“This year’s Nobel Prize laureate has spent much of her time recently in the U.S. lobbying policymakers to squeeze Maduro into vacating power. Constantly at risk of detention in her own country, [María Corina] Machado is granting interviews and dialing into conferences to advocate for regime change. Her talking points are clearly tailored for the Trump administration: Maduro is the head of a drug cartel that is poisoning Americans; his dictatorship rests on weak pillars; and the forces of democracy inside Venezuela are fully prepared to seize the mantle once Maduro is gone. … But as the old saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. While there’s no disputing that Maduro is a despot and a fraud who steals elections, U.S. policymakers can’t simply take what Machado is saying for granted.” (11/12/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler
“Though there is consensus in both the EU and US that clock-changing is a damaging and outdated practice, the debate about whether to adopt ST or DST permanently continues. Perhaps Franklin had the right answer two-and-a-half centuries ago: go to bed when it’s dark and rise with the sun, regardless of the arbitrarily-assigned hour. All governments have to do is supply the cannons needed to encourage this.” (11/12/25)
“Next month, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr will testify before the Senate Commerce Committee over his role in browbeating ABC into briefly suspending late-night ‘comedian’ Jimmy Kimmel. After Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Kimmel made stupid and insensitive comments that prompted Carr to wade into the fray, threatening to use his regulatory power to punish the TV host and his network. That prompted bipartisan condemnation of government interference and the upcoming Senate hearing. Now, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) wants to go further, suggesting five legal changes to make censorship by government officials more difficult.” (11/12/25)
“Were Milei’s radical reforms saved at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer? Bessant was asked this, yesterday, directly on MSNBC, and had a response: ‘Do you know what a swap line is?’ I had to brush up on it. … A currency swap is a financial agreement between two parties to exchange principal amounts and interest payments in different currencies over a set period — a temporary loan in one currency backed by collateral in another, designed to provide liquidity, hedge exchange rate risks, or access cheaper funding without the full risks of outright borrowing. ‘In most bailouts you don’t make money,’ Bessent said. ‘The U.S. government made money.’ In an exchange, both parties gain. But in any exchange involving extended spans of time, there is risk, so any initial win for Treasury could be wasted by a failure of Milei’s course.” (11/12/25)
“Regardless of who or what political party is in power, the untouchable layer does not seem to change much, from marble-walled compounds in Dubai or Bahrain to gilded palaces in Palm Springs — and a billionaire’s private island where other billionaires visit and do whatever they want, no matter whom they hurt. Untouchables enrich one another, protect one another’s power and keep each others’ secrets. At this societal layer, Democratic and Republican parties become irrelevant, and debate is merely theater. There is only one party, and we are not in it. … President Trump promised full disclosures and investigations into Epstein, then backtracked on his promise.” (11/12/25)
“Rural voters may be disproportionately dependent on certain kinds of government services, and their families often depend on income and benefits associated with government employment, but they are not left-wing radicals either as a matter of policy preference or as a matter of temperament. … Trump did not run in those counties as a socialist talking about income redistribution and intersectionality: He ran as a guy bitching about high prices at the grocery store. Rural America listened. And Trump, being Trump, has repaid rural America for its support by screwing over America’s farmers …. There are votes there in the countryside to be had by those willing to fight for them — they probably should not send the incoming mayor of New York City to do the asking, but one would think that would be obvious enough even for Democrats.” (11/12/25)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Americans living today have lived their entire lives under governmental systems and policies that have come with perpetual war, interventionism, embargoes, sanctions, coups, state-sponsored assassinations, extrajudicial murders, foreign aid to brutal regimes, torture, invasions, occupations, tariffs, trade wars, immigration controls, an immigration police state, wars of aggression, out of control federal spending and debt, and massive infringements on civil liberties. From the first grade on up, Americans have been inculcated with the notion that all this is ‘freedom.’ As adults and oftentimes to the day they die, they enthusiastically stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, sing the Star Spangled Banner, and thank the troops, the CIA, and the NSA for protecting their ‘freedom.’ Given such, I believe it’s important to periodically set forth the libertarian ideal with respect to all this statism.” (11/12/25)
“I can still see and hear it in my mind’s eye: cruise missiles skimming low over Baghdad during the Gulf War, the air vibrating, my voice raised above the roar and the crack of anti-aircraft fire. Back then, we were reporters, not presenters. We didn’t measure risk in ratings or clicks or choose our words from lists approved by diversity, equity and inclusion committees. We told it as it was: raw, immediate and real. Today, CNN faces yet another ‘strategic reset’ under David Zaslav’s Warner Bros. Discovery. The network confronts a reckoning far more profound than shrinking ratings or revenue. It must decide whether it stands for good, independent journalism. To my generation, good journalism matters. We bear witness. We write and broadcast the first draft of history from the front, not the studio floor or some convenient live-shot location well behind the lines.” (11/11/25)
