“The collapse of rural towns, small industrial cities, and remote farms has coincided with the decline of local cultures. A local identity brings with it pride of place and a certain willingness to live with the disadvantages endemic to the location. When people feel that their locality serves a purpose—that it is embedded within a larger whole — they are willing to tolerate or even embrace its remoteness, slower pace of life, and faulty infrastructure. Rural Americans once thrived on a belief that for all their region’s faults, they were the backbone of the nation. But [JD] Vance’s concept of the nation does not restore this sense of local pride. Instead, it substitutes a globalized vision of tradition for a local one.” (11/25/25)
“Brazil’s Supreme Court has ordered that right-wing former president Jair Bolsonaro begin serving his prison sentence of 27 years and three months for plotting a coup after he lost the last election. Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Tuesday ruled that the case had reached its final judgement and that no further appeals were possible. Bolsonaro, 70, was found guilty of leading a conspiracy aimed at keeping him in power after he lost the 2022 election to his left-wing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. He will begin serving his sentence in a federal police jail cell in the capital, Brasilia, where he has been detained since Saturday after being deemed a flight risk and removed from home detention.” (11/25/25)
“In September 2024, U.S. border czar Tom Homan met with undercover FBI agents acting as business executives. According to sources interviewed by The New York Times, he accepted $50,000 hidden in a CAVA bag and guaranteed those undercover agents lucrative federal contracts. FBI agents recorded Homan accepting the cash as part of a broader probe into corruption within the Trump administration. This is corruption. In September, a Trump appointed DOJ official called it a ‘deep state’ probe. Despite having recorded evidence of Homan accepting the bribe, the White House denies any wrongdoing on Homan’s part. … Homan’s case is not an isolated incident.” (11/24/25)
“A court in Poland was incorrect in a decision not to recognize a marriage between two Polish citizens in Germany, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on Tuesday. The Polish court did not recognize the marriage as Polish law prohibits same-sex unions. ‘Refusing to recognize a marriage between two Union citizens, is contrary to EU law because it infringes [the] freedom and the right to respect for private and family life,’ the ECJ said. The courts were addressing the case of a Polish couple living in Berlin who married there in 2018 but upon moving to Poland had their application to register their marriage certificate denied ‘on the ground that Polish law does not allow marriage between persons of the same sex,’ the ECJ statement said.” (11/25/25)
“President Donald Trump is at the center of yet another bitter constitutional crisis. His political adversaries have mounted a concerted campaign urging military personnel to disobey any ‘illegal orders.’ Trump responded to such calls by threatening to prosecute and even execute proponents for engaging in ‘seditious behavior.’ Since the U.S. Constitution designates the president as commander-in-chief of the armed services, Trump is, of course, currently at the top of the military’s chain of command. Defiance by subordinates, he asserted, would constitute treason. There are numerous important issues at stake. They include the proper extent of the president’s powers under the Constitution, preserving civilian control of the military, the nature of the oath that military personnel take to protect and defend the Constitution, and the appropriate remedy if it appears that the president as commander-in-chief has given an unlawful order.” (11/25/25)
“U.S. consumers were much less confident in the economy in November in the aftermath of the government shutdown, weak hiring and stubborn inflation. The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index dropped to 88.7 in November from an upwardly revised October reading of 95.5, the lowest reading since April, when President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs that caused the stock market to plunge. The figures suggest that Americans are increasingly wary of high costs and sluggish job gains, with perceptions of the labor market worsening, the survey found.” (11/25/25)
Source: Niskanen Center
by Kenneth Sercy & Liza Reed
“Energy policy debates often sound like a choice among competing visions of which type of energy would best power America’s future: ‘dispatchable,’ on-demand power produced from fossil fuels and nuclear energy, or quick-build, cheap energy from renewables such as wind and solar? If only our choice was that simplistic. The reality, however, is that between now and 2030, surging demand for energy will collide with longstanding bottlenecks on new capacity. This mismatch between supply and demand stands to limit how much energy the grid can deliver to build homes, create jobs, support national security, drive the economy — everything we count on energy to do. Meanwhile, competitors such as China are able to rapidly bring new capacity online for data centers and other economic and security imperatives.” (11/25/25)
“Marco Rubio, Europe Thwart Ukraine Peace Deal; NSA Illegally Leaks Steve Witkoff’s Diplomatic Calls; Bari Weiss’s Comically Out of Touch Plan for CBS.” (11/25/25)
“The Internet is a global network. Update a website or type an email over here, in a jiffy it ends up over there, even if ‘there’ is thousands of miles away. Now, in cases where the connections of the interconnection get disrupted, the electrons (well, ‘packets’) are routinely diverted to a more stable path. … But not always. Certainly not if we’re talking about a major undersea data cable. Were such a cable accidentally severed — or deliberately severed, by a hostile power practicing for war, say, the People’s Republic of China — transmission of data between affected countries may stop dead until the cable can be fixed. Declan Ganley wants to cure this particular vulnerability by building an alternative he calls the Outernet, a space-based version of the Internet that bypasses the earthbound network entirely.” (11/25/25)
