Source: Antiwar.com
by Jonathan Cook
“Starmer’s UK government has set the most dangerous of precedents: it can now outlaw any political group it chooses as a terrorist organisation – and thereby make it impossible to defend it.” (12/29/25)
Source: New York Post
by Jonathan Alpert
“With a triumphant Zohran Mamdani taking over as New York City mayor Jan. 1, many of my patients tell me they finally feel ‘seen’ in their resentment toward the wealthy. The anger feels righteous and moral. But it’s rarely about tax policy, wages or housing. It’s merely emotional. It’s about envy, inadequacy and the relief that comes from blaming someone else rather than looking inward. Mamdani declared during the campaign, ‘I don’t think that we should have billionaires,’ and he’s chosen Sen. Bernie Sanders, who regularly rages about them, to administer the public oath of office at City Hall. In my therapy practice, I hear what plays out in the streets. Resentment of the wealthy has become emotional currency. It gives temporary relief from feelings people don’t want to confront. Hating billionaires feels noble, but psychologically it functions as a shortcut to moral superiority.” (12/27/25)
Source: Reason
by CJ Ciaramella
“Critics of cash bail say it creates a two-tiered justice system: Those who can pay maintain their freedom, while those unable to pay remain behind bars.” (for publication 01/26)
Source: Big Head Press
by Scott Bieser
Cartoon. (12/29/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“It’s such an insult to our intelligence how Israel supporters pretend it’s the WAY pro-Palestine protests are happening that they object to, and not the protests themselves. Like if protesters were saying different chants they’d be totally cool with opposition to Israel’s crimes. They’re like, ‘We’re not trying to suppress your free speech and stomp out criticism of Israel, we’re just concerned about slogans like ‘globalize the intifada’ and ‘from the river to the sea!’ We’re worried that expressions of support for Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran that we’ve seen in some demonstrations are going to cause acts of terrorism!’ Bullshit. Lies. They’re fucking lying. If they weren’t concern-trolling about ‘globalize the intifada’ they’d make up some other excuse to express their concern, and they know it. Their objection is to criticism of Israel, not to the way those criticisms are being expressed.” (12/29/25)
Source: Orange County Register
by the editorial board
“If President Donald Trump’s tariffs and trade wars are so great for the American economy, then why does he have to shell out, as he did this month, $12 billion to farmers adversely affected by tariffs and trade wars? The simple answer is of course that tariffs and the trade wars they lead to are never great for our economy, or for that of any other country. They are additional taxes — as if we needed additional taxes — on the American consumer, and no one else.” (12/28/25)
Source: Independent Institute
by Scott Beyer
“A recent job inquiry we received at the construction company I work for illustrates the bad incentives caused by modern federal disability programs. The man who contacted us has been in and out of illness for years — enough to qualify for disability insurance. Yet he is still capable of work, doing part-time carpentry for others. But we cannot procure him because of his disability status. Hiring him could expose both him and our company to legal risk, and he cannot license or insure his business without jeopardizing his benefits, since such programs treat work as evidence of fraud rather than rehabilitation. His only rational choice is to remain officially ‘disabled’ — and not work at all, at least not on the books. There are many such cases.” (12/28/25)
https://www.independent.org/article/2025/12/28/disability-insurance-stifles-human-potential/
Source: The UnPopulist
by Suketu Mehta
“Dante wrote that the ‘greatest sorrow is the memory of earlier good times when we are going through a bad time.’ We live in fear of the tyrant’s dungeon, but we remember a time when we weren’t even aware of the existence of the dungeons. We may never have been as free as we supposed, but at least we felt free. And when you feel free, you act as if you were. You speak, you write, you protest. Can you still do that today? I am an immigrant, a journalist, and an academic: the bullseye in the Venn diagram of everything this administration hates. As a writer, I ask myself, what is my dharma? — which is Sanskrit for duty.” (12/28/25)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/liberals-will-win-by-telling-true
Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid
“Jesus Christ was a shaggy-haired anarchist troubadour, a traveling mystical heretic delivering muckraking rants against the rich and the pious. Far from what the revisionists in Rome would have you believe, Jesus was a disgruntled Jew who despised the Old Testament and the gangsters who spewed it. Christ was hostile to pretty much all authority; banks, kings, empires … But he despised no seat of power more than ‘Moses’ seat’ in the temples of ancient Roman Judea. He went from town to town, passing right by these so-called houses of God and the pompous bigots who frequented them and then headed straight for the local red-light districts to rally whores, lepers and eunuchs against them. Christ taught these people that God was a divine spark within them and that they didn’t require holy men to access enlightenment.” (12/28/25)
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2025/12/celebrate-holidays-like-jesus-and-flip.html
Source: Tenth Amendment Center
by Michael Boldin
“‘A single step’ beyond the limits of the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson warned that just one solitary act lays the foundation for unlimited power. Consider the road to 1776. It wasn’t about a tiny tax on tea; it was about the claimed authority to levy it. From the Revolution back to ancient Greece, the Founders knew the score: once government seizes power, it keeps growing and it never gives it back.” (12/28/25)