“The American economy in the quarter century after 1865 remains without exaggeration the greatest example of material development and the expansion of mass prosperity in world history. We cannot compare ourselves favorably to the best economy that ever was, namely the Gilded Age (the term comes from a Mark Twain book of 1873), but we can and should aspire to emulate the best. If we are not in a new Gilded Age today — we are not, because we are not growing enough — it would be commendable if we aspired to be. Perhaps the HBO series (which takes place in the 1880s) is striking a chord because we were once that good, and we know we can be again.” (12/10/25)
Source: The American Conservative
by Harrison Berger
“Just a year ago, a series of pardons signed by President Joe Biden, apparently executed through the ‘autopen’ and seemingly without his direct involvement, rightly became the subject of intense scrutiny from conservative media. Right-wing stars Megyn Kelly and Steve Bannon among others bashed the autopen pardon of a convicted killer from Connecticut, Adrian Peeler, even proposing legal theories for how Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Justice Department might be able to undo Biden era pardons. Yet one month ago, Trump unwittingly mimicked Biden’s inattentiveness when, after pardoning Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, Trump told CBS’s 60 Minutes that he did not even know who the crypto exchange founder was. … while conservatives had no trouble denouncing Biden’s autopen pardons, the same standard of scrutiny is overdue for the clemency system now operating inside this administration.” (12/10/25)
“I have a riddle for you. If we call a drug smuggler a combatant, how many combatants died when SEAL Team 6 killed 11 men on a cocaine boat near Venezuela on September 2? Zero, because calling a drug smuggler a combatant does not make him a combatant. That reality goes to the heart of the morally and legally bankrupt justification for President Donald Trump’s bloodthirsty anti-drug campaign in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, which began on September 2 and so far has killed 87 people in 22 attacks. The September 2 operation is newly controversial because it included a follow-up missile strike that blew apart two defenseless survivors of the initial attack as they clung to the smoldering wreckage. But all these attacks entail the use of deadly force in circumstances that do not justify it.” (12/10/25)
“Less than a year into his second term, President Donald Trump is already hobbling toward lame duck status. His approval rating has plummeted to 36 percent, according to Gallup’s latest survey, including just a 25 percent thumbs-up among independents. He’s squandered his gains with Latino voters, with nearly 80 percent now telling Pew that his policies are more harmful than helpful. Democrats, meanwhile, are enjoying an uptick in their electoral fortunes. Democratic gubernatorial candidates Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill cruised to victory in Virginia and New Jersey, while generic Congressional ballots have begun to show commanding leads for Democrats hopeful of capturing the House. But don’t mistake Trump’s unpopularity with newfound affection for Democrats, warns strategist Simon Bazelon, a Research Fellow at the Democratically aligned organization Welcome. Democrats have increasingly shifted leftward in recent years, Bazelon argues, and are perceived as too liberal and out of touch.” (12/10/25)
“A small but consequential shift is taking place in co-ops and condos, and it deserves far more scrutiny than it’s getting. Habitat Magazine recently reported that more buildings are adopting ‘good citizen rules’ that ban ‘any verbal or physical conduct that is threatening, harassing, or otherwise offensive to anyone else.’a The language is framed as common sense. Who could oppose civility, respect, and peaceful use and enjoyment? But rules built around offense, rather than conduct, carry real risks. They subordinate clear standards to individual feelings and give boards broad authority to police speech according to subjective judgments. That is a recipe for abuse of power, not harmony.” (12/09/25)
“The Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy (NSS) is a mixed bag. Despite the Monroe Doctrine being declared in 1823, the Western Hemisphere, the geographically closest area to the United States, has been neglected in post-war U.S. foreign policy in order to undertake American interventions in regions perceived to be more important. Since 1945, the top priorities of U.S. policy have been in Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East. Thus, the new Trump NSS laudably puts more emphasis on the Western Hemisphere. However, in the document, the ‘Trump Doctrine’ appears to primarily rediscover the coercive aspects of the Monroe Doctrine, aimed at keeping foreign influence out of the hemisphere. Yet the first chapter of such coercive U.S. policy, from the 1898 Spanish-American War to the late 1920s, did not go that well.” (12/09/25)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Thorsten Polleit
“At the US-Saudi Investment Forum on November 19, 2025, entrepreneurial titan Elon Musk shared with his audience his vision of the future shaped by advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. Among other things, Musk said: ‘And my guess is, if you go out long enough — assuming there’s a continued improvement in AI and robotics, which seems likely — money will stop being relevant.’ A future in which money no longer plays a role? Is that really possible, or at least probable? To answer these questions, let us first recall why people have demanded money for thousands of years.” (12/09/25)
“As newly ordained rabbi Louisa Solomon crunched the numbers on her new Jewish education project, she encountered a good problem: Too many people wanted to attend. ‘People just started coming up to me right and left, in the streets, at the capital, on the Manhattan Bridge, and saying, ‘Will you start an anti-Zionist shul? There’s nowhere else to go, for me!” she remembers. People told her stories of being kicked out of their synagogues or their family table for their opposition to the war and the political project of Zionism. If they were going to stay Jewish, they needed somewhere to do it. And they needed someone to show them how.” (12/09/25)
“Friday, December 12, marks twenty-five years since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bush v. Gore, which decided the outcome of Florida’s presidential election and, ultimately, America’s choice for its forty-third president. The date doesn’t pop up on the calendar as do other moments in the republic’s history, either celebratory (July 4) or tragic (September 11). But what transpired a quarter of a century ago matters thus: reverse the decision and it’s quite possibly a very different America.” (12/09/25)
“States in general, and the EU in particular, have a lot in common with the users of social media platforms: Both want to decide how those platforms get used. States in general, and the EU in particular, also have a lot in common with the owners of social media platforms: Both want to make money on those platforms. Those commonalities make for an alliance of convenience between users and owners versus states. Owners make their money by pleasing users; states make their money by demanding bribes … er, ‘fines’ … from owners, often as punishment for refusing to cooperate in state censorship of user-created content. … So why doesn’t [Elon Musk] start his own country, with a state fashioned after his own liking, base his social media platform there, do business exclusively there, and tell the other states to go pound sand when they demand control and/or a piece of the financial action?” (12/09/25)
