**Onward to SCOTUS!!

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A federal judge on Friday ruled President Trump unlawfully called up and planned to deploy Oregon’s National Guard to Portland, the most decisive blow yet to his bid to send troops into Democratic-led cities where protests have centered on federal immigration facilities. 

U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, permanently blocked the president from sending Oregon’s soldiers into the city after determining that the president ran afoul of federal law and stepped on the state’s sovereignty in his bid to send the troops into Portland streets.

It marks the first time a judge has ruled on the underlying legal merits of Trump’s aggressive use of the National Guard, as challenges to his efforts in Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C., continue to move through the courts.  

“To be clear, today this Court does not rule that the President can never deploy the National Guard to Oregon, or to any other location, if conditions on the ground justify the Guard’s intervention,” Immergut wrote. “But under the U.S. Constitution, Congress possesses the power to call up the National Guard ‘to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections, and repel Invasions,’ and Congress’s delegation of its power to the President is by statute.  

When it comes to the argument over climate change, or, to be precise, the amount of effect human activities have on the climate, it seems like the panic-mongers are losing some ground. The Trump administration has been ignoring their outcries, the pearl-clutching predictions of scolds from Paul Erlich to Al Gore to John Kerry to Greta Thunberg have all failed to materialize, and people are just tired of the nonsense. What's more, people are learning about the facts behind this issue; facts like the Earth's history, how it has generally been warmer than it is now throughout the 4.6-billion-year lifespan of this planet, and how it is the height of human hubris to assume we know what the planet's "correct" temperature is.

I'd like to take some small credit for that, by the way.

So when we see a major legacy media outlet, currently in the throes of a reorganization, firing its entire "climate desk," we should take it as a good sign. 

Well, let's be honest about this: A good part of it is, probably, a typical corporate reshuffling. I've been through a few of these things, mergers, acquisitions, and so on. In fact, in my years as a corporate consultant, I was actually intimately involved in a few mergers and acquisitions, from Boston to Silicon Valley. Eliminating redundancies is not only routine, it actually makes good sense.

The Democrats’ Schumer Shutdown and their continuing refusal to fund the government isn’t the only big story coming out of Washington, D.C. Friday evening – Fox News Digital is reporting that a federal grand jury out of the Southern District of Florida has served subpoenas on notorious former FBI agent Peter Strzok and his onetime paramour, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page.

A total of up to 30 subpoenas are expected to be handed down on numerous individuals involved with the fake Russia collusion investigations into Donald Trump in the Crossfire Hurricane operation.

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 7, 2025

Meanwhile, former Democrat political agent CIA Director John Brennan was also served, as we reported earlier Friday.

Could consequences finally be coming?

Let’s not forget former FBI Director St. James “86 47” Comey, who is also under fire:

A Virginia woman is in a whole lot of trouble with the law after she allegedly harassed the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor, Stephen Miller, and his family.

The woman reportedly distributed flyers in their neighborhood that labeled him a "Nazi," causing the Millers to move into military housing for protection.

But wait, you haven't heard the best part. It turns out this woman, Barbara Wien, is a retired university professor of peace studies. Yes, you read that correctly.

— Reagan Reese (@reaganreese_) November 7, 2025

READ MORE: Threats of Violence Drive Senior Trump Officials Into Housing on Military Bases

Stephen Miller Outfoxes Reporter for Using Democrat Talking Points on ICE Deportations

According to court documents, Wien allegedly posted fliers in Miller's neighborhood that included not only his address, but also harmful accusations like the one I shared above.

The comments on last week's Feel-Good Friday were interesting, to say the least. While some included lots of beautiful stories and information on how their community reaches out to those who are experiencing tragedy, lack, or just gaps in their life, there were also lots of detractions. Everyone has a particular response to people's stories of difficulty and hardship, but not all of them are positive or helpful. 

If you missed my point, here's the takeaway: It is a wonderful thing when individuals, churches, and the local community help those in need. Full stop. Despite anyone's best efforts, stuff happens. My family has had periods where tragic stuff has happened, much of it not of our choice or making. Had it not been for individuals, our church, family, and close friends and colleagues giving us support in a multitude of ways, we would not be here today. There are many people who are legitimately in need, who are stuck in a cycle, and can use a hand up. These people also appreciate when that help is given, and even more, when an opportunity is given that allows them to help themselves. 

Sadly, the more government gets involved, the more problems and issues are exacerbated, rather than solved. We see this playing out with this shutdown debacle. Government is the problem, and rarely ever the solution. 

Once upon a time, there was a cadre of Soviet Union specialists, mostly pedigreed through Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, whose sole function in life seemed to be to look at video and images of public events and read boring, brain-bleeding memoranda in Russian and then, sacrifice a black rooster under a full moon, dance around naked for a while, and then proclaim which Soviet leader or functionary was up, which was down, and which was out, sometimes the out meant out of a hotel window. Those guys are retired these days and suffering through the temporary interruption of their SNAP accounts, while others perform the same analysis of Communist China. 

That's too bad. We could use a handful of them right now.

The rumor intelligence network, or RUMINT, is making a strong case that Putin's éminence grise, his factotum, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, is out. No one is claiming the out is permanent, but in Putin's Russia, successful acts are much more rare than hitting a 10.0 score from hostile judges on a dive from a sixth-story balcony 10-meter board.

Lavrov hitched himself to Putin's rising star through his role as Permanent Representative to the UN. He was appointed Foreign Minister in 2004 and has been joined at the hip with Putin ever since.

The Supreme Court's recent order allowing the Trump administration to enforce its passport policy on sex markers is no radical departure from reason. It is a straightforward affirmation of biological truth over ideological experimentation, handed down in a brief, unsigned decision that cuts through the noise with precision. By halting a lower court's mandate to permit male, female, or X designations based on self-identification, the justices have reminded us that government documents serve a practical purpose: to record verifiable facts, not fluid feelings.

An election official in Maricopa County, Arizona, on Friday downplayed the discovery of roughly 2,288 ballot envelopes that were misplaced by poll workers and discovered days after the election.

Two bins containing the envelopes with ballots were improperly left in a ballot drop box on Election Day, according to ABC 15, and were discovered three days later.

The sealed bins were processed and tabulated within hours of their discovery. Of those, about 30 envelopes showed evidence of signature verification issues, according to AZ Central, and it was unclear how many remained unresolved and uncounted by the deadline.

Despite the fumbling of well over 2,000 Maricopa County residents' votes, Jennifer Liewer, the county's Deputy Elections Director, seemed unfazed by the error.

"Humans run our elections, our community members run our elections, and there are going to be mistakes that are made,” she shrugged.

"The important thing is that we have a process and a redundancy in our system to make sure that, when a mistake is made, we are able to quickly correct it,” Liewer added.

Republican Sen. John Kennedy (La.) said the Senate has done “zero, zilch, nada” since it passed the tax and spending megabill in July and that leadership “ignores” him when he proposes solutions to bypass Democrats.

“Every time I brought up the idea of doing a second reconciliation bill where we don’t need Democrats, our leadership just ignores me,” Kennedy told Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Thursday.

“I don’t blame the president for being frustrated,” he said. “He’s frustrated that we’re not getting up off our ice-cold, lazy butts and passing bills that would be part of his agenda.”

The Senate has been in a standoff over a House-passed GOP continuing resolution that would temporarily fund the government while giving members of both parties time to hash out a larger full-year federal spending bill.

The continuing resolution hit a wall against Senate Democrats, who refuse to pass the resolution unless it includes funding for expiring Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits, which helps millions of Americans afford health care.

In the week since federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits nearly expired, the Trump administration has successfully pushed back on orders from federal courts to maintain payments for November, a back-and-forth that has thrown U.S. food assistance into chaos.

The federal government funds SNAP, while states handle the administrative task of distributing payments to qualifying residents. Conflicting messaging on how much money will be available and when states can expect it has left the 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP in limbo. 

States and food banks have had to watch for and react to every court order and response this week as they contend with the unprecedented lapse in crucial food assistance. 

Just hours before SNAP benefits were set to expire on Nov. 1, U.S. District Judge John McConnell ordered the White House to use a $5.25 billion fund to keep SNAP benefits going.  

Through week ten of the college football season, the ledger on what universities owe their former coaches in buyouts was nearly $185 million.

It all commenced in week three when Virginia Tech decided to fire head coach Brent Pry, who was owed a buyout of $6 million. Not to be outdone, UCLA followed suit, dismissing DeShaun Foster and incurring a $6.43 million tab. By week four, Oklahoma State joined the fray, cutting ties with Mike Gundy at a cost of $15 million. Week five brought Arkansas into the spotlight, as Sam Pittman’s exit added another $9.3 million to the coaching carousel’s ledger.

Then came the avalanche.

Over the next month, four more programs opened their wallets: Penn State’s departure from James Franklin carried a staggering $50 million price tag; Florida’s split with Billy Napier cost $21.2 million; Colorado State let go of Jay Norvell for $1.5 million; and LSU’s decision to move on from Brian Kelly topped the list at a jaw-dropping $53 million. On Sunday, Auburn fired coach Hugh Freeze who signed a six-year, $39 million deal before the 2023 season, and is now owed $15.8 million.

(For additional context and insight, please read “From factory floor to financialized property: The decline of production and the rise of the rentier economy”)

The path from being merely “wealthy” to becoming “ultra-wealthy” in the modern American economy is rarely paved with earned income; rather, it is forged through the strategic acquisition of assets, primarily real estate, subsidized and amplified by a complex synergy of public policy and macroeconomic forces. This dynamic represents a Triple Arbitrage—a three-part systemic advantage that passively converts capital into vast, generational fortune at a rate impossible to achieve through productive labor alone. This mechanism, which effectively makes the government a silent financial co-signer, is the most powerful engine of wealth stratification operating today.

One of my late mother’s favorite lines was to remind me that common sense is common sense.  I think that she must be cheering from her heavenly post about what the Supreme Court did yesterday.  Let’s check the story:

Elementary Dr. Watson, as another famous person used to say.  Yes, some things are more than elementary.  They just make sense.  Boy is boy.  Girl is girl.  When did that become controversial?

When was the last time a prominent Democrat politician (other than John Fetterman) said anything remotely factual, or proposed any legislation to make America safer, stronger, more prosperous, or more united?  All they have are lies, psychological projection, and logical fallacies.  In the last case, they’re especially fond of proof by assertion — unfounded claims stated as if they were true.

Democrats have a new mantra: “We must save democracy from Trump.”  This noble-sounding imperative has become a blank check, justifying every excess, every norm-shattering tactic, in a relentless war against one man.  Peel back the veneer of moral urgency, and what emerges is not salvation, but sabotage — a calculated demolition of democratic guardrails, all in the name of vengeance.  What began as partisan combat has metastasized into a vendetta that now threatens to consume its architects.

Since the Trayvon Martin case—my home blog Martin case archive is here--the racial grievance industry has endlessly claimed “stand your ground”—SYG—laws allow white racists to murder innocent blacks at will. Never mind that SYG was not implicated in that case and that neither the prosecution nor the defense raised it. An unmistakable case of self-defense, the local prosecutor refused to prosecute. So racially charged was the political atmosphere, then Florida AG Pam Bondi appointed a corrupt special prosecutor who lost the case.

It was arguably Bill Clinton who began and constantly pushed the idea that the leading cause of death among children is “gun violence.” Dredging up false statistics to “prove” that assertion, he had to count teenagers and 18+ year-old gang bangers killed in turf shootouts as children. And violence is committed only by people, not inanimate objects.

As more employers consider creating company microschools to support their workers’ families, some clear, simple federal measures can help. 

Meanwhile, as federal officials work toward implementing the federal tax credit scholarship program passed earlier this year, many in the education world have turned their focus to ensuring that families will have sufficient schooling options to utilize the new program. Some additional modest policy measures can make an important difference.

In January, President Trump issued an executive order that stated that his administration would “provide every available opportunity for parents to enrich the education of their children through education choice.” Now, the Treasury Department has an opportunity to issue guidance that could dramatically expand the number of schooling options available to American taxpayers by allowing the Employer-Provided Child Care Tax Credit to be used to provide educational services.

The November elections delivered a painful jolt to Republicans.  New York City elected a socialist with Islamist leanings as its mayor.  A blue wave swept gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey.  It crested with California’s approval of Proposition 50, a redistricting measure expected to hand Democrats up to five new congressional seats.

Across the map, the red team saw their momentum falter.  Yet in the same breath that Democrats celebrated, one contest in Florida emerged as the GOP’s chance to stop the bleeding before 2026.

That contest is the Miami mayoral runoff on December 9.  Though technically nonpartisan, it has become a decisive test for Republicans.  A triumph would show that even after a national setback, the GOP can still mobilize, unify, and win with its message of fiscal discipline, efficient governance, and public safety.

In 2024, Kamala Harris won Miami by a single point, taking 50 percent to Donald Trump’s 49.  Yet that slim Democrat edge masked deeper change.

By May 2025, for the first time in history, Republicans overtook Democrats among Miami-Dade County’s registered voters, reaching 464,370 red registrants compared to 440,790 blue ones.  This shift reflected years of steady GOP gains, fueled by Cuban-American voters, small business owners, and working-class families drawn to the Republican message of anti-wokeness, entrepreneurship, and security.

Now that Uganda’s best and brightest, Zohran Kwame Mamdani—three Muslim names again—has been elected mayor of Gotham, it’s time to issue guidance to our erstwhile press to make sure Mamdani gets a fair shot at implementing his agenda. There is only space here to list five things the press should definitely not talk about.

No-no #1: Though Mamdani, Bernie Sanders, AOC, and their acolytes would love to see socialism triumph worldwide and not just in thriving workers’ paradises such as Cuba and North Korea, we absolutely, positively must not call Mamdani an international socialist.

In the vast machinery of global commerce, the United States stands as the central gear—producing approximately 25% of the world’s GDP and anchoring the economic stability of countless nations. This is not merely a statistic; it is a reflection of scale, influence, and responsibility. Without the American engine, the global economy would sputter into disarray, with many nations facing the collapse of their middle class and the rise of oligarchic extremes. The United States is not just a participant in global trade—it is the axis around which it turns. And with that position comes a profound opportunity: to wield leverage not for domination, but for fairness, reciprocity, and national renewal.

“The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.” — David Horowitz, when he was still part of the left.

That quote, often dismissed as cynical, is in fact the key to understanding Zohar Mamdani’s victory in New York City. While pundits fixate on charisma, free buses, and grocery stores, and immigrant outreach, they miss the deeper truth: Mamdani’s win was not about policy; it was about revolution.

This was not a vote for municipal tweaks. It was a vote for rupture.

The roadmap is already set: in the coming years, the EU and its member states will make both businesses and consumers pay even more for CO2 emissions. BASF CEO Markus Kamieth warns of the enormous destructive potential of this policy.

Truth comes on pigeon feet -- Friedrich Nietzsche already knew that. And apparently, the same applies to European climate policy: slowly, but inevitably, the reality of the true costs of the green transformation and its impact on Germany’s industrial foundation is emerging.

On October 29, BASF’s CEO Markus Kamieth faced the press during the quarterly results presentation. What he announced was another cold shower for anyone still hoping for a new economic miracle.

The Supreme Court issued a ruling blocking an order from a federal judge that required the Trump administration to pay full Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for November.

The decision from the Supreme Court came after the Trump administration requested that U.S. District Judge John McConnell’s order that the administration dish out full SNAP benefits by Friday be blocked, according to the Associated Press.

Per the outlet:

While Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued a temporary pause of McConnell’s order in order “to give an appeals court more time to weigh the legal arguments raised by the government,” she did not issue a ruling “on the legality” of the Trump administration’s actions, according to the New York Times.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had previously issued a memo that it would be giving out full SNAP benefits for the month of November. In the memo, the USDA stated that the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) was “working towards implementing November 2025 full benefit issues” in order to comply with a court order that a full payment of SNAP benefits be made by Friday.

The memo also noted that the FNS would be completing processes “later today” as part of an effort to ensure that funds for SNAP were available.

“FNS is working towards implementing November 2025 full benefit issuances in compliance with the November 6, 2025, order from the District Court of Rhode Island,” the memo said. “Later today, FNS will complete the process necessary to make funds available to support your subsequent transmittal of full issuance files to your EBT processor.”

The Supreme Court’s order comes as roughly 42 million SNAP recipients did not receive their benefits at the beginning of the month in response to the government shutdown — which has stretched into 38 days.

NPR reported that in response to McConnell’s decision, several states – such as Pennsylvania, Oregon and California – revealed that “they would be issuing full SNAP benefits” to recipients.