“When we lose a member of our Armed Services to the enemy on the battlefield, we mostly understand that it is part of the accepted risk. However, when Soldiers are ambushed and shot just blocks away from the White House in our Nation’s capital, it shocks us. And so is the case with 20-year-old US Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom of West Virginia, who volunteered to take a Thanksgiving tour of duty to protect the streets of Washington, DC, so that others could enjoy Thanksgiving with family. Sarah was shot in the chest and head, and we lost her. US Air Force SSG Andrew Wolfe is fighting for his life. Both were shot by an Afghan national who was allowed entry into our country, and it appears not properly vetted.” (12/01/25)
“Even Senate and House Republicans seem to comprehend the gravity of the situation. Departing from their normal spinelessness, they joined Democrats on both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Armed Services Committee in bipartisan statements vowing to investigate [the murder of two survivors of an illegal Caribbean boat attack]. Democrats — and any decent Republican — should use every tool available to insist on a thorough and independent investigation, reiterate zero tolerance for war crimes and murder, and pledge to hold everyone responsible to the full extent of the law. No wonder Trump and his minions freaked out over Democratic congressmen and senators’ video advising military personnel not to follow illegal orders.” (12/01/25)
“In the span of a week, the Trump administration succeeded in passing a United Nations Security Council resolution on Gaza (based on its earlier 20-point plan to end the conflict) and also released a 28-point peace plan for Ukraine. Commentators and critics have noted some similarities between the two initiatives. There are also profound differences that are important to note. In the first place, the intention of both plans appears to be driven by the simple and commendable goal of ending the ongoing violence in Gaza and Ukraine. While trying to do this, however, critics note that aggressors have been given undo [sic] deference. In the case of Ukraine, it was deemed that the way forward was in awarding Russia’s land grab in eastern and southern Ukraine. In the case of Gaza, no attention was paid to Israel’s genocidal crimes against Palestinians …” (12/01/25)
“During the free-speech skirmishes of the last decade, the battle lines were often drawn in a way that placed heterodox liberals and centrists on the same side as conservatives in opposing censorious progressivism. But those lines have been redrawn in recent months, after the Trump administration began aggressively targeting disfavoured expression, from overly negative museum exhibits on slavery to uncouth reactions to the murder of Charlie Kirk. Much of a triumphalist Right has now enthusiastically embraced the ‘cancel culture’ it once condemned, embracing many of the same justifications once employed by the Left (censorship, we are told, is merely ‘accountability’). The heterodox community, defined by dissent from the progressive consensus on identity and social justice, has split into those whose defence of free speech extends to the Trump administration’s abuses and those who still prefer to fight various iterations of ‘wokeness.'” (12/01/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Sergio Martínez
“Rent control is a subset of price controls. While its supposed goal is sympathetic—the desire to make housing affordable — it fails for a simple reason: it prevents prices from doing the job they exist to do.” (12/01/25)
“The experts have not been quick to assess, let alone apologize for, their performance during Covid. I took note, therefore, when two elite institutions that led the pandemic response co-hosted a retrospective event on Thursday, November 6. Johns Hopkins University is home to a world-renowned medical center and the Bloomberg School of Public Health. The American Enterprise Institute is one of Washington, D.C.’s oldest and largest public policy think tanks. Both helped shape pandemic policy and perception from its earliest days. The two organizations have been collaborating for the past year, and they framed their first event on November 6 around the book In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us, a critique of lockdowns written by two Princeton political scientists, Frances Lee and Stephen Macedo. Given their vocal insistence on maximal Covid impositions, Hopkins and AEI deserve credit for finally highlighting an opposing view.” (12/01/25)
“It’s time for all of us to admit what the American people already know: Obamacare has failed. The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, created a system that enriched insurance companies and hospitals and screwed over Americans. Obamacare didn’t let people keep their insurance plans or their doctors, and families didn’t save money — and neither did the federal government. Families have been left with higher costs and healthcare that doesn’t meet their needs. I want to tell you about a family with a preexisting health condition that I think about whenever I talk about healthcare in our country. They grew up in public housing, rarely saw a doctor. One of the kids had a hip disease. Their mom would drive 200 miles to a charity hospital to get him treatment. That was my family growing up.” (12/01/25)
“Unbeknownst to most Americans, federal regulatory agencies have their own court system for adjudicating disputes that businesses and citizens have with regulators. These agencies rely on special courts headed by administrative law judges (ALJs). One big problem with this system is that it operates independently of legitimate Article III courts. Another problem is that agency-housed tribunals have a strong tendency to favor regulators over the regulated. And yet another problem is how these judges (which I call ‘transitory’) get loaned out between agencies. Inter-agency borrowing of ALJs may not immediately stand out to the average citizen as problematic, but it raises serious questions about constitutionality, executive transparency, and bureaucratic oversight.” (12/01/25)
Source: The American Conservative
by Liam Childers
“or years, Xi Jinping has encouraged the usage of many Maoist era slogans. One such slogan, ‘Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman,’ was a Cultural Revolution staple, used in song, speeches, and on posters praising the chairman. The slogan’s reemergence highlights a connection in how the state viewed itself then and now. The slogan also reflects Xi’s view of himself. As his years in office have gone on, this self-portrait has also been imposed on the party itself. Xi is presented as singular and irreplaceable. And yet, inevitably, he will need one day to be replaced.” (12/01/25)
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Almut Rochowanski
“Before the two sides have even sat at the same table, the fate of the Donbas territories has emerged as the issue on which the sides are so far apart, and so unlikely to give in to the other, that it may doom peace talks before they even open. Ukraine considers conceding territory bitter, humiliating, and painful. Understandably so: giving up even more, after the country has lost so much and so many in defending itself, is intolerable. Russia seems grimly determined to gain the territory, if need be militarily, its recent progress on the battlefield making this threat all too credible. In this conundrum, the inhabitants of this sliver of the Donbas are offered only two futures, both of them devastating.” (12/01/25)
