Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Well, howdy there, internet people. It's Belle again. And welcome to The Roads with Belle. Today is October 19th, 2025. And this is episode 113 of The Roads Not Taken, which is a weekly series where we go over the news that was unreported, underreported, didn't get the coverage we thought it deserved, or we just found it interesting. And then we go through a few questions from y'all.
Today is October 19th, and today is National New Friends Day. Keep up with those new friends you made over the weekend. And on this date in 1987, the stock market took a dive, and it's known as Black Monday. Also in 1781, the British surrendered at Yorktown, and the world turned upside down. And starting with foreign policy...
Chapter 2: What unreported news events are highlighted in this episode?
Prince Andrew will give up his title Duke of York over Epstein connections. Meanwhile, Republicans are blocking Americans from seeing the files. Trump says the U.S. has hit a drug carrying submarine. The Navy also separately said it picked up and detained survivors from another strike.
The admiral overseeing this operation resigned, and there's a lot of signs that suggest things may not be as Trump claims. Signals are that Trump is having a taco moment when it comes to giving Ukraine tomahawks. Taco tomahawks. Republicans in the Senate are calling for more sanctions on Russia.
While Trump may be chicken and waffles on tomahawks, Poland surprised a lot of people after a judge there ruled that they wouldn't extradite a person Germany suspects in the Nord Stream hit. The judge said if he did it, it would have been a just act. China expelled some high-ranking generals from the Communist Party. It looks like another purge of military leadership is underway. In U.S.
news, Republicans in Congress are showing their absolute contempt for Americans by refusing to swear in an elected representative. She would be the last signature needed to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files. Johnson is ignoring the legal complaints. Trump commuted the prison sentence of George Santos.
John Bolton has pleaded not guilty to the charges related to the mishandling of classified information. Nancy Pelosi is likely to face a primary challenge, along with Fetterman. The fallout over the racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, and violent Republican chat continues to grow. The New York State Young Republicans has been disbanded. Talks on ending the shutdown are reportedly going nowhere.
In cultural news, universities are rejecting Trump's demand to influence their policies. So far, all universities that have answered have said no. Women in the Republican Party were horrified by Speaker Johnson blowing off a question about Representative Corey Mills, the restraining order, and the allegations he's facing.
When Johnson was asked about Mills, Johnson said he wanted to, quote, talk about something serious. In science news, the U.S. military is working on nuclear micro-reactors under the Janus program. They would generate 1 to 20 megawatts. A new study suggests lead exposure might have helped humans beat out Neanderthals. The idea is that lead exposure limited development of Neanderthals.
80% of the staff at the National Nuclear Security Administration is being furloughed during the shutdown. Once again, proving the Trump administration has no idea which agencies are critical. Reminder, this is an agency that got doge cuts, then they had to rapidly bring them back. So the administration should remember the importance.
In economic news, Trump's economic approval rating continues to fall. It's currently at 42% approval with 55% disapproval. The net negative 13% poll is his worst ever on the economy. Trump said the tariffs on China he put into place are not sustainable. He said, quote, it's not sustainable, but that's what the number is. and then said they forced me to do that.
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Chapter 3: How is Trump influencing foreign policy decisions?
Generally, if it's surprising that the economic indicators are high, that's a bad sign. As people start to come to terms with the fact that AI investment is powering almost all U.S. GDP growth, there's a growing sense of unease that major companies like OpenAI, for example, can only convince about 5% of their users to pay for a subscription.
The company lost about $8 billion in the first half of the year. Some financial outlets are producing lists of stocks. They expect to survive the bubble popping. In oddities, Vance tried to blow off the leaked Republican chats as locker room talk. It's also important to understand that young Republicans doesn't mean young people, as in kids. Some of the participants were 35.
The chat was so bad that multiple statewide organizations deactivated. And Vance is out there saying, oh, it's not that bad. A woman in Minnesota has entered a guilty plea to voter fraud using a mail-in ballot. Republicans finally have their proof. She allegedly used her dead mother's ballot to vote for Trump. On to the Q&A. Our first question. Do you work for any politician or NGO? No.
As most of you know, we routinely give to charities like the domestic violence shelters, reentry programs, hotlines, food banks, disaster relief, and so on. But those aren't the programs that people normally are asking about when they say NGO. They normally mean a partisan group.
We do not take money from any NGO or political action group or a politician directly or a PR firm who's working on behalf of a politician. What's up with these military resignations? Is this people leaving and not obeying an unlawful order?
Obviously we can't say that for sure, but if commanders were ordered to engage in an unlawful order or they were aware that some were coming and I was going to describe what it looked like. Yeah, it looks like this. Is it really too late to fix the ACA tax credits? I keep seeing reports that it's too late. Did Republicans win? In some states, yeah, it might be too late.
I'm not sure jacking up the rates on their own voters is winning. The people who vote Republican who lose their health insurance over this will know Republicans did it, and they were willing to shut the government down and hurt their families. Do you know who the mysterious expert on submersibles is?
Have you ever seen such a failure?
Okay, so the testimony was released of an expert on submersibles who was interviewed as part of the investigation into the sub that went down to the Titanic that failed. The testimony redacted the name of the expert, and that created this massive mystery.
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