October 4, 2026
“Republicans have to remember: you have no friends in the elite media. None. Therefore, you have to be so clear, so consistent, so repetitive that you break through despite all the bias and all of the falsehoods that the elite media is going to use.”
“I think all too often, Republicans get off on other topics, and, frankly, the president has the same challenge. He should be Harry Truman for the next five weeks. He should be out there every day. He can hammer this stuff home, and he can make a huge difference.”
– Newt Gingrich, Former Speaker of the House
“The welfare state is merely a method for transforming the market economy step by step into socialism.”
– Ludwig von Mises
“Everyone is trying to be smart, I’m just trying NOT to be stupid.”
– Charlie Munger.
“If you want to spend your life nursing grievances, you will never run out of grievances to nurse, regardless of what color your skin is.”
– Thomas Sowell
“The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.”
– H.L. Mencken
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.” – Adam Smith
Democrat’s Spin: The government can’t give anything to anyone until it first takes it from someone else… you, the taxpayer… anyone working for a living.
Republicans with President Trump are taking the right steps.
What Democrats are offering will cost more money… which means more money from YOU!!!
Mamdani’s New York is a perfect example of the failed policies of the Left. Broken promises.
And when they say they will tax the rich… there aren’t enough rich people to pay for their utopian promises.
Just remember… Democrats have controlled the White House for 12 of the last 16 years, and somehow, it’s still all Trump’s fault.
They are coming after you…the taxpayer. EVERY taxpayer. There are not enough rich people to pay their bills.
Putin & Russia War Criminals: Putin and his fellow Russian terrorist are targeting civilian targets EVERY day. This is NOT a military operation; it’s a terrorist act against innocent civilians.
Not to mention kidnapping thousands of Ukrainian children and shipping them off to remote places in Russia and even North Korea.
Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine.
Putin is a terrorist… and should be treated like one.
Bad behavior should NOT be rewarded… blackmail only works when you pay it!
Voting Has Started: PLEASE vote… don’t take this election for granted. The far-left progressives are telling America EXACTLY what they are going to do if elected… and it’s scary.
Every election is important… but oftentimes too many don’t take the time or feel it’s too much of an inconvenience.
The problem… the radical left progressives care, are motivated, and will be voting.
Mainstream America may not… and quickly find out their America has changed… and what they are leaving their children and grandchildren is a fight that could have been avoided.
PLEASE VOTE!!!
Read more below and follow me on X & GETTR – @sanuzis
–Saul Anuzis
Saul’s News Weekly Rewind Video
Topics Covered This Week: Permitting Reform, Rate Payer Protection Act, and America.gov
Trump and Republicans can win the ‘affordability’ battle — here’s how
What a paradox: Almost all US economic indicators are strong today, and America’s economy is the envy of the world — yet consumers, stressed by gas prices at almost $4.50 a gallon, are in a bad mood.
That’s why Republicans need to go bold and sell the good news about President Donald Trump’s economy to voters.
After all, median household incomes jumped to an all-time-high of $87,500 in 2025, while poverty rates fell to an all-time low.
The latest jobs numbers show very low numbers of firings and layoffs, and record low sign-ups for unemployment benefits, as manufacturing and construction surge.
The Energy Department just announced that domestic oil production is at all-time record levels, thanks to Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” policies…
…That’s almost 20 times more than Biden delivered in four years.
In fact, most of the affordability crisis that’s driving voter anxiety was created during Biden’s presidency: About 80% in the rise in prices happened from 2021 to 2024, when inflation rose by more than any presidency since Jimmy Carter’s.
GOP candidates should be shouting these numbers from the rooftops — because the media sure won’t.
Republicans, don’t run away from the Trump economic miracle: Celebrate the fact that America is leading the world, thanks to our strategy of successful tax cuts, deregulation and energy dominance.
That’s a strong closing argument in these last few weeks of election season.
How One Republican Plans to Survive a Blue Wave
“I’ve kind of carved a little bit of an identity,” Rep. Tom Barrett said. Republicans know he’ll need luck, too.
Republican Rep. Tom Barrett toasted to good luck last Saturday, as the guest of honor at the Hmong New Year Festival at a local park.
He’s already gotten some this year. This fall, he’ll just need a lot more.
The freshman congressman is hoping to join an ever-shrinking club of incumbents in battleground districts who can hold off midterm challengers fueled by voters’ anger at the party in power. Barrett, who was one of the first Republicans to vote against President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, is attempting to build his own brand without losing GOP base support, even as public polling has found Democrats holding a 10-point advantage on the generic ballot in Michigan.
“I’ve kind of carved a little bit of an identity,” Barrett said in an interview during a car ride between campaign events last weekend, referring to his Iran war votes.
Jack Smith Caught Spying on Conservative Journalists in Anti-Trump Witch Hunt
Special counsel Jack Smith’s team allegedly spied on several journalists in its investigation into President Donald Trump.
One of their targets was The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway, according to editor-in-chief Sean Davis, who revealed the special counsel’s actions in a post on X.
“Corrupt cop Jack Smith spied on The Federalist and accessed our communications during his lawless anti-Trump witch hunt,” Davis wrote. “We are still working to determine which of our reporters were targeted by Jack Smith and which journalistic communications he and his thugs seized.”
He noted that Hemingway “wrote the definitive account of how Democrats seized control of election infrastructure and destroyed the integrity of American elections in 2020.”
Democrats block bill restricting lawmakers from trading stocks
Senate Democrats on Wednesday blocked a bill sponsored by vulnerable GOP incumbent Sen. Pete Ricketts (Neb.) to restrict members of Congress from buying new stocks of publicly traded companies, arguing the legislation didn’t go far enough to crack down on possible corruption.
The Stop Insider Trading Act failed by a vote of 53-47. No Democrat voted in support of the measure.
It needed 60 votes to advance on the Senate floor.
Ricketts, who is facing a competitive race in Nebraska, argued before the vote that his bill would “ban congressional insider trading” and touted it as a “commonsense” reform that “we need to pass.”
It passed the House in July by a vote of 232-198 with the support of 13 Democrats.
Cutting gas taxes becomes bipartisan issue as both parties rush to address rising costs
Texas this week became the latest state to target fuel prices surging due to the Iran war, as both sides of the aisle seek to leverage the issue on the campaign trail ahead of the November elections.
Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) issued a 30-day disaster declaration over soaring diesel prices, a problem Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) earlier this week marked as a hurdle for Republican candidates campaigning, particularly in the West.
Abbott’s move, touted as a measure to cut costs at the pump, comes as both Senate candidates in Texas, Ken Paxton on the Republican side and James Talarico on the Democratic side, have voiced similar concerns about fuel prices. Both candidates have embraced proposals to suspend or eliminate the federal gas tax. Their position has been increasingly echoed by candidates in both parties competing in tight Senate and gubernatorial races nationwide, highlighting how the debate has inadvertently become a bipartisan issue, with Republicans and Democrats jockeying to gain an edge on a topic polling indicates is a top concern for voters.
9 states have new US House districts for the midterm elections after Trump urged changes
Roughly 440 days after President Donald Trump spurred a mid-decade redrawing of congressional maps, the voting districts for the consequential midterm elections finally are settled in all U.S. states.
A U.S. Supreme Court decision late last week put to rest a long-running legal battle in Missouri over which U.S. House map to use. The conclusion: Missouri must use the same map it did in the 2024 elections, not a new one backed by Trump.
The Republican president took to social media Sunday to express his displeasure with the decision. But Trump’s redistricting push did succeed in several other states.
Here’s a look, by the numbers, at the redistricting battle waged in states:
Final 2027 COLA Estimate Takes Another Dip Despite High Prices
2027 Social Security COLA forecast drops to 3.5% in August despite persistent inflation.
The outlook for 2027 Social Security benefits dropped again in August. According to data from The Senior Citizens League (THCL), the latest Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) forecast dipped 0.1% to 3.5% in August from 3.6% in July.
In August 2026, the average monthly benefit for retired workers was $2,087.52, based on the Social Security Administration (SSA)’s August Monthly Statistical Snapshot. Factoring in a 3.5% COLA, that average monthly benefit would increase by $73.06 to reach $2,160.58.
We’re just a few weeks away from the official COLA announcement, which typically comes in mid-October. According to TSCL’s latest press release, the rate will be announced on October 14, though estimates could still change before then.
Libertarianism: Reports of Its Death Are Greatly Exaggerated
In his recent article, “The Strange Death of Libertarianism,” conservative Daniel McCarthy argues that libertarianism has lost its raison d’être and is no longer relevant. Free markets, he says, triumphed in the 20th century; marijuana and pornography are mainstream; and Americans are supposedly demoralized by “anti-government ideology.” Libertarianism apparently has nothing new to offer, so it’s time to move on with “right-wing populism” in the fight against a resurgent “socialism.” Mr. McCarthy also makes clear that Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, potential 2028 presidential candidates, prefer “common-ground” capitalism and align with right-wing populists.
Two things strike me about his argument. First, libertarianism is much more than a list of policies, such as free markets and legal marijuana. It is a theory of individual liberty and political power, centered on a timeless question: Who decides—the individual or the government? Second, libertarian ideas do not become obsolete because they succeed. Their success shows their power—and why the struggle for individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace never ends. The ominous rise of socialism and right-wing populism, both of which share some economic and political views, only makes libertarian ideas more relevant.
In The Libertarian Mind, David Boaz writes, “America’s libertarianism dates back to our founding” and the Declaration of Independence’s principles of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Adhering to those truths, libertarians believe people should be free to live their lives as they choose so long as they respect the equal rights of others.
Mr. McCarthy largely sidesteps that idea. Instead, he narrowly describes libertarianism as being about “anti-statism,” an “absolute faith in the market economy,” and support for legalizing pornography, pot, and gambling. Its “strongest selling point,” he writes, was the “profit motive.”
The Baltic States Prepare for War
Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are readying themselves to fend off a Russian attack—with the help of the United States, or without it.
One evening this summer, in the village of Bezdonys, in eastern Lithuania, I watched as a platoon of riflemen arrived at a train station occupied by enemy forces. Some of the Lithuanians let out a burst of gunfire from across the tracks, pinning the adversary in place as the rest of the unit advanced on the station. As the firefight intensified, wounded riflemen were evacuated to makeshift medical tents. An enemy soldier lay slumped against the station’s yellow clapboard siding.
Military exercises are elaborate acts of make-believe. I was observing this one to understand how a large-scale attack on the most vulnerable part of the NATO alliance might play out—and to see how the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania think about their own defense. The raid in Bezdonys was part of a nationwide simulation and involved the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union, a state-supported militia group that traces its history to the end of World War I. The Lithuanians I met wore camouflage fatigues and had no trouble accepting the scenario behind the exercise: that the enemy—Russia—had invaded their country, and that defensive forces had retreated to a city in the north. In their civilian lives, the riflemen are teachers and sales managers, economists and medical students. Now, suddenly, they were responsible for ambushing Russian outposts, killing enemy soldiers, and transmitting intelligence to the army.
“The enemy has to know,” General Raimundas Vaikšnoras told me, “that if they step one foot in our territory, we will strike back.” Vaikšnoras is Lithuania’s defense chief, and his distrust of Russia, a former occupying power, is not a notional concern. Ever since Russia’s invasions of other post-Soviet nations—Georgia in 2008; Ukraine in 2014 and 2022—conflict with Moscow has been front of mind for the people of the Baltic states. The three countries are small—Lithuania, the largest, is about the size of West Virginia—and grouped, one atop the other, on the shores of the Baltic Sea. They are also linked geopolitically by their common experience on Russia’s western borderlands, one of subjugation and dispossession. The Baltic states escaped some of that past after the fall of communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union, when they regained their sovereignty. And they took measures to solidify that status when they joined NATO, in 2004, attaching themselves to the American-led security order.
Paywall bypass: https://archive.ph/nlqyQ
How can NATO protect its front line from Russia?
On Wednesday, October 7 at 1:00 p.m. ET, the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center will host an event launching the newest report in its pathbreaking Russia Tomorrow series examining how NATO’s frontline states can better deter Russian aggression.
The latest Russia Tomorrow report, The deterrence gap: How can NATO protect its front line from Russia? by Eurasia Center nonresident senior fellow Agnia Grigas, assesses Russia’s military, cyber, economic, infrastructure, information, and espionage threats to NATO’s eastern flank and evaluates the responses of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania. How has the Kremlin tested the capacity and resolve of eastern-flank countries, and how should allies respond?
Brian Whitmore, nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, moderates this hybrid report launch discussion on how the Alliance can build more effective defense and resilience to the Russian threat and close gaps in collective deterrence.
New policy: In-person attendees will be required to show photo ID upon arrival, and no on-site registration will be permitted. Guests will not be admitted later than twenty minutes after the event’s start time.
Final Thought
International Calendar of Events: The 60 Plus International Institute is putting together the first consolidated calendar aggregator for conservative and libertarian foundations’ conferences and events worldwide.
If you’re looking for something interesting around the world to attend… check it out.
If you know of events that center-right activists who would be interested in, please let us know. Feel free to share… and your intel worldwide would be helpful.
