Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“In June 2025, Elon Musk helped protesters in Iran by providing free access to his Starlink satellite service. The service restored a means of communicating with each other and the rest of the world that had been blocked when the Iranian government shut down the country’s Internet. The mullahs tend to do that when the pressure on their regime reaches a certain pitch. As has certainly happened again over the last few weeks. Some 500 protesters have been killed so far, according to the group Human Rights Activists in Iran, as the unrest spreads. Again, the Iranian government has shut down the country’s Internet. Is Musk stepping in?” (01/13/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/01/13/starlinking-iranian-protest/
Source: CNBC
“Shares of Danish renewables giant Orsted rose nearly 5% on Tuesday morning, shortly after a U.S. judge cleared the company to resume work on its nearly finished Revolution Wind project. … The White House halted five major offshore wind developments at the end of last year, including Orsted’s project off the coast of Rhode Island. Officials cited national security concerns identified by the Pentagon as the reason for the suspension. Orsted filed a legal challenge to the Trump administration’s decision earlier this month, saying that the lease suspension would cause ‘substantial harm’ to the Revolution Wind project. In a hearing on Monday, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said the Court should be ‘very skeptical of the government’s true motives’ for putting a stop to the project, according to Reuters news agency.” (01/13/26)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/13/orsted-trump-wind-power-revolution-wind.html
Source: System Update
“The U.S. Does Not Want ‘Liberation’ for Iran; Plus: Jasmine Crockett Rejuvenates Identity Politics Apology Rituals from Bowen Yang.” (01/12/26)
https://rumble.com/v748vn8-the-u.s.-does-not-want-to-liberate-iran-plus-bowen-yang-jasmine-crockett-sy.html
Source: Reason
by Brian Doherty
“A decade into his capture of our political attention spans, there is no longer anything new that can be said about Donald Trump in a big-picture way about his nature as a person or his larger meaning as a political phenomenon. His audacity, so bold at first, and so lubricated in his second go-round, can no longer shock or surprise; his crudeness, so initially colorful, just fades into the dark background of his actions; his bottomless sea of toddlerish willfulness and grievance, so curious and compelling in 2015–16, becomes as notable as water to a fish. We all swim in Trump now, surrounded by his turbulent, turbid murk, descending to fathomless depths, his surface marking the end of what we can know. Near the end of the first full year of his second administration, Donald Trump has demonstrated his core authoritarianism so completely and consistently that his personal character and comportment peculiarities lose significance.” (01/12/26)
https://reason.com/2026/01/12/trump-2-0-year-1-a-libertarian-nightmare/
Source: United Press International
“Argentina has repaid $2.5 billion to the U.S. Treasury, returning funds it received in October under a $20 billion currency swap agreement, authorities from both countries said. Argentina’s central bank said in a statement the repayment was completed Friday, using resources from multilateral financial institutions, without naming them. Some analysts said part of the funds may have come from the Bank for International Settlements, based in Basel, Switzerland, though there was no official confirmation. Argentina only used $2.5 billion from the swap because the credit line functioned as an emergency backstop, not as a loan that had to be fully drawn.” (01/13/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2026/01/13/latam-argentina-repay-united-states/6061768324855/
Source: Fox News Forum
by Jonathan Turley
“‘Say her name!’ From Portland to Philadelphia, the mantra is being used by politicians to fuel anger over the shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. While many of us have noted that the shooting appears to fall within Supreme Court guidelines for the justified use of lethal force, there is an effort to make Good the personification of a so-called ‘resistance movement.’ Across the country, Democrats are holding ‘I am Spartacus’ moments, resembling a low-budget casting call for B-grade actors — chest-pounding calls for everything from defunding ICE to the arrest of law enforcement officers.” [editor’s note: Okay, I will … Ashley Babbitt – SAT] [additional editor’s note: As video in both cases establishes, Babbitt made the poor choice of engaging in violent criminality, while Good became a murder victim while fleeing violent criminals – TLK] (01/13/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/jonathan-turley-say-her-name-becomes-radical-rallying-cry-democrats-mob-rule
Source: Independent Institute
by Ivan Eland
“Trump loves to compare himself to the 19th-century populist president Andrew Jackson, who began the brutal ethnic cleansing of Native Americans from their land. But his presidency more resembles that of William McKinley at the turn of the 20th century. McKinley, like Trump, favored high tariffs as a means to protect certain businesses. Also, in the closing years of that century, McKinley initially was reluctant to go to war with Spain over Spanish repression of an off-and-on again (since the mid-1800s) rebellion in its Cuban colony that did not threaten U.S. security. (This is similar to Trump’s desire to avoid ‘forever wars’ — uch as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya – during his first term.) … Yet after the decisive U.S. victory over Spain in the Caribbean and the Pacific, McKinley willingly reveled in grabbing Spanish colonies as imperial booty.” (01/12/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/01/12/mckinleys-ghost/
Source: US News & World Report
“Uganda’s government has ordered two local rights groups to halt their work days before Thursday’s election, which the United Nations Human Rights Office says is taking place in an atmosphere of repression and intimidation. The authorities have detained hundreds of opposition supporters, the UN agency had said in a report in November, ahead of the January 15 election in which President Yoweri Museveni, 81, is looking to extend his four-decade rule. Museveni, who came to power in 1986 after leading a five-year rebellion, is Africa’s third-longest ruling head of state. He has changed the constitution twice to remove age and term limits, and his dominance of Ugandan institutions means there is little prospect of an election upset in the East African country of 46 million, political analysts say.” (01/13/26)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-01-13/uganda-orders-two-rights-groups-to-halt-work-days-before-election
Source: Hoover Institution
“2025: The Year In Free Speech | Eugene Volokh and Jane Bambauer.” (01/12/26)
https://free-speech-unmuted.podbean.com/e/2025-the-year-in-free-speech-eugene-volokh-and-jane-bambauer-hoover-institution/
Source: Quillette
by Benny Morris
“Amid the darkness of a communications blackout, Iranians are fighting for their freedom and the totalitarian theocracy under which they have lived since 1979 seems more threatened than ever before.” (01/12/26)
https://quillette.com/2026/01/12/can-the-ayatollahs-fall/
