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

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

The Clancy Holdout Answered

I just found this Jason Whitlock video. He shares clips from Fugitive TV, where Ray Marcel says he got the Black holdout juror from the Lindsay Clancy case on the phone.

Watch Whitlock here: [VIDEO]

The original call is on Fugitive TV. Marcel says the juror would not sit on camera. Watch that clip itself here: Fugitive TV.

There was another post on this case in the works. It has yet to be published. It may be shared at a later time.

This juror has been taking a beating since the Clancy mistrial. Over the weekend it became news that the holdout was Black.

Whitlock and Marcel both call him Michael. A last name was identified on X/Twitter before either video. The Boston Globe later printed his full name. The jury list remains impounded by order of the trial judge.

We hear things about him lying to the court on his own criminal charges. We hear attacks on his logic. Clancy’s defense attorney tried to kick him off the jury before the mistrial.

I already used Walsh for the hang. Sympathy is not a verdict. I am not walking that ground again.

Well, this juror has spoken. Whitlock is the analysis. Marcel is the call. He says he checked the box. He says he stayed on the children. A dismissed charge is not a verdict. Neither is the beating.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

Liam Out Loud: When Institutions Stop Valuing Truth

Liam Out Loud posted a short essay-video on August 31 titled Why Feminized Institutions Stop Telling the Truth.

Watch it here: [VIDEO]

The claim is not that women cannot do science, law, or teaching. It is narrower. Those fields only work if they keep discriminating — science on truth, law on justice, education on intelligence. Once the culture inside them tips toward social equity and consensus, the original job recedes.

He never names Helen Andrews. He is in her argument anyway. I wrote about her Compact essay and the UnHerd interview in June. Her line was that wokeness is not a new ideology so much as feminine group patterns applied to institutions that used to run on different rules. Empathy over detached judgment. Safety over risk. Cohesion over open conflict. Ostracism instead of argument. Liam is asking what that flip does to shops whose job is to tell the truth.

h/t Newsalert

Glenn Beck: Why Lake America Broke the Room

 Glenn Beck’s clip is not about the depth of the lake. It is about who treated names as a moral project for fifteen years, and what happens when the other side picks up the same pen.

Watch it here: [VIDEO]

Thursday’s order is already on this blog. Federal maps are supposed to say Lake America. Canada does not have to. New York does not have to. Mark Carney said the name is four hundred years old. Doug Ford put up a sign: “Lake Ontario. Now and Always.” Kathy Hochul said New York will not be calling it that. Google followed the U.S. government for U.S. users.

Beck’s question is the one after the press release. If names were sacred last decade, why is this one a joke?

From Closed Loop to Common Sense

I used to celebrate when a Black Democrat became a Republican. It felt like someone had broken a long-standing spell. Black voters have long delivered overwhelming, almost automatic support to the Democratic Party, often without serious internal debate. Crossing that line looked like genuine independence.

Earlier this year I declared myself an Independent. My own voting history is mixed. I’ve voted in Republican primaries in Illinois and I’ve pulled Democratic ballots more often than not. The consistent thread has been trying to choose the better person for the office, not simply the preferred party. That approach has never been perfect, but it was the standard I tried to follow.

Watching interviews with former Democrats, former progressives, or former Democrat Socialists has shifted what I value most. Some of that thinking comes from The Free Press interview with Sabrina Joy Stevens, and from other interviews shared on this blog. The important move is not necessarily joining the Republican Party. The important move is leaving a closed feedback loop that rarely produces real solutions. The people who walk away from that loop matter more than the party they eventually land in.

2020 gave the country a clear look at the “systemic racism” narrative in real time. Even during a pandemic, the story ran that “persons of color” were fed up and therefore entitled to destroy. Looting, vandalism, toppling statues of Confederate figures and Christopher Columbus, calls to defund the police — all of it was framed as necessary or at least understandable. From where I sat, none of it was a solution. It was performance dressed up as justice, and the country paid for it.

Those excesses, followed by the Biden-Harris years, helped produce the return of Donald Trump. Many of the same progressives who cheered the 2020 upheaval still treat Trump’s re-election as proof that America remains the problem. They have not updated the diagnosis.

What I celebrate now is simpler and more useful: people who return to common sense. The open question is whether their stories — how they noticed the contradictions, how they left the dominant narrative — will prompt others to examine it for themselves.

Illustration generated with Grok

O’Reilly Takes On Ossoff’s Iran Speech

 Bill O’Reilly’s latest No Spin clip is short, pointed, and worth watching. [VIDEO]

The Arday Affair

Matt Walsh’s new episode is less a recap of the Jason Arday scandal than a look at what the scandal produced. After the Cambridge professor’s death, a crowd gathered in Trafalgar Square to treat a man whose record was already collapsing under plagiarism claims and an implausible life story as a hunted racial martyr. Walsh plays the footage, the speeches, and the demands for media control. The point is not simply that Arday’s career does not survive scrutiny. It is that a certain politics would rather canonize the wreckage than admit the hiring, the standards, and the story were the problem.

You can watch Walsh's podcast here: [VIDEO]

Fractured Media, Firm Principles

 In this clip from his recent appearance on the PBD Podcast, Ben Shapiro addresses the broad drop in views and engagement across much of conservative media since the intense political year of 2024. He breaks down the different audiences that various right-leaning personalities actually reach and draws a clear line: he would rather have lower ratings than abandon his principles. Shapiro says he prefers Democrats not running the country over chasing clicks that depend on perpetual conflict, and he notes that he has held positions (on 2020, January 6, and other issues) that cost him audience rather than reverse course for numbers.

Watch the short clip: [VIDEO]

What Happened in Wisconsin?

 Bill O’Reilly breaks down the Wisconsin Democratic primary for governor.

Watch it here: [VIDEO]

Ben Shapiro: Wokeness Evolved Into Something Worse

 Ben Shapiro’s latest segment cuts through the recent attempt to memory-hole the last decade. The title says it plainly: Wokeness Didn’t Die. It Evolved Into Something Worse.

The trigger is a clip of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on ABC’s This Week. Asked about a fellow DSA-aligned candidate’s old radical posts (defund/abolish the police, cancel Thanksgiving, etc.), AOC smiled and reached for a line floating around progressive circles: “Woke 1 was crazy.” She framed the excesses of 2020 as a COVID-era fever dream, insisted people have moved on, and suggested we should judge candidates by what they say now.

Shapiro is not buying the soft landing. He treats the remark as confirmation that the same ideological core is still operating—only the packaging has been upgraded.

The Left’s Incomplete Night

This Politico piece captured the night while the Michigan U.S. Senate race was still too close to call and progressives were realizing they hadn’t delivered the blowout many expected.

Yesterday’s Michigan primaries

Progressive Abdul El-Sayed narrowly beat moderate Rep. Haley Stevens in the Democratic Senate primary. The race was far closer than late polls predicted.

In Michigan’s 7th District, Sunrise Movement co-founder William Lawrence won the Democratic House primary after two moderates split the vote.

In the 13th District, democratic socialist Donavan McKinney narrowly unseated incumbent Rep. Shri Thanedar.

Cori Bush’s comeback bid

Former “Squad” member and democratic socialist Cori Bush tried to reclaim the St. Louis-area House seat she lost in 2024. She faced the same opponent who beat her then, incumbent Rep. Wesley Bell.

Bush ran again as a sharp critic of U.S. support for Israel and as a progressive standard-bearer. The race drew heavy outside spending, much of it from pro-Israel groups backing Bell. She lost decisively, roughly 59% to 37%.

It was one of the clearer setbacks for the progressive left on a night that otherwise produced mixed results for that faction.

h/t Newsalert

Ben Shapiro on Tate, Piker, and the Race to the Fringes

 Ben Shapiro’s newest episode, Tate & Piker: The Race To The Retard Fringes, is a clean diagnosis of where the loudest edges of American politics are heading. On the left, he tracks the growing comfort with figures like Hasan Piker—who openly celebrates Mao, keeps a Chinese flag in his studio, and treats the body count of communist experiments as a detail rather than a verdict—and the broader embrace of Third Worldism by rising Democratic Socialists. On the right, he notes the continued soft defense of Andrew and Tristan Tate despite the serious trafficking allegations against them. The episode is not a both-sides equivalence. It is a warning that both fringes are abandoning the same core standards.

Watch Shapiro's latest episode here [VIDEO]

Both camps share a deeper posture. They treat the American experiment—individual rights, limited government, the superiority of open societies over closed ones—as either a scam or an inconvenience. The left does it through revolutionary nostalgia and imported grievance. Parts of the right do it through aesthetic toughness that excuses predation. Neither is interested in the hard, unglamorous work of defending institutions that actually produce prosperity and liberty.

Supreme Court Upholds Birthright Citizenship: 6-3 Ruling & What It Means

On June 30, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a major decision in Trump v. Barbara. In a 6-3 ruling, the justices upheld broad birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause and struck down President Trump’s Executive Order 14160.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion. The order, signed on Trump’s first day of his second term, never took effect due to lower court blocks. This ruling reaffirms long-standing precedent like United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) while reigniting debates on immigration, citizenship, and executive power.

Quick Breakdown of the Ruling

• Vote: 6-3 (Roberts joined by liberals and Justice Barrett; dissents from Thomas, Gorsuch, and Alito).
• Key Holding: Children born on U.S. soil to parents unlawfully present or on temporary visas are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and qualify as citizens at birth.
• Notable Points: Justice Kavanaugh concurred in the judgment but left room for Congress to act legislatively. Dissents argued the majority misreads history and creates incentives for illegal immigration.
• Trump’s Response: Acknowledged the loss but called on Congress to pass legislation ending the practice.

Source: StockCake

Elections Are (Almost) Dead: Fact-Checking Tim Pool on the SCOTUS Mail Ballot Ruling

Tim Pool came in hot on the Supreme Court’s latest move, calling it a serious blow to election integrity on his Timcast IRL podcast last night.

I watched it, leaned in on his points, and did the homework (with the assistance of A.I.). Here’s the ruling, Tim’s main claims, and a clear-eyed fact check.

Watch the Timcast IRL short here: [VIDEO]

San Francisco’s Warning: Compassion Without Accountability

Bill O’Reilly’s NewsNation special, The Decline and Fall of San Francisco, doesn’t pull punches. It shows a city that once welcomed the world now struggling with open drug use, tent encampments, retail theft, and random violence. The root cause? Progressive policies that prioritized compassion without consequences.

The numbers tell part of the story. San Francisco spent roughly $106,000 per homeless person annually. It handed out cash assistance and harm-reduction supplies — needles, even pipes — while “Housing First” programs placed people in apartments with no requirement for sobriety or treatment. Prop 47 turned theft under $1,000 into a misdemeanor, fueling smash-and-grabs that drove stores to close. Overdoses climbed. Mental illness went largely untreated on the streets because involuntary commitment was politically toxic.

Former Mayor Willie Brown put it plainly: once public-safety laws stopped being enforced, the city spiraled into anarchy. Frustrated residents fought back by recalling District Attorney Chesa Boudin in 2022 and electing new leadership that is now rolling back some of the most extreme policies, including stepped-up cleanups and enforcement.

Watch O'Reilly's special here [VIDEO]

JD Vance’s Swiss Weekend: Strength or Weakness in the Face of Iran?

 I watched Ben Shapiro’s latest episode — “JD Vance’s Weekend Was Worse Than You Think” — and it hit on a key tension in how we handle high-stakes diplomacy. Then I checked Patrick Bet-David’s Valuetainment clip for more on Vance’s side of the story. Here’s a clear breakdown.

Watch Shapiro's podcast here [VIDEO]

The Backdrop: High-Stakes Talks in Switzerland

Vice President JD Vance led U.S. talks at the Bürgenstock resort near Lucerne with Iranian officials. Pakistan and Qatar mediated. Goals included Lebanon/Hezbollah de-escalation, nuclear steps, and keeping the Strait of Hormuz open.

Vance projected optimism: progress on ceasefires, possible IAEA inspectors returning, technical work ahead. Trump kept the hard edge with public warnings about consequences if Iran crossed lines.

Shapiro’s Critique: Optics Matter

Shapiro focuses on the visuals and tone:

• No strong joint photos.
• Moments where Vance appeared sidelined or lightly corrected.
• Language leaning “give and take” rather than dominance.
• Progress claims (assets, inspectors) called thin.

Takeaway: Looks like weakness next to Trump and Rubio’s firmer approach. “Not peace through strength.”

George Soros: The Man Behind the Curtain? A Former Mobster's Take

In 2021, on this blog I shared a video from the edu-tuber Mr. Beat. He breaks down historic figures in a straightforward way, and one of them was billionaire George Soros. Here's what I wrote back then:

As of late you hear a lot about how Soros uses his fortune to fund politicians favorable to his political ideology. He's also been accused of funding soft on crime prosecutors here in this nation from Los Angeles to San Francisco to Philadelphia. Even right here in Cook County/Chicago with our current State's Attorney.

That post stuck with the basics—his funding of progressive causes and DAs. It didn't dig into the "why" or the full picture of what Soros represents.

Recently, I came across a video from Michael Franzese, a former mobster who's shared a lot of raw stories about living that Mafia life. He often steps back to look at bigger issues in the world today. This time, he takes a hard look at Soros.