“In a three-decade-long military standoff with China over one of the world’s critical waterways, the Philippines has now deployed its latest response. Last month, it sent a 40-page comic book to schools, full of colorful stories about the country’s well-recognized claims to its maritime territory in the South China Sea. The aim of the graphic novelette, said officials, is ‘to put forward the truth’ against China’s disinformation campaign – which includes a narrative of peaceful intent in grabbing islands far from its shores – and to inspire young Filipinos ‘to protect what is rightfully ours.’ ‘It is crucial for us to shed light on these actions as transparency is a powerful tool in combating misinformation,’ said national security adviser Eduardo Ano.” (02/26/25)
“I’ll be blunt: I’ve been skeptical of what this agency will accomplish despite all the excitement surrounding it. Yes, it has managed to bring about some significant cuts. But it is important to remember that these cuts represent a minuscule percentage of overall government spending. To make a more significant impact, Musk and his team will have to get Congress on board with making further cuts to shrink the size and scope of the federal government. This will not be an easy mountain to climb.” (02/25/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Kym Kent
“When I share with others that I have graduated four of my six homeschooled children so far, there’s often a pause, followed by a barrage of questions, from: ‘How did you do that?’ to ‘What did it look like after they graduated?’ Almost immediately, the discussion shifts to high school. While most believe elementary and even middle school are manageable, high school homeschooling is typically viewed as a Herculean effort that’s nearly impossible. At that point, one of two assumptions is usually formed. Either that the homeschool parent has a hidden superhero cape, or their kids are really not capable of functioning academically — and this ‘homeschooling thing’ is a way to get them a form of education, but not one that will enable them to accomplish much in the future.” (02/25/25)
“So having voted out the virtue-signallers, now the good people of America must suffer the vice-signallers? Take Steve Bannon’s salute at CPAC. We all know what he was up to. He was triggering the libs and titillating the Very Online right. It was a massive troll designed to get the CNN crowd fuming and the ironic fascists of X chuckling. So 77million US voters say a firm No to the eccentric ideologies of the faux-virtuous liberal elite, only to see them replaced by the eccentric antics of vice-flirting conservatives? Great. … there’s something more than cultural goading going on here. Bannon’s knowing ‘wave’ also speaks to a crisis of normalcy on sections of the American right. It sometimes feels as though the freaks of political correctness have been replaced by the freaks of political incorrectness.” (02/25/25)
“Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has moved to block President Donald Trump’s proposed $8.5 billion weapons transfer to Israel as Israeli forces have repeatedly violated the cease-fire agreement in Gaza and Trump is pushing a plan for the permanent forced expulsion of all Palestinians in the Strip. Last week, Sanders introduced four Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRDs) aimed at blocking the sales. The transfer includes 2,166 small-diameter bombs, 2,800 500-pound bombs, 3,000 Hellfire missiles, and tens of thousands of JDAMs and artillery shells. These weapons have been used extensively in Israeli attacks on Gaza that experts have said are likely war crimes due to their impact on civilians, with many saying that the very use of many of these weapons on a region as densely populated as Gaza would constitute an indiscriminate attack on civilians.” (02/25/25)
“For US citizens, the kind of population-level surveillance one typically associates with China is not an uncertain or abstract future threat. Although less advanced than what one might find in China, such surveillance programs are already here. Furthermore, they are growing ever more intrusive while our courts have yet to provide meaningful guidance on their constitutionality. Such were the sentiments expressed in a December telephone interview by Michael Soyfer, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that describes itself as seeking to challenge abuses of government power and protect the constitutional rights of Americans.” (02/25/25)
“Just as there’s no constitutional requirement for the president or the White House to host, humor, and answer to journalists, there’s no constitutional requirement for the press to cover the president or the White House at all. Why don’t the major newspapers, television networks, etc. get together and set up the White House ‘press pool’ on their own terms instead of subjecting themselves to the president’s terms? They could rent, buy, or build a small studio/auditorium facility, handle their own journalist credentialing, and let the White House and the president know when they’ll be hosting briefings. The president and/or press secretary could show up or not. If they showed, maybe they’d get some coverage. If not, there’s always other news to report, right?” (02/25/25)
“Wokeness seems to embody two features: on one hand, collectivist or groupist ideals; on the other hand, a rejection of reason and truth. Interestingly, the political opponents of wokeness in America and the world tend to reproduce these same two features — with, on the right, more emphasis on collectivist nationalism than tribal groupism. Both strands of wokeness, on the right and the left, are ridiculous and may exceed the limits of conversation. A rational conversation with a clown is difficult.” (02/25/25)
“There’s a reason crank wellness influencers migrated right. Or why COVID conspiracists, even those whose politics used to be liberal, turned reactionary. Or why Trump is able to pump-and-dump meme coins to fleece his supporters. The GOP has become the home for people who felt out of step with the mainstream consensus, which meant the expert consensus, and their response wasn’t to acquire expertise to find faults in that consensus (which there are plenty to find), but instead to simultaneously reject the value of expertise while also elevating to the role of infallible expert anyone who could, in their ignorant assessment, convincingly talk the talk of an expert while not challenging their preexisting beliefs and prejudices. What makes the GOP’s circular con game circular is that everyone is simultaneously conning each other while being conned.” (02/25/25)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Every day, millions of Americans cross state borders without encountering border-control stations, where they would otherwise have to show some sort of identification and have their vehicles inspected for contraband or dangerous people. There is total, unrestricted, free movements of goods, services, and people across state borders. … most Americans are willing to take their chances rather than ostensibly be kept ‘safe’ by an extensive state border-control system, state border patrols, border walls, and an ever-growing series of border police-state measures that destroy liberty and privacy. Notice something important about our domestic system of open borders: There is no border chaos or border crises between the states.” (02/25/25)
