[Townhall] No matter what happens in Tuesday's elections, support for wealth taxes keeps growing. Its justification is based on the idea that the very rich owe all of us something, and taxing their fortunes is collecting on that debt. We're told their success fuels inequality and that it's selfish of them to keep so much, especially if they don't proclaim that they want to do more for society.
Former International Monetary Fund chief economist Olivier Blanchard of France recently gave this narrative a clear voice. Writing on X, he wondered why California's wealthiest are spending so heavily to defeat Proposition 40, the supposed one-time 5 percent tax on the net worth of billionaires. Blanchard added that billionaires "typically have not indicated that they are building their wealth to eventually make the world a better place."
The entire notion misunderstands how fortunes are made. In a market economy, people don't build great wealth first and redeem it later through good works. They build it by making the world better first.
When I buy an $800 smartphone, it's because I value the phone more than whatever else I would have bought with the money. The seller values my $800 more than they do the phone. We both walk away richer by our own measure. Neither owes the other anything more.
[PJ] Kitchen-table issues will motivate a lot of voters next week on Election Day, but they shouldn’t be your primary concern. No doubt, the high costs of gas, food, and so much else are problems looking for someone to blame. As the sitting U.S. president, Donald Trump will likely get his share of that blame, justified or not.
But as we know, at some point, hostilities in Iran, Ukraine and Russia will fade, and the cost of living will fall back in line. You can try to tell your family members who will be voting against Republicans this, and they will likely blow you off. But there is one thing everyone needs to remember: the left tried to kill Trump for a reason. They did not want him to become president for a reason.
Yes, we know that the would-be assassin in Butler, Thomas Crooks, remains an enigma. Officially, he’s considered a lone actor in the story of Butler, where most of the blanks have yet to be filled, and our intelligence community doesn’t seem all that inclined to fill those blanks.
A second would-be assassin named Ryan Routh set up an armed sniper position in the tree line along the perimeter of the Trump International Golf Club just two months later. This was before Election Day in 2024 while Trump was playing a round of golf. Again, no proof of ties to any organized effort to kill the Republican candidate for president at the time.
But those two incidents, when viewed in larger context, followed two attempts to impeach Trump, numerous lawsuits and a criminal case against Trump, all designed to bankrupt him, kill his political ambitions, smear him, and provide distractions from campaigning. No leftist movement has ever tried this hard to destroy one candidate at every conceivable level.
We’ve well documented the left’s efforts to destroy Trump, and yet he survived.
Two underlying questions remain: What did the left fear so much? And has Trump started to do the things the left feared most?
#1
Perhaps you noticed none of those shooters were wearing MAGA caps. Russia-Russia-Russia, Jan 6, and the FBI Moralago search, more evidence of the left's intention.
[Kass] He will be missed
It’s time for me to wind down the website. Past time. I held on too long because it had cost me too much in pain and psychic blood at the hands of the jacobin newsroom union that destroyed the once-great Chicago newspaper that I loved. And I loved it for those decades and decades.
But I’ve run my race. Now it is time for me to go. Past time. I didn’t want to consider it once. I was afraid. I wouldn’t even dare brush up against it.
Especially when clinging rather desperately to some old man dreams of myself as Laertes in his garden, an old man still hoping to prove his worth as the warrior he once had been, still insisting he had spears left to throw.
But I’m old now. There are no spears. Five strokes in three years convinced me. After that wonderful Indian Summer that we just had, the sky grew cold and I finally came face to face with it: Betty explained the math. Five strokes in three years, she said, And you can still speak, you can still read and use a search engine, you can read Victor Davis Hanson and Plato, you can still discuss the great ideas.
But another stroke? I didn’t need any further convincing. I couldn’t contemplate the alternatives.
There was a dark chilly sky overhead. The wind was up. You could feel it in your hair. It was a Dylan Thomas kind of day, a Simon and Garfinkle kind of day.
I’d written a version of this in an email to our contributors at JohnKassNews.com and called it "Winding Down." Within hours I was contacted by the left-wing Axios, the left-wing Politico and left wing Chicago Tribune, all requesting comment. I wasn’t interested in their cheap shots.
But then a call came in from my friend Dan Proft, the conservative Salem radio talk-show host on Chicago’s Morning Answer AM 560. When I was unfairly slandered by the jacobin newsroom union—and some others I had considered as friends were silent and afraid— it only was Proft, Charles Lipson and Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics who stood to defend me.
Proft invited me on his show, the Morning Answer. And I leave the link here if you’d like to listen.
UNTOLD ORIGIN STORY: THE TWO THOMS
Before I end this, and before you get to the Frequently Asked Questions, I need to tell you one last story the origin story of JohnKassNews.com It is the story of my good friends, the two Thoms.
Thom Serafin, who until recently was boss of his own public affairs firm and the late Thomas Donovan, who for years was the chief of staff of Mayor Richard J. Daley. Both have been good counselors. Donovan died recently and his departure left a hole in my life. I came to rely on both men and their good common sense.
Donovan warned me about the corporate Tribune as I was leaving the paper. They’ll want you to stay close but they’ll stab you in the back and destroy your reputation. Thom Serafin was less Machiavelli, but he kept telling me you’ve got to have a plan. I didn’t know a plan. I had no plan and I didn’t know what to call this new venture. He said call it what it is, simple, call it John Kass News.com.
I loved it. And even though some of the leftists seethe and clenched their tiny fists in rage, I was happy. I was free.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/29/2026 00:00 ||
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#1
Nuts. I loved his commentary.
Read his web offerings at least once a week.
He's from a time when journalism (and writing) actually was a craft.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
10/29/2026 6:37 Comments ||
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#2
I started with Kasso long before I moved into Illinois. A pretty clear-eyed journalist who inherited the Royko tradition. He was the last substantial link to any real Chicago journalism
[EndOfTheAmericanDream] Archaeologists have made many surprising discoveries that simply do not fit what we are taught in our history textbooks. Vast numbers of “out-of-place artifacts” that have been found prove that ancient civilizations were far more advanced than we have been led to believe. Today, I am going to discuss some “out-of-place people” that researchers dug up in China. These “out-of-place” people create a tremendous problem for many historians and they are highly embarrassing to the Chinese government because they aren’t Asian. We are supposed to believe that China has been inhabited by the Chinese from the dawn of human history, but the extremely well preserved mummies that I am going to discuss in this article appear to be European.
According to the most commonly accepted theories of ancient history, it should be impossible to find 4,000-year-old European mummies in China.
But they are there.
Hundreds of them.
Some of them have blonde hair, some of them have red hair, and many of them are very tall.
They are known as the Tarim mummies, and according to Wikipedia they were found in the Tarim Basin in northwestern China…
The Tarim mummies were discovered at ancient cemeteries and settlements across the Tarim Basin, a large desert basin in present-day Xinjiang in northwestern China. The first remains became known to archaeologists during expeditions to the region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. European explorers including Sven Hedin, a Swedish geographer and explorer; Albert von Le Coq, a German archaeologist; and Aurel Stein, a Hungarian-born British archaeologist, encountered naturally preserved human bodies while investigating ancient sites around the Taklamakan Desert, which occupies much of the centre of the basin.[15] Over the following century, hundreds of naturally mummified bodies were identified at sites around the basin.[16]
Some of the oldest remains were found in cemeteries around the eastern and southern margins of the desert. At Gumugou, a cemetery near the former Lop Nur lake in the eastern Tarim Basin, the earliest burials date to about 2135–1939 BCE, making them roughly 4,000 years old. The earliest mummies at Xiaohe Cemetery, another burial ground in the Lop Nur region, date to about 1884–1736 BCE, while those at Beifang, in the southern Tarim Basin, date to about 1785–1664 BCE.[16]
I found it to be very interesting that these mummies are considered to be about 4,000 years old.
Most estimates for the date of Noah’s Flood fall somewhere between 4500 BC and 4300 BC.
So that means that the Tarim mummies appear to be from the same general period of history as Noah’s Flood.
In fact, if the dating of the Tarim mummies is off by just a few centuries, it is possible that they actually come from a pre-Flood civilization.
Alternatively, it is also possible that the Tarim mummies come from a very early post-Flood civilization.
Normally, any human remains from that period of history would not be well preserved.
But thanks to the extraordinarily dry conditions in the Tarim Basin, the Tarim mummies were found “often with their hair and clothing still intact”…
[Reuters] WASHINGTON, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Scientists using a Chile-based telescope have identified an icy object orbiting beyond Pluto that may join our solar system's small roster of dwarf planets.
Researchers said the candidate, named 2026 ED138, has a diameter estimated at between roughly 370 and 930 miles (600 and 1,500 km) and is orbiting about 46 times farther from the sun than Earth. By way of comparison, Pluto orbits at an average of about 40 times farther from the sun than Earth.
The object was spotted using the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory, on the summit of the Cerro Pachón mountain in central Chile. The telescope is a joint initiative of the US National Science Foundation and US Department of Energy.
Further observations are needed to confirm that the object is a dwarf planet.
If confirmed, 2026 ED138 would join five other dwarf planets recognized by the International Astronomical Union, the global authority on classifying celestial bodies. Those are Pluto, Eris, Haumea and Makemake, all of which orbit beyond the outermost planet Neptune, and Ceres, located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Based on the current data, 2026 ED138 would be among the largest of the dwarf planets.
"For me, what this demonstrates is that many exciting discoveries remain to be made with the Rubin Observatory and other telescopes," said astrophysicist Matt Holman of the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian, who first spotted 2026 ED138.
Pluto long was considered the solar system's ninth and outermost planet, but was reclassified by the International Astronomical Union as a dwarf planet in 2006 because it did not meet the organization's formal definition of a planet. Pluto and the new dwarf planet candidate reside in a frigid region of the solar system populated by various icy bodies.
There are still questions about the size and composition of 2026 ED138. To be considered a dwarf planet, an object must possess sufficient mass for its own gravity to pull it into a round shape. 2026 ED138 appears to have sufficient mass for that, but more observations are needed.
"The main thing we need to do is to establish the physical size of 2026 ED138," Holman said.
"When we observe with Rubin, we are seeing the sun's light reflected from the object," Holman said. "A smaller, more reflective object would show the same amount of light as a larger, less reflective object. Fortunately, by looking at longer wavelengths, with an observatory like ALMA, we can detect the light emitted by the object itself," which is helpful in measuring an object's size.
ALMA, or the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, is a powerful telescope also based in Chile.
#3
Gravity anomalies in our solar system indicate a larger planet is out there past Pluto. Astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown at Caltech suggest Planet Nine could have a mass about 5 to 10 times that of Earth
[FOX] U.S. adversaries are looking at ways to blind American forces in future conflict by jamming communications, disabling GPS, using lasers to attack satellites or destroying them completely.
A sweeping new Defense Intelligence Agency assessment details how China and Russia are developing sophisticated ways to disrupt or destroy U.S. satellites. This includes a Russian satellite designed to carry a nuclear weapon into Earth's orbit.
American forces rely on satellites to communicate across battlefields, navigate ships and aircraft, track enemy forces, detect missile launches and guide precision weapons to their targets. Knocking those systems offline could leave forces below struggling to see, communicate and strike.
"We can't do military operations the way that we do them today without satellites, without systems in space," Clayton Swope, deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, previously told Fox News Digital.
"Whoever has space and can deny that to their adversary has a huge asymmetric advantage in a conflict," Swope said.
Beyond the battlefield, satellites underpin everything from GPS navigation and communications to banking, transportation and the electric grid, meaning a large-scale attack in space could disrupt services millions of people rely on every day.
Chinese military thinkers have identified reconnaissance, communications, navigation and early-warning satellites as potential targets for attacks designed to "blind and deafen the enemy," according to the report. DIA assesses Beijing could begin threatening or gradually degrading an adversary’s space architecture during a crisis as a "prelude to war."
Russia, meanwhile, views U.S. reliance on satellites for precision strikes and projecting military power as a "critical vulnerability" to exploit during a conflict. Its doctrine envisions attacks ranging from temporary jamming and blinding satellite sensors to the outright destruction of spacecraft and the infrastructure supporting them.
DIA describes the threat as a continuum, beginning with attacks that can temporarily disrupt a satellite without destroying it and escalating through cyber and orbital attacks to kinetic weapons and, ultimately, a nuclear detonation in space.
Some of those tactics have already made their way into active conflict. During Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. and Iran "took offensive actions against each other's space capabilities to degrade and disrupt military actions on both sides," according to DIA. The report does not detail those operations, but says jamming near the Strait of Hormuz in June disrupted U.S. aircraft and shipping vessels.
The Chinese military already practices jamming satellite communications and GPS during military exercises. Beijing also has ground-based lasers capable of disrupting or damaging satellites in low-Earth orbit, and DIA assesses it could field space-based directed-energy systems by the late 2020s.
Other Chinese systems can get much closer. The Shijian-17 satellite has a robotic arm capable of grappling another satellite, while Shijian-21 used similar technology in 2022 to move a defunct Chinese navigation satellite into a higher orbit. DIA noted that the same technology used to service or remove satellites can also have military applications.
Russia has repeatedly put its own spacecraft near U.S. satellites. Cosmos 2543 began following a U.S. national security satellite after it was released into orbit in 2019, approaching it several times before later firing a projectile in what DIA described as an anti-satellite weapons test.
Russia sent Cosmos 2558 near another U.S. government satellite in 2022, and two years later launched Cosmos 2576 into the same orbit as a U.S. national security satellite before it began moving toward the American spacecraft. By 2025, Cosmos 2588 was maneuvering within roughly 93 kilometers of another U.S. government satellite.
Russia is also developing Burevestnik, an air-launched weapon intended to "kill" satellites in low-Earth orbit, according to DIA. The weapon would be launched from a modified MiG-31 aircraft and could be placed into orbit with little or no warning.
The threat escalates dramatically with Russia’s nuclear ambitions.
"Russia is developing a satellite designed to carry a nuclear weapon," the assessment states. Such a weapon could cause the "rapid and sudden loss or degradation of thousands of satellites" operated by governments and companies around the world, disrupting communications, navigation, weather forecasting and national security systems.
The damage could continue long after the initial blast. DIA warns that a nuclear detonation in space would leave behind radiation belts that "could persist for years" and damage satellites that initially survived or were only temporarily disrupted.
The threat has been on Washington’s radar for years. Then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner set off alarm bells in February 2024 when he called on the Biden administration to declassify intelligence about a "serious national security threat," later revealed to involve a Russian nuclear anti-satellite capability.
U.S. officials have generally been more guarded about the underlying intelligence. As recently as April, U.S. Space Command chief Gen. Stephen Whiting said officials were "very concerned" by reports that Russia was potentially considering placing a nuclear anti-satellite weapon in orbit, but declined to confirm whether Moscow was actually developing one.
Text taken by Boris Rozhin from the max.ru channel of Rybar
Commentary by RUssian military journalist Boris Rozhinn is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced he would seek European sanctions against those behind Russian influence in Africa, particularly campaigns targeting Cameroon and the Republic of Congo. The move was prompted by a report by Viginum, a service created in 2021 to monitor foreign interference in the digital environment. Barrot stated that "Vladimir Putin is trying to manipulate public opinion in sovereign states to the detriment of French interests, and that this attempt to colonize minds will fail."
Cameroon and Congo remain among the last remaining pillars of the French interest system. Both countries maintain close ties with the authorities in Paris, use the CFA franc, host French companies in the oil and forestry sectors, and their leaders have been considered reliable partners for decades. Both, however, are facing a change in power.
Paul Biya, 93, was re-elected to an eighth term last October, hasn't named a successor, and spent more than 10 weeks in Geneva this summer. Denis Sassou-Nguesso has been governing Congo, with only a brief break, since 1979. This combination explains the nervousness in Paris.
A transition period is inevitable in both countries, competitors are working with their successors, and the former metropolis risks repeating the Sahel scenario, where a change of power resulted in troop withdrawals and the rupture of agreements. Sanctions in this situation appear to be an attempt to hold on to something that is becoming increasingly difficult to hold on to.
Of course, Africa must be free, including from French colonialism. The French empire in West Africa was destroyed; Central Africa must also be cleansed of French influence. They'll know better than to interfere in Ukraine and Armenia.
The unrest in France is, of course, also connected to the ongoing Russia-Africa summit in Moscow, which has attracted presidents and prime ministers from across Africa.
In modern France, which has ruined relations with most of its former colonies, such a forum is simply impossible to hold. Russia, however, with its legacy from the USSR, easily finds common ground with most African states.
A multipolar world is becoming a reality; it is an irreversible trend (c) Putin.
Yes, multipolarity is inevitable. On the path to true multipolarity, as is usually the case during transformations of the world order, there will, as usual, be many corpses and border redrawings. Such processes have historically not proceeded any other way.
The Westphalian system was formed following the bloody Thirty Years' War.
The Vienna system was formed following the Napoleonic Wars.
The Versailles system was formed following the First World War.
The Yalta-Potsdam system was formed following the Second World War.
The Washington system was formed following the Cold War. And the coming multipolar system (perhaps it will receive a different name in the future) will be shaped by the results of ongoing and upcoming wars, including the war in Ukraine, but it will not be limited to the war in Ukraine alone.
Hence the statements from Qatar and Serbia that we are already living in a time of a new world war. Well, after it, the formation of a new world order will arrive, but not everyone will live to see it.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
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