Trump’s Shutdown Agenda, and a Wave of Mysterious Drones in Scandinavia

Trump is forcing federal agencies and workers to attack Democrats.

Trump is threatening to cancel funding in Democratic states to attack Democratic leaders in response to the government shutdown.

This politicization of federal responsibilities is not good. Bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5ycvFottSE

Americans Like Drugs. Killing Drug Traffickers Won’t Change That.

“Most U.S. drug traffickers are Americans, but the president is ordering extrajudicial maritime killings while ignoring the domestic demand that drives the market.”

https://reason.com/2025/09/19/americans-like-drugs-killing-drug-traffickers-wont-change-that/

The Government Was Lying to You About Afghanistan. Dan Krauss Has the Receipts.

“At the beginning of the war, the Taliban were almost completely routed, and the U.S. military could have left from a position of strength. The new Afghan republic announced that it had an offer from the Taliban to surrender in exchange for amnesty and a chance to participate in politics. But the Bush administration turned down that offer, settling for nothing less than total, unconditional victory.”

The $100,000 Visa

“a new annual fee of $100,000 will be levied on each H-1B visa applicant going forward, which will serve as a big deterrent. Some number of the roughly 500,000 people currently in the U.S. with H-1Bs—high-skill visas used by tech workers, medical workers, and other professionals working in the fields they received degrees in—would have been dissuaded from coming here had the new system been in place. For companies hiring new talent, this fee will be a huge barrier to sponsoring foreign workers—which appears to be the point.

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Companies in many industries will probably respond to this shift by offshoring more of their workforces or relying on contract workers. (For the medical industry, this won’t really work. Bigger shortages might just become a fact of life.)”

https://reason.com/2025/09/22/the-100000-visa/

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

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

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?

“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.

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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/