Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Just as the news breaks that Trump has issued Maduro an ultimatum to leave Venezuela immediately if he wants to escape with his life, the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal has published an amazingly brazen war propaganda piece titled ‘How Venezuelan Gangs and African Jihadists Are Flooding Europe With Cocaine.’ ‘Venezuela has become a major launchpad for huge volumes of cocaine shipped to West Africa, where jihadists are helping traffic it to Europe in record quantities,’ the article begins, going out of its way to note that ‘the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro — who it asserts is heavily involved in drug smuggling — has brought global attention to the country’s role in the drug trade.’ The propaganda piece is plainly aimed at Europeans as well as Americans …” (12/02/25)
“US President Trump ordered the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela ‘closed in its entirety’ on November 29. Yet the US has as much legal and moral authority to shutter the skies over Venezuela as the Venezuelans have to close the putting greens at Mar-a-Lago. Yes, that’s ridiculous – but not any more so than Washington’s phony pretext of drug interdiction for their deadly regime-change offensive against Venezuela.” (12/02/25)
“Ruled by Her Imperial Majesty, Michelle (I) Lujan Grisham, since 2019, the State has increasingly become both more socialist and returned more to its origin and roots as a (now-‘independent’) province of Imperial Spain. It is a curious mix of bizarre sects and ‘alternative lifestyles’ and traditional Spanish, AmerInd culture, and high-tech. It is both poor and expensive to live in. One of the most recent examples is the ‘Universal Child Care’ plan pushed by HIMajesty and gladly accepted by the State’s Woke legislature. Every child in the State will now be entitled to receive free childcare, both preschool and apparently before and after school hours.” (12/01/25)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Joseph Solis-Mullen
“Among the many figures who contributed to the growth and refinement of classical liberalism in Europe, few are more deserving of renewed attention than Charles Forbes René de Montalembert (1810–1870). A French Catholic nobleman, publicist, parliamentarian, and intellectual, Montalembert stood at the center of the 19th century struggle to reconcile Catholicism with political liberty at a time when both reactionary monarchists and militant secularists claimed exclusive ownership of France’s future. His life and writings offer a vision of liberty that is moral, pluralistic, and resistant to the centralizing ambitions of the modern state — precisely the kind of vision Ralph Raico argued must remain at the heart of any authentic liberal tradition.” (12/01/25)
“Is it too much to ask for immigrants who love America and its system of government? That’s a question that President Trump has been asking, with an especially high level of vitriol, in the wake of the horrific shooting of members of the National Guard in Washington, DC, the day before Thanksgiving. In a corker of a Truth Social post announcing ‘a permanent pause’ in immigration from Third World countries, Trump went after Minneapolis-area Rep. Ilhan Omar, and for good reason. Omar stands for everything we shouldn’t want an immigrant to be — ungrateful, hostile to the American system as such, and perhaps not above perpetrating immigration fraud. Maybe the next time that Omar is a refugee from a war-torn, desperately poor African country looking for a safe haven in the West, she should try Canada or Australia.” (12/02/25)
“Americans have been paying property taxes since the colonial era — and complaining about them for just as long. It’s about as American as you can get. (The paying and the complaining.) These days, the complaints are getting louder, with calls for abolition. The objections are understandable: far too often, local government officials have failed to reduce rates as assessed values have skyrocketed, yielding large unlegislated tax increases. Reforms are warranted. But repeal? It may be asking too much for most people to like property taxes, but all policy choices involve trade-offs, and for those who care about economic efficiency, neutrality, decentralization, and government accountability, the property tax deserves to be rated highly, if not in absolute terms, at least relative to the alternatives.” (12/01/25)
“One of the questions I get asked the most goes like this: When are Republican elected officials finally going to start standing up to Donald Trump? And my answer is always the same: As soon as Republican base voters start to turn on him. Well, we may be there — or heading in that direction. … In Gallup’s poll last month, Trump was at 91% among Republicans. Now he’s at 84%. Look, this isn’t the end of the world. If Trump stays in the mid to high 80s among Republican base voters, it is very unlikely there will be a stampede of elected GOP officials breaking with him publicly. But that trend line is not encouraging for Trump.” (12/01/25)
“The United States is the world leader in regime change, toppling 35 foreign heads over the past 120 years, by one reckoning. It’s a record built on a dangerous combination of unparalleled military might, a large group of perceived enemies — and a sunny self-confidence that has repeatedly proven mistaken. … Regime change and other strong-arm interventions rarely go as planned, but some of those that Trump is threatening, such as going ‘guns-a-blazing’ into Nigeria, with its armed extremists and ethnic and sectarian divides, seem like obvious disasters. But past failures should remind Americans of how catastrophic the consequences of hubris can be — both on an individual human scale and a national one.” (12/01/25)
“The cryptocurrency tumbled 7% in less than 24 hours. Explanations for the drop remain murky, leading many to speculate that something fishy is going on..” (12/01/25)
