02 U.S. Politics

Blurb:

If you had to describe the last decade or so of political life in America, the list would likely include the following: The Black Lives Matter movement. The death of George Floyd. America’s first Black president. The rise of the MAGA movement. The election and reelection of Donald Trump. A resurgence of white nationalism. An erasure of Black history.

America in these last 10 years has experienced generational political upheaval, clashes over race and identity, and a battle over the very direction of the country itself. Few writers have charted these wild swings better than staff writer for The New Yorker and Columbia Journalism School Dean Jelani Cobb. And for Cobb, it all started when he was asked to write about an incident that was just beginning to make national news: the death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black 17-year-old in Florida.

“At the time, I thought of Trayvon as this particularly resonant metaphor. But I didn’t understand that he was actually the start of something much bigger,” Cobb says. “I’m still kind of hearing the echoes of that moment.”

Cobb recently released Three or More Is a Riot: Notes on How We Got Here: 2012–2025, a collection of essays from more than a decade at The New Yorker, that all begin with that moment of national reckoning over Martin’s death. On this week’s episode, Cobb looks back at how the Trayvon Martin incident shaped the coming decade, reexamines the Black Lives Matter movement and President Obama’s legacy in the age of Donald Trump, and shares what he tells his journalism students at a time when the media is under attack.

For the 13th time, the U.S. Senate has failed to reach the 60 votes needed to pass the continuing budget resolution that would re-open the government. The vote was 55-45, with two Democrats breaking ranks and voting for the CR while one Republican voted against the CR. Getting a clear picture of the differences between the two is near impossible, with AI tools doing little more than carrying DNC talking points.

From the White House: FACT: Democrats’ proposal would result in nearly $200 billion spent on healthcare for illegal immigrants and other non-citizens over the next decade — enough to fund the entire Children’s Health Insurance Program.

While the DNC CLAIMS it’s not defending illegal aliens from losing healthcare coverage, Republicans insist they do. The language used by the DNC and its illegal campaign advertisers (with Reuters doing the most offensive work) is intentionally obtuse beyond defiantly declaring the DNC doesn’t want to fund illegal aliens. For now, MIA’s stance is the evidence points to the DNC wanting to fund illegal alien healthcare, or worse, destabilize America for the Progmerican revolution to grow.

Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) is breaking ranks, saying to his own party, “As a committed Democrat, I’m dismayed my party is playing chicken with the food security of 42M Americans. I reject a political gamble that exposes a vulnerable constituency to widespread deprivation and chaos.”

This tactic appears, more and more, about causing “widespread… chaos” for the intentional of revolution than anything else. Read why the DNC should be declared a terrorist organization on pg. 2, remembering the American left STILL exists and should NOT be caught up in the judgement to come for the leaders of the Progmerican left.

Blurb:

A Minnesota man has been arrested for allegedly offering $45,000 for a “hit” on U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, the FBI announced in a press release.

On October 9, 2025, a TikTok user in Michigan flagged a disturbing post from an account under the username “Wacko,” which featured an anarchist symbol and displayed a “sniper-scope red dot” superimposed over the forehead of the nation’s top prosecutor.

The post included a mock wanted poster bearing Bondi’s image, with the text “WANTED: Pam Bondi / REWARD: 45,000 / DEAD OR ALIVE / (PREFERABLY DEAD),” and was captioned “cough cough when they don’t serve us then what?”

The uploader further claimed that they would be offering $45,000 to anyone who successfully carried out a “hit” on Bondi, prompting a swift federal investigation. A suspect identified as Tyler Maxon Avalos, a 29-year-old resident of St. Paul, Minnesota, was apprehended a week after the post went live on October 16, 2025, following verification of his identity through state supervision records tied to his address.

Blurb:

“Progressive Christian” publishers are rolling out a new wave of children’s Bibles and devotionals that replace traditional teachings with messaging focused on far-left ideology, including social justice and Marxism-rooted “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI).

The new books are part of a growing push to reshape how children are introduced to faith.

Publishers behind the rewritten stories argue that the original Bible promotes “Christian white supremacy.”

The movement, which publishers openly describe as an effort to align Scripture with “modern values,” has sparked concern among parents and faith leaders who say it distorts biblical truth under the banner of “inclusion.”

At the forefront of this campaign is “The Just Love Story Bible,” a new title from Beaming Books aimed at children aged 4–10.

Blurb:

There’s a feud brewing within the Trump administration between deportation hardliners at the Department of Homeland Security and officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who want to focus on removing criminal illegal aliens.

In a nutshell, Border Patrol — an arm of DHS — is casting as wide a net as possible to remove anyone who’s in the country illegally, while ICE wants to conduct targeted deportations in a bid to quell deranged leftist backlash.

On one side are Border Czar Tom Homan and ICE Director Todd Lyons, who want to focus on deporting criminal illegal aliens and those with final deportation orders, according to Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin.

On the other side are DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, her senior adviser Corey Lewandowski, and Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino, who want to use “aggressive tactics to arrest anyone in the US illegally, including but not limited to criminals, to ramp up deportation numbers and achieve President Trump’s promises of mass deportations,” Melugin reported.

Blurb:

The health and safety of women and babies would be jeopardized, under a package of seven pro-abortion bills now before the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

“These dangerous bills turn the clock back on a number of safeguards for women and children,” said Maria Gallagher, executive director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, the Keystone State affiliate of National Right to Life.

“This legislation disrespects the fundamental right of mothers and babies to be shielded from harm. The measures would be disastrous for the most vulnerable among us,” Gallagher added.

One measure, a proposed Constitutional Amendment, would pave the way for abortion up to the moment of birth. It would also mean widespread taxpayer funding of abortion. Poll after poll shows the vast majority of Americans do not want their hard-earned tax dollars to pay for aborting babies.

Other legislation would take away the 24-hour waiting period for abortions and strip parents of their right to be involved in a minor girl’s abortion decision.

Blurb:

Hell awaits New York City. The anti-Semitic Communist will drive out Wall Street, the small businesses, the cops, the Jews, and everything else that had made New York City the greatest city in the world.

NYC has already over lost about $14 billion in adjusted gross income as residents relocated—particularly to states like Florida.

But this is going to be a tsunami.

By the end of Mamdani’s first term, New York City will look like Gaza City. Vote for Andrew Cuomo like your life depends on it.

Blurb:

In today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler described the “No Kings” protests, citing a Daily Mail article by psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert. They said that the event was an “empty expression of caring” where “elderly white baby boomers” sought “validation” through virtue signaling.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Jack Fowler: “The ‘No Kings’ protest, from what I’ve seen in person and on TV, it seems to me like a big venting session. It’s almost like a big group therapy. So, people get stuff off their chest, and they feel better in the moment, but it doesn’t necessarily bring about any sort of positive change.” He said that “rather than actually affecting change, many of them are simply craving community or validation,” which he said, “can be addictive.”

Final thing here. “A lot of times people unhappy in their own lives, they may have anxiety or anger, and they project that onto others. That’s partly what we’re seeing play out in these rallies.” Victor, your thoughts on these rallies and what the psychiatrist said?

Victor Davis Hanson: Well, we have a rule, Jack. We do not use the K word.

Fowler: We don’t.

Hanson: The K-blank-blank-blank-N.

Fowler: Right.

Hanson: But these are the types of stereotypes by age, race, gender, and income status that I have a little something called the VDH radar. And it’s an early form of radar, so it only has a range of about 40 yards. But when I’m walking somewhere, i.e., a restaurant, a coffee shop, an airport, I have this little bleeper in my brain. It goes, “DEFCON 1! DEFCON 1! DEFCON 1!” And then this person comes up, and then I see the scowl, and then the pace increases, and then he’s in my circle. “You”—It’s usually you—“you think you know better.” It’s all this talking down to somebody.

Blurb:

The Colorado Antifa groups put out a hit list flyer on the college student, which accused the sophomore of being “an active member” of “neo-Nazi organizations.”

Police in Boulder, Colorado are searching for a suspect accused of attacking a 19-year-old Turning Point USA student leader near the University of Colorado, Boulder on Thursday evening. The attacker is suspected to be an Antifa member.

The incident occurred at around 7 pm on Thursday evening in the 2700 block of Baseline Road. Officers arrived at the scene after the male victim who was out on his bicycle called 911 to report that he was assaulted by a man on roller blades. The suspect came up to the victim from behind and assaulted him both verbally and with a hockey stick. “The victim was not seriously injured and declined medical treatment,” Boulder Police said in a press release.

Blurb:

Last week, conservative journalist and activist Robby Starbuck announced on X that he had filed a massive defamation lawsuit against Google. If his attorneys are able to prove these extraordinary allegations in a court of law, the consequences could be significant. A successful legal challenge would strike a major blow to the world’s dominant search engine, a company that has operated with relatively little accountability for decades.

Starbuck alleges that for the past two years, “@GoogleAI (Bard, Gemini, and Gemma) has been defaming me with fake criminal allegations including sexual assault, child rape, abuse, fraud, stalking, drug charges, and even saying I was in Epstein’s flight logs.”

Blurb:

Officers arrested the pair and booked them into the Multnomah County Detention Center on charges of Disorderly Conduct in the Second Degree.

Portland police arrested two Antifa-affiliated siblings from New Jersey on Saturday night after left-wing agitators once again clashed with officers near the city’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in the South Waterfront district.

According to the Portland Police Bureau (PPB), the city activated an Incident Command Team as demonstrations flared up for the second straight weekend. The command structure included the Rapid Response Team, the PPB Sound Truck, and Dialogue Liaison Officers—uniformed officers in white shirts who act as go-betweens with protest groups.

Blurb:

The Trump team has turned its attention to the problem of the anti-ICE actions in Portland outside the ICE facility, and there’s been a court battle over the question of deploying the National Guard to help.

The Portland Police Bureau has been criticized for their failure to deal with many of the issues in the area. We covered how anti-ICE agitators were “beaming spotlights” into the eyes of federal agents, and then running behind the PPB for cover, and how federal agents had a talk with them about that.

Blurb:

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard noted during a Saturday morning Fox News interview that the recent capture of a notorious Mexican drug cartel boss by President Donald Trump’s administration shows Trump’s “seriousness” and that he is “not messing around” on the issue.

Gabbard’s office announced Tuesday the Oct. 15 arrest of Sinaloa Cartel Plaza Boss Leonardo Daniel “El Pato” Martinez Vera, who allegedly led an operation which took part in a range of crimes including kidnapping and murder.

“Fox & Friends Weekend” co-host Griff Jenkins asked Gabbard if El Pato’s arrest — made possible due to intelligence collected by the ODNI’s National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) — sends a message to “the plaza bosses who have run our southern border under the Biden administration.”

“Yes, it’s very significant. This operation — I would love to tell you about how it was carried out,” Gabbard answered.

“Because our folks, who are working now without pay because of the Democrats’ government shutdown, worked tirelessly to get this guy arrested and behind bars, but also the public messaging that we did on behalf of President Trump shows his seriousness.”

 

Blurb:

Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday has announced charges against seven people in connection with a fraudulent voter registration scheme. The case serves as another example of vulnerabilities in the U.S. election systems and highlights why our system should not allow third parties to handle voter registration requests.

According to police criminal complaints, workers who were hired to collect voter registration requests were given a quota to meet. Some workers told investigators they would be fired if they did not turn in enough requests, so they handed in bogus registrations, according to the complaints.

Blurb:

The No Kings agitator who called for an armed insurrection against the Trump administration has been fired from his position at Chicago’s Wilbur Wright College.

The individual, Moises Bernal Puentes, was caught on video urging fellow agitators to arm up and start shooting at the agents of President Trump’s “fascist” regime.

“You gotta grab a gun. We gotta turn around the guns on this fascist system. These ICE agents gotta get shot and wiped out,” the man said during a Hands Off Chicago/No Kings demonstration on October 18.

“This same machinery that’s on full display right there has to get wiped out,” the far-left radical hollered.

Blurb:

In an ongoing climate of political violence, you would think that the legacy nightly news would devote significant air time to a threat to assassinate a senior member of the Cabinet. But, alas, that did not happen. CBS and ABC both omitted the story from their evening newscasts.

NBC Nightly News was the only newscast to devote a story to this plot. Watch the report in its entirety as aired on Monday, October 27th, 2025:

TOM LLAMAS: Back here at home, the FBI arresting a man after a disturbing threat targeting Attorney General Pam Bondi. The suspect, in a TikTok post, offering $45,000 to have her killed. Here’s Kelly O’Donnell.

KELLY O’DONNELL: Tonight, a disturbing threat discovered by a scrolling tiktok user. A post that offered tens of thousands of dollars to kill Attorney General Pam Bondi. A 29-year-old Minnesota man, Tyler Maxon Avalos, now faces one federal charge for transmitting that threat that investigators tracked on social media. According to the FBI, a TikTok post linked to Avalos read in part: “Wanted. Pam Bondi, preferably dead,” and referred to a reward of $45,000. Court documents include an image which we are not showing, with a photo of Bondi with a sniper’s scope red dot on Bondi’s forehead. TikTok, Google and Comcast, parent company of NBC, helped the FBI trace the suspect, according to the affidavit, which also states Avalos has a criminal history, convicted of stalking and domestic battery. Bondi declined comment, but has pledged the DoJ will root out threats in this heated environment.

Blurb:

On Monday, Gov. Mike Braun called for a special session to redistrict Indiana’s nine congressional seats, two of which are held by Democrats in the Republican-supermajority state. His call is part of a nationwide effort to rebalance Congress after decades of heavily partisan redistricting everywhere Democrats hold state majorities, as well as congressional apportionment increasingly distorted by Democrat-encouraged mass illegal immigration.

“I am calling a special legislative session to protect Hoosiers from efforts in other states that seek to diminish their voice in Washington and ensure their representation in Congress is fair,” Braun said in a statement. “I am also asking the legislature to conform Indiana’s tax code with new federal tax provisions to ensure stability and certainty for taxpayers and tax preparers for 2026 filings.”

Blurb:

Muslim convert Alexander Scott Mercurio, from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, pleaded guilty to planning a series of terror attacks on local churches.

He planned to incapacitate people by beating them with a metal pipe, “slit their throats with a knife or machete” and then start fires inside the church, according to court records.

Where did he get these ideas? Is his mosque under investigation? What is being done to stop jihad recruiting in US mosques? And how did this so-called “misunderstanding” of Islam become so widespread? Why do hundreds of millions of Muslims understand Islam in this exact same way?

Right now, nothing is being done to stop jihad recruiting in US mosques.

Blurb:

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has pushed back against the media narrative surrounding the current government shutdown, telling ABC News that the American people are hostage to the poll numbers of Democratic leaders.

Host Martha Raddatz asked Bessent on ABC’s “This Week” program whether President Trump should meet with Democrats as federal workers are beginning to suffer under the shutdown.

Bessent responded, reminding Raddatz that Democratic leadership is dug in, telling her, “The American people are hostage to Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries’ poll numbers! 52 Republican senators have voted 11 times to reopen the government.”

Blurb:

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg praised New York City socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and attacked independent mayoral candidate and former New York Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a recent CNN interview.

Buttigieg lauded Mamdani for already taking “steps that are not just about winning but about trying to bring people together.”

“I don’t live in New York, but I think he has the capacity to be a great mayor,” Buttigieg said.

The potential 2028 Democrat presidential contender went on to criticize Cuomo over his sexual harassment allegations and COVID-era nursing home scandal, saying he “disqualified himself in so many ways, including morally.”

Blurb:

The lack of self-awareness has got to be intentional at this point.

According to New York Attorney General Letitia James, she has become the victim of “a justice system which has been weaponized.” And that’s funny because I don’t recall her ever having a problem about a weaponized justice system when she was the one weaponizing it.

James ran on the promise of going after Trump. So, it’s astonishing that she is now out there claiming that the DOJ “has been used as a tool of revenge.”

Blurb:

The Democrats appear to be a never-ending source of pitiable entertainment these days. Last week, it was the pathetic “No Kings” (what some mischievous wag called “No Brains”) rallies across the country. Those 2,700 anti-Trump therapy sessions for aging, anencephalic boomers were funded to the tune of $294 million by such public-spirited individuals and entities as Arabella Advisors, the Tides Foundation, George Soros, and Warren Buffett. Such streams of cash funneled millions through dozens of left-leaning entities, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the National LGBTQ Task Force, the Sierra Club Foundation, the Democracy Forward Foundation, and other havens for the perpetually aggrieved.

It was a noisy but preposterous temper tantrum, full of sound and fury, signifying stupidity. The union of Kumbayah gestures with rage-filled pantomimes was both inadvertently comic and repellent, the odor of rotting pseudo-idealism wafting over the proceedings everywhere.

Blurb:

Lobbying in Washington is booming to record-high levels, and companies are rushing to hire Trump-allied firms in their efforts to influence the policy pronouncements spilling out of the White House. Overall, federal lobbying spending is up by 21% compared with last year, according to the Washington Post’s tally of expenditures through the third quarter of 2025. In the surge, the firm of Trump campaign fundraiser Brian Ballard has become the highest-paid lobbying shop, and other Trump-aligned firms are seeing an influx of clients as trade and tariff policies churn.

The pharmaceutical industry has juiced its lobbying spending: heavyweight PhRMA is certain to blow past its record high in lobbying spending set last year. The nearly $29.7 million the drugmakers’ group has spent through Q3 approaches the amount that it spent in all of 2024. Health industry lobbyists are weighing in on moves by the Trump administration and the GOP-led Congress to cut Medicaid funding and fire staffers in the overhaul of the Robert F. Kennedy Jr.-led Department of Health and Human Services.