The Foundry.

“The issue is never the issue. The issue is the revolution,” said the late David Horowitz, quoting a 1960s rebel. The Palestinian conflict, the climate, transgenderism, immigration, and abortion are all proximate causes for protests and now terrorism. But they are all also part of an amalgamated “omnicause” whose real purpose is to bring down the United States and the West.

Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk and other recent tragedies that are rightly garnering worldwide attention, our leaders have finally woken up and are looking into who the perpetrators are and who organizes and finances them.

After Kirk’s death, a liberal fired three bullets into an ABC News office in Sacramento, supposedly to protest the suspension of left-wing commentator Jimmy Kimmel. Last week, another radical shot inside a Dallas Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, killing two people.

Read it.

The number of Catholics in Austria is falling sharply, while its Muslim population continues to grow. By 2024, Catholics in the population numbered 4.56 million with 71,531 leaving the church that year, compared to just over 5,000 joining or returning.

In contrast, by 2021 the total Muslim population was observed to have reached approximately 700,000. Although smaller than the Catholic community, its rapid rate of growth shows a shift in Austria’s religious composition.

The state also collects less data on religion than before, relying now on voluntary surveys rather than mandatory census questions—reflecting a changing relationship between church and society.

This shift is most readily apparent in Vienna’s classrooms, where young Muslims make up the largest religious group.

Read it.

On the heels of the UK recognizing an Islamic terrorist state in Israel, police arrested the third known person for criticizing Hamas and released a Muslim man who had gone on a stabbing spree after he saw a Koran being burned. Or as the judge in the case put it, “the holy Koran.”

Who is the Koran holy to? The political and judicial systems of the United Kingdom which have effectively enacted Islamic Sharia blasphemy law by selectively prosecuting those who offend Islam. But not those who offend the religious sensibilities of Christians or Jews. Do whatever you like with a cross or a bible, but touch a Koran and you’re not only under arrest.

You’re also fair game for a stabbing.

Read it.

Doesn’t surprise me a bit.

ATQUE: Another Democratic Party Scandal in Virginia

Newsbusters.

NPR president and CEO Katherine Maher amazed the House Republicans when she testified to Congress on March 26 that she’d never witnessed any liberal bias on NPR, and that “We have a responsibility to serve Americans across the full political spectrum in a trustworthy, nonpartisan fashion.”

Maher laughably claimed to the Washington Post on August 6 that NPR had no “affinity for one party or one perspective over the other,” characterizing the organization as ideological only in that it supports “democracy and the Constitution and the role of the press and the right of every citizen to seek and receive information.”

Wrong. We studied the guests appearing on NPR’s two-hour afternoon news show All Things Considered during the two-month period between July 19, 2025, the day after Congress rescinded taxpayer funding for NPR, and September 18, 2025.

Liberal/Democrat-leaning guests outnumbered conservative-Republican-leaning guests by an astounding disparity of 53 to 3 — and of those three, one was anti-Trump. The political partisanship was also more stark on NPR, with a 12-1 party breakdown of Democrats/liberal politician guests versus Republican ones.

Read it.

An elementary school in Kansas has raised a novel question under the First Amendment: whether the freedom of speech includes the right to use the word “freedom.” According to some media reports, Arbor Creek Elementary Principal Melissa Snell stopped the wearing of shirts reading “Freedom,” which have become popular after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The move is clearly a violation under the First Amendment, in my view.

Libs of TikTok posted an email exchange between Arbor Creek Elementary Principal Melissa Snell and an (unnamed) individual in which Snell confirmed the ban. The email stated: “I just want to make sure that you have told your staff to not wear those ‘Freedom’ shirts to school anymore. Thank you.”

Snell allegedly responded: “Yes, I have. Was there someone in particular that you are referring to? If you don’t mind me asking.”

WaPo Admits Internal DC Police Scandal Over Manipulated Crime Stats

Five weeks ago, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller announced that there was an ongoing DOJ investigation into whether Washington D.C. officials manipulated crime statistics – calling it a “massive scandal.”

One day after Miller’s late-August announcement, National Police Association spox Betsy Smith told ABC4 News in a little-noticed report that “Commanders and supervisors were having the initial responding officers write the report differently than what they were called to, or different than what they physically saw on the scene.”

And while the DC Police Department has been run by Democrats for decades – frustrated cops have been talking to the DOJ and have receipts, presented with a bow by D.C. Police Union Chairman Greggory Pemberton.

Newsbusters.

Last Tuesday, September 30th, ICE agents conducted an overnight raid at a Chicago apartment complex, and arrested 37 illegal aliens from several countries. The complex was targeted because it was frequented by members of the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua. Two gang members were among those captured along with others with criminal records. But MSNBC’s Ali Velshi says that raid, and Donald Trump’s speech to U.S. Generals, later that day, will make September 30th be remembered as one of the darkest days in U.S. history.

Velshi just could not get over that illegals, many with criminal records, could be successfully rounded up in the middle of the night. He opened his Saturday edition of MSNBC’s Velshi by saying, “Quote, ‘we are under siege. We’re being invaded by our own military.’ End quote. Now you’d be forgiven for thinking those were words describing Syria or North Korea, but they came from a witness describing a scene unfolding in Chicago this week.” He was quoting someone named Darrell Ballard, who spoke to the ABC affiliate in Chicago about the ICE raid. Velshi went on to repeat witness claims that residents were separated into groups and led into vans. He informed his audience that, “This came with a military style name. The Trump administration called it Operation Midway Blitz .” Oh my!

Read it.

About 60 students walked out of morning classes on Oct. 1 to protest their high school’s policy allowing male students who identify as transgender to use girls’ bathrooms, in Anaheim, California.

Read it.

When the Special Military Operation began in early 2022, during the 8th year of fighting in Ukraine, the new aspect of the conflict was cast strictly in terms of Democracy vs. Autocracy; valiant Ukraine holding back the onslaught of Russian tyranny; or the defense of Western democratic values against dark barbarism from the East; or the Rules-Based International Order against the forces of Chaos, etc. etc. No one talks that way today, unless it is Kalla Kallas, or the Lithuanian prime minister, Keith Kellogg, or cringingly recently by King Charles III. I suppose Anthony Blinken would, if he had access to a microphone. But he doesn’t.

The problem is, of course, that liberal democracy did not turn out to be the Fukuyamaian End of History that it was purported to be. (In February 2022, before my current views had quite solidified, I distinctly remember thinking, however, “Oh, History is back.”) The decline of democracy, so-stated, is most pronounced where its horn is tooted the most: Europe. Orwell predicted rightly, all political animals are equal, but some political animals are more equal than others. Don’t ask questions in Romania. Or Moldova. Running as an AfD candidate in Germany can get you fitted for a coffin in no time flat. And don’t even get me started on the U.K., where the governing elites are certifiably insane, and whose Prime Minister I’ve recently heard characterized as Tony Blair’s sock-puppet.

Real political expression can often seem more vibrant in the vilified countries–Russia, Hungary, Slovakia–though it may not translate to real political options. But no matter, dissent is decidedly not welcome in the European Parliament. Just ask Georgia what happens when you try to chart an independent course, based on your own country’s national interest. And of course, there is that bastion of freedom itself, Ukraine, where, if you are a man under 60 years of age, you don’t dare emerge from your flat, even if wheelchair-bound.

Read it.

A newly released report by ChargerHelp! shows that while 64% of Americans now live within two miles of an electric vehicle charging station, nearly one-third of charging attempts fail. Despite charging infrastructure showing 98.7% to 99% uptime rates, only 71% of charging attempts actually succeed, according to the 2025 EV Charging Reliability Report.

The report analyzed more than 100,000 sessions across 2,400 chargers. The report argues that instead of focusing on site uptime statistics, the first-time charge success rate (FTCSR) provides a more accurate measure of the driver experience.

“Uptime tells us if a charger is available, but it doesn’t tell us if a driver can actually plug in and get a charge on the first attempt,” said Kameale Terry, CEO of ChargerHelp!, in an interview with FreightWaves. “First-time charge success captures the real driver experience, and by centering on this metric, the industry can close the gap between availability and usability and build the trust needed for mass adoption.”

The complexity of EV charging stems from multiple software systems that must work in harmony, explained Terry, who has nearly a decade of experience in the space.

The nice thing about a hybrid is that you carry your charger with you.

Try Hare Krishna.

Naval Gazing.

Given the current concern around drones, it seems worth surveying possible countermeasures in a reasonably systematic way, looking at each category of possible solution and listing the pros and cons of each. Now, this is a big and rapidly-evolving area, and I’m not a specialist in it. But I have done some looking around, and it seems worthwhile to bring this up as a counter to a lot of the triumphalism around drones these days.

Stephen Miller accused of ‘incitement to violence against judges’ with new ‘purge’ comment (David McAfee/Raw Story)

Trump Plans to Deploy National Guard in Illinois, Governor Says

Trump Authorizes Sending National Guard to Illinois (Wall Street Journal)

Trump Authorizes Troops to Chicago as Judge Blocks Portland Deployment

Trump authorizes National Guard in Chicago as ICE, protesters clash (Washington Post)

Atlantic Magazine Praises Trump for Forcing Pfizer to Slash Drug Prices  Astonishing.

Wikipedia Is Liberal Media: Donald Trump Entry Pushes ‘Authoritarian’ SEVEN Times

Judge temporarily blocks Trump’s National Guard deployment in Portland (CNN)

Federal judge halts Trump administration’s call-up of National Guard in Portland (Kyle Cheney/Politico)

Oregon judge temporarily blocks deployment of the National Guard to Portland (CBS News)

Judge Blocks Trump’s Deployment of National Guard in Portland, Ore. (Anna Griffin/New York Times)

Judge Blocks Trump’s Portland Guard Deployment Amid Antifa Violence; ICE Targeted In Chicago Vehicle-Ramming Attack

Defying court order, Trump sends California National Guard troops to Oregon (Lia Russell/Sacramento Bee)

Governor Newsom to sue, urges Americans to speak out on Trump’s “breathtaking abuse of power” with cross-state Guard deployment (Governor of California)

Newsom Vows to Sue for Trump Sending Calif. Guard to Ore.

The Wisdom of SecDef Douchenozzle (Claire Berlinski/The Cosmopolitan …)

Federal agents knock down elderly couple during Portland protest (Gosia Wozniacka/Oregonian)

Broadview police chief accuses ICE agents of making false 911 calls (Dave Savini/CBS News)

Trump plan would limit disability benefits for older Americans (Washington Post)  Because, as we all know, any excuse to expand the eligibility of people for getting government (i.e. taxpayer) money is sacrosanct and untouchable.

Supreme Court will be forced to grapple with Trump in new term (Justin Jouvenal/Washington Post)  More accurately, forced to grapple with Trump’s ankle-biters.

Are We Really Headed for a Second Civil War? (John Avlon/The Bulwark)

MSNBC Hosts Lets Guest Smear ICE Agents as Trump’s Lawless ‘Gestapo’

Democrats shouldn’t bail out Trump as the government shutdown drags on (MSNBC)

Pod man out: Trump’s support with influential podcasters is waning (NBC News)  They hope, they hope, they hope….

Bill Nye leads charge to save NASA science from deep Trump cuts (Delano Massey/Axios)  He’s not a scientist, but he does play one on TV.

Federal Worker Unions Ask to Preemptively Block Shutdown Layoffs (Zoe Tillman/Bloomberg)

Trump-Appointed Judge Blocks POTUS’ Latest Blue City Takeover (Catherine Bouris/The Daily Beast)

Noem: Anarchists Put $10K Bounty to Kill ICE Officers

Laura Loomer Is Turning Against MAGA Stalwarts (Wall Street Journal)  Whoever that MAGA guy is, he’s stalwart.

‘They Need to Suffer’: Inside Trump’s War on Dissent (Rolling Stone)

‘They Need to Suffer’: Inside Trump’s War on Dissent (Rolling Stone)

Epstein Survivors Will Flood Capitol to Force Files Release (Adam Downer/The Daily Beast) “Flood the capitol”? I sincerely doubt that there will be any ‘flood’ involved, unless perhaps they bring a rent-a-mob with them–which is entirely possible if they are accompanied by Democrat political hacks.

Fact Check: Mike Johnson’s Biggest Lies About Health Care and Undocumented Immigrants (Peter Wade/Rolling Stone)  More accurately, “Narrative Check”.

Kristi Noem calls Chicago a ‘war zone’ after federal agents shoot woman (Olivia Empson/The Guardian)  Who was, memorandum,  armed and attacked ICE agents with her car. Of course, that’s not on The Guardian’s Narrative menu.

Read it.

Cartels have doxxed and put bounties of the heads of several federal immigration officials – offering $10,000 to kill or $2,000 to capture them, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem revealed on Sunday. She did not specify whether the bounties applied to a particular agency such as ICE, or the US Border Patrol.

The Foundry.

Gangs, cartels, and known terrorist organizations have put bounties on the heads of specific Immigration Customs Enforcement agents and border patrol officers, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem revealed Sunday morning.

“It’s about $2,000 to kidnap them and $10,000 to kill them,” Noem explained on “Fox & Friends.” “They’ve released their pictures and sent them between their networks.”

These gangs, cartels, and known terrorist organizations are “being extremely effective” and they want to take these agents down because they “are keeping them from making money off their criminal networks.”

The Foundry.

Amid its ongoing fight with President Donald Trump over whether Harvard University violated the civil rights of students and even deserves to receive millions of dollars from the American taxpayer, the school decided that it was a smart idea to hire a literal drag queen to teach courses.

“Harvard University hired a drag performer as a new professor—who is expected to teach a class on TV show ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ in the spring semester, the Ivy League school announced over the summer,” New York Post reported.

Harvard hired Kareem Khubchandani in July. He is a visiting professor from Tufts University and will teach in the Studies of Gender and Sexuality program.

Read it.

In Dortmund, seven men have acknowledged paternity for a total of 122 children—despite not being their biological fathers. This recognition grants foreign mothers the right to reside in Germany, while the men often receive financial compensation and the state covers child support costs. Investigations are ongoing in several cases.

The incentive for this practice lies in the current legal framework, Apollo News explains: when a German citizen acknowledges paternity of a child born to a foreign mother, the child automatically gains German citizenship, which in turn grants the mother a residence permit. Authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia report that men often receive thousands of euros for such acknowledgments, while they typically do not pay maintenance—costs that are instead covered by the state.

This loophole exists because, since the 1997 reform of children’s rights, paternity can be recognised without judicial review, even before the child’s birth.

Read it.

Pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets across Spain and Italy over the weekend, with clashes erupting between protesters and police in multiple cities. In Barcelona, eight people were arrested and 20 officers injured after demonstrators vandalised shops they claimed were linked to Israel, according to police.

Tens of thousands also protested in Madrid and other Spanish cities, as well as in Rome and Lisbon, in response to Israel stopping the Global Sumud Flotilla—a multinational convoy directly funded and coordinated by the terrorist group Hamas.

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said that out of the 49 Spaniards detained by Israeli forces on the flotilla, 21 would return to Spain from Tel Aviv on Sunday, October 5th.

In Rome, the fourth consecutive day of protests saw hundreds of thousands march past the Colosseum, while police estimated the crowd at 250,000. The demonstrations included anti-Israeli chants and at least one banner praising Hamas’ October 7th terrorist attack, where the terrorist group killed over 1,200 people and and took 251 hostage.

Towards the end of the march, around 200 protesters clashed with officers near the St. Mary Major basilica. Police used tear gas and water cannons, detaining 12 suspects and recording the identities of 262 others.

After the statue of Pope John Paul II outside the main train station in Rome was defaced by graffiti, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned the protesters, saying: “They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology.”

Read it.

On Saturday morning, October 4th, a serious incident overshadowed the opening mass of the March for Life in Vienna’s St. Charles Church.

Worshippers first noticed a bag in the nave emitting a ticking noise, and shortly thereafter, another suspicious object was discovered behind a pillar. The church was immediately evacuated, and the Cobra special unit, along with explosives experts, secured and examined the objects, determining they were fake bombs.

Authorities believe the devices were deliberately placed to incite panic and disrupt the demonstration advocating for life. The timing and location suggest a coordinated attempt to intimidate Christians.

Just hours before the march, a left-wing radical channel circulated a graphic titled “CALL TO ACTION!” glorifying violence against Christians, showing the church in flames with the slogan “Give the fundamentalists hell!” A chalked threat referencing recently assassinated U.S. conservative activist Charlie Kirk was also found nearby.

The New Neo.

Roger L. Simon says pretty much what I’ve been thinking about the current Middle East deal, so I’ll just quote him:

Breaking for the whole world today is the news that Hamas is agreeing to some of President Trump’s 20-point proposal to end the Gaza War, most notably the release of all hostages, living and dead.

Does this mean genuine peace or a hudna?

That is indeed the question.

The New Neo.

If you want to kill a SCOTUS justice, and get close enough to be charged with attempting to kill or kidnap a SCOTUS justice and have to plead guilty, it’s worth your while (if you’re a man, that is) to claim to be a woman.

That’s what would-be SCOTUS assassin Nicholas Roske did. To refresh your memory, he was the man (yes, man) who was arrested in 2022 outside of Justice Kavanaugh’s house by federal marshals who were there guarding it.

This was after the Dobbs draft had been leaked, but before the official decision was handed down. Roske’s goal was to kill three of the conservative justices on the Court, allowing Biden or Biden’s autopen to nominate leftist justices in their place and therefore change the course of SCOTUS history and decisions. You might call his plan an insurrection of sorts, and he did more than just write about it or talk about it. He did turn himself in, but apparently only because those marshals were there.

Read it.

A U.S. Postal Service worker was shot in the face during an altercation Friday afternoon in Everett, Washington, and a rival package delivery driver is in custody, according to local police and a postal inspector.

The incident took place at the West Mall Place Apartments. The victim was transported to Providence Hospital with a gunshot wound, the Everett Police Department said in a Facebook post. He was transferred to Harbor View Medical Center in critical condition, Seattle TV station KOMO reported.

Neighbors said the shooter was an Amazon delivery driver, according to KOMO and social media posts. TV footage showed an Amazon vehicle and USPS van behind police crime-scene tape and the Amazon van being towed away later.

“USPS workers don’t let people in the area when they have the mailboxes open. The Amazon driver didn’t particularly like that, they got into an argument, which escalated to a shoving match, which escalated to the Amazon driver shooting the USPS guy in the freaking eye!!! Then he sat there calmly and waited for the cops to show up and claimed self defense,” a poster named Rich Ryan said on Facebook.

Gives “Going Postal” a new meaning.

Read it.

Jones’s violent text messages about former Republican House Speaker Todd Gilbert are disgusting and dangerous rhetoric and underscore the broader hate messaging by the Democratic Party, which has spent years creating target profiles on conservatives by labeling them “fascists” and “Nazis.” In other words, the left has normalized assassination culture against their political enemies.

“Gilbert, hitler, and pol pot.” Jones wrote. “Gilbert gets two bullets to the head.”

UPDATE; OMISSION: Legacy Sunday Shows SILENT About Virginia AG Candidate’s Murderous Text Messages

Read it.

Ka’Von Wooden loved trains. The 15-year-old had an encyclopedic knowledge of New York City’s subway system and dreamed of becoming a train operator.

‘Ka’Von’? No need to inquire into his ethnicity, I guess.

Instead, on a December morning in 2022, Ka’Von died after he climbed to the roof of a moving J train in Brooklyn and then fell onto the tracks as it headed onto the Williamsburg Bridge.

He is one of more than a dozen New Yorkers, many young boys, who have been killed or badly injured after falling off speeding trains. Other risks include being crushed between the train and tunnel walls and being electrocuted by high-voltage subway tracks. “Subway surfing” dates back a century but it has been fueled by social media.

Think of it as evolution in action.

Washington Examiner.

The chaotic event unfolded in downtown Montgomery right after a college football game between Tuskegee University and Morehouse College.

Both Tuskegee and Morehouse are ‘historically black colleges’.

Imagine how low the crime rates would be if young black males were prohibited from possessing firearms.

Read it.

A visiting professor at Harvard Law School has been placed on administrative leave after his arrest in connection with an incident outside a Brookline synagogue on the eve of Yom Kippur, officials said.

Carlos Portugal Gouvea, who also teaches at the University of São Paulo Law School, was charged with illegally discharging a pellet gun, disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, and vandalizing property, according to public court records.

Brookline police responded Wednesday evening to reports of shots fired outside Temple Beth Zion, a synagogue in Brookline, as Yom Kippur — the holiest day in the Jewish calendar — was beginning. More than a dozen officers were dispatched, according to Brookline.News, which first reported the incident.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism.

The October 7 perpetrators recorded themselves and their victims, reveling in their savagery as they murdered 1,195 people in the most gruesome ways. It was a day of infanticide, beheading, incineration, hostage-taking, and of course rape. Not just random and intermittent rape, but gang rape, communal rape – carefully-planned, procedural, strategic rape. This dimension of October 7 has its own academic-diplomatic term: conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV).

The Dinah Project has documented Hamas’ “systematic and intentional usage of sexual violence as a weapon of war” on October 7 in a report that shows how the “complexity and modus operandi of the attacks, which seem to have occurred over three cumulative waves appear to demonstrate a significant level of planning, coordination and detailed prior knowledge of the targets selected.”

On October 7, Gazans killed children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children. To further traumatize the children, they slaughtered scores, perhaps hundreds, of pet dogs.

Everything about the day was planned for maximum cruelty. No analogues in modern history exist.

So, let’s have no more euphemisms like “the tragedy of October 7” or “the events of October 7.” Let’s dispense with the quotidian nouns and modifiers. There was nothing common about October 7. Let the date alone designate the day of infamy.

Call it simply October 7.

Read it.

Russian planes recently flew into Polish and Romanian airspace to test NATO’s resolve while the world veers toward a conflict in Asia—one that could be far worse than the situation in Ukraine—where true deterrence and resolve remain largely absent.

On Sept. 3, Beijing staged a military extravaganza to parade a full suite of fearsome weapons. Many journalists were awed, and some defeatist experts advocated Chamberlainian appeasement. Others, mostly China observers, tried decoding the seating plan of senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials atop Tiananmen Square for clues about the power struggles in Zhongnanhai.

However, what is often overlooked in the discussion about the event is that it represents the financing and support mechanisms behind a new type of quasi-world war. The ongoing Russia–Ukraine war is one example, and the potential invasion of Taiwan by the Chinese regime is another. Let’s explore this further.

The Xinhua images of the Sept. 3 event, featuring Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un consorting in solidarity, should be interpreted as a calculated response to the new tripartite model the West has devised for militarily supporting Ukraine. That model conveys that Kyiv identifies its military hardware needs, European allies provide the financing, and the United States produces and delivers the hardware.

The Beijing event showcased a parallel model: Moscow requests war materiel, including troops, China and North Korea supply them in exchange for cheap Russian energy, with India and a few other countries dipping in. Thus, even though the war’s actual fighting is confined within Ukraine and Russia, its financing involves a much wider array of adversarial states. The coalitional symmetry in this financing mechanism can prolong the bloody conflict indefinitely, which Russia and Ukraine, if left to their own devices, cannot achieve.

Read it.

The Trump White House is poised to dramatically reduce the number of refugees that will be accepted into the United States over the next fiscal year — with the ceiling falling a whopping 94% from the limit set by the Biden administration, according to a New York Times report.

Citing “people familiar with the matter,” the Times says a maximum of just 7,500 refugees would be admitted over the coming year, a tiny fraction of the 125,000 limit set by the Biden administration last year. Most of those slots would be reserved for white Afrikaners fleeing South Africa and its murderous violence against white people and the looming threat of uncompensated land confiscation. Afrikaners now represent less than 5 percent of South Africa’s population.

The pending reduction and prioritization of white refugees elicited condemnation from promoters of mass immigration. “Such a low refugee ceiling would break America’s promise to people who played by the rules,” Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) president Mark Hetfield, told the Times. “Trump isn’t just putting the Afrikaners to the front of the line, he is kicking years-long-waiting refugees out of the line.” HIAS has itself been hammered by Trump policies, slashing its staff by more than half after the new administration slashed funding for refugee programs.

Read it.

U.S. Border Patrol personnel shot an armed woman in Chicago on Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security said, as scores of protesters faced off against federal immigration agents on the city’s southwest side.

No law enforcement officers were seriously injured in the incident in which a group that included the woman rammed cars into vehicles used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a DHS spokesperson said in a statement.

The woman, a U.S. citizen who was not identified, drove herself to the hospital, according to the statement. No additional information was immediately available about the woman’s condition. ICE agents fired pepper spray and loaded rubber bullets as part of heated exchanges with protesters on Saturday.

NARRATIVE MEDIA: Border Patrol agents shoot woman in Chicago as protesters confront immigration personnel (Jim Vondruska/Reuters)

Read it.

For generations, physicists have puzzled over life. Their theories about matter and energy have helped them understand how the universe produced galaxies and planets. But physicists have struggled to understand how lifeless chemical reactions give rise to the complexity stored in our cells.

In a new book, “Life as No One Knows It: The Physics of Life’s Emergence,” out on Aug. 6, Sara Walker, a physicist at Arizona State University, offers a theory that she and her colleagues believe can make sense of life. Assembly theory, as they call it, looks at everything in the universe in terms of how it was assembled from smaller parts. Life, the scientists argue, emerges when the universe hits on a way to make exceptionally intricate things.

The book arrives at an opportune time, as assembly theory has attracted both praise and criticism in recent months. Dr. Walker argues that the theory holds the potential to help identify life on other worlds. And it may allow scientists like her to create life from scratch.

Read it.

Walk through downtown San Francisco or Los Angeles and you’ll navigate a shifting obstacle course of tents, human waste, and unstable individuals. Business districts that once thrived now see foot traffic evaporate as customers avoid entire blocks. Parents can’t take children to public parks. Elderly residents can’t use their own sidewalks. The social contract that public spaces belong to everyone has collapsed.

Between 2015 and 2022, Los Angeles County’s homeless population surged by 56% while Houston’s fell by 32%. Today, California houses 28% of America’s homeless population with just 12% of its residents. San Francisco’s homelessness rate is nearly 20 times higher than Houston’s.

California has spent over $27 billion on homelessness in recent years. The difference is systems architecture. Houston and Dallas built something that works. California built something that doesn’t, then spent billions pretending otherwise.

This matters because instability breeds instability. When encampments persist for years, residents and business owners face constant uncertainty. When sweeps just move people two blocks over, when every neighborhood waits to see if it will host the next relocated camp, the crisis simply shifts location without resolution.

The Telegraph (UK).

The IDF, which has made plain its opposition to the complete takeover of Gaza for some time, ordered an immediate halt to offensive operations in Gaza City after Mr Trump’s order.

Hostage negotiators, including Mr Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, have also been dispatched to talks that could start as soon as Sunday, most likely in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Although incredibly fragile, it would appear that there is enough momentum for a deal to be struck in the next week to 10 days, with both sides gaining clear benefits from seeing it through.

And Trump just keeps on winning.

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Trust In Media Among Americans Hits Record Low: Gallup Survey

Declining American Democracy: Trump is a Symptom, Not the Cause (Paul Krugman) Krugman is both a sympton and a cause of declining American education.

Apple removes ICE tracking apps after Trump administration says they threaten officers (Clare Duffy/CNN)

White House Keeps 45 DOGE Employees Working Despite Shutdown (Gregory Korte/Bloomberg)  The horror!

Trump spiritual advisory pastor to serve only 6 months after molesting a 12-year-old for years (Daniel Villarreal/LGBTQ Nation)  SCRAAAAAAPE that barrel….

Bezos’ Washington Post Hires New MAGA-Friendly Columnists (Ewan Palmer/The Daily Beast)  That MAGA guy really gets around.

Get Ready for Bad Bunny’s Explosive Super Bowl Trump Protest (Adrian Carrasquillo/The Bulwark)

‘No Way’: Trumpworld Won’t Help Madison Cawthorn Attempt a Political Comeback (Reese Gorman/NOTUS)

Kimmel Disparages ICE, Says Super Bowl Presence Is About Tackling Brown People

Here’s How Trump Loses the Shutdown (Jonathan V. Last/The Bulwark)

Rep. Jeffries: Trump ‘Unhinged, Unserious’ Since Shutdown

MSNBC’s Ruhle Tries to Spin Comey Prosecution as Free Speech Assault

Welcome to the Era of “Kavanaugh Raids” (Garrett M. Graff/Doomsday Scenario)

Joy Behar Melts Down Over ICE Enforcing Immigration at Super Bowl

Government shutdown updates: Leavitt says Trump exploring cutting aid to Portland (ABC News)

Chicago and the Horrors of Carte Blanche (Jay Kuo/The Status Kuo)

OutFoxed — On the “intelligence” that prompted Trump’s push into Portland. (Bill Grueskin/Columbia Journalism Review)

RFK Jr. adds to Team Trump’s pattern of punishing whistleblowers (Steve Benen/MSNBC)

Most Trump supporters back ObamaCare subsidies’ extension: Survey (Surina Venkat/The Hill)

NBC’s Melvin Tells Speaker Johnson ‘We Can’t Get to’ ‘Misleading’ Claim About Illegals

The Supreme Court Is Creating a King (Matt Ford/New Republic)

Groups File Suit Over Trump’s $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee (New York Times)

Unions, Employers Sue to Block Trump’s $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee

US Supreme Court lets Trump strip temporary status from Venezuelan migrants (Andrew Chung/Reuters)

Supreme Court allows Trump to revoke protected immigration status for thousands of Venezuelans (Lawrence Hurley/NBC News)

Supreme Court lets Trump strip protections from more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants (Mark Sherman/Associated Press)

Supreme Court Lets Trump Revoke Deportation Protections for Venezuelans (Ann E. Marimow/New York Times)

Supreme Court lets Noem end legal status for many Venezuelans in the U.S. (Chris Geidner/Law Dork)

My travels through Chicago: teargas, resistance and Trump’s big immigration crackdown (Oliver Laughland/The Guardian)

Fired prosecutor warns colleagues to resist giving in to Trump era ‘political interference’ (Politico)

First Circuit Rebukes Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order as Unconstitutional (Yunior Rivas/Democracy Docket)

They Radicalized Themselves (Brian Beutler/Off Message)

They’re Lying, Dividing, And Distracting. Don’t Believe The GOP’s Shutdown Hype (Gabe Ortiz/Combating Nativist Narratives)

Trump administration prepares to offer money to unaccompanied migrant teenagers to voluntarily leave US (Priscilla Alvarez/CNN)

Getting Away with Murder (David Cole/The New York Review of Books)

“Attack on Free Speech”: Journalist Mario Guevara Deported After Covering Anti-Trump Protest (Democracy Now)

New York Magazine Irked that Jimmy Fallon Hasn’t Fully Embraced Trump Hate

The Sufferable Evil — Chicago and the End of American Liberty. (Mike Brock/Notes From The Circus)

Atlanta Spanish-language journalist deported (Tim Darnell/Atlanta News First)

Trump officials discussed sending elite Army division to Portland, text messages show (Andy Mannix/Minneapolis Star Tribune)

Chicago alderperson says federal agents handcuffed her at Humboldt Park medical facility (ABC7)

Newsom chides USC to ‘do the right thing’ for academic freedom and resist Trump compact (Los Angeles Times)

The FBI is weighing an arrest and perp walk for Comey — and suspended an agent for refusing to help, sources say (Daniel Klaidman/CBS News)

Kennedy’s Ties to Ally Leading Vaccine Lawsuits Raise Ethical Concerns (Christina Jewett/New York Times)

Trump Administration Is Said to Plan to Cut Refugee Admissions to a Record Low (New York Times)  The horror!

Trump is finally ready to talk about Project 2025 (Zachary B. Wolf/CNN)  Well, he’d better hurry up, it will soon be 2026.

Democrats’ defiance on shutdown shows a new, tougher approach to Trump (Washington Post)  Not as if they have a choice….

Partisan Shutdown Messages Could Hurt Civil Service, Experts Warn (Eileen Sullivan/New York Times)  The myth of the ‘non-partisan civil service’ is one of the most pernicious in the modern political fantasyland. Republican or Democrat, the civil service are statists first and last: “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” — Benito Mussolini.

Trump’s Boat Strike Cartel War Doesn’t Make a Lot of Sense So Far (W.J. Hennigan/New York Times)  Well, it’s yanking your chain pretty effectively. That’s got to be worth something.

Trump Seizes On Shutdown to Punish Political Foes (Tony Romm/New York Times)  And this surprises you?

The Billionaire Behind Trump’s Deal for Universities (New York Times)  ‘Billionaire’ is the NYTs term to point out a candidate for the Two Minute Hate (unless it’s George Soros, of course).

There Was a Plan to Save These New Deal Masterpieces. Then Trump Won. (Timothy Noah/New Republic)  Not mentioned: The ‘New Deal masterpieces’ in question were paintings in the style later termed Soviet Realism.

Trump Goon Spills Bonkers Plan to Deploy 82nd Airborne to Blue City (Catherine Bouris/The Daily Beast)

Did Trump’s crime crackdown in Washington work? It’s complicated. (Reuters)  ‘It’s complicated’ means ‘Yeah, it worked, but we don’t want to say that’.

MAGA wages campaign to redefine “hate” after Kirk killing (Axios)  There’s that MAGA guy again. (I guess a bullet to the throat doesn’t fit the proglodyte definition of ‘hate’.)

How Maga cheerleaders have infiltrated the White House press corps (David Smith/The Guardian)  Didn’t know that MAGA guy had cheerleaders at his disposel. Very cunning.

The Terrifying New Memo Trump Could Use to Go After His Opposition (Tessa Stuart/Rolling Stone)  Nothing scares a ‘journalist’ like a terrifying memo.

CNN Pushes HARD to Blame Trump, Not Russia, for Greenland Military Exercises

Body slamming, teargas and pepper balls: viral videos show Ice using extreme force in Chicago (Siri Chilukuri/The Guardian)  And protesters doing the same, of course, but the Guardian can’t mention that.

Kash Patel’s Challenge Coin Is Perfect for Him (Tom Nichols/The Atlantic)  Trump cooties!

With a Democratic Party leadership vacuum, Obama steps up his criticism of Trump (NBC News)

Federal court blocks ICE from detaining unaccompanied minors once they turn 18 (Eric Bazail-Eimil/Politico)

37 people arrested and American kids separated from parents after ICE raid at Chicago apartments (CNN)

Federal Judge to Decide on Alleged ICE Violations in Chicago

Read it.

All things being equal, I think President Trump is doing a damn good job his first year in office. Sure, there are things that I could choose to take exception with — not cutting as much spending as anticipated or dangerous ideas involving stablecoins in the Treasury market, for example — but all in all, Trump is getting the big things right.

Every once in a while, I check in on the Democrats to see if they have somehow organically manifested one new brain cell while they just sleep, lobotomized and Matrix-pod style, in the liquid goo of groupthink, identity politics, race hustling, “academic” theories, and post-post-post-postmodern ideologies (the fourth post just kills you)—and I’m quickly assured that they have made no progress whatsoever.

For example, here’s Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett stating just days ago that just because somebody commits a crime, it doesn’t make them a criminal, while her yoga teacher nods along in deep agreement as though she has just presented a breakthrough in differential geometry at MIT and he’s in the class following along, taking notes.

The Foundry.

Since Democrats have shut down the federal government because they want another $1.5 trillion bailout of Obamacare, it’s a good time to remind everyone that the law has been a wide-ranging and expensive fiasco.

Virtually every promise made by Democrats regarding the Affordable Care Act has failed to come true.

Sure, former President Barack Obama infamously promised that Americans could keep their preferred insurance if they desired. By the end of his second term, around 7 million people had been booted from their insurance because of the Affordable Care Act. Who knows how many have been dropped since.

But let’s also not forget that Obama pledged that the law would reduce family health insurance premiums by “up to” $2,500 annually by the end of his first term. Premiums not only continued to rise during his presidency, but since 2010, they have spiked from $13,000 to nearly $24,000.

Democrats used to love to talk about “bending the cost curve.” Well, congrats.

Chicago Sun-times.

A woman was shot by U.S. Border Patrol agents Saturday morning on Chicago’s South Side, marking the second shooting since President Donald Trump’s administration launched an aggressive immigration enforcement operation in the area last month.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said the shooting erupted after patrolling agents were “rammed by 10 cars” and “boxed in.” Agents then fired “defensive shots” when they discovered the woman “was armed with a semi-automatic weapon” while driving one of the cars.

The time and location of the shooting weren’t immediately known. No law enforcement officials were hurt.

Power Line.

Defendant Salim Said was one of the most successful players in the Feeding Our Future fraud. On trial with fraud ringleader Aimee Bock earlier this year, Said sought to introduce the campaign video (below) featuring Ilhan Omar in his defense. The video shows Omar talking up Said’s Safari restaurant in Somali and bringing meals outside to waiting cars. Lead prosecutor Joe Thompson objected to Omar’s part in the video as an attempt to graft her prestige as a member of Congress onto Said’s defense.

Read it.

A scandal is rocking Germany: members of the youth wing of the Die Linke (The Left) party (Linksjugend) in Hanover distributed stickers featuring Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) co-leader Alice Weidel with a sniper’s crosshair over her head and the English caption “Aim Here.”

Lower Saxony police confirmed they have opened an investigation on charges of “public incitement to commit crimes and threats” after images of the stickers circulated on social media and AfD representatives filed a formal complaint.

Far from a fringe act of vandalism, the stickers bore the official logo of the radical leftist party’s youth branch, raising serious concerns about growing political radicalization.

The episode inevitably recalls the recent assassination of U.S. commentator Charlie Kirk, which the same Hanover group celebrated online with posts such as: “With a targeted shot to Kirk’s neck, the end of his inhumane policies was sealed.”

That the same aesthetic has now been deployed against an elected German politician marks a dangerous escalation in symbolic violence. What was once associated with loosely organized groups such as Antifa is now coming directly from an official youth organization tied to a parliamentary party.

Read it.

Four ‘pro-Gaza’ activists threw red paint on the German Federal Foreign Office building in Berlin, on Thursday, October 2nd, smearing the facade and ground with slogans and what looked like fake blood. Police arrested all four, plus another person who tried to interfere in the arrest.

Soon after, more pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered outside the building, chanting “Free Gaza” and other slogans. They declared support for the Global Sumud Flotilla, which Greta Thunberg had joined before it was intercepted by the Israeli Navy.

The incident came just days after a large pro-Palestinian protest in Berlin with around 60,000 participants, where some demonstrators shouted antisemitic slogans.

Read it.

Mullally, 63, was confirmed on Friday following approval from King Charles III, who is the supreme governor of the Church of England. A former chief nursing officer for England, Mullally was ordained in 2002 and rose quickly through the hierarchy, becoming Bishop of London in 2018.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the most senior cleric in the Church of England and functions as a figurehead for the Anglican churches worldwide. The decision to appoint a woman is likely to deepen existing rifts within the Anglican Communion, particularly with provinces in Africa and Asia that have strongly opposed female bishops and liberal reforms.

So much for the ‘Anglican Union’.

Read it.

Poor and developing nations need to band together, finance their own energy infrastructure, development, health and prosperity – and tell the carbon colonialists to take a hike.

The New Neo.

The left loves to distort language in order to mislead the public. You might say it’s one of their favorite tactics, and it’s very effective.

One good example is the morphing of the term “illegal aliens” to “illegal immigrants” to “undocumented workers” and then to “migrants. And have you heard of the word “unhoused” to refer to homeless street people?

Another example has to do with “book bans.” The phrase conjures up Nazi book burnings and dystopic films like Fahrenheit 451, and it’s meant to do so.

But the current “bans” aren’t actual bans at all. They are about school libraries as well as what books to teach in classrooms. Students are completely free to read whatever books they wish (or whatever books their parents let them read, if parents still have control).

Removing a book from a school library or failing to put it there in the first place, or deciding it will not be part of the curriculum, amounts to not recommending it, and/or not facilitating exposure to it. This is a very different thing from banning something. But the left would like you to confuse the two. The linked article does mention schools, but the word “ban” nearly overrides it and is not only misleading but is almost certainly intended to cause an emotional reaction and a connection with Nazis and the like.

Newsbusters.

In the immediate aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, there were sickening statements made by both journalists and celebrities that either blamed Kirk himself or conservative rhetoric for his death.

Before Kirk’s death was even confirmed, MSNBC contributor Matthew Dowd criticized Kirk for constantly pushing “hate speech” and added: “hateful words….lead to hateful actions.”

CBS Mornings host Nate Burleson pressed former GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy: “Not everyone took to his [Charlie Kirk] words or his rhetoric….They were offensive to specific communities….Is this a moment for your party to reflect on political violence?”

Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann actually put the onus on the President: “Charlie Kirk is dead – as so many others are dead or threatened or wounded or living in fear – because there is a Donald Trump.”

The Hollywood Left also pushed the angle that conservatives were at fault. ABC late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel’s spreading of this disinformation got him briefly suspended: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”

Sadly, the calls for the left to tone down their rhetoric (in the wake of the Kirk shooting) went largely unheeded as they quickly returned to their attacks on “authoritarian” Trump’s attacks on democracy.

Read it.

North Carolina’s largest police union has requested federal law enforcement assistance, including National Guard deployment to Charlotte, citing what it described as escalating violence and a staffing crisis.

In a letter Thursday, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge No. 9, told city leaders: “The request is due to the ongoing failure of city and police leadership to address the severe staffing crisis within the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, which we believe has led to a violence crisis in Charlotte.”

Although North Carolina law prohibits public-employee collective bargaining, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Fraternal Order of Police functions as the primary representative body for officers and is often referred to as a police union.

Read it.

A combination of ideology, social media, mental health disorders, and medication may be influencing recent trends in violence and radicalization among those who identify as transgender, according to experts.

“My general feeling is that we’re seeing more of it … not for any one factor, but because of several factors all convening, and they’re all amplified by the political rhetoric,” said C. Alan Hopewell, a Fort Worth neuropsychologist.

When people struggling with their sexual identity are prescribed hormones to change their bodies, it impacts the way they think, he told The Epoch Times.?

Hopewell said that combining hormones, medication, and intense online pressure can create a dangerous situation.

Read it.

Hollywood’s middle class is collapsing, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.

Production has slowed to historic lows, jobs are vanishing, and longtime workers are leaving Los Angeles in droves.

Animator Brian Mainolfi, who once worked with Chuck Jones and on Disney films like Mulan, hasn’t had steady work since 2024. His only income is $350 a week teaching three hours away. “By the end of the year if I don’t have something, I’m going to have to apply to a big-box store or a grocery store,” said the 54-year-old, now burning through savings.