President Donald Trump says he had a “truly great meeting” with Chinese President Xi Jinping.  “There is enormous respect between our two Countries, and that will only be enhanced with what just took place. We agreed on many things, with others, even of high importance, being very close to resolved,” Trump wrote on social media early Thursday morning following the meeting between the two world leaders in South Korea.   Tariffs on China will be lowed by 10% to 47% following the meeting, Trump told reporters on Air Force One.  The U.S. has placed a number of tariffs on Chinese goods in 2025, and Trump had threatened to impose a 100% tariff on China beginning Nov. 1, but will no longer do so.  “I would say on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12,” Trump told reporters on Thursday morning.   President Trump on his meeting with Xi: pic.twitter.com/K8xkTjKwI0— Virginia Allen (@Virginia_Allen5) October 30, 2025 The results of the meeting are evidence of the way “Trump has been moving away from America’s decades-long misguided feel-good engagement with [Chinese Communist Party]-driven China,” Anthony Kim, editor of the Index of Economic Freedom at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal.   “He has been renovating/reconstructing the relationship/engagement with Beijing on his MAGA terms,” Kim said of Trump.   Soybean Purchases  Trump reports that Xi agreed during the meeting that China will again purchase farm products from the U.S., including soybeans and sorghum.   High tariffs and tense trade relations between the U.S. and China resulted in China largely halting its purchasing of American soybeans in 2025, affecting U.S. farmers significantly.   Discussing the soybean deal on Fox Business Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said China will buy 12 million metric tons of soybeans between now and January and has also agreed to purchase about 25 million metric tons of soybeans annually from the U.S. for the next three years.   Energy and Rare-Earth Minerals   China has further agreed to “continue the flow of Rare Earth, Critical Minerals, Magnets, etc., openly and freely,” according to Trump. Rare earth minerals are used in everything from smartphones to flat-screen TVs and about 70% of the world’s rare earths come from China.   “China also agreed that they will begin the process of purchasing American Energy. In fact, a very large-scale transaction may take place concerning the purchase of Oil and Gas from the Great State of Alaska,” Trump said.   The Trump administration’s “energy team,” along with Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, “will be meeting to see if such an Energy Deal can be worked out,” Trump said. “Although China has promised to continue the flow of critical minerals, the Chinese Communist Party has a history of breaking its promises,” Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment, told The Daily Signal.  “This agreement should not stop the United States from expanding and expediting permits for mining for critical and rare earth minerals at home, and renewing our relationship with Canada, which also has these minerals,” Furchtgott-Roth added.   Fentanyl Crisis  Trump and Xi also discussed the fentanyl crisis and “China has strongly stated that they will work diligently with us to stop the flow of Fentanyl into our Country,” according to the president, adding, “[t]hey will help us end the Fentanyl Crisis.”  More than 48,000 Americans died from synthetic opioid—mainly, fentanyl—poisonings and overdoses in 2024, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl flow out of China to South and Central America before making their way into the U.S.    Ahead of Trump’s meeting with Xi, author and China expert Gordon Chang told The Daily Signal the conversation on fentanyl was the one he was watching most closely.   Chang said he will be leery of any pledges from Xi to address the flow of fentanyl chemicals out of China because “Xi Jinping promised to stop the flow of fentanyl in 2016. That was a promise to President [Barack] Obama. And in 2018, he promised that to Trump. And in 2023, he promised it to [President Joe] Biden.”  What’s Next  Pointing to little significant change in the stock market Thursday morning, Michael Pillsbury, a leading author and expert on China, said the public understands that the immediate outcomes of Trump’s meeting with Xi are “promises rather than actual contracts for soybeans, or actual energy purchases from Alaska, or actual steps taken to fight fentanyl.”   The new 47% tariff rate is “still pretty high,” he said, adding “I think the implication is China can earn reduced tariffs by action on these various areas. That’s a good approach.”  Trump’s meeting with Xi in South Korea was his final stop on a nearly weekly trip to Asia that also included stops in Japan and Malaysia.  The post Results of Trump’s Meeting With Xi appeared first on The Daily Signal.

CBS Starting to Stand for C(you!) B(ye!) S(o long!)

It's not to be sneezed at.

A shared screenshot shows EA suspended a Battlefield 6 user for a week for using a common post-game slang, preventing the user from playing the game.  Electronic Arts (EA) has censored a user for using common in-game text slang, according to a post from FullA.market on X Oct. 29. A user who was playing EA’s newest entry in its first-person shooter game franchise Battlefield 6 shared a screenshot showing that the video game company suspended his account for replying to an in-game text using the abbreviation “GGEZ.” This common gamer slang is a typically sarcastic remark that means “good game, easy,” and is usually intended as a taunt aimed at losing players.  [The story continues on MRCFreeSpeechAmerica.org] Photo by Tony Webster Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

It's no secret that the Department of Justice and the FBI were weaponized against President Donald Trump and his allies under the previous administration.Damning new revelations about the FBI's Arctic Frost investigation indicate, however, that the campaign waged by former Attorney General Merrick Garland's lawfare regime to hound and potentially lock up individuals supportive of Trump and/or skeptical of the results of the 2020 election was far worse than previously imagined.'[Biden] thought basically half of America were domestic terrorists.'"Arctic Frost was not just an attack on Democracy; it was a coordinated and sustained invasion of it," Mike Howell, president of the watchdog group Oversight Project, said in a statement."Everyone responsible should be held accountable and banished from public life," continued Howell. "The long continuum of a decade-long campaign by the Federal government against Trump can get complicated. What you should know is that they were so out of control, and thought they never would get caught, that they named this investigation after an orange to mock Trump." This week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and the House Judiciary Committee published thousands of pages of additional documents altogether providing a better sense of the vastness and invasiveness of the Arctic Frost dragnet, which was launched in April 2022.Grassley published documents earlier this month detailing how the Biden FBI sought private cellphone records from numerous GOP lawmakers during Arctic Frost — an operation greenlit by Garland and former FBI Director Christopher Wray that morphed into at least one case brought against Trump by Garland's special counsel, Jack Smith.Apparently the covert surveillance of Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), and other lawmakers was just the tip of the iceberg.On Wednesday, Grassley made public 197 subpoenas obtained through whistleblower disclosures showing that Smith and his team demanded testimony, communications, and records related to at least 430 Republican individuals and entities.RELATED: The bureaucracy strikes back — and we’re striking harder (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesGrassley stated, "Arctic Frost was the vehicle by which partisan FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors could improperly investigate the entire Republican political apparatus. Contrary to what Smith has said publicly, this was clearly a fishing expedition."Among the recipients of the subpoenas were:financial institutions and platforms such as Avidia Bank, Bank of America, Capital One, JP Morgan Chase, TD Bank, BILL, and Wells Fargo;various campaign, consulting and legal outfits including the Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, the Republican National Committee, Parscale Strategy, and the Trump Make America Great Again Committee; and34 individuals including former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, Trump 2020 communications director Tim Murtaugh, GOP campaign operative Thomas Datwyler, former acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, and deputy national security adviser Robert Gabriel.Grassley indicated that Smith and his team squeezed some of these individuals, banks, and businesses for their records concerning and communications with:media companies such as CBS, Fox News, OAN, Newsmax, and Sinclair; "any member, employee or agent of the Legislative Branch of the U.S. Government"; White House advisers including Stephen Miller, Dan Scavino, and Lara Trump; conservative groups including Turning Point USA and the Republican Attorneys General Association; data concerning Republican donors and fundraising efforts; and financial data relating to conservative individuals and entities.'I think they're being sabotaged within.'Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) said Wednesday that "what is revealed in those 1,700 pages of documents, in those 197 subpoenas, is nothing short of a Biden administration enemies list. I'm old enough to understand how toxic a term that was under Richard Nixon. This is far worse — far worse, orders of magnitude worse.""People need to understand how politicized the Biden administration turned all these agencies," continued Johnson. "[Biden] thought basically half of America were domestic terrorists."Johnson emphasized that the records Grassley made public were not obtained from the FBI but rather from a whistleblower and suggested that Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel are being hindered by bad actors within their respective agencies."We need to do everything we can to assist Director Patel and AG Bondi in making sure they have the staff to take control over these agencies. They're the heads of them — I don't think they have the control," said Johnson. "I think they're being sabotaged within." — (@) The House Judiciary Committee released over 230 pages of additional documents on Tuesday providing insights into the nature and origins of Arctic Frost.Among the heavily redacted documents turned over by Patel is a April 13, 2022, memo issued by the Washington, D.C., field office that discusses the flimsy predicate for the Arctic Frost investigation — a probe allegedly named after a type of orange to mock Trump.RELATED: GOP senator to sue Jack Smith after his lawyers try gaslighting on Biden FBI surveillance Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images The memo requesting the investigation alleged that "subjects corruptly conspired to obstruct the United States Congress' certification of the 2020 Presidential election results by submitting fraudulent certificates of electors' votes to the United States Government" and cited supposed evidence that individuals linked to the 2020 Trump campaign allegedly attempted to convince former Vice President Mike Pence to support alternate electors in 2021.At the time of Arctic Frost's conception, the lawfare regime appeared particularly interested in hounding former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and legal scholar John Eastman.However, the documents suggest that hundreds of other conservatives may have also been targeted for investigation, including Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro; Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.); Steve Bannon; former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; former co-chair of the Republican National Committee Youth Advisory Council CJ Pearson; and the chief operating officer of Turning Point USA. Tyler Bowyer served as COO of TPUSA until recently.Other documents in the trove provided by Patel indicate that the scope of the Arctic Frost "fishing expedition" grew rapidly such that just months into the probe and days after the agent who requested the opening of the investigation celebrated the indictment of Peter Navarro, investigators requested additional funds and bodies."The Arctic Frost team is requesting approximately $16,600 from [the Public Corruption Unit] for travel in June to conduct more than 40 interviews, serve subpoenas, and execute several cellular device search warrants," said an email dated May 25, 2022. "We would be requesting assistance from 11 [Washington Field Office] individuals to travel to various locations, in addition to utilizing individuals from the various field offices."By January 2023, the Arctic Frost operation — which was formally assigned to Jack Smith in November 2022 — had targeted individuals in at least seven states, interviewed over 150 individuals, served over 400 subpoenas, and secured scores of search warrants, including for lawmakers' phones and Trump's Twitter account.Missouri Rep. Bob Onder (R) noted that the revelations about the Arctic Frost probe have revealed "an alarming weaponization of government power at the highest levels."Editor's note: Mike Howell is a contributor at Blaze News.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Politicians and pundits have found a new social menace to fret about: online gambling. Some even compare its growth to an “opioid epidemic.” But alarmist rhetoric often obscures more than it reveals.A new study by Douglas Walker of the College of Charleston and Brett Evans of Georgia College dismantles many of the claims fueling this moral panic. The authors find that much of the fear surrounding online gambling rests on weak evidence and flawed research methods.Legalization didn’t create online gambling. It merely brought an existing market into the open, where it can be monitored, taxed, and regulated.Walker and Evans examined the academic literature most often cited by anti-gambling activists and found “implicit anti-gambling biases, flawed research methodologies, and unsubstantiated conclusions.”The result, they argue, is a distorted public perception of an industry that has become both mainstream and heavily regulated.A case study in statistical gamesmanshipThe researchers focus on three papers that critics routinely cite to show that legalized sports betting harms society.The first, from the University of Oregon, claimed a link between sports gambling and intimate partner violence. The authors found that violence increased in cities where local NFL teams lost as betting favorites. But the same study failed to mention that violence decreased — and by a larger margin — when those teams won as favorites.Since favorites win more often than they lose, the Oregon study’s framing was, at best, misleading. By focusing narrowly on “upset losses,” the authors turned an isolated pattern into a sweeping conclusion. Walker and Evans note that such selective reporting suggests an intent to produce a politically useful result rather than an accurate one.Confusing deposits for debtA second paper — beloved by anti-gambling commentators — claimed that online gambling depletes household savings. Yet it defined all unresolved bets as losses, even when the bettor eventually won. The study also lumped sports betting with online casino gaming, which has existed far longer, and ignored daily fantasy sports altogether.Its data failed to mention that the median sports bettor wagered only $750 over 12 months — about $62.50 per month. That hardly supports the picture of mass financial ruin.Ignoring the market that already existedLike so many policy debates, this one forgets the black market that thrived long before legalization. Critics assume online gambling barely existed until states sanctioned it. In reality, the American Gaming Association estimates that Americans wagered $64 billion through offshore sites in 2024 alone.RELATED: Stop blaming dopamine — kids aren’t addicts; they’re bored Ivan Kuchin via iStock/Getty ImagesLegalization didn’t create gambling. It merely brought an existing market into the open, where it can be monitored, taxed, and regulated.Correlation without causationA third set of studies blames sports betting for macroeconomic trends such as rising bankruptcy and delinquency rates. Walker and Evans point out that such research often mistakes timing for causation. States typically legalize gambling or lotteries when budgets tighten or economies falter. The economic distress comes first; gambling reform follows.Recent years have included two divisive presidential elections, a global pandemic, and disastrous public policy responses — all of which distort economic data. Yet many academics pin every fluctuation on gambling laws.As any freshman statistician knows, correlation does not equal causation. But for activists chasing headlines, correlation is good enough.The return of the prohibitionistsWalker and Evans don’t romanticize gambling. They simply urge policymakers to weigh evidence honestly and to resist moral panics. Moderation is the sensible course.But prohibitionists in public life rarely settle for moderation. They prefer sweeping bans that spare them the hard work of assessing trade-offs. As Prohibition showed a century ago, banning a popular activity doesn’t eliminate it — it just drives it underground.Online gambling deserves scrutiny, but it also deserves truth. Demonizing it with sloppy statistics or ideological bias serves neither public health nor public honesty.

Failed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris was confronted in a tense exchange with a journalist who called her out for evading questions about former President Joe Biden's "frailties."Harris was challenged by Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Sarah Ferguson on Biden's decline that all Americans witnessed yet no Democrat leaders publicly acknowledged. Because of the party's silence on the issue, Ferguson asked Harris how the cover-up affected her campaign. 'Are you still reluctant to criticize the former president?'"Wasn't [Joe Biden's] refusal to recognize his own frailties the reason that you faced a nearly impossible task?" Ferguson asked. Rather than admitting to the frailties that the American public saw with their own eyes, Harris retreated by changing the subject to Trump. RELATED: CNN brutally fact-checks Jasmine Crockett for peddling debunked ballroom hoax Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images"I ran against Donald Trump for president," Harris responded. "And Donald Trump ran on a platform that was, in large part, I believe, misrepresenting his intentions to the American people. I do believe that there are a fair number of people that voted for Donald Trump who believed him when he told them that his first priority on day one was going to be to bring down prices. And he didn't. And you combine that misrepresentation of intention with also what was at play in terms of massive amounts of mis- and disinformation." In the middle of Harris' rambling response, Ferguson called out the failed candidate for avoiding her question entirely. "I want to interrupt you because that is a world-class pivot," Ferguson said, "but it is not the question that I asked you, which is about Joe Biden's failure to recognize his own frailties and what that did to you. The question is about Joe Biden. Are you still reluctant to criticize the former president?"RELATED: Kamala Harris' 2028 trial balloon on BBC goes horribly bad Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesAs Ferguson pointed out, Harris and even former staffers from the Biden administration seem reluctant to point out the obvious weaknesses of the former president. "He was not frail as president of the United States," Harris replied. "But he had frailties," Ferguson pushed back. "We all saw the debate."Harris, with a stunned expression, made a last-ditch attempt to defend Biden's fitness for office. "I do believe that Joe Biden had the capacity to be president of the United States, and I've never doubted that he had the capacity to be president of the United States," Harris said. "If you want to talk about whether he had the ability to endure what a race for president of the United States would require in that political environment, in 2024, as I've said in the book, I had concerns." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

In Episode 420 for Halloween, we spin the tale of an old Inner Sanctum radio drama. In “The Undead” we hear the story of Diana, a woman whose husband has been undead for years… terror ensues as vampires close in trying to turn Diana into one of them. Happy Halloween! BECOME A LEGENDARY PATRON: https://www.patreon.com/NewEnglandLegends CREDITS: Produced and hosted by: Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger Edited by: Ray Auger Guest Voices: Host: Tim Ellis Diana: Diane Mela Souvanna Richard: Michael Legge The Caretaker: Jack Auger The Vampire: Jeff Belanger Claudia: Barbie Rice Operator: Tracey Cosgrove Sergeant: Marv Anderson Inspector: Ray Auger Theme Music by: John Judd SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST FOR FREE: Apple Podcasts/iTunes | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Podcasts | TuneIn | iHeartRadio JOIN OUR SUPER-SECRET: New England Legends Facebook Group

Is it MAGA to want plastic bags back?

When your smartphone doesn't have a signal, it can be a helpless and frustrating feeling. Luckily, there are some easy tricks that could improve the situation.