“Opponents of military rule in Myanmar staged a joint protest on Wednesday calling on people to stay indoors to show they are boycotting elections scheduled for late this month. They defied harsh legal penalties for attempting to disrupt the polls. … Critics say the Dec. 28 polls will be neither free nor fair and are an effort by the military to legitimize its rule after seizing power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. The General Strike Coordination Body, the leading non-violent organization opposing army rule, had urged people to join a ‘silent strike’ on Wednesday. It called on the public to stay inside homes or workplaces from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on International Human Rights Day. The tactic has been used on special occasions since the military takeover. Images on social media showed uncrowded streets in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, and elsewhere.” (12/10/25)
“In their current push for patient choice, Republicans in Congress and the administration are focused primarily on the demand side by adjusting the offerings available in the Affordable Care Act marketplace and pursuing aggressive price transparency requirements for hospitals and insurers. Together, these reform efforts aim to make patients more price-sensitive shoppers with greater direct control over their healthcare spending. This year, Republicans greatly expanded the reach of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) – tools that individuals can use to pay directly for health expenses when paired with cheaper, higher-deductible insurance plans. … these reforms often rely on a competitively responsive supply side. In reality, a worsening doctor shortage and the erosion of independent, lower-cost providers make clear that the supply side is unlikely to meet this moment for patients without similar reforms.” (12/10/25)
“A field in eastern England has revealed evidence of the earliest known instance of humans creating and controlling fire, a significant find that archaeologists say illuminates a dramatic turning point in the human story. In Barnham, Suffolk, the discovery of baked earth that formed a hearth, heat-shattered flint axes and two fragments of pyrite — a type of stone used to create sparks for lighting tinder — indicates that early humans, most likely Neanderthals, were able to make and maintain fires. ‘This is a 400,000-year-old site where we have the earliest evidence of making fire, not just in Britain or Europe, but in fact, anywhere else in the world,’ said Nick Ashton, curator of Palaeolithic collections at the British Museum in a news briefing. … The artifacts uncovered at the site are 350,000 years older than the previous known evidence of fire-making in the archaeological record, which was from a site in northern France.” (12/10/25)
After a VERY good Tuesday that I hoped would generate momentum, we had a “zero-dollar” Wednesday in our year-end fundraiser. Our total remains at $1,683.84. That’s $1,066.66 short of our $5,501 goal (once we’ve raised the first $2,750.50, supporter GL will “match funds” for the other half).
We run one formal fundraiser per year, with a pretty modest goal and one request: If you find value in the Internet’s oldest and longest-running daily news and commentary update for libertarians — and you wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t — please return some of that value as financial support.
No, your $2.50 or $5 contribution is not “too small to bother with.” In fact, if each of our readers ponied up $2.50, we’d more than double our goal. So:
PLEASE SUPPORT THE FREEDOM MOVEMENT’S DAILY NEWSPAPER AT:
Source: Orange County Register
by the editorial board
“As a general rule, babies born in the United States of America are citizens of the United States of America. There isn’t any question about that. It’s in the Constitution, 14th Amendment: ‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.’ … If the president, as with any other citizen, thinks there’s a problem with some part of the Constitution, he’s welcome to lead the charge to repeal it, and with his bully pulpit he would have a better chance than most in his quest. But instead of pursuing normal legal channels, Trump on his first day back in office issued an executive order …”
“Sperm from a donor who unknowingly carried a cancer-causing gene has been used to conceive nearly 200 babies across Europe, an investigation by 14 European public service broadcasters, including CBS News’ partner network BBC News, has revealed. Some children conceived using the sperm have already died from cancer, and the vast majority of those who inherited the gene will develop cancer in their lifetimes, geneticists said. The man carrying the gene passed screening checks before he became a donor at the European Sperm Bank when he was a student in 2005. His sperm has been used by women trying to conceive for 17 years across multiple countries.” (12/10/25)
“It doesn’t take a political genius to recognize that things are in free fall over at the White House. Less than a year after staffing his administration with a cadre of bumbling goons valued only for their slavish devotion to his ego, President Trump now finds himself leading a government wholly incapable of governing. Forgive my lack of surprise. … Trump’s crumbling administration is living proof that the best way to convince voters to elect Democrats is to let Republicans run things for a year.” (12/10/25)
“President Donald Trump’s administration wants the International Criminal Court to amend its founding document to ensure it does not investigate the Republican president and his top officials, a Trump administration official said, threatening new U.S. sanctions on the court if it did not. If the court does not act on this U.S. demand and two others — dropping investigations of Israeli leaders over the Gaza war and formally ending an earlier probe of U.S. troops over their actions in Afghanistan — Washington may penalize more ICC officials and could sanction the court itself, the official said. … ICC judges issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli defense chief Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim al-Masri last November for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza conflict. In March 2020, prosecutors opened an investigation in Afghanistan that included possible crimes by U.S. troops.” (12/10/25)
