Thursday, October 23, 2025

October 23, 2025

Good morning,

Welcome to the news for independent thinkers

Leading the News . . .

Who won final NYC mayoral debate? Cuomo gets an A and Mamdani barely makes the grade: experts . . . Andrew Cuomo was the winner of the final New York City mayoral election debate — passing with flying colors as front-runner Zohran Mamdani barely made the grade, a Post panel of political experts said. Mamdani, the lefty Democratic nominee, was left sweating on stage Wednesday night as he took big hits from independent hopeful Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, making a poor showing with less than two weeks before the election. New York Post

6 Takeaways From Second NYC Mayoral Debate

Politics

Attorneys General in Showdown Over Trump-Backed Rule Requiring Voter Citizenship Proof . . . Two-thirds of state attorneys general have jumped into the fray over a potential federal rule to require proof of citizenship for voting forms. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission, a four-member federal panel, will review a petition started by watchdog group America First Legal to add the requirement on the federal voter registration form. Now, 19 Democrat attorneys general—led by Rob Bonta of California—oppose such a rule, and 14 Republican attorneys general—led by Ken Paxton of Texas—support it. Daily Signal

WATCH: She Thinks Charlie Kirk Deserved to Die—What We Heard at the 'No Kings' Rally in DC . . . Thousands of people, most of them over the age of 60, hit the streets of Washington, D.C., on Saturday to protest our extremely authoritarian—and definitely not democratically elected—"king," President Donald Trump. It was the "No Kings" rally, and The Daily Signal team took the opportunity to get some fresh air and, of course, interview a few of them. We started by asking, "What has Trump done to seem like a king to you?" Daily Signal

Democrat candidate tries to cover up Nazi tattoo . . . is U.S. Senate campaign under fire, Maine Democrat Graham Platner said Wednesday that a tattoo on his chest has been covered to no longer reflect an image widely recognized as a Nazi symbol. The first-time political candidate said he got the skull and crossbones tattoo in 2007, when he was in his 20s and in the Marine Corps. It happened during a night of drinking while he was on leave in Croatia, he said, adding he was unaware until recently that the image has been associated with Nazi police. Associated Press

He knew what this was. Democrats like to say Trump is Hitler, but meantime, they'll support an actual real-live Nazi for Senate.

Whistleblower: Biden Admin Guaranteed $3B Loan for Company SEC Was Investigating for Fraud . . . A whistleblower accused one of the Biden administration's top energy loan recipients of maintaining a "hidden" set of financial records while defrauding investors and tax authorities. The Biden administration guaranteed a $3 billion loan to the company anyway, the Washington Free Beacon has learned through interviews and whistleblower reports. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the IRS received multiple reports about Sunnova Energy, a residential solar company, between 2018 and 2024. Washington Free Beacon

Pro Trans Leftist Launches Bid For Pelosi's Seat Before She Has A Chance To Announce Retirement . . . As speculation mounts that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will soon announce her retirement, one California lawmaker is wasting no time entering the succession race. California State Senator Scott Wiener announced his candidacy Wednesday, hours after Politico reported that Pelosi may announce her retirement soon after California votes on a controversial redistricting proposal. Wiener, who's considered one of the most outspoken leftist members of the California State Legislature, did not name Pelosi in his campaign launch video. Daily Wire

National Security

The "Donroe Doctrine": Trump Aims to Dominate the Americas . . . Two centuries after President James Monroe warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas, his namesake doctrine is surfacing on influencer TikToks and podcasts, in corporate pitch decks and White House hallways, as President Trump recasts it as a blueprint for U.S. dominance in the region. Since returning to the Oval Office in January vowing to "take back" the Panama Canal and make Canada the 51st state, Trump has applied extraordinary pressure on countries across the region to fall in line with his security agenda. Wall Street Journal

Okay, so the new thing is, you can't be a Neocon, but you can do Neocon stuff.

House Democrats to track ICE agents in Los Angeles . . . Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are preparing to launch a platform that they say will track the activity of some ICE agents. "Over the course of the next couple of weeks, the Oversight Committee will be launching on their website a master ICE tracker, where we're going to be essentially tracking every single instance that we can verify that the community will be able to send us information on, and it'll be all available in one central place," said Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., the ranking member of the committee. Daily Signal

How China Cheats Its Way Into US Law Schools . . . Chinese LSAT preparation companies have violated the security of remotely administered exams for years, allowing Chinese nationals to access stolen questions and take the place of qualified Americans, the CEO of a U.S. test preparation company told the Washington Free Beacon. The CEO, Dave Killoran of PowerScore, revealed that a Chinese whistleblower, frustrated with how easy cheating on the LSAT appeared to be, contacted him in May of this year with what he claimed were stolen questions. Washington Free Beacon

International

U.S. Lifts Key Restriction on Ukraine's Use of European Long-Range Missiles . . . The Trump administration has lifted a key restriction on Ukraine's use of some long-range missiles provided by Western allies, enabling Kyiv to step up attacks on targets inside Russia and increase pressure on the Kremlin, U.S. officials said Wednesday. Ukraine used a British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missile on Tuesday to strike a Russian plant in Bryansk that produced explosives and rocket fuel, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces announced on social media. Wall Street Journal

EU joins US in heaping more sanctions on Russia to push Putin into Ukraine peace talks . . . The European Union on Thursday heaped more economic sanctions on Russia, adding to U.S. President Donald Trump's new punitive measures the previous day against the Russian oil industry. Russian officials and state media dismissed the Western measures, saying they are largely ineffective. The sanctions are intended as part of a broadened effort to choke off the revenue and supplies that fuel Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and compel Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war. Associated Press

At what point to you squeeze a country so hard that the cost-benefit ratio changes enough that nuclear weapons pop out?

Money

US hits $38 trillion in debt, after the fastest accumulation of $1 trillion outside of the pandemic . . . In the midst of a federal government shutdown, the U.S. government's gross national debt surpassed $38 trillion Wednesday, a record number that highlights the accelerating accumulation of debt on America's balance sheet. It's also the fastest accumulation of a trillion dollars in debt outside of the COVID-19 pandemic — the U.S. hit $37 trillion in gross national debt in August this year. The $38 trillion update is found in the latest Treasury Department report, which logs the nation's daily finances. Associated Press

Trump Administration in Talks to Take Equity Stakes in Quantum-Computing Firms . . . Several quantum-computing companies are in talks to give the Commerce Department equity stakes in exchange for federal funding, a signal that the Trump administration is expanding its interventions in what it sees as critical segments of the economy. Companies including IonQ, Rigetti Computing and D-Wave Quantum are discussing the government becoming a shareholder as part of agreements to get funding earmarked for promising technology companies. Wall Street Journal

AI Workers Are Putting In 100-Hour Workweeks to Win the New Tech Arms Race . . . Inside Silicon Valley's biggest AI labs, top researchers and executives are regularly working 80 to 100 hours a week. Several top researchers compared the circumstances to war. "We're basically trying to speedrun 20 years of scientific progress in two years," said Batson, a research scientist at Anthropic. Extraordinary advances in AI systems are happening "every few months," he said. "It's the most interesting scientific question in the world right now." Wall Street Journal

You should also know

Suzanne Somers AI Clone Debuts Two Years After Her Death . . . Suzanne Somers died two years ago, but her husband, Alan Hamel, insists that fans will be able to interact with her again via an AI clone he says is "amazing." Hamel and Somers were together for 55 years before she died in 2023 from breast cancer. "It was Suzanne. And I asked her a few questions and she answered them, and it blew me and everybody else away," the 89-year-old widower told People of the AI-generated clone meant to resemble his late wife. Daily Wire

Would prefer a clone of Farah Fawcett, but, fine.

Guilty Pleasures

Kamala Harris Secret Service Agent Moonlighted As Plus Size Model . . . A female agent formerly on the Secret Service detail for Vice President Kamala Harris' stepdaughter Ella Emhoff moonlighted as a model and never passed her physical fitness test, sources told RealClearPolitics. The agent was featured in a magazine profile and hinted at her Secret Service position in a photo shoot labeled, "Undercover, But Never Underdressed," the outlet reported. The agent describes herself as a "nationally published curve model, plus-size fashion and fitness influencer, and body-positive advocate" on social media, according to RealClearPolitics. Daily Caller

Yes, I'm very body positive about her too. I'm positive her body can't do a single pull up, a single pushup, or protect a vice president from people who can. Maybe she can get in the way of a bullet.

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