“Elliott Abrams has resurfaced with familiar instructions on how to ‘fix’ Venezuela, a country he neither understands nor respects, yet feels entitled to rearrange like a piece of furniture in Washington’s living room. His new proposal is drenched in the same Cold War fever and colonial mindset that shaped his work in the 1980s, when U.S. foreign policy turned Central America into a graveyard. My childhood in Venezuela was shaped by stories from our region that the world rarely sees: stories of displacement, of death squads, of villages erased from maps, of governments toppled for daring to act outside Washington’s orbit. And I know exactly who Elliott Abrams is, not from think-tank biographies, but from the grief woven into Central America’s landscape.” (11/27/25)
“The suspected shooter of two national guard members in Washington DC on Wednesday worked with CIA-backed military units during the US war in Afghanistan, the agency has confirmed. The alleged gunman, identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, came to the US in September 2021 under an Operation Allies Welcome program that gave some Afghans who had worked for the US government entry visas to the US. Lakanwal’s ties to the Central Intelligence Agency, which worked alongside US special forces in Afghanistan, were confirmed by the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, to media outlets on Wednesday evening. … Following the shooting, Donald Trump ordered 500 additional national guard [occupation] troops to Washington.” (11/27/25)
“It is important to celebrate victories for economic freedom as they emerge, even when they come in the most peculiar of places. One such place is the racing world. In October, North Carolina Governor Josh Stein signed into law HB 926, called the ‘Right to Race’ law. This new measure shields racetracks from noise-related nuisance lawsuits if the facility existed and was permitted before nearby properties were developed. This is an incredible win for economic freedom against NIMBYs demanding to silence roaring engines after making the decision to move next to a racetrack.” (11/27/25)
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Susan Hammond & Sera Koulabdara
“Between 1961 and 1971, the U.S. military sprayed an estimated 20 million gallons of herbicides over southern Vietnam, along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, and parts of Cambodia. Nearly two-thirds was Agent Orange, later discovered to be contaminated with 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) — a potent, long-lasting dioxin. TCDD is a known human carcinogen and an endocrine disruptor, linked to cancers, reproductive disorders, and birth defects that can span generations. By the letter of the CWC, Agent Orange is not classified as a ‘chemical weapon.’” If you ask a Vietnam veteran suffering from Parkinson’s, cancer, heart disease, or any of the 19 types of conditions the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) associates with Agent Orange exposure, you’ll hear a very different story. To them, it was every bit a weapon designed to destroy life and health.” (11/27/25)
“What if, on Thanksgiving Day, our gratitude is not to the government that assaults our freedoms and steals our wealth but to God, who gave us our freedoms and our ability to earn wealth? What if, on Thanksgiving Day, our gratitude is for life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the exercise of free will and human reason? What if these are integral to our humanity despite the government’s assaults on them? What if, on Thanksgiving Day, we recognize the evils of a government that is blind to the consequences of its killings, borrowings and assaults on freedom?” (11/27/25)
“Guinea-Bissau’s military installed General Horta Nta Na Man as transitional president on Thursday, an army statement said, a day after soldiers toppled President Umaro Sissoco Embalo in a swift power grab that followed a disputed election. The self-styled ‘High Military Command for the Restoration of Order’ announced in a televised statement on Wednesday that they had ousted Embalo, in the latest episode of unrest in the coup-prone country. … Wednesday’s army takeover came one day before provisional results had been expected to be announced in the race between Embalo and Fernando Dias, a 47-year-old political newcomer who had emerged as Embalo’s top challenger to run the West African state, which is a hub for cocaine trafficking.” (11/27/25)
“Rich, Lori, and Riley discuss whether or not Sharia law is being enforced in Dearborn MI, why can’t you freely cull an invasive animal population, and Reason’s ‘Today in Unintended Consequences.'” (11/27/25)
“Let’s set aside the controversy over what Walmart’s shrinkflation of its annual Thanksgiving feast bundle might suggest for the recent trajectory of grocery prices. The good news for which we can be thankful is that the share of their incomes that average Americans devote to paying for food has fallen steeply over the last 100 years.” (11/27/25)
“In most sectors of the American economy, we celebrate the moment when insiders break away to build something better. Engineers start their own firms. Chefs open their own restaurants. Innovators leave incumbents and test their mettle in the market. Only in US healthcare do we treat that entrepreneurial impulse as a threat worthy of prohibition. Section 6001 of the 2010 Affordable Care Act froze the growth of physician-owned hospitals (POHs) by barring new POHs from getting paid by Medicare and Medicaid, and by restricting the expansion of existing POHs. … The POH issue illustrates how, in a mixed economy, controls beget controls.” (11/27/25)
