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)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/the-eurasian-trap
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)
https://tomdispatch.com/ending-the-american-dream-by-2029/
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
Source: Serious Trouble
“The Justice Department gets out its black highlighter; the Pulitzer board wants Trump’s tax returns and medical records; Sam Bankman-Fried is not a good lawyer.” (12/23/25)
https://www.serioustrouble.show/p/redacted
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Josh Paul
“The Trump administration’s approach to the military balance in the Middle East is not determined solely by politics, but also by the requirement in US law to maintain Israel’s ‘qualitative military edge’ (QME). The policy was originally conceived almost 45 years ago as a way to ensure Middle East stability by guaranteeing Israel’s military superiority over regional rivals. But the QME requirement has created perverse incentives that have the potential to sustain destabilizing military action by Israel, to fuel arms races, and ultimately to undermine US strategic interests in the Middle East.” (12/23/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/israel-qualitative-military-edge/
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Yemen’s internationally recognised government and the Houthi group have reached an agreement to free detainees, according to the United Nations, with officials from both sides putting the number at thousands. In a statement on Tuesday, the UN envoy on Yemen Hans Grundberg said the prisoner swap deal came after nearly two weeks of talks in Muscat, the capital of Oman, a mediator in the conflict between the government and the Houthis that began in 2014. … The war in Yemen has been largely frozen since 2022, but tensions have risen in recent weeks as the separatist Southern Transitional Council made military advances in the country’s eastern governorates of Hadramout and al-Mahra. Overall, the conflict has killed tens of thousands people and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.” (12/23/25)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/23/yemen-government-houthis-agree-to-exchange-thousands-of-prisoners
Source: Bluegrass Institute
by Richard G Innes
“Kentucky appears to be breaking its own education law. The Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 is meant to guarantee a stable, trustworthy assessment system for parents and lawmakers. Yet the state is now moving to dismantle the only reliable measure of high‑school performance it has ever had: the ACT. The alternative the education establishment has chosen does not meet Kentucky’s legal requirements. For nearly two decades, every Kentucky junior has taken the ACT. It is the sole long‑term trend line the state possesses, the one measure that has remained consistent through four different state‑assessment regimes. It has revealed something uncomfortable but important: since 2016‑17, Kentucky’s ACT scores in reading, math and science have declined.” (12/23/25)
https://www.bluegrassinstitute.org/kentuckys-switch-to-the-sat-violates-public-trust-it-may-also-violate-state-law/
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Eric Hussey
“Sometimes I hear a soon-to-become-former patient of mine – occasionally an already-former patient of mine – tell me how they hate it, but they can’t come to see me any more since I don’t take their insurance. No, that’s incorrect. I assure you, you can come see me. But, because your insurance is a big pain in the neck for a single-doctor office like mine, I will not do the paperwork and take the discounts that they require to get any pay for my work. In fact, I will be happy to see you in my office. But, you will need to tell us how you will be paying for the visit.” (12/23/25)
https://brownstone.org/articles/how-a-grown-up-health-care-system-operates/
Source: Beat the Press
by Dean Baker
“If anyone doubted that the rich would use their control of the media to push their agenda and silence dissent, CBS removed it with its decision to censor the scheduled ’60 Minutes’ broadcast on CECOT prison. CECOT is the notorious maximum-security prison in El Salvador where President Donald Trump has sent a number of the people that he has deported. There have been numerous accounts of torture and abusive treatment in the prison, which presumably would have been highlighted in the segment. CBS, under its new ownership, decided that we shouldn’t see the ’60 Minutes’ segment, or at least not the one its team had prepared for broadcast last night. Apparently, they were worried it would offend the Trump administration..” (12/23/25)
https://cepr.net/publications/the-rich-control-the-media-whining-is-not-a-strategy/
