'Ending the era of global price gouging'

'I don’t understand how being rich can make someone such a whore'

'The value is people staying alive'

'Decline in students’ IQ'

'I support you and as President I have your backs'

'You don't have any solutions'

Books book reviews A Town, A Creek, A History: Honeyeater by Kathleen Jennings Honeyeater, a “precarious, lush, elegant, and visceral” novel, is one of Molly Templeton’s favorite books of the year. By Molly Templeton | Published on September 30, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share There are many places I like to go, fictionally speaking, but near the top of the list is any strange neighborhood—a word I might use to mean anything from Carroll’s Wonderland to the street of fictional characters in H.G. Parry’s The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep to the family farm of The Bog Wife to the magical, dizzying Prague of Helen Oyeyemi’s Parasol Against the Axe. Make a place somewhat untrustworthy, somewhat disinterested in obeying what we think of as the laws of physics and nature, and I want to go there. Immediately.  Kathleen Jennings’ debut novella, Flyaway, takes place in and around “a small Western Queensland town”—as the cover put it—where things aren’t necessarily normal, and everyone knows it, and everyone acts, for the most part, like it is normal. But their stories say otherwise. Jennings’ characters tell each other tales that might have been myths, might have been histories, and might very easily have taken place in the space where these two things meet. The stories tell truths, and the stories cover lies and omissions.  A similar layering occurs in Jennings’ debut novel, Honeyeater, in which the stories of the suburb of Bellworth are told by a whole chorus of voices. On flood nights—“the nights the creek makes its own”—the neighbors, especially those from Bellworth’s old families, pull their chairs into a dry part of Volney Street. “We look at the lowered stars, and dredge up stories we once knew, or borrowed, or stole: the hauntings of Bellworth, reconstituted by water.” Honeyeater is woven of these stories. Primarily, the novel follows Charlie Wren, who comes from one of those old families, and who has lost much to the creek, and to Bellworth. But between chapters, the neighbors come in, telling the kind of ghost stories that are local and specific and yet could haunt you anywhere. The game of graveyard tag. Stories about things in houses, and stories about things under them; stories about what happens if you stay, and what happens if you try to leave. All hauntings, of some kind. Some hauntings go all the way down to the foundations of Bellworth, an opaque acknowledgment that there was something else there before the houses, and that something else remains. But other than on those flood nights, the people of Bellworth (with rare exceptions) generally don’t look to hauntings of the past, or to the future. And they definitely don’t look at anything that crawls out of the creek. Charlie Wren, too, is haunted. As a kid, he almost drowned in the creek. Everyone knows how he was rescued by his sister, Cora, who is shiny-haired, successful, nothing like Charlie. But he was left with a sense of the creek: where it goes, and what goes in it. People find his knowledge suspicious, and it doesn’t help that his friends keep disappearing. His oldest friend left, he believes, but the whereabouts of others are tragic, or unknown.  “For most of his life,” Jennings writes, Charlie Wren “had intended to leave. But although he had spent years escaping to friends, to part-time jobs, over bridges, through tunnels, he had never succeeded in moving away.” At the start of Honeyeater, Charlie’s friend Alli is missing, and his Aunt Ida is dead. He’s headed to Ida’s house, where he and Cora grew up, to help clean it out. And that’s what he does. It just doesn’t quite go as he expects.  Buy the Book Honeyeater Kathleen Jennings Buy Book Honeyeater Kathleen Jennings Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget Charlie Wren’s life has been strange enough that when an exceptionally strange woman shows up at his aunt’s house, he accepts her presence. More than that, he wants to help her. Grace is clearly struggling, and Grace does not make sense as a person. Roses are coming up through her skin; her body seems made of plant matter. But she talks, and thinks, and feels, and she’s angry. When Charlie lets her in the house—rescuing her from a flurry of pecking magpies—she eventually tells him: “I woke up by the creek,” she said. Speech was growing easier, like vines uncoiling. “I needed to be here. I knew words, the number on the gate. I knew Wren. Nothing more.” Determined to be, she’d let go of everything else. Honeyeater has several mysteries at its core, and one of them is Grace. But Jennings is in no rush to solve them. (This, to be clear, is a compliment. She does let you figure out the who before the why or how, which is quite enjoyable.) What has happened to Charlie’s friends? How is Cora so very successful and Charlie so very not? What exactly happened on that day, years ago, when Charlie almost drowned in the creek? And how many other people and things has the creek swallowed? Charlie and Grace move through Aunt Ida’s house, opening secret doors and finding strange things in the yard, while down the street, the story’s third main character, the taxi driver’s daughter, goes about her own explorations. (She lives in a much newer house, one “built in a decade of hairy carpets and startling wallpaper and kitchens with tiles the color of meat,” a nearly tactile description that fully manifested this house in my mind.) The nameless girl is curious, lonely, creative, and deeply attuned to what’s going on around her, however unlikely it might seem. She comes and goes in and around the Wren house, curious, nosy, likely to get in trouble, a young reminder that long-held secrets have a long reach. Her father wants to leave, but she’s put roots in Bellworth. Or Bellworth has put roots in her.  Honeyeater is a creeping delight, a lush, eerie book in which any part of the world—a bird, a house, a ghost, a shrub, a wall, a shovel—could be there to hinder a person, or to help. (Imagine a ghost. Then imagine a ghost dog leaning against your knees.) The world feels tangible, damp, full of elusive presences and willfully ignorant neighbors; it’s beautiful and dangerous in a quiet, still way, like water you can’t see the bottom of. The relationship between people and the land they inhabit is tenuous and prickly here, as it is in Flyeater; no one really owns the land of Jennings’ stories. They live on it. They hope it lets them stay. And they know that even the oldest families weren’t really the first to live there. Jennings, who has an MPhil in Australian Gothic literature, wrote in 2021 that “a core motif of the Australian Gothic has been the image of an externally-based culture (English or otherwise) grappling with existence in a landscape incompatible with its ideas, while also actively avoiding dealing with that history.” I didn’t know, until I began reading her work, that Australian Gothic was a thing; now I want to read all of it. Learning that it exists clicked something into place for me, something that stretches through the Australian stories I’ve loved over the years, from John Hillcoat’s visceral film The Proposition to Chloe Hooper’s breathtaking novel The Engagement and to Honeyeater and beyond. There is no one version of Australia, not any more than there’s one United States. But there are themes, and there’s the way people exist with or against the land, its history, their own history.  Honeyeater is subtle about the colonizing history of its characters, with their old families, but that history seeps through the story as thoroughly as the creek does. Grace looks through old news clippings, trying to understand why she’s there, and thinks, “Only one hundred and fifty years. No mention of the people there first, who had survived that settlement, or disappeared during it. Grace didn’t imagine the arrival was amicable: the Wrens and their companions had inscribed their names too deeply over the suburb.” In Bellworth, history is ever-present, and history is shoved aside, boxed up, stuffed in the attic with the dead pigeons. But the place knows and remembers. The novel’s magics and strangenesses are centered in the land on which the story spools out, where there might be literal skeletons in the foundations of a house, or a yard might take up too much space, or someone might figure out how to turn these things to their advantage. There is always someone looking where they shouldn’t, even as everyone else looks away. Charlie and Grace, at the center of too many mysteries, dig up too many things, and everything changes.  This is an uneasy book but a beautiful one; its sits with avoidance and ignorance and cruelty, confusion and loss, but there is always a balance, whether in the lush flowers, the sense of a warm presence, or the watchful eye of a woman who pays attention to the creek when others won’t. Honeyeater has the balance of beauty and danger of walking too close to the edge of a riverbank; if you want to see, you risk falling in. Precarious, lush, elegant, and visceral at once, it is one of my favorite books this year.[end-mark] Honeyeater is published by Tor Books.Read an excerpt. The post A Town, A Creek, A History: <i>Honeyeater</i> by Kathleen Jennings appeared first on Reactor.

Obstructionist Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., are pushing the government to the brink of a shutdown that could harm everyday Americans. I took to the Senate floor this morning to demand that Senate Democrats drop their far-left shutdown ransom and join Republicans in voting for the clean continuing resolution to keep the government open, and warn them of the pain a government shutdown would inflict on the American people. Here is what I said: The Minority Leader once again refused to admit it is Democrats who are driving America into a shutdown. Let me remind everyone what Sen. Schumer himself said in 2013. This was when the government faced another government shutdown. He said, “What if I persuaded my caucus to say, ‘I am going to shut the government down … unless I get my way?’ It’s a politics of idiocy.” A shutdown is “idiocy.” Those are the Minority Leader’s words – not mine. Today, Republicans are committed to keeping the government open. We are going to vote to do that again today. The House already passed a clean continuing resolution with bipartisan votes. It keeps the government open and funded at the current levels for seven weeks. It allows Republicans and Democrats on the Appropriations Committee to continue their bipartisan work on full-year funding bills. That is where senators in both parties have a very important part to play. This continuing resolution is now before the Senate. Senate Republicans support it. Senate Democrats should join us and vote yes to keep the government open. Democrats had no problem voting for 13 clean continuing resolutions just like this one under Joe Biden. Now, they refuse. Instead, Democrats are demanding a ransom of more than $1 trillion to keep the government open for just four weeks. The proposal is a far-left wish list. Democrats want to spend $400 billion to keep Biden Bonus COVID Payments forever. They want to repeal reforms that strengthen Medicaid for those who need it the most. They want to provide free healthcare for able-bodied, working-aged adults who refuse to work. Democrats want to send billions of dollars overseas because of their obsession with extreme climate policies.  The Minority Leader made a statement today on healthcare that I found to be preposterous. I’m a doctor. I practiced medicine for 24 years. I was at a rural hospital in Wyoming just this week. The Democrats’ proposal, the ransom note they provided, wants to repeal the critically-important $50 billion Rural Hospital Fund. Every Democrat in this body voted against a $50 billion Rural Hospital Fund. Just a few minutes ago the Senate Minority Leader came to the Floor. He said one of his members went to some rural communities in his home state and said that the healthcare providers there are really concerned. Well, then those healthcare providers haven’t been informed by the Democrat Senators from that state about what is in the bill that passed this summer, and the incredible resources that are being made to make sure that rural hospitals can be sustained, can stay afloat, can stay open, can provide healthcare. The Democrats are so against rural communities of this country that they actually introduced a bill in July called the “Protecting Healthcare and Lowering Costs Act.” It’s preposterous because that act alone repeals the $50 billion for the rural hospital communities. They didn’t just do it once with their bill in July. They’ve done it again with a ransom note from Chuck Schumer to the Republicans. Hospitals all across my state realize it’s important for their sustainability to provide healthcare in rural communities where the next hospital may be a hundred miles away. That’s something foreign to the other side of the aisle, who ignore so often the rural communities in their own states, don’t campaign there, don’t go there, don’t talk to those people.  This is an outrageous shakedown by Senate Democrats. And that’s why we’re going to have a shutdown. Because they refuse to keep the government open while working on bipartisan funding bills. Everything they’re doing is focused on satisfying the most radical, extreme, dangerous, and scary part of their party. In March, Sen. Schumer did the right thing. He voted with Republicans to keep the government open. The far-left immediately attacked him for it. Nancy Pelosi said, “I myself don’t give away anything for nothing.” [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] questioned why Sen. Schumer would “hand away our leverage for free.” Eighteen of Democrats’ own candidates who are running for Senate in open seats refuse to say whether they will vote for him as Leader if they do get elected. So now, according to an Axios report from last week, Sen. Schumer has built a “private war room” with liberal groups to orchestrate a shutdown. He and his staff have met with these groups every week for the past two months to plan this shutdown that begins tonight at midnight. Sen. Schumer is doing exactly what he once called the “politics of idiocy.” He is threatening to shut the government down unless he gets everything he wants.  Republicans will not pay Sen. Schumer’s ransom, and the American people aren’t going to pay the ransom. We will not sell out our nation’s service members, our law enforcement officers, our seniors, or our air traffic controllers.  Let me remind everyone who pays the price for a Schumer Shutdown. The American Legion warns a shutdown will “directly affect the lives of veterans and their families.” They’ll pay the price for a Schumer Shutdown.  Vietnam Veterans of America put it plainly: “For veterans, a shutdown is … an immediate disruption of care, support, and progress on life-saving initiatives.” They’ll pay the price for a Schumer Shutdown.  The National Fraternal Order of Police says a shutdown “will cause major disruptions for programs that fund public safety efforts in our communities.” They’ll pay the price for a Schumer Shutdown.  The National Association of Police Organizations adds, “Federal law enforcement officers, who are working to protect our cities and communities from violent crime, drugs, and guns, will be putting their lives on the line without getting paid.” They’ll pay the price for a Schumer Shutdown.  The Association of Mature American Citizens warns that seniors on fixed incomes will face “backlogs and service disruptions.” They’ll pay the price for a Schumer Shutdown.  The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association says farmers and ranchers will lose “predictability and stability” as harvest season begins. They’ll pay the price for a Schumer Shutdown.  The National Grocers Association warns that vital programs feeding low-income families and children will run out of money. That is the reality of a Schumer shutdown. Here’s the bottom line: Republicans are fighting for veterans, service members, law enforcement, border patrol agents, seniors, and rural hospitals. Democrats are willing to shut down the government for illegal immigrants, climate extremism, and wasteful Washington spending. Twelve years ago, Sen. Schumer decried the politics of idiocy. If Democrats shut the government down at midnight tonight, the idiocy will be theirs. The House did its job. It passed a continuing resolution to fund the government. President Donald Trump is ready to sign it. It is time for the Senate to pass it. The American people are watching. I urge my Democrat colleagues to join with us. Tear up the ransom note. Keep the government open. Otherwise, Democrats will own the Schumer Shutdown. And the American people will suffer the costs and consequences. The post BARRASSO: Meet the Real Americans a Democrat Shutdown Would Hurt the Most appeared first on The Daily Signal.

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Records indicate that an illegal migrant with a criminal rap sheet was a registered Democrat voter before being apprehended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Ian Andre Roberts, a Guyanese national living unlawfully in the U.S., was caught with a loaded handgun and thousands of dollars in cash at the time of his apprehension on Friday by ICE agents in Iowa. Not only was the illegal migrant employed as a school superintendent, but a prior speeding ticket ties him to voter registration records in Maryland. Roberts registered as a Democrat in 2017, according to the official website for the Maryland State Board of Elections. The name, address, and birth date on the election website are an exact match to a speeding ticket Roberts received in July 2024 by an Iowa State Patrol officer which was obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. It’s not immediately clear how Roberts, who overstayed his student visa and lived unlawfully in the U.S. for years, was able to become a registered voter. A spokesperson for the State Board of Elections did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF. Ian Andre Roberts. DHS image. “Ian Andre Roberts overstayed a student visa over two decades, but remains an active voter registered in Maryland,” read a Monday statement by the Maryland Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative lawmakers within the Maryland legislature. “The Maryland Freedom Caucus has repeatedly expressed concerns about the gaping holes in both our immigration enforcement and the integrity of our elections.” “We are demanding answers about this new ‘Maryland man’ who could live, work, and register to vote in our state without ever being flagged by the relevant oversight bodies,” the statement continued. Roberts first entered the country in 1999 on a student visa and was handed down a final order of removal by an immigration judge in May 2024, according to ICE. The Guyanese man has an existing weapon possession charge from February 2020. During an enforcement operation in Iowa, ICE officers approached Roberts while he was in his vehicle, but he sped away, according to the agency. Officers later discovered his vehicle abandoned in a wooded area, with agents ultimately taking him into custody thanks to the help of state law enforcement. Roberts possessed a loaded handgun, a fixed blade hunting knife, and $3,000 in cash at the time of his arrest. Law enforcement officials have been left wondering how Roberts, an illegal migrant with a weapon possession charge, was able to obtain employment as a superintendent of a major public school system. “This suspect was arrested in possession of a loaded weapon in a vehicle provided by Des Moines Public Schools after fleeing federal law enforcement,” ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations St. Paul Field Office Director Sam Olson said on Friday. “How this illegal alien was hired without work authorization, a final order of removal, and a prior weapons charge is beyond comprehension and should alarm the parents of that school district.” A spokesperson for the Des Moines Public Schools did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF. Revelations over Robert’s apparent voter registration come as the Trump administration continues to crack down on election integrity. Earlier in September, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sued six different states for alleged failures to hand over voter registration data. The DOJ has also taken Oregon, Maine, and Orange County, California, to court over voter registration data, and recently dropped a lawsuit against the North Carolina State Board upon being satisfied with the board’s progress on removing names from voter registration lists that lack sufficient information. The Trump administration unveiled a new feature for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in May, allowing state and local officials to input Social Security numbers for verification of U.S. citizenship, helping prevent foreign nationals from participating in federal elections. “Democrats have said directly that illegal aliens are not voting,” Maryland Delegate Robin Grammar said in a public statement. “The reality is they created a system that allows it, observed the data that proves it is happening, and are fighting to cover it up.” Originally published by the Daily Callers News Foundation The post Records Indicate Illegal Migrant Arrested by ICE Was Registered Democrat Voter appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Halloween In The 1980s!