“My first post after I brought this Substack back to life almost a year ago was about DOGE, the not-exactly-part-of-the-government organization, headed by Elon Musk, that Donald Trump was creating to save money by eliminating ‘waste, fraud and abuse.’ DOGE would, I predicted, fail. And it did indeed fail, even more spectacularly than I expected: Although DOGE still has eight months left on its original charter, it has already been quietly disbanded. But although DOGE is gone, its malign legacy endures.” (11/25/25)
“If there were any doubts that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was one of the greatest scoundrels of American political history, David Beito’s new biography should settle the issue. Beito — whose previous book, The New Deal’s War on the Bill of Rights, did yeoman’s work exposing Roosevelt’s depredations against civil liberties — has now written FDR: A New Political Life, and it should help FDR get the villainous reputation he deserves. Treachery was the consistent theme of Roosevelt’s political life.” (11/25/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“It was a surprisingly exhilarating adventure packing up poster books and mailing them off to my readers. This was my first time ever physically interfacing with my audience in large numbers to any extent, and it was so beautiful going through everyone’s names and addresses and getting to send them all physical things that I could put my love into. I made so many expensive rookie mistakes and had to solve a million problems figuring out how to do this thing that I’d never attempted before, but I loved every minute of it. It filled me with so much appreciation for all of you who’ve made it possible for me to do this weird, crazy job all these years and undertake these strange projects every so often.” (11/25/25)
“America is quickly moving toward a system in which tens of millions of blue-state Republicans and red-state Democrats effectively have no congressional representation at all.” (11/25/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Katrina Gulliver
“As we look towards America’s 250th next year, it’s worth reflecting on the ways in which the events of 1776 and the Revolutionary War were remembered over the decades to follow. Note, for instance, that the Fourth of July did not become a federal holiday until 1870—long after the passing of anyone who remembered the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But in that interval, plenty of local commemorations had sprung up, and many places in the country had their own holidays and celebrations to mark events in the war. Remembrance was local and specific, marking a direct community connection to the war, until mass communication made the commemoration events more national and shared.” (11/25/25)
Source: Understanding AI
by Timothy B Lee & Derek Thompson
“If you read this article, we think you’ll be prepared for just about every conversation about AI, whether you find yourself at a Bay Area gathering with accelerationists or a Thanksgiving debate with Luddite cousins. We think some of these arguments are compelling. We think others are less persuasive. So, throughout the article, we’ll explain both why each argument belongs in the discussion and why some arguments don’t prove as much as they claim. Read to the end, and you’ll see where each of us comes down on the debate.” (11/25/25)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Jacob Gaba
“This week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott labeled the Council on American-Islamic Relations a foreign terrorist organization, and prohibited them from purchasing land in the state. That move doesn’t just have practical ramifications for CAIR’s ability to operate in Texas — it follows an all-too-familiar pattern in American history. In moments of perceived crisis, public officials cast unpopular ideological minorities as internal enemies, exploiting “security” concerns to trample on speech and belief. CAIR is a D.C.-based, national organization whose mission is to ‘enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.’ CAIR has been fiercely critical of Israel and American efforts to support Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Recently, CAIR successfully sued Abbott’s administration over executive orders that targeted pro-Palestinian campus protesters. CAIR also defended EPIC City, a Muslim-oriented development in Texas that Abbott investigated in September.” (11/25/25)
“Can regulation work when a market changes faster than a case can be litigated? The Justice Department filed its antitrust case against Google in 2020. By the time Judge Amit Mehta issued his ruling in 2024, AI large-language models had already begun to change how people search for information online. As Judge Mehta put it, ‘the emergence of GenAI changed the course of this case.’ … In fast-moving technology sectors, markets often evolve while regulatory and legal processes are still underway, increasing the risk of ill-timed remedies.” (11/25/25)
“The Chinese don’t really believe in recursive self-improvement or superintelligence. If they did, they wouldn’t be so blasé about the possibility of America having AIs 1-2 years more advanced than theirs – if our models pass the superintelligence threshold while theirs are still approaching it, then their advantage in humanoids and drones no longer seems so impressive. What is the optimal counter-strategy for America? We’re still debating specifics, but a skeletal, obvious-things-only version might be to preserve our compute advantage as long as possible, protect our technological secrets from Chinese espionage, and put up as much of a fight as possible on the application layer.” (11/25/25)
“Monday’s dismissal of the indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James — two critics of President Donald Trump whom he targeted in his campaign of political retribution — is a victory, or at least a mini-victory, for the rule of law. … Comey might personally be out of the woods, but the rule of law is not. For him, the statute of limitations has expired on the two-count indictment against him on dubious charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with his testimony before Congress. Bondi might try anyway; she has an argument that the government gets the benefit of a six-month statutory grace period to get another grand jury to indict him. But Currie’s ruling suggests that this provision doesn’t apply to an indictment brought by a fake U.S. attorney whose actual authority was no different from that of a random person off the street.” (11/25/25)
