“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)
“Location, location, location. That’s what matters now on X, because Elon Musk has just rolled out a hugely important new feature, and it’s confirming what some of us have suspected was the case for some time now. It turns out that many of the openly racist and anti-Semitic accounts on X that claim to be America First but are actually giving MAGA a bad name — well, they’re not true America First at all. In fact, they’re largely coming from Muslim countries. And now we have the proof. A week ago, Fox News personality Katie Pavlich, a friend of mine, posted on X: ‘Hey @elonmusk, please make it mandatory that wherever an account is based – country – be featured in an account’s public profile. Foreign bots are tearing America apart. Thanks.’ In response, Nikita Bier, head of product development at X, said, ‘Give me 72 hours.’ And now, X has delivered.” (11/24/25)
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)
“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)
“It’s hard to imagine a greater political opportunity than releasing the full, unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files. The late financier was an unscrupulous magnet for the world’s most powerful. The task from President Donald Trump’s base was simple: Release the names, prosecute the guilty and prove that the government, when properly led, won’t protect the rich and connected. Instead, we got months of resistance, bizarre denials and attempts to frame the issue as a ‘Democrat hoax’ …. After all the performative huffing and puffing, the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed the House with just one dissenting vote, flew through the Senate and was signed into law by Trump. That’s nearly unanimous consent from a Congress that can’t agree on lunch. … One would think that would be the end of the story and transparency would flow like waterfalls. Unfortunately, that’s not how swamp water works.” (11/25/25)
“At the dawning of the British Empire in 1818, the romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley penned a memorable sonnet freighted with foreboding about the inevitable decline of all empires, whether in ancient Egypt or then-modern Britain. In Shelly’s stanzas, a traveler in Egypt comes across the ruins of a once-monumental statue, with ‘a shattered visage lying half sunk’ in desert sands bearing the ‘sneer of cold command.’ Only its ‘trunkless legs of stone’ remain standing. Yet the inscription carved on those stones still proclaims: ‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ And in a silent mockery of such imperial hubris, all the trappings of that awesome power, all the palaces and fortresses, have been utterly erased, leaving only a desolation ‘boundless and bare’ as ‘the lone and level sands stretch far away.'” (11/25/25)
“Epstein and Alan Dershowitz collaborated on smear campaigns against Mearsheimer, Walt, and an underage assault victim making allegations against Epstein — in the same week.” (11/25/25)
“[I]n the longer reach of Western history, Trump’s behavior is far more a rule than an exception. He is, really, just another giant ego out there smashing things and trying to rebuild them in his own image — perhaps even to the good on occasion. And there’s something strangely reassuring in that. Why? Because like the most extreme autocrats of the past, who almost invariably fell through arrogance and overreach, we’re already starting to see cracks in the reign of the would-be Emperor Donald the First.” (11/25/25)
“New York, August 16, 1824. The guns had scarcely fallen silent when the bells began. Bunting unfurled; apprentices scrambled onto rooftops; veterans pinned sun-faded cockades. A steamboat shrieked past Staten Island as ferries veered in for a glimpse of the man the papers called the Nation’s Guest. Then the figure who had once ridden beside Washington — older now but unmistakable — stepped ashore at Castle Garden: Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette, Marquis de La Fayette. At the subsequent reception, ‘In they came, rich and poor, Black and white … old veterans, young soldiers.’ For thirteen months and more than six thousand miles, through all twenty-four states, variations of that scene replayed: processions, banquets, tears, toasts. Ryan L. Cole’s The Last Adieu invites us to follow Lafayette’s Farewell Tour — and asks why it mattered.” (11/25/25)
“If we are living in an age of lawfare, it is fast becoming a war of attrition. The dismissal of the indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and current New York Attorney General Letitia James is the latest twist in the controversial prosecutions of Trump antagonists. James immediately posted a message celebrating the decision, but she may want to focus on the prepositional phrase following the word ‘dismissal’: ‘without prejudice.’ The administration may still be able to revive these cases. James’[s] victory lap on social media is a fitting addition to the opinion, which emphasized President Donald Trump’s social media postings about these cases. U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie noted that Trump had demanded the indictment of these and other individuals shortly before the charges were handed down.” (11/25/25)
