“Myanmar’s military government has charged more than 200 people with violating the Southeast Asian country’s voting law ahead of a general election at the end of this month, keeping up pressure on opponents of the polls. Critics of the election set to start on Dec. 28 claim it will be neither free nor fair and is designed to add the facade of legitimacy to military rule that began after the army in February 2021 ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. … The new law, enacted in July, says anyone who orates, speaks, organizes, incites, protests or distributes letters to disrupt any part of the electoral process shall be punished with three to 10 years imprisonment, as well as a fine. Other offenses carry sentences up to the death penalty.” (12/17/25)
“Donald Trump is, from time to time, ungracious on social media. Republicans who accepted, justified, and celebrated outrage after outrage after outrage from Donald Trump for a decade — from ‘grab ’em’ to endless constant lies to gross corruption to illegal deportations to mass murder in the Caribbean to the attempted coup of 2021 and much more — have decided to draw the line at mocking the murder of the Reiners? That doesn’t mean that Republicans have rediscovered decency or their spines — it only means that Trump is starting to quack like a lame duck.” (12/17/25)
“Warner Bros Discovery on Wednesday rejected a hostile takeover bid by Paramount launched last week to trump plans by streaming giant Netflix to acquire the Hollywood giant and owner of CNN. In a statement, Warner Bros said the terms of the Netflix merger were better, while the Paramount offer ‘once again fails to address key concerns that we have consistently communicated … throughout our extensive engagement and review of their six previous proposals.'” (12/17/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott
“When I was at school, learning about the privatization waves of the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, my teacher made a comparison between our own fortunes in Britain, and those of our North Sea neighbors in Norway, that stuck with me. In Britain, we used the proceeds from re-privatizing key industries like British Petroleum to fund the tax cuts that were considered necessary to revitalize the economy. The story is well-told: by liberalizing the economy, the initial shortfall in direct income would be offset in the short-term and exceeded in the long-term from the proceeds of an energetic private sector, and a free-market economy would provide the future prosperity, built on a broad and reliable tax base, necessary to keep Britain afloat. In Norway, on the other hand, such future prosperity was secured in a different way: through a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF).” (12/17/25)
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily runs one fundraiser per year, always with a modest goal.
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Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Sarah McLaughlin
“The result press freedom and human rights advocates feared has arrived: 78-year-old media tycoon, Chinese Communist Party critic, and Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai was found guilty in Hong Kong this week. After five years in detention, much of it in solitary confinement, a West Kowloon Magistrates’ Court found him guilty of sedition and collusion with foreign forces on Monday morning. He will be sentenced at a later date. Lai, who has suffered deteriorating health amidst his detainment, may very well die in prison. It’s a page straight out of the authoritarian playbook: Censorship after a crisis to protect the interests of the state from the fallout. Unfortunately, authorities in Hong Kong are not straying away from this strategy.” (12/17/25)
“Western civilization is inconceivable without the biblical proposition that all humans were created in God’s image (Tzelem Elokim [צֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים] in Hebrew; imago Dei in Latin). But over time, paradoxically, the idea turned humanity against its own Maker. So argues Tomer Persico of the Shalom Hartman Institute in his ambitiously titled In God’s Image: How Western Civilization Was Shaped by a Revolutionary Idea, recently translated from the 2021 Hebrew version.” (12/17/25)
“Republicans are making mail-in voting a core part of their midterm battle plans — a sharp contrast with President Donald Trump’s efforts to abolish the practice as they scramble to turn out his base. … Rattled by electoral losses across the country this year and fearing a turnout slump in 2026 when control of Congress is on the line, Republican party chairs and operatives in battleground states Trump flipped by razor-thin margins in 2024 are turning to mail-in voting to keep lower-propensity voters engaged when he’s not on the ballot. They’re redoubling the 2024 efforts they ran successfully despite Trump alternating between promoting and railing against the practice — a turnabout after his vilification of mail ballots contributed to GOP losses in 2020. Now, back in office, Trump is escalating his war against mail ballots.” (12/17/25)
