Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Sophia Goodfriend
“Since mid-October, some 200 U.S. military personnel have been working out of a sprawling warehouse in southern Israel, around 20 kilometers from the northern tip of the Gaza Strip. The Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) was ostensibly set up to facilitate the implementation of President Donald Trump’s 20-point ‘peace plan’ — whose stated aims are to ‘disarm Hamas,’ ‘rebuild Gaza,’ and lay the groundwork for ‘Palestinian self-determination and statehood’ — which last week received the endorsement of the UN Security Council. Yet while no Palestinian bodies have been involved in the conversations surrounding Gaza’s future, at least two private U.S. surveillance firms have found their way into the White House’s post-war designs for the Strip.” (12/10/25)
“Community colleges, historically black institutions, and big public schools are now heavily female. So, increasingly, are the country’s most selective private universities. Women make up the majority of incoming students at every Ivy League school except Dartmouth. If they were to admit applicants without considering their sex, the best schools in the country would end up with incoming classes that have an even greater predominance of women than they already do. So, largely unnoticed by the public, they have started to embrace a solution to this supposed problem that is simple, effective, and manifestly unjust: affirmative action for men.” (12/10/25)
“The Golden Globe nominations came out on Monday, and two films dominated: One Battle After Another with nine nominations and Sinners with seven. On the television side, The White Lotus led with six nominations. These productions have something in common: They are all products of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), which has also dominated the box office this year. A record seven straight Warner Bros. releases debuted with more than $40 million in receipts in their opening week this year, the most consistent run of success in movie history. This all begs the question: Why did a critical darling and commercial juggernaut publicly auction itself off, and why is it now caught in a bidding war between Netflix, with which Warner Bros. agreed to a merger last week, and Paramount, which made a hostile takeover bid on Monday?” (12/10/25)
“The American economy in the quarter century after 1865 remains without exaggeration the greatest example of material development and the expansion of mass prosperity in world history. We cannot compare ourselves favorably to the best economy that ever was, namely the Gilded Age (the term comes from a Mark Twain book of 1873), but we can and should aspire to emulate the best. If we are not in a new Gilded Age today — we are not, because we are not growing enough — it would be commendable if we aspired to be. Perhaps the HBO series (which takes place in the 1880s) is striking a chord because we were once that good, and we know we can be again.” (12/10/25)
Source: The American Conservative
by Harrison Berger
“Just a year ago, a series of pardons signed by President Joe Biden, apparently executed through the ‘autopen’ and seemingly without his direct involvement, rightly became the subject of intense scrutiny from conservative media. Right-wing stars Megyn Kelly and Steve Bannon among others bashed the autopen pardon of a convicted killer from Connecticut, Adrian Peeler, even proposing legal theories for how Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Justice Department might be able to undo Biden era pardons. Yet one month ago, Trump unwittingly mimicked Biden’s inattentiveness when, after pardoning Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, Trump told CBS’s 60 Minutes that he did not even know who the crypto exchange founder was. … while conservatives had no trouble denouncing Biden’s autopen pardons, the same standard of scrutiny is overdue for the clemency system now operating inside this administration.” (12/10/25)
“I have a riddle for you. If we call a drug smuggler a combatant, how many combatants died when SEAL Team 6 killed 11 men on a cocaine boat near Venezuela on September 2? Zero, because calling a drug smuggler a combatant does not make him a combatant. That reality goes to the heart of the morally and legally bankrupt justification for President Donald Trump’s bloodthirsty anti-drug campaign in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, which began on September 2 and so far has killed 87 people in 22 attacks. The September 2 operation is newly controversial because it included a follow-up missile strike that blew apart two defenseless survivors of the initial attack as they clung to the smoldering wreckage. But all these attacks entail the use of deadly force in circumstances that do not justify it.” (12/10/25)
“Less than a year into his second term, President Donald Trump is already hobbling toward lame duck status. His approval rating has plummeted to 36 percent, according to Gallup’s latest survey, including just a 25 percent thumbs-up among independents. He’s squandered his gains with Latino voters, with nearly 80 percent now telling Pew that his policies are more harmful than helpful. Democrats, meanwhile, are enjoying an uptick in their electoral fortunes. Democratic gubernatorial candidates Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill cruised to victory in Virginia and New Jersey, while generic Congressional ballots have begun to show commanding leads for Democrats hopeful of capturing the House. But don’t mistake Trump’s unpopularity with newfound affection for Democrats, warns strategist Simon Bazelon, a Research Fellow at the Democratically aligned organization Welcome. Democrats have increasingly shifted leftward in recent years, Bazelon argues, and are perceived as too liberal and out of touch.” (12/10/25)
“A small but consequential shift is taking place in co-ops and condos, and it deserves far more scrutiny than it’s getting. Habitat Magazine recently reported that more buildings are adopting ‘good citizen rules’ that ban ‘any verbal or physical conduct that is threatening, harassing, or otherwise offensive to anyone else.’a The language is framed as common sense. Who could oppose civility, respect, and peaceful use and enjoyment? But rules built around offense, rather than conduct, carry real risks. They subordinate clear standards to individual feelings and give boards broad authority to police speech according to subjective judgments. That is a recipe for abuse of power, not harmony.” (12/09/25)
“The Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy (NSS) is a mixed bag. Despite the Monroe Doctrine being declared in 1823, the Western Hemisphere, the geographically closest area to the United States, has been neglected in post-war U.S. foreign policy in order to undertake American interventions in regions perceived to be more important. Since 1945, the top priorities of U.S. policy have been in Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East. Thus, the new Trump NSS laudably puts more emphasis on the Western Hemisphere. However, in the document, the ‘Trump Doctrine’ appears to primarily rediscover the coercive aspects of the Monroe Doctrine, aimed at keeping foreign influence out of the hemisphere. Yet the first chapter of such coercive U.S. policy, from the 1898 Spanish-American War to the late 1920s, did not go that well.” (12/09/25)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Thorsten Polleit
“At the US-Saudi Investment Forum on November 19, 2025, entrepreneurial titan Elon Musk shared with his audience his vision of the future shaped by advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. Among other things, Musk said: ‘And my guess is, if you go out long enough — assuming there’s a continued improvement in AI and robotics, which seems likely — money will stop being relevant.’ A future in which money no longer plays a role? Is that really possible, or at least probable? To answer these questions, let us first recall why people have demanded money for thousands of years.” (12/09/25)
