61) Fountainhead Forum, episode 369
62) The Tom Woods Show, episode 2698
63) LPA Solidarity Stream 9
64) The Learning Curve, 10/08/25
65) Reason Versus National Review: Is Mass Immigration Good for America?
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0) Moving Right Along (Year-End Fundraiser Update)
THANK YOU to subscribing contributor JR and long-time supporter RB! Their payments, totaling $125, bring our year-end fundraiser total (as of 5:30am on Friday) to $422.50!
Our goal is $5,501, and we’re a little more than 15% of the way there, because supporter GL’s “matching funds” pledge means we only have to raise $2,750.50 from everyone else.
Our “mini-goal” is to hit the 25% mark — $687.63 — by Monday. We’re only $265.13 short of that. Will YOU support the freedom movement’s daily newspaper?
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
When you see these fundraiser updates, you’ll often come across two terms: “Subscribing contributor” (those who sign up to send us something on a recurring basis) and “long-time supporter” (that’s kind of self-explanatory). For obvious reasons, we love love both those kinds of people …
… and we hope YOU will become one of them, or at least make a one-time donation.
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
We’re a reader-supported publication, and My Scientific Wild-Ass Guess, based on email subscribers, social media followers, and web visits, is that we reach about 5,000 readers on a daily basis.
If you’re one of those readers, and have never returned a few dollars in value for the value you find in our publications (you wouldn’t read RRND/FND if you DIDN’T value them), now’s the time.
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Presented by the Liberty International
https://liberty-intl.org/
Produced by the staff of Rational Review News Digest
https://news.rationalreview.com/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Today's Freedom News:
0) Moving Right Along (Year-End Fundraiser Update)
1) Palestine: Israeli forces start pulling back from parts of Gaza under ceasefire deal
2) Ukraine: “Massive” Russian triggers blackouts and sets high-rise alight
3) Peru: Congress votes to remove President Boluarte
4) US jobless claims — and layoffs — are still low. Unofficially, that is.
5) New York AG Letitia James is Trump “I’m butthurt, so lawfare” campaign’s next target
6) UK regime signs $468 million deal to supply Indian regime with missiles
7) Pope Leo urges US bishops to speak about Trump’s immigration crackdown after being shown migrants’ letters
8) Hungary’s László Krasznahorkai wins Nobel Prize in literature for work confronting “apocalyptic terror”
9) TX: Court blocks government employees’ pre-planned killing of prisoner
10) Fetterman Joins GOP to Kill War Powers Resolution Against Trump’s Caribbean Murder Spree
11) China: Regime tightens rare earth export controls, targets military, semiconductor users
12) Study: The hidden reason scientists say bottled water may not be the cleaner choice
13) Ebola outbreak in Congo shows signs of containment, WHO says
14) Judge gives more time to name new prosecutor in Trump’s Georgia election case
15) Colombia: Petro says US regime forces may have murdered Colombian citizens
16) US Senate strikes deal to vote on more wasteful and unnecessary military spending
17) NYC: Regime files frivolous lawsuit against social media giants
18) Ireland: Presidential Frontrunner Attacks Dublin for Failure to Sanction Israel
19) New Orleans jail escapee agrees to return to Louisiana after being recaptured in Georgia
20) FL: Unlike other grocers, Publix trusts its customers
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Libertarian Realism: Justin Raimondo’s Challenge to Empire
22) Social Security: Instead of Robbing the “Gabillionaires,” Stop Fleecing the “Regular Workers”
23) Let me talk to the longtime libertarians for a minute
24) An Emersonian Guide to Ridding Yourself of Collective Illusions
25) Prediction — What Will End The Shutdown
26) Never in a Million Years: Ten Reasons Why Trump Should Never Be Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
27) DHS Says Videotaping ICE Agents Is Illegal. Federal Courts Disagree.
28) Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
29) Trump Needs an Enemy to Justify His Power Grab; Enter Venezuela
30) The Hidden Risks of the Digital Euro
31) They Can’t Arrest Us All
32) The Doctor Will Kill You Now
33) Beware Trump’s Ceasefire Deal Absent Meaningful UN Action to Halt Israel’s Genocide
34) Is The Housing Affordability Crisis an Illusion?
35) Prediction as the New Meritocracy: Why the Future of Expertise Will Be Measured, Not Claimed
36) AI won’t just take jobs. It will topple governments.
37) Senator Chuck Schumer must end his government shutdown
38) Badger of Economics: Why We Still Need the Austrian School
39) Christian Nationalism is Neither Christian Nor Patriotic
40) Restraint Is Not Weakness
41) As Shutdown Wears On, Trump’s Getting Blamed
42) A “Loaded Gun” Pointed at the Media
43) Empire by Numbers: 392 US Military Interventions Across Every Region of the World
44) Trump Gaza Deal will work: If he keeps pressure on Israel
45) Dems letting Antifa take over their cities; Trump is right to send in federal troops
46) Too Big for the Hermit Kingdom
47) NATO Goes Mad
48) Is a Liberal Realignment Emerging from the Rubble of MAGA Authoritarianism?
49) The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler
50) Student trust in Ivy Leagues is declining — thanks to Harvard, Penn, and Columbia
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) The Libertarian Angle, 10/09/25
52) Conflicts of Interest, episode 844
53) Half the Answer, episode 39
54) Rising, 10/09/25
55) The Political Orphanage, 10/09/25
56) The Fifth Column, episode 527
57) Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, 10/09/25
58) The Good Fight, 10/09/25
59) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 10/09/25
60) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/09/25
61) Fountainhead Forum, episode 369
62) The Tom Woods Show, episode 2698
63) LPA Solidarity Stream 9
64) The Learning Curve, 10/08/25
65) Reason Versus National Review: Is Mass Immigration Good for America?
vvvvv SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS vvvvv
ONE IDENTITY FOR ALL YOUR CRYPTO
https://fioprotocol.io/
SAMUEL EDWARD KONKIN III REVOLUTIONARY FRIEND BY WENDY MCELROY
https://www.amazon.com/Samuel-Edward-Konkin-Revolutionary-Friend-ebook/dp/B0DP7B6127
SHOP ONLINE, COLLECT A REBATE IN BITCOIN!
https://www.lolli.com/share/MZB4cCpheL
THE CONSTITUTION OF NON-STATE GOVERNMENT: FIELD GUIDE TO TEXAS SECESSION, by TL Hulsey
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1947660853
Tyranny Demands AN ACT OF SELF-DEFENSE: A NOVEL BY ERNE LEWIS
https://tinyurl.com/actofselfdefense
^^^^^ SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS ^^^^^
_____ Today's Freedom News _____
0) Moving Right Along (Year-End Fundraiser Update)
THANK YOU to subscribing contributor JR and long-time supporter RB! Their payments, totaling $125, bring our year-end fundraiser total (as of 5:30am on Friday) to $422.50!
Our goal is $5,501, and we’re a little more than 15% of the way there, because supporter GL’s “matching funds” pledge means we only have to raise $2,750.50 from everyone else.
Our “mini-goal” is to hit the 25% mark — $687.63 — by Monday. We’re only $265.13 short of that. Will YOU support the freedom movement’s daily newspaper?
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
When you see these fundraiser updates, you’ll often come across two terms: “Subscribing contributor” (those who sign up to send us something on a recurring basis) and “long-time supporter” (that’s kind of self-explanatory). For obvious reasons, we love love both those kinds of people …
… and we hope YOU will become one of them, or at least make a one-time donation.
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
We’re a reader-supported publication, and My Scientific Wild-Ass Guess, based on email subscribers, social media followers, and web visits, is that we reach about 5,000 readers on a daily basis.
If you’re one of those readers, and have never returned a few dollars in value for the value you find in our publications (you wouldn’t read RRND/FND if you DIDN’T value them), now’s the time.
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
We don’t play the “if we can’t raise $X, we’ll have to shut our doors” game. If we’re running our year-end fundraiser, it means we’ll be here for AT LEAST another year, barring my death or some kind of apocalyptic development.
And we’ve got a track record — as of December, we’ll have published as RRND for 23 years, and as FND and before that Libernet since 1991. We are by far the longest-running daily news and commentary roundup for libertarians via email, social media, and the web.
Your one-time donation, or “subscribing” donation of as little as $1 per month, keeps RRND/FND coming every non-holiday weekday, year-round.
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
And we’ve got a track record — as of December, we’ll have published as RRND for 23 years, and as FND and before that Libernet since 1991. We are by far the longest-running daily news and commentary roundup for libertarians via email, social media, and the web.
Your one-time donation, or “subscribing” donation of as little as $1 per month, keeps RRND/FND coming every non-holiday weekday, year-round.
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
And the final lagniappe: Once we reach our goal for the year, I will stop talking at you about money entirely for the remainder of 2025 and almost entirely (just the occasional “we’re reader-supported” note) until NEXT October. You PAY up, I SHUT up!
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
Have a happy, healthy, and prosperous weekend!
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
-----
1) Palestine: Israeli forces start pulling back from parts of Gaza under ceasefire deal
Source: Reuters
“Israeli troops began pulling back from some parts of Gaza on Friday under a ceasefire deal with Hamas, and some residents returned to shattered neighbourhoods amid confusion over when hostilities will be suspended after two years of warfare. … Israel’s government ratified the ceasefire with Hamas in the early hours of Friday, clearing the way to suspend hostilities in Gaza within 24 hours and free Israeli hostages held there within 72 hours after that. The first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump’s initiative to end the two-year war in Gaza calls for the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian [hostages], and the start of a withdrawal of Israeli troops.” (10/10/25)
https://archive.is/mNHDI
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2) Ukraine: “Massive” Russian triggers blackouts and sets high-rise alight
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“The Ukrainian capital was plunged into darkness early on Friday by what the air force called a ‘massive attack,’ as Russia pummelled Kyiv’s infrastructure, cutting off water and energy supplies and triggering a fire in a high-rise apartment building. Kyiv’s mayor said Russian forces had targeted ‘critical infrastructure’ and nine people had been injured, with five of them taken to hospital. Vitali Klitschko also said power cuts and disruptions to the water supply had hit districts on the east bank of the Dnipro River that runs through the city. Pictures posted online showed apartments ablaze as firefighters moved into position. Fragments from downed drones also struck several parts of the city.” (10/10/25)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/10/russian-attack-kyiv-ukraine-capital-blackouts-sets-high-rise-alight
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3) Peru: Congress votes to remove President Boluarte
Source: Deutsche Welle [German state media]
“Peru’s Congress on Friday voted to remove deeply unpopular President Dina Boluarte from office, citing her government’s inability to curb crime. Before midnight on Thursday, lawmakers requested that Boluarte appear before them to defend herself. When she did not appear, shortly after midnight, lawmakers voted to oust Boluarte from office. In contrast to the previous eight attempts to remove her, almost all legislative factions have expressed support for the latest impeachment requests. Congress leader Jose Jeri announced that 118 out of 122 lawmakers voted for her impeachment, removing her from the presidency, citing her ‘moral incapacity’ to carry out her duties.” (10/10/25)
https://www.dw.com/en/peru-congress-votes-to-remove-president-boluarte/a-74300885
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4) US jobless claims — and layoffs — are still low. Unofficially, that is.
Source: MarketWatch
“The most accurate tool to track job losses in the economy has been postponed for a second week in a row, but a little legwork finds that layoffs are still surprisingly low even in these economically uncertain times. A pair of Wall Street firms estimate that initial jobless claims rose slightly to 224,000 in the week ended Sept. 27 from 218,000 in the prior week. The government shutdown began just a few days later. That would leave the number of new unemployment filings near the low point for the year. In short, the U.S. is still experiencing what economists call a ‘low-hire, low-fire’ labor market. Most businesses aren’t adding jobs, but they aren’t cutting many, either. The two Wall Street firms, Goldman Sachs and Oxford Economics, drew up their estimates after looking at publicly released data from all states and territories.” (10/09/25)
https://archive.is/1aq8x
-----
5) New York AG Letitia James is Trump “I’m butthurt, so lawfare” campaign’s next target
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“New York Attorney General Letitia James has been criminally indicted on federal charges by a grand jury. James, who led a civil fraud investigation against Trump in 2023, was indicted on charges of bank fraud in the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria, according to court documents. Prosecutors accuse James of alleged bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution regarding a mortgage loan for a house in Norfolk, Virginia, the documents state. … Trump last month called on US Attorney General Pam Bondi, who leads the justice department, in a social media post to prosecute his political opponents, including James.” (10/09/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g9n4xj904o
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6) UK regime signs $468 million deal to supply Indian regime with missiles
Source: Reuters
“Britain said on Thursday it had signed a 350 million pound ($468 million) contract to supply the Indian army with UK-manufactured lightweight missiles, as part of a deepening weapons and defence [sic] partnership between the two countries. The announcement came as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was visiting Indian Prime counterpart Narendra Modi in Mumbai, where the pair hailed the potential of the commercial links from their months-old trade deal. … Britain also said on Thursday it reached a new milestone with India on a tie-up for electric-powered engines for naval ships as both countries signed the next phase of a deal, worth an initial 250 million pounds.” (10/09/25)
https://archive.is/6nGIm
-----
7) Pope Leo urges US bishops to speak about Trump’s immigration crackdown after being shown migrants’ letters
Source: CBS News
“The Texas bishop on the front lines of the U.S. immigration crackdown met Wednesday with Pope Leo XIV, bringing him a packet of letters from immigrant families ‘terrorized’ by fear that they and their loved ones will be rounded up and deported as the Trump administration’s tactics grow increasingly combative. El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz also showed Leo a video detailing the plight of migrants, and told The Associated Press afterward that Leo vowed to ‘stand with’ them and the Catholic leaders who are trying to help them. ‘He had a few words for us, thanking us for our commitment to the immigrant peoples and also saying that he hopes that the bishops’ conference will speak to this issue,’ said Seitz, chair of the migration committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.” (10/09/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pope-leo-trump-immigration-crackdown-migrant-letters/
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8) Hungary’s László Krasznahorkai wins Nobel Prize in literature for work confronting “apocalyptic terror”
Source: CNN
“The 2025 Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to László Krasznahorkai, a Hungarian writer who said his dark and difficult novels aim to examine reality ‘to the point of madness.’ Announcing the prize at a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, on Thursday, the Nobel Committee praised Krasznahorkai ‘for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.’ … Born in Gyula, Hungary, in 1954 – two years before the Hungarian Revolution that was met with brutal repression by the Soviet Union – Krasznahorkai has previously said he grew up ‘in a predicament and a country where a person accursed with a heightened aesthetic and moral sensitivity like me simply cannot survive.’” (10/09/25)
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/09/style/laszlo-krasznahorkai-nobel-prize-literature-intl
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9) TX: Court blocks government employees’ pre-planned killing of prisoner
Source: Texas Tribune
“Texas’[s] highest criminal court on Thursday blocked Robert Roberson’s [killing by state employees] a week before it was set to take place, sending his case back to trial court. Roberson was convicted of capital murder in 2003 for the death of his two-year-old daughter Nikki, who was diagnosed with shaken baby syndrome. He has maintained his innocence over more than 20 years on death row, with his attorneys arguing that the science behind Nikki’s shaken baby diagnosis no longer held up. He was scheduled to be executed on Oct. 16. After previously denying his recent appeals, largely on procedural grounds, the all-Republican Court of Criminal Appeals granted Roberson’s request for a stay of execution under Texas’[s] groundbreaking 2013 junk science law, which provides for a second look when the science driving a conviction has since been debunked.” (10/09/25)
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/10/09/robert-roberson-execution-blocked-texas-court-of-criminal-appeals/
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10) Fetterman Joins GOP to Kill War Powers Resolution Against Trump’s Caribbean Murder Spree
Source: Common Dreams
“With Democratic Sen. John Fetterman joining Republicans in opposing a measure to rein in President Donald Trump’s ability to unilaterally bomb ships in the Caribbean Sea, the US Senate narrowly failed to advance a war powers resolution Wednesday. Since the beginning of September, Trump has conducted four strikes on vessels off the coast of Venezuela which the administration has alleged, with little evidence, are carrying ‘narco-terrorists’ spiriting illegal drugs to the United States. Trump has also deployed thousands of sailors and marines to the Venezuelan coast and is reportedly considering strikes on the Venezuelan mainland, which has stoked fears within the country and across Latin America of another regime-change war.” (10/09/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/news/senate-votes-down-venezuela-war-powers
-----
11) China: Regime tightens rare earth export controls, targets military, semiconductor users
Source: Reuters
“China tightened its rare earth export controls on Thursday, expanding restrictions on processing technology and spelling out its intention to limit exports to overseas defence and semiconductor users. The Ministry of Commerce’s announcement, which follows a U.S. lawmakers’ call on Tuesday for broader bans on the export of chipmaking equipment to China, expands sweeping controls Beijing announced in April that caused shortages around the world before a series of deals with Europe and the U.S. eased the supply crunch. The controls are a major bargaining chip for China in its trade talks with the United States, and the tightening comes weeks ahead of a face-to-face meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in South Korea.” (10/09/25)
https://archive.is/X8n7O
-----
12) Study: The hidden reason scientists say bottled water may not be the cleaner choice
Source: Fox News
“Microplastics are a known threat to overall health — and eating and drinking from plastic containers, like water bottles, could be a great offender, researchers suggest. A new study published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials analyzed 141 existing scientific papers on microplastics and nanoplastics from single-use plastic water bottles to gauge how much plastic people may be ingesting. Researchers at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, discovered that the average person consumes 39,000 to 52,000 microplastic particles per year, according to a university press release. Individuals who drink bottled water regularly ingest up to 90,000 more particles each year than those who drink mainly tap water, the study found. The researchers noted that nanoplastics are especially concerning, as they’re invisible to the naked eye and smaller than 1 micron. They can also enter human cells, cross biological barriers and have the potential to reach organs and tissues, they cautioned.” (10/09/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/health/hidden-reason-scientists-say-bottled-water-may-not-cleaner-choice
-----
13) Ebola outbreak in Congo shows signs of containment, WHO says
Source: CBC News [Canadian state media]
“The Ebola outbreak in Congo shows signs of containment, with no new confirmed or probable cases since the World Health Organization’s last update on Oct. 1, the UN health agency said on Wednesday. As of Sunday, a total of 64 cases, including 11 probable cases and 43 deaths, were reported in Congo’s Kasai Province, the WHO added. The total deaths included 11 probable deaths.” (10/08/25)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/ebola-congo-who-9.6932065
-----
14) Judge gives more time to name new prosecutor in Trump’s Georgia election case
Source: The Hill
“The Georgia agency that recently took over the 2020 election interference criminal case against President Trump and his allies won an extension Thursday to name a prosecutor to oversee the case. Judge Scott McAfee gave the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council (PAC) until Nov. 14 to provide a name, a delay from his original two-week deadline but not as far as PAC wanted. The agency took over after Georgia’s courts disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) from bringing Trump to trial after her romantic relationship with a prosecutor she hired to work on the case came to light. PAC, which is tasked with supporting prosecutors and law enforcement across Georgia, is responsible for finding a substitute when a district attorney’s office has a conflict of interest.” (10/09/25)
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5547260-georgia-trump-election-interference-case/
-----
15) Colombia: Petro says US regime forces may have murdered Colombian citizens
Source: ABC News
“Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro said Wednesday there were ‘signs’ that Colombian citizens were [murdered] in the last small boat attacked by the U.S. military off the coast of Venezuela. ‘A new front in the war has opened: the Caribbean,’ Petro wrote on the social platform X. ‘Signs show that the last bombed boat was Colombian with Colombian citizens aboard.’ He did not provide any explanation for what those signs were. … Last Friday, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the strike on a small boat he accused of carrying drugs in the waters off Venezuela. He said [US forces murdered] four men but offered no details on who they were or what group they belonged to.” (10/09/25)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/us-strike-caribbean-killed-colombian-citizens-president-126348631
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16) US Senate strikes deal to vote on more wasteful and unnecessary military spending
Source: Politico
“The Senate broke a monthlong impasse on its annual defense [sic] policy bill and secured a deal that could see the legislation pass as soon as Thursday. Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) locked in an agreement on the floor to vote on 17 amendments to the National Defense [sic] Authorization Act, a substantial package of less controversial changes and passage of the bill itself ‘at a time to be determined’ by party leaders. … Democrats and Republicans have traded offers for amendments, but have been unable to break the logjam. All 100 senators must agree to quickly hold votes on amendments, meaning any single senator [could heroically] throw up a roadblock and stall the process.” (10/09/25)
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/10/09/congress/senate-strikes-deal-to-vote-on-defense-bill-breaking-impasse-00599809
-----
17) NYC: Regime files frivolous lawsuit against social media giants
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“New York City has filed a lawsuit accusing Facebook, Google, Snapchat, TikTok and other online platforms of fuelling a mental health crisis among children by addicting them to social media. The 327-page complaint filed on Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan seeks damages from Facebook and Instagram owner Meta Platforms, Google and YouTube owner Alphabet, Snapchat owner Snap and TikTok owner ByteDance. It accused the defendants of gross negligence and causing a public nuisance. The city joined other governments, school districts and individuals pursuing about 2,050 similar lawsuits in nationwide litigation in the Oakland, California, federal court.” (10/08/25)
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/10/8/nyc-sues-social-media-giants-for-allegedly-addicting-children
-----
18) Ireland: Presidential Frontrunner Attacks Dublin for Failure to Sanction Israel
Source: US News & World Report
“The frontrunner to become Ireland’s next president has criticised the government for inaction on a planned law to impose sanctions on Israeli settlements in protest over Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Catherine Connolly, an independent leftwing lawmaker backed by the main opposition Sinn Fein party, urged Dublin not to buckle to pressure from big U.S. companies by watering down the law and stopping just a trickle of trade in goods, not services. She was speaking before U.S. President Donald Trump said Israel and Hamas had reached a deal for a ceasefire in Gaza and a hostage release under his plan for ending the two-year-old war in the Palestinian enclave.” (10/09/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-10-09/irish-presidential-frontrunner-attacks-dublin-for-failure-to-sanction-israel
-----
19) New Orleans jail escapee agrees to return to Louisiana after being recaptured in Georgia
Source: SFGate
“New Orleans jail escapee Derrick Groves, who spent nearly five months on the run before being recaptured in Georgia, agreed to be returned to Louisiana in a Thursday court appearance. ‘I want to return where I’m from,’ Groves, a New Orleans native, told a Fulton County magistrate judge during the televised hearing. Groves, who was recaptured Wednesday under a basement crawlspace in an Atlanta home, waived his right to an extradition hearing. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said there are ‘ongoing discussions about the next steps’ for bringing Groves back to the state. A timeline to bring the 28-year-old to the state has not yet been determined, said Sgt. Kate Stegall, a spokesperson with Louisiana State Police. The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections did not immediately respond to request for comment.” (10/09/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/new-orleans-jail-escapee-agrees-to-return-to-21092738.php
-----
20) FL: Unlike other grocers, Publix trusts its customers
Source: Orlando Sentinel
“Publix, Florida’s dominant grocery chain, is now allowing customers across the state to openly carry guns due to a recent court ruling, employees say. Florida began allowing open carry on Sept. 25 after an appeals court overturned the state’s ban on openly carrying firearms, deeming it unconstitutional. Under the law, businesses and other private property owners have the option of banning open carry. Other grocery stores reached by the Orlando Sentinel and the South Florida Sun Sentinel this week said they do not plan to allow open carry, or will ask customers to refrain from bringing in firearms. But Publix, which has a large presence in Florida with more than 900 stores, has opted to allow it, according to those who work there.” (10/08/25)
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/10/08/florida-allows-open-carry-of-guns-so-publix-will-too-workers-say/
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Libertarian Realism: Justin Raimondo’s Challenge to Empire
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Joseph Solis-Mullen
“When the late Justin Raimondo, co-founder and longtime editorial director of Antiwar.com, wrote in 2011 that the anti-interventionist movement needed a ‘big picture’ framework, he was attempting to distill decades of polemic into a theory of international relations. In his essay ‘Looking at the ‘Big Picture,’’ he dubbed this framework ‘Libertarian Realism.’ Though Raimondo never set down a book-length treatise, his insights remain an invitation for libertarians to articulate a systematic foreign policy rooted in their own intellectual traditions. At its core, libertarian realism rests on two pillars: public choice theory and the non-aggression principle (NAP).” (10/09/25)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/libertarian-realism-justin-raimondos-challenge-to-empire
-----
22) Social Security: Instead of Robbing the “Gabillionaires,” Stop Fleecing the “Regular Workers”
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“‘Rather than letting gabillionaires like Elon Musk put practically none of their massive incomes into’ Social Security, Jim Hightower writes at CounterPunch, ‘make them pay Social Security taxes exactly like regular workers do.’ … Elon Musk DOES pay Social Security exactly like regular workers do. Regular workers pay 12.4% — half directly and half theoretically from their employers, but thereby reducing the money available for wages — in Social Security tax on every dollar of income they earn up to $176,000. Elon Musk (and other ‘gabillionaires’) also pay 12.4% in Social Security tax on every dollar of income they earn up to $176,000. … The best thing to do with Social Security, if ‘decent retirements’ is the goal — and, more importantly, if individual freedom and choice are the criteria — is eliminate it.” (10/09/25)
https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20074
-----
23) Let me talk to the longtime libertarians for a minute
Source: Chris Spangle
by Chris Spangle
“If you were a libertarian during [the immediate post-9/11] era, do you remember saying something like, ‘Our interventions create terrorists. When our military invades a country and kills innocents, it is only logical that the rational people living there will fight back?’ That same feedback loop is forming here, and it will reach our cities if we let it. So while I applaud Trump’s efforts to bring peace to the Middle East, we have to be honest that he is not a peace president. We cannot ignore that he gave ICE a budget larger than the Marines, that his administration used Palantir to build an AI-powered surveillance state, and that our government is conditioning us to accept tanks in the streets as if we are under siege when one block in one city has only fifty protestors acting like fools.” (10/09/25)
https://www.chrisspangle.com/p/let-me-talk-to-the-longtime-libertarians
-----
24) An Emersonian Guide to Ridding Yourself of Collective Illusions
Source: The Atlantic
by Arthur C Brooks
“Saying one thing when you believe another is bad for your happiness. As researchers have long shown, this dissonance can induce psychological discomfort when it cannot be resolved. No surprise, then, that such dissonance is a common side effect of social anxiety and also associated with symptoms of depression. It creates a sense of dishonesty and inauthenticity: a gap between collective illusion and individual disillusion, you might say. This is what George Orwell’s concept of ‘doublethink’ identified in his novel 1984 …. The way out of the collective-illusion catch-22 is to conquer the fear of rejection from stating your true opinion. The best guide to this that I have encountered comes from the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, a co-founder of this magazine who helped formulate its motto, ‘Of no party or clique.'” (10/09/25)
https://archive.is/nwYT9
-----
25) Prediction — What Will End The Shutdown
Source: Coyote Blog
by Warren Meyer
“Currently, most Americans seem to be largely carrying on as normal during the Federal government shutdown. I know I am able to pretty much completely ignore it. Looking at front pages of sites like the WSJ and CNN, stories on the shutdown are still there but are certainly not the lead, center pieces. This is the government employee’s nightmare, where they effectively go on strike and no one notices. So where will enough public pain come from to force concessions on one or the other party in Congress? The game used to be closing high visibility public parks to tick the citizens off …. My new hypothesis came from my wife, who was worrying the other day whether we would be able to make some critical flights in early November. I initially scoffed, but thinking about it more, I think the TSA and more particularly the FAA may be the key to this shutdown.” (10/09/25)
https://coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2025/10/prediction-what-will-end-the-shutdown.html
-----
26) Never in a Million Years: Ten Reasons Why Trump Should Never Be Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Source: TomDispatch
by Clarence Lusane
“Who doesn’t know that President Donald Trump desperately wants a Nobel Peace Prize and said bitterly, ‘They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize. It’s too bad. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me?’ And for once, he’s right. He won’t get one, but wrong, of course, that he deserves it. Actually, there are way more than 10 reasons why he doesn’t deserve such a prize, but as 10 is such a nice round number, let me use it.” (10/09/25)
https://tomdispatch.com/never-in-a-million-years/
-----
27) DHS Says Videotaping ICE Agents Is Illegal. Federal Courts Disagree.
Source: Cato Institute
by Walter Olson
“he Trump administration last month made explicit what it has been implying for months, namely that it considers videotaping ICE raids to be illegal and intends to go after those who do it. The administration is, effectively, preparing to defy current law: Federal courts have overwhelmingly held that the First Amendment protects the right to record police activity in public spaces.” (10/09/25)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/dhs-says-videotaping-ice-agents-illegal-federal-courts-disagree
-----
28) Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Source: Cobden Centre
by Tim Price
“There is only a point in regulation if it achieves something of benefit, either to the regulated, or to the customer that is the third edge of this triangle. Unfortunately, in most cases, given the nature of bureaucracy and its interaction with human nature, process entirely replaces outcome. To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To a compliance department, everything that looks like a risk needs to be stamped out. Unfortunately, the fund management industry doesn’t even have a uniform definition of risk. And to be fair, it’s quite likely that most individual clients each have a subtly different definition of the word, too.” (10/09/25)
https://www.cobdencentre.org/2025/10/quis-custodiet-ipsos-custodes/
-----
29) Trump Needs an Enemy to Justify His Power Grab; Enter Venezuela
Source: Foreign Policy In Focus
by John Feffer
“Every autocrat needs an enemy who threatens the country, preferably from both sides of the border. Such an enemy can serve as the reason to suspend the rule of law and boost executive power. For Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it’s been the Kurds. For India’s Narendra Modi, it’s been the Muslims. For Russia’s Vladimir Putin, it was first the Chechens, then Alexei Navalny and his followers, and now the Ukrainians. President Donald Trump has built his political career (and, frankly, his entire personality) on the identification of enemies. His presidential run back in 2016 required belittling his rivals in those early Republican primaries …. These days, everything that goes wrong in the United States he blames on former president Joe Biden (who had the temerity [sic] to beat him in the 2020 presidential election) and ‘the ‘radical left’ (which is basically anyone more liberal than Stephen Miller).” (10/09/25)
https://fpif.org/is-american-carnage-about-to-spread-to-venezuela/
-----
30) The Hidden Risks of the Digital Euro
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes
“The European Central Bank has presented the digital euro as a symbol of financial autonomy and modernization. But, much like the Chinese model that seems to inspire ECB President Christine Lagarde, what is at stake is not just technology: it is the risk of turning a payment instrument into a mechanism of control over every citizen’s transactions. Across the Atlantic, the United States took the opposite path: it legalized stablecoins and banned a centralized digital dollar, strengthening freedom and competition instead of state control.” (10/09/25)
https://fee.org/articles/the-hidden-risks-of-the-digital-euro/
-----
31) They Can’t Arrest Us All
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“My favorite thing about the Gaza flotilla activism we’ve been seeing is that it’s a glaring reminder that ordinary people really can just go up against the machine, and that the more there are the harder it is to stop them. It took Israel more than a day to abduct all the activists on the largest wave of boats because there were so many of them. A significantly greater number would probably have seen some ships land on the Gaza shore. Everything about our society is geared toward stopping us from noticing this dynamic: our education systems, our political systems, our media, our online information.” (10/09/25)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/10/09/new-issue-of-johnstone-they-cant-arrest-us-all/
-----
32) The Doctor Will Kill You Now
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Clayton J Baker, MD
“[I]n less than 10 years, physician-assisted suicide has gone from illegal to both an epidemic [sic] cause of death and a highly successful organ-harvesting source for the organ transplantation industry. Physician-assisted suicide has not slid down the slippery slope in Canada. It has thrown itself off the face of El Capitan. And now, at long last, physician-assisted suicide may be coming to New York.” (10/09/25)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-doctor-will-kill-you-now/
-----
33) Beware Trump’s Ceasefire Deal Absent Meaningful UN Action to Halt Israel’s Genocide
Source: Common Dreams
by Nicolas JS Davies
“As President Donald Trump surely intended, his ’20-point Gaza plan’ succeeded in upstaging calls by many other world leaders at the UN General Assembly for concrete, coordinated UN-led measures to force Israel to end its criminal genocide in Gaza and the illegal occupation of Palestine. Trump’s White House meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on September 29th coincided with the last day of the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York, where Trump had met with eight Arab and Muslim leaders at the UN and won their support for a proposed plan for Gaza. In a textbook bait-and-switch, Trump then allowed the Israelis to significantly alter his plan before he unveiled it to the world at his meeting with Netanyahu, but pretended it was the same plan that the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and other countries had endorsed.” (10/09/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/ceasefire-wont-end-genocide
-----
34) Is The Housing Affordability Crisis an Illusion?
Source: EconLog
by Tyler Watts
“Average home prices remain very close to the all-time highs reached at the beginning of the year. Accordingly, public opinion surveys show rising concern about the issue of housing affordability, and politicians are taking notice. The Trump administration has waded in with a potentially forthcoming national housing emergency declaration so the President can do … something. We may have to wait until a decree is issued to see what exactly Mr. Trump thinks his emergency powers are in the realm of housing policy. But are houses really more expensive over the long run, or is it just an economic mirage?” (10/09/25)
https://www.econlib.org/is-the-housing-affordability-crisis-an-illusion/
-----
35) Prediction as the New Meritocracy: Why the Future of Expertise Will Be Measured, Not Claimed
Source: Bet On It
by Steve Kuhn
“To think is to forecast. A brain, whether biological or artificial, is a device that models the world by predicting its own future states. It guesses what will happen next and updates when it’s wrong. That’s how we move, learn languages, and make decisions. Cognition is prediction in motion. LLMs have shown how far this idea can go. By predicting the next word, they implicitly model physics, politics, and human psychology, because those are embedded in the patterns of text. Intelligence, it turns out, is an emergent property of very good prediction. The smarter the predictor, the richer the internal world model it must build. But LLMs are trained on language. What the world now needs is a system that trains humans on reality, a way to measure and improve real-world prediction itself.” (10/09/25)
https://www.betonit.ai/p/prediction-as-the-new-meritocracy
-----
36) AI won’t just take jobs. It will topple governments.
Source: The Hill
by John Mac Ghlionn
“Governments rise and fall on a simple promise: opportunity. When citizens believe hard work leads to advancement, they stay loyal. When that promise breaks, regimes crumble. Artificial intelligence isn’t just changing the job market. It is shattering the social contract that keeps nations stable. AI displacement creates something far more dangerous than unemployment. It creates educated, capable revolutionaries with nothing left to lose.” (10/09/25)
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5545232-educated-dissidents-ai-rise/
-----
37) Senator Chuck Schumer must end his government shutdown
Source: Fox News
by Hugh Hewitt
“When the troops don’t get paid, the ‘Schumer shutdown’ will cross a red line in the eyes of most normal Americans. The men and women in uniform got their paychecks on October 1 and are scheduled to receive their next check on October 15. Unlike almost everyone else in the federal government currently not getting paid because of the showboating of Chuck Schumer and most of the Senate Democrats, soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and the Coast Guard do not have that option of quitting because they have not been paid. Every other civil servant impacted by the ‘Schumer shutdown’ can simply quit and seek other work.” [editor’s note: The Republicans have the votes to end the shutdown any time they want to. It hasn’t ended yet because they don’t want to end it – TLK] (10/09/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/morning-glory-senator-chuck-schumer-must-end-his-government-shutdown
-----
38) Badger of Economics: Why We Still Need the Austrian School
Source: The Daily Economy
by Amir Iraji
“When mainstream economists forget that only individuals act, bad policy follows. Some economists never stopped reminding us. We ignore them at our continued peril.” (10/09/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/badger-of-economics-why-we-still-need-the-austrian-school/
-----
39) Christian Nationalism is Neither Christian Nor Patriotic
Source: CounterPunch
by Rev. Dr. Caleb Lines & Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin
“[Charlie] Kirk’s service turned heartbreak into the Christian nationalist’s playbook: turn tragedy into recruitment, pulpit into a political rally, and grief into a grievance. As Christian pastors, we know we must speak out loudly against this political abuse of our faith. When our country has a Christian nationalism problem, Christianity itself has a Christian nationalism problem. Christian nationalism is neither Christian nor patriotic. It violates the teachings of Jesus while spitting in the face of the First Amendment.” (10/09/25)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/10/09/christian-nationalism-is-neither-christian-nor-patriotic/
-----
40) Restraint Is Not Weakness
Source: Law & Liberty
by Emma Ashford
“A more modest and sustainable foreign policy is the best option to allow Americans to prosper and be secure.” (10/09/25)
https://lawliberty.org/restraint-is-not-weakness/
-----
41) As Shutdown Wears On, Trump’s Getting Blamed
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“The longest government shutdown in American history was stopped because of a sick-out. Specifically, in early 2019, air traffic controllers, after working for weeks without pay, started to call in sick in increasing numbers, leading to flight delays and travel snarls. Eventually, that got both parties to the table to halt the shutdown after 35 days. The air traffic controllers have recognized their power and decided to get going with things much earlier this time. Delays in Newark, Denver, Hollywood Burbank, Nashville, and many more airports have been reported, even as the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the employee union, has urged members to stop workers from calling out sick. The truth is that the air traffic controller workforce has already been thinned out to such a degree that only ‘a slight tick-up’ in sick calls is enough to ground a lot of planes.” (10/09/25)
https://prospect.org/politics/2025-10-09-shutdown-trump-republicans-air-traffic-controllers/
-----
42) A “Loaded Gun” Pointed at the Media
Source: The Dispatch
by James Kirchick
“Government officials tend to dislike it when their employees disclose information to journalists that casts their department in a negative light. But Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is taking the Cabinet secretary’s natural dislike for press leaks to another level. Last month, Hegseth announced that, going forward, journalists covering the Pentagon will have to sign a pledge to refrain from gathering or publishing information not authorized by the Department of War (the Trump administration’s new moniker for the Department of Defense). … (On Monday, under vocal pressure from the Pentagon press corps, Hegseth walked back the measure). By attempting to prevent journalists from reporting on the inner workings of America’s largest employer and sharing that information with the public, this measure would have essentially prohibited journalism.” (10/09/25)
https://thedispatch.com/debates/espionage-act-debate-journalism-classified-information/
-----
43) Empire by Numbers: 392 US Military Interventions Across Every Region of the World
Source: Antiwar.com
by Michael Holmes
“Monica Duffy Toft and Sidita Kushi’s 2023 book Dying by the Sword is both a work of scholarship and an unflinching indictment. It demolishes the enduring myth of the United States as a hesitant warrior, reluctantly drawn into conflicts by others. Instead, using their Military Intervention Project – the most comprehensive dataset of its kind – they prove that America has been the most interventionist state in modern history.” (10/09/25)
https://original.antiwar.com/michael_holmes/2025/10/08/empire-by-numbers-392-u-s-military-interventions-across-every-region-of-the-world/
-----
44) Trump Gaza Deal will work: If he keeps pressure on Israel
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Trita Parsi
“If not, he risks another failure as his first ceasefire agreement fell by the wayside shortly after hostages were released.” (10/09/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-gaza-deal/
-----
45) Dems letting Antifa take over their cities; Trump is right to send in federal troops
Source: New York Post
by Miranda Devine
“It’s been five years since the nation was terrorized by Antifa militants rioting, attacking cops, throwing Molotov cocktails, setting streets ablaze, breaking shop windows, vandalizing cars, targeting journalists and hurting innocent people. They used the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police as an excuse for strategic mayhem designed to destabilize Donald Trump’s first administration and strike fear in the hearts of law-abiding Americans, some of whom wrongly thought that if they voted out Trump, the pain would stop. In one sense, they were right. … it was all sweetness and light when Joe Biden was installed in the White House. The price of peace was giving the left what it wants: the destruction of this country.” [editor’s note: I wish they’d hurry up and give Devine her lifetime achievement World Fantasy Award so she can retire – TLK] (10/08/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/10/08/opinion/the-dems-are-letting-antifa-take-over-their-cities-trump-is-right-to-send-federal-troops-to-maintain-order/
-----
46) Too Big for the Hermit Kingdom
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“North Koreans endure one of the least fun-loving, most sensuality-repressing regimes on the planet. Normally, government officials in the Hermit Kingdom strictly enforce all manner of regimentation and self-deprivation, at least for those being ruled. If you’re a happy citizen in North Korea, check the map. You are not in North Korea. There may be light at the end of the tunnel, though. Kim Jong-un’s administration has put out an all-points edict, also all-areolas, ordering North Koreans to be on the lookout for women with un-socialist breasts.” (10/09/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/10/09/too-big-for-the-hermit-kingdom/
-----
47) NATO Goes Mad
Source: The American Conservative
by Doug Bandow
“Eight decades after the end of the Second World War, 600 million Europeans continue to expect 340 million Americans to defend them against 140 million Russians. Despite the enormous frustration over Europe’s policy lassitude expressed by a cavalcade of American policymakers, even today, in the Age of Trump, Europeans remain overwhelmingly dependent on Washington for their security. President Donald Trump’s eruptions have caused America’s allies to create elaborate charades to convince him that his dictates are being followed, but the recently announced 5 percent GDP standard for military outlays allows 1.5 percent for civilian purposes and won’t take effect until he has long been out of office. One suspects that European governments will then press for reconsideration of the NATO requirement.” (10/09/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/nato-goes-mad/
-----
48) Is a Liberal Realignment Emerging from the Rubble of MAGA Authoritarianism?
Source: The UnPopulist
by Michael Wood
“Democrats have an opportunity to champion a confident, forward-looking market liberalism given that the GOP has fully returned to its reactionary roots.” (10/08/25)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/is-a-liberal-realignment-emerging
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49) The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler
Source: In These Times
by Aina Marzia
“The summer before Susana M. Morris turned 16 — an age when she ‘wasn’t quite grown but not a kid anymore either’ — she read Octavia Butler’s 1993 novel, Parable of the Sower, first encountering the Black teenage girl at its center. As an adult reckoning with America’s political climate, Morris describes Trump’s ’encouragement of violence against journalists and detractors’ as something right out of the 1998 sequel, Parable of the Talents. Now a scholar of Black feminism at Georgia Tech, Morris has taught the novel countless times, noting that nearly every student reacts with the same question: How did Octavia know? New admirers of Butler’s work might otherwise struggle to imagine the Butler who faced rejection letters and once pawned her typewriter to pay bills before catching her big break years later.” (10/09/25)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/octavia-butler-biography-positive-obssession-scifi
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50) Student trust in Ivy Leagues is declining — thanks to Harvard, Penn, and Columbia
Source: Expression
by Chapin Lenthall-Cleary
“One of the main reasons we have universities is to give people the space to debate tough, even unpopular, ideas in the search for truth. We give these institutions a lot of influence on the assumption they will prioritize that mission over any particular agenda. But as more people see universities as hostile to open debate, it’s crucial — especially for elite schools that draw national attention — that they prove they’re still worthy of that trust.” (10/08/25)
https://expression.fire.org/p/student-trust-in-ivy-leagues-is-declining
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) The Libertarian Angle, 10/09/25
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“The Critical Importance of Civil Liberties with Jim Bovard.” (10/09/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA0WsPvn9mc
-----
52) Conflicts of Interest, episode 844
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Trump Calls Off Talks, Prepares for War in Venezuela.” (10/09/25)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/kyle/coi-844-trump-calls-off-talks-prepares-for-war-in-venezuela
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53) Half the Answer, episode 39
Source: Liberal Currents
“What Is Antifa, and How Do You Catch a Fascist?” (10/09/25)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/half-the-answer-39-what-is-antifa-and-how-do-you-catch-a-fascist/
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54) Rising, 10/09/25
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave delivers his radar on Rand Paul’s (R – Ky.) condemnation of President Trump’s air strikes on boats coming from Venezuela, and his efforts to give war powers back to congress.” (10/09/25)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5546862-rising-october-9-2025/
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55) The Political Orphanage, 10/09/25
Source: The Political Orphanage
“How Texas Blocked Pornhub.” (10/09/25)
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/how-texas-blocked-pornhub
-----
56) The Fifth Column, episode 527
Source: The Fifth Column
“War is Over (If Hamas Wants It).” (10/09/25)
https://www.wethefifth.com/p/527-war-is-over-if-hamas-wants-it
-----
57) Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, 10/09/25
Source: Politico
“What Trump said about a peace deal in the Middle East.” (10/09/25)
https://traffic.megaphone.fm/POLL6189681944.mp3?updated=1759987705
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58) The Good Fight, 10/09/25
Source: Yascha Mounk
“Yascha Mounk and David French have a therapy session about Trump 2.0. and the weakness of the Democrats.” (10/09/25)
https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/david-french
-----
59) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 10/09/25
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Threats to Jail Foes Take Darker Turn with Damning New DOJ Leaks.” (10/09/25)
https://newrepublic.com/article/201526/trump-threats-jail-foes-take-darker-turn-damning-new-doj-leaks
-----
60) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/09/25
Source: Antiwar.com
“Hamas and Israel Agree on Gaza Ceasefire Deal, US Working To ‘Eliminate’ Maduro, and More.” (10/09/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0eMSmoxjVM
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61) Fountainhead Forum, episode 369
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Rose Leatherman on Charlie Kirk, Iryna Zarutska, and the USA Libertarian Party.” (10/08/25)
https://rumble.com/v7026x6-ff-369-rose-leatherman-on-charlie-kirk-iryna-zarutska-and-the-usa-libertari.html
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62) The Tom Woods Show, episode 2698
Source: The Tom Woods Show
“Mike Adams on RFK, Jr., vs. the World.” (10/08/25)
https://tomwoods.com/ep-2698-mike-adams-on-rfk-jr-vs-the-world/
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63) LPA Solidarity Stream 9
Source: LP Alliance
“The Death Penalty.” (10/08/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsXjdlawlJs
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64) The Learning Curve, 10/08/25
Source: Pioneer Institute
“U-Ark’s Robert Maranto & BASIS Ed Texas’ Sean Woytek on Academically Intensive Charter Schools.” (10/08/25)
https://pioneerinstitute.org/featured/u-arks-robert-maranto-basis-ed-texas-sean-woytek-on-academically-intensive-charter-schools/
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65) Reason Versus National Review: Is Mass Immigration Good for America?
Source: Reason
“Katherine Mangu-Ward and Alex Nowrasteh squared off against Rich Lowry and Steven Camarota to debate immigration.” (10/08/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/10/08/reason-versus-national-review-is-mass-immigration-good-for-america/
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1) Palestine: Israeli forces start pulling back from parts of Gaza under ceasefire deal
Source: Reuters
“Israeli troops began pulling back from some parts of Gaza on Friday under a ceasefire deal with Hamas, and some residents returned to shattered neighbourhoods amid confusion over when hostilities will be suspended after two years of warfare. … Israel’s government ratified the ceasefire with Hamas in the early hours of Friday, clearing the way to suspend hostilities in Gaza within 24 hours and free Israeli hostages held there within 72 hours after that. The first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump’s initiative to end the two-year war in Gaza calls for the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian [hostages], and the start of a withdrawal of Israeli troops.” (10/10/25)
https://archive.is/mNHDI
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2) Ukraine: “Massive” Russian triggers blackouts and sets high-rise alight
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“The Ukrainian capital was plunged into darkness early on Friday by what the air force called a ‘massive attack,’ as Russia pummelled Kyiv’s infrastructure, cutting off water and energy supplies and triggering a fire in a high-rise apartment building. Kyiv’s mayor said Russian forces had targeted ‘critical infrastructure’ and nine people had been injured, with five of them taken to hospital. Vitali Klitschko also said power cuts and disruptions to the water supply had hit districts on the east bank of the Dnipro River that runs through the city. Pictures posted online showed apartments ablaze as firefighters moved into position. Fragments from downed drones also struck several parts of the city.” (10/10/25)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/10/russian-attack-kyiv-ukraine-capital-blackouts-sets-high-rise-alight
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3) Peru: Congress votes to remove President Boluarte
Source: Deutsche Welle [German state media]
“Peru’s Congress on Friday voted to remove deeply unpopular President Dina Boluarte from office, citing her government’s inability to curb crime. Before midnight on Thursday, lawmakers requested that Boluarte appear before them to defend herself. When she did not appear, shortly after midnight, lawmakers voted to oust Boluarte from office. In contrast to the previous eight attempts to remove her, almost all legislative factions have expressed support for the latest impeachment requests. Congress leader Jose Jeri announced that 118 out of 122 lawmakers voted for her impeachment, removing her from the presidency, citing her ‘moral incapacity’ to carry out her duties.” (10/10/25)
https://www.dw.com/en/peru-congress-votes-to-remove-president-boluarte/a-74300885
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4) US jobless claims — and layoffs — are still low. Unofficially, that is.
Source: MarketWatch
“The most accurate tool to track job losses in the economy has been postponed for a second week in a row, but a little legwork finds that layoffs are still surprisingly low even in these economically uncertain times. A pair of Wall Street firms estimate that initial jobless claims rose slightly to 224,000 in the week ended Sept. 27 from 218,000 in the prior week. The government shutdown began just a few days later. That would leave the number of new unemployment filings near the low point for the year. In short, the U.S. is still experiencing what economists call a ‘low-hire, low-fire’ labor market. Most businesses aren’t adding jobs, but they aren’t cutting many, either. The two Wall Street firms, Goldman Sachs and Oxford Economics, drew up their estimates after looking at publicly released data from all states and territories.” (10/09/25)
https://archive.is/1aq8x
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5) New York AG Letitia James is Trump “I’m butthurt, so lawfare” campaign’s next target
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“New York Attorney General Letitia James has been criminally indicted on federal charges by a grand jury. James, who led a civil fraud investigation against Trump in 2023, was indicted on charges of bank fraud in the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria, according to court documents. Prosecutors accuse James of alleged bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution regarding a mortgage loan for a house in Norfolk, Virginia, the documents state. … Trump last month called on US Attorney General Pam Bondi, who leads the justice department, in a social media post to prosecute his political opponents, including James.” (10/09/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g9n4xj904o
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6) UK regime signs $468 million deal to supply Indian regime with missiles
Source: Reuters
“Britain said on Thursday it had signed a 350 million pound ($468 million) contract to supply the Indian army with UK-manufactured lightweight missiles, as part of a deepening weapons and defence [sic] partnership between the two countries. The announcement came as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was visiting Indian Prime counterpart Narendra Modi in Mumbai, where the pair hailed the potential of the commercial links from their months-old trade deal. … Britain also said on Thursday it reached a new milestone with India on a tie-up for electric-powered engines for naval ships as both countries signed the next phase of a deal, worth an initial 250 million pounds.” (10/09/25)
https://archive.is/6nGIm
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7) Pope Leo urges US bishops to speak about Trump’s immigration crackdown after being shown migrants’ letters
Source: CBS News
“The Texas bishop on the front lines of the U.S. immigration crackdown met Wednesday with Pope Leo XIV, bringing him a packet of letters from immigrant families ‘terrorized’ by fear that they and their loved ones will be rounded up and deported as the Trump administration’s tactics grow increasingly combative. El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz also showed Leo a video detailing the plight of migrants, and told The Associated Press afterward that Leo vowed to ‘stand with’ them and the Catholic leaders who are trying to help them. ‘He had a few words for us, thanking us for our commitment to the immigrant peoples and also saying that he hopes that the bishops’ conference will speak to this issue,’ said Seitz, chair of the migration committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.” (10/09/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pope-leo-trump-immigration-crackdown-migrant-letters/
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8) Hungary’s László Krasznahorkai wins Nobel Prize in literature for work confronting “apocalyptic terror”
Source: CNN
“The 2025 Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to László Krasznahorkai, a Hungarian writer who said his dark and difficult novels aim to examine reality ‘to the point of madness.’ Announcing the prize at a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, on Thursday, the Nobel Committee praised Krasznahorkai ‘for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.’ … Born in Gyula, Hungary, in 1954 – two years before the Hungarian Revolution that was met with brutal repression by the Soviet Union – Krasznahorkai has previously said he grew up ‘in a predicament and a country where a person accursed with a heightened aesthetic and moral sensitivity like me simply cannot survive.’” (10/09/25)
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/09/style/laszlo-krasznahorkai-nobel-prize-literature-intl
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9) TX: Court blocks government employees’ pre-planned killing of prisoner
Source: Texas Tribune
“Texas’[s] highest criminal court on Thursday blocked Robert Roberson’s [killing by state employees] a week before it was set to take place, sending his case back to trial court. Roberson was convicted of capital murder in 2003 for the death of his two-year-old daughter Nikki, who was diagnosed with shaken baby syndrome. He has maintained his innocence over more than 20 years on death row, with his attorneys arguing that the science behind Nikki’s shaken baby diagnosis no longer held up. He was scheduled to be executed on Oct. 16. After previously denying his recent appeals, largely on procedural grounds, the all-Republican Court of Criminal Appeals granted Roberson’s request for a stay of execution under Texas’[s] groundbreaking 2013 junk science law, which provides for a second look when the science driving a conviction has since been debunked.” (10/09/25)
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/10/09/robert-roberson-execution-blocked-texas-court-of-criminal-appeals/
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10) Fetterman Joins GOP to Kill War Powers Resolution Against Trump’s Caribbean Murder Spree
Source: Common Dreams
“With Democratic Sen. John Fetterman joining Republicans in opposing a measure to rein in President Donald Trump’s ability to unilaterally bomb ships in the Caribbean Sea, the US Senate narrowly failed to advance a war powers resolution Wednesday. Since the beginning of September, Trump has conducted four strikes on vessels off the coast of Venezuela which the administration has alleged, with little evidence, are carrying ‘narco-terrorists’ spiriting illegal drugs to the United States. Trump has also deployed thousands of sailors and marines to the Venezuelan coast and is reportedly considering strikes on the Venezuelan mainland, which has stoked fears within the country and across Latin America of another regime-change war.” (10/09/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/news/senate-votes-down-venezuela-war-powers
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11) China: Regime tightens rare earth export controls, targets military, semiconductor users
Source: Reuters
“China tightened its rare earth export controls on Thursday, expanding restrictions on processing technology and spelling out its intention to limit exports to overseas defence and semiconductor users. The Ministry of Commerce’s announcement, which follows a U.S. lawmakers’ call on Tuesday for broader bans on the export of chipmaking equipment to China, expands sweeping controls Beijing announced in April that caused shortages around the world before a series of deals with Europe and the U.S. eased the supply crunch. The controls are a major bargaining chip for China in its trade talks with the United States, and the tightening comes weeks ahead of a face-to-face meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in South Korea.” (10/09/25)
https://archive.is/X8n7O
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12) Study: The hidden reason scientists say bottled water may not be the cleaner choice
Source: Fox News
“Microplastics are a known threat to overall health — and eating and drinking from plastic containers, like water bottles, could be a great offender, researchers suggest. A new study published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials analyzed 141 existing scientific papers on microplastics and nanoplastics from single-use plastic water bottles to gauge how much plastic people may be ingesting. Researchers at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, discovered that the average person consumes 39,000 to 52,000 microplastic particles per year, according to a university press release. Individuals who drink bottled water regularly ingest up to 90,000 more particles each year than those who drink mainly tap water, the study found. The researchers noted that nanoplastics are especially concerning, as they’re invisible to the naked eye and smaller than 1 micron. They can also enter human cells, cross biological barriers and have the potential to reach organs and tissues, they cautioned.” (10/09/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/health/hidden-reason-scientists-say-bottled-water-may-not-cleaner-choice
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13) Ebola outbreak in Congo shows signs of containment, WHO says
Source: CBC News [Canadian state media]
“The Ebola outbreak in Congo shows signs of containment, with no new confirmed or probable cases since the World Health Organization’s last update on Oct. 1, the UN health agency said on Wednesday. As of Sunday, a total of 64 cases, including 11 probable cases and 43 deaths, were reported in Congo’s Kasai Province, the WHO added. The total deaths included 11 probable deaths.” (10/08/25)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/ebola-congo-who-9.6932065
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14) Judge gives more time to name new prosecutor in Trump’s Georgia election case
Source: The Hill
“The Georgia agency that recently took over the 2020 election interference criminal case against President Trump and his allies won an extension Thursday to name a prosecutor to oversee the case. Judge Scott McAfee gave the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council (PAC) until Nov. 14 to provide a name, a delay from his original two-week deadline but not as far as PAC wanted. The agency took over after Georgia’s courts disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) from bringing Trump to trial after her romantic relationship with a prosecutor she hired to work on the case came to light. PAC, which is tasked with supporting prosecutors and law enforcement across Georgia, is responsible for finding a substitute when a district attorney’s office has a conflict of interest.” (10/09/25)
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5547260-georgia-trump-election-interference-case/
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15) Colombia: Petro says US regime forces may have murdered Colombian citizens
Source: ABC News
“Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro said Wednesday there were ‘signs’ that Colombian citizens were [murdered] in the last small boat attacked by the U.S. military off the coast of Venezuela. ‘A new front in the war has opened: the Caribbean,’ Petro wrote on the social platform X. ‘Signs show that the last bombed boat was Colombian with Colombian citizens aboard.’ He did not provide any explanation for what those signs were. … Last Friday, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the strike on a small boat he accused of carrying drugs in the waters off Venezuela. He said [US forces murdered] four men but offered no details on who they were or what group they belonged to.” (10/09/25)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/us-strike-caribbean-killed-colombian-citizens-president-126348631
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16) US Senate strikes deal to vote on more wasteful and unnecessary military spending
Source: Politico
“The Senate broke a monthlong impasse on its annual defense [sic] policy bill and secured a deal that could see the legislation pass as soon as Thursday. Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) locked in an agreement on the floor to vote on 17 amendments to the National Defense [sic] Authorization Act, a substantial package of less controversial changes and passage of the bill itself ‘at a time to be determined’ by party leaders. … Democrats and Republicans have traded offers for amendments, but have been unable to break the logjam. All 100 senators must agree to quickly hold votes on amendments, meaning any single senator [could heroically] throw up a roadblock and stall the process.” (10/09/25)
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/10/09/congress/senate-strikes-deal-to-vote-on-defense-bill-breaking-impasse-00599809
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17) NYC: Regime files frivolous lawsuit against social media giants
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“New York City has filed a lawsuit accusing Facebook, Google, Snapchat, TikTok and other online platforms of fuelling a mental health crisis among children by addicting them to social media. The 327-page complaint filed on Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan seeks damages from Facebook and Instagram owner Meta Platforms, Google and YouTube owner Alphabet, Snapchat owner Snap and TikTok owner ByteDance. It accused the defendants of gross negligence and causing a public nuisance. The city joined other governments, school districts and individuals pursuing about 2,050 similar lawsuits in nationwide litigation in the Oakland, California, federal court.” (10/08/25)
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/10/8/nyc-sues-social-media-giants-for-allegedly-addicting-children
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18) Ireland: Presidential Frontrunner Attacks Dublin for Failure to Sanction Israel
Source: US News & World Report
“The frontrunner to become Ireland’s next president has criticised the government for inaction on a planned law to impose sanctions on Israeli settlements in protest over Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Catherine Connolly, an independent leftwing lawmaker backed by the main opposition Sinn Fein party, urged Dublin not to buckle to pressure from big U.S. companies by watering down the law and stopping just a trickle of trade in goods, not services. She was speaking before U.S. President Donald Trump said Israel and Hamas had reached a deal for a ceasefire in Gaza and a hostage release under his plan for ending the two-year-old war in the Palestinian enclave.” (10/09/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-10-09/irish-presidential-frontrunner-attacks-dublin-for-failure-to-sanction-israel
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19) New Orleans jail escapee agrees to return to Louisiana after being recaptured in Georgia
Source: SFGate
“New Orleans jail escapee Derrick Groves, who spent nearly five months on the run before being recaptured in Georgia, agreed to be returned to Louisiana in a Thursday court appearance. ‘I want to return where I’m from,’ Groves, a New Orleans native, told a Fulton County magistrate judge during the televised hearing. Groves, who was recaptured Wednesday under a basement crawlspace in an Atlanta home, waived his right to an extradition hearing. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said there are ‘ongoing discussions about the next steps’ for bringing Groves back to the state. A timeline to bring the 28-year-old to the state has not yet been determined, said Sgt. Kate Stegall, a spokesperson with Louisiana State Police. The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections did not immediately respond to request for comment.” (10/09/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/new-orleans-jail-escapee-agrees-to-return-to-21092738.php
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20) FL: Unlike other grocers, Publix trusts its customers
Source: Orlando Sentinel
“Publix, Florida’s dominant grocery chain, is now allowing customers across the state to openly carry guns due to a recent court ruling, employees say. Florida began allowing open carry on Sept. 25 after an appeals court overturned the state’s ban on openly carrying firearms, deeming it unconstitutional. Under the law, businesses and other private property owners have the option of banning open carry. Other grocery stores reached by the Orlando Sentinel and the South Florida Sun Sentinel this week said they do not plan to allow open carry, or will ask customers to refrain from bringing in firearms. But Publix, which has a large presence in Florida with more than 900 stores, has opted to allow it, according to those who work there.” (10/08/25)
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/10/08/florida-allows-open-carry-of-guns-so-publix-will-too-workers-say/
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Libertarian Realism: Justin Raimondo’s Challenge to Empire
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Joseph Solis-Mullen
“When the late Justin Raimondo, co-founder and longtime editorial director of Antiwar.com, wrote in 2011 that the anti-interventionist movement needed a ‘big picture’ framework, he was attempting to distill decades of polemic into a theory of international relations. In his essay ‘Looking at the ‘Big Picture,’’ he dubbed this framework ‘Libertarian Realism.’ Though Raimondo never set down a book-length treatise, his insights remain an invitation for libertarians to articulate a systematic foreign policy rooted in their own intellectual traditions. At its core, libertarian realism rests on two pillars: public choice theory and the non-aggression principle (NAP).” (10/09/25)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/libertarian-realism-justin-raimondos-challenge-to-empire
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22) Social Security: Instead of Robbing the “Gabillionaires,” Stop Fleecing the “Regular Workers”
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“‘Rather than letting gabillionaires like Elon Musk put practically none of their massive incomes into’ Social Security, Jim Hightower writes at CounterPunch, ‘make them pay Social Security taxes exactly like regular workers do.’ … Elon Musk DOES pay Social Security exactly like regular workers do. Regular workers pay 12.4% — half directly and half theoretically from their employers, but thereby reducing the money available for wages — in Social Security tax on every dollar of income they earn up to $176,000. Elon Musk (and other ‘gabillionaires’) also pay 12.4% in Social Security tax on every dollar of income they earn up to $176,000. … The best thing to do with Social Security, if ‘decent retirements’ is the goal — and, more importantly, if individual freedom and choice are the criteria — is eliminate it.” (10/09/25)
https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20074
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23) Let me talk to the longtime libertarians for a minute
Source: Chris Spangle
by Chris Spangle
“If you were a libertarian during [the immediate post-9/11] era, do you remember saying something like, ‘Our interventions create terrorists. When our military invades a country and kills innocents, it is only logical that the rational people living there will fight back?’ That same feedback loop is forming here, and it will reach our cities if we let it. So while I applaud Trump’s efforts to bring peace to the Middle East, we have to be honest that he is not a peace president. We cannot ignore that he gave ICE a budget larger than the Marines, that his administration used Palantir to build an AI-powered surveillance state, and that our government is conditioning us to accept tanks in the streets as if we are under siege when one block in one city has only fifty protestors acting like fools.” (10/09/25)
https://www.chrisspangle.com/p/let-me-talk-to-the-longtime-libertarians
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24) An Emersonian Guide to Ridding Yourself of Collective Illusions
Source: The Atlantic
by Arthur C Brooks
“Saying one thing when you believe another is bad for your happiness. As researchers have long shown, this dissonance can induce psychological discomfort when it cannot be resolved. No surprise, then, that such dissonance is a common side effect of social anxiety and also associated with symptoms of depression. It creates a sense of dishonesty and inauthenticity: a gap between collective illusion and individual disillusion, you might say. This is what George Orwell’s concept of ‘doublethink’ identified in his novel 1984 …. The way out of the collective-illusion catch-22 is to conquer the fear of rejection from stating your true opinion. The best guide to this that I have encountered comes from the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, a co-founder of this magazine who helped formulate its motto, ‘Of no party or clique.'” (10/09/25)
https://archive.is/nwYT9
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25) Prediction — What Will End The Shutdown
Source: Coyote Blog
by Warren Meyer
“Currently, most Americans seem to be largely carrying on as normal during the Federal government shutdown. I know I am able to pretty much completely ignore it. Looking at front pages of sites like the WSJ and CNN, stories on the shutdown are still there but are certainly not the lead, center pieces. This is the government employee’s nightmare, where they effectively go on strike and no one notices. So where will enough public pain come from to force concessions on one or the other party in Congress? The game used to be closing high visibility public parks to tick the citizens off …. My new hypothesis came from my wife, who was worrying the other day whether we would be able to make some critical flights in early November. I initially scoffed, but thinking about it more, I think the TSA and more particularly the FAA may be the key to this shutdown.” (10/09/25)
https://coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2025/10/prediction-what-will-end-the-shutdown.html
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26) Never in a Million Years: Ten Reasons Why Trump Should Never Be Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Source: TomDispatch
by Clarence Lusane
“Who doesn’t know that President Donald Trump desperately wants a Nobel Peace Prize and said bitterly, ‘They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize. It’s too bad. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me?’ And for once, he’s right. He won’t get one, but wrong, of course, that he deserves it. Actually, there are way more than 10 reasons why he doesn’t deserve such a prize, but as 10 is such a nice round number, let me use it.” (10/09/25)
https://tomdispatch.com/never-in-a-million-years/
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27) DHS Says Videotaping ICE Agents Is Illegal. Federal Courts Disagree.
Source: Cato Institute
by Walter Olson
“he Trump administration last month made explicit what it has been implying for months, namely that it considers videotaping ICE raids to be illegal and intends to go after those who do it. The administration is, effectively, preparing to defy current law: Federal courts have overwhelmingly held that the First Amendment protects the right to record police activity in public spaces.” (10/09/25)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/dhs-says-videotaping-ice-agents-illegal-federal-courts-disagree
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28) Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Source: Cobden Centre
by Tim Price
“There is only a point in regulation if it achieves something of benefit, either to the regulated, or to the customer that is the third edge of this triangle. Unfortunately, in most cases, given the nature of bureaucracy and its interaction with human nature, process entirely replaces outcome. To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To a compliance department, everything that looks like a risk needs to be stamped out. Unfortunately, the fund management industry doesn’t even have a uniform definition of risk. And to be fair, it’s quite likely that most individual clients each have a subtly different definition of the word, too.” (10/09/25)
https://www.cobdencentre.org/2025/10/quis-custodiet-ipsos-custodes/
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29) Trump Needs an Enemy to Justify His Power Grab; Enter Venezuela
Source: Foreign Policy In Focus
by John Feffer
“Every autocrat needs an enemy who threatens the country, preferably from both sides of the border. Such an enemy can serve as the reason to suspend the rule of law and boost executive power. For Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it’s been the Kurds. For India’s Narendra Modi, it’s been the Muslims. For Russia’s Vladimir Putin, it was first the Chechens, then Alexei Navalny and his followers, and now the Ukrainians. President Donald Trump has built his political career (and, frankly, his entire personality) on the identification of enemies. His presidential run back in 2016 required belittling his rivals in those early Republican primaries …. These days, everything that goes wrong in the United States he blames on former president Joe Biden (who had the temerity [sic] to beat him in the 2020 presidential election) and ‘the ‘radical left’ (which is basically anyone more liberal than Stephen Miller).” (10/09/25)
https://fpif.org/is-american-carnage-about-to-spread-to-venezuela/
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30) The Hidden Risks of the Digital Euro
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes
“The European Central Bank has presented the digital euro as a symbol of financial autonomy and modernization. But, much like the Chinese model that seems to inspire ECB President Christine Lagarde, what is at stake is not just technology: it is the risk of turning a payment instrument into a mechanism of control over every citizen’s transactions. Across the Atlantic, the United States took the opposite path: it legalized stablecoins and banned a centralized digital dollar, strengthening freedom and competition instead of state control.” (10/09/25)
https://fee.org/articles/the-hidden-risks-of-the-digital-euro/
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31) They Can’t Arrest Us All
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“My favorite thing about the Gaza flotilla activism we’ve been seeing is that it’s a glaring reminder that ordinary people really can just go up against the machine, and that the more there are the harder it is to stop them. It took Israel more than a day to abduct all the activists on the largest wave of boats because there were so many of them. A significantly greater number would probably have seen some ships land on the Gaza shore. Everything about our society is geared toward stopping us from noticing this dynamic: our education systems, our political systems, our media, our online information.” (10/09/25)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/10/09/new-issue-of-johnstone-they-cant-arrest-us-all/
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32) The Doctor Will Kill You Now
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Clayton J Baker, MD
“[I]n less than 10 years, physician-assisted suicide has gone from illegal to both an epidemic [sic] cause of death and a highly successful organ-harvesting source for the organ transplantation industry. Physician-assisted suicide has not slid down the slippery slope in Canada. It has thrown itself off the face of El Capitan. And now, at long last, physician-assisted suicide may be coming to New York.” (10/09/25)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-doctor-will-kill-you-now/
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33) Beware Trump’s Ceasefire Deal Absent Meaningful UN Action to Halt Israel’s Genocide
Source: Common Dreams
by Nicolas JS Davies
“As President Donald Trump surely intended, his ’20-point Gaza plan’ succeeded in upstaging calls by many other world leaders at the UN General Assembly for concrete, coordinated UN-led measures to force Israel to end its criminal genocide in Gaza and the illegal occupation of Palestine. Trump’s White House meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on September 29th coincided with the last day of the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York, where Trump had met with eight Arab and Muslim leaders at the UN and won their support for a proposed plan for Gaza. In a textbook bait-and-switch, Trump then allowed the Israelis to significantly alter his plan before he unveiled it to the world at his meeting with Netanyahu, but pretended it was the same plan that the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and other countries had endorsed.” (10/09/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/ceasefire-wont-end-genocide
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34) Is The Housing Affordability Crisis an Illusion?
Source: EconLog
by Tyler Watts
“Average home prices remain very close to the all-time highs reached at the beginning of the year. Accordingly, public opinion surveys show rising concern about the issue of housing affordability, and politicians are taking notice. The Trump administration has waded in with a potentially forthcoming national housing emergency declaration so the President can do … something. We may have to wait until a decree is issued to see what exactly Mr. Trump thinks his emergency powers are in the realm of housing policy. But are houses really more expensive over the long run, or is it just an economic mirage?” (10/09/25)
https://www.econlib.org/is-the-housing-affordability-crisis-an-illusion/
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35) Prediction as the New Meritocracy: Why the Future of Expertise Will Be Measured, Not Claimed
Source: Bet On It
by Steve Kuhn
“To think is to forecast. A brain, whether biological or artificial, is a device that models the world by predicting its own future states. It guesses what will happen next and updates when it’s wrong. That’s how we move, learn languages, and make decisions. Cognition is prediction in motion. LLMs have shown how far this idea can go. By predicting the next word, they implicitly model physics, politics, and human psychology, because those are embedded in the patterns of text. Intelligence, it turns out, is an emergent property of very good prediction. The smarter the predictor, the richer the internal world model it must build. But LLMs are trained on language. What the world now needs is a system that trains humans on reality, a way to measure and improve real-world prediction itself.” (10/09/25)
https://www.betonit.ai/p/prediction-as-the-new-meritocracy
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36) AI won’t just take jobs. It will topple governments.
Source: The Hill
by John Mac Ghlionn
“Governments rise and fall on a simple promise: opportunity. When citizens believe hard work leads to advancement, they stay loyal. When that promise breaks, regimes crumble. Artificial intelligence isn’t just changing the job market. It is shattering the social contract that keeps nations stable. AI displacement creates something far more dangerous than unemployment. It creates educated, capable revolutionaries with nothing left to lose.” (10/09/25)
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5545232-educated-dissidents-ai-rise/
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37) Senator Chuck Schumer must end his government shutdown
Source: Fox News
by Hugh Hewitt
“When the troops don’t get paid, the ‘Schumer shutdown’ will cross a red line in the eyes of most normal Americans. The men and women in uniform got their paychecks on October 1 and are scheduled to receive their next check on October 15. Unlike almost everyone else in the federal government currently not getting paid because of the showboating of Chuck Schumer and most of the Senate Democrats, soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and the Coast Guard do not have that option of quitting because they have not been paid. Every other civil servant impacted by the ‘Schumer shutdown’ can simply quit and seek other work.” [editor’s note: The Republicans have the votes to end the shutdown any time they want to. It hasn’t ended yet because they don’t want to end it – TLK] (10/09/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/morning-glory-senator-chuck-schumer-must-end-his-government-shutdown
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38) Badger of Economics: Why We Still Need the Austrian School
Source: The Daily Economy
by Amir Iraji
“When mainstream economists forget that only individuals act, bad policy follows. Some economists never stopped reminding us. We ignore them at our continued peril.” (10/09/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/badger-of-economics-why-we-still-need-the-austrian-school/
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39) Christian Nationalism is Neither Christian Nor Patriotic
Source: CounterPunch
by Rev. Dr. Caleb Lines & Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin
“[Charlie] Kirk’s service turned heartbreak into the Christian nationalist’s playbook: turn tragedy into recruitment, pulpit into a political rally, and grief into a grievance. As Christian pastors, we know we must speak out loudly against this political abuse of our faith. When our country has a Christian nationalism problem, Christianity itself has a Christian nationalism problem. Christian nationalism is neither Christian nor patriotic. It violates the teachings of Jesus while spitting in the face of the First Amendment.” (10/09/25)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/10/09/christian-nationalism-is-neither-christian-nor-patriotic/
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40) Restraint Is Not Weakness
Source: Law & Liberty
by Emma Ashford
“A more modest and sustainable foreign policy is the best option to allow Americans to prosper and be secure.” (10/09/25)
https://lawliberty.org/restraint-is-not-weakness/
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41) As Shutdown Wears On, Trump’s Getting Blamed
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“The longest government shutdown in American history was stopped because of a sick-out. Specifically, in early 2019, air traffic controllers, after working for weeks without pay, started to call in sick in increasing numbers, leading to flight delays and travel snarls. Eventually, that got both parties to the table to halt the shutdown after 35 days. The air traffic controllers have recognized their power and decided to get going with things much earlier this time. Delays in Newark, Denver, Hollywood Burbank, Nashville, and many more airports have been reported, even as the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the employee union, has urged members to stop workers from calling out sick. The truth is that the air traffic controller workforce has already been thinned out to such a degree that only ‘a slight tick-up’ in sick calls is enough to ground a lot of planes.” (10/09/25)
https://prospect.org/politics/2025-10-09-shutdown-trump-republicans-air-traffic-controllers/
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42) A “Loaded Gun” Pointed at the Media
Source: The Dispatch
by James Kirchick
“Government officials tend to dislike it when their employees disclose information to journalists that casts their department in a negative light. But Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is taking the Cabinet secretary’s natural dislike for press leaks to another level. Last month, Hegseth announced that, going forward, journalists covering the Pentagon will have to sign a pledge to refrain from gathering or publishing information not authorized by the Department of War (the Trump administration’s new moniker for the Department of Defense). … (On Monday, under vocal pressure from the Pentagon press corps, Hegseth walked back the measure). By attempting to prevent journalists from reporting on the inner workings of America’s largest employer and sharing that information with the public, this measure would have essentially prohibited journalism.” (10/09/25)
https://thedispatch.com/debates/espionage-act-debate-journalism-classified-information/
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43) Empire by Numbers: 392 US Military Interventions Across Every Region of the World
Source: Antiwar.com
by Michael Holmes
“Monica Duffy Toft and Sidita Kushi’s 2023 book Dying by the Sword is both a work of scholarship and an unflinching indictment. It demolishes the enduring myth of the United States as a hesitant warrior, reluctantly drawn into conflicts by others. Instead, using their Military Intervention Project – the most comprehensive dataset of its kind – they prove that America has been the most interventionist state in modern history.” (10/09/25)
https://original.antiwar.com/michael_holmes/2025/10/08/empire-by-numbers-392-u-s-military-interventions-across-every-region-of-the-world/
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44) Trump Gaza Deal will work: If he keeps pressure on Israel
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Trita Parsi
“If not, he risks another failure as his first ceasefire agreement fell by the wayside shortly after hostages were released.” (10/09/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-gaza-deal/
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45) Dems letting Antifa take over their cities; Trump is right to send in federal troops
Source: New York Post
by Miranda Devine
“It’s been five years since the nation was terrorized by Antifa militants rioting, attacking cops, throwing Molotov cocktails, setting streets ablaze, breaking shop windows, vandalizing cars, targeting journalists and hurting innocent people. They used the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police as an excuse for strategic mayhem designed to destabilize Donald Trump’s first administration and strike fear in the hearts of law-abiding Americans, some of whom wrongly thought that if they voted out Trump, the pain would stop. In one sense, they were right. … it was all sweetness and light when Joe Biden was installed in the White House. The price of peace was giving the left what it wants: the destruction of this country.” [editor’s note: I wish they’d hurry up and give Devine her lifetime achievement World Fantasy Award so she can retire – TLK] (10/08/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/10/08/opinion/the-dems-are-letting-antifa-take-over-their-cities-trump-is-right-to-send-federal-troops-to-maintain-order/
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46) Too Big for the Hermit Kingdom
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“North Koreans endure one of the least fun-loving, most sensuality-repressing regimes on the planet. Normally, government officials in the Hermit Kingdom strictly enforce all manner of regimentation and self-deprivation, at least for those being ruled. If you’re a happy citizen in North Korea, check the map. You are not in North Korea. There may be light at the end of the tunnel, though. Kim Jong-un’s administration has put out an all-points edict, also all-areolas, ordering North Koreans to be on the lookout for women with un-socialist breasts.” (10/09/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/10/09/too-big-for-the-hermit-kingdom/
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47) NATO Goes Mad
Source: The American Conservative
by Doug Bandow
“Eight decades after the end of the Second World War, 600 million Europeans continue to expect 340 million Americans to defend them against 140 million Russians. Despite the enormous frustration over Europe’s policy lassitude expressed by a cavalcade of American policymakers, even today, in the Age of Trump, Europeans remain overwhelmingly dependent on Washington for their security. President Donald Trump’s eruptions have caused America’s allies to create elaborate charades to convince him that his dictates are being followed, but the recently announced 5 percent GDP standard for military outlays allows 1.5 percent for civilian purposes and won’t take effect until he has long been out of office. One suspects that European governments will then press for reconsideration of the NATO requirement.” (10/09/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/nato-goes-mad/
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48) Is a Liberal Realignment Emerging from the Rubble of MAGA Authoritarianism?
Source: The UnPopulist
by Michael Wood
“Democrats have an opportunity to champion a confident, forward-looking market liberalism given that the GOP has fully returned to its reactionary roots.” (10/08/25)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/is-a-liberal-realignment-emerging
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49) The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler
Source: In These Times
by Aina Marzia
“The summer before Susana M. Morris turned 16 — an age when she ‘wasn’t quite grown but not a kid anymore either’ — she read Octavia Butler’s 1993 novel, Parable of the Sower, first encountering the Black teenage girl at its center. As an adult reckoning with America’s political climate, Morris describes Trump’s ’encouragement of violence against journalists and detractors’ as something right out of the 1998 sequel, Parable of the Talents. Now a scholar of Black feminism at Georgia Tech, Morris has taught the novel countless times, noting that nearly every student reacts with the same question: How did Octavia know? New admirers of Butler’s work might otherwise struggle to imagine the Butler who faced rejection letters and once pawned her typewriter to pay bills before catching her big break years later.” (10/09/25)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/octavia-butler-biography-positive-obssession-scifi
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50) Student trust in Ivy Leagues is declining — thanks to Harvard, Penn, and Columbia
Source: Expression
by Chapin Lenthall-Cleary
“One of the main reasons we have universities is to give people the space to debate tough, even unpopular, ideas in the search for truth. We give these institutions a lot of influence on the assumption they will prioritize that mission over any particular agenda. But as more people see universities as hostile to open debate, it’s crucial — especially for elite schools that draw national attention — that they prove they’re still worthy of that trust.” (10/08/25)
https://expression.fire.org/p/student-trust-in-ivy-leagues-is-declining
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) The Libertarian Angle, 10/09/25
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“The Critical Importance of Civil Liberties with Jim Bovard.” (10/09/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA0WsPvn9mc
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52) Conflicts of Interest, episode 844
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Trump Calls Off Talks, Prepares for War in Venezuela.” (10/09/25)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/kyle/coi-844-trump-calls-off-talks-prepares-for-war-in-venezuela
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53) Half the Answer, episode 39
Source: Liberal Currents
“What Is Antifa, and How Do You Catch a Fascist?” (10/09/25)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/half-the-answer-39-what-is-antifa-and-how-do-you-catch-a-fascist/
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54) Rising, 10/09/25
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave delivers his radar on Rand Paul’s (R – Ky.) condemnation of President Trump’s air strikes on boats coming from Venezuela, and his efforts to give war powers back to congress.” (10/09/25)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5546862-rising-october-9-2025/
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55) The Political Orphanage, 10/09/25
Source: The Political Orphanage
“How Texas Blocked Pornhub.” (10/09/25)
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/how-texas-blocked-pornhub
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56) The Fifth Column, episode 527
Source: The Fifth Column
“War is Over (If Hamas Wants It).” (10/09/25)
https://www.wethefifth.com/p/527-war-is-over-if-hamas-wants-it
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57) Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, 10/09/25
Source: Politico
“What Trump said about a peace deal in the Middle East.” (10/09/25)
https://traffic.megaphone.fm/POLL6189681944.mp3?updated=1759987705
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58) The Good Fight, 10/09/25
Source: Yascha Mounk
“Yascha Mounk and David French have a therapy session about Trump 2.0. and the weakness of the Democrats.” (10/09/25)
https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/david-french
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59) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 10/09/25
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Threats to Jail Foes Take Darker Turn with Damning New DOJ Leaks.” (10/09/25)
https://newrepublic.com/article/201526/trump-threats-jail-foes-take-darker-turn-damning-new-doj-leaks
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60) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/09/25
Source: Antiwar.com
“Hamas and Israel Agree on Gaza Ceasefire Deal, US Working To ‘Eliminate’ Maduro, and More.” (10/09/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0eMSmoxjVM
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61) Fountainhead Forum, episode 369
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Rose Leatherman on Charlie Kirk, Iryna Zarutska, and the USA Libertarian Party.” (10/08/25)
https://rumble.com/v7026x6-ff-369-rose-leatherman-on-charlie-kirk-iryna-zarutska-and-the-usa-libertari.html
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62) The Tom Woods Show, episode 2698
Source: The Tom Woods Show
“Mike Adams on RFK, Jr., vs. the World.” (10/08/25)
https://tomwoods.com/ep-2698-mike-adams-on-rfk-jr-vs-the-world/
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63) LPA Solidarity Stream 9
Source: LP Alliance
“The Death Penalty.” (10/08/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsXjdlawlJs
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64) The Learning Curve, 10/08/25
Source: Pioneer Institute
“U-Ark’s Robert Maranto & BASIS Ed Texas’ Sean Woytek on Academically Intensive Charter Schools.” (10/08/25)
https://pioneerinstitute.org/featured/u-arks-robert-maranto-basis-ed-texas-sean-woytek-on-academically-intensive-charter-schools/
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65) Reason Versus National Review: Is Mass Immigration Good for America?
Source: Reason
“Katherine Mangu-Ward and Alex Nowrasteh squared off against Rich Lowry and Steven Camarota to debate immigration.” (10/08/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/10/08/reason-versus-national-review-is-mass-immigration-good-for-america/
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