Source: The Daily Economy
by Laura Williams
“Federal subsidies drive food production, consumption, and — unintentionally — chronic disease. Now we’re being asked to subsidize weight loss drugs to fight what farm policy broke.” (12/23/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/obesity-economics-how-subsidies-distort-the-american-diet/
Source: Washington Monthly
by Jonathan Alter
“While Trump muscles the media and renames the Kennedy Center, history will get the last laugh. Just ask the good people of Appleton, Wisconsin.” (12/23/25)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/12/23/the-trump-boomerang-effect-bari-weiss-meet-ozymandias/
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“The Libyan army chief has been killed in an air crash in Turkey, Libya’s prime minister has said. Gen Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad and four others were on board a Falcon 50 aircraft flying out of the Turkish capital, Ankara. In a post on X, Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said signal with the business jet was lost at 20:52 local time (17:52 GMT) – about 42 minutes after it took off from Ankara’s airport. The Tripoli-bound jet had issued an emergency landing request before contact was lost.” (12/23/25)
Source: The Hill
“Lindsey Granger delivers her lens on Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) dropping out of New York’s Governors’s race after getting jilted by President Trump.” (12/23/25)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5660903-rising-december-23-2025/
Source: Law & Liberty
by Helen Dale
“Many Jews came to Australia precisely because they thought they would be safe. The Bondi massacre changed that.” (12/23/25)
Source: Fox News
“Obamacare subsidies that have dominated the conversation on Capitol Hill are set to expire after Congress failed to act, but a cohort of bipartisan senators are quietly working to find a solution for when lawmakers return next year. It has engulfed Congress since September and played a starring role in the longest-ever government shutdown. And both Republicans and Democrats tried, and failed, to pass their partisan plans to either extend or replace the Biden-era enhanced tax credits. They are guaranteed to expire, and millions of Americans who use the subsidies are set to experience hikes to their out-of-pocket costs for healthcare that can vary widely depending on the state. Still, some in Congress haven’t given up on the issue.” (12/23/25)
No, it’s not “happy holidays” because we’re afraid to say “Merry Christmas.” Merry Christmas! But we’re aware that among our thousands of readers, some celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or other “winter holidays,” and hope they’re happy too. As for those of you who just welcome a winter break with no need for a holiday, enjoy!
THANK YOU to TMM, whose $100 donation yesterday brings our year-end fundraiser total to $2,453.84!
We’re less than $300 short of reaching our goal … and need YOUR help to get there. Once we’ve reached $2,750.50, supporter GL will “match funds” for the other half. But if we don’t get there, then so far as I know the “matching funds” offer goes away. And we’ve only got a week.
In other words, YOUR $296.66 is OUR $3,047.16. And I’ll be honest … we could really use that money.
We generally run very short editions between Christmas and the New Year — not because we don’t want to bring you the content, but because it tends to be a period of “slow news days” and lots of commentary and podcast sources take time off. But we’ll bring you SOMETHING every non-holiday weekday.
Let me mention once again …
… and have a happy, healthy, and prosperous Christmas-to-New-Year interlude!
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
Source: Libertarian Institute
by José Niño
“When President Donald Trump celebrated Kazakhstan’s decision to join the Abraham Accords, he spoke of peace and partnership in the familiar language of statesmen. The announcement sounded like a diplomatic victory in a region marked by instability. In reality, it looked more like one more step in a slow and deliberate effort to turn Central Asia into a forward operating base against Russia, China, and Iran. Kazakhstan sits at the heart of that emerging contest. American strategists began to speak of a unified space that they call ‘Greater Central Asia’ years before Trump returned to the White House.” (12/23/25)
Source: TomDispatch
by Alfred McCoy
“For writers, the future has long been a tricky terrain. While the past can prove unsettling and the present uncomfortable, the future seems to free the mind from reality’s restraints and let the imagination soar. Yet it has also proven full of political pitfalls. Sometimes writers can tweak a trend of their moment to produce a darkly dystopian future, as with George Orwell’s omniscient tyranny in 1984, Margaret Atwood’s institutionalized misogyny in The Handmaid’s Tale, or Ray Bradbury’s book-burning autocracy in Fahrenheit 451. And ever since H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds (about technologically advanced Martians invading this planet) was published in 1898, space has been a particularly fertile frontier for the literary imagination. It has given us Isaac Asimov’s seven-part galactic Foundation fable, Frank Herbert’s ecological drama Dune, and Philip K. Dick’s post-nuclear wasteland in Blade Runner, opening us to possible techno-futures beyond our mud-bound presence on this small planet.” (12/23/25)
Source: Gizmodo
“A NASA safety panel has criticized space agency officials for how they handled the busted Starliner mission that left two astronauts stranded on board the International Space Station (ISS). A new report highlights a wave of uncertainty that lurked behind Boeing’s unfortunate saga, casting doubt over whether NASA can properly address safety concerns with future missions like Artemis. For months, NASA and Boeing officials reassured the press that astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams could depart the ISS on board the faulty Boeing spacecraft. Given the severity of the situation, however, NASA should have immediately declared the incident as a mishap to prompt an investigation with the agency’s safety office, according to a new report by NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP).” (12/23/25)
https://gizmodo.com/safety-panel-calls-nasa-out-for-downplaying-the-boeing-starliner-mess-2000702881