09/18 -- European Commission calls for freezing of free trade with Israel over Gaza; Bury the "words are violence" cliché
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Thomas L. Knapp
Sep 18, 2025, 6:27:20 AMSep 18
to Freedom News Daily
Freedom News Daily, 09/18/25
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Produced by the staff of Rational Review News Digest
https://news.rationalreview.com/
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Today's Freedom News:
1) European Commission calls for freezing of free trade with Israel over Gaza
2) Disney’s ABC pulls “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after FCC gang shot-caller’s threats
3) Fed approves quarter-point interest rate cut and sees two more coming this year
4) Ukraine: Regime expects $3.5 billion fund for US weapons to sustain fight against Russia, Zelenskyy says
5) Trump says he’s going to pretend anti-fascism is terrorism
6) University of California students, professors sue Trump regime
7) Scientists claim they’ve made “pivotal step” in bringing back the dodo for first time in 300 years
8) Sources: Trump official pressure federal prosecutors to bring charges against New York AG
9) IL: Chicago father dies in crash after smash-and-grab suspect flees with $700k of Louis Vuitton goods
10) Tests show Navalny was poisoned in jail, his widow says
11) Guineans to Vote on Constitution That Would Let Coup Leader Run for Office
12) France: Gold worth $700,000 stolen from Paris’s Natural History Museum amid string of similar heists
13) NY: Dementia patient, 95, accused of killing Holocaust survivor wheeled into court
14) Retired US Navy admiral sentenced to six years in prison for bribery plot
15) Niger: Gunmen kill 22 in shooting at baptism ceremony
16) Ben & Jerry’s cofounder leaves firm amid dispute with Unilever over Gaza
17) Ecuador: Regime declares state of emergency over diesel price protests
18) Judge won’t release identities of two women once described as potential co-conspirators of Epstein
19) Trump regime pleads for Newsom to veto “despicable” California anti-police-state law
20) South Korea: Unification Church leader questioned about alleged bribery of former first lady
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Bury the “words are violence” cliché
22) Only Classical Liberalism Can Prevent Tragedies Like the Killing of Charlie Kirk
23) Does Anybody Care This Is the Worst Bribery Scandal Since Teapot Dome?
24) Killing over opinions is depraved
25) Trump Has a Habit of Asserting Broad, Unreviewable Authority
26) Israel Is Committing Genocide. This Is a Fact, Not an Opinion
27) Adam Smith on Duty and “the Great Division” of the Human Spirit
28) The Terrible Smallness of Public Killers
29) Trump’s Revitalized Drug War: Really About Old-Fashioned US Imperialism
30) Saudi-China Relations
31) Juggling change and challenges at the UN
32) The Instinct to Hurt Those with Whom One Disagrees
33) Trump Wants “Denuclearization” … But Does Washington?
34) A seamlessly unserious president
35) Preference Falsification, Marginal Cost, and Cancel Culture
36) Adam Smith in Acadia: The Virtue of Self-Command
37) Stop the Pentagon’s mad September spending spree; save us from wasting billion$
38) Cheap Advice for the Fed
39) Britain’s Bathroom Ban
40) Shooting Down Russian Drones Over Poland: Who Is Trying To Start World War 3?
41) New Mexico’s Billion-Dollar Oilfield Orphans
42) US think tanks are the world’s least transparent
43) Reining in Rogue Presidents
44) The Pandemic of Fake Jobs
45) Why 62% of young Americans falling for “pop Marxism”
46) Why everything Pam Bondi said about “hate speech” is wrong
47) The UK is the censorship capital of the West
48) The Attorney General’s Attack on Free Speech
49) Trump Admin Brazenly Exploiting Charlie Kirk’s Killing to Silence Dissent
50) Other Presidents Tried to Heal America After Political Violence — Trump Is Dividing It
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) The Political Orphanage, 09/17/25
52) Rising, 09/16/25
53) The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, 09/17/25
54) Freakonomics Radio, 09/17/25
55) Reason Interview: Joe Dolce
56) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 09/17/25
57) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 09/17/25
58) System Update, episode 516
59) Free Speech Out Loud, 09/16/25
60) Politics Politics Politics, 09/17/25
61) Underthrow Podcast, 09/16/25
62) Nonzero, 09/16/25
63) Soho Forum Debate: Should Paying for Sex Be a Crime?
64) Activism, Uncensored, 09/16/25
65) Trump Watch, 09/16/25
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) European Commission calls for freezing of free trade with Israel over Gaza
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“The EU executive has called for a suspension of free trade with Israel and sanctions on two far-right Israeli ministers in response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Ursula von der Leyen had already floated the proposal to suspend the trade parts of the EU-Israel association agreement last week as the European Commission faced intense pressure for greater action amid criticism that it was not using its economic leverage to influence the Israeli government. There is, however, no certain majority from EU member states for the proposals outlined on Wednesday, because Germany, one of Israel’s key allies, has long been reluctant to take such steps.” (09/17/25)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/17/european-commission-calls-for-freezing-of-free-trade-with-israel-over-gaza
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2) Disney’s ABC pulls “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after FCC gang shot-caller’s threats
Source: NBC News
“Disney’s ABC said Wednesday it has pulled ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ off the air ‘indefinitely’ following the late-night host’s comments Monday about the motivations of the man who authorities say fatally shot conservative activist Charlie Kirk. During his monologue Monday night, Kimmel criticized Republicans for how they responded to Kirk’s killing. ‘The MAGA gang [is] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,’ Kimmel said. Kimmel’s representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment on ABC’s decision. … ABC’s move comes just hours after Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr threatened to ‘take action’ against Disney and ABC over Kimmel’s remarks.” (09/17/25)
https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/tv/disneys-abc-pulls-jimmy-kimmel-live-fcc-chair-blasts-hosts-charlie-kir-rcna232033
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3) Fed approves quarter-point interest rate cut and sees two more coming this year
Source: CNBC
“The Federal Reserve on Wednesday approved a widely anticipated rate cut and signaled that two more are on the way before the end of the year as concerns intensified over the U.S. labor market. In an 11-to-1 vote signaling less dissent than Wall Street had anticipated, the Federal Open Market Committee lowered its benchmark overnight lending rate by a quarter percentage point. The decision puts the overnight funds rate in a range between 4.00%-4.25%. Newly-installed Governor Stephen Miran was the only policymaker voting against the quarter-point move, instead advocating for a half-point cut.” (09/17/25)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/17/fed-rate-decision-september-2025.html
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4) Ukraine: Regime expects $3.5 billion fund for US weapons to sustain fight against Russia, Zelenskyy says
Source: Associated Press
“Ukraine expects there will be around $3.5 billion by next month in a fund to buy weapons from the United States and help sustain its more than three-year fight against Russia’s all-out invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday. The financial arrangement known as the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, or PURL, pools contributions from NATO members, except the United States, to purchase American weapons, munitions and equipment. … Meanwhile, a U.S.-Ukraine fund devised to spur investments in the Ukrainian mineral sector is set to launch with $150 million of seed capital, senior Ukrainian officials said Wednesday.” (09/17/25)
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-us-weapons-minerals-86894a9ce6c86cede42d1adca8569d5e
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5) Trump says he’s going to pretend anti-fascism is terrorism
Source: The Hill
“President Trump said late Wednesday that he is designating the far-left activist movement Antifa as a terrorist organization. ‘I am pleased to inform our many U.S.A. Patriots that I am designating ANTIFA, A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION,’ the president wrote in a post on Truth Social. … It is unclear who the designation would be implemented by as Antifa does not have a defined leadership o[r] a centralized structure.” (09/17/25)
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5509256-trump-anti-fascist-antifa-movement-terrorist-organization/
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6) University of California students, professors sue Trump regime
Source: The Hill
“A group consisting of University of California (UC) students, faculty, staff and labor unions is suing the Trump administration, alleging violations of their academic freedom and free speech rights. The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in US District Court for the Northern District of California, accuses the Trump administration of attempting to ‘commandeer this public university system and to purge from its campuses viewpoints with which the President and his administration’ disagree. Last month, the administration fined the University of California, Los Angeles $1.2 billion and halted federal research funding after the Justice Department (DOJ) found the school violated federal civil rights law. A judge, though, ordered the administration to restore a portion of that $584 million in funding on Aug. 15. The DOJ, in its July report, accused UCLA of ‘acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students.'” (09/17/25)
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5507654-lawsuit-trump-uc-students/
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7) Scientists claim they’ve made “pivotal step” in bringing back the dodo for first time in 300 years
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“Colossal Biosciences said on Wednesday it has succeeded in growing pigeon primordial germ cells, precursor cells to sperm and eggs, for the first time. This is a “pivotal step” in bringing back the dodo, which was a type of pigeon, for the first time in more than 300 years, according to Colossal. The Texas-based company, which has made splashy headlines for its plans to reestablish wooly mammoths and dire wolves, said it has also developed gene-edited chickens that will act as surrogates for the dodos. The chickens will be injected with primordial germ cells from Nicobar pigeons, the closest living relatives of dodos, which will in time, after gene edits to recreate the create the desired body and head shape, allow them to breed dodos.” (09/17/25)
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/sep/17/dodo-birds-gene-editing-advance
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8) Sources: Trump official pressure federal prosecutors to bring charges against New York AG
Source: ABC News
“Top Trump administration officials are pressuring federal prosecutors in Virginia to bring charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James for mortgage fraud, despite investigators so far failing to find sufficient evidence supporting such charges, according to sources familiar with the investigation. After a five-month investigation and interviews with more than a dozen witnesses, federal prosecutors have so far uncovered no clear evidence that James knowingly made false statements to a financial institution to secure favorable terms on a mortgage for her Virginia home, according to multiple sources briefed on the investigation. Trump himself has pressured the Department of Justice leadership to investigate James more aggressively, and two officials — Ed Martin, the head of the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group, and Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency — have pushed the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia to seek an indictment of James.” (09/17/25)
https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-officials-pressuring-federal-prosecutors-bring-criminal-charges/story?id=125636577
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9) IL: Chicago father dies in crash after smash-and-grab suspect flees with $700k of Louis Vuitton goods
Source: Fox News
“An innocent dad was hit and killed by a suspect who police say was fleeing a smash-and-grab robbery on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. Mark Arceta was driving his normal route to work at a local hospital when he was killed. The 40-year-old now leaves behind a baby boy, who was born just one day after his death. … The Chicago Police Department (CPD) says the suspect behind the wheel of the car, 30-year-old Dejuan Wingard, was driving nearly 100 mph at the time of the crash. Investigators say he was part of a theft crew that broke into a Louis Vuitton store on Michigan Avenue. The crime was caught on camera as one suspect was seen driving a truck through the store windows. The suspects then went inside and stole nearly $700,000 in merchandise, according to court records.” (09/17/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/us/chicago-father-dies-crash-after-smash-and-grab-suspect-flees-700k-louis-vuitton-goods
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10) Tests show Navalny was poisoned in jail, his widow says
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“The wife of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has said he was killed by poisoning while serving a prison sentence in an Arctic penal colony in 2024. In a video shared on social media, Yulia Navalnaya said analysis of smuggled biological samples carried out by laboratories in two countries showed that her husband had been ‘murdered.’ She did not provide details on the poison allegedly used, on the samples or on the analysis – but challenged the two laboratories to publish their results. Navalny – an anti-corruption campaigner and Russia’s most vociferous opposition leader – died suddenly in jail on 16 February 2024 at the age of 47. … he had been in jail for three years on trumped-up charges and had recently been transferred to a penal colony in the Arctic Circle.” (09/17/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ye0x28vzqo
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11) Guineans to Vote on Constitution That Would Let Coup Leader Run for Office
Source: US News & World Report
“Guinea is set to vote on Sunday in a referendum on a new constitution that would permit junta leader Mamady Doumbouya to run for president, something he vowed not to do when he seized power four years ago. Wednesday is the final day of campaigning for the referendum, the latest attempt at a political transition in West and Central Africa, where eight coups between 2020 and 2023 reshaped the regional political landscape. A transition charter adopted after the September 2021 coup said junta members would be barred from standing in the next national and local elections, but the new constitution does not include that language. Doumbouya has not said what his plans are. His critics have criticised the referendum as a power grab.” (09/17/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-09-17/guinea-to-vote-on-constitution-that-would-let-coup-leader-run-for-office
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12) France: Gold worth $700,000 stolen from Paris’s Natural History Museum amid string of similar heists
Source: CBS News
“Thieves have broken into Paris’s Natural History Museum, making off with gold samples worth $700,000 in the latest of a worrying series of robberies from cultural institutions, according to the museum. Famed for its dinosaur skeletons and stuffed animals, the National Natural History Museum in the chic 5th district of the French capital also houses a geology and mineralogy gallery. A break-in was detected on Tuesday morning, with the intruders reportedly using an angle grinder and a blow torch to force their way into the river-side complex that is popular with Parisians and tourists. ‘The theft concerns several specimens of native gold from the national collections held by the museum,’ the museum’s press office told AFP late on Tuesday.” (09/17/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gold-stolen-from-paris-natural-history-museum/
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13) NY: Dementia patient, 95, accused of killing Holocaust survivor wheeled into court
Source: New York Post
“A 95-year-old dementia patient was charged Wednesday with bludgeoning an elderly Holocaust survivor to death inside a Brooklyn nursing home — as prosecutors revealed grisly new details of the shocking crime. Galina Smirnova, looking confused and frail in a wheelchair in court, was hit with murder and weapons charges and ordered held at the Bellevue Hospital jail ward as prosecutors described the bloody scene at the Seagate Rehabilitation and Nursing Center on Coney Island for the first time. Smirnova is accused of killing Nina Kravtsov, 89, with the pedal from her wheelchair Sunday night. … Smirnova’s lawyer, Legal Aid attorney Erin Darcy, held off on requesting bail for her client before her next court appearance on Friday — which means the elderly accused killer will be held at Bellevue. … Prosecutors had asked that Smirnova be held without bail. Meanwhile, the judge denied a request for a psychiatric examination, saying it was premature.” (09/17/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/09/17/us-news/dementia-patient-95-accused-of-grisly-killing-of-holocaust-survivor-wheeled-into-court-as-disturbing-details-revealed/
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14) Retired US Navy admiral sentenced to six years in prison for bribery plot
Source: Orlando Sentinel
“A retired four-star U.S. Navy admiral was sentenced on Tuesday to six years in prison for his conviction on corruption charges that he agreed to exchange a military contract for a lucrative postretirement job. Retired Adm. Robert P. Burke — once the second-highest uniformed officer in the Navy — was commanding its forces in Europe and Africa when he engaged in a bribery plot with two business executives, according to federal prosecutors. A jury convicted Burke of four counts, including conspiracy and accepting a bribe, after a trial in May. A separate trial for Burke’s two co-defendants — Next Jump co-CEOs Yongchul ‘Charlie’ Kim and Meghan Messenger — ended with a hung jury and a mistrial last Thursday.” (09/16/25)
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/09/16/navy-admiral-bribery/
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15) Niger: Gunmen kill 22 in shooting at baptism ceremony
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Gunmen on motorbikes have shot dead 22 people, most of them attending a baptism ceremony, in an attack on a village in western Niger, reports say. A resident told the French news agency AFP that 15 people were killed at the ceremony in Tillabéri region, which borders Mali and Burkina Faso, before moving elsewhere and killing seven others. … Niger’s military government has struggled to contain jihadist violence in the region, carried out by groups linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State.” (09/17/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce863x3g7jko
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16) Ben & Jerry’s cofounder leaves firm amid dispute with Unilever over Gaza
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Ben & Jerry’s cofounder Jerry Greenfield has retired after nearly 50 years, accusing the United Kingdom-based parent company Unilever of silencing the ice cream brand’s social mission, particularly regarding Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, according to his business partner Ben Cohen. … Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s have clashed since 2021, when the Vermont-based company said it would stop sales in the occupied West Bank as doing so was ‘inconsistent with our values.’ The brand has since sued its parent company over alleged efforts to silence it and described Israel’s war on Gaza as ‘genocide,’ a rare stance for a big US company.” (09/17/25)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/17/ben-jerrys-cofounder-leaves-firm-amid-dispute-with-unilever-over-gaza
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17) Ecuador: Regime declares state of emergency over diesel price protests
Source: Fox News
“Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa on Tuesday implemented a 60-day state of emergency in an attempt to quell massive protests that broke out following his surprise removal of a diesel subsidy last week. The decree was issued across seven of the nation’s two dozen provinces following ‘severe internal disturbance’ and mobilized armed forces and national police. … Footage of the protests showed Ecuadorians clashing with police forces in the capital city of Quito on Tuesday as protesters dismantled fences and barriers while police fired tear gas in the streets. … The ongoing clashes came after the government on Friday announced it would eliminate the nation’s diesel subsidy starting Saturday and redirect the funds to social programs in an attempt to alleviate the country’s straining finances.” (09/17/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/world/state-emergency-declared-violent-protests-rock-south-american-nation-over-diesel-price-hikes
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18) Judge won’t release identities of two women once described as potential co-conspirators of Epstein
Source: San Diego Union-Tribune
“The identities of two women once listed as potential co-conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein will remain sealed for their safety and privacy, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. In a written decision, Judge Richard M. Berman rejected an NBC News request to make their identities public after lawyers for the women and the U.S. Justice Department opposed the unsealing request. He wrote that threats to the safety of the individuals persist and releasing their names would threaten their safety and privacy. … Prosecutors acknowledged that their names had been publicly associated with Epstein and his alleged sexual assault on girls and young women over two decades. Epstein obtained protection for both individuals in a nonprosecution agreement he signed with federal prosecutors in Florida in 2007.” (09/16/25)
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2025/09/16/epstein-co-conspirators-identities/
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19) Trump regime pleads for Newsom to veto “despicable” California anti-police-state law
Source: SFGate
“Last week, the California Legislature passed the No Secret Police Act, authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco, which would ban the use of masks for federal and local law enforcement. It’s now up to the governor to sign the bill into law. Newsom’s decision will have implications on the way raids are conducted in California, as the Trump administration continues conducting the operations. … The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday released a statement calling for Newsom to veto the bill, defending the use of masks as a protective measure for [thugs affiliated with ICE and other gangs], who would otherwise be forced to show their full faces and could be targeted by [other] ‘vicious criminals.’ Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called the bill ‘despicable.'” (09/17/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/trump-admin-pleads-newsom-veto-anti-ice-law-21051873.php
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20) South Korea: Unification Church leader questioned about alleged bribery of former first lady
Source: ABC News
“The leader of the Unification Church was questioned by investigators on Wednesday over allegations that the church bribed the wife of South Korea’s jailed former President Yoon Suk Yeol and a conservative lawmaker close to him in an effort to secure business favors. Hak Ja Han, the widow of church founder Sun Myung Moon, appeared before a special prosecutor just hours after a Seoul court issued an arrest warrant for the lawmaker, People Power Party’s Kweon Seong-dong, citing concerns he might destroy evidence. Han and her church have denied accusations that the church was directly involved in the alleged bribery of Yoon’s now-arrested wife, Kim Keon Hee, who is suspected of receiving luxury gifts from a jailed former church official, saying the official had overstepped his authority and acted on his own.” (09/16/25)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/unification-church-leader-questioned-alleged-bribery-south-koreas-125646584
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Bury the “words are violence” cliché
Source: Expression
by Greg Lukianoff
“When news broke of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the reaction of thousands of young Americans online was one of delight. One TikTok user chuckled: ‘Live by the sword, die by the sword. He did say that gun deaths were an acceptable side effect of gun rights.’ On X, someone wrote: ‘He is a fascist. Spreads hate, racism, bigotry, misinformation, gets shot. Reap what you sow.’ In the minds of these gleeful posters, Kirk deserved to die because of his words — words that allegedly promoted policies resulting in hate, violence, and even death. They think this way because they have forgotten — or have been trained to unlearn — a crucial distinction: Words are not bullets.” (09/17/25)
https://expression.fire.org/p/bury-the-words-are-violence-cliche
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22) Only Classical Liberalism Can Prevent Tragedies Like the Killing of Charlie Kirk
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Richard M Ebeling
“Why has political discourse reached such an extreme and heated state that violence has become a more acceptable tool for some to ‘solve’ differences over ideas? I would suggest that part of the reason is due to the fact that politics and government increasingly intrude into, influence, and determine so much more of people’s lives. The very nature of the modern democratic political process is that whichever majority of voters are triumphant in elections determines the course of political and social life in greater and greater detail for all in society, including all those who voted against the winning candidates. … The only way out of this political dead end is an abandonment of the statist premises that government is to be used to direct and remake society, regardless of the image of the good society desired.” (09/17/25)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/only-classical-liberalism-can-prevent-tragedies-like-the-killing-of-charlie-kirk/
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23) Does Anybody Care This Is the Worst Bribery Scandal Since Teapot Dome?
Source: The New Republic
by Timothy Noah
“In 1922, Interior Secretary Albert Fall collected about $400,000 from two very rich oilmen, Harry Sinclair and Edward Doheny, and granted them government leases to pump $100 million worth of petroleum from Navy reserves in Elk Hills and Buena Vista, California, and in Teapot Dome, Wyoming. … In May, Zach Witkoff, the 32-year-old son of the billionaire Steve Witkoff, announced at a Dubai conference — while sitting beside Eric Trump — that he’d collected $2 billion from one Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who controls the sovereign wealth fund of the United Arab Emirates. That $2 billion purchased a stablecoin called USD1 from World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm of which Witkoff père et fils are co-founders, and in which the Trump family owns a 60 percent stake.” (09/17/25)
https://newrepublic.com/article/200551/trump-witkoff-emiratis-bribery-corruption
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24) Killing over opinions is depraved
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal
“If you are on the side that believes it’s justifiable to kill people over their opinions, you’re on the bad side. If your ideas are so fragile and empty that you’ll resort to censorship or murder to prevent someone from continuing to dismantle them with reasoned debate, you’ve already lost. You’ve admitted you have no counterargument. When you feel you have to silence the opposition with a bullet instead of presenting better ideas of your own, you’ve broadcast to the world that you have no better ideas. Even if the one you silenced was wrong. Especially if they were wrong.” (09/17/25)
https://www.easternnewmexiconews.com/story/2025/09/17/voices/opinion-killing-over-opinions-is-depraved/231698.html
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25) Trump Has a Habit of Asserting Broad, Unreviewable Authority
Source: Reason
by Jacob Sullum
“In separate attacks this month, the U.S. military blew up two speedboats in the Caribbean Sea, killing 14 alleged drug smugglers. Although those men could have been intercepted and arrested, President Donald Trump said he decided summary execution was appropriate as a deterrent to drug trafficking. To justify this unprecedented use of the U.S. military to kill criminal suspects, Trump invoked his ‘constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive’ to protect ‘national security and foreign policy interests.’ That assertion of sweeping presidential power fits an alarming pattern that is also apparent in Trump’s tariffs, his attempt to summarily deport suspected gang members as ‘alien enemies,’ and his planned use of National Guard troops to fight crime in cities across the country.” (09/17/25)
https://reason.com/2025/09/17/trump-has-a-habit-of-asserting-broad-unreviewable-authority/
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26) Israel Is Committing Genocide. This Is a Fact, Not an Opinion
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“A UN inquiry has found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and that Israeli authorities have ‘intended to kill as many Palestinians as possible’ in the enclave. Israel has responded to the UN report by calling it Hamas and antisemitic, because that’s all they’ve got. The Israeli Foreign Ministry released a statement claiming the report was authored by ‘individuals serving as Hamas proxies, notorious for their openly antisemitic positions.’ Blah, blah, blah. The report is Hamas and antisemitic. All human rights organizations are Hamas and antisemitic. There’s a giant global antisemitic Hamas conspiracy dedicated to making it appear as though Israel is committing genocide, just to make Jewish people feel sad. At this point the only people who still deny that Israel is committing genocide are those who want to make sure nobody does anything to stop Israel from committing genocide.” (09/17/25)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/09/17/israel-is-committing-genocide-this-is-a-fact-not-an-opinion/
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27) Adam Smith on Duty and “the Great Division” of the Human Spirit
Source: The Daily Economy
by Barry Brownstein
“Ichiro Suzuki was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame this summer. With his nearly unmatched bat control, Ichiro had ten consecutive 200-plus hit seasons and the single-season record of 262 hits. Ichiro’s Baseball Hall of Fame acceptance speech centered around his duty to the fans and his teammates: ‘When fans use their precious time to come watch you play, you have a responsibility to perform for them whether we are winning by 10 or losing by 10.’ If you listen to most modern athletes, they spout immediately falsifiable clichés about believing in themselves as a key to success. Fewer talk about their duties and responsibilities. … Smith argued that while unmerited applause can delight a weak person, a wise person seeks to earn it.” (09/17/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/adam-smith-on-duty-and-the-great-division-of-the-human-spirit/
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28) The Terrible Smallness of Public Killers
Source: Law & Liberty
by Rachel Lu
“Violence is not the answer. But what’s the question?” (09/17/25)
https://lawliberty.org/the-terrible-smallness-of-public-killers/
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29) Trump’s Revitalized Drug War: Really About Old-Fashioned US Imperialism
Source: Foreign Policy In Focus
by Edward Hunt
“One of the major contributions of the United States to imperial history is drug war imperialism. Developed as part of the so-called ‘war on drugs’, which the Nixon administration began in the 1970s and the Reagan administration expanded in the 1980s, drug war imperialism has been one of the primary means by which the United States has intervened in Latin America. During the late 1980s, the United States set the standard for drug war imperialism in Panama. After discrediting Manuel Noriega with drug charges, officials in Washington organized a military intervention to remove the Panamanian ruler from power. … and brought him to the United States, where he was tried, convicted, and imprisoned on drug charges. US officials framed the operation as part of the war on drugs, but their primary concern was bringing to power a friendly government that acted on behalf of US interests.” (09/17/25)
https://fpif.org/the-return-of-drug-war-imperialism/
-----
30) Saudi-China Relations
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott
“In an era when regional multilateral deals are stalling, China and Saudi Arabia are seemingly forging an alternative path, choosing a more streamlined route defined by the convergence of ambition, infrastructure, and mutual need. At the heart of this agreement is the alignment between Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI), signaled at an August 27 meeting in Beijing. Like the princess and the pea, the increasingly positive relationship between China and Saudi Arabia is likely to affect global trade in small ways that eventually emerge as significant shapers.” (09/17/25)
https://fee.org/articles/saudi-china-relations/
-----
31) Juggling change and challenges at the UN
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“This month’s annual gathering of the United Nations marks 80 years since its founding charter was adopted in the waning months of World War II. Since then, the U.N.’s membership has almost quadrupled, from 51 nations to more than 190. It has achieved successes in global health, peacekeeping, women’s and children’s rights, poverty reduction, and treaties that govern international communications, atomic energy, and air transport. But alongside these, the U.N.’s challenges and divisions have also multiplied. The United States has long been the U.N.’s largest funder. However, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio claims, ‘The post-war global order is not just obsolete, it is now a weapon being used against us.’ The administration has accused the International Criminal Court, for example, of unfair investigation of U.S. personnel. The U.S. has recently slashed foreign assistance in general and scaled down participation in several multinational agencies and security alliances.” (09/16/25)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2025/0916/Juggling-change-and-challenges-at-the-U.N
-----
32) The Instinct to Hurt Those with Whom One Disagrees
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Robin Koerner
“To those of us old enough to remember the before-times, these ‘woke’ times feel different because we never saw that instinct to hurt manifest in political discourse. Back then, live and let live was the fundamental assumption that enabled Western politics. Today, for all too many, it is not: literally, politics has become, for millions, live and let die.” (09/17/25)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-instinct-to-hurt-those-with-whom-one-disagrees/
-----
33) Trump Wants “Denuclearization” … But Does Washington?
Source: Common Dreams
by Chris Wright
“In the grim competition between environmental destruction and nuclear war over which one will cause the demise of civilization, the nuclear option gets considerably less media coverage than global warming. This is unfortunate, for nuclear weapons are no less of a threat. In fact, given how many close calls there have been since the 1950s, it’s miraculous that we’re still around to discuss the matter at all. In a global geopolitical environment that continues to see rising tensions between the West and both China and Russia, as well as between India and Pakistan and between a genocidal nuclear-armed Israel and much of the Middle East, few political agendas are more imperative than, to quote US President Donald Trump in early 2025, denuclearization. The signs are not auspicious, however.” (09/17/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-denuclearization
-----
34) A seamlessly unserious president
Source: Washington Post
by George F Will
“In 2006, Whirlpool paid $1.7 billion to buy its largest competitor (Maytag) and said competition from foreign producers would prevent it from wielding unseemly market power. But U.S. consumers continued to like imported machines’ prices and qualities. So, early in his first term, President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on washing machines to protect Whirlpool from the competition it had said it welcomed. In August 2020, Trump visited a Whirlpool factory where, strangely, he bragged about imposing tariffs on Canadian aluminum, raising Whirlpool’s manufacturing costs. Now, the Wall Street Journal reports, Whirlpool says perfidious foreigners are fibbing, paying lower tariffs by claiming low values on appliance imports, valuations not reflected in prices charged to U.S. consumers. Presumably the government will deftly untangle the mess its protectionism has produced.” ()9/17/25)
https://archive.is/jHRbU
-----
35) Preference Falsification, Marginal Cost, and Cancel Culture
Source: EconLog
by Kevin Corcoran
“In my earlier post on preference falsification, I argued that a culture of free speech and open debate is a necessary factor for the benefits of free speech to be fully realized. This post expands on that, examining a common fable involving preference falsification, how the dynamics of preference falsification are different in reality than the fable, and how what is commonly called ‘cancel culture’ is a factor that undermines free speech culture and keeps preference falsification in place. The fable, as you might have already guessed, is The Emperor’s New Clothes.” (09/17/25)
https://www.econlib.org/preference-falsification-marginal-cost-and-cancel-culture/
-----
36) Adam Smith in Acadia: The Virtue of Self-Command
Source: Mindset Shifts
by Barry Brownstein
“We have been examining Adam Smith’s role as a moral philosopher and finding relevance of his Theory of Moral Sentiments to living a good life, even in everyday interactions. Imagine living in one of the most beautiful spots on the planet, yet being unable to experience it. In Acadia National Park, there is an organization called the Mount Desert Island Wheelers whose volunteers pedal specially designed bicycles to bring the elderly and infirm on rides in the park’s remarkable carriage roads. … We celebrate volunteerism as a pathway by which the lives of others are improved. Yet, often underappreciated are the vital commercial activities that ‘serve real people in the real world.'” (09/17/25)
https://mindsetshifts.substack.com/p/adam-smith-in-acadia-the-virtue-of
-----
37) Stop the Pentagon’s mad September spending spree; save us from wasting billion$
Source: New York Post
by John Hart
“President Trump may want a Defense Department rebrand — but rather than changing its name to ‘Department of War,’ he should force the Pentagon to stop being a department of waste. Our investigators at Open the Books last month identified 20 areas of fiscal concern within the Pentagon, many of them tolerated for decades, that damage its warfighting abilities. The Defense Department has long been ‘a department of everything,’ running its own schools, grocery stores, golf courses and more — splitting its focus and allowing for rampant overspending. The department has never passed an audit, uses overclassification to wrongly conceal programs from oversight, and squanders billions every year through lax contracting practices and questionable congressional earmarks. Even the most fiscally prudent administration would struggle to reform all that systemic Pentagon waste at once.” (09/17/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/09/17/opinion/stop-the-pentagons-september-spending-spree-and-save-billion/
-----
38) Cheap Advice for the Fed
Source: CounterPunch
by Dean Baker
“The question for the Fed is whether it has to worry more about inflation or a weak labor market. Last week’s data indicate both are real concerns, but to my mind, the labor market weakness is unambiguously the bigger problem. I acknowledge that I am generally far more concerned about workers being unemployed than modest inflation rates that may be somewhat higher than we want, but the specific circumstances do warrant much more concern about the former than the latter.” (09/17/25)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/09/17/cheap-advice-for-the-fed/
-----
39) Britain’s Bathroom Ban
Source: Liberal Currents
by Toby Buckle
“The UK is in the process of implementing a prohibition on any trans person accessing any single-sex space. Trans people will be barred from using facilities that match their gender (i.e., a trans woman will not be able to use the women’s toilets), but also, it seems, may be barred from using those that match their sex at birth (nor may the same trans woman use the men’s toilets). Effectively, this policy will bar trans people from leaving their homes, and as such it is radically oppressive. The ban is sweeping: it applies to workplaces, hospitals, schools, shops, restaurants, gyms, pubs, clubs, sporting bodies, schools, services like counseling or a women’s support group, and even voluntary clubs and associations. And it is mandatory: it’s not that these institutions can exclude trans people but they must exclude trans people.” (09/17/25)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/britains-bathroom-ban/
-----
40) Shooting Down Russian Drones Over Poland: Who Is Trying To Start World War 3?
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Galen Carpenter
“The world is now closer to a full-scale war between NATO and Russia than at any time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. In the early morning hours of September 10, 2025, Western air defenses spotted a fleet of Russian drones that had entered Poland’s airspace. Shortly thereafter, NATO fighter planes intercepted the intruders, shooting down 16 of them. NATO’s military forces also elevated their alert status. Questions immediately arose about whether this episode was a deliberate provocation on Russia’s part, or simply a case in which Moscow’s contingent of unmanned drones heading for targets in Ukraine flew off course.” (09/17/25)
https://original.antiwar.com/ted_galen_carpenter/2025/09/16/shooting-down-russian-drones-over-poland-who-is-trying-to-start-world-war-3/
-----
41) New Mexico’s Billion-Dollar Oilfield Orphans
Source: The American Prospect
by Jerry Redfern
“Dave Fosdeck crested a dirt berm on the Hogback, a ridge of hills west of Farmington, New Mexico, when the scent hit him. ‘Whoa! It stinks!’ he yelped. It was June, and he was there with two others to look at the cleanup operations around a battery of massive oil tanks that sat abandoned for years in this rolling, high-desert corner of New Mexico. The berm surrounds a hole where a semi-buried tank the size of a backyard swimming pool once sat, collecting and leaking waste sludge from surrounding oil wells. Nearby is an even bigger but much newer hole where a cleanup crew had removed contaminated soil. The void wasn’t fully excavated but already was big enough to drop a small house in. The pit’s sides were stained orange and an even stronger petroleum smell rose from it.” (09/17/25)
https://prospect.org/environment/new-mexico-abandoned-oil-fields-infrastructure/
-----
42) US think tanks are the world’s least transparent
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Nick Cleveland-Stout
“According to a new survey, North American think tanks are tied as the least transparent of any region. The poll, conducted by On Think Tanks, surveyed 335 think tanks from over 100 countries. The accompanying report, released today, found that only 35% of North American think tanks (mostly from the U.S.) that responded to the survey disclose funding sources. By comparison, 67% of Asian think tanks and 58% of African think tanks disclose their funding sources. And there are signs that think tank funding transparency is trending towards more opacity.” (09/17/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-think-tanks-transparent/
-----
43) Reining in Rogue Presidents
Source: The Bulwark
by Philip Rotner
“How ambiguities in the law gave Trump power he could seize — and what a future Congress can do about it.” (09/17/25)
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/reining-in-rogue-presidents
-----
44) The Pandemic of Fake Jobs
Source: Persuasion
by Alex
“Last week, I had coffee with someone who works at a big consulting firm. She spent twenty minutes explaining her role to me. Not because it was complex, but because she was trying to convince herself it existed. ‘I facilitate stakeholder alignment across cross-functional workstreams,’ she said. Then laughed. ‘I genuinely don’t know what that means anymore.’ She’s not alone. I keep meeting people who describe their jobs using words they’d never use in normal conversation. They attend meetings about meetings. They create PowerPoints that no one reads, which get shared in emails no one opens, which generate tasks that don’t need doing. The strangest part: everyone knows.” (09/16/25)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-death-of-the-office-job
-----
45) Why 62% of young Americans falling for “pop Marxism”
Source: Fox News
by Eric Patterson
“The major election year 2026 kicks off with a new mayor taking over Gotham on Jan. 1. From Sacramento to Minneapolis to New York, some candidates are peddling Karl Marx. The most glaring example is Zohran Mamdani, who pledges innumerable freebies and has called for ‘seizing the means of production’. What are we to make of this ‘pop Marxism?’ What is its appeal? It is ‘pop’ in two senses of the word. It is popular and populist: popular in that it is shallow while presenting as novel and exciting, and populist in a braying pretense of familiarity, with its calls for costless gratification and its gratuitous attacks on the status quo.” (09/17/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/why-62-young-americans-falling-pop-marxism
-----
46) Why everything Pam Bondi said about “hate speech” is wrong
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Aaron Terr & Angel Eduardo
“We get it: not everyone is a free speech expert. A huge part of our job at FIRE is educating the public about their First Amendment rights, the scope of free speech law, and the foundational principles that make free expression so important. Most people don’t have the time to get in the weeds like we do, so it’s understandable for the average American to sometimes get things wrong about free speech. But when you’re the attorney general of the United States, like Pam Bondi, you really should know better.” (09/16/25)
https://www.thefire.org/news/why-everything-pam-bondi-said-about-hate-speech-wrong
-----
47) The UK is the censorship capital of the West
Source: spiked
by Paul Coleman
“When US vice-president JD Vance stood before the Munich Security Conference in February, he warned that free speech was ‘in retreat’ across Europe. He said the decline of this most vital of democratic liberties was ‘most concerning’ in the UK. British elites balked, scoffed and denied everything Vance said. But it is almost impossible to deny the accuracy of his statements. Indeed, subsequent events have emphatically vindicated Vance’s concerns.” (09/16/25)
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/09/16/the-uk-is-the-censorship-capital-of-the-west/
-----
48) The Attorney General’s Attack on Free Speech
Source: The Atlantic
by Conor Friedersdorf
“Attorney General Pam Bondi, America’s highest-ranking law-enforcement official, declared in an interview posted to YouTube yesterday that federal law enforcement will ‘go after’ Americans for hate speech. ‘There’s free speech, and then there’s hate speech,’ she said. In fact, there is no hate-speech exception to the First Amendment. In a post on X this morning, Bondi tried to qualify her comments. But the fact that the attorney general of the United States publicly misrepresented long-standing American speech law is ominous, especially in the context of threats made by other Trump-administration officials, their allies, and President Donald Trump himself to target ‘left-wing’ organizations that the administration says promote violence. … figures as varied as the anti-Trump independent Justin Amash and the MAGA-aligned culture warrior Matt Walsh are calling for Bondi to resign or be fired.” (09/16/25)
https://archive.is/AXNaK
-----
49) Trump Admin Brazenly Exploiting Charlie Kirk’s Killing to Silence Dissent
Source: In These Times
by Adam Johnson
“The past week has seen a whirlwind of escalating rhetoric, legal maneuvers and doxing fervor emanating from the White House and its lockstep media allies. They are signaling — and sometimes overtly laying out — how the Trump administration plans on exploiting the September 10 killing of conservative media figure Charlie Kirk into a coherent and wide ranging regime of ideological disciplining. Yet, amid this fast-moving campaign, leading Democrats have offered little to no defense of the most basic rights to free speech and assembly. It is not clear what they intend to do, if anything, to stop an all-out assault on non-profits, social movements or any left-leaning political advocacy.” [editor’s note: Yet another apologist for a political terrorist from his own bubble – SAT] [editor’s note: If you think Trump & Co. aren’t exploiting the killing to the max for their own benefit, that thing you’re doing that you think is thinking isn’t – TLK] (09/16/25)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/trump-vance-charlie-kirk-assassination-maga-free-speech-left
-----
50) Other Presidents Tried to Heal America After Political Violence — Trump Is Dividing It
Source: The UnPopulist
by Berny Belvedere
“The contrast between their and his behavior is a measure of America’s moral descent.” (09/16/25)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/other-presidents-tried-to-heal-america
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) The Political Orphanage, 09/17/25
Source: The Political Orphanage
“Does Liberalism Eat Itself?” (09/17/25)
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/does-liberalism-eat-itself
-----
52) Rising, 09/16/25
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave delivers his radar on the pushback to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s crackdown on hate speech, and why MAGA is calling her out.” (09/17/25)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5507499-rising-september-17-2025/
-----
53) The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, 09/17/25
Source: The Dispatch
“The Next Generation of Woke | Interview: Claire Lehmann.” (09/17/25)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/remnant/the-next-generation-of-woke-interview-claire-lehmann/
-----
54) Freakonomics Radio, 09/17/25
Source: Freakonomics
“Is the World Ready for a Guaranteed Basic Income? (Update).” (09/17/25)
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/is-the-world-ready-for-a-guaranteed-basic-income-update/
-----
55) Reason Interview: Joe Dolce
Source: Reason
“Psychedelics Are Not Just for Hippies and Tech Bros.” (09/17/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/09/17/psychedelics-are-not-just-for-hippies-and-tech-bros/
-----
56) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 09/17/25
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Explodes in Rage at Journos as Shock Poll Exposes a Key Weakness.” (09/17/25)
https://newrepublic.com/article/200550/trump-explodes-rage-journos-shock-poll-exposes-key-weakness
-----
57) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 09/17/25
Source: Antiwar.com
“IDF Sniper Details Killing Palestinians Waiting for Aid, Israel Kills Over 100 in Gaza, and More.” (09/17/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSFrWcHzniQ
-----
58) System Update, episode 516
Source: System Update
“Young Men and Online Radicalization: Dissecting Internet Subcultures with Lee Fang, Katherine Dee, and Evan Barker.” (09/16/25)
https://rumble.com/v6z1so2-online-radicalization-with-lee-fang-and-katherine-dee-system-update-516.html
-----
59) Free Speech Out Loud, 09/16/25
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
“Pam Bondi says hate speech is not free speech — is she right?” (09/16/25)
https://www.thefire.org/news/podcasts/free-speech-out-loud
-----
60) Politics Politics Politics, 09/17/25
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“Charlie Kirk’s Shooter Charged. IDF’s Ground Incursion into Gaza (with Karol Markowicz and Ryan McBeth).” (09/17/25)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/charlie-kirks-shooter-charged-idfs
-----
61) Underthrow Podcast, 09/16/25
Source: Underthrow
“From Totalitarianism to Panarchy with Aviezer Tucker.” (09/16/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9RNxmQJ0tE
-----
62) Nonzero, 09/16/25
Source: bloggingheads.tv
“Tribalism and the Charlie Kirk Killing | Robert Wright & Glenn Loury.” (09/16/25)
https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/69008
-----
63) Soho Forum Debate: Should Paying for Sex Be a Crime?
Source: Reason
“A debate between Melanie Thompson and Kaytlin Bailey.” (09/16/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/09/16/should-paying-for-sex-be-a-crime/
-----
64) Activism, Uncensored, 09/16/25
Source: Racket News
“Charlie Kirk: Reactions from supporters and counter-protesters in four cities.” (09/16/25)
https://www.racket.news/p/activism-uncensored-charlie-kirk
-----
65) Trump Watch, 09/16/25
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“The Real Roots of the Charlie Kirk Murder.” (09/16/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IVxO85vLMg
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https://news.rationalreview.com/
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Today's Freedom News:
1) European Commission calls for freezing of free trade with Israel over Gaza
2) Disney’s ABC pulls “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after FCC gang shot-caller’s threats
3) Fed approves quarter-point interest rate cut and sees two more coming this year
4) Ukraine: Regime expects $3.5 billion fund for US weapons to sustain fight against Russia, Zelenskyy says
5) Trump says he’s going to pretend anti-fascism is terrorism
6) University of California students, professors sue Trump regime
7) Scientists claim they’ve made “pivotal step” in bringing back the dodo for first time in 300 years
8) Sources: Trump official pressure federal prosecutors to bring charges against New York AG
9) IL: Chicago father dies in crash after smash-and-grab suspect flees with $700k of Louis Vuitton goods
10) Tests show Navalny was poisoned in jail, his widow says
11) Guineans to Vote on Constitution That Would Let Coup Leader Run for Office
12) France: Gold worth $700,000 stolen from Paris’s Natural History Museum amid string of similar heists
13) NY: Dementia patient, 95, accused of killing Holocaust survivor wheeled into court
14) Retired US Navy admiral sentenced to six years in prison for bribery plot
15) Niger: Gunmen kill 22 in shooting at baptism ceremony
16) Ben & Jerry’s cofounder leaves firm amid dispute with Unilever over Gaza
17) Ecuador: Regime declares state of emergency over diesel price protests
18) Judge won’t release identities of two women once described as potential co-conspirators of Epstein
19) Trump regime pleads for Newsom to veto “despicable” California anti-police-state law
20) South Korea: Unification Church leader questioned about alleged bribery of former first lady
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Bury the “words are violence” cliché
22) Only Classical Liberalism Can Prevent Tragedies Like the Killing of Charlie Kirk
23) Does Anybody Care This Is the Worst Bribery Scandal Since Teapot Dome?
24) Killing over opinions is depraved
25) Trump Has a Habit of Asserting Broad, Unreviewable Authority
26) Israel Is Committing Genocide. This Is a Fact, Not an Opinion
27) Adam Smith on Duty and “the Great Division” of the Human Spirit
28) The Terrible Smallness of Public Killers
29) Trump’s Revitalized Drug War: Really About Old-Fashioned US Imperialism
30) Saudi-China Relations
31) Juggling change and challenges at the UN
32) The Instinct to Hurt Those with Whom One Disagrees
33) Trump Wants “Denuclearization” … But Does Washington?
34) A seamlessly unserious president
35) Preference Falsification, Marginal Cost, and Cancel Culture
36) Adam Smith in Acadia: The Virtue of Self-Command
37) Stop the Pentagon’s mad September spending spree; save us from wasting billion$
38) Cheap Advice for the Fed
39) Britain’s Bathroom Ban
40) Shooting Down Russian Drones Over Poland: Who Is Trying To Start World War 3?
41) New Mexico’s Billion-Dollar Oilfield Orphans
42) US think tanks are the world’s least transparent
43) Reining in Rogue Presidents
44) The Pandemic of Fake Jobs
45) Why 62% of young Americans falling for “pop Marxism”
46) Why everything Pam Bondi said about “hate speech” is wrong
47) The UK is the censorship capital of the West
48) The Attorney General’s Attack on Free Speech
49) Trump Admin Brazenly Exploiting Charlie Kirk’s Killing to Silence Dissent
50) Other Presidents Tried to Heal America After Political Violence — Trump Is Dividing It
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) The Political Orphanage, 09/17/25
52) Rising, 09/16/25
53) The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, 09/17/25
54) Freakonomics Radio, 09/17/25
55) Reason Interview: Joe Dolce
56) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 09/17/25
57) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 09/17/25
58) System Update, episode 516
59) Free Speech Out Loud, 09/16/25
60) Politics Politics Politics, 09/17/25
61) Underthrow Podcast, 09/16/25
62) Nonzero, 09/16/25
63) Soho Forum Debate: Should Paying for Sex Be a Crime?
64) Activism, Uncensored, 09/16/25
65) Trump Watch, 09/16/25
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) European Commission calls for freezing of free trade with Israel over Gaza
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“The EU executive has called for a suspension of free trade with Israel and sanctions on two far-right Israeli ministers in response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Ursula von der Leyen had already floated the proposal to suspend the trade parts of the EU-Israel association agreement last week as the European Commission faced intense pressure for greater action amid criticism that it was not using its economic leverage to influence the Israeli government. There is, however, no certain majority from EU member states for the proposals outlined on Wednesday, because Germany, one of Israel’s key allies, has long been reluctant to take such steps.” (09/17/25)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/17/european-commission-calls-for-freezing-of-free-trade-with-israel-over-gaza
-----
2) Disney’s ABC pulls “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after FCC gang shot-caller’s threats
Source: NBC News
“Disney’s ABC said Wednesday it has pulled ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ off the air ‘indefinitely’ following the late-night host’s comments Monday about the motivations of the man who authorities say fatally shot conservative activist Charlie Kirk. During his monologue Monday night, Kimmel criticized Republicans for how they responded to Kirk’s killing. ‘The MAGA gang [is] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,’ Kimmel said. Kimmel’s representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment on ABC’s decision. … ABC’s move comes just hours after Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr threatened to ‘take action’ against Disney and ABC over Kimmel’s remarks.” (09/17/25)
https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/tv/disneys-abc-pulls-jimmy-kimmel-live-fcc-chair-blasts-hosts-charlie-kir-rcna232033
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3) Fed approves quarter-point interest rate cut and sees two more coming this year
Source: CNBC
“The Federal Reserve on Wednesday approved a widely anticipated rate cut and signaled that two more are on the way before the end of the year as concerns intensified over the U.S. labor market. In an 11-to-1 vote signaling less dissent than Wall Street had anticipated, the Federal Open Market Committee lowered its benchmark overnight lending rate by a quarter percentage point. The decision puts the overnight funds rate in a range between 4.00%-4.25%. Newly-installed Governor Stephen Miran was the only policymaker voting against the quarter-point move, instead advocating for a half-point cut.” (09/17/25)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/17/fed-rate-decision-september-2025.html
-----
4) Ukraine: Regime expects $3.5 billion fund for US weapons to sustain fight against Russia, Zelenskyy says
Source: Associated Press
“Ukraine expects there will be around $3.5 billion by next month in a fund to buy weapons from the United States and help sustain its more than three-year fight against Russia’s all-out invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday. The financial arrangement known as the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, or PURL, pools contributions from NATO members, except the United States, to purchase American weapons, munitions and equipment. … Meanwhile, a U.S.-Ukraine fund devised to spur investments in the Ukrainian mineral sector is set to launch with $150 million of seed capital, senior Ukrainian officials said Wednesday.” (09/17/25)
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-us-weapons-minerals-86894a9ce6c86cede42d1adca8569d5e
-----
5) Trump says he’s going to pretend anti-fascism is terrorism
Source: The Hill
“President Trump said late Wednesday that he is designating the far-left activist movement Antifa as a terrorist organization. ‘I am pleased to inform our many U.S.A. Patriots that I am designating ANTIFA, A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION,’ the president wrote in a post on Truth Social. … It is unclear who the designation would be implemented by as Antifa does not have a defined leadership o[r] a centralized structure.” (09/17/25)
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5509256-trump-anti-fascist-antifa-movement-terrorist-organization/
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6) University of California students, professors sue Trump regime
Source: The Hill
“A group consisting of University of California (UC) students, faculty, staff and labor unions is suing the Trump administration, alleging violations of their academic freedom and free speech rights. The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in US District Court for the Northern District of California, accuses the Trump administration of attempting to ‘commandeer this public university system and to purge from its campuses viewpoints with which the President and his administration’ disagree. Last month, the administration fined the University of California, Los Angeles $1.2 billion and halted federal research funding after the Justice Department (DOJ) found the school violated federal civil rights law. A judge, though, ordered the administration to restore a portion of that $584 million in funding on Aug. 15. The DOJ, in its July report, accused UCLA of ‘acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students.'” (09/17/25)
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5507654-lawsuit-trump-uc-students/
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7) Scientists claim they’ve made “pivotal step” in bringing back the dodo for first time in 300 years
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“Colossal Biosciences said on Wednesday it has succeeded in growing pigeon primordial germ cells, precursor cells to sperm and eggs, for the first time. This is a “pivotal step” in bringing back the dodo, which was a type of pigeon, for the first time in more than 300 years, according to Colossal. The Texas-based company, which has made splashy headlines for its plans to reestablish wooly mammoths and dire wolves, said it has also developed gene-edited chickens that will act as surrogates for the dodos. The chickens will be injected with primordial germ cells from Nicobar pigeons, the closest living relatives of dodos, which will in time, after gene edits to recreate the create the desired body and head shape, allow them to breed dodos.” (09/17/25)
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/sep/17/dodo-birds-gene-editing-advance
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8) Sources: Trump official pressure federal prosecutors to bring charges against New York AG
Source: ABC News
“Top Trump administration officials are pressuring federal prosecutors in Virginia to bring charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James for mortgage fraud, despite investigators so far failing to find sufficient evidence supporting such charges, according to sources familiar with the investigation. After a five-month investigation and interviews with more than a dozen witnesses, federal prosecutors have so far uncovered no clear evidence that James knowingly made false statements to a financial institution to secure favorable terms on a mortgage for her Virginia home, according to multiple sources briefed on the investigation. Trump himself has pressured the Department of Justice leadership to investigate James more aggressively, and two officials — Ed Martin, the head of the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group, and Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency — have pushed the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia to seek an indictment of James.” (09/17/25)
https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-officials-pressuring-federal-prosecutors-bring-criminal-charges/story?id=125636577
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9) IL: Chicago father dies in crash after smash-and-grab suspect flees with $700k of Louis Vuitton goods
Source: Fox News
“An innocent dad was hit and killed by a suspect who police say was fleeing a smash-and-grab robbery on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. Mark Arceta was driving his normal route to work at a local hospital when he was killed. The 40-year-old now leaves behind a baby boy, who was born just one day after his death. … The Chicago Police Department (CPD) says the suspect behind the wheel of the car, 30-year-old Dejuan Wingard, was driving nearly 100 mph at the time of the crash. Investigators say he was part of a theft crew that broke into a Louis Vuitton store on Michigan Avenue. The crime was caught on camera as one suspect was seen driving a truck through the store windows. The suspects then went inside and stole nearly $700,000 in merchandise, according to court records.” (09/17/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/us/chicago-father-dies-crash-after-smash-and-grab-suspect-flees-700k-louis-vuitton-goods
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10) Tests show Navalny was poisoned in jail, his widow says
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“The wife of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has said he was killed by poisoning while serving a prison sentence in an Arctic penal colony in 2024. In a video shared on social media, Yulia Navalnaya said analysis of smuggled biological samples carried out by laboratories in two countries showed that her husband had been ‘murdered.’ She did not provide details on the poison allegedly used, on the samples or on the analysis – but challenged the two laboratories to publish their results. Navalny – an anti-corruption campaigner and Russia’s most vociferous opposition leader – died suddenly in jail on 16 February 2024 at the age of 47. … he had been in jail for three years on trumped-up charges and had recently been transferred to a penal colony in the Arctic Circle.” (09/17/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ye0x28vzqo
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11) Guineans to Vote on Constitution That Would Let Coup Leader Run for Office
Source: US News & World Report
“Guinea is set to vote on Sunday in a referendum on a new constitution that would permit junta leader Mamady Doumbouya to run for president, something he vowed not to do when he seized power four years ago. Wednesday is the final day of campaigning for the referendum, the latest attempt at a political transition in West and Central Africa, where eight coups between 2020 and 2023 reshaped the regional political landscape. A transition charter adopted after the September 2021 coup said junta members would be barred from standing in the next national and local elections, but the new constitution does not include that language. Doumbouya has not said what his plans are. His critics have criticised the referendum as a power grab.” (09/17/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-09-17/guinea-to-vote-on-constitution-that-would-let-coup-leader-run-for-office
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12) France: Gold worth $700,000 stolen from Paris’s Natural History Museum amid string of similar heists
Source: CBS News
“Thieves have broken into Paris’s Natural History Museum, making off with gold samples worth $700,000 in the latest of a worrying series of robberies from cultural institutions, according to the museum. Famed for its dinosaur skeletons and stuffed animals, the National Natural History Museum in the chic 5th district of the French capital also houses a geology and mineralogy gallery. A break-in was detected on Tuesday morning, with the intruders reportedly using an angle grinder and a blow torch to force their way into the river-side complex that is popular with Parisians and tourists. ‘The theft concerns several specimens of native gold from the national collections held by the museum,’ the museum’s press office told AFP late on Tuesday.” (09/17/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gold-stolen-from-paris-natural-history-museum/
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13) NY: Dementia patient, 95, accused of killing Holocaust survivor wheeled into court
Source: New York Post
“A 95-year-old dementia patient was charged Wednesday with bludgeoning an elderly Holocaust survivor to death inside a Brooklyn nursing home — as prosecutors revealed grisly new details of the shocking crime. Galina Smirnova, looking confused and frail in a wheelchair in court, was hit with murder and weapons charges and ordered held at the Bellevue Hospital jail ward as prosecutors described the bloody scene at the Seagate Rehabilitation and Nursing Center on Coney Island for the first time. Smirnova is accused of killing Nina Kravtsov, 89, with the pedal from her wheelchair Sunday night. … Smirnova’s lawyer, Legal Aid attorney Erin Darcy, held off on requesting bail for her client before her next court appearance on Friday — which means the elderly accused killer will be held at Bellevue. … Prosecutors had asked that Smirnova be held without bail. Meanwhile, the judge denied a request for a psychiatric examination, saying it was premature.” (09/17/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/09/17/us-news/dementia-patient-95-accused-of-grisly-killing-of-holocaust-survivor-wheeled-into-court-as-disturbing-details-revealed/
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14) Retired US Navy admiral sentenced to six years in prison for bribery plot
Source: Orlando Sentinel
“A retired four-star U.S. Navy admiral was sentenced on Tuesday to six years in prison for his conviction on corruption charges that he agreed to exchange a military contract for a lucrative postretirement job. Retired Adm. Robert P. Burke — once the second-highest uniformed officer in the Navy — was commanding its forces in Europe and Africa when he engaged in a bribery plot with two business executives, according to federal prosecutors. A jury convicted Burke of four counts, including conspiracy and accepting a bribe, after a trial in May. A separate trial for Burke’s two co-defendants — Next Jump co-CEOs Yongchul ‘Charlie’ Kim and Meghan Messenger — ended with a hung jury and a mistrial last Thursday.” (09/16/25)
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/09/16/navy-admiral-bribery/
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15) Niger: Gunmen kill 22 in shooting at baptism ceremony
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Gunmen on motorbikes have shot dead 22 people, most of them attending a baptism ceremony, in an attack on a village in western Niger, reports say. A resident told the French news agency AFP that 15 people were killed at the ceremony in Tillabéri region, which borders Mali and Burkina Faso, before moving elsewhere and killing seven others. … Niger’s military government has struggled to contain jihadist violence in the region, carried out by groups linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State.” (09/17/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce863x3g7jko
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16) Ben & Jerry’s cofounder leaves firm amid dispute with Unilever over Gaza
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Ben & Jerry’s cofounder Jerry Greenfield has retired after nearly 50 years, accusing the United Kingdom-based parent company Unilever of silencing the ice cream brand’s social mission, particularly regarding Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, according to his business partner Ben Cohen. … Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s have clashed since 2021, when the Vermont-based company said it would stop sales in the occupied West Bank as doing so was ‘inconsistent with our values.’ The brand has since sued its parent company over alleged efforts to silence it and described Israel’s war on Gaza as ‘genocide,’ a rare stance for a big US company.” (09/17/25)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/17/ben-jerrys-cofounder-leaves-firm-amid-dispute-with-unilever-over-gaza
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17) Ecuador: Regime declares state of emergency over diesel price protests
Source: Fox News
“Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa on Tuesday implemented a 60-day state of emergency in an attempt to quell massive protests that broke out following his surprise removal of a diesel subsidy last week. The decree was issued across seven of the nation’s two dozen provinces following ‘severe internal disturbance’ and mobilized armed forces and national police. … Footage of the protests showed Ecuadorians clashing with police forces in the capital city of Quito on Tuesday as protesters dismantled fences and barriers while police fired tear gas in the streets. … The ongoing clashes came after the government on Friday announced it would eliminate the nation’s diesel subsidy starting Saturday and redirect the funds to social programs in an attempt to alleviate the country’s straining finances.” (09/17/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/world/state-emergency-declared-violent-protests-rock-south-american-nation-over-diesel-price-hikes
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18) Judge won’t release identities of two women once described as potential co-conspirators of Epstein
Source: San Diego Union-Tribune
“The identities of two women once listed as potential co-conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein will remain sealed for their safety and privacy, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. In a written decision, Judge Richard M. Berman rejected an NBC News request to make their identities public after lawyers for the women and the U.S. Justice Department opposed the unsealing request. He wrote that threats to the safety of the individuals persist and releasing their names would threaten their safety and privacy. … Prosecutors acknowledged that their names had been publicly associated with Epstein and his alleged sexual assault on girls and young women over two decades. Epstein obtained protection for both individuals in a nonprosecution agreement he signed with federal prosecutors in Florida in 2007.” (09/16/25)
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2025/09/16/epstein-co-conspirators-identities/
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19) Trump regime pleads for Newsom to veto “despicable” California anti-police-state law
Source: SFGate
“Last week, the California Legislature passed the No Secret Police Act, authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco, which would ban the use of masks for federal and local law enforcement. It’s now up to the governor to sign the bill into law. Newsom’s decision will have implications on the way raids are conducted in California, as the Trump administration continues conducting the operations. … The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday released a statement calling for Newsom to veto the bill, defending the use of masks as a protective measure for [thugs affiliated with ICE and other gangs], who would otherwise be forced to show their full faces and could be targeted by [other] ‘vicious criminals.’ Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called the bill ‘despicable.'” (09/17/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/trump-admin-pleads-newsom-veto-anti-ice-law-21051873.php
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20) South Korea: Unification Church leader questioned about alleged bribery of former first lady
Source: ABC News
“The leader of the Unification Church was questioned by investigators on Wednesday over allegations that the church bribed the wife of South Korea’s jailed former President Yoon Suk Yeol and a conservative lawmaker close to him in an effort to secure business favors. Hak Ja Han, the widow of church founder Sun Myung Moon, appeared before a special prosecutor just hours after a Seoul court issued an arrest warrant for the lawmaker, People Power Party’s Kweon Seong-dong, citing concerns he might destroy evidence. Han and her church have denied accusations that the church was directly involved in the alleged bribery of Yoon’s now-arrested wife, Kim Keon Hee, who is suspected of receiving luxury gifts from a jailed former church official, saying the official had overstepped his authority and acted on his own.” (09/16/25)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/unification-church-leader-questioned-alleged-bribery-south-koreas-125646584
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Bury the “words are violence” cliché
Source: Expression
by Greg Lukianoff
“When news broke of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the reaction of thousands of young Americans online was one of delight. One TikTok user chuckled: ‘Live by the sword, die by the sword. He did say that gun deaths were an acceptable side effect of gun rights.’ On X, someone wrote: ‘He is a fascist. Spreads hate, racism, bigotry, misinformation, gets shot. Reap what you sow.’ In the minds of these gleeful posters, Kirk deserved to die because of his words — words that allegedly promoted policies resulting in hate, violence, and even death. They think this way because they have forgotten — or have been trained to unlearn — a crucial distinction: Words are not bullets.” (09/17/25)
https://expression.fire.org/p/bury-the-words-are-violence-cliche
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22) Only Classical Liberalism Can Prevent Tragedies Like the Killing of Charlie Kirk
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Richard M Ebeling
“Why has political discourse reached such an extreme and heated state that violence has become a more acceptable tool for some to ‘solve’ differences over ideas? I would suggest that part of the reason is due to the fact that politics and government increasingly intrude into, influence, and determine so much more of people’s lives. The very nature of the modern democratic political process is that whichever majority of voters are triumphant in elections determines the course of political and social life in greater and greater detail for all in society, including all those who voted against the winning candidates. … The only way out of this political dead end is an abandonment of the statist premises that government is to be used to direct and remake society, regardless of the image of the good society desired.” (09/17/25)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/only-classical-liberalism-can-prevent-tragedies-like-the-killing-of-charlie-kirk/
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23) Does Anybody Care This Is the Worst Bribery Scandal Since Teapot Dome?
Source: The New Republic
by Timothy Noah
“In 1922, Interior Secretary Albert Fall collected about $400,000 from two very rich oilmen, Harry Sinclair and Edward Doheny, and granted them government leases to pump $100 million worth of petroleum from Navy reserves in Elk Hills and Buena Vista, California, and in Teapot Dome, Wyoming. … In May, Zach Witkoff, the 32-year-old son of the billionaire Steve Witkoff, announced at a Dubai conference — while sitting beside Eric Trump — that he’d collected $2 billion from one Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who controls the sovereign wealth fund of the United Arab Emirates. That $2 billion purchased a stablecoin called USD1 from World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm of which Witkoff père et fils are co-founders, and in which the Trump family owns a 60 percent stake.” (09/17/25)
https://newrepublic.com/article/200551/trump-witkoff-emiratis-bribery-corruption
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24) Killing over opinions is depraved
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal
“If you are on the side that believes it’s justifiable to kill people over their opinions, you’re on the bad side. If your ideas are so fragile and empty that you’ll resort to censorship or murder to prevent someone from continuing to dismantle them with reasoned debate, you’ve already lost. You’ve admitted you have no counterargument. When you feel you have to silence the opposition with a bullet instead of presenting better ideas of your own, you’ve broadcast to the world that you have no better ideas. Even if the one you silenced was wrong. Especially if they were wrong.” (09/17/25)
https://www.easternnewmexiconews.com/story/2025/09/17/voices/opinion-killing-over-opinions-is-depraved/231698.html
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25) Trump Has a Habit of Asserting Broad, Unreviewable Authority
Source: Reason
by Jacob Sullum
“In separate attacks this month, the U.S. military blew up two speedboats in the Caribbean Sea, killing 14 alleged drug smugglers. Although those men could have been intercepted and arrested, President Donald Trump said he decided summary execution was appropriate as a deterrent to drug trafficking. To justify this unprecedented use of the U.S. military to kill criminal suspects, Trump invoked his ‘constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive’ to protect ‘national security and foreign policy interests.’ That assertion of sweeping presidential power fits an alarming pattern that is also apparent in Trump’s tariffs, his attempt to summarily deport suspected gang members as ‘alien enemies,’ and his planned use of National Guard troops to fight crime in cities across the country.” (09/17/25)
https://reason.com/2025/09/17/trump-has-a-habit-of-asserting-broad-unreviewable-authority/
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26) Israel Is Committing Genocide. This Is a Fact, Not an Opinion
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“A UN inquiry has found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and that Israeli authorities have ‘intended to kill as many Palestinians as possible’ in the enclave. Israel has responded to the UN report by calling it Hamas and antisemitic, because that’s all they’ve got. The Israeli Foreign Ministry released a statement claiming the report was authored by ‘individuals serving as Hamas proxies, notorious for their openly antisemitic positions.’ Blah, blah, blah. The report is Hamas and antisemitic. All human rights organizations are Hamas and antisemitic. There’s a giant global antisemitic Hamas conspiracy dedicated to making it appear as though Israel is committing genocide, just to make Jewish people feel sad. At this point the only people who still deny that Israel is committing genocide are those who want to make sure nobody does anything to stop Israel from committing genocide.” (09/17/25)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/09/17/israel-is-committing-genocide-this-is-a-fact-not-an-opinion/
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27) Adam Smith on Duty and “the Great Division” of the Human Spirit
Source: The Daily Economy
by Barry Brownstein
“Ichiro Suzuki was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame this summer. With his nearly unmatched bat control, Ichiro had ten consecutive 200-plus hit seasons and the single-season record of 262 hits. Ichiro’s Baseball Hall of Fame acceptance speech centered around his duty to the fans and his teammates: ‘When fans use their precious time to come watch you play, you have a responsibility to perform for them whether we are winning by 10 or losing by 10.’ If you listen to most modern athletes, they spout immediately falsifiable clichés about believing in themselves as a key to success. Fewer talk about their duties and responsibilities. … Smith argued that while unmerited applause can delight a weak person, a wise person seeks to earn it.” (09/17/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/adam-smith-on-duty-and-the-great-division-of-the-human-spirit/
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28) The Terrible Smallness of Public Killers
Source: Law & Liberty
by Rachel Lu
“Violence is not the answer. But what’s the question?” (09/17/25)
https://lawliberty.org/the-terrible-smallness-of-public-killers/
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29) Trump’s Revitalized Drug War: Really About Old-Fashioned US Imperialism
Source: Foreign Policy In Focus
by Edward Hunt
“One of the major contributions of the United States to imperial history is drug war imperialism. Developed as part of the so-called ‘war on drugs’, which the Nixon administration began in the 1970s and the Reagan administration expanded in the 1980s, drug war imperialism has been one of the primary means by which the United States has intervened in Latin America. During the late 1980s, the United States set the standard for drug war imperialism in Panama. After discrediting Manuel Noriega with drug charges, officials in Washington organized a military intervention to remove the Panamanian ruler from power. … and brought him to the United States, where he was tried, convicted, and imprisoned on drug charges. US officials framed the operation as part of the war on drugs, but their primary concern was bringing to power a friendly government that acted on behalf of US interests.” (09/17/25)
https://fpif.org/the-return-of-drug-war-imperialism/
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30) Saudi-China Relations
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott
“In an era when regional multilateral deals are stalling, China and Saudi Arabia are seemingly forging an alternative path, choosing a more streamlined route defined by the convergence of ambition, infrastructure, and mutual need. At the heart of this agreement is the alignment between Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI), signaled at an August 27 meeting in Beijing. Like the princess and the pea, the increasingly positive relationship between China and Saudi Arabia is likely to affect global trade in small ways that eventually emerge as significant shapers.” (09/17/25)
https://fee.org/articles/saudi-china-relations/
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31) Juggling change and challenges at the UN
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“This month’s annual gathering of the United Nations marks 80 years since its founding charter was adopted in the waning months of World War II. Since then, the U.N.’s membership has almost quadrupled, from 51 nations to more than 190. It has achieved successes in global health, peacekeeping, women’s and children’s rights, poverty reduction, and treaties that govern international communications, atomic energy, and air transport. But alongside these, the U.N.’s challenges and divisions have also multiplied. The United States has long been the U.N.’s largest funder. However, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio claims, ‘The post-war global order is not just obsolete, it is now a weapon being used against us.’ The administration has accused the International Criminal Court, for example, of unfair investigation of U.S. personnel. The U.S. has recently slashed foreign assistance in general and scaled down participation in several multinational agencies and security alliances.” (09/16/25)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2025/0916/Juggling-change-and-challenges-at-the-U.N
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32) The Instinct to Hurt Those with Whom One Disagrees
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Robin Koerner
“To those of us old enough to remember the before-times, these ‘woke’ times feel different because we never saw that instinct to hurt manifest in political discourse. Back then, live and let live was the fundamental assumption that enabled Western politics. Today, for all too many, it is not: literally, politics has become, for millions, live and let die.” (09/17/25)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-instinct-to-hurt-those-with-whom-one-disagrees/
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33) Trump Wants “Denuclearization” … But Does Washington?
Source: Common Dreams
by Chris Wright
“In the grim competition between environmental destruction and nuclear war over which one will cause the demise of civilization, the nuclear option gets considerably less media coverage than global warming. This is unfortunate, for nuclear weapons are no less of a threat. In fact, given how many close calls there have been since the 1950s, it’s miraculous that we’re still around to discuss the matter at all. In a global geopolitical environment that continues to see rising tensions between the West and both China and Russia, as well as between India and Pakistan and between a genocidal nuclear-armed Israel and much of the Middle East, few political agendas are more imperative than, to quote US President Donald Trump in early 2025, denuclearization. The signs are not auspicious, however.” (09/17/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-denuclearization
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34) A seamlessly unserious president
Source: Washington Post
by George F Will
“In 2006, Whirlpool paid $1.7 billion to buy its largest competitor (Maytag) and said competition from foreign producers would prevent it from wielding unseemly market power. But U.S. consumers continued to like imported machines’ prices and qualities. So, early in his first term, President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on washing machines to protect Whirlpool from the competition it had said it welcomed. In August 2020, Trump visited a Whirlpool factory where, strangely, he bragged about imposing tariffs on Canadian aluminum, raising Whirlpool’s manufacturing costs. Now, the Wall Street Journal reports, Whirlpool says perfidious foreigners are fibbing, paying lower tariffs by claiming low values on appliance imports, valuations not reflected in prices charged to U.S. consumers. Presumably the government will deftly untangle the mess its protectionism has produced.” ()9/17/25)
https://archive.is/jHRbU
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35) Preference Falsification, Marginal Cost, and Cancel Culture
Source: EconLog
by Kevin Corcoran
“In my earlier post on preference falsification, I argued that a culture of free speech and open debate is a necessary factor for the benefits of free speech to be fully realized. This post expands on that, examining a common fable involving preference falsification, how the dynamics of preference falsification are different in reality than the fable, and how what is commonly called ‘cancel culture’ is a factor that undermines free speech culture and keeps preference falsification in place. The fable, as you might have already guessed, is The Emperor’s New Clothes.” (09/17/25)
https://www.econlib.org/preference-falsification-marginal-cost-and-cancel-culture/
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36) Adam Smith in Acadia: The Virtue of Self-Command
Source: Mindset Shifts
by Barry Brownstein
“We have been examining Adam Smith’s role as a moral philosopher and finding relevance of his Theory of Moral Sentiments to living a good life, even in everyday interactions. Imagine living in one of the most beautiful spots on the planet, yet being unable to experience it. In Acadia National Park, there is an organization called the Mount Desert Island Wheelers whose volunteers pedal specially designed bicycles to bring the elderly and infirm on rides in the park’s remarkable carriage roads. … We celebrate volunteerism as a pathway by which the lives of others are improved. Yet, often underappreciated are the vital commercial activities that ‘serve real people in the real world.'” (09/17/25)
https://mindsetshifts.substack.com/p/adam-smith-in-acadia-the-virtue-of
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37) Stop the Pentagon’s mad September spending spree; save us from wasting billion$
Source: New York Post
by John Hart
“President Trump may want a Defense Department rebrand — but rather than changing its name to ‘Department of War,’ he should force the Pentagon to stop being a department of waste. Our investigators at Open the Books last month identified 20 areas of fiscal concern within the Pentagon, many of them tolerated for decades, that damage its warfighting abilities. The Defense Department has long been ‘a department of everything,’ running its own schools, grocery stores, golf courses and more — splitting its focus and allowing for rampant overspending. The department has never passed an audit, uses overclassification to wrongly conceal programs from oversight, and squanders billions every year through lax contracting practices and questionable congressional earmarks. Even the most fiscally prudent administration would struggle to reform all that systemic Pentagon waste at once.” (09/17/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/09/17/opinion/stop-the-pentagons-september-spending-spree-and-save-billion/
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38) Cheap Advice for the Fed
Source: CounterPunch
by Dean Baker
“The question for the Fed is whether it has to worry more about inflation or a weak labor market. Last week’s data indicate both are real concerns, but to my mind, the labor market weakness is unambiguously the bigger problem. I acknowledge that I am generally far more concerned about workers being unemployed than modest inflation rates that may be somewhat higher than we want, but the specific circumstances do warrant much more concern about the former than the latter.” (09/17/25)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/09/17/cheap-advice-for-the-fed/
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39) Britain’s Bathroom Ban
Source: Liberal Currents
by Toby Buckle
“The UK is in the process of implementing a prohibition on any trans person accessing any single-sex space. Trans people will be barred from using facilities that match their gender (i.e., a trans woman will not be able to use the women’s toilets), but also, it seems, may be barred from using those that match their sex at birth (nor may the same trans woman use the men’s toilets). Effectively, this policy will bar trans people from leaving their homes, and as such it is radically oppressive. The ban is sweeping: it applies to workplaces, hospitals, schools, shops, restaurants, gyms, pubs, clubs, sporting bodies, schools, services like counseling or a women’s support group, and even voluntary clubs and associations. And it is mandatory: it’s not that these institutions can exclude trans people but they must exclude trans people.” (09/17/25)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/britains-bathroom-ban/
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40) Shooting Down Russian Drones Over Poland: Who Is Trying To Start World War 3?
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Galen Carpenter
“The world is now closer to a full-scale war between NATO and Russia than at any time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. In the early morning hours of September 10, 2025, Western air defenses spotted a fleet of Russian drones that had entered Poland’s airspace. Shortly thereafter, NATO fighter planes intercepted the intruders, shooting down 16 of them. NATO’s military forces also elevated their alert status. Questions immediately arose about whether this episode was a deliberate provocation on Russia’s part, or simply a case in which Moscow’s contingent of unmanned drones heading for targets in Ukraine flew off course.” (09/17/25)
https://original.antiwar.com/ted_galen_carpenter/2025/09/16/shooting-down-russian-drones-over-poland-who-is-trying-to-start-world-war-3/
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41) New Mexico’s Billion-Dollar Oilfield Orphans
Source: The American Prospect
by Jerry Redfern
“Dave Fosdeck crested a dirt berm on the Hogback, a ridge of hills west of Farmington, New Mexico, when the scent hit him. ‘Whoa! It stinks!’ he yelped. It was June, and he was there with two others to look at the cleanup operations around a battery of massive oil tanks that sat abandoned for years in this rolling, high-desert corner of New Mexico. The berm surrounds a hole where a semi-buried tank the size of a backyard swimming pool once sat, collecting and leaking waste sludge from surrounding oil wells. Nearby is an even bigger but much newer hole where a cleanup crew had removed contaminated soil. The void wasn’t fully excavated but already was big enough to drop a small house in. The pit’s sides were stained orange and an even stronger petroleum smell rose from it.” (09/17/25)
https://prospect.org/environment/new-mexico-abandoned-oil-fields-infrastructure/
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42) US think tanks are the world’s least transparent
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Nick Cleveland-Stout
“According to a new survey, North American think tanks are tied as the least transparent of any region. The poll, conducted by On Think Tanks, surveyed 335 think tanks from over 100 countries. The accompanying report, released today, found that only 35% of North American think tanks (mostly from the U.S.) that responded to the survey disclose funding sources. By comparison, 67% of Asian think tanks and 58% of African think tanks disclose their funding sources. And there are signs that think tank funding transparency is trending towards more opacity.” (09/17/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-think-tanks-transparent/
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43) Reining in Rogue Presidents
Source: The Bulwark
by Philip Rotner
“How ambiguities in the law gave Trump power he could seize — and what a future Congress can do about it.” (09/17/25)
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/reining-in-rogue-presidents
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44) The Pandemic of Fake Jobs
Source: Persuasion
by Alex
“Last week, I had coffee with someone who works at a big consulting firm. She spent twenty minutes explaining her role to me. Not because it was complex, but because she was trying to convince herself it existed. ‘I facilitate stakeholder alignment across cross-functional workstreams,’ she said. Then laughed. ‘I genuinely don’t know what that means anymore.’ She’s not alone. I keep meeting people who describe their jobs using words they’d never use in normal conversation. They attend meetings about meetings. They create PowerPoints that no one reads, which get shared in emails no one opens, which generate tasks that don’t need doing. The strangest part: everyone knows.” (09/16/25)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-death-of-the-office-job
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45) Why 62% of young Americans falling for “pop Marxism”
Source: Fox News
by Eric Patterson
“The major election year 2026 kicks off with a new mayor taking over Gotham on Jan. 1. From Sacramento to Minneapolis to New York, some candidates are peddling Karl Marx. The most glaring example is Zohran Mamdani, who pledges innumerable freebies and has called for ‘seizing the means of production’. What are we to make of this ‘pop Marxism?’ What is its appeal? It is ‘pop’ in two senses of the word. It is popular and populist: popular in that it is shallow while presenting as novel and exciting, and populist in a braying pretense of familiarity, with its calls for costless gratification and its gratuitous attacks on the status quo.” (09/17/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/why-62-young-americans-falling-pop-marxism
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46) Why everything Pam Bondi said about “hate speech” is wrong
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Aaron Terr & Angel Eduardo
“We get it: not everyone is a free speech expert. A huge part of our job at FIRE is educating the public about their First Amendment rights, the scope of free speech law, and the foundational principles that make free expression so important. Most people don’t have the time to get in the weeds like we do, so it’s understandable for the average American to sometimes get things wrong about free speech. But when you’re the attorney general of the United States, like Pam Bondi, you really should know better.” (09/16/25)
https://www.thefire.org/news/why-everything-pam-bondi-said-about-hate-speech-wrong
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47) The UK is the censorship capital of the West
Source: spiked
by Paul Coleman
“When US vice-president JD Vance stood before the Munich Security Conference in February, he warned that free speech was ‘in retreat’ across Europe. He said the decline of this most vital of democratic liberties was ‘most concerning’ in the UK. British elites balked, scoffed and denied everything Vance said. But it is almost impossible to deny the accuracy of his statements. Indeed, subsequent events have emphatically vindicated Vance’s concerns.” (09/16/25)
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/09/16/the-uk-is-the-censorship-capital-of-the-west/
-----
48) The Attorney General’s Attack on Free Speech
Source: The Atlantic
by Conor Friedersdorf
“Attorney General Pam Bondi, America’s highest-ranking law-enforcement official, declared in an interview posted to YouTube yesterday that federal law enforcement will ‘go after’ Americans for hate speech. ‘There’s free speech, and then there’s hate speech,’ she said. In fact, there is no hate-speech exception to the First Amendment. In a post on X this morning, Bondi tried to qualify her comments. But the fact that the attorney general of the United States publicly misrepresented long-standing American speech law is ominous, especially in the context of threats made by other Trump-administration officials, their allies, and President Donald Trump himself to target ‘left-wing’ organizations that the administration says promote violence. … figures as varied as the anti-Trump independent Justin Amash and the MAGA-aligned culture warrior Matt Walsh are calling for Bondi to resign or be fired.” (09/16/25)
https://archive.is/AXNaK
-----
49) Trump Admin Brazenly Exploiting Charlie Kirk’s Killing to Silence Dissent
Source: In These Times
by Adam Johnson
“The past week has seen a whirlwind of escalating rhetoric, legal maneuvers and doxing fervor emanating from the White House and its lockstep media allies. They are signaling — and sometimes overtly laying out — how the Trump administration plans on exploiting the September 10 killing of conservative media figure Charlie Kirk into a coherent and wide ranging regime of ideological disciplining. Yet, amid this fast-moving campaign, leading Democrats have offered little to no defense of the most basic rights to free speech and assembly. It is not clear what they intend to do, if anything, to stop an all-out assault on non-profits, social movements or any left-leaning political advocacy.” [editor’s note: Yet another apologist for a political terrorist from his own bubble – SAT] [editor’s note: If you think Trump & Co. aren’t exploiting the killing to the max for their own benefit, that thing you’re doing that you think is thinking isn’t – TLK] (09/16/25)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/trump-vance-charlie-kirk-assassination-maga-free-speech-left
-----
50) Other Presidents Tried to Heal America After Political Violence — Trump Is Dividing It
Source: The UnPopulist
by Berny Belvedere
“The contrast between their and his behavior is a measure of America’s moral descent.” (09/16/25)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/other-presidents-tried-to-heal-america
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) The Political Orphanage, 09/17/25
Source: The Political Orphanage
“Does Liberalism Eat Itself?” (09/17/25)
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/does-liberalism-eat-itself
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52) Rising, 09/16/25
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave delivers his radar on the pushback to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s crackdown on hate speech, and why MAGA is calling her out.” (09/17/25)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5507499-rising-september-17-2025/
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53) The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, 09/17/25
Source: The Dispatch
“The Next Generation of Woke | Interview: Claire Lehmann.” (09/17/25)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/remnant/the-next-generation-of-woke-interview-claire-lehmann/
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54) Freakonomics Radio, 09/17/25
Source: Freakonomics
“Is the World Ready for a Guaranteed Basic Income? (Update).” (09/17/25)
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/is-the-world-ready-for-a-guaranteed-basic-income-update/
-----
55) Reason Interview: Joe Dolce
Source: Reason
“Psychedelics Are Not Just for Hippies and Tech Bros.” (09/17/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/09/17/psychedelics-are-not-just-for-hippies-and-tech-bros/
-----
56) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 09/17/25
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Explodes in Rage at Journos as Shock Poll Exposes a Key Weakness.” (09/17/25)
https://newrepublic.com/article/200550/trump-explodes-rage-journos-shock-poll-exposes-key-weakness
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57) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 09/17/25
Source: Antiwar.com
“IDF Sniper Details Killing Palestinians Waiting for Aid, Israel Kills Over 100 in Gaza, and More.” (09/17/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSFrWcHzniQ
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58) System Update, episode 516
Source: System Update
“Young Men and Online Radicalization: Dissecting Internet Subcultures with Lee Fang, Katherine Dee, and Evan Barker.” (09/16/25)
https://rumble.com/v6z1so2-online-radicalization-with-lee-fang-and-katherine-dee-system-update-516.html
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59) Free Speech Out Loud, 09/16/25
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
“Pam Bondi says hate speech is not free speech — is she right?” (09/16/25)
https://www.thefire.org/news/podcasts/free-speech-out-loud
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60) Politics Politics Politics, 09/17/25
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“Charlie Kirk’s Shooter Charged. IDF’s Ground Incursion into Gaza (with Karol Markowicz and Ryan McBeth).” (09/17/25)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/charlie-kirks-shooter-charged-idfs
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61) Underthrow Podcast, 09/16/25
Source: Underthrow
“From Totalitarianism to Panarchy with Aviezer Tucker.” (09/16/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9RNxmQJ0tE
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62) Nonzero, 09/16/25
Source: bloggingheads.tv
“Tribalism and the Charlie Kirk Killing | Robert Wright & Glenn Loury.” (09/16/25)
https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/69008
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63) Soho Forum Debate: Should Paying for Sex Be a Crime?
Source: Reason
“A debate between Melanie Thompson and Kaytlin Bailey.” (09/16/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/09/16/should-paying-for-sex-be-a-crime/
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64) Activism, Uncensored, 09/16/25
Source: Racket News
“Charlie Kirk: Reactions from supporters and counter-protesters in four cities.” (09/16/25)
https://www.racket.news/p/activism-uncensored-charlie-kirk
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65) Trump Watch, 09/16/25
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“The Real Roots of the Charlie Kirk Murder.” (09/16/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IVxO85vLMg
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