Source: Wired
by Parker Molloy
“After George Floyd’s murder at the hands of police in 2020, right-wing media circulated his criminal history and toxicology report to argue he was no martyr. After Trayvon Martin’s death in 2012, they fixated on his hoodie and his school suspension. With Good, gender and sexuality have replaced race, but it’s the same takeaway: They weren’t innocent enough to mourn.” (01/16/26)
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by Christa Case Bryant, Kurt Shillinger, Kenny D’Evelyn, & Casey Fedde
“At a time when shifting corporate interests, market forces, and demographic trends are buffeting many news organizations, The Christian Science Monitor is different. We are published by a church. And that means our work is based on unshakable ideals that aren’t swayed by the latest algorithm. As we begin our 118th year of publication, our new leadership team is working to both articulate these ideals and enable the sort of journalism that best encapsulates our mission in today’s news ecosystem. To do this, we’ve been going back to our founding documents from 1908, when Mary Baker Eddy established The Christian Science Monitor. Our founder wrote that she established The Christian Science Monitor ‘to spread undivided the Science that operates unspent.’ What does that mean? Many of us over the years have grappled with this.” (01/16/25)
Source: Tenth Amendment Center
by Mike Maharrey
“In an early confrontation between the customs officials and John Hancock, the British hoped that flexing their muscles would teach the colonists a lesson and cow them into submission. They were wrong. Instead, the crackdown sparked a willingness to physically resist unconstitutional taxation and British assertions of ‘unlimited’ power.” (01/17/26)
Source: Independent Institute
by Scott Beyer
“In the early 2000s, most Americans were still watching television on heavy cathode-ray tube sets. The average household TV was 25 inches, with a thick plastic frame, curved glass screen, and picture quality that now looks unwatchable. Flat screens existed but were luxury items, with plasma TVs starting at $2,000, rendering them aspirational tech rather than a mass-market option. Nowadays at Walmart, you can buy a 75-inch ultra-high-def ‘smart’ TV for under $500, with immersive sound, voice control, and other computerization that would’ve been science fiction in the TiVo days. This price flattening has occurred not just with televisions, but all consumer electronics, and has happened during the same period when more essential goods and services rose in price. It’s a great case study in what happens when industries are largely unregulated and exposed to competitive pressures, while others are heavily regulated or even socialized.” (01/17/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/01/17/why-televisions-have-become-so-cheap/
Source: Persuasion
by Sam Kahn
“Over the course of the past year, the ‘Heritage American’ movement — something I’d never come across before — moved out of the fringe and into the MAGA core, driving the rhetoric of Trump administration agencies. The ‘coming-out moment’ for Heritage Americanism may well have been JD Vance’s speech at the Claremont Institute in July 2025, in which he said: ‘America is not just an idea. We’re a particular place with a particular people and a particular set of beliefs and way of life.’ … Which ‘particular people?’ The answer may be supplied by the ‘Heritage American’ movement that centers itself on American Reformer Magazine and a group of intellectuals including C. Jay Engel, Auron MacIntyre, and Ben Crenshaw, who write lucidly, if not always with perfect logical consistency, about what they have in mind.” (01/16/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/its-not-my-heritage-that-makes-me
Source: New York Post
by Andres Oppenheimer
“On a nearly three-week visit to South America, during which I interviewed the presidents of Argentina and Peru, many friends asked me the same question: ‘Who is actually running Venezuela?’ My answer was, ‘The same crooks as before.’ President Donald Trump has claimed he’s running Venezuela following the US raid that captured former dictator Nicolás Maduro, and even posted a picture of himself on social media calling himself ‘Acting President of Venezuela.’ He also said he has talked extensively with former Maduro vice-president — now interim president — Delcy Rodriguez, describing her as a ‘terrific person’ who will presumably follow his commands. She is, indeed, under pressure from a US naval blockade that could cripple Venezuela’s vital oil exports.” (01/18/25)
Source: Quillette
by Kieran Beville
“The quiet erosion of responsibility in an age of machine-generated prose.” (01/17/26)
https://quillette.com/2026/01/17/authorship-in-an-age-of-automation-ai-llms/
Source: Cato Institute
by Ian Vásquez
“Trump has also said that the U.S. would work toward a transition, though no timeline was specified, and that until then, it would work with the regime.” (01/16/26)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/venezuela-us-should-work-machado-transition
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“I support regime change in the United States. The real kind, not the ‘new face at the front desk every few years’ kind. I’m all for overthrowing tyrannical power structures, I just think we should start with the worst one. Why should I support the violent overthrow of the US empire’s enemies while the US empire itself remains standing? Why should I want to help the one power structure that’s terrorizing and destroying nations around the world with the goal of total planetary domination? Why should I facilitate the propaganda campaign of the latest imperial regime change operation by talking about the tyranny and oppressiveness of the Official Bad Guy of the Day when it will do nothing but help the empire expand its global hegemony?” (01/18/25)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/01/18/regime-change-the-us-empire/
Source: The UnPopulist
by Andy Craig
“There are few principles more essential to a liberal democracy than the idea that the law applies equally to everyone, and that abuses of public power — especially ones aimed at sabotaging democratic processes — carry real consequences. That principle is now under pressure, as Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, has said he is considering commuting the sentence of former Mesa County clerk and recorder Tina Peters. … mercy is not dispensed in a vacuum. Clemency is not an abstract exercise in benevolence; it is a judgment call that must weigh compassion against accountability, and individual circumstances against societal consequences. In Peters’ case, those countervailing considerations weigh decisively against cutting short her well-earned sentence.” (01/17/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/the-colorado-governor-should-reject