Source: Cato Institute
by Colin Grabow & Clark Packard
“This is not a dividend at all. It’s a deficit-financed giveaway, arriving at a moment when the federal government is already projected to run a $1.8 trillion deficit. Worse still, the money is already spoken for. Congress counted tariff revenue as an offset when passing the president’s One Big Beautiful Bill tax reform package earlier this year. Revenue cannot fund both tax cuts and rebate checks. The administration is trying to spend the same dollar twice. But suppose, for the sake of argument, the money actually existed and the deficit didn’t matter. The proposal would still be misguided. For one thing, it’s economically pointless. Tariffs are taxes paid by Americans, not foreigners, and the government’s plan amounts to collecting that money in Washington, skimming off administrative costs, and then mailing a smaller amount back to the public.” (11/24/25)
“Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have announced an apparently unilateral three-month humanitarian truce in the country’s civil war. RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, made the announcement on Monday in a recorded address. The warring Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan did not immediately confirm that any agreement had been reached. Al-Burhan late on Sunday had rejected a ceasefire proposal put forward by the so-called Quad – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.” (11/24/25)
“Today’s Ukraine is not 1938 Czechoslovakia. Yet the 28-point ‘peace plan’ negotiated between the United States and Russia and leaked to the media late last week suggests that U.S. President Donald Trump considers the Munich deal a precedent. Like Chamberlain, he seems to believe that he can make a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin about Ukraine’s land and future over the latter’s head. But this calculation is flawed. It betrays Trump’s fundamental misunderstanding of European geopolitics — both Russia’s unbroken designs to control Ukraine and the Ukrainians’ continued willingness to fight for their land and independence.” (11/24/25)
“Bitcoin edged above $88,000 on Monday but lagged the broader rebound in U.S. equities, with the cryptocurrency still nursing losses from last week’s selloff. The modest move higher underscores the market’s cautious mood, as bullish conviction remains muted. The original cryptocurrency began to recover over the weekend after slumping to a seven-month low of $80,554 on Friday. Bitcoin, which had tumbled more than 20% in the last four weeks, was up less than 1% to about $88,400 on Monday. Other smaller, more volatile tokens increased more, with XRP jumping about 7% and Solana about 3% higher.” (11/24/25)
“President Trump often portrays himself as a mythical, hyper-masculine character. On his digital trading cards, for example, he is depicted as an astronaut, a cowboy, a race-driver, a boxer and of course, a costumed superhero. Although he hasn’t yet appeared as a secret agent, Trump does have one thing in common with the fictional James Bond: They have both been licensed to kill. … In Trump’s case, the authorization is all too real, backed up by exponentially more firepower than Bond’s tricked-out Aston Martin. Enabled by a Supreme Court decision granting presidents immunity for official acts, Trump has deployed planes, missiles and drones to sink 21 small, unarmed boats suspected of drug smuggling in international waters in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. As of last week, at least 83 crew members or passengers had been killed. Neither the evidence nor the purported legal basis for the strikes has been made public.” (11/24/25)
“U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by phone Monday to discuss, among a number of topics, the Russia-Ukraine war, farming, the status of Taiwan and committing to future state visits. China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry stated that the two leaders, who also met last month in South Korea, ‘reached many important common understandings.’ The two reportedly agreed to reciprocal in-person meetings, lower U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods and export measures for rare-Earth minerals. … Trump confirmed an invite from Xi to visit Beijing next year in April. In addition, Xi is expected to come to the United States later next year for an official occasion.” (11/24/25)
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey
“Do you know Jack Mallers? Have you heard of the company Strike that he runs? Perhaps you’ve heard of JP Morgan Chase? Well, let me tell a quick story of how the world is a-changin’. Yesterday, on X, Mallers posted the September 2, 2025, letter he framed from Chase, noting the closure of all his accounts. … The letter informed Mallers that Chase had flagged ‘concerning activity’ during routine monitoring. The result? His accounts were being closed immediately, and he was permanently barred from opening new ones. No specifics were offered. No recourse was suggested. He was simply ejected from the financial system by one of its most powerful gatekeepers. Of note, Strike is somewhat of a competitor to JP Morgan Chase, and if not a direct threat today, certainly is for the future. For many, this would be a crisis. For Mallers, it was a milestone.” (11/24/25)
“Spanish Attorney General Álvaro García Ortiz resigned Monday, stepping down before a judicial ruling banning him from holding public office for two years went into effect. Spain’s Supreme Court last week convicted García Ortiz of leaking details of a tax probe involving the partner of Madrid’s regional leader Isabel Díaz Ayuso, a rising star among the country’s conservative voters. The outgoing attorney general denies leaking the information, and several journalists who published articles about the probe testified he was not their source. Although the court announced García Ortiz’s guilty verdict within days of his trial’s conclusion, the panel of judges who tried him has yet to publish the legal reasoning behind the ruling.” (11/24/25)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by John Coleman
“Recent news reports describe a wave of lawsuits alleging that OpenAI’s generative AI chatbot, ChatGPT, caused adult users psychological distress. The filings reportedly seek monetary damages for people who conversed at length with a chatbot’s simulated persona and reported experiencing delusions and emotional trauma. In one reported case, a man became convinced that ChatGPT was sentient and later took his own life. These situations are tragic and call for genuine compassion. Unfortunately, if these lawsuits succeed, they’ll effectively impose an unworkable expectation on anyone creating a chatbot to scrub anything that could trigger its most vulnerable users. Everyone, even fully capable adults, would be effectively treated as if they are on suicide watch. That’s a standard that would chill open discourse.” (11/24/25)
