No, it’s not “happy holidays” because we’re afraid to say “Merry Christmas.” Merry Christmas! But we’re aware that among our thousands of readers, some celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or other “winter holidays,” and hope they’re happy too. As for those of you who just welcome a winter break with no need for a holiday, enjoy!
THANK YOU to TMM, whose $100 donation yesterday brings our year-end fundraiser total to $2,453.84!
We’re less than $300 short of reaching our goal … and need YOUR help to get there. Once we’ve reached $2,750.50, supporter GL will “match funds” for the other half. But if we don’t get there, then so far as I know the “matching funds” offer goes away. And we’ve only got a week.
In other words, YOUR $296.66 is OUR $3,047.16. And I’ll be honest … we could really use that money.
We generally run very short editions between Christmas and the New Year — not because we don’t want to bring you the content, but because it tends to be a period of “slow news days” and lots of commentary and podcast sources take time off. But we’ll bring you SOMETHING every non-holiday weekday.
Let me mention once again …
… and have a happy, healthy, and prosperous Christmas-to-New-Year interlude!
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“The Ukrainian military says its forces have withdrawn from the battle-scarred town of Siversk in the [seceded] Donetsk region after heavy fighting with Russian forces. In a statement on Telegram on Tuesday, Ukraine’s General Staff said that Russian troops had a ‘significant advantage’ in manpower and equipment and had exerted constant pressure on the defending Ukrainian troops by staging small-unit assaults in difficult weather conditions. … Ukraine’s DeepState military monitoring site reported late on Tuesday that Russian forces had occupied Siversk as well as Hrabovske, a village in Ukraine’s Sumy region close to the border with Russia. Russian Lieutenant General Sergei Medvedev had told Russian President Vladimir Putin on December 11 that troops had taken Siversk, where fighting has been fierce in recent months, but Ukrainian officials denied the Russian reports at the time.” (12/24/25)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/24/russian-forces-seize-embattled-siversk-town-as-ukrainian-troops-withdraw
Source: Washington Post
by Dominic Pino
“Here’s how Claus gains an illicit advantage and creates a trade deficit. Claus is not an American, and he brings his gifts from the North Pole (which is suspiciously close to Canada, a country that threatens U.S. national security). The gifts are produced by elves who don’t have the protections of U.S. labor laws in workshops that aren’t subject to U.S. environmental or safety standards. Claus has stolen jobs from American workers with his industrial policy, which uses Yuletide magic to subsidize the manufacturing and transportation of his exports. This unfair competition allows Claus to flood our country with toys priced lower than anyone else can produce them: $0. American children have been trained not merely to accept but to celebrate the dumping of foreign goods …. The gleeful acceptance of low-priced imports is only one of many symptoms of the failed neoliberal mindset wrecking this great nation.” (12/23/25)
https://archive.is/6u4wq
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“The Stultification of Conscience.” (12/23/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7-LaJZrUc8
Source: SCOTUSblog
“The Supreme Court on Tuesday left in place a ruling by a federal judge in Chicago that bars the Trump administration from deploying National Guard troops in Illinois. In a three-page unsigned order, the justices turned down the government’s request to put the temporary restraining order issued by U.S. District Judge April Perry on Oct. 9 on hold while litigation continues in the lower courts. ‘At this preliminary stage,’ the court said, ‘the Government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois.’ … Although the dispute came to the Supreme Court in its preliminary stages, the case was an important test of the president’s power to send National Guard troops, who are normally controlled by the states, into U.S. cities.” (12/23/25)
https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/12/supreme-court-rejects-trumps-effort-to-deploy-national-guard-in-illinois/
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“It’s just sitting there minding its own business trying to do a little genocide in peace while aggressively lobbying your government to crush your freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, and you’re OBSESSING about it for NO REASON. You just hate Jews. That’s the only possible reason you could spend so much time obsessing about this one tiny little harmless country: you’ve got a crazy, irrational fixation on a small abrahamic religion, because you’re a weirdo. Stop saying it’s actually about all the wars and atrocities and apartheid and starving children and lobbying and propaganda and nonstop assaults on your civil rights and your government’s complicity in genocidal abuses …. No. That’s not it. It’s because you get freakishly enraged by small hats. Don’t you know there was a shooting on Bondi Beach?” (12/23/25)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/12/23/stop-picking-on-poor-little-israel/
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Israel’s parliament has extended an order allowing the government to shut down foreign broadcasters operating in the country. The legislation, passed by 22 votes to 10, expands temporary powers introduced during the Gaza war to shutter outlets seen as a threat to national security. It allows the government for the next two years to cease operations of a foreign outlet even in peace time and without the need for a court order. Originally dubbed the ‘Al Jazeera Law,’ the powers were used to shut down the Qatari-owned channel’s offices and block its broadcasts in May 2024.” (12/23/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2k47wg2j90o
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
by Ron Paul
“Late last week, Congress passed and President Trump signed the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The bill marks the first time the US military budget officially passed the one trillion dollar mark. Of course, when you add in other military-related spending such as interest on the debt, veterans’ affairs, and military components of other government agencies, the true number is at least one and a half times that amount. To paraphrase the famous 1953 President Eisenhower speech, ‘The Chance for Peace,’ each of these dollars spent on military offense and the maintenance of the US global empire rather than on defense of our own nation is taken from the mouths of the hungry and off the backs of hardworking American families.” (12/22/25)
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/a-christmas-gift-to-the-war-machine
Source: NBC News
“The Justice Department on Tuesday released a third batch of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, including some that have references to President Donald Trump. The Justice Department, which [was legally required to release the files by last Friday] under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, acknowledged the Trump appearances in a post on social media, and said some include ‘untrue and sensationalist claims.’ ‘The Department of Justice has officially released nearly 30,000 more pages of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election. To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already,’ the department said in a post on X.” (12/23/25)
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/justice-department-releases-3rd-batch-jeffrey-epstein-files-mention-tr-rcna250533
Source: Quillette
by Ralph Leonard
“There is a contradiction at the heart of the revised justice system that is about to come into being. If trial by jury remains our method of trying the most serious crimes, this implies that it is the best way of litigating criminal cases. If so, then we are accepting that ‘non-serious’ cases are going to be tried using an inferior form of litigation. That will create a two-tier legal system. The irony is that, over the past year, public discourse has been obsessed with what some are calling a crisis of national identity. Does ‘Englishness’ exist? If so, is it good? What are its ethnic boundaries? Yet, jury trial, something that is very important to English history, identity, and our understanding of ourselves — something that has been an ancient, even ancestral, English right, is facing a wrecking ball.” (12/23/25)
https://quillette.com/2025/12/23/the-strange-death-of-english-justice-trial-by-jury/
Source: Barron’s
“Bitcoin was falling in holiday-thinned trade, with the cryptocurrency on course to end the year lower. … With many markets closed early for Christmas Eve on Wednesday, reduced liquidity raises the potential for increased volatility. Bitcoin fell 0.7% to $87,090 and is down 7% in the year to date, LSEG data show.” (12/24/25)
https://www.barrons.com/livecoverage/stock-market-news-today-122425/card/bitcoin-falls-in-holiday-thinned-trade-aK63ufUycCRuiNhVNF3B
