“Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank on Monday evening, amid ongoing military raids and settler violence in the occupied territory. The Palestinian health ministry announced the death of Abdelraouf Ishtiyeh, 30, from Tell near Nablus, whose body is still being held by Israeli authorities. Israeli troops besieged Ishtiyeh’s house in Nablus Monday night, triggering armed clashes. Troops reportedly fired anti-tank missiles at the building where Ishtiyeh was hiding, resulting in his death. He had been wanted since May 2024 after Israel said he was behind a car ramming that killed two Israeli soldiers.” (11/25/25)
“The United States remains the big kid on the block. Everyone else is either too weak or cowardly to challenge them. For a while, statements like that were uncontroversial. America was the lone superpower — its power, beyond debate. Lately, however, a chorus of voices has assembled to challenge that notion. Commentators, typically of the political Left, are increasingly using the word ‘multipolarity’ to describe a supposedly emerging world order. … the events of this past week tell a different tale. On November 17th, Donald Trump’s ‘peace plan’ for Gaza came before the United Nations Security Council. With the prospect of the most naked imperialism of this century becoming international law, ‘anti-imperialists’ Russia and China did nothing. Such blatant American criminality going unchallenged like that contradicts the idea we are headed for a multipolar globe.” (11/25/25)
“Among certain foreign policy mavens, the year is always 1938, and the location is always Munich. Thomas Friedman gives the latest example. This weekend, he awarded Trump the ‘Neville Chamberlain Prize’ for proposing the parameters of a negotiated settlement to the bloody and seemingly endless Russia-Ukraine war. Not only would the execution of Trump’s plan, he claims, lead to the modern equivalent of World War II and put all of Europe ‘under Putin’s thumb,’ it would mean that ‘Thanksgiving will no longer be an American holiday.’ It would ‘become a Russian holiday,’ a day of thanks for Trump’s delivery of a Russian victory in Putin’s misbegotten war. Losing all of Europe and having to refight WWII is bad enough, but losing Thanksgiving? The perfidy of Putin and Trump knows no bounds!” (11/24/25)
“An Australian senator who is campaigning for a national burqa ban was barred Tuesday from Parliament for the rest of the year for wearing the Muslim garment in the chamber. Pauline Hanson, the 71-year-old leader of the anti-Muslim, anti-immigration One Nation minor party, was accused of performing a disrespectful stunt on Monday when she walked into the Senate shrouded in the head-to-ankle garment to protest fellow senators’ refusal to consider her bill that would ban the burqa and other full-face coverings in public places. Senators suspended her for the rest of the day on Monday. In the absence of an apology, they passed a censure motion Tuesday that carried one of the harshest penalties against a senator in recent decades.” (11/25/25)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by David Cardaronella
“On October 1, the federal government shut down—halting non-essential services after the failure of Republicans and Democrats to pass an appropriations bill. Even after becoming the longest government shutdown in American history, the end was nowhere in sight. It may seem that both parties would want to avoid shutdowns, especially ones lasting that long, to accomplish at least some elements of their agendas rather than waste weeks of a legislative session. However, this is not the case when certain incentives are at play, including the incentives to pressure, misrepresent, and engage in costly signaling of resolve.” (11/24/25)
“Lawmakers in the European Parliament voted on Tuesday to pursue legal action against the European Commission for spiking a highly disputed bill to regulate the licensing of patents. After a lawsuit was filed earlier this month to the Court of Justice of the European Union, lawmakers today voted with 334 MEPs in favor of pursuing the legal action. There were 294 votes against and 11 abstentions. … The case can now move ahead to the EU’s top court in Luxembourg, which will have to decide whether the Commission was within its rights to scrap the proposal or whether it overstepped its powers.” (11/25/25)
