“Ukraine and the United States have agreed to terms on a deal relating to critical minerals and other resources, according to a senior Ukrainian official. While Ukraine has said it agreed to the deal, President Donald Trump did not confirm the U.S. had agreed yet, instead saying he had heard Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit Washington, D.C., to finalize the deal on Friday and that ‘it’s OK with me if he’d like to.’ ‘And he would like to sign it together with me,’ he added. ‘And I understand that’s a big deal, a very big deal.’ However, later, he said, ‘We’ve pretty much negotiated our deal on raw earth.'” (02/25/25)
“Wokeness seems to embody two features: on one hand, collectivist or groupist ideals; on the other hand, a rejection of reason and truth. Interestingly, the political opponents of wokeness in America and the world tend to reproduce these same two features — with, on the right, more emphasis on collectivist nationalism than tribal groupism. Both strands of wokeness, on the right and the left, are ridiculous and may exceed the limits of conversation. A rational conversation with a clown is difficult.” (02/25/25)
“Republicans in the US House of Representatives narrowly passed a multi-trillion dollar government spending bill on Tuesday, a major boost for President Donald Trump that advances his 2025 agenda. The 217-215 vote was seen as a key early test for Republican House speaker Mike Johnson, who cancelled an earlier vote as it appeared he did not have enough support. … The budget will have to be merged with a separate budget which is under consideration by the US Senate, in a process called reconciliation.” (02/25/25)
“There’s a reason crank wellness influencers migrated right. Or why COVID conspiracists, even those whose politics used to be liberal, turned reactionary. Or why Trump is able to pump-and-dump meme coins to fleece his supporters. The GOP has become the home for people who felt out of step with the mainstream consensus, which meant the expert consensus, and their response wasn’t to acquire expertise to find faults in that consensus (which there are plenty to find), but instead to simultaneously reject the value of expertise while also elevating to the role of infallible expert anyone who could, in their ignorant assessment, convincingly talk the talk of an expert while not challenging their preexisting beliefs and prejudices. What makes the GOP’s circular con game circular is that everyone is simultaneously conning each other while being conned.” (02/25/25)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Every day, millions of Americans cross state borders without encountering border-control stations, where they would otherwise have to show some sort of identification and have their vehicles inspected for contraband or dangerous people. There is total, unrestricted, free movements of goods, services, and people across state borders. … most Americans are willing to take their chances rather than ostensibly be kept ‘safe’ by an extensive state border-control system, state border patrols, border walls, and an ever-growing series of border police-state measures that destroy liberty and privacy. Notice something important about our domestic system of open borders: There is no border chaos or border crises between the states.” (02/25/25)
“The US state department has ordered officials worldwide to deny visas to transgender athletes attempting to come to the US for sports competitions and to issue permanent visa bans against those who are deemed to misrepresent their birth sex on visa applications. The 24 February state department cable obtained by the Guardian instructs visa officers to apply Immigration and Nationality Act section 212(a)(6)(C)(i) – the ‘permanent fraud bar’ – against trans applicants. Unlike regular visa denials, this section triggers lifetime exclusion from the United States with limited waiver possibilities. … The instructions come after Donald Trump issued an executive order on 5 February barring trans athletes from competing in women’s sports. While signing the order, the president directed the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, to deny visas to ‘men attempting to fraudulently enter the United States while identifying themselves as women athletes’ during the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles – which will take place under Trump’s watch.” (02/25/26)
“It turns out that Vladimir Lenin and REM were right. Francis Fukuyama was wrong. In 1921, during the Soviet Union’s New Economic Policy period, Lenin is supposed to have exclaimed that ‘The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them.’ In 1987, REM sang, ‘It’s the end of the world as we know it.’ And, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1989, Fukuyama wrote a seminal essay titled ‘The End of History?’ Barely a month in office, President Trump has dismembered many fundamental precepts of American democracy — including the core principle of three coequal branches of government. … Lenin was right.” (02/25/25)
“Pope Francis has met senior colleagues in hospital to discuss work issues, the Vatican said on Tuesday, and an official said he was eating normally and moving around, even though he remains in critical condition with double pneumonia. The 88-year-old pope was spending his 12th day at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, the longest hospital stay of his nearly 12-year-old papacy. … The Vatican said Francis had met his second-in-line, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and Parolin’s deputy on Monday. It said they had discussed several pending cases for sainthood. The Vatican also announced new appointments that would have needed the pope’s approval.” (02/25/25)
“Some analysts put the ‘Golden Rule’ at the heart of ethics, saying ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ But it has its problems. Someone with a bad leg might want others to help them upstairs, but be themselves incapable of doing the same to others. I might help a blind person across the road, but I don’t want anyone to do that for me. Far more valid is the negative of that Golden Rule: ‘Do not do unto others what you do not want done to yourselves.’ I don’t want others to injure me or to take my stuff, so I don’t do that to them. … It has turned out in practice that nations that embrace liberty have been more successful economically.” (02/25/25)
