Rip’s Newsletter
September 16, 2026
Compiled and Edited
by
Jim Reynolds
Articles in This Issue
Victor Davis Hanson - The Fantasy House of Mark Carney
Michael Smith Contributor - To Serve Man
Rusty Weiss - ‘I’m Not Kidding’: FBI Agent Tried to Prosecute Musk for Asking Gov’t Workers What They Did All Week
Jim Reynolds - When “Downtown” Meant Hanoi
Overview
Today’s set is about power, resentment, and the people who think rules are for other folks.
Mark Carney is treating a trade fight with the United States like a chance to run an anti-American campaign, while the FBI story shows how far the bureaucracy will go to protect itself from accountability, even when Elon Musk is the target.
On the other side, the “eat the rich” crowd keeps proving that envy is never just envy; it turns into a politics of punishment and dehumanization.
And the Vietnam piece reminds me that even in war, Americans found dark humor to survive the worst of it. Petula Clark’s 1960’s pop hit takes on a whole new meaning.
The Fantasy House of Mark Carney
By: Victor Davis Hanson American Greatness
Date: 2026-09-15 · Words: 1,732
Mark Carney is portrayed as escalating a trade dispute with the United States into a broader anti-American campaign, walking away from a near-complete tariff deal and framing Canada as resisting U.S. “bullying” while offering no clear documentation for his rejected terms. The article argues that Carney’s rhetoric masks Canada’s dependence on the U.S. market and military, its trade surplus with America, and its vulnerability to retaliation, while also highlighting Canada’s growing alignment with China through new agreements on travel, visas, food safety, energy, and security. It criticizes Carney for condemning U.S. trade practices while embracing a communist regime accused of dumping goods, violating intellectual property, and threatening regional security. The piece says Carney’s posture is driven less by strength than insecurity, domestic political calculation, and an effort to suppress separatist pressures in Alberta and Quebec while influencing U.S. midterm politics. It warns that the strategy will likely backfire by damaging Canadian workers and businesses, hardening American opinion, and exposing Carney as hypocritical if he later seeks to resume negotiations.
Carney’s gamble could reshape North American trade, deepen Canada’s dependence on China, and turn a political stunt into lasting economic and diplomatic damage.
🅱️ Hanson isn’t just writing an op-ed; he’s reading a death warrant for Canadian sovereignty. It’s a sharp, sobering look at how globalist vanity plays games with real-world stability. He’s laying out the receipts before the house of cards collapses.
Read the full original article here
To Serve Man
By: Michael Smith Contributor The Patriot Post
Date: 2026-09-16 · Words: 957
Michael Smith’s satirical essay recasts the slogan “Eat the Rich” as a logical endpoint of socialist envy politics, arguing that calls to tax, regulate, and redistribute wealth ultimately become a dehumanizing impulse to eliminate the wealthy. He mocks the idea that inequality can be “solved” by consuming billionaires, then traces how the definition of “rich” would inevitably expand from trillionaires to millionaires and even ordinary homeowners. The piece argues that such redistributionist thinking ignores how wealth is created through entrepreneurship, investment, and capital formation, and that destroying those incentives would reduce jobs, investment, tax revenue, and overall prosperity. Smith frames the satire as a modern “A Modest Proposal,” using exaggeration to expose the moral and economic contradictions in progressive rhetoric. He closes by noting that the real lesson is to make opponents’ premises indict themselves rather than merely insulting them.
This story matters because it uses sharp satire to challenge the logic of envy-driven economic politics and the costs of treating wealth creation as a moral crime.
🅱️ A sharp bit of satire that uses the enemy’s own logic to lead them straight into the meat grinder. It’s a clean, cold look at how envy becomes an industry—just don’t be surprised when the hungry crowd eventually turns its eyes toward your own plate.
Read the full original article here
‘I’m Not Kidding’: FBI Agent Tried to Prosecute Musk for Asking Gov’t Workers What They Did All Week
By: Rusty Weiss RedState
Date: 2026-09-15 · Words: 699
Internal emails released by the Senate Judiciary Committee show that an FBI agent in 2025 urged colleagues to open a criminal case against Elon Musk after DOGE asked federal employees to list five accomplishments from the prior week. Then-Special Agent Kevin Gounaud argued that Musk and OPM officials had wasted government time, violated information-security rules, and improperly used X to circulate the request, even comparing the episode to Hillary Clinton’s email practices. He wrote that he was “happy” to draft the case-opening paperwork and find a prosecutor, adding, “No, I am not kidding.” Sen. Chuck Grassley used the email at a hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel to argue that some in the bureau had tried to target Trump allies, though there is no indication an investigation ever began. Musk’s directive, issued in line with Trump’s instructions, had warned federal workers that failure to respond would be treated as a resignation.
This story matters because it highlights how a routine management demand inside government became a flashpoint in the broader fight over federal bureaucracy, political bias, and the weaponization of law enforcement.
🅱️ A perfect snapshot of the administrative state’s meltdown when accountability meets a spreadsheet. It shows exactly how the ‘Deep State’ tries to weaponize law against anyone asking where the tax dollars actually went.
Read the full original article here
When “Downtown” Meant Hanoi
By: Jim Reynolds www.reynolds.com
Date: 2026-09-16 · Words: 810
American F-105 pilots in Vietnam turned Petula Clark’s cheerful 1964 hit “Downtown” into dark gallows humor for missions over Hanoi, where “Downtown” became their code word for the most dangerous target in North Vietnam. The article centers on Captain Gary Barnhill and other Thud pilots flying one-seat, one-engine F-105s from Takhli and Korat, living in spartan conditions and facing dense air defenses, SAMs, MiGs, and the real possibility of death or capture on every sortie. A jukebox repeatedly playing “Downtown” in the officers’ club crystallized the irony: lyrics about going downtown alone and finding bright lights and everything waiting there mapped uncannily onto combat reality. Decades later, Barnhill says hearing the song again brought him to tears, because it had become inseparable from the fear, adrenaline, and memory of those missions.
The story shows how an ordinary pop song can be transformed by war into a lasting emotional trigger and a vivid shorthand for survival under fire.
🅱️ A masterclass in how a simple melody can carry the weight of a thousand ghosts. It takes a certain kind of steel to turn a pop hit into a war cry, and this piece delivers that weight without ever feeling heavy-handed.
Read the full original article here
You may also be interested in the following selected stories:
Michigan Jab Opt-Out Policy Makes Parents Take Pro-Vax Course — Christopher Lloyd Goffos, The Federalist
DOJ Goes After Berkeley For Discrimination Vs. White Applicants — Jay Rogers, The Federalist
CA Cops Are Using Flock Cameras To Spy On A Small WI Village — Dan Lennington, The Federalist
It’s Not A Bribe When The Dems Do It — Luis Gonzalez, American Thinker
The Village Formerly Known as Piddington… — John Hinderaker, Power Line
☕️ DISCLOSED ☙ Wednesday, September 16, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠 — Jeff Childers, www.coffeeandcovid.com
