Source: Foreign Policy
by Deng Yuwen

“Students and members of the public have taken to the streets in major cities across China, with protesters in Shanghai calling for Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to step down — a rare sight in China, where protest is strictly curtailed. … Commentators calling these the largest protests since 1989 are mistaken. The Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao years saw mass protests that drew tens of thousands of participants or more, destroyed local government offices, and had to be put down by armed police. The crowds in videos emerging from protests … are generally small, ranging from several hundred to over a thousand. Rather, it is Xi’s heavy-handed suppression of social dissent over his time in office and his concomitant expansion of public expenditures and targeted poverty alleviation, buying the affections of the underclasses and all but eliminating open public protest, that makes the current wave of protests significant.” (12/01/22)

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/12/01/china-protests-xi-credibility-ccp/

Source: Common Dreams
by Medea Benjamin & Nicolas JS Davies

“As the war in Ukraine has dragged on for nine months and a cold winter is setting in, people all over the world are calling for a Christmas truce, harkening back to the inspirational Christmas Truce of 1914. In the midst of World War I, warring soldiers put down their guns and celebrated the holiday together in the no-man’s land between their trenches. This spontaneous reconciliation and fraternization has been, over the years, a symbol of hope and courage. Here are eight reasons why this holiday season too offers the potential for peace and a chance to move the conflict in Ukraine from the battlefield to the negotiating table …” (12/01/22)

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/12/01/8-reasons-why-now-good-time-ukraine-ceasefire-and-peace-talks

Source: Libertarian Institute
by Vanessa Brown Calder

“Between federal and local policy reforms, there are abundant opportunities for policymakers to improve housing affordability for families. In order to increase housing affordability for families, policymakers should eliminate zoning and land use regulations, make TCJA reforms to property and mortgage interest deductions permanent, eliminate Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum and Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports, end Department of Commerce policies that ensure antidumping and countervailing duty restrictions, and pass federal land reform legislation, like the HOUSES Act, among other things.” (12/01/22)

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/heres-how-we-make-housing-affordable-again

Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob

“Apple Inc. has a good side and a bad side. A strong work ethic, oodles of innovativeness, much neat technology. But a taste for censorship and a willingness to abet the censorious efforts of China’s totalitarians. One manifestation of Apple’s contempt for unfettered discourse? Its apparent threat to kick the Twitter app off the iOS platform now that Twitter is run by someone friendlier to freedom of speech than the previous management.” (12/01/22)

https://thisiscommonsense.org/2022/12/01/rotten-apple/

Source: The Pamphleteer
by Davis Hunt

“Last Tuesday, General Skrmetti joined eight other attorneys general in sending a letter urging a handful of solar lending companies to suspend loan payments and interest for those financing a purchase from a solar company called Pink Energy. After an onslaught of complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau (BBB), Pink Energy, a solar installation company, filed for bankruptcy and closed their doors this October. With 27 former locations in Tennessee, the multistate business was touted as Music City’s ‘premier solar company.’ That is, until Pink Energy locations began closing down and Tennesseans began filing complaints. ‘What do we do now? I’m paying money for basically a paperweight on my roof,’ Geoff Edwards told WSMV back in October after the Pink Energy location in Murfreesboro disconnected its phones and shut its doors with no formal announcement made to local customers.” [editor’s note: So PE is the new Solyndra? – SAT] (12/01/22)

https://pamphleteer.co/newsletter/no-385-everywhere-you-turn-a-scam/