“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)
A “zero-dollar day” in our year-end fundraiser yesterday. Our total remains at $1,285.84.
Our goal is $5,501; once we’ve raised $2,750.50, reader GL has pledged to “match funds” for the other half.
But to get that second half, we must raise the first half, and that’s going more slowly than usual this year.
It’s a little depressing, but I’m not going to belabor THAT feeling at length. Instead, I’m just going to ask YOU to support the freedom movement’s daily newspaper at …
“To house people more affordably, we need to make homebuilding more efficient. But a deeply entrenched overregulation of land use and the building trades keeps homebuilding firms small and backward. Other industries — aviation, computing, agriculture, containerized shipping, manufacturing, retail, telecommunications, and so on — have raised productivity through deregulation, big business, innovation, automation, standardization, and scalability. Homebuilding needs to follow suit.” (11/24/25)
“An Australian senator has provoked anger for wearing a burka in parliament, after pushing for a ban on the Muslim garment. Pauline Hanson was condemned by fellow senators, with one accusing her of “blatant racism”. Proceedings in the senate were halted as she refused to remove the item. The Queensland senator, of the anti-immigration One Nation party, was seeking to introduce a bill that would ban full face coverings in public – a policy she has long campaigned for. It is the second time she has worn the garment – which covers the face and body – in parliament, and said her actions were in protest at the senate rejecting her bill.” (11/24/25)
“Many organizations and federal agencies involved in censoring Americans under the guise of mis/disinformation have shut down in the last couple years. Racket’s Twitter Files exposed the level of censorship slime oozing from organizations such as the Stanford Internet Observatory, the Election Integrity Project, and the Virality Project. On the government side of things, there was the Global Engagement Center, the Foreign Influence Task Force, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which still exists but is no longer involved in mis/disnfo work. That’s not to say America is perfect when it comes to free speech, but as Sen. Rand Paul said in September, ‘throughout government, the censorship apparatus that Biden had put in place is gone.’ However, if you look to Germany, the strongest economic power in the European Union, it’s easy to see where America was going.” (11/24/25)
