“Trump begins his second administration with a sullied reputation. He will become the first president to be twice impeached, to take office as a convicted felon and to have been indicted and charged with serious crimes in four jurisdictions. He will also be the first president to have been successfully sued for defamation in a case involving a sexual assault on a woman in a department store dressing room, with awards by two juries totaling more than $83 million in compensatory and punitive damages. He will be the first president to be adjudicated a fraudster and slapped with a $486 million judgment in a civil suit brought by the unrelenting attorney general of New York State.” (01/07/25)
“Most wars end in one of two ways. One side achieves an outright military victory, or both sides conclude they have more to lose by continuing to fight. A third way may be unfolding in Gaza. After more than 450 days of conflict between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas in the besieged enclave, mutual enmity may be giving way to shared empathy. ‘I don’t know what the future holds, but I know that permanent hatred cannot be the answer,’ said Jonathan Dekel-Chen, speaking at a peace rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday night. On Oct. 7, 2023, his son Sagui was taken hostage in the Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war and is believed to be still in captivity. The two warring sides may be inching toward a new ceasefire for the first time in more than a year.” (01/06/25)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Sergio Fernandez Redondo
“The recent general election in Ireland has left a rather divided political scenario wherein no party has reached the required majority to form government. While the pertinent talks and negotiations to make a coalition take place, voters gaze on helplessly and ponder what kinds of policies their votes will eventually enable. Amid the whole spectacle, special attention is given to proposed policies for housing, given the current crisis the sector is experiencing. Not without reason, since this is one of the main concerns in Ireland at present. Soaring prices have made accommodation unfeasible for most young (and not-so-young) people, be it rented, purchased or built. And the cries for so-called ‘fair prices,’ both from voters and politicians, evidence a lack of understanding of what a price is.” (01/07/25)
“On April 7, 2024, Mitchell West was arrested for handing out free burritos to the hungry. While West and other members of a local charity distributed food to impoverished community members in the courthouse square in Dayton, Ohio, a police officer approached and told them to stop. West doled out one last burrito. The officer placed him in handcuffs. In Dayton, no one can share food with the hungry without the government’s permission. It doesn’t matter that West’s charity complies with the same food safety standards as the restaurants in Dayton or that it cleans up trash before and after each service. Because the city requires a separate permit for each six-hour increment, even a shoestring charity like West’s would have to pay hundreds of dollars in fees each year.” (01/07/25)
“The expression ‘punch-drunk,’ Google informs me, means ‘stupefied by or as if by a series of heavy blows to the head.’ Google’s Oxford Language entry then offers a not-terribly-illuminating example of the term’s use: ‘I feel a little punch-drunk today.’ Right now, a better one might be something like: ‘After November 5, 2024, a lot of people have been feeling more than a little punch-drunk.’ Learning on the night of November 5th that Donald Trump had probably been reelected president certainly left me feeling stupefied, with a sense that I’d somehow sustained a number of heavy blows to the head.” [editor’s note: TDS personified here – SAT] [additional editor’s note: Don’t be so hard on yourself, Steve – TLK] (01/07/25)
“The mission of every soldier, indeed every American of sound mind, ought to be to realize the consent of the governed. Ex military personnel can lead us in this common purpose.” (01/07/25)
“The new year has begun with old news: The world is continuing to become colossally more unequal — with the United States leading the way. In 2024, wealth trackers at Bloomberg have just reported in a year-end review, ‘the world’s 500 richest people got vastly richer.’ Of the world’s 15 richest individuals, the Bloomberg data show, 14 call the United States home. The richest of these rich: Elon Musk. He started 2024 with a personal fortune worth a mere $229 billion. He ended it with a net worth of $442 billion, the largest personal fortune the world has ever seen. Overall, the world’s 500 richest ended 2024 worth a combined $9.8 trillion. Some 34 percent of the $1.5 trillion they gained over the course of the year came in the five weeks after Donald Trump’s election.” (01/07/25)
“To say that President-elect Donald Trump has a lot of plans for his second term would be a gross understatement. He has vowed to implement the largest deportation operation in American history, secure the U.S.-Mexico border and negotiate a peace settlement between Ukraine and Russia. Yet for Trump, all of these items may be minor when compared to one other issue: resolving the North Korea nuclear conundrum. Taking Pyongyang’s nuclear program off the board is Trump’s proverbial white whale, a feat that none of his predecessors managed to accomplish. … If Trump enters office thinking he can easily resurrect his relationship with Kim, then he’s going to set himself up for disappointment. Resolving the North Korean nuclear issue was hard five years ago, but it will be even harder today.” (01/07/25)
“With President Trump’s return to office after the Biden interregnum, we can be sure of one thing: tariffs are going to be a major part of his policy. He has touted tariffs as revenue generators, as ways to bring back manufacturing, and as negotiating tactics. The trouble is that all of these are in tension with each other, and none are particularly effective at what they purport to do. Indeed, their likely failure will result in harm to the people Trump claims to care for the most — working-class families.” (01/07/25)
“As Jimmy Carter is laid to rest this week, I think it’s worth paying attention to just exactly how out front he was on solar energy. Driven by both the upheaval of the OPEC embargoes and the lingering echoes of Earth Day at the start of the 1970s, and with ‘Limits to Growth’ and ‘Small is Beautiful’ as two of the decade’s big bestsellers (Carter had a reception for E.F. Schumacher at the White House!), the administration decided that solar was the way out. … Everyone knows about the solar panels on the White House roof, but that was the least of it. Jimmy Carter, in his 1980 budget, pledged truly serious cash for solar research, and for building out panels on roofs across America.” (01/07/25)
