“Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, according to Axios, told Republican donors last year he had warned President Donald Trump that his tariffs and economic policies were steering the GOP toward a midterm election disaster next fall. … As you might imagine, our mercurial president did not warmly welcome this warning. According to Cruz, Trump responded, ‘F— you, Ted.’ Somewhere, Beto O’Rourke and Jimmy Kimmel are reading that comment and conceding that they don’t always disagree with the president. If you tell donors a juicy tale about the president, sooner or later, that tale is going to leak. And while Trump no doubt enjoyed cursing out his 2016 GOP presidential primary rival, he’d be a fool if he’s still ignoring the warnings about the economy.” (01/27/26)
“During his inaugural address, President Donald Trump made very clear his thoughts on the Panama Canal: ‘We have been treated very badly from this foolish gift that should have never been made, and Panama’s promise to us has been broken.’ Chief among his concerns was that China was in effect operating the waterway. ‘We didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back,’ Trump said. And almost exactly one year later, a court decision may make Trump’s dream a reality. The Supreme Court of Panama is currently finishing up deliberations that will determine whether CK Hutchison, a private Hong Kong company, will be allowed to continue running two ports on opposite ends of the Panama Canal — a decision imbued with significant geopolitical tensions.” (01/27/26)
“If Greenland is the island rock that NATO could crash upon, NATO was already listing and in trouble. The trouble did not begin with Greenland, though Greenland could be the line crossed that exposes the critical condition of the alliance.” (01/27/26)
“They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Some will say that Mamdani’s refusal to force homeless New Yorkers in from the cold comes from a good heart and that Kathy Hochul believes she’s doing the right thing for children. Frankly, I’m skeptical.” (01/27/26)
“The assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University last year sparked a wave of anger directed at scholars for their public comments following Kirk’s death. This reaction was faster, more targeted, and more severe than the response following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Relatively few professors faced significant consequences for comments about Floyd himself. On the other hand, Floyd’s death appears to have spawned a broader, more sustained sensitivity to race-related discourse.” (01/27/26)
“Watching Kristi Noem and other Republicans once again deny reality and twist the shooting into something it plainly is not would almost be impressive if it weren’t so preposterous. The level of mental gymnastics they are demanding of the public is staggering. When regime propagandists like Noem and Gregory Bovino go on television and tell the American people to accept the ‘official’ version of events, even when it directly contradicts what anyone with eyes and a functioning brain can clearly see across multiple videos from multiple angles, we’ve crossed into classic Orwellian territory, textbook doublespeak straight out of 1984.” (01/27/26)
“David Beito argues that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a self-serving politician who cared very little for the civil liberties of Americans. In FDR: A New Political Life, Beito challenges historians who explain away Roosevelt’s horrid record on civil rights as politically strategic (in the case of black Americans) or as an exception (in the case of Japanese internment). Instead, Beito contends that FDR’s glib view of civil liberties was core to his worldview.” (01/27/26)
“Where should you look for concrete boats? At the bottom of Olympic-sized rule pools. If you’d like to check out the rule pool for yourself, dive into the Department of Veterans Affairs’ recent request for proposals for a software system to send text messages. After two paragraphs of background, a potential vendor gets a handy list of 88 ‘Applicable Documents’ that they must comply with. This includes, in its entirety, The Privacy Act of 1974; six separate policy documents about ID badges; and a 2001 executive order titled Energy Efficient Standby Power Devices.” (01/27/26)
Source: Independent Institute
by Stephen P Halbrook
“In a recent article in Scotusblog.com, Akhil and Vikram Amar attempt to answer four concerns raised in the Justices’ questioning in oral argument in Wolford v. Lopez. However, at each turn in their defense of the Hawaii law, their answers fall flat. First, the Amars address the concern that Hawaii treats the Second Amendment as a second-class right. The Justices probed Neal Katyal’s position, questioning whether the government could presumptively ban speech on private property without the property owner’s express approval. The Amars respond that the First and Second Amendments are simply different. They state that violent felons may be stripped of Second Amendment rights, but they retain their First Amendment rights. But this answer ignores the fact that after Bruen, any difference between the First and Second Amendments must be rooted in history. While disarming violent felons may have that pedigree, Hawaii’s law does not.” (01/26/26)
“While China tends to act assertively in what it regards as core sovereignty and security issues, including Taiwan and the South China Sea, it has reasons to be more reserved on issues beyond Asia. On the one hand, China’s reservation could be attributed to the simple fact that it has few benefits to gain from intervening, despite having signed strategic partnerships with countries like Venezuela and Iran. … And, besides its economic strength and so-called grey zone tactics, China does not possess military parity with the United States, ruling out the option of military operations to police the world. China neither wants to, nor can, take a greater responsibility for issues beyond its interests.” (01/27/26)
