“The short story used to be a viable commercial and artistic proposition, until television killed off the pulp magazines. By the 1980s, short stories were more of a loss leader for novel writers (actual or aspiring). Today, the form is mostly the province of tiny literary magazines, and its author usually survives on grants, gigs teaching creative writing and pedestrian day jobs. I’m afraid I expect the feature film to suffer a similar fate, because everything about the medium is optimized for theaters: its visual language, its lavish production budgets and even its length (long enough to be worth leaving the house for, not so long that your butt goes numb). In the future, storytelling will be optimized for streaming into our living rooms — unless, of course, it’s optimized for YouTube and TikTok, or some other technological medium I can’t yet imagine.” (12/06/25)
“America’s kids are paying a steep price for lower standards and less testing in schools — and there’s no obvious sign of a turnaround. It’s particularly troubling for New York kids, especially as state ‘leaders’ have decided to stop requiring passing scores on Regents exams to graduate high school starting in the 2027-’28 school year. How crucial are hard standards? Well, after colleges (in the benighted name of ‘equity’) stopped requiring SAT or ACT scores as part of the admissions process a few years back, a host of high schools evidently stopped teaching the skills needed to do well on such tests — even though such skills are vital to getting through college, and life. Kids who are unprepared don’t face consequences until it’s too late — i.e., when they’re already in college and struggling to do the work expected of them.” (12/06/25)
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
“Europeans at the Doha Forum in Qatar were quite clear in their disdain for President Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy and his peace plan for Ukraine, but his ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker came out swinging in favor of both, unabashedly telling an audience Saturday that U.S. partners need to step up if they want continued support from Washington and not to criticize the sausage (peace deal) while it’s being made.” (12/06/25)
“Donald Trump’s latest assault on immigrants — threatening to ‘denaturalize’ U.S. citizens who were born in other countries — is an affront to human rights and American values. It’s also a betrayal of the six million naturalized Americans who voted for him last year. Without their ballots, he wouldn’t be president. And if they turn against him, his party will be out of power. … if Trump thinks he can strip naturalized Americans of their citizenship, he’d better move fast. The backlash from nonwhite voters has already cost his party two governorships.” (12/05/25)
“It’s been nearly 10 years since the people of Haiti have voted in an election – and more than 50 since this soccer-loving nation has fielded a team in the World Cup tournament. In 2026, they’ll get to do both. On Dec. 5, a few weeks after Haiti’s November qualifying victory, World Cup organizer FIFA announced group draws for the competition. Around the same time, with somewhat less fanfare, Haiti’s transitional government announced election plans. Meanwhile, the United States called on countries to support a new United Nations-approved multinational mission to quell rampant gang violence in the Caribbean island nation. Neither the World Cup berth nor the proposed international Gang Suppression Force promise easy wins for Haitians. But they hint at a possibility of parlaying the unity and persistent effort demonstrated on the soccer pitch to the arena of politics and governance.” (12/05/25)
“About two weeks after America’s final withdrawal from Kabul, Al-Qaeda issued an open letter praising ‘the Almighty, the Omnipotent,’ the one who ‘broke America’s back’ in Afghanistan ‘the graveyard of empires.’ Al-Qaeda’s boast transformed a self-fulfilling prophecy into the Taliban’s triumphant honorific, according to Choosing Defeat, a new book by Paul D. Miller, Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Georgetown University. … In his telling, the phrase ‘graveyard of empires’ haunted U.S. policymaking for twenty years. Every wartime president invoked it, as did American generals, senior civilians, defense intellectuals, and journalists. There’s only one problem: Afghanistan never was known as the graveyard of empires — not until Milt Bearden penned an article in 2001. When asked, Bearden said he ‘just came up with the name for [his] piece for Foreign Affairs.'” (12/05/25)
“President Donald Trump has seen recent setbacks in his polling numbers on many issues, but one bright spot in surveys has been his aggressive approach to Venezuela, including taking out drug cartel boats. But there is another purpose at work here, one that may help to end the war in Ukraine. What is important to understand is that Venezuela is a client state of Russia, as is Iran, and as was Syria until the recent overthrow of Bashar al-Assad. One by one, Trump has been proving that against American might, Putin cannot keep his sketchy global friends safe.” (12/06/25)
“[T]he Trump administration has its agents arresting green card applicants as they show up for their final meeting. These are not ‘the worst of the worst’ as Donald Trump likes to put it: One was a British mother with her 4-month-old baby in her arms. (The New York Times has the whole ugly story.) These people were not accused of having entered the country illegally or of violating U.S. immigration law in some way other than following a legal process that takes a long time and creates ambiguities. Some of them were shipped off to detention centers. Why are federal agents arresting these people? Because they are the easiest people to arrest …. Some strategy: Abuse the weak, the vulnerable, and the law-abiding — chasing down the actual malefactors is too much work.” (12/05/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“The Guardian has a report out which says that at least 60,000 people were murdered by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) when they captured El Fasher in October, which would be the largest single massacre since Rwanda in 1994. Just in the last few days the RSF have reportedly killed 46 children and scores of adults in suicide drone attacks. These massacres are made possible by the United Arab Emirates, who have been funneling weapons to the RSF through a complex international supply chain. Much like the Saudi-led genocide in Yemen from 2015 to 2022 (which the UAE also participated in), this is yet another instance of a tyrannical Gulf state monarchy committing unfathomable atrocities while its friends in Washington look the other way.” (12/07/25)
“Government regulations are sold to the public as protective measures put in place to safeguard consumer health and welfare. And sometimes they do. But as we’ve discussed in this column, they often protect incumbent business interests from competition by making it harder for new or smaller competitors to enter the market. Then there’s a less discussed third intention — one that reflects the incentives of the regulators themselves: growing the government for its own sake.” (12/05/25)
