Read it.

The Democratic Party’s power grip on the Mid-Atlantic, particularly in Maryland, appears to be eroding.

Local headlines and a Justice Department statement confirm that leftist-controlled Baltimore County has been removed from the federal list of sanctuary jurisdictions after signing a cooperation agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The DoJ wrote in a press release that the county’s cooperation represents progress in restoring public safety, despite state-level restrictions on federal immigration enforcement. The county had been listed as a sanctuary jurisdiction since August, a designation leftist County Executive Kathy Klausmeier argued was a mistake.

Read it.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose says he’s found 1,084 alleged cases of noncitizens who appear registered to vote and is referring them to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) after county prosecutors failed to act.

LaRose said his office has also uncovered instances of 167 people who have allegedly voted in a federal election as far back as 2018.

“In these cases, the county prosecutor has decided for whatever reason not to take them up. In some cases they’ve been referred to the attorney general as well, and we’re sending them along to the federal government to see if they want to prosecute these cases,” LaRose said.

LaRose had asked county prosecutors to act on 633 cases of suspected voter fraud last year but prosecutors took up just 12 of them, saying the others lacked evidence to pursue indictments.

The number of election fraud allegations in Ohio are a direct challenge to Democrat claims that noncitizens registering to vote in U.S. elections never happens.

Associated Press.

In a statement early Sunday, British Transport Police, which took the lead in the response given that it is responsible for security matters on trains, said two individuals have been arrested in connection with the stabbings.

“Ten people have been taken to hospital with nine believed to have suffered life-threatening injuries,” the statement said. “This has been declared a major incident and Counter Terrorism Policing are supporting our investigation whilst we work to establish the full circumstances and motivation for this incident.”

I’ll put money on it being Muslim ‘asylum seekers’.

UPDATE: UK Train Mass Stabbing: Authorities Insist No Indication Of Terrorism  Sure, I believe that.

Read it.

The German federal government is firing its big debt cannon at the ongoing recession. So far, with zero effect. Berlin is about to learn the hard way that you cannot create prosperity with a money printer.

Trump can’t require proof of citizenship for voter registration, judge says (Julianna Bragg/Axios)

US judge permanently blocks Trump order requiring voters to prove citizenship (Dietrich Knauth/Reuters)

US judge blocks Trump order requiring proof of citizenship to vote (Associated Press)

White House restricts media access in the West Wing (Aaron Pellish/Politico)

The White House thought the shutdown would be quick. Now they’re frustrated. (Politico)  The mind-readers at Politico lay out the Narrative for you.

NPR Only Sees ‘Danger’ in Trump Designating Violent Antifa as Terrorists, Not Antifa Itself

Correspondents’ Group Opposes New WH House Press Policy  My, what a surprise.

Vance Says He Hopes His Wife Embraces Christianity, Setting Off Backlash (Amy Qin/New York Times)

Trump Is the Democrats’ Best Campaigner (Jonathan Martin/Politico)

Trump Marks Full Month Of Government Shutdown With $3.4 Million Golf Trip To Florida (S.V. Date/HuffPost)

John Roberts betrayed America for Donald Trump (Chauncey DeVega/Salon)  Don’t hold it in; tell us how you really feel.

Nearly 42 million Americans lose their food stamp benefits (Politico)  That’s over 10% of the population. Think of that: Over 10% of the American population depends on government handouts.

Brooks Mourns Dems Are Focused On Obamacare Instead Of Threats To Democracy  Follow the money.

Trump isn’t acting confidently about the 2025 elections (Washington Post)  Of course, the WaPo is the sole judge of what ‘acting confidently’ means.

Under Trump, Becoming a U.S. Citizen Gets Harder (Madeleine Ngo/New York Times)  Hey, if it were easy, anybody could do it.

ICE and Border Patrol’s use of tear gas injures, sickens and tests the law (Washington Post)  Of course, the Narrative is that mobs of left-wing rioters ought to be able to do whatever they want.

J. D. Vance’s Bad Answer to an Anti-Semitic Question (Yair Rosenberg/The Atlantic)

Obama Is Now Not So Sure America Can Survive Under Trump (Ethan Cotler/The Daily Beast)

Fury as Trump holds ‘tone deaf’ Gilded Age Halloween party as millions lose food aid (Alexander Willis/Raw Story)

2025 Is ICE’s Deadliest Year In 20 Years (Gabe Ortiz/Combating Nativist Narratives)  “Nativist” is the proglodyte smear-term for preferring your own country to others. The horror!

Trump tells Ilhan Omar to leave the country (Gregory Svirnovskiy/Politico)  I second that emotion.

Read it.

Mali faces mounting pressure from al-Qaida-linked militants as the U.S.-designated terrorist group tightens its grip on supply routes leading to the capital, Bamako, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The United States this week urged its citizens to leave Mali immediately due to “persistent infrastructure challenges,” including disruptions in fuel supplies, closure of schools and universities nationwide, and ongoing armed conflict between the Malian government and terrorist elements near Bamako — all of which have heightened the city’s instability.

The travel advisory level for Mali is Level 4, or “Do Not Travel.”

Newsbusters.

“Bug-eye” Booker strikes again.

Last Tuesday, at a Senate hearing on political violence, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) lamented that Donald Trump, who he says has talked about punching people in the face, has never apologized for it. Well guess what, Cory Booker has said that sometimes he wants to punch Donald Trump, and I have yet to see an apology from him. Booker also falsely stated that Chuck Schumer had “apologized” for what many had perceived as a threat to Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. Unfortunately, the media failed to point any of this out.

On June 22, 2019, Booker, appeared on NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers and informed the audience that “Donald Trump is a guy who you understand he hurts you. And my testosterone sometime, makes me wanna feel like punching him.” The macho man then bragged, “Which would be bad for this elderly out of shape man that he is if I did that. This physically weak specimen.” Booker has pretty much gotten a pass for his violent talk.

As for Schumer, he spoke at a rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020 focused on a Louisiana abortion rights case. “I want to tell you Gorsuch, I want to tell you Kavanaugh, you have unleashed the whirlwind, and you will pay the price…You won’t know what hit you, if you go forward with these awful decisions.” Two years later, in June of 2022, a man attempted to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his home. Schumer did say he regretted the words he used, but did not apologize.

Read it.

There is another bizarre filing from Mark Elias, the controversial Democratic lawyer who helped to secretly fund the infamous Steele Dossier. In a new filing, Elias is challenging the district in New York City with the lone Republican member as violating the state voting rights act. Elias is effectively arguing that voting Republican is evidence of racism.

In the petition, voters bring a New York Voting Rights Act challenge, arguing that the Eleventh District “provides Black and Latino Staten Islanders “less opportunity than other members of the electorate to elect a representative of their choice and influence elections in New York’s 11th Congressional District (“CD-11”), in violation of the prohibition against racial vote dilution in Article III, Section 4(c)(1) of the New York Constitution.”

The filing occurs after New York moved to further gerrymander the state, aiming to eliminate more Republican members of Congress. Across the country, Democrats have pushed for such gerrymandering, but in New York, the efforts are particularly extreme.

Trump received 45 percent of the vote. Republicans are confined to a small handful of districts. It is still too much for Elias.

Read it.

My, what a surprise.

Newsbusters.

CNN’s Abby Phillip swung by The Breakfast Club radio show on Tuesday to promote her book about Jesse Jackson and at one point argued that it’s a known fact that many voters and “especially white voters” apply a higher standard to black candidates. Phillip provided no evidence for her accusation.

Co-host Loren Lorasa led Phillip by wondering how Jackson’s failure to become president in the 80s impacted people like former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris, “How would all of that be different if he had been able to get in office and do what he was doing before he was voted president or not voted president?”

Phillip replied, “It’s really interesting. It’s such an interesting question. I mean, I think one of the reasons that Vice President Harris and Barack Obama have had to present a certain way to the American public is the perception that a broad swath of the electorate, especially white voters, won’t take a black candidate seriously unless they are very buttoned up, have the resume all lined up, the whole thing. And that’s accurate, right? That, like, we all understand that you kind of have to clear a higher bar in order to even be let in the door.”

If so, so what? Before I would vote for a black candidate, I would expect some assurance that he doesn’t hate white people, as far too many black candidates (and all Democrats, so far as I can tell) do. That doesn’t strike me as unreasonable.

Watch it.

Carl Benjamin (“Sargon of Akkad”) continues documenting the benefits of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion on a once-great country.

Read it.

Back in the distant past of 2010, Ben Bernanke sat before Congress and lied his ass off assured everyone that quantitative easing was “temporary” and would be “reversed” once the emergency had passed.

It was supposed to be a short-lived anomaly, a controlled detour from monetary orthodoxy. The balance sheet would shrink, markets would normalize, and the Fed would quietly step back into the shadows.

Here we are fourteen years later. The detour has become the highway.

Read it.

The epicenter of America’s power bill inflation crisis stretches across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, where far-left state and city leaders have swallowed the globalist “climate crisis” pill, which even Bill Gates admitted last week that the climate crisis narrative was fake news.

The result of these leftist extremist “green” policies has been the systematic degradation of regional power grids in Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states, as reliable fossil-fuel generation was prematurely retired in favor of unreliable, intermittent solar and wind. These nation-destroying green policies have gutted spare grid capacity (read here) just as demand surges from data centers, onshoring, and the broader electrification push (read here), culminating in today’s power bill crisis.

A recent Goldman Sachs report by analyst Carly Davenport found that “higher power bill inflation has been the most pronounced in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and California in the past three years.”

Read it.

Whenever you delve into the modern history of internal national conflict you’re bound to come across post-crisis accounts from people who said “We never saw it coming…” or “The violence hit us from nowhere…” Generally speaking, these were the people who weren’t paying attention and they just happened to survive by sheer luck.

I think of this dynamic a lot these days. I see a large contingent of American society (perhaps 25% of the population) which has been radicalized or brainwashed beyond all reason or repair. These people (leftists) operate deep within a protective bubble of propaganda and zealotry; they function within a hive mind that does not deviate from the demands of their gatekeepers. They cannot be reasoned with, nor can they be satiated. They lust for power and the suffering of anyone who opposes them.

One can see an immediate difference between the sides. Conservatives are so independent we in-fight constantly. We might agree on basic values (even in this we sometimes argue), but in terms of policy and action we rarely shake hands.

For the political left, any disagreement with the majority leads to immediate ostracism. The hive mind does not tolerate individual rebellion. Only the gatekeepers can change the mindset or the mission of the mob.

Read it.

Now that the United States no longer makes pennies, there is a scramble among gas stations, fast-food chains and big-box stores to adjust prices and round cash transactions, and it could potentially eat into their profits.

Pennies are drying up faster than retailers anticipated following President Donald Trump’s decision earlier this year to halt production of the one-cent coin. Retail groups recently told Reuters that they are frustrated by the lack of guidance from the Trump administration and lawmakers, forcing them to round down to avoid angering customers and violating laws in some states — potentially costing high-volume businesses significant money.

The National Retail Federation said the dearth of pennies has hit retailers in urban and rural areas, with no clear geographic pattern. Members of some state restaurant associations have voiced concerns about penny shortages.

Read it.

A new report by watchdog group Americans for Public Trust (APT) alleges that billions in foreign funds have flowed into U.S. organizations engaged in policy and advocacy work, blurring the lines of political influence.

The 31-page report, which includes financial records and receipts, traces nearly $2 billion from foreign-based charities to American groups active in what APT describes as “politically charged” initiatives. While foreign entities cannot contribute directly to U.S. political candidates, APT says their money is reaching election-related efforts such as voter mobilization campaigns, lobbying, research, and issue advertising.

“There’s not a question about where it’s going and where it is coming from,” said APT executive director Caitlin Sutherland. “We know that it’s foreign money coming into our U.S. policy fights, climate litigation, research, protests, lobbying, you name it. Foreign money is coming in, and it’s trying to erode our democracy.”

Read it.

The ongoing debate over France’s budget continued on Friday, when the National Assembly voted down a proposal for a 2% tax on assets exceeding €100 million, known as the Zucman tax after its economist proponent, Gabriel Zucman. The measure, supported by an alliance of left-wing parties, aimed to target around 1,800 wealthy households and would, Zucman has said, generate €15-20 billion annually. Center- and right-wing lawmakers united in opposition, citing concerns about capital flight, job losses, and economic harm, while the government warned the tax would be unconstitutional. A milder ‘Zucman-light’ variant from the Socialists, proposing a 3% levy on assets over €10 million, with exemptions for family and “innovative” firms, also failed to pass.

The vote escalates political tensions as France races to approve its 2026 budget by year-end, with the deficit projected to hit 6% of GDP amid post-pandemic recovery strains. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu faces mounting pressure, as he lacks a parliamentary majority and is reliant on Socialist support to pass the budget.

If the minority government excludes wealth redistribution measures, left-wing deputies have threatened to topple it. To pacify furious lawmakers on the Left, Lecornu offered concessions like abandoning planned freezes on pensions and welfare benefits, which would otherwise fail to adjust for inflation. Lawmakers did approve a compromise: a 2% tax on non-operational assets held in holding companies, expected to raise up to €1 billion.

Zucman, a 39-year-old Berkeley professor, decried the vote as a “missed opportunity for fiscal justice.” Critics, including budget minister Amélie de Montchalin, argued it would drive wealthy taxpayers abroad and undermine business competitiveness. With Senate review pending, further amendments could reshape the budget, but analysts warn of prolonged gridlock.

Read it.

I reported earlier this week on Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit that now has a majority Muslim population. Coincidentally, Dearborn is in the news today: the FBI mounted a terror bust in Dearborn and arrested five people, some of them minors, who were working on behalf of the Islamic State. The mischievous youngsters were allegedly planning a special surprise for the kuffar on Halloween, which they evidently referred to as “Pumpkin Day”.

WXYZ (Detroit Channel 7) and the Detroit Free Press are two useful local news sources on the story.

Quillette.

Qatar has weaponised “mediation”: it has bankrolled Islamist power, posed as the indispensable broker, and sat on the leverage it had over Hamas from the start. For nearly two years, it has blamed Israel instead. Only when pressure escalated into strikes on Qatari soil—and the US sweetened the deal with guarantees and alternative investments—did Doha finally shift.

A week after the massacre of 7 October 2023, I sat with a cohort of young Jewish professionals in Washington, DC, under the auspices of the Israel Policy Forum. The air was thick with grief and confusion, and no one quite knew how to name what had happened yet. “This is a moment for humility,” said Aaron David Miller. At which point, I asked the same question I asked in every room I entered: “What are we doing about Qatar?”

The question was met with blank stares and raised eyebrows. One congressional staffer looked at me sideways, as if I was pushing a conspiracy theory. Only Hussein Ibish, senior scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, seemed to understand. He nodded and explained: Qatar might hold the keys to resolution, but it has compromised the United States, because it built the largest US military base in the Middle East and handed the Pentagon the keys for free.

Read it.

Even back to the days of Charles Manson, a violent cult leader, there were pockets of people who cheered and reveled in violence. But all too common today are the groupies who adulate the CEO killer, the social media maven who praises the assassination of Charlie Kirk, or the miscreant who says they wish presidential assassins had been successful.

In today’s social-media fueled world, every heinous act of violence spawns a great majority of people of condemn it and a smaller counter-reaction of people who cheer it and call for more. Maybe this was always the case, but those who supported such violence could not as easily band together as they can today. Social media allows the violence lovers to find like-minded individuals, legitimizing their response, further encouraging future violence.

Kirk held no elected office. His only weapons were words and open debate. Despite this, nearly one in five Americans shockingly declared in surveys that his assassination was justified, according to a Harvard CAPS Harris poll. The path to such thoughts is clear. The opposition on the left characterized Kirk’s positions as “hate” despite his willingness to debate anyone anywhere. Once his speech was then characterized as violence – the resultant deadly violence became justified.

Read it.

President Trump said on Friday that he’s yet to make a final decision on launching a military attack on Venezuela, but President Nicolás Maduro is not waiting around while taking the US leader’s word on it.

Maduro is reportedly urgently reaching out to Russia, China, and Iran for any possible military aid, including defense items which may have already been negotiated or are in the works. The Washington Post says it’s obtained internal documents showing such recent and high-stakes requests.

Read it.

Brazilian authorities are seizing record amounts of cocaine moving through the Amazon as traffickers exploit expanding commercial river routes for oil and crop exports, according to Bloomberg.

In April, police chief Murilo Sampaio intercepted barges traveling from Peru’s Bretaña oil field, operated by PetroTal Corp. Drug-sniffing dogs detected a hidden compartment: “Everything was fine up until then,” Sampaio said. “But when the dogs came on board, they were able to identify a scent.” More than half a ton of cocaine was recovered and six crew members were arrested.

Read it.

Topline: The City of Baltimore gave $62,500 to a nonprofit that employs the mayor’s wife, according to tax filings reviewed by the Baltimore Sun. Six members of City Council have introduced a bill that would make similar payments illegal — which the mayor opposes.

Mayor Brandon Scott

Key facts: The grant was paid in 2023 from the Baltimore Children and Youth Fund to the nonprofit Bmore Empowered, where Hana Scott is the director of operations. She is also Mayor Brandon Scott’s wife. The mayor’s office has a representative on the Youth Fund board who votes on which nonprofits receive grants.

It’s unknown whether Bmore Empowered received city funding in 2024 or 2025 because it did not file a Form 990 tax form. Britt Mittendorf, accounting school chair at Ohio State University, told the Baltimore Sun, “Regular filing of a 990 is essentially the bare minimum in terms of compliance.”

The Baltimore Sun asked the charity if they received more recent public funding, but there was no response. Hana Scott blocked reporters on LinkedIn after they messaged her with questions.

Read it.

A probe into the Marxist nonprofit Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF), which was initially opened under the Biden-Harris administration, has seen renewed interest from federal prosecutors in President Trump’s second term over allegations that the far-left group defrauded donors.

Read it.

It was less than 20 years ago that the U.S. economy was flattened by the mortgage and banking crisis. Anyone remember?

The experts said that the odds were tiny that the housing market could crash; that the federal housing agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would never need a bailout; that mortgage-backed securities were as good as gold.

Then they crashed overnight spectacularly and devastatingly. Banks made riskier and riskier housing loans to subprime borrowers—and the government covered the bets with essentially 100 percent loan guarantees. The book “The Big Short” famously tells the story of strippers in Las Vegas playing the market and flipping houses by taking out three or four mortgages.

One reason depositors and investors were paying no attention to the big banks’ high-risk lending strategy is that everything was guaranteed.

By you and me.

Read it.

Walmart has denied claims circulating online that it plans to close stores in response to potential looting tied to the federal government shutdown and a possible pause in federal food benefits.

Breitbart reported that a Walmart spokesperson told Fox News the rumors were “false,” and that stores “will continue to be open for business.”

The rumors stemmed from social media posts alleging that Walmart locations might shutter ahead of expected disruptions to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food assistance to roughly 42 million Americans.

RELATED: SNAP beneficiaries threaten to ransack stores over government shutdown (Alba Cuebas-Fantauzzi/Fox News)