“Friday, December 12, marks twenty-five years since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bush v. Gore, which decided the outcome of Florida’s presidential election and, ultimately, America’s choice for its forty-third president. The date doesn’t pop up on the calendar as do other moments in the republic’s history, either celebratory (July 4) or tragic (September 11). But what transpired a quarter of a century ago matters thus: reverse the decision and it’s quite possibly a very different America.” (12/09/25)
“States in general, and the EU in particular, have a lot in common with the users of social media platforms: Both want to decide how those platforms get used. States in general, and the EU in particular, also have a lot in common with the owners of social media platforms: Both want to make money on those platforms. Those commonalities make for an alliance of convenience between users and owners versus states. Owners make their money by pleasing users; states make their money by demanding bribes … er, ‘fines’ … from owners, often as punishment for refusing to cooperate in state censorship of user-created content. … So why doesn’t [Elon Musk] start his own country, with a state fashioned after his own liking, base his social media platform there, do business exclusively there, and tell the other states to go pound sand when they demand control and/or a piece of the financial action?” (12/09/25)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“It’s easy to assume that with its drug-war killings in the Caribbean, the Pentagon is sending a message only to Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro: ‘We can kill your citizens with impunity and there is nothing that you or anyone else can do about it.’ In actuality, however, the Pentagon is sending the same message to the American people: ‘We can kill anyone we want, including American citizens, and there is nothing that you or anyone else can do about it.'” (12/09/25)
“The Trump administration released its National Security Strategy (NSS) last week. There is limited value in trying to make sense of Trump’s foreign policy by looking at strategy documents when the president largely just makes things up as he goes and often makes policy decisions for arbitrary and irrational reasons. The only real value that the NSS has this year is that it tells us how the administration is justifying the president’s ad hoc interventions around the world. For the Western Hemisphere, this means dressing up the president’s militarism and meddling as the ‘Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.'” (12/09/25)
“Nationalism doesn’t just historically correlate with bigotry — it consistently drives antisemitism and other racial and ethnic prejudices. Indeed, nationalism intensifies preexisting antisemitic impulses. To the degree that today’s conservatives decide to embrace — or even just make peace with — nationalism and dispense with the universalist liberal principles of the American Founding, they will find it difficult to impossible to stem the spread of antisemitism in their midst.” (12/09/25)
“If there is one theme that has shaped recent American politics, it is the steady concentration of power in the presidency. Congress — under both parties — has repeatedly delegated authority that was never meant to rest in a single office. The consequences are now impossible to ignore. The actions of President Donald Trump reveal how fragile our liberties become when one person holds too much power.” (12/08/25)
“Over the weekend, tens of thousands of Brazilian women participated in rallies calling for stronger action to tackle violence against women, which remains intolerably high. A few weeks earlier, several thousand South African women participated in ‘lie-downs’ across the country to call attention to the same issue. ‘Just as women many years ago protested … for the changes that we are privileged to experience today,’ said a South African participant in her 20s, ‘we also need to be the generation that steps up.’ Coinciding with the global ’16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence’ campaign, these events underscore how much remains to be done to uphold the safety and dignity of women and girls the world over. As well as laws and enforcement, the process requires confronting deep-rooted traditions and cultural notions that constrain the full participation and vigorous contributions of half the world’s population.” (12/08/25)
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey
“Via the USDA, President Trump has announced a fresh $12 billion aid package for farmers, with $11 billion earmarked specifically for crop producers of corn, soybeans, and wheat. The administration says this is a ‘bridge’ to help farmers survive low prices and trade disputes. The money, they claim, comes directly from tariff revenues. Payments are set to arrive early next year, provided farmers file their respective paperwork by December 19. Supporters are cheering this as ‘putting American agriculture first.’ But let’s get real. In plain English: the government is breaking farmers’ legs with tariffs and then handing them crutches paid for by you, the consumer. … Who actually gets this money? You might picture a struggling family with a small red barn. The actual data says otherwise. According to the Cato Institute, farm subsidies overwhelmingly benefit large, wealthy agribusinesses.” (12/09/25)
“Failing to bear the costs and consequences of bad decisions is as perverse as failing to incentivize the costs and consequences of good decisions. This seems elementary enough to not even mention, but we often create public policy that seems to deny this fundamental axiom. A case in point is federal government safety nets. Often begun with every good intention, they frequently break down after years of implementation. Government programs tend to grow more bureaucratic, becoming more interested in expanding power and budgets than in solving the problem they were chartered to solve.” (12/09/25)
“Only recently, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP30, met in Brazil for two weeks. While 194 countries were represented there, the historically greatest fossil-fuelizer on the planet, Donald Trump’s United States, was, of course, missing in action (for the first time in 30 years). Worse yet, while the conference was underway, the Trump administration announced a new plan to open 1.3 billion acres (no, that is not a misprint!) of coastal waters to new oil and gas drilling. As for the conference itself, after floundering and almost foundering, its member nations barely agreed on a way more or less forward, what were termed ‘baby steps’ toward a better (or at least less utterly disastrous) future. And yet, can you believe this? The final agreement didn’t even include the words ‘fossil fuels’ or reaffirm in blunt language that they should be phased out! (President Trump must have been pleased!)” (12/09/25)
