THE SHOW NOTES: Hezbollah's Pagers, Soaring National Debt, & The Would-Be Assassin

Welcome! Tonight’s full harvest supermoon will also create a partial lunar eclipse.

DEVELOPING: Lebanese hospitals are overwhelmed as hundreds of Hezbollah fighters were injured after their pagers blew up. - 1, 2, 3

IRAN: The Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon was one of the injured.

LOL: CBS talks about how Trump’s rhetoric could lead to political violence the day after someone tried to kill him.

DATA: 1 in 4 Gen Zers spend 7+ hours per day on social media. - NYT (free)

HEADLINE: One Million Are Now Dead or Injured in the Russia-Ukraine War - WSJ (paywall)

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BREAKING AS WE HIT SEND

More than 1,000 Hezbollah fighters and Lebanese citizens are dead as malware-infected pagers exploded in unison across southern Beirut this morning.

Details: A new shipment of pagers - presumably with Israeli malware - was received and distributed yesterday by Hezbollah before exploding as the death toll rises faster than authorities can count.

Here’s more from CNN. Analysis from Yashar Ali on X.

Soaring National Debt

The United States continues to rack up debt at an alarming rate despite neither presidential candidate talking about it. According to new insight from The Wall Street Journal, this upcoming year’s budget deficit is on track to eclipse $1.9 trillion with total debt surpassing $28 trillion or almost 100% of GDP.

Interest payments on the current debt are already larger than Medicare and the US defense budget with another $22 trillion expected to be added over the next decade if Congress does nothing.

Quote of the day: “The U.S. isn’t fighting a war, a crisis or a recession. Yet the federal government is borrowing as if it were.”

Outrageous Headline From Time Magazine

We know that would-be assassin Ryan Routh was a committed Democrat. Here’s an excerpt of what JD Vance said after the incident.

Here is what we know so far: Kamala Harris has said that "Democracy is on the line" in her race against President Trump. The gunman agreed, and used the exact same phrase. He had a Kamala Harris bumper sticker on his truck. He was obsessed with Ukraine's "fight for Democracy" and absorbed many unhinged views about the Russia-Ukraine war. His name is Ryan Routh, and he donated 19 times to Democrat causes and zero to Republican ones.

How do you think the Democrats and their media allies would respond if a 19-time Republican donor tried to kill a Democratic official? It's a question that answers itself. For years, Kamala Harris's campaign surrogates have said things like "Trump has to be eliminated." And how have their media allies responded to the second assassination attempt on Donald Trump in as many months?

Overseas Threats

33 individual threats have been made against schools in Ohio following sensational claims about the community’s Haitian population. All 33 threats were hoaxes from foreign countries.

Bloomberg: US Consumers Are Still Worried About the Future

Stocks killed it again Friday, closing out a big week for investors with another sizeable jump. But all of that equity ebullience doesn’t mean everyone is happy. Despite a recent uptick in consumer sentiment, a record share of US households are uncertain about the economic outlook, and most expect inflation to take a bigger chunk of their incomes. Plus the likelihood of a comfortable retirement is the lowest in a decade, according to the latest data from the University of Michigan.

Full story at Bloomberg (paywall)

This is not good

Previously Unreported: Wild Story About Michigan State Football

What threatened to become the first mass walkout over pay in modern college football unfolded on Sept. 29, 2023, at a Marriott in Iowa City, Iowa. As team members from the visiting Spartans of Michigan State University gathered in the lobby the evening before their game against the Iowa Hawkeyes, the mood was charged with anxiety. “Man, they pulled all the money from us,” one player said, according to a person who was there and who asked for anonymity to protect their relations with the team. “Take me to the airport, I’m going back,” another announced. Soon, others began to discuss sitting out the game.

During the short flight from East Lansing, Michigan, around three dozen of the team’s players had received a stunning email from a booster group that had committed to paying them. The group was called Spartan Dawgs 4 Life. Backed by some of the university’s deepest-pocketed alumni, including the mortgage loan billionaire Mat Ishbia and technology entrepreneur Steve St. Andre, the Spartan Dawgs had raised $6 million, according to a spokesperson for the group. At least one football player had been getting $10,000 a month. Now the group told some Spartans it was ending those payments—dawgs for life no more. As the players angrily processed the news, coaches tried to calm them, and a school athletic official made a frantic call to another fundraiser, from a second booster group, to try to secure their money. The clock was ticking toward kickoff.

Full story at Bloomberg (paywall).

Trending news:

• Haley launching a weekly SiriusXM radio talk show at least through January - AP

• House Dems’ ‘sleeper’ seats suddenly in sight - Politico

• Cuba Cuts Bread Rations - National Review

• Sean 'Diddy' Combs hit with sex trafficking, racketeering charges in sprawling indictment - ABC

• Putin orders Russian army to become second largest after China's at 1.5 million-strong - Reuters

• The Oklahoma State football coach fixed a fridge in the middle of a press conference. - X

• Cabin pressure issue on Delta flight causes bloody ears and noses for passengers - CNN

• US military, seeking strategic advantages, builds up Australia's northern bases amid China tensions - Reuters

• US sent ‘unserviceable’ and expired military equipment to Taiwan in water-damaged pallets - SCMP

Market snapshot: