“Since 2017, I’ve known that international adoption is in decline. But only recently, while writing the introduction to the 15th-anniversary edition of Selfish Reasons, did I realize that both forms of infant adoption in the United States have become incredibly rare. Domestically, birth parents only put about one out of every 200 babies born up for adoption. … Internationally, the situation is even bleaker. In 2004, U.S. international adoptions peaked at 22,988. In 2023, the last available year, the total was just 1,275 — a 94% fall. Two decades ago, the market share of imported adoptees was about 50%. Now it’s about 7%.” (10/15/25)
“Myanmar’s junta chief acknowledged on Wednesday that the military-backed administration will be unable to conduct an upcoming general election across the entire country, as a civil war triggered by a 2021 coup rages on. Critics and many Western nations view the election — due to start in late December and the first since the coup — as a sham exercise to legitimise the military’s rule via proxy political parties. Dozens of anti-junta parties are either banned or refusing to take part. The Southeast Asian nation has been in turmoil since the coup, which deposed an elected civilian government and triggered a nationwide armed rebellion that has wrested swathes of territory from the military.” (10/15/25)
“Trump’s approach to the presidency has been the same as his business strategy, one that’s uncommon for democracies: putting his name and personal brand on everything, building monuments to himself along the way. He hung his massive portrait on buildings around the nation’s capital. He has gilded the Oval Office, put his name on the border wall and on federal stimulus checks, and bathed his career and venues in a sea of American flags. Republicans have proposed legislation to make his birthday a federal holiday, carve his face into Mount Rushmore, and rename D.C.’s Metro system and one of its airports after him. These kinds of civil religious measures canonize the man more than the country and its founding ideals. … Similarly, earlier this year, officials assured the public that the grandiosity of the Army’s 250th anniversary parade had nothing to do with its occurrence on Trump’s birthday.” (10/15/25)
“It is a funny thing, that old-time American religion. For a time, John Brown belonged to a Congregationalist church in Hudson, Ohio. He attended a prayer meeting there following the death of abolitionist editor Elijah Lovejoy, who died defending his printing press from a mob of slavery supporters. Brown apparently said little or nothing until the end of the meeting, at which point he stood up and spoke: ‘Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery.’ Unlike those show ponies angling for future Fox News gigs at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service, John Brown meant it. He was that most dangerous and terrible sort of American: a believer.” (10/15/25)
“The conventional view of executive power among formalists is that the Vesting Clause grants a ‘residuum’ of executive powers, including, for example, foreign affairs-related powers traditionally exercised by the British monarch. If removal is executive in nature, and the Constitution does not assign that power elsewhere or otherwise limit the president’s exercise of it, then it vests in the president by virtue of the residuum. As I have written elsewhere, I agree with Nelson and Mortenson that this account of the Vesting Clause is likely incorrect. My view is that ‘the executive power’ is a substantive grant of power, but of only one: the power to oversee the execution of the laws. But that power, I argue, includes removal — not because removal was a freestanding executive prerogative, but rather because it was part and parcel of the power to oversee the execution of the laws.” (10/15/25)
“The historical record shows that, far from meeting the ‘three criteria … for selection of a Peace Prize laureate,’ [María Corina] Machado spectacularly fails all three. Machado did not bring Venezuela’s opposition together. The Nobel committee says that ‘Machado has been a key, unifying figure in a political opposition that was once deeply divided.’ That, Yale University history professor Greg Grandin says, is not true: ‘Machado is not a unifier, as the committee said. She represents the most intransigent face of the opposition.’ … More importantly, Machado has not fought for democracy. … Though the Nobel Prize committee makes its case by focusing exclusively on the controversial 2024 election, Machado’s career didn’t start there. … Not only has Machado not fought for democracy in Venezuela, she has neither fought for a ‘peaceful transition to democracy’ nor used ‘the tools of peace.'” (10/15/25)
“The most expensive political ad campaign of the year is being run by the Department of Homeland Security. DHS disputes that its ads are political. But it has spent at least $51 million this year on ads thanking President Trump for securing the border, according to AdImpact. The next closest ad campaign is the $41 million effort to support California’s redistricting measure, according to AdImpact. … ‘[T]his isn’t a political ad — this is a public service announcement urging illegal aliens to leave,’ Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to Axios. ‘President Trump’ is the most mentioned phrase across all the ads. Three ads say: ‘Thank you, President Donald J. Trump for securing our border and putting America first.'” (10/15/25)
