🎧 LISTEN TO THE HEADLINES ON THE SUBSTACK APP
Council of Economic Advisers Calculates Democratic Socialist Agenda at $355,000 a Household
The Council of Economic Advisers said Oct. 1 that the Democratic Socialists of America’s main proposals would add about $49 trillion to federal deficits from 2027 to 2036, or about $355,000 per household. Gross costs were put at $52.8 trillion, reduced by an estimated $3.9 trillion from a wealth tax. Medicare for All accounts for $47.4 trillion of that. Canceling student debt and making college free was scored at $3.6 trillion. A mandated 32-hour workweek was scored at about $920 billion in lost tax revenue. The report also priced open borders and amnesty, abolishing police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and eliminating prisons. Americans now owe about $1.9 trillion in student debt, nearly $1.7 trillion of it federal and held by about 43 million borrowers. The national debt hit $40 trillion in August. The council said the package could bring double-digit inflation, with prices up an extra 130 to 160 percent over 10 years, and cut take-home pay by nearly 30 percent. The Democratic Socialists of America did not respond to a request for comment.
🏛️ News & Politics
Treasury Wants Tax Filers to Certify Citizenship or Work Status
The Trump administration has proposed a question on the 2026 Form 1040 asking whether the filer, and a spouse on a joint return, is a U.S. citizen, a U.S. national, or an alien lawfully authorized to work in the United States. The draft includes yes-or-no boxes. A draft Schedule 3-A asks a similar question before refundable credits. Treasury says the change is meant to stop ineligible people from collecting the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Additional Child Tax Credit, and that it could save as much as $2 billion. About 139 million people filed a 1040 last year. The National Taxpayer Advocate found 3.8 million 2024 returns filed with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number. Those filers paid $14.4 billion in income tax and $6.5 billion in Social Security and Medicare taxes. A valid Social Security number is already required for the earned-income credit. Researchers estimated 671,000 people, including 309,000 children, could lose that credit, and 1.1 million people, including 574,000 children, could lose the additional child credit. A federal judge already blocked an earlier Treasury deal to share immigrant taxpayer data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The IRS had already given the agency addresses for 47,000 people.
Trump Calls for Prison, Not Probation, for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security Fraud
President Trump on Saturday called on Congress to impose mandatory minimum prison sentences for fraud against Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. In a video posted to Truth Social and published by the White House, he said probation would no longer be an option, sentences would lengthen with the amount stolen, and a second conviction would double the term. He did not name the minimums or the dollar brackets. He also said a state or local official who knows about fraud, can stop it and does nothing should be personally liable for the full taxpayer loss. The proposal is not law. In June, the Justice Department charged 455 defendants in health-care schemes tied to more than $6.5 billion in alleged false claims. House Republicans have pushed Medicaid-fraud bills after warnings that improper payments in federal health programs run into the hundreds of billions.
Jury Convicts New Jersey Woman and Colombian Husband in $13 Million Aid Fraud
A federal jury in Utica convicted Jael Watts, 45, of Alloway, New Jersey, and Luis Pino-Copete, 42, of Bogota, Colombia, of stealing federal transportation and housing funds meant for elderly, disabled, and homeless Americans. They ran Pearl Transit Corporation, a New Jersey shell company that claimed to employ drivers nationwide. It had no drivers and gave no rides. From 2019 to 2025, they sought more than $13 million in reimbursements using stolen identities, including people who had died. They collected more than $1.6 million, including $529,500 from Gwinnett County, Georgia; $429,885 from Los Angeles County’s transit agency; $379,149 from Raleigh; and $283,000 from Kern County, California. Watts married Pino-Copete in Colombia in 2023. Sentencing is set for Jan. 21, 2027, before U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Brindisi.
Bush Appointee Halts Border Barriers and Roads Across Texas Big Bend Sector
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone, appointed by President George W. Bush in 2003, issued an emergency injunction Friday in El Paso barring the Department of Homeland Security from building border barriers, patrol roads, lighting or other ground-disturbing work in the Big Bend Sector until it complies with applicable laws. The order covers Big Bend National Park, Big Bend Ranch State Park and the wider sector, about 500 miles of the border with Mexico. Cardone wrote that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on at least one claim and face irreparable harm. Friends of the Ruidosa Church, the Center for Biological Diversity and a local river guide sued Secretary Markwayne Mullin over waivers of environmental and historic-preservation laws. Customs & Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott paused park work in mid-August after criticism from both parties, including Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). The agency said the park plans included one new access road, improved roads, detection gear, and vehicle barriers in limited spots, not a 30-foot wall. The government told the court the pause ended Sept. 30. The case is Friends of the Ruidosa Church et al. v. Mullin, No. 3:26-cv-01099.
Case Report Says Alzheimer’s Patient Spoke Again After Mushroom Dose
A case report published May 28 in Frontiers in Neuroscience describes an unnamed Japanese-American woman in her 80s with a 10-year clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer’s who, about 19 hours after a supervised oral dose of 5 grams of dried Enigma-strain Psilocybe cubensis, began an autobiographical conversation lasting about four hours. She had spent five years speaking mostly in single syllables, incontinent, unable to walk unaided or dress herself, with a flat affect and trouble swallowing. The authors, Marcos Lago, Mariana Cerveira, and Joe Xavier Simonet of Associação Cruz de Ankh in São Paulo, say she walked without help by day two, dressed herself within two to three days, and regained continence overnight after more than five years. One month later she was still continent and better than baseline. A second session used 3 grams. They report no severe lasting adverse effects. They say this is one patient, not a trial, so causality cannot be established, and the findings do not imply disease reversal. Biomarker confirmation and imaging were unavailable.
FEATURED ARTICLE:
⭐How the Social Security Disability Insurance Scam Is Killing the Disabled
BE SURE TO LIKE THE ARTICLE & SHARE IT WIDELY
📢 The Fifth Column Watch
Stranger Fatally Stabs 7-Year-Old Girl on a Chicago Sidewalk
A woman the child did not know stabbed 7-year-old Edi Mari Hernandez Chacon several times in the back at about 11:55 a.m. The attack happened Saturday on South Cottage Grove Avenue near East 86th Street in East Chatham. The girl was walking on the sidewalk. She was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital and pronounced dead. Bystanders chased and held the woman until police arrived. The suspect was treated for injuries suffered while being detained and taken into custody. Police have not named her or given a motive. Alderwoman Michelle Harris said no child should have to fear walking down the sidewalk.
Editor’s Note: The slaughter of urban youth continues at the woke hands of Chicago’s pro-victimhood policing policies.
Palisades Report Finds Alerts Went Out After Homes Were Already Burning
A 724-page review released Oct. 2 found delayed alerts, missed hot spots, and command failures in the January 2025 Palisades and Eaton fires. Thirty-one people died, and more than 16,000 structures were destroyed. Some Palisades residents were warned 40 to 90 minutes after homes were already burning. The Lachman fire, later rekindled into the Palisades fire, was contained on New Year’s Day. A captain objected to pulling hose after crews found a hot spot. Crews removed it anyway, and investigators found no later patrols as high winds approached. A helicopter warned at 10:46 a.m. on Jan. 7 that homes would be hit within minutes. An evacuation call came at 11:29. The city issued its first order at 12:09, while staff was still drawing zones from radio traffic. The county held its prior shift and fielded nearly 3,000 firefighters. The city sent its prior shift home. Command started at a station in the fire’s path, and fire and police used different maps. Eighteen of 19 Eaton deaths were in west Altadena, where most of the area was not ordered out until 3:25 a.m. on Jan. 8, more than four hours after the first 911 call west of Lake Avenue.
Healey, Who Sued Exxon and Blocked Pipelines, Asks Trump to Speed a Gas Line
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D) wrote Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Thursday, asking him to expedite federal permits for Enbridge’s Algonquin gas expansion so it can enter service in 2028. Her office said the project would serve about 600,000 customers and cut bills by about $40 million a year by reducing imported liquefied natural gas. Enbridge, not ratepayers, would pay for it. As attorney general, she sued ExxonMobil in 2019 over climate claims, and in 2022 she said she stopped the Kinder Morgan and Access Northeast pipelines. The letter landed about a month before her race against Republican Mike Minogue. She also pointed Wright toward Enbridge’s larger Project Beacon.
Baltimore Rock Opera Group Fires White Director Over Cornrows
The Baltimore Rock Opera Society fired executive director Kelly Carnes about two weeks after she started Sept. 8, after volunteers objected to a video of the white arts executive wearing cornrows at a public event. Carnes said she got the braids done at Burning Man for protection from wind and dust and kept them because she didn't have time to take them out. She said she checked with campers, including people of color, and wears the style only for the two weeks she camps there. The board said it had received concerned messages, removed the video, and would revise its anti-discrimination policy on cultural representation and dress and require anti-racism training. Four of six board members said they would step down Dec. 31. The termination letter said she was not a good fit and did not mention the hair. Carnes said an employment decision based on appearance is different from an opinion about a hairstyle. Her lawyer, Owen Bement, said Maryland’s CROWN Act bars the group from deciding who may wear the style.
French Court Fines Feminist for Calling Transgender Mayor a Man
A Paris court on May 20 convicted journalist and feminist Dora Moutot of public insult on the grounds of sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity and ordered her to pay 4,754 euros. She has appealed. The case stems from an Oct. 15, 2022, appearance on the France 2 program Quelle Époque, opposite Marie Cau, France’s first transgender mayor. When asked whether she considered Cau a woman, Moutot said Cau “is a man, a transfeminine man.” She also said women have to be wary of people with penises. The court said the remarks did not call for violence, discrimination or hatred, but still treated them as an abuse of free expression that warranted a criminal penalty. Public insult tied to gender identity can carry up to a year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros. In June, another LGBT group filed six more complaints against Moutot and colleague Marguerite Stern over statements on social media and their Femelliste site. U.N. Special Rapporteur Reem Alsalem said women should not be sanctioned for raising safety concerns about women-only spaces and cited death threats and doxxing against Moutot.
ON THIS DAY IN 1927:
Sculptor Gutzon Borglum and his crew officially began carving the massive portraits of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln into the Black Hills of South Dakota.
🌐 International
Far-Left Party Tied to Muslim Voters Backs France’s School Riots
La France Insoumise, the far-left party that draws most of France’s Muslim vote, is at the center of a week of school blockades that have turned into street violence. Ifop found 69 percent of Muslim voters backed founder Jean-Luc Mélenchon in 2022. He told LFI officials and activists to put themselves in the way. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez called the unrest urban violence. Education Minister Edouard Geffray and Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu blamed the party. A Paris police note said about 20 LFI elected officials were involved on Sept. 29. Saint-Denis Mayor Bally Bagayoko, an LFI official, said violence can be legitimate. Video showed him near a burning bin. The Interior Ministry reported 1,949 arrests on Oct. 1 and 305 injured police and gendarmes. Public Sénat said 1,027 high schools were affected and damage in Ile-de-France reached 7 million euros. Rioters in La Rochelle attacked a bus and threw Molotov cocktails.
Brazil Votes With Lula and Flavio Bolsonaro in a Statistical Tie
Brazilians vote Sunday in the first round of a presidential race that polls show is a statistical tie between President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 80, and Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro, 45, the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro. Neither is expected to clear 50 percent of valid votes, which would send the top two to a runoff on Oct. 25. Poll trackers put both near 40 percent, with Lula slightly ahead. The other candidates are at 4 percent or less. About 9 percent of voters were undecided, planned to cast a blank or spoiled ballot, or stay home. Each leading candidate is rejected by roughly half of voters. The campaign has centered on corruption, the economy, and crime, and both front-runners skipped the major television debates. Voting is compulsory for literate citizens ages 18 to 70. Voters also elect the full lower house and two-thirds of the Senate.
Yemen Leader Orders All-Out Offensive to Retake Houthi Territory
Rashad al-Alimi, head of Yemen’s Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council, announced Sunday the start of military operations to retake remaining Houthi-held land and restore state authority nationwide. He said all military, security, and civil institutions are mobilized and on high alert until the mission is finished, and that the fight would continue until the country is freed from the Houthi militia. Regional and Western officials said Saudi air power would support Yemeni ground forces. More than 100,000 pro-government troops had been readied. The Houthis seized the Bab el-Mandeb in a coastal offensive that collapsed government lines, and in the last 48 hours took hilltops near Taiz and cut the supply road to Aden, effectively encircling the city. A government spokesman said Saturday’s strikes killed at least 700 Houthis. The group has attacked Saudi shipping and oil sites, including smoke reported Saturday at Aramco’s Riyadh refinery. Al-Alimi was not expected to make the announcement without Saudi approval.
Pentagon Says Some U.S. Forces in Europe Could Move to Latin America
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Saturday in Colorado Springs that some U.S. capabilities in Europe could shift to the Western Hemisphere or return home as the Pentagon expands its footprint in Central and South America. He cited partnerships with Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Panama after the January ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and said the national security strategy calls for more burden-sharing in Europe. A six-month review of the U.S. posture in Europe is due in December. About 80,000 American personnel are on the continent. Under Secretary Elbridge Colby said the number of brigade combat teams allocated to Europe has already been cut from five to three, back to the 2021 level. Hegseth called drug cartels the ISIS and al-Qaida of the hemisphere. Since last September, the administration has carried out at least 70 strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 234 people it says were narco-terrorists.
US Coast Guard Stops Fuel Ship Bound for Cuba and Hands It to Mexico
The US Coast Guard boarded the 300-foot motor vessel Grace in early September in the Caribbean between Cuba and Mexico and escorted it to Progreso. A Mexican Navy team found large amounts of fuel in the ballast tanks and containers believed to hold more illicit fuel. The Coast Guard said Grace was heading for Cuba and appeared to be using dark-fleet tactics. It did not say how much fuel was aboard or how officials concluded the cargo was bound for Cuba. Vice Adm. Nate Moore said illicit fuel shipments violate international law and increase spill risk. The case follows the boarding of Jaira Provider earlier this summer, another substandard ship carrying illicit fuel to Cuba. That vessel held about 210,000 gallons. Both ships last called at Colón, Panama. Cutters continue to patrol around Cuba after a U.S. oil blockade cut off shipments from Venezuela and Mexico following the January ouster of Nicolas Maduro. Cuba is facing shortages and blackouts.
