Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily runs one fundraiser per year, always with a modest goal.
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Please support the freedom movement’s daily newspaper at …
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Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
Source: The New Arab [UK]
“Israel launched several strikes on southern and eastern Lebanon on Thursday, Lebanese state media reported, as the Israeli military said it targeted Hezbollah infrastructure including a military compound. The attacks come as the committee monitoring the ceasefire, in effect since November 2024, which includes the United States, France and the UN in addition to Lebanon and Israel, is set to meet on Friday. … The Israeli military said it targeted ‘terror infrastructure sites in multiple areas across Lebanon’ including ‘a military compound used by Hezbollah to conduct training and courses’ for the Iran-backed group’s members.” (12/18/25)
https://www.newarab.com/news/israel-launches-series-strikes-lebanon
Source: The Liberty Exchange
“Peak Human: Lessons from the Rise and Fall of Golden Ages with Johan Norberg.” (12/18/25)
https://shows.acast.com/the-liberty-exchange/episodes/peak-human-lessons-from-the-rise-and-fall-of-golden-ages-wit
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by James R Webb
“As the Trump Administration continues to kill so-called Venezuelan ‘narco terrorists’ through ‘non-international armed conflict’ (whatever that means), it is clear it is doing so without Congressional authorization and in defiance of international law. Perhaps worse, through these actions, the administration is demonstrating wanton disregard for centuries of Western battlefield precedent, customs, and traditions that righteously seek to preserve as many lives during war as possible. Continuing down this path will not only be a stain on our national honor that will spread like spilled ink, but will also ensure reciprocal treatment of our troops.” (12/18/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/second-strike-hegseth-narco/
Source: Fox News
by Roger I Zakheim
“President Donald Trump’s newly released National Security Strategy breaks the mold of White House strategy documents being a product of an elite policy consensus. From the outset, the document declares that America’s foreign-policy establishment ‘went astray’, overextending the nation abroad and ignoring the wishes and instincts of ordinary citizens. The document presents its ‘America First’ approach as a strategy grounded in the will of We the People. Conveniently, we now have a clear picture of what the American people actually think when it comes to our most pressing national security challenges. Our Reagan National Defense Survey, released just days before the strategy, offers one of the clearest assessments of public attitudes toward national defense, foreign policy, allies and adversaries.” (12/18/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/america-first-security-strategy-through-eyes-we-people
Source: SFGate
“NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope got a rare look at the aftermath of two cosmic collisions — and helped scientists solve a decades-old mystery. Many years ago, scientists saw a dense, bright spot near a young star called Fomalhaut. They thought it could be a planet and continued to track it. But in 2023, Hubble’s pictures revealed something strange. The bright spot had vanished — and a new one had appeared — a sign that it wasn’t a planet after all. Scientists had stumbled on the dusty debris from two cosmic crashes. Massive space rocks slammed together to create clouds of dust that were thick enough to masquerade as planets. Over time, the remains spread out and eventually disappeared altogether. Scientists think the space rocks involved in the collision were at least 37 miles (60 kilometers) wide. It’s rare to capture such clashes on camera, especially since theories suggest they only happen in the same vicinity about once every 100,000 years.” (12/18/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/hubble-space-telescope-spies-dusty-debris-from-21250607.php
Source: US News & World Report
“Luigi Mangione’s pretrial hearing wrapped up Thursday with a judge saying he plans to rule in May on what evidence prosecutors will be able to use in his New York trial for the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Prosecutors rested their case after calling nearly 20 witnesses over three weeks, many of them police officers involved in Mangione’s December 2024 arrest in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Mangione’s lawyers opted not to call any witnesses. … Mangione, 27, is seeking to exclude items including a gun and notebook found in his backpack that prosecutors say tie him to Thompson’s Dec. 4, 2024, shooting in Manhattan. … Mangione’s lawyers contend that anything found in Mangione’s backpack should be excluded from his trial because police didn’t have a search warrant and lacked the grounds to justify a warrantless search.” (12/18/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2025-12-18/judge-says-hell-rule-in-may-on-luigi-mangiones-fight-to-exclude-evidence-from-ny-murder-trial
Source: Persuasion
“A recording from Francis Fukuyama and Yascha Mounk’s live video.” (12/18/25)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/francis-fukuyama-on-2025-in-review
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“‘The Fairness Doctrine was controversial and led to lawsuits throughout the 1960s and ’70s that argued it infringed upon the freedom of the press,’ explained FCC commissioner Ajit Pai for the Wall Street Journal, in an op-ed I quoted yesterday. ‘The FCC finally stopped enforcing the policy in 1987, acknowledging that it did not serve the public interest.’ … Thankfully, this is old news. The former FCC commissioner’s piece was actually published nearly twelve years ago. Mr. Pai has since moved on to the private sector, in April becoming President and CEO of CTIA, the wireless industry trade association. We can breathe a sigh of relief. The FCC is not planning on regulating the news for biased content. Well, supposedly, anyway.” (12/18/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/12/17/governing-the-news/
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Alan Mosley
“In the closing days of 2025, the White House turned an opioid crisis into a national security drama. Standing in the Oval Office during a Mexican Border Defense Medal ceremony on December 15, President Donald Trump declared that he would sign an executive order to classify fentanyl as a ‘weapon of mass destruction,’ calling the announcement ‘historic.’ Treating a synthetic painkiller like a nuclear bomb says more about Washington’s mindset than about the drug. Though drug overdose deaths declined in 2024, 80,391 people still died and 54,743 of those deaths were from opioids. Those numbers mark a public‑health emergency. Rather than tackle fentanyl abuse as a medical or social problem, the administration reframed it as an existential threat requiring military tools. Labeling a narcotic a WMD creates a pretext for war and sidesteps due process.” (12/18/25)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/wmds-for-a-mic-in-need/
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“As many as 20,000 Saudi-backed forces are gathering on the border of Yemen as the separatist Southern Transitional Council comes under pressure to withdraw from the huge territorial gains it has made in the last month in the vast, oil-rich governorate on Hadramaut in eastern Yemen. The STC is using its advance to raise its demand for Yemen to revert to two states, north and south, as it had been until 1990. The STC, which is backed by the United Arab Emirates, has been warned there is a possibility of direct airstrikes by Saudi forces, a development that would threaten key STC positions. Well-paid troops, mainly drawn from a Saudi-funded militia called the National Shield, have been gathering in the al-Wadeeah and al-Abr areas close to the Saudi border. The STC has been reassured it retains the support of the UAE, raising the prospect of future clashes between troops loyal either to Saudi Arabia or the UAE.” (12/18/25)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/18/saudi-backed-forces-yemen-border-separatists-stc
