“In mid-September, I wrote a moderately optimistic piece for the Prospect, taking stock of the various elements of resistance, most notably courts and elections. Many readers felt I was being a little too hopeful. Since Election Day, however, there has been a notable shift. And each aspect feeds on the others. They include: * A Democratic wave election that is likely to be repeated and intensified in 2026; * Lower courts becoming even bolder in striking down Trump’s excesses; * The Supreme Court likely to overturn three key Trump cases: tariffs, his efforts to fire Federal Reserve governors, and birthright citizenship; * At least some states, such as Indiana and Kansas, resisting Trump’s redistricting demands: * The continuing fallout from the Epstein files; * Republican defections.” (11/21/25)
“Unlike South African apartheid which backed supremacy and exploitation, Israeli apartheid condones ethnic cleansing, even mass atrocities — as evidenced by the obliteration of Gaza and anti-Palestinian violence in the West Bank.” (11/21/25)
“For those who missed the internationally publicized brouhaha, a tabby named Kit Kat had lived in the city’s Mission, where he sauntered into bodegas and bars. Dubbed the Mayor of 16th Street, Kit Kat was by all accounts a charming character. Then on October 27, the unthinkable happened: a Waymo self-driving taxi ran him over. Kit Kat’s fans have erected memorials and took to social media to mourn. There’s nothing wrong with mourning the death of a neighborhood cat. … my problem isn’t with the upset, but with the proposed solutions. As The New York Times reported, ‘Jackie Fielder, a progressive San Francisco supervisor who represents the Mission District, has been among the most vocal critics. She introduced a city resolution after Kit Kat’s death that calls for the state Legislature to let voters decide if driverless cars can operate where they live.'” (11/21/25)
“The reality that Donald Trump’s presidency will end in January 2029 is already making Republicans restless. Normally, Trump angers, exhausts, and eventually prevails over elected Republicans — not vice versa. Just this week, though, rebellious Republicans forced the release of the so-called Epstein files in defiance of Trump, who had spent months trying to suppress them before abruptly reversing course. Plenty of other cracks are showing too: Staunch allies of the president are mouthing critiques that would have been unfathomable a year ago. These disputes are the prelude to an ugly battle over the post-Trump Republican Party.” (11/21/25)
“Free-marketeers have long pointed out a particular asymmetry between capitalism and socialism (whether of the international or national variety). While anyone in a capitalist society would have a right to engage in socialism (as anyone can do now in our hampered market economy), the reverse would not hold: under socialism — that is, a centrally planned economy, democratic or not — no one would be free to engage in ‘capitalist acts between consenting adults’ (to use Robert Nozick’s phrase from Anarchy, State, and Utopia). It would upset the plan.” (11/21/25)
“Do you sell cupcakes, run a home photography studio, or tutor kids in your living room? If so, you might be breaking the law. In the US, zoning ordinances often treat modest home enterprises as threats to the neighborhood. If you’re just running an online business, local governments generally won’t bother you, but if clients are coming to your home, then they try to limit the visibility and impact of your business. Have these regulations gone too far? Should state governments tell local governments to leave home-based businesses alone, within certain limits?” (11/21/25)
Source: Independent Institute
by Matthew B Crawford
“Transformative urban planning has long been an ambition of the high-modernist mindset. Its goals are usually public health, efficiency, beauty and something more elusive—order. Some cities that have received the full treatment over the past two centuries are wonderful places to visit despite their controversial remakings; see Paris …. Others, like Brasilia and Chandigarh (both designed from the ground up by Le Corbusier), quickly became ghost towns, full of high-modernist buildings and plazas of impressive conceptual ambition through which the wind whistled forlornly, eventually to be repurposed by squatters or stripped of building materials for use in the surrounding shanty towns where urban life carries on in defiance of the master plan.” (11/21/25)
“No one in the American military swears allegiance to any individual. The oaths are not pledges of loyalty to a party, a personality, or a political movement. Loyalty is pledged to the Constitution — and officers further take that obligation ‘without mental reservation,’ knowing full well it may someday require them to stand with courage between unlawful authority and the people they serve.” (11/21/25)
“Argentina’s Ministry of Deregulation — yes, it now has one — reports that by June 2024, little more than half a year after chainsaw-wielding libertarian candidate Javier Milei won the presidential election, the housing market boomed … into a magnificent recovery.” (11/21/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Kym Kent
“Recently, a colleague handed me an article by The Free Press, ‘The College Kids Who Can’t Do Basic Math,’ and asked for my thoughts. The article cited a November 6, 2025, report from the University of California San Diego (UCSD), which revealed that the math skills of approximately one in eight of their first-year students were below middle-school level. In the wake of earlier reports of Harvard offering remedial math classes, the fact that UCSD was offering similar classes was not surprising. As I processed what I was reading, I wrestled with conflicting internal responses.” (11/21/25)
