Source: Commentary
by Noah Rothman

“Politico reports this week that the Republican National Committee is conducting a ‘review of the party’s performance’ in the midterms, and they’re bringing in a dozen Republicans from across the party’s ideological spectrum to assist. There’s nothing wrong with that, barring the axiomatic caveat that a statement drafted by committee will say less in direct proportion to the number of voices contributing to it. The council will ‘help chart a winning course in the years to come.’ That suggests, at a minimum, its members should know something about winning elections. Most of them do, or are, at least, invested in victorious outcomes. But the bizarre inclusion of Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters on the team suggests this enterprise is willing to entertain losers, too. … what does Masters bring to the table (besides being a token representative of a very loud albatross around the GOP’s neck)? Excuses.” (12/01/22)

https://www.commentary.org/noah-rothman/failure-theater-is-back-and-look-whos-doing-the-failing/

Source: New York Post
By Marc Siegel

“Elon Musk’s decision to remove Twitter’s COVID ‘misleading information protocol’ should be applauded not attacked, as it’s been in the media. His move is a nod to free speech and, more important, to the idea that when you assert people are spreading misinformation there’s an implicit understanding you know the truth and they don’t. This is dangerous posturing because the truth itself is often flexible, changeable, dependent on vantage point, never certain — especially in the case of a virus we are still learning about, with no consensus on effective public-health protocol or absolute measures to prevent spread. When it comes to COVID, what was yesterday’s misinformation has become tomorrow’s truth and vice versa, a reality that goes beyond Anthony Fauci’s and others’ infamous flip-flopping on masks.” (11/30/22)

https://nypost.com/2022/11/30/why-this-doctor-applauds-elon-musk-ending-twitters-covid-misinformation-ban/

Source: Foreign Policy
by Deng Yuwen

“Students and members of the public have taken to the streets in major cities across China, with protesters in Shanghai calling for Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to step down — a rare sight in China, where protest is strictly curtailed. … Commentators calling these the largest protests since 1989 are mistaken. The Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao years saw mass protests that drew tens of thousands of participants or more, destroyed local government offices, and had to be put down by armed police. The crowds in videos emerging from protests … are generally small, ranging from several hundred to over a thousand. Rather, it is Xi’s heavy-handed suppression of social dissent over his time in office and his concomitant expansion of public expenditures and targeted poverty alleviation, buying the affections of the underclasses and all but eliminating open public protest, that makes the current wave of protests significant.” (12/01/22)

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/12/01/china-protests-xi-credibility-ccp/

Source: Common Dreams
by Medea Benjamin & Nicolas JS Davies

“As the war in Ukraine has dragged on for nine months and a cold winter is setting in, people all over the world are calling for a Christmas truce, harkening back to the inspirational Christmas Truce of 1914. In the midst of World War I, warring soldiers put down their guns and celebrated the holiday together in the no-man’s land between their trenches. This spontaneous reconciliation and fraternization has been, over the years, a symbol of hope and courage. Here are eight reasons why this holiday season too offers the potential for peace and a chance to move the conflict in Ukraine from the battlefield to the negotiating table …” (12/01/22)

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/12/01/8-reasons-why-now-good-time-ukraine-ceasefire-and-peace-talks

Source: Libertarian Institute
by Vanessa Brown Calder

“Between federal and local policy reforms, there are abundant opportunities for policymakers to improve housing affordability for families. In order to increase housing affordability for families, policymakers should eliminate zoning and land use regulations, make TCJA reforms to property and mortgage interest deductions permanent, eliminate Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum and Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports, end Department of Commerce policies that ensure antidumping and countervailing duty restrictions, and pass federal land reform legislation, like the HOUSES Act, among other things.” (12/01/22)

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/heres-how-we-make-housing-affordable-again

Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob

“Apple Inc. has a good side and a bad side. A strong work ethic, oodles of innovativeness, much neat technology. But a taste for censorship and a willingness to abet the censorious efforts of China’s totalitarians. One manifestation of Apple’s contempt for unfettered discourse? Its apparent threat to kick the Twitter app off the iOS platform now that Twitter is run by someone friendlier to freedom of speech than the previous management.” (12/01/22)

https://thisiscommonsense.org/2022/12/01/rotten-apple/