“Priscilla Villarreal was not arrested for ‘merely asking questions,’ Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton insists in a brief urging the Supreme Court to reject the Laredo news vlogger’s petition for review of her First Amendment case. Yet that is literally what happened to Villarreal in 2017, and the precedent set by that incident poses a threat to journalists across the country. Villarreal, who operates a locally popular news outlet on Facebook, alleges that local officials, annoyed by her ‘unfiltered style’ and periodic criticism of them, conspired to punish her by treating her journalism as a crime. After months of looking for ‘any excuse’ to arrest her, she says, they settled on an obscure, rarely used Texas law, located in a chapter targeting ‘Abuse of Office,’ that makes it a felony to ‘solicit’ nonpublic information from a government official ‘with intent to obtain a benefit.'” (12/17/25)
Source: The American Conservative
by Eldar Mamedov
“When NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warns, as he did last week, that the alliance must prepare ‘for the scale of war our grandparents or great-grandparents endured,’ he is not merely outlining a defense posture. He intends to commit more American blood and treasure, backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. taxpayer, for an endless war in Europe against Russia. But Rutte could, ultimately, help bring about the opposite: an American backlash to NATO that sees a reduction of U.S. commitment to the Western alliance.” (12/17/25)
“When it comes to the Ukraine war, there have long been two realities. One is propagated by former Biden administration officials in speeches and media interviews, in which Russian President Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion had nothing to do with NATO’s U.S.-led expansion into the now shattered country, there was nothing that could have been done to prevent what was an inevitable imperialist land-grab, and that negotiations once the war started to try to end the killing were not only impossible, but morally wrong. Then there is the other, polar opposite reality that occasionally slips through when officials think few people are listening, and which was recently summed up by former Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Europe at the National Security Council Amanda Sloat, in an interview with Russian pranksters whom she believed were aides to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.” (12/17/25)
“This is not a call for spectacle. It is not a public declaration. It is a sober appeal, written for those among you who still recognize the fragile architecture of our Republic and the danger that comes when its foundation is ignored. It is written for those who remember why Congress—not the Executive—is entrusted with the solemn power to send this nation to war. Today, the United States Navy maintains a forward-deployed combat fleet off the coast of Venezuela. At least 12 warships now patrol waters once governed by diplomacy, now steered by executive will alone. And still, Congress has issued no declaration of war. No authorization of force. No public debate. No roll-call vote. The War Powers Resolution lies dormant—its reporting mandates ignored, its withdrawal timeline untriggered, its constraints publicly mocked. This is no abstract concern. The precedent is Syria.” (12/17/25)
“There are lots of historical precedents for large numbers of multigenerational non-citizens in a country. None of them are attractive examples to follow. There were the Jews in ancient Egypt, the Huns and the Vandals in the Roman Empire, Irish Catholics under penal laws of English occupation from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries, and more recently black tribes in apartheid South Africa. Sure, most of those empires continued on the maps for centuries afterwards, but they all endured massive civil discord and violent revolts as a result of the arrangement. And yet, among the Republican right, there’s a crusade against birthright citizenship enshrined in the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment …. Jettisoning birthright citizenship would create the same kind of large permanent underclass that caused the violent chaos in the aforementioned empires above.” (12/17/25)
“A hundred deaths, a thousand deaths, quickly turn into ‘collateral damage.’ But the killing of two desperate men, clinging to the wreckage of their boat in the Caribbean – their boat that has just been bombed – rips open the abstraction of military public relations. They’re just ordinary human beings – like you, like me, like our parents and our children – rather than … uh, narco-terrorists. And suddenly this new war the Trump administration has launched is more than just a videogame. Hey, Pete, this is not keeping us safe! Indeed, as I write these words, I picture the so-called Secretary of War clinging to the wreckage himself. Perhaps he’ll eventually realize that war always comes home, that what we do has consequences, that creating peace is a bit more complex than killing the bad guy (and thus preventing him from contradicting the official narrative).” (12/17/25)
“Washington brands Nicolás Maduro a dictator, celebrates Volodymyr Zelenskyy as democratic, and sponsors María Corina Machado to achieve regime change in Venezuela rather than promote genuine democracy.” (12/17/25)
“The U.S. welfare system is broken, and the Minnesota scandal is a blaring warning to that reality. The failure of political leaders on many fronts bears some of the blame. But the main culprit is the massive federal welfare system that annually passes hundreds of billions of dollars down to states to dole out, with the philosophy that the more people on the rolls, the better. The structure of the U.S. welfare system creates incentives for states to expand the rolls – and little incentive for them to ensure that money is going to those who truly need it. As welfare rolls expand, programs receive more money. It’s a system based on the Democratic perspective that government should provide more support to more people. And the U.S. welfare system is massive. It consists of roughly 90 different programs that cost more than $1 trillion annually.” (12/17/25)
“Any reasonable person knows that President Donald Trump’s comments on the murder of Rob and Michele Reiner have been, to use a word, deplorable. In a message amplified through official accounts, Trump said Reiner died ‘reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding and incurable affliction … known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.’ Fortunately, some Republicans found this to be a tasteless and irresponsible thing to say. … So, I figured I’d ask local Republican members of Congress what they think. Their response: crickets.” (12/16/25)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Ryan McMaken
“Although the Fed lacked employment data for October and November during its most recent FOMC policy meeting, the Fed was likely pushing its new policies while assuming more soft employment data. The latest data from the BLS further helps the Fed, politically speaking, in its efforts to justify further cuts to the target policy interest rate even though price inflation measures remain near three percent, and are not — as the Fed has repeatedly insisted — hurrying back to the stated two-percent inflation target.” (12/16/25)
