Source: Law & Liberty
by Jason Gehrke

“About two weeks after America’s final withdrawal from Kabul, Al-Qaeda issued an open letter praising ‘the Almighty, the Omnipotent,’ the one who ‘broke America’s back’ in Afghanistan ‘the graveyard of empires.’ Al-Qaeda’s boast transformed a self-fulfilling prophecy into the Taliban’s triumphant honorific, according to Choosing Defeat, a new book by Paul D. Miller, Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Georgetown University. … In his telling, the phrase ‘graveyard of empires’ haunted U.S. policymaking for twenty years. Every wartime president invoked it, as did American generals, senior civilians, defense intellectuals, and journalists. There’s only one problem: Afghanistan never was known as the graveyard of empires — not until Milt Bearden penned an article in 2001. When asked, Bearden said he ‘just came up with the name for [his] piece for Foreign Affairs.'” (12/05/25)

https://lawliberty.org/book-review/strategy-and-culture-in-the-graveyard-of-empires/

Source: Fox News
by David Marcus

“President Donald Trump has seen recent setbacks in his polling numbers on many issues, but one bright spot in surveys has been his aggressive approach to Venezuela, including taking out drug cartel boats. But there is another purpose at work here, one that may help to end the war in Ukraine. What is important to understand is that Venezuela is a client state of Russia, as is Iran, and as was Syria until the recent overthrow of Bashar al-Assad. One by one, Trump has been proving that against American might, Putin cannot keep his sketchy global friends safe.” (12/06/25)

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/david-marcus-trumps-aggression-toward-venezuela-warning-putin

Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson

“[T]he Trump administration has its agents arresting green card applicants as they show up for their final meeting. These are not ‘the worst of the worst’ as Donald Trump likes to put it: One was a British mother with her 4-month-old baby in her arms. (The New York Times has the whole ugly story.) These people were not accused of having entered the country illegally or of violating U.S. immigration law in some way other than following a legal process that takes a long time and creates ambiguities. Some of them were shipped off to detention centers. Why are federal agents arresting these people? Because they are the easiest people to arrest …. Some strategy: Abuse the weak, the vulnerable, and the law-abiding — chasing down the actual malefactors is too much work.” (12/05/25)

https://thedispatch.com/article/immigration-criminals-green-card-arrests-trump/

Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone

“The Guardian has a report out which says that at least 60,000 people were murdered by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) when they captured El Fasher in October, which would be the largest single massacre since Rwanda in 1994. Just in the last few days the RSF have reportedly killed 46 children and scores of adults in suicide drone attacks. These massacres are made possible by the United Arab Emirates, who have been funneling weapons to the RSF through a complex international supply chain. Much like the Saudi-led genocide in Yemen from 2015 to 2022 (which the UAE also participated in), this is yet another instance of a tyrannical Gulf state monarchy committing unfathomable atrocities while its friends in Washington look the other way.” (12/07/25)

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/12/07/sudan-venezuela-and-other-notes/

Source: Independent Institute
by Scott Beyer

“Government regulations are sold to the public as protective measures put in place to safeguard consumer health and welfare. And sometimes they do. But as we’ve discussed in this column, they often protect incumbent business interests from competition by making it harder for new or smaller competitors to enter the market. Then there’s a less discussed third intention — one that reflects the incentives of the regulators themselves: growing the government for its own sake.” (12/05/25)

https://www.independent.org/article/2025/12/05/socialism-through-regulation/