“If you’re in our hemisphere, if you’re in the Caribbean, if you’re north of Venezuela and you want to traffic drugs to the United States, you are a legitimate target of the United States military,” in an interview with Fox News’s The Sunday Briefing.
“We have every authorization needed. These are designated as foreign terrorist organizations,” Hegseth insisted. Two days ago another boat of “narco-terrorists” was bombed in the Caribbean under Hegseth’s direction.
This is all comes under the rubric of “fighting terrorism” as authorized after 9/11.
This is how the Trump Administration is ramping up the War on Drugs, a preoccupation of both major political parties and the federal government in the 20th century.
The previous Tuesday, Hegseth had made waves denying to women any easier physical qualification standard to get in the military, demanding a return to pre-2015 qualification standards. And advised his audience of big brass that just as rank-and-file military personnel should be fit, so too should U.S. generals and admirals not be fat.
At least that, we can hazard, is a constitutionally fit and proper — fully authorized — judgment of the Secretary of, er, Defense.
The Democrats pushed the government into shutdown because they insisted that Obamacare be re-upped, and that the medical expenses of immigrants, legal and illegal, be paid from federal government coffers. This was the upshot of Paul Jacob’s Thursday and Friday commentaries.
But Democrats do not want to admit the latter part of top agenda item (in Maxine Waters’ words). Here is NBC trying to make the Democrats’ case:
The argument can be broken down into multiple pieces, but take just the first minute, describing why Democrats insist that the Obamacare re-up be dealt with now, not after the CR. They say it must happen now, because people are making their plans on it. Republicans are not negotiating in good faith, Democrats complain. (Sound familiar?) But by scuttling the CR, now the Obamacare re-up issue is postponed further.
And Democrats knew that going in.
They aren’t dummies. Are they?
So it is really about something else. Not the American people and their medical insurance. Something else. . . .
FromOctober 1 to November 9, 2025, Comet 3I/ATLAS (also known as C/2025 N1) will become unobservable from Earth due to solar conjunction — making it too close to the Sun’s glare for ground-based telescopes. Thus it will be unobservable when it reaches its perihelion (point on its trajectory closes to the Sun) on October 29, 2025. It should reappear for observations in early November 2025, though visibility will be limited to equatorial regions initially.
As previously mentioned in these updates, the comet may not even be a comet since it is so weird. And it is so weird that Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb has had a field day on newscasts and podcasts speculating on the possibility that the object may be artificial in origin. YouTube is filled with both rational discussion and outrageous hype about this extremely odd interstellar mass, with talk of alien machinery, etc. And is it worth noting that the object will be invisible to us on Halloween day? (See illustration, above, for a chuckle.)
While 3I/ATLAS is in a sense a UFO — we do not yet understand why it is so odd, why it is so different from the previous two interstellar interlopers to our solar system as well as from all other comets, a category it has sort of been shotgunned into by most respectable observers — it is one whose outré status may be falsified in the next few months. If it does not slow down or speed up after its “dark” (eclipsed) period behind the Sun, we can probably determine it’s not “too” outré.
But something interesting is happening right before disappearing: it’s been hit with a coronal mass ejection (CME):
What are the odds? Already the odds of an interstellar object of this size should “do” a flyby of three planets (Mars, Venus & Jupiter) in the plane of the ecliptic boggles the mind. Add all the rest, and now this CME, and what do we get? A riddle orbiting a mystery recolving around an enigma!
This is all not just entertaining science stuff. Understanding objects flying within the orbits of the terrestrial planets has to be regarded as a safety issue for all people on our planet.
President Trump complained, aloud — that is, on Truth Social, to his Attorney General, Pam Bondi — that there can be no more delays on major cases against Deep State and Democratic corruption. Soon after, former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey, was indicted on two of three charges, with just days to spare before the statute of limitations kicked in to preclude prosecution. “Comey was charged with one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice,” explains CBS, “related to Senate testimony he gave almost five years ago.”
Meanwhile, the Epstein case appears to be slouching towards disclosure. The O’Keefe Media Group released, on Wednesday, a conversation overheard at an airport that featured an official investigator in the case letting a few cats out of the bag. “Senior Justice Department investigator Glenn Prager revealed Jeffrey Epstein,” Mike Flores summarizes, is “‘CIA’ and confirmed that rapes occurred while Bill Clinton was on the private plane.” That is, the infamous private plane popularly known as the “Lolita Express.”
“I’ve interviewed all the victims, There’s never been an instance where Trump was on a plane with these kids and the rapes occurred. But that can’t be said for Clinton. And it can’t be said for others,” Glenn Prager was overheard saying at a Phoenix airport. “While the Clintons were on the plane, while Bill Clinton was on the plane, there were rapes that occurred.
“They [DOJ] didn’t want to go after him [Epstein] because he’s an asset for the United States and Israel,” he added.
Trump has not been “protecting himself because there’s nothing there,” this Mr. Prager clarified, “but he’s protecting a lot of people.”
The O’Keefe Media Group is the investigative company that James O’Keefe created after his unfriendly ouster from his previous effort, Project Veritas. The conclusion of OMG’s article contains caveats:
When reached for comment by phone Prager simply replied “I can’t talk to you,” before hanging up.
According to a DOJ spokesperson, “This individual [Glenn Prager] worked at the Department of Justice as a program analyst over fifteen years ago. He has no understanding of, or access to, the underlying facts in this investigation. His statements should not be considered accurate. It is disgusting that someone would further exploit victims of sexual abuse by fabricating stories for their personal benefit.”
In April of this year Glenn Prager was announced as Executive Director of Government Risk Solutions for LexisNexis Solutions, a global data and analytics company that provides technology services to the private and public sector.
In a separate article, “DOJ INSIDER: ‘Prince Andrew was on Epstein Island When Rapes Happened’— Claims FBI Kash Patel and DOJ AG Pam Bondi at War over Epstein files,” OMG reveals more of the source’s disclosures.
What do people think of the firing of Jimmy Kimmel?
Well, not a firing exactly, as Paul Jacob mentioned yesterday, but, let’s agree, Kimmel’s exact employment status is not quite the issue. What’s at issue is what he said, and to what extent was the government influential in removing Kimmel from his on-air position even if only temporarily.
Dave Smith took, generally, Paul’s position: what Kimmel said was odd, dumb; and the FCC should not pressure a media corporation to remove on-air talent:
Joe Lancaster, at Reason, addressed the Kimmel FCC problem:
This week, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr criticized TV host Jimmy Kimmel for comments made about Kirk during his show. Carr openly intimated that ABC should take action or potentially face reprisal; within hours, the network suspended Kimmel’s show indefinitely. (Trump later praised Carr as “outstanding. He’s a patriot. He loves our country, and he’s a tough guy.”) Of course, when the opposing party was in power, Carr recognized the error of such a threat. In 2022, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told podcaster Joe Rogan that during the 2020 election, Facebook artificially decreased the spread of a story about Hunter Biden in response to a request from the FBI. “The government does not evade the First Amendment’s restraints on censoring political speech by jawboning a company into suppressing it—rather, that conduct runs headlong into those constitutional restrictions, as Supreme Court law makes clear,” Carr posted on X in response. Now that government power is in his hands, Carr apparently has fewer qualms about wielding it like that.
As for the influence of the FCC, one major player in the cancellation out-right denies any such influence: “‘The decision to preempt ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ was made unilaterally by the senior executive team at Nexstar, and they had no communication with the FCC or any government agency prior to making that decision,’ a Nexstar spokesperson told CBS News in an email Thursday.”
But, of all the reactions, The Babylon Beeaimed for a wider perspective:
For several years now, Paul Jacob had applied his demand for government transparency to the UFO topic. While for decades there has been a big cultural divide on the subject, between the Sophisticated Scoffers (who think there is absolutely nothing to the UFO issue) and the UFO Nuts (who express a range of opinion, from the suspicion that “there’s something to this” to the belief that “the aliens are here and running the Bilderberg Group”), in the last few years a number of government officials, military leaders, whistleblowers and pencil pushers have affirmed that some Unidentified Flying (and Submersible) Objects are puzzling and disturbing and somehow real, no matter how odd. To protect themselves they’ve re-dubbed the issue as one of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP, previously “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena”) and have set up official inquiries and congressional investigations.
And the House Committee run by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R‑Fla.) has made some progress, even in this past week of tumultuous socio-political turmoil. Consider a recent installment of Clayton Morris’s Redacted show:
The new UFO telemetry video is interesting, if not exactly knock-down. Historian Richard Dolan covered the mid-week hearing live:
On Thursday and Friday, Paul Jacob addressed two elements of the Charlie Kirk assassination. But much more has happened, especially since writing these two Common Sense commentaries.
First, Mr. Kirk’s wife, Erika, addressed the public:
Good evening. My name is Erika Kirk. Charlie Kirk is my husband. I first want to thank the local, state, and federal law enforcement who worked tirelessly to capture my husband’s assassin so that he can be brought to justice.
I want to thank the first responders who struggled heroically to save Charles’ life, and the police who acted bravely to make sure that there were no other victims on that terrible afternoon. I want to thank the officers who have protected our Turning Point USA family these past two days, and I want to thank the Turning Point USA board, the COO, Justin Streiff, and my husband’s chief of staff, the amazing Mikey McCoy, for all their work in these terrible days to be the stability for our family, and for the wider Turning Point USA family as well.
My heart is with every one of my husband’s employees who lost a friend and a mentor. I want to thank the staffers of his amazing Charlie Kirk show, who helped him broadcast from this studio, this chair. Every day, he loved it. He loved what he did.
I want to thank the millions of people who have shown their love for Charlie here in Phoenix, across America, and worldwide. I want to thank my husband’s dear friend, Vice President Vance, and his phenomenal wife, Usha, for their love and support. You guys honored my husband so well, bringing him home. You both are tremendous.
I want to thank President Trump and his incredible family for the same. Mr. President, my husband loved you, and he knew that you loved him too.
Transcript: “Mrs. Erika Kirk Delivers Public Address: ‘His Movement Will Go On,’” The Single Post (September 13, 2025).
One of the more prominent commenters on X, horror writer Stephen King, apologized and retracted his egregious comment on Kirk and his assassination: “I apologize for saying Charlie Kirk advocated stoning gays. What he actually demonstrated was how some people cherry-pick Biblical passages,” tweeted Mr. King. Uh, OK.
The apparent assassin, a 22-year-old Utah native, has been the subject of much speculation and inquiry. “His father sells granite kitchen countertops, his mother is a healthcare provider for handicapped people — and they are members of the Mormon church, but inactive,” reports KTen News.
According to NPR News, “The arrest of Tyler Robinson sent shockwaves through the small community where his family lives. Washington, a city of around 30,000, sits next to St. George in Utah’s southwest corner. It’s a 3 ½-hour drive from the Utah Valley University campus” where the shooting occurred.
The 22-year-old is the suspect in the killing of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk during a Wednesday event at the campus in Orem. After a 33-hour manhunt, Robinson’s family helped turn him in the following day.
On Friday morning, after law enforcement released Robinson’s name, officers from the Washington City Police and Washington County Sheriff’s Office patrolled a quiet street, preventing onlookers from approaching the family’s two-story gray stucco home.
But it is hard to forget that many news sources’ tilted coverage against the victim. The Guardian’s coverage is typical: “Charlie Kirk in his own words: ‘prowling Blacks’ and ‘the great replacement strategy,’” runs the headline; the blurb is perhaps worse: “The far-right commentator didn’t pull his punches when discussing his bigoted views on current events.”
“‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning,’ reads the caption for the meme Trump shared on his Truth Social platform,” an Epoch Times article informs us.
“The caption was superimposed over an image of Trump in a military-style uniform, squatting in front of a fiery backdrop, with a series of helicopters flying past a city skyline.
“‘Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,’ the meme caption continues.”
Uh, what?
It turns out that the president, in defiance of the Constitution and Posse Comitatus, aims to use the military to round up criminals (illegal aliens).
And he now insists upon calling the “Department of Defense” the “Department of War” again!
The social media post also comes a day after the president signed an executive order to refer to the Department of Defense as the Department of War, and to the position of the Secretary of Defense as the Secretary of War. A full renaming of the department and its Cabinet secretary will require an act of Congress but Trump has said the rebranding has “a stronger sound” and evokes a focus on winning wars.
President Trump, once again, is proving himself to be an old-fashioned brand management expert.
He likes the kick-assedness of “Department of War.” Secretary Hegseth appears to be gung ho on Trump’s side regarding the name preference. The date of Trump’s Executive Order is September 5, 2025, and its title is “Restoring the United States Department of War.”
The original shift to “Department of Defense” occurred in 1949 as an act of Congress, and was part of a major post-World War II reorganization to create a unified, modern military structure amid the emerging Cold War. It appeared to emphasize national security, deterrence, and efficiency over aggressive “war-making,” thus conforming to global efforts (such as the UN Charter’s ban on wars of aggression) to promote peace through strength rather than overt belligerence.
Amusingly, under the aegis of the Department of Defense, the U.S. has been at war almost uninterrupted since the name change.
Arguably, the 1949 name change was a euphemism. Also arguably, Trump’s reversal is a dysphemism.
Trump’s meme (see above) riffs on Francis Ford Coppola’s classic 1979 film, Apocalypse Now.
On Wednesday, Paul Jacob discussed the cultural erasure involved in the Cracker Barrel re-branding effort. One of the curious elements to the story is that previous icon branding erasures all focused on what might be called “icons of color,” Paul mentioning Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, and Mia the Land O’Lakes maiden. All gone now. They were “stereotypical” and thus somehow “racist.”
It is pretty obvious, however, that icons must be stereotypical — that is how they succeed as icons!
But this time a white — not to say “cracker” — icon was slated for erasure.
First they came for the icons of color (IoCs) and then for white icons. Why?
Paul suggested that cultural erasure may be the real point. A people without history or shared culture are easier to rule. Orwell was not alone to teach us that.
Thankfully, the issue was explored humorously by The Babylon Bee:
And even more thankfully, Uncle Herschel was spared, remaining on the logo.
“Define woke as erasure in the name of non-erasure,” Paul suggested. The Cracker Barrel erasure attempt wasn’t woke, obviously. It was a misguided erasure for the sake of modernization, of trying to … what?
The general trend in corporate (and perhaps the general) culture is to dispense with the past and its associations. As if that is the way to make money.
The announcement of the new logo on August 19, 2025, led to a significant drop in Cracker Barrel’s stock, shares falling over 12 percent in two days, and an additional 7 points by the 26th. After the reversal, the stock recovered quickly — the title at The Street was “Cracker Barrel Hasn’t Gone Woke Nor Has It Gone Broke.”
Cultural critics were all over the map. The Atlantic’s critique argued that Cracker Barrel’s brand has always been a “simulacrum of rural life” rather than authentic Americana — obvious enough. The backlash was misguided, the piece went on, because the corporate chain was founded to sell gas along highways, contributing to the erosion of genuine local culture by replacing it with a homogenized, nostalgic aesthetic; the new logo’s blandness was not “woke” but a continuation of this corporate sanding-down of regional identity. That doesn’t seem quite right, though. The earlier corporate branding served to entice rural Americans away from authenticity, sure, but with an appeal to traditional Americana style. The rebranding betrayed that, and if Americans objected, in a culture war way, they had a point.
But it wasn’t woke, true. It was too cynical and stupid for that.
Most of the critiques from the intelligentsia, including Paul’s foil David French, regarded the “political” reactions as “overdone” and “exaggerated.” But that is hardly up for them to decide. If consumers feel betrayed, their outrage is surely more sincere than the critics’ sniping.
Meanwhile, it might surprise most readers to learn that “Uncle Herschel” was an actual person with an actual connection to the company: Herschel Cawthon McCartney, uncle of Cracker Barrel’s founder, Dan Evins.
Our solar system’s third identified interstellar intruder, 3I/ATLAS, continues its course past the planets more-or-less within the plane of the ecliptic, and continues to surprise.
The least surprising thing is that it has finally developed a tail pointing away from the Sun:
On August 27, 2025, deep imaging of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS by the Gemini South8.2-meter telescope — aided by the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS), revealed a weak tail with a teardrop shape in the anti-Sun direction (reported here). At that time, 3I/ATLAS was at a distance from Earth of 2.59 times the Earth-Sun separation. The Gemini South Observatory is located on a mountain called Cerro Pachón in the Chilean Andes.
Avi Loeb, “Detection of an Anti-Solar Tail for 3I/ATLAS,” Medium (August 30, 2025).
Earlier observations had not seen the usual tail forming away from the point of origination of the solar winds, like a normal comet. Instead, the “coma” of dust or ice or gas or whatnot surrounding the object extended in advance of its trajectory — as if it were throwing out flak to take out dangerous objects ahead of it!
Yes, from the beginning the oddities of this intruder were being considered as possible indications of an artificial object.
While this is heartening for those who itch to relegate 3I/ATLAS to “mere” comet status (it’s already proved to be one weird comet, it comet it truly be), Abraham Loeb notes the accumulating oddities, too, which don’t fit the standard “nothing [challenging] to see here, folks” debunkers’ designations: “Recent spectroscopic data from the Very Large Telescope in Chile (accessible here), reported the surprising detection of cyanide and nickel without iron in the plume of gas around 3I/ATLAS with steeply increasing rates as the object approaches the Sun. Nickel without iron is a signature of industrial production of nickel alloys. Natural comets generically show iron and nickel simultaneously, as both elements are produced simultaneously in supernova explosions.”
And as Loeb just noted, measuring the nucleus of the object remains extremely difficult and uncertain.
Further, though detection of CO2 in the object’s coma (surrounding matter) is indeed what one would expect of a comet, the absence of water and carbon monoxide is . . . peculiar.
