Month: October 2025

Trump touts Israel’s approval of his Gaza peace plan. Hamas has not agreed.

Posted on by Lone Candle

This “peace deal” is a demand for Hamas’s surrender. Hamas surrendering may bring peace, but I generally wouldn’t call a demand for surrender a ‘peace deal’.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/29/trump-touts-peace-plan-for-israel-hamas-has-not-agreed-00584857?cid=Connatix&nid=00000150-1596-d4ac-a1d4-179e288b0000&nname=illinois-playbook&nrid=00000164-8481-d4a7-a5fc-9ecfc4730000

Why the Government Shut Down—and How Democrats Claim Victory

Posted on by Lone Candle

Sometimes, for wars to end, leaders on the losing side have to decide that they love their kids more than they hate their enemy. Hamas hates Israel more than they care about the lives of Palestinians, so Hamas refuses to surrender.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br3FD3Rt5-Q

Brendan Carr Says Networks Must Serve the ‘Public Interest.’ What Does That Mean?

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Unlike other forms of media, radio and network TV stations broadcast over public airwaves, which the FCC polices by issuing broadcast licenses. Federal law authorizes the FCC to ensure licensees serve “the public interest, convenience, and necessity.”
“Generally, this means [a broadcaster] must air programming that is responsive to the needs and problems of its local community of license,” the FCC claims.

…

The “public interest standard” is in fact “not really a standard because it doesn’t tell you what they can’t do,” Thomas W. Hazlett, an economics professor at Clemson University, tells Reason. “There is some formal structure to the process, but in terms of an actual regulatory standard, it basically means that we’re going to make rules according to what we think is right. And of course, if you want to do things that are different and exercise power in a certain direction, you’ll talk a lot about public interest because it’s a very wide berth for justifying what you’re trying to do. It does dress it up a little bit, that it’s not just politics, it’s bigger than that, but not really: It’s what the five members of the commission vote to do, and that’s the beginning and the end.””

https://reason.com/2025/09/23/brendan-carr-says-networks-must-serve-the-public-interest-what-does-that-mean/

Politicians Go Out of Their Way To Make Political Tensions Worse

Posted on by Lone Candle

“At the Arizona memorial service for Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated two weeks ago, President Donald Trump acknowledged Kirk’s character, saying, “he did not hate his opponents; he wanted the best for them.” And then he added, “That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponents. And I don’t want the best for them.”

It was an honest moment if an awkward comment to make at a memorial service for a man murdered (to all appearances) by a political opponent. Like too much of the political class across the ideological spectrum, Trump is prone to despising those he disagrees with. It raises questions about why people should ever submit to the governance of those who hate them—and whether politicians realize that they’re a big part of what brought us to this unfortunate moment.

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Trump also put the blame for Kirk’s murder on “the radical left” and promised to “find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence,” hinting at something nastier than a criminal investigation.”

https://reason.com/2025/09/24/politicians-go-out-of-their-way-to-make-political-tensions-worse/