The Deterrence Message

I keep noticing when the stated goal of an investigation is not only the case itself but the calculation the next person is supposed to make before taking the job.

On Monday mornings PBD Podcast the panel discussed this cut of Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin speaking at the University of Chicago on October 13. It was a live recording of Vox’s America, Actually podcast with Astead Herndon.

Watch the PBD Podcast clip here: [VIDEO]

She was asked how Congress reasserts itself as a check if Democrats regain the majority. She talked about signature cases, not just the president but the people who enabled him. The people around him do not have the same immunity he does.

Then she said she wants young people coming out of school to ask whether working for the Trump administration is buying themselves a ton of problems they do not want, and to avoid participating. She wants that deterrence message sent.

The clip spread. Trump called her a lowlife who is ruining her state. She later said the point was accountability for corruption and lawbreaking, not targeting people for their politics, and that the outrage was manufactured. The full exchange is on the Vox podcast.

The full exchange is on the Vox podcast: Elissa Slotkin says it’s time for new faces | America, Actually

What I keep turning over is the part she named out loud: the deterrence. Not only the case, but the signal meant for the graduate still deciding whether to take the job.

Stratton v. Tracy: Side by Side, Finally

I almost missed this. Saw it on Capitol Fax this evening. The main thing is that the candidates for Dick Durbin’s open U.S. Senate seat are set to debate on Tuesday.

Tonight, October 20, 2026, at 8 p.m. on WTTW, Chicago Tonight anchor Brandis Friedman moderates the only joint appearance of the general election between Democrat Juliana Stratton and Republican Don Tracy. It runs one hour from the WTTW studios on the North Side, with a studio audience. The forum airs live on WTTW and streams on the PBS app, wttw.com, Facebook, and YouTube. Rebroadcasts follow later in the week.

Credit: WTTW

Early voting in Illinois started September 24. This is the last scheduled chance for voters to see the two major-party nominees for Dick Durbin’s open seat answer the same questions in the same room. Tracy accepted invitations from multiple outlets and groups earlier in the cycle. Stratton’s campaign accepted this one.

I wrote about the race in September. Cook looks settled. The collars are the question. The post is here: Illinois Looks Settled.

American Center Party candidate Whitfield Harrington is on the ballot but was not invited. WTTW’s published standards require a candidate to show at least 15 percent in a post-primary public poll (plus other criteria) to appear.

The race is the first open Illinois Senate seat in decades. Stratton is the lieutenant governor and the Democratic nominee after a competitive primary. Tracy is a Springfield attorney and the former state party chair. Polling has shown a double-digit lead for the Democrat. The last Republican to win a U.S. Senate race in Illinois was Mark Kirk in 2010. The forum is the public record of what they chose to say when the clock ran out.

Watch on WTTW at 8 p.m. or stream it from their site. When it’s uploaded to YouTube it will be shared here, and like I did with the governor’s forum, offer my own take once I watch it.

Europe Burned Over the Weekend

I haven't watched it yet. Ben Shapiro on the France and Italy riots that blew up over the weekend after a month of school protests: the crowds aren't there for better schools or lower prices. He says they are there to break the cities.

Watch Shapiro's recent podcast here: VIDEO

I put this on because the title was sitting there. The school protests that fed the weekend’s riots started about a month ago—teachers striking and students blockading a lycée in Créteil over teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms, and run-down buildings. It spread, with repeated marches and closures through early October. The large-scale violence (Limoges town hall torched, shops looted, thousands arrested) broke out Saturday when those actions joined a planned cost-of-living day with unions and former Yellow Vests.

The Wheelchair She Named

New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill was on MSDNC (or whatever the network calls itself after decoupling from NBC News) talking about the planned military firing-squad execution of Nidal Hasan. She said this:

"The thing that just keeps breaking my heart: imagine the 20-year-old, maybe the 18-year-old that stepped up to serve, that gets orders and says, you’re going to go shoot this guy who’s in a wheelchair."

Michael Steele nodded. Steele is a Republican, and a never-Trumper, though that is secondary. The stare looked intense. I wanted to believe he had already checked out by the time she finished.

NJ Gov. Mikie Sherrill on the execution of Nidal Hasan: "The thing that just keeps breaking my heart: imagine the 20-year-old, maybe the 18-year-old that stepped up to serve, that gets orders and says, you’re going to go shoot this guy who’s in a wheelchair." https://t.co/6WdVnDjvTt

— Ezydu (@ezradulis) October 17, 2026

Hasan is the Army psychiatrist who walked into the readiness processing center at Fort Hood on November 5, 2009, shouted “Allahu akbar,” and opened fire. Thirteen people were killed. More than thirty were wounded. He has been paralyzed from the waist down since the police shot him to stop the attack. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2013. The appellate process finished. President Trump approved the sentence this month. The Army set December 3 at Fort Hood. There was discussion of livestreaming his execution; that part was walked back.

One of the thirteen was Private Francheska Velez, 21, from Chicago. She had just returned from Iraq. She was pregnant. Witnesses heard her crying “My baby! My baby!” as she was shot. The unborn child died with her.

h/t Newsalert

Blue States Need the Dream

You may have seen my two recent posts on the Illinois gubernatorial race. One asked whether the only televised forum between Governor Pritzker and Darren Bailey would move anyone who hasn’t already voted. The other was about what a solid opposition actually looks like in a state that has grown used to one-party rule. My point in covering it is simple: Illinois needs an opposition party that can win. As PBD has said about candidates running for president, the opposition still has to sell the dream.

California is another state in the same position. Steve Hilton finished second in the top-two primary and is the Republican nominee against Xavier Becerra. He has spent months making the case that the state can be more affordable and better governed. Polls still show him trailing by a wide margin. The election is unlikely to go his way.

Now we arrive at New York. Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul is running for another term against Republican Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman. If I am reading people like Bill O’Reilly correctly, Blakeman has a realistic shot at knocking off the incumbent.

Here are some highlights via NY Post: [VIDEO]

The exchanges are mostly about utility bills, sanctuary policies, spending on migrants, and Hochul’s attempts to tie Blakeman to President Trump. Blakeman’s side of the argument is that she has been governor for five years and the results are hers. Hochul’s side is that the alternative is Trump-style leadership.

The Playbook Has Not Changed

I keep seeing the same sequence described in different places. Universities first. Then the unions. Then their own outlets. Then the cities. The people who notice it early get called alarmists. By the time the pattern is obvious, the people who called it a pattern are already being told they imagined the order.

Matt Walsh put the Russian version of that sequence on YouTube this week. The episode is from his Real History series and is now free at the link: [VIDEO]

Walsh’s chapters run from academia in the 1890s, through the crises the Bolsheviks refused to let pass unused, the rise of left-wing violence, the seizure itself, the incompetent opposition that let it happen, an apathetic population, and then America today.

This Is on California

I hadn’t been following the California gubernatorial race much since the open primary in June. The right generally agrees the state is a mess under one-party rule, and the consensus is that Steve Hilton — former British political operative and Fox News host — will lose in November.

The usual exhibit is what happened to Spencer Pratt in the same June election. He hoped to reach the runoff for mayor of Los Angeles. There were the familiar complaints about mail-in ballots and California’s loose rules on what counts and when.

I have been to Skid Row twice in my lifetime. I still find it hard to believe a whole neighborhood in this nation is allowed to stay like that.

This video from Fox News Digital reporter Ashley J. DiMella is revealing. She walks the area with Hilton. He notes the federal help clearing streets, then makes the point that the condition itself remains on California.

🚨 ON THE GROUND: Fox News Digital joined @SteveHiltonx in LA’s Skid Row, witnessing human feces, open drug use, sprawling encampments and trash-filled sidewalks. Hilton calls it a “political scandal.” https://t.co/yPREpf7Qpq

— AJD (@AshleyJDiMella) October 12, 2026

Hilton calls it a political scandal rather than a natural disaster. Billions spent, nonprofits funded for “harm reduction,” streets still covered in encampments, drugs, and refuse.

Stephen A. Smith Won't Stay Comfortable

I keep hearing Stephen A. Smith outside the sports window.

Stephen A. Smith is the loud voice on ESPN’s First Take. He started as a newspaper writer covering high school and pro sports in New York and Philadelphia, then moved into radio and television. He has two daughters. He calls himself an independent and has spent more of the last couple of years talking about politics, including whether he would run.

He appears on Bill O’Reilly’s We’ll Do It Live podcast. [VIDEO]

Six Voices, One Caucus

I watched the New York Times Opinion video with the six Black lawmakers. They are asked, in different ways, why the Congressional Black Caucus still exists and why Black representation still matters once the numbers are no longer required by law.

Watch it here: [VIDEO]

Bailey Interrupted. Pritzker Stayed Cool

I had the chance to watch Tuesday’s WTTW-TV Illinois gubernatorial forum in its entirety. The original post with the full video is here: Will the Forum Move the Needle. At this time it has not caused me to move the needle on whether I am enthusiastic about a third term for Governor Pritzker or whether Darren Bailey should have his turn. I am guessing it has not moved the needle for anyone else either.

Credit: Chicago Sun-Times

Will the Forum Move the Needle

I wasn’t able to watch the Tuesday gubernatorial forum between incumbent Governor JB Pritzker and GOP challenger Darren Bailey. It aired on WTTW Chicago, our local PBS affiliate. I’m not giving much of an opinion until I watch it.

You can watch the forum here [VIDEO]

I’ve already said where I believe this race is headed in November. Early voting in Illinois began in late September—some collar counties opened sites on September 24, Chicago’s downtown supersites on October 1, and suburban Cook on October 7. The question now is narrower: does this forum change the mind of any voter who hasn’t already cast a ballot?

Noted further is the absence of independent candidate Collin Corbett.

I had been keenly interested in races outside Illinois, especially California. I couldn’t find the full CNN debate between GOP candidate Steve Hilton and Democrat Xavier Becerra, a former cabinet secretary. Regardless, it is important to keep my focus on home.

Common Sense, Not Ideology

The New York Post ran this on Mayor Daniel Lurie’s interview with CNN’s Dana Bash.

The full interview is here: [VIDEO]

A Warrant Was Signed

They opened the door with a warrant.

Glenn Beck posted this Monday afternoon, hours after the first reports. [VIDEO]

All the Chips on the Table

CBS Sunday Morning still has the feel of appointment television, even when you’re watching it on Paramount+ at a later time. In the most recent edition, one of the segments featured political strategist Steve Bannon interviewed by senior contributor Ted Koppel. (Yes, that Ted Koppel—the longtime host of ABC’s Nightline.)

Who is Steve Bannon?
Steve Bannon is a former investment banker, media executive, and political operative who became widely known as executive chairman of Breitbart News and as a key strategist in Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. He served briefly as White House chief strategist early in the first Trump administration before returning to media as host of the War Room podcast, where he has remained a prominent voice for the MAGA movement, populist nationalism, and Republican electoral strategy. He has also faced legal consequences, including a 2022 contempt-of-Congress conviction related to the January 6 investigation and a guilty plea in a fundraising fraud case tied to a border-wall charity.

Watch interview here: [VIDEO]

The Sentence Is the Sentence

Last week I wrote about the attempted execution of convicted murderer Christa Pike. As of this writing she is still alive and appears to be doing fine. It was expected that she had suffered brain damage. Instead she is conscious and talking, according to reports.

Then another piece of news hit this week. President Trump approved the execution by firing squad of former U.S. Army officer Nidal Hasan. We also learn that Hasan’s execution will be live streamed.

Here's one news story about this: [VIDEO]

CONTENT WARNING: This section describes a mass shooting, the deaths of service members and a civilian, and a capital case now moving toward execution.

One Civilization, Many Nations

Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke on October 7 from the Pnyx, the old speaking hill in Athens, with the Acropolis behind him. The State Department posted the full remarks the same day. He was not taking questions. He was making a case about what the West inherited from that hill, and what he thinks it has done with the inheritance.

Watch Rubio's remarks here [VIDEO]

The Crusade Was the Reply

 Patrick Bet-David put it as an or. Islam, or a West that has gone soft. Raymond Ibrahim would not take the or. He is an American historian, born here to Coptic immigrants from Egypt, fluent in Arabic, a former Arabic specialist at the Library of Congress, and the author of *Sword and Scimitar* and *Defenders of the West*. This is his hour on PBD Podcast #869, posted Thursday. Bet-David opened on the title. The answer was yes to both.

Watch interview here [VIDEO]

Could This Happen Here

Bill O'Reilly's NewsNation special, The Siege of London, aired Sunday. He was a student at the University of London. The hour opens on street footage from London, Southampton, and Belfast, then the line he says Americans give him when they go back. O'Reilly was here a few decades ago. What the hell happened?

Watch O'Reilly special here: [VIDEO]