Source: Orange County Register
by Agustina Vergara Cid

“I’ve been asked a few times why I chose to become an American at this juncture — after witnessing the decline of our institutions, freedom and values at the hands of leaders across the political spectrum. I still chose to become an American because I know that what’s been happening in many realms in this country is not what America is about. I know that forcing businesses to close, as happened during the pandemic, is not the essence of America, but a betrayal of it. I know that cracking down on freedom of speech and having masked agents roaming the streets is anathema to our core values. … Every attack on freedom and individual rights that we see in our country (now and historically) is not a consequence of American founding values, but of the deviation from them.” (11/27/25)

https://archive.is/wnRBG

Source: Brownstone Institute
by Roger Bate

“Every two years, the 183 Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) meet for the Conference of the Parties (COP). This is the treaty’s governing body: a closed-door diplomatic forum where decisions are made on global tobacco policy, regulatory guidelines, technical documents, and the political direction of the treaty system. … The most revealing episode from COP11 was not about taxes or liability. It was the campaign against a small group of countries—Saint Kitts & Nevis, Dominica, New Zealand, the Philippines, and others—that dared to raise an uncomfortable but obvious point: safer nicotine products exist, millions use them, and the treaty should look honestly at the evidence.” (11/27/25)

https://brownstone.org/articles/the-whos-campaign-against-safe-nicotine/

Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone

“It’s so easy to fall into the trap of believing there’s nothing we can do. Nothing we can do to fight the machine because it’s too large and entrenched, and nothing we can do to change our own personal circumstances because the deck is stacked so unfairly against ordinary people. It’s a strong illusion because at a surface glance it appears to be true. Our political systems are locked down by the rich and powerful to ensure that our votes don’t inconvenience them in any way, and any new political movement which challenges establishment power structures will find itself facing sabotage from the outside and from within. Our voices are kept marginalized and our countrymen have been turned into mindless empire automatons by a lifetime of propaganda indoctrination. And at first glance we appear to be just as powerless in our personal lives as well.” (11/27/25)

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/11/27/dont-let-the-empire-gaslight-you-into-believing-you-are-powerless/

Source: Antiwar.com

“Elliott Abrams has resurfaced with familiar instructions on how to ‘fix’ Venezuela, a country he neither understands nor respects, yet feels entitled to rearrange like a piece of furniture in Washington’s living room. His new proposal is drenched in the same Cold War fever and colonial mindset that shaped his work in the 1980s, when U.S. foreign policy turned Central America into a graveyard. My childhood in Venezuela was shaped by stories from our region that the world rarely sees: stories of displacement, of death squads, of villages erased from maps, of governments toppled for daring to act outside Washington’s orbit. And I know exactly who Elliott Abrams is, not from think-tank biographies, but from the grief woven into Central America’s landscape.” (11/27/25)

https://original.antiwar.com/michelle_ellner/2025/11/26/how-to-topple-elliot-abrams-delusion