Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott
“For China, the world’s second-largest economy, the past year’s economic fortunes have been characterized across three dimensions: declining domestic demand; increased tensions in the Pacific; and strategic repositioning in the Middle East. Each of these dimensions have combined to force China to re-evaluate its longstanding economic policies. The ways in which China has come under pressure from, and responded to, the tariff policies of President Trump has led to some diagnoses of China as being on the verge of collapse due to a headline of slowing growth. In reality, the industrial nature of the nation remains high …. However, as Damian Ma and Lizzi Lee explained for Foreign Affairs, China’s role as the workshop of the world is under question as it attempts to balance its economy and encourage domestic demand in the face of declines at home.” (01/14/26)
Source: New York Post
by Andrew Cherkasky & Katie Cherkasky
“The chaos erupting in Minneapolis isn’t an organic protest movement, and it certainly isn’t spontaneous. It’s coordinated. It’s calculated. And it’s deadly. Ordinary Americans are being played — manipulated into dangerous confrontations by politicians and rabble-rousing activists. The indoctrination has convinced them that federal immigration law is illegitimate, that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have no authority to operate, and that physically confronting federal officers is not only justified, but moral. It’s a weaponized form of Trump Derangement Syndrome — and federal prosecutors should call it what it is: criminal conspiracy.” [editor’s note: I’m shocked — shocked! — when two former employees of a murderous regime continue to support and curry favor with that murderous regime – TLK] (01/14/25)
“Donald Trump has a lot of odd fixations, both as a person and as a president. He tends to focus his tunnel vision on things he wants: the demolishing of the White House’s East Wing, the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. Many of Trump’s quirks are harmless, if unpleasant. (He seems to hate dogs, for example, but no one is forcing him to adopt one.) Some of his ideas, however, are more destructive: His stubborn and ill-informed attachment to tariffs has brought about considerable disorder in the international economy and hurt many of the American industries they were supposed to protect. But a few of Trump’s obsessions are extraordinarily dangerous, and likely none more so than his determination to seize Greenland from Denmark, a country allied to the United States for more than two centuries.” (01/14/26)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Sarah McLaughlin
“If the Islamic Republic of Iran has its way, the news you read and the social media you follow won’t show the truth of the shocking events happening right now within the country. A mass internet shutdown orchestrated by the government this month is threatening to silence expression from courageous Iranians, at least 12,000 of whom are now dead at the brutal hands of the state, who are fighting back against their oppressors.” (01/14/26)
“‘It is … the natural enemy of our home-bred form of government, and ought to awaken the resistance of all legislative and judicial departments, and the detestation of every person not enriched by this ruinous commerce.’ That warning came from John Taylor of Caroline over two centuries ago. The subject: What we now call ‘legislating from the bench.’ He wrote an entire book smacking down Chief Justice John Marshall, who followed Alexander Hamilton’s playbook to twist the necessary and proper clause into a blank check to justify creating a national bank. Taylor saw exactly where this was heading. Judges rewriting the Constitution to create unlimited federal power.” (01/14/26)
“I went down an ugly rabbit hole the other day. In case you didn’t know, the Department of Labor is pursuing a … novel digital marketing campaign. It posts pictures of 1930s-style graphics of clean-cut young white men with captions like ‘Build Your Homeland’s Future!’ ‘Your Nation Needs You!’ and ‘American Workers First!’ Maybe because I recently rewatched The Man in the High Castle, I’m a bit over-primed to find them creepy. The department has been doing this for a while, and I’ve largely ignored the posts, intentionally. So much of what this administration does is a kind of trolling. They want people to complain so they can then say, ‘See! Our critics are anti-white!’ or ‘Look at what their TDS has caused them to get mad at now! These are inspired by Norman Rockwell!’ But then over the weekend Labor put out this doozy …” (01/14/26)
“On Tuesday, January 20, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Wolford v. Lopez, which concerns whether the Ninth Circuit erred in holding that Hawaii may prohibit the carrying of handguns by permit holders on private property open to the public unless the property owner affirmatively gives express permission. The Ninth Circuit upheld the ban under Bruen based on the existence of merely two purported historical analogues, a 1771 New Jersey law on poaching and an 1865 Louisiana Black Code law.” (01/14/26)
“Most familiar with recent world history are aware of the role the Brown Shirts in the corrupting of the German Weimar Republic into the Dritte (Third) Reich. In similar ways, various ‘private’ groups and militias have been instrumental in overthrowing governments and in propping up other governments. At the same time, ‘non-governmental organizations’ (NGO) are viewed by government and media as organizations that support social, humanitarian, or environmental issues. And a very good thing. While most are ‘non-profit,’ even NGOs can be organized as a for-profit entity. Most are considered charities and enjoy 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. Yet, they are (supposedly) organized independently from any government.” (01/14/26)
“The president went from praising ‘the wars we never get into’ to seeing how many the US can get into, and prominent members of his base are eating it up.” (01/14/26)
