Wednesday, October 29, 2025

October 29, 2025

Good morning,

Welcome to the news for independent thinkers

Leading the News . . .

FBI Arctic Frost investigation targeted 160 Republican operatives, lawmakers in search of election crimes . . . FBI agents from field offices across the country assisted in a sweeping investigation known as Arctic Frost that targeted more than 160 Republican operatives, lawmakers, and Trump-aligned figures for possible 2020 election-related crimes, according to documents that suggest the politically charged investigation was far more extensive than previously known. The House Judiciary Committee revealed the Arctic Frost investigation was broader than initially understood and appeared to reach deeply into President Donald Trump's political network as the former president prepared his 2024 comeback bid. Washington Examiner

No Kings, please!

Politics

Earle-Sears Slams Spanberger for Having 'Sold Out Virginians' by Taking Cash From Environmental Groups . . . Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears attacked her Democrat opponent, Abigail Spanberger, for prioritizing the climate policies of environmental groups that contributed to her campaign, rather than an all-of-the-above energy plan. "Abigail Spanberger has sold out Virginians to the highest bidder," said Peyton Vogel, Earle-Sears' press secretary. "She's taken millions from green special interests who want to force Virginia back into [the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative] and drive up energy costs for working families." Daily Signal

Will Virginians vote to raise their own electricity bills?

Mamdani's dad claimed 'moral equivalence' between U.S. and Al-Qaeda, compared Afghan war to 9/11 . . . Zohran Mamdani's father Mahmood — a prominent leftist in his own right — penned a book in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 where he argued that there was a "moral equivalence" between the United States and al-Qaeda, compared the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan to the terrorist destruction of the World Trade Center, blamed the U.S. for 9/11 and al-Qaeda, and much more. Mahmood Mamdani is a longtime tenured Columbia University professor, where the school says he "specializes in the study of colonialism, anti-colonialism, and decolonization." Just the News

AOC and Riley Gaines in X spat . . . The spat began on Sunday with a photo Gaines posted from a New York City political rally. The photo showed Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) campaigning for a fellow socialist — Zohran Mamdani — in New York City's mayoral race. "We're being destroyed from within," Gaines posted."Maybe if you channeled all this anger into swimming faster you wouldn't have come in fifth," Ocasio-Cortez jabbed back, referencing the 2022 NCAA championships where Gaines had tied for 5th place with trans-identifying male swimmer Lia Thomas. Daily Wire

Ladies, please!

Steven Hatfill, Covid Vaccine Critic, Ousted From HHS . . . Steven J. Hatfill, a biosecurity expert whose views helped form the basis for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s decision to cancel funding for mRNA vaccine research, was fired over the weekend from his job as a senior adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services. He said he was ousted as part of "a coup to overthrow Mr. Kennedy" that he claimed was being organized by Matt Buckham, Mr. Kennedy's chief of staff. An HHS official said Dr. Hatfill was let go because he had misrepresented himself. New York Times

Trump seems to acknowledge he can't run for a third term: "It's too bad" . . . President Trump appeared to concede Wednesday that he's not allowed to run for reelection in 2028 — after teasing the idea of running for a third term on and off for months. "It's a very interesting thing. I have the best numbers for any president in many years," the president told reporters aboard Air Force One on his way to South Korea. "And I would say that, if you read it, it's pretty clear I'm not allowed to run. It's too bad." CBS News

National Security

WATCH: US Kills 14 'Narcoterrorists' in Eastern Pacific Strikes . . . The U.S. struck four boats in the Eastern Pacific said to be carrying narcotics. "Yesterday, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out three lethal kinetic strikes on four vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations (DTO) trafficking narcotics," Secretary of War Pete Hegseth wrote on X Tuesday. The boats were known by "our intelligence apparatus," Hegseth wrote above a declassified video of the strikes. Daily Signal

University Leaders Say 'Organized Networks,' Including Iran, Drove Anti-Israel Campus Unrest . . . Several leaders of prominent universities on Monday said they believe the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic demonstrations that broke out on campuses across the United States during the Jewish state's war against Hamas were not organic, instead telling a panel audience they believe "organized networks," and even foreign governments, may have driven the unrest. Vanderbilt University chancellor Daniel Diermeier agreed said the anti-Israel movement on his campus seemed to have been coordinated by outside forces and followed a "playbook" that "was imported" from other universities. Washington Free Beacon

A Potent Replacement for Fentanyl Is Emerging in the U.S. Experts Say China Is Behind It . . . Nitazenes, a class of synthetic opioids that can be up to 43 times stronger than fentanyl, were first developed in the 1950s as a painkiller, but their extreme addictiveness led drugmakers to keep them off the shelves. Now, their black market presence is increasing. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) logged zero reported nitazene discoveries from 2005 to 2019. Since then, the agency has logged nearly 7,000 such reports and linked the drugs to roughly 2,000 deaths. Washington Free Beacon

US sought to lure Nicolás Maduro's pilot into betraying the Venezuelan leader . . . The federal agent had a daring pitch for Nicolás Maduro's chief pilot: All he had to do was surreptitiously divert the Venezuelan president's plane to a place where U.S. authorities could nab the strongman. In exchange, the agent told the pilot in a clandestine meeting, the aviator would be made a very rich man. The conversation was tense, and the pilot left noncommittal, though he provided the agent, Edwin Lopez, with his cell number — a sign he might be interested in helping the U.S. government. Associated Press

International

'Anti-Greta' activist flees Europe after Antifa death threats; Elon Musk backs her asylum claim . . . German activist Naomi Seibt, dubbed the "Anti-Greta" by Europeans, has filed for political asylum in the U.S., claiming she's being persecuted in her native country for her political views and advocacy of free speech. Seibt, 25, submitted her petition under Section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, stating that returning to Germany would expose her to imprisonment or physical harm. "I have now applied for asylum, which means that I'm waiting for an interview. And, in the meantime, I'm here legally," Seibt said. Fox News

After Demolishing U.S.-China Relationship, Trump Is Rebuilding It His Way . . . The old engagement, championed by decades of U.S. policymakers, was built on a liberal, aspirational hope: that economic integration would inevitably lead to a more open, politically reformed China. The Trump 2.0 version, by contrast, appears born of necessity. This new framework isn't about partnership, cooperation or shared values. Instead, some analysts say, it is a cold-eyed recognition that open confrontation has become too costly and that critical U.S. interests—from managing China's chokehold on rare-earth minerals to stanching the flow of fentanyl—require a transactional dialogue. Wall Street Journal

No more illusions about convincing communists of the virtues of democracy. What the China engagement crowd of the last three decades didn't understand is that Chinese communists are actually communists.

US government allowed and even helped US firms sell tech used for surveillance in China . . . U.S. lawmakers have tried four times since September last year to close what they called a glaring loophole: China is getting around export bans on the sale of powerful American AI chips by renting them through U.S. cloud services instead. But the proposals prompted a flurry of activity from more than 100 lobbyists from tech companies and their trade associations trying to weigh in, according to disclosure reports. The result: All four times, the proposal failed, including just last month. Associated Press

Money

Tens of Thousands of White-Collar Jobs Are Disappearing as AI Starts to Bite . . . The nation's largest employers have a new message for office workers: help not wanted. Amazon said this week that it would cut 14,000 corporate jobs, with plans to eliminate as much as 10% of its white-collar workforce eventually. United Parcel Service said Tuesday that it had reduced its management workforce by about 14,000 positions over the past 22 months, days after the retailer Target said it would cut 1,800 corporate roles. Earlier in October, white-collar workers from companies including Rivian Automotive, Molson Coors, Booz Allen Hamilton and General Motors received pink slips—or learned that they would come soon. Wall Street Journal

'Go Out and Buy Toyota': Trump Announces Japan's Major Investment in US Industry . . . President Donald Trump announced that Toyota will invest billions to open auto plants across the country. "I was just told by the [Japanese] prime minister that Toyota is going to be putting auto plants all over the United States to the tune of $10 billion," Trump said. "Go out and buy a Toyota."Trump spoke to sailors aboard the USS George Washington Tuesday in Tokyo Bay after meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. Daily Signal

Guilty Pleasures

CNN Mocked for Sycophantic Show Praising Qatar After Hamas-Loving Sheikhs Paid For Its Flashy New Offices . . . CNN Creators, the completely, totally, absolutely not sponsored in any way new show from a "team of digital-native storytellers as they navigate the stories that matter most." The first episode features four little-known CNN reporters and producers gallivanting through Doha's Souq Waqif market, where they marvel at stray cats and try on "traditional Qatari perfume." "There's a lot of smells right now," Antoinette Radford, a former breaking news writer on secondment from CNN's London bureau, announces. Washington Free Beacon

Karine Jean-Pierre's conversation with The New Yorker panned as 'incoherent,' and 'career-ending'

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