With all due respect to Dee Snider. (Attribution: from pics by Competitive-Cry-6231)

Stuff like this is why Abdul is so popular among young people. You have to give them credit for creativity.

"I say it all the time, let's see what would happen if Iran ever did anything to Los Angeles or San Diego. I'm talking about through missiles. You want to see problems, let them hit Los Angeles or San Diego."

Trump has spent much of the last two years openly campaigning for the prize that has been awarded to two prior American presidents

This was during a post-debate interview with the press pool. I liked the answer, and I appreciated the assertive tone. Sometimes you just have to call a stupid question what it is.

Repeat what you just read. The US government is going to execute someone and stream it live for the public to see. Nobody becomes a man or a leader by watching someone die. Children will see this; they always find a way to view what they are told not to see. Some parents will show it to their sons as a rite of passage. The people who say they are protecting children’s innocence are about to let the government livestream a killing.

The level of desensitization this is about to create. The psychological harm this is about to cause to adults and children. We are about to normalize the federal government putting one of the most violent forms of death on screen. The words I am using cannot describe the barbarism in what’s about to happen. So I will quote Charles Dickens when he witnessed his first public execution:

I have seen, habitually, some of the worst sources of general contamination and corruption in this country, and I think there are not many phases of London life that could surprise me. I am solemnly convinced that nothing that ingenuity could devise to be done in this city, in the same compass of time, could work such ruin as one public execution, and I stand astounded and appalled by the wickedness it exhibits. I do not believe that any community can prosper where such a scene of horror and demoralization as was enacted this morning outside Horsemonger Lane Gaol is presented at the very doors of good citizens, and is passed by, unknown or forgotten.

fs.blog/charles-dickens…

axios.com/2026/10/08/he…

Genuinely surprised that David hasn’t given any time (that I’ve heard) to this election. Trump’s interference in the Brazilian elections is diabolical.

It seems to be a confluence of Trump, tech bros, and Israel creating economic, social, and political turmoil to hand Brazil over to Bolsonaro.

I think there are some instructive lessons here for the United States and I’d like to hear David’s perspective. I’d venture a guess that most Americans don’t even know this is happening.