It may be the oldest story in warfare. It’s certainly among the oldest that anyone ever bothered to record in songs, poems, or prose. Someone holds control over a city. Someone else wants it. Now what?

For a few days last week, hope was so thick you could practically walk on it. When word came of evacuations in Kherson, it really did look as if Russia meant to not just move out its officials and quislings, but its military.

On Wednesday, hidden under the fog of traditional media outlets worrying about Democratic candidate John Fetterman’s post-stroke recovery, while accepting Mehmet Oz’s career of quackery, President Biden’s Department of Justice made a very important announcement. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland formally codified the FBI policy banning the use of subpoenas, search warrants, and other legal measures against news journalists in most circumstances.

The chief judge of the District Court in Washington, D.C., is considering making documents concerning Donald Trump’s connections to Jan. 6 open to the public. In this case, the documents relate to how Trump has attempted to prevent former advisors and staff members from testifying before a grand jury hearing evidence related to Jan. 6.

When it comes to Trump and court battles, it can be difficult to keep up.

Donald Trump, a traitor, will be holding a Miami rally for Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio on Nov. 6, just two days before Election Day. You might think that the biggest news here is that Marco Rubio remains so eager to ally with the orchestrator of a violent attempted coup against our government, a coup that led to deaths and could well have led to the deaths of many of Rubio’s own supposed colleagues.

Ever since the House Jan. 6 committee voted unanimously to subpoena the main man behind the mayhem, Donald J. Trump, on Oct. 13, the media has been playing an endless game of “will he or won’t he” appear.

After all, handing Donald Trump a subpoena, as the committee did on Friday, is like giving a dude on a three-day meth bender a Russian roulette revolver—except with six bullets in the cylinder instead of one.

When a jury earlier this year acquitted two of the 14 men charged in the bizarre plot by a group of far-right militiamen to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, there was immediate concern that we might be seeing a repeat of the disastrous failed prosecutions of other right-wing extremists. However, the subsequent convictions in August of the two ringleaders in the retrial of the same federal case alleviated some of those fears.

In 1978, the communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan took over that country in what was called the Saur Revolution and immediately imposed a harsh crackdown on opponents and established one-party rule. The government they overthrew had taken power in 1973 in a coup and … immediately launched a harsh crackdown on opponents and established one-party rule.

Joe Kent, the Donald Trump-endorsed Republican candidate in Washington state’s 3rd Congressional District, clearly has a lot to hide. He’s done his best to cover up his multifarious connections to the right-wing extremists—including white nationalists, Proud Boys, and their cohorts—who provided him with his earliest and most vociferous support.

Coming out of Tuesday night’s Pennsylvania Senate debate, many news outlets have focused on whether Keystone State voters will vote for a man who is still recovering from a stroke.

Democratic Senate nominee, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, clearly displayed the after effects of the stroke he suffered in May. Fetterman’s speech was halting at times, and he generally kept his answers short and to the point.