Rip’s Newsletter
September 25, 2026
Compiled and Edited
by
Jim Reynolds
Articles in This Issue
R.B.A. Di Muccio - Lost in the Wilderness: The True Roots of Male Demoralization
Chris Bray - The ‘Trans Kids’ Fight Is Ending
Jim Cardoza - Mandating Grid Dependency
Jim Reynolds - Where Rip’s Newsletter Comes From
Overview
I’m looking at a country that keeps telling young men to grow up while it blocks every real path into adulthood, then acts shocked when they drift, rage, or disappear into screens.
At the same time, the trans-kids racket is finally getting hit where it hurts: the hospitals that pushed irreversible procedures on minors are signing settlements and backing down.
Out in California, the state is doing what it always does best—using climate slogans to force ordinary people into total electric dependence while rates keep climbing.
The common thread is simple: institutions that broke trust are now demanding obedience, and people are starting to push back.
Wondering about how this publication is constructed? Wonder no more. I tell you all about it in the fourth story.
Lost in the Wilderness: The True Roots of Male Demoralization
By: R.B.A. Di Muccio The American Spectator
Date: 2026-09-24 · Words: 1,482
Young men are misread as lazy or fragile, but face systemic misalignment.
Critics blame character; the article blames broken institutions and blocked adult pathways.
Eldredge’s Wild at Heart frames masculinity as battle, adventure, and beauty.
Digital life offers simulated manhood through gaming, pornography, and passive consumption.
Most unmarried men want marriage, family, stability, and community contribution.
Yet marriage, fatherhood, education, and work milestones have become harder to reach.
The article calls for rebuilding local institutions and restoring honorable masculine purpose.
This matters because a generation of demoralized young men threatens family formation, civic stability, and civilizational continuity.
🅱️ This isn’t just a lecture on the ‘lonely young man’; it’s an autopsy of a broken social contract. It hits hard because it refuses to blame the kids for being lost in a maze where the exits were welded shut. Sharp, heavy, and tells the truth that most people are too polite to say out loud.
Read the full original article here
The ‘Trans Kids’ Fight Is Ending
By: Chris Bray The Federalist
Date: 2026-09-23 · Words: 841
DOJ has reached six hospital settlements ending transgender procedures for minors.
New York University Langone and UPMC were the latest hospitals to agree.
Legacy media portrays the DOJ campaign as intimidation against trans-identifying people.
Meanwhile, former hospital doctors are shifting pediatric transgender care into private clinics.
Prosilio Care in Pasadena listed Johanna Olson-Kennedy before its website changed.
California now directly funds minors’ transgender hormones and surgeries with $26 million.
Insurance pressure, lawsuits, and ethics warnings are making these practices untenable.
Pediatric transgender care is collapsing across hospitals and private clinics as legal, financial, and political pressure converges.
🅱️ This isn’t just a news report; it’s a post-mortem of an industry catching up to reality. It tracks the retreat from the front lines with surgical precision, showing how the ‘inevitable’ progress hits a brick wall of legal and financial reality.
Read the full original article here
Mandating Grid Dependency
By: Jim Cardoza American Thinker
Date: 2026-09-24 · Words: 1,112
California is pushing residents toward total dependence on electricity.
New rules effectively ban gas car sales by 2035.
Building codes and subsidies favor electric appliances and heating.
Electricity rates are already about twice the national average.
Rates rose 47% from 2019 to 2023, far above inflation.
Electrifying everything creates dangerous single points of failure during outages.
The article argues resilience and liberty require preserving alternatives.
California’s electrification push may trade convenience for dangerous, centralized vulnerability.
🅱️ This isn’t just about light switches and stove burners; it’s a warning about the trap being set. It moves from policy critique to survival reality with a steady hand, reminding us that when they take away the backup, they own the house.
Read the full original article here
Where Rip’s Newsletter Comes From
You may be surprised by how much goes into one edition of this venerable publication.
By Jim Reynolds | www.reynolds.com
September 25, 2026
Every so often a reader asks me where all this stuff comes from.
Fair question.
The short answer is: I read a lot so you don’t have to.
The longer answer is that Rip casts a very wide net. Every week I work through hundreds of articles, columns, essays and reports from dozens of sources. Most never make it into the newsletter.
That is by design.
Rip was never intended to be a collection of everything published on the Right. There is already far too much to read. My job is to find the handful of pieces I think are actually worth your time.
So, since you are trusting me to do that, I thought you might enjoy seeing what the bench looks like.
The Daily Grind
These are the high-volume sources. There is always something happening here, which also means there is always plenty to throw away.
American Greatness — Politics, culture and the Trump-era conservative movement. Roughly 70 pieces cross my screen in a typical week. Regular names include Debra Heine, Bryan Hyde, Liz Sheld, Stu Cvrk and Victor Davis Hanson.
RedState — Fast-moving politics, breaking stories and commentary. This one is a fire hose: easily 100 pieces a week. Kyle Becker, Nick Arama, Ward Clark, Bob Hoge, Teri Christoph and Rusty Weiss are among the familiar names.
The Federalist — Longer arguments on Congress, the courts, education and culture. Around 65 pieces a week. Shawn Fleetwood, M. D. Kittle, Brianna Lyman, Chris Bray, Breccan F. Thies and Eddie Scarry.
Power Line — One of the old reliables. Law, media, Minnesota politics and broader political analysis. About 50 pieces a week. John Hinderaker, Scott Johnson, Bill Glahn and Steven Hayward.
The Patriot Post — A veteran-founded conservative digest mixing commentary with shorter news analysis. This was one of Rip McIntosh’s favorite sources. Around 50 pieces a week.
American Thinker — A very wide net of its own: politics, economics, media and culture. Around 45 pieces a week.
The American Spectator — Another old-timer, with politics, history and longer essays. Roughly 40 pieces a week.
Townhall — Home to a large collection of syndicated conservative columnists. Kurt Schlichter, Kevin McCullough, Derek Hunter and Tim Graham regularly show up in the pile. Some are straight opinion. Others come in with the flamethrower already lit.
The Deeper End
Some sources don’t publish nearly as much, but I pay particular attention when they do.
The American Mind — Serious, sometimes difficult essays about national identity, culture and the future of the Right. Ryan P. Williams, Spencer Klavan, Michael Anton and Helen Andrews are among the writers I watch.
City Journal — Crime, cities, education, housing and public policy. Heather Mac Donald, Steven Malanga, Stephen Eide, Judge Glock and others. This is where I often go when I want more than an opinion.
Brownstone Institute — Covid, public health, civil liberties and institutional dissent. About eight pieces a week. Jeffrey Tucker, Paul Thacker and others. You may remember Renaud Beauchard from yesterday. Sometimes I even rewrite them. 😊
Gatestone Institute — International affairs, particularly the Middle East, Europe and migration.
Imprimis — Hillsdale’s little monthly publication. Very low volume. Usually worth reading.
The Heavier Feeders
Foreign Policy produces an enormous amount of material on security, trade and geopolitics — perhaps 80 pieces in a week. I don’t agree with all of it. That’s one reason I read it.
The National Pulse is another high-volume source of conservative news and commentary.
Frontpage Magazine is more combative, with Daniel Greenfield, Robert Spencer, Hugh Fitzgerald and Mark Tapson among its regular writers.
The Washington Free Beacon combines investigative reporting with political commentary and regularly turns up stories worth watching.
And yes, I keep an eye on MSNOW and other sources from the Left.
Not because I intend to send you their stories.
I want to know what everybody is saying.
The Independents
This has become an increasingly important part of the mix.
There are now very good writers who don’t need a magazine, newspaper or television network standing behind them. They publish directly.
I regularly see work from Alex Berenson, Peter Navarro, Jack Cashill, Don Surber, Jeff Childers, John Hawkins, James Howard Kunstler and others.
About 40 independent pieces go into the hopper in an average week.
And, yes, Jim Reynolds occasionally (!) sneaks one in there too.
Then What?
This is the part that probably matters most.
Nobody pays to get into Rip. The work either cuts it or it doesn’t.
There is no preferred placement. No publication gets an automatic pass. A famous byline guarantees nothing.
I collect.
I read.
I compare. Is it appropriate for our audience? Is it well written? Is it credible?
I throw away a lot.
Then I try to send you the things I would want somebody to send me if I didn’t have the time—or inclination—to wade through all of it myself.
Sometimes that means Victor Davis Hanson. Often, in fact.
Sometimes it means a writer you’ve never heard of.
Sometimes it means an article from a publication I don’t particularly like.
The source doesn’t make the cut.
The story does.
That’s where Rip’s Newsletter comes from.
And as long as you keep reading it, I’ll keep doing the digging.
— Jim
You may also be interested in the following selected stories:
AI ‘Whistleblower’ Said He Had No Outside Help. Then the Receipts Dropped. — Ben Smith, RedState
Quote of the day — Scott Johnson, Power Line
The Fog Bezmenov Warned About Has an American Address — Jay Rogers, American Greatness
Five Things America Must Do To Rein In Oil Prices — Adam Butcher, The Federalist
How Classical Christian Education Can Save America — Louis Markos, The Federalist
Rep. Salazar Equates Amnesty With Emancipation. She’s Wrong. — Jeremy Beck, Townhall
ESG Reckoning: 22 State AGs Go After Moody’s Over ‘Abandoned’ Climate Science — Ben Smith, RedState
The Panama Canal, Venezuela, Greenland: Is Cuba Next? — Francis P. Sempa, The American Spectator
Jim, thanks for your work. And, thanks for the source list, many of which I was already aware. I too, find myself wandering into Indian Country several times a week… for the same reason: what are they thinking? It usually induces gnashing of teeth and an urge to comment; a fruitless pursuit.
JC
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