Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Richard M Ebeling
“I first met the free-market journalist Henry Hazlitt (1894-1993) in June of 1974 at an Austrian economics conference in South Royalton, Vermont. I had been reading his articles and books for years, since I was around 14 or 15 years old, not long after I became interested in classical-liberal and libertarian ideas. His famous volume Economics in One Lesson (1946), which is now celebrating its 80th anniversary, had helped open my eyes to the nature of the market economy and the contradictions in and dangers from a wide variety of interventionist and socialist policies.” (11/10/25)
“Early last month, the White House convened a meeting of right-wing influencers for a livestreamed discussion of antifa and the danger they claim it poses. Over the course of the roundtable, President Donald Trump suggested that protests against him had been organized by mysterious funders, who he hinted could soon be in ‘deep trouble.’ He complained about television networks that were biased against him but praised CBS, whose parent company had recently been purchased by a Trump-friendly billionaire. And he touted an executive order that demanded the Justice Department bring charges for burning American flags. ‘We took the freedom of speech away,’ the president said. Like so many of Trump’s pronouncements, this was something of an exaggeration …. But Trump’s comment did reflect a deeper truth about his administration’s effort to force an abrupt contraction of American civic space.” (11/10/25)
“In 2023, California adopted a law that raised the minimum wage to $20 per hour. It also created a Fast Food Council with the power to further increase wages by dictate every year. Twenty bucks an hour is a nice, round number which is probably why state lawmakers picked it — though it’s not clear why they stopped there. After all, if you’re going to create prosperity by command, why not shoot for the moon and make all the Golden State’s fry cooks millionaires? But it’s just as well that they didn’t go further — that hike to $20 per hour is killing jobs as it is.” (11/10/25)
“If I were to sum up the mindset of New Yorkers who elected Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City, it would be We want something for nothing, and we want the rich to pay for it. Instead, they will get nothing for something, and they will pay for it with a degraded quality of life. Mamdani’s victory was paved with ingratitude for the blessings New Yorkers receive daily. The mindset demanding ‘something for nothing’ from society is not just a political phenomenon, but a profound lapse in economic understanding and moral character.” (11/10/25)
“I learned basic arithmetic skills in third grade. I wasn’t exceptional; everyone in my public school third grade class learned them. Of course, we all can now use computers to have calculations done for us in a fraction of a second. But still, somehow we have major national debates that show zero understanding of even the most basic arithmetic. The latest example is the $2,000 tariff dividend check that Trump is promising us. The arithmetic here is about as simple as it gets. We have roughly 340 million people in the country. Let’s say 10 percent don’t get the check because they meet Trump’s category of ‘high-income’. That leaves over 300 million people getting Trump’s $2,000 checks. That comes to more than $600 billion. Trump’s tariffs are raising around $270 billion. That means we will be paying out $330 billion more in Trump tariff dividend checks than he is raising in tariff revenue.” (11/10/25)
“The U.S. military has murdered more than 70 people in the Caribbean and the Pacific over the last two months. The president and the Secretary of Defense have given illegal orders to kill civilians on these boats at least 18 times and every time the orders have been carried out. The president wants to use the military as his own assassins, and it appears that no one is willing to refuse that assignment.” (11/10/25)
“In last Tuesday’s elections, Trump’s regal apathy made him all but useless to his party. He never campaigned in person for Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican nominee for governor of New Jersey. He never even endorsed Winsome Earle-Sears, the party’s nominee for governor of Virginia. But Trump had plenty to say about himself. Two days before the election, he posted, ‘I’M GETTING READY TO WATCH PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP (ME!) ON 60 MINUTES.’ On Wednesday morning, hours after the Democratic sweep, Republican senators went to the White House for a breakfast with Trump. He used the occasion to distance himself from the losers. In fact, he bragged that the party’s losses underscored how special he was.” (11/10/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“It’s interesting how much the IDF’s constant ceasefire violations in Gaza and Lebanon line up with the way people familiar with Israeli culture say Israelis like to test everyone’s boundaries to find out exactly how much they can get away with. There are two terms, ‘shitat matzliach’ and ‘freier’, which come up over and over again whenever you see people discussing the prevalence of this obnoxious behavior in Israeli society. ‘Shitat matzliach’ translates to ‘successful method’, and basically means trying to exploit people in the hope that they’re naive or not paying attention and then backing off if they call you out. ‘Frier’ roughly translates to ‘sucker’, i.e. the sort of person that shitat matzliach will work on.” (11/10/25)
“The death penalty is a travesty when it is used against anyone. It is called the ultimate penalty for a reason. In the American legal tradition, it is only to be imposed after a careful weighing of evidence and consideration of the appropriateness of taking someone’s life as a punishment for crime. That is why news of the Trump administration’s campaign of bombing boats off the coast of Venezuela and in the Pacific Ocean off Mexico should be so disturbing to all Americans. It is a glaring example of the president’s ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ approach to the world.” (11/10/25)
