…meanwhile…

President Trump at the signing ceremony in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Monday evening. Trump left the ceremony early to return to Washington in time to posthumously present Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom on what would have been his 32^nd birthday* Tuesday.

WEDNESDAY 10/15/25

Bill VIII Fails – Senate Democrats blocked Republicans’ eighth attempt to pass a stopgap funding bill to reopen the federal government late Tuesday night, NPR reports.

President Trump renewed his threat Tuesday to strip funding away from programs with “Democratic priorities” if the government remains closed, per The New York Times. Trump said he would spare “Republican programs” and will release his kill list on Friday.

“Their intimidation tactics are not working and will continue to fail,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said in response, as his party apparently continues to succeed in painting the shutdown as the GOP’s fault despite the Trump administration’s efforts to turn the tables, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s video distributed to the nation’s airports declaring such.

US Airports have generally refused to show Noem’s blatant violation of the Hatch Act.

What are ‘Democratic’ programs? … It would be an educated guess to say that Trump will announce Friday the killing of programs within the Health and Human Services and/or Housing and Urban Development departments, or perhaps the Environmental Protection Agency (established by President Nixon in December 1970) as among “Democratic priorities.”

Republican priorities? Maybe the War Department, as the administration likes to call the de-DEI-ified Defense Department?

Speaking of the Pentagon … Dozens of reporters have turned in their Pentagon press passes in rejecting War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s new policy that bans disclosure in news reports of information not authorized by the Pentagon for public release – even if it’s not classified information. Only one news organization, the hard-MAGA One America News network has signed on.

Reporters for The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Reuters, The Atlantic, Fox News, CNN, NPR, Newsmax and The Washington Times are among those who will lose their Pentagon credentials for not signing Hegseth’s policy.

“It turns us into stenographers, not reporters,” NPR’s credentialed Pentagon reporter of 28 years, Tom Bowman, told All Things Considered Tuesday.

The Pentagon Press Association released this statement Monday: “The Pentagon certainly has the right to make its own policies, within the constraints of the law. There is no need or justification, however, for it to require reporters to affirm their understanding of vague, likely unconstitutional policies as a precondition to reporting from Pentagon facilities.”

*Mediaite notes President Trump chuckled over this anecdote Tuesday at the White House ceremony in which Turning Point USA co-founder and CEO Charlie Kirk was posthumously presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom:

“They have the devil’s ideology and they’re failing and they know it. They feel it and they become violent. They seem to become very violent on the left.

“They’ve rammed vehicles into federal law enforcement, fired sniper rifles at ICE agents– and me.

“You know, I made a turn at a good time. I made a turn at a good time. I turned to the right.

“Charlie couldn’t believe it. Actually, he said, “How the hell did you make that turn?

“I said, ‘I don’t know.’” –TL

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TUESDAY 10/14/25

Signing the Peace Deal – President Trump showed off his distinctive signature on the peace deal between Israel and Hamas ending the war in Gaza and sending 20 surviving Israeli hostages and the first of nearly 2,000 Palestinian political prisoners and detainees free Monday. Since then, Hamas has returned the first four of 28 deceased hostages to Israel (per NPR).

Trump led a signing ceremony in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, where he said the world is witnessing the “historic dawn of a new Middle East,” after addressing the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem late Monday. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan added their signatures to Trump’s document, Egyptian Streets reports.

“This took 3,000 years to get to this point, can you believe it?” Trump said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not attend. He said a previous engagement related to the Jewish holiday conflicted with the ceremony in Sharm el-Sheikh.

But during Trump’s earlier address to the Knesset, he surprised the Israeli cabinet when he told President Isaac Herzog that Netanyahu should be pardoned before his trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust, Politico reports.

“Give him a pardon, come on,” Trump told Herzog, calling Netanyahu, who earlier this year said he had nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, “one of the greatest” wartime leaders.

In addition to legal maneuvers by his attorneys, Netanyahu has successfully delayed his trial by citing the need not to be distracted from the two-year-old war on Hamas in Gaza. –TL

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MONDAY 10/13/25

Hamas Releases Living Hostages – President Trump addressed Israel’s Knesset Monday afternoon local time after Hamas released 20 remaining Israeli hostages from its attack two years ago, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. Trump later will travel to Egypt to commemorate the peace deal with other world leaders.

“Mr. President, you are committed to this peace,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “I am committed to this peace and together we will achieve this peace.”

Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner had arrived days earlier. Kushner, considered key negotiator for the Abraham Accords at the end of Trump’s first term, has been given a lot of credit for the latest peace deal.

“Everybody is happy,” Trump said upon arrival Monday. “Whether it’s Jewish or Muslim or Arab countries. Every country is dancing in the streets.”

Though Trump touts the ceasefire as the beginning of a permanent peace, Netanyahu is more circumspect. Israel will maintain about 200 of its defense force in Gaza.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government was to begin handing over nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees later Monday. Hundreds of aid trucks began heading to Gaza from Egypt Sunday.

•••

More Federal Layoffs – Vice President JD Vance warned on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures that the Trump administration will look for “deeper cuts” as the shutdown begins its third week Wednesday. Last Friday layoff notices were sent to about 4,200 employees across eight agencies, Forbes reports, citing an Office of Management and Budget response to a lawsuit seeking those numbers, by the 800,000-member American Federation of Government Employees.

That number includes nearly 1,500 Treasury Department employees -- of which about 1,300 are Internal Revenue Service workers -- Bloomberg reported, as well as another 1,200 Health and Human Services workers.

•••

Today’s Front Page -- …is not a debate, but rather, Contributing Pundit Jerry Lanson’s claiming of an abandoned Washington Post slogan to warn of Trump administration tactics being used to track down and arrest alleged undocumented aliens, in the left column, and Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s critical look at the administration’s record of government debt v. services, in the right column.

To comment on either or both of these commentaries, and/or on news/aggregate/analysis in the center column, email editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings (right v. left, conservative v. liberal, or however you describe it, so long as we can publish your comments in the proper column) in the subject line. –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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MONDAY 10/13/25

The Most Conservative County in Liberal States

By Elias Sorich/Stacker

American politics have polarized faster than in other democracies, according to a report published in the National Bureau of Economic Research. This trend is reflected in the ideological movement of the U.S. Congress, with both Democrats and Republicans moving further and further away from an ideological center, though Republicans have done so on average more intensely. Indeed, the recent struggle of Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy to gain the speakership role highlighted the degree to which hard-right conservative politicians have come to hold disproportionately large sway over the Republican majority.

Many of those detractors, members of the Freedom Caucus, come from reliably Republican and ideologically conservative states, though a number come from more moderate or swing states. To develop an understanding of the complexity of the American political landscape, Stacker compiled voter turnout data from The New York Times and statewide political ideology data from Gallup to rank states by their share of self-identifying liberals. Ties were broken by the corresponding percentage of conservatives, as able. Voter data was then used to identify counties that voted against this statewide average ideology.

In looking at these counties, data from government agencies such as the Census Bureau and research institutes—such as the Pew Research Center and the Public Religion Research Institute—were used to highlight and analyze demographic factors that might make the political ideology of the county apparent. Percentages of people identifying as "white Christian" in each county were sourced from the 2020 Census of American Religion. Detailed voter turnout data was unavailable for Virginia, Alaska, Louisiana, and Alabama.

In terms of understanding how these demographic factors affect the political lean of an American voter, a few qualities stand out as the biggest and most reliable predictors of party affiliation and ideological tendency. Namely, religion, race, education, and where a voter falls on the urban-rural divide. To distill these complexities into a couple of takeaways: Racially diverse communities lean Democrat by wide margins, and white Christians account for a large percentage of Republican votes. The highly educated tend to lean Democrat quite broadly, and in presidential elections, rural areas see a 15-22 point increase in Republican votes regardless of other variables such as race and education. Gender, age, and sexuality all play into the equation as well, with older voters leaning conservative, women leaning Democrat, men leaning slightly Republican, and LGBTQ+ voters overwhelmingly liberal. Florence County, Wisconsin

ehrlif // Shutterstock

#20. Wisconsin: 24% liberal, 35% conservative

- Most conservative county: Florence County
--- Republican votes in 2020: 2,133 (72.6%)
--- Total votes cast: 2,940

Located on the northernmost, rural border between Wisconsin and Michigan, Florence County has a population of 4,558, of which 94.6% is white, most of whom identify as white and Christian. The county has a population density of 9.3 people per square mile, a median age 15.9 years higher than the national average of 38.6, and 20.6% of its population has attained a bachelor's degree or higher, 14.4% lower than the national average of 35%. Fulton County, Pennsylvania

Alejandro Guzmani // Shutterstock

#19. Pennsylvania: 24% liberal, 34% conservative

- Most conservative county: Fulton County
--- Republican votes in 2020: 6,824 (85.4%)
--- Total votes cast: 7,990

Fulton County shares a border with Maryland to the south and is sparsely populated, with McConnellsburg (population 1,150) its largest town. In terms of explaining conservative dominance in the county, three demographics stand out: its population of 14,556 is 94.3% white, only 15.7% of residents have a bachelor's degree or higher, and 80% of the population identifies as white Christian. Sussex County, Delaware