“On one level, politics is about principles and values. At another level, it is about math. The Democrats angry about the compromise that resulted in the reopening of the federal government are confused about which level they are operating on. … Our constitutional system contains many chokepoints of different kinds — a feature, not a bug — and exploiting those is what you do, within reason, when the math is against you. Supermajority requirements empower legislative minorities, just as procedural mandates and the Bill of Rights protect minority interests outside of the legislative chamber. We do not follow strictly majoritarian conventions, nor should we: Majorities get things wrong — violently wrong, tragically wrong — all the time. That’s why the Founding Fathers so often used the word ‘democracy’ in a monitory fashion. But minority power is by nature largely obstructive in character.” (11/14/25)
“The world’s largest shopping event, Singles’ Day, was again held Nov. 11 in China – though the online bargains began weeks earlier, as is the case with Black Friday sales in other parts of the world. This year, however, the event was not just a commercial gala. China’s annual shopping spree, which began in 2009 in earnest, no longer focuses on singles. (The date 11.11 resembles ‘bare sticks’ in Chinese, an idiom for being unhitched.) The unofficial holiday of mass consumption is now a key economic indicator: Whether or not the world’s second-largest economy will fall into a downward spiral of falling prices, or deflation. Early reports from China’s giant e-commerce firms suggest spending for Singles’ Day was not enough to trigger a rise in retail prices and thus help end more than two years of declining prices.” (11/14/25)
Source: Property and Environment Research Center
by staff
“Implemented during the Biden administration, the Conservation and Landscape Health Rule was designed to help reduce conflict on federal lands and facilitate voluntary conservation. The rule identifies conservation as a valid ‘use’ of federal land under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), puts conservation on an equal footing with other uses such as grazing and energy development, and — importantly — authorizes ‘conservation leases’ as a tool to support voluntary, private investment in restoring and stewarding public lands. While PERC does not support most aspects of the Conservation and Landscape Health Rule, we believe its conservation leasing provisions are worth keeping.” (11/14/25)
“Why did [Heritage Foundation president Kevin] Roberts weigh in on the Carlson-Fuentes controversy? He obviously felt he needed to express support for the right of conservatives to be conspiracy-theory antisemites — despite the fact that Heritage itself has an antisemitism task force. Unsurprisingly, many of the task force members have now resigned. Media reporting on this story has been excellent and revealing. However, I believe that much of the commentary misjudges the true nature of Heritage, portraying it as a genuine think tank that picked the wrong leader or was corrupted by MAGA. Because the truth is that Heritage has always been a fraud. It has always been a propaganda mill cosplaying as a research institution – a scam that worked for a long time.” (11/14/25)
“Through Trump’s first term and extending through the immediate aftermath of the insurrectionary riot on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, elected officials of the Republican Party would sometimes speak out harshly against him. In every case, it was figures from the GOP’s old Reaganite establishment, who would express their criticisms in the name of principles and norms that this establishment had long affirmed. In nearly every case, such defiance of Trump ended badly for the Republican officeholder. By the time Trump became his party’s nominee in 2024, expressions of opposition to him from within his own party had all but ceased. The second Trump administration has continued and even extended this obsequious passivity before the Great Leader. [Marjorie Taylor] Greene has now brought that period of reticence to an end.” (11/15/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“There are no easy fights in the struggle against the empire. Lots of losses and no clean wins. You spend years protesting the genocide in Gaza, and you get a fake, shitty ‘ceasefire’ deal that’s just designed to shut you up while Israel continues creating hell for the Palestinians and carving off more pieces of their territory. Humanity manages to avoid nuclear conflict at the most dangerous points of the Ukraine war, but the country continues getting torn apart for years in an idiotic bloodbath that could have been easily avoided with a little diplomacy and common sense. Assange gets free, but only after he agrees to plead guilty to doing journalism, and only after years of cruel treatment have made an example of him for all the world to see.” (11/16/25)
“My town, located just outside of Chicago, has been crawling with ICE agents or soldiers (the terms deserve to be used interchangeably) for weeks now. Recently, two moms, in the cold with their whistles, helped guard a crew working on a roof that was damaged by hail in a recent storm. The ICE agents/soldiers, dressed in full military kit, carrying semi-automatic weapons, and wearing ski masks to hide their identity, are patrolling in unmarked trucks — I think we all know how to spot them at this point. These people remind me of the soldiers I patrolled with in Afghanistan, only the average ICE agent has less training than the average soldier. It seems like every neighborhood in the U.S. is now subject to an armed and potentially violent confrontation with federal troops. The U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan has come full circle.” (11/14/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Sascha Hannig
“Communist candidate Jeanette Jara is currently leading in all polls for Chile’s upcoming Presidential election. Scheduled for November 16, 2025, Jara, former labor minister and candidate for President Gabriel Boric’s coalition, looks likely to win, having secured about 30% of the national vote. … Even so, far from turning red, Chile appears more likely to swing right. Three conservative contenders are each vying for dominance, and one of them will almost certainly capture the presidency in a runoff and secure the remaining 60% of national support …. In a vacuum of leadership and alternatives, Jara seems to have been the unifying compromise. In other words, she is the left’s survival candidate.” (11/14/25)
“With annual deficits approaching $2 trillion even with the economy humming, and with defense spending down to around 3 percent of GDP (above 13 percent during the Korean War; above 9 percent during peak Vietnam), what can cause sustained economic growth of at least 5 percent to cope with the debt’s growth? Artificial intelligence? A risky reliance. Revenue from the president’s perhaps unconstitutional tariffs? A net drag on the economy. A nation that used to borrow for emergencies now is mired in a perpetual emergency because it is borrowing — $2.6 trillion annually projected by 2034 — to fund current consumption of government goods and services.” (11/14/25)
“The media wants America to panic over another government shutdown, as if life stops when Washington is not spending money. But let us be clear from the start: the shutdown is not the crisis; Congress is the crisis. The true emergency facing this nation is not a temporary pause in government operations; it is a federal government that refuses to stop mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren. America now owes more than $ 37 trillion, and Congress is adding roughly $ 25 billion to the debt every single day. We now pay over 1 trillion dollars a year in interest alone, more than our entire national defense budget. That is not normal. That is not sustainable. That is national betrayal. This financial disaster was not built by one political party alone.” (11/15/25)
