“Over the past year, several cities in the United States have erupted temporarily into war zones. Violence has broken out between immigration agents and those living in the country illegally [sic], or Americans hampering deportations. In recent days, a killing in Minneapolis and shootings in Oregon by federal agents have highlighted the potential for personal tragedy stemming from the Trump administration’s enforcement of immigration laws as well as the street tactics opposing such law enforcement. Agents of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have been connected to at least 14 shootings over the past 12 months. At the same time, the mental impact on these federal officers has also risen, perhaps causing many to be too quick to pull the trigger.” [editor’s note: ICE agents are free to give up the thug life and get real jobs if people’s natural reactions to murderous goons makes them feel unsafe – TLK] (01/09/25)
“Was the 2016 election a turning point for American democracy? Did political shenanigans and the election destroy so much credibility and legitimacy that the system will never fully recover? In 2016, ignorant voters were reviled like never before. However, the entire political-media system floundered badly. Never before had American voters been obliged to choose between two such widely despised candidates. A few months before the election, an Associated Press poll ‘found that 86 percent of Americans were angry or dissatisfied with the state of politics in the nation.’ Routine deceit by both candidates helped make ‘post-truth’ the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year for 2016.” (01/09/26)
“The claim that protectionism serves ‘higher ends’ rests on a confusion about both economics and the non-economic goals people actually value.” (01/09/26)
“On Wednesday, a woman named Renee Good was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis. There are a lot of things you could say about the shooting. … You could point out that it is extremely unclear why ICE officials were stopping her in the first place, or what legal authority they were exercising at that moment. You could point out how unnecessary the entire incident was, how eyewitness accounts emphasize that Good was not acting in a threatening manner …. But what’s most important to say is how utterly predictable Good’s death was. This was not an unforeseeable tragedy or a freak accident. It was the inevitable outcome of an immigration enforcement apparatus that has been poorly trained, sheltered from consequences, and empowered to behave recklessly.” (01/09/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Larsen Plyler
“It is taken, in many cases, to be fact that the reason the Constitutional Convention was called and that the Constitution was ratified was because of the failure of the Articles of Confederation system. The folks at Heritage have made their position clear: ‘The first plan the Framers tried after declaring independence was called the Articles of Confederation. The government that the Articles created failed because it was too weak to coordinate national policy among states with different priorities.’ Now, this is not particularly a criticism of the Constitution, though I believe there is room for that. But, I simply want to raise questions: What if the Articles were not failing? What if they were doing exactly what they were intended to do? What if the Articles were successful, but success was not in the agenda of powerful people?” (01/09/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“All these abuses are going to continue until the people rise up and force them to stop. Western governments are going to get more and more authoritarian. Police forces are going to get more and more militarized and murderous. Freedom of speech is going to be crushed with more and more aggression. Military budgets are going to get more and more bloated. The imperial war machine is going to get more and more belligerent, genocidal and expansionist. The gap between the rich and the poor is going to keep growing and growing. People are going to get more and more miserable and mentally unhealthy. The systems we use to gather information about our world are going to get more and more tightly controlled by the powerful. The extraction of resources and labor from the global south will get more and more abusive and overt.” (01/09/25)
“As anyone living today knows, the Luddites were fighting a losing battle. Though they broke stocking frames, burned factories, and killed mill owners, their efforts to stymie the rise of new cost-reducing machines could not compete with the power of the British state. Their legendary leader, Ned Ludd, inspired disgruntled craftsmen and terrified the authorities like a nineteenth-century Robin Hood. Yet the long processes of enclosure, technological innovation, and global expansion would nonetheless bring mass urbanization, the destruction of local cultures, and the rise of the technologically driven society we inhabit today. In his book Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity, Paul Kingsnorth speaks with the voice of a modern-day Ned Ludd, naming the force that propelled this change: The Machine. What exactly is Kingsnorth’s Machine? It is the culmination of all the ills of modernity.” (01/09/26)
Source: Common Dreams
by Harvey J Kaye & Alan Minsky
“Common Sense by Thomas Paine is the most influential work of political literature in American history. Self-published on January 10, 1776, Common Sense instantly became a sensation, spreading like wildfire across the colonies. Within a few weeks, it had sold more copies than any book in the history of the colonies. Paine’s arguments persuaded thousands-upon-thousands of people throughout the 13 colonies to demand more than reform, to support complete independence from England and join the revolutionary cause. Less than six months after Common Sense was first published in Philadelphia, the Declaration of Independence was signed in the same city, establishing a new country defined, in contrast to its European predecessors, by its commitment to equality, liberty and the consent of the governed—just as Paine advocated in Common Sense (and, unlike the founding fathers, Paine did not hesitate to advocate for democracy).” (01/10/25)
“Recently, I came across a commercial by Mayor Mamdani, who advertises his approach to supporting small businesses. He correctly identifies over-regulation as one of the unnecessary obstacles in opening and conducting small businesses in New York. Then he suggested creating yet another department in the mayor’s office, which would help businesspeople navigate the web of requirements the city demands from businesses. (It looks like a socialist brain is pre-wired to produce this kind of solution: any issue needs its own bureaucratic apparatus.) But he never mentioned the main reason why it is so difficult for new small businesses to survive, besides high rent, that is the minimum wage mandate. On the contrary, among his priorities is to raise the city’s minimum wage. He imagines politicians can decree prosperity by commanding higher pay.” (01/09/26)
“It is incongruous that Donald Trump, who advertises his disdain for things European, wants to give us something that no one in his or her right mind wants: a knockoff of France’s Arc de Triomphe. Which is bad enough. Worse, he wants to situate it on a Washington site where it will clutter one of the world’s great urban vistas. He would place it on the Virginia side of the Memorial Bridge, below the Custis-Lee mansion, which sits on high ground in what became Arlington National Cemetery. … Given Trump’s gargantuan exercises of executive discretion regarding great matters of state, it might seem quaint to wonder why he cannot be stopped from treating Washington as his chew toy. This would be unworthy of our nation if he had exquisite taste. The fact that he revels in being a vulgarian takes a toll on the nation’s soul.” (01/09/26)
