Unattended Baggage, episode 322
Source: Unattended Baggage
“If you thought 2025 was weird, just wait …” (12/27/25)
https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-322-if-you-thought-2025-was
Trump says US and Ukrainian regimes “a lot closer” on peace deal but “thorny issues” remain
Source: Reuters
“U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy were ‘getting a lot closer, maybe very close’ to an agreement to end the war in Ukraine, while acknowledging that the fate of the Donbas region remains a key unresolved issue. The two leaders spoke at a joint news conference after meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Sunday afternoon. Both leaders reported progress on two of the most contentious issues in peace talks — security guarantees for Ukraine and the division of eastern Ukraine’s [former] Donbas region that Russia has sought to capture.” (12/29/25)
Free Talk Live, 12/27/25
Source: Free Talk Live
“Trump’s act of war against Venezuela – US exactly like pirates :: Trump’s executive order telling the FDA to reschedule weed to a lower level :: Have ICE deaths gone up? :: ISPs may be forced to kick users off for piracy :: Trump actually stands up to EU for trying to encroach on Free Speech :: Keeping Bitcoin in a roth IRA :: TSA giving names and photos of everyone to ICE :: the Fed to end paper checks :: 2025-12-27 Hosts: Bonnie, Angelo, Mr.Penguin.” (12/27/25)
GOP battles show a party heading deeper into fever swamps
Source: Orange County Register
by Steven Greenhut
“The Republican Party that I joined in the 1980s (and later left) espoused a straightforward set of principles. It believed in free markets, limited government, peace through strength in dealing with international aggressors, and ‘traditional’ values. Sure, the last one was nebulous and the party often was hypocritical, but these core ideas were the key to its eventual resurgence. … Engaging in nostalgia is a hazard of growing older, but one need not be misty-eyed to compare that Grand Old Party to the current freak show. Sure, Democrats were pretty awful during that era (and embraced views surprisingly common in Republican circles today) and largely remain so, but the GOP was the voice of sanity. With the GOP’s dark and nasty pivot, advocates for those age-old ideals have nowhere to turn.” (12/26/25)
THANK YOU (Final Year-End Fundraiser Update)!!!
Hey, everyone …
As of Friday, we were $296.66 short of making our year-end fundraiser goal.
Between then and now, P&KAW, PH, WW, T, and JR contributed a total of $396.66, bringing our total to $2850.50 — $100 more than the “halfway point” that triggers GL’s “matching funds” pledge to get us to our goal of $5,501.
THANK ALL OF YOU WHO SUPPORTED THE FREEDOM MOVEMENT’S DAILY NEWSPAPER!!!
While I try not to single out any particular donor, I do want to “single out” two categories and congratulate one individual.
The first category is the few of you who supported our work financially for the first time ever. I’m glad you decided we’re worth it, and we’ll continue to try to meet that expectation.
The second is our long-time supporters, those of you who always come through — often multiple times per year — to get us through this single fundraiser every year. Without you, we’d never have made it through these last 23 years.
The individual is JR, who has supported us monthly for years, has sent us extra donations more than once throughout this fundraiser, and who sent a final big one with this note:
“In honor of my first grandson (born this past Thursday!), in hopes that he will grow up to a world of liberty and responsibility.”
Congratulations, JR! We share those hopes for your grandson, and will continue doing our little part toward creating such a world!
And now I get to stop talking about money entirely for what little is left of the rest of the year, and ALMOST entirely until next October. For which I’m sure we’re all very glad!
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
The Regulator War of 1771: A Forgotten Rebellion Against Corruption
Source: Tenth Amendment Center
by Joe Wolverton, II
“There are many events in the history of the formation of this Republic that go unnoticed, unremembered, and unheralded. Today is a chance to remedy that and remember the Regulators. As if cut from today’s headlines, patriot farmers and small ranchers in North and South Carolina led a rebellion against armed government officials trying to exercise control over western lands. History has dubbed the uprising the War of the Regulation, the final battle of which happened on May 16 in 1771. The West in this case, of course, was not Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico, but the rural counties of the Carolina backcountry. Historian James Whittenburg described the events as ‘the last and greatest of the social upheavals’ that led to the War for Independence.” (12/27/25)
Bessent, Trump urge ending the Senate filibuster
Source: United Press International
“President Donald Trump and Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent urged an end to the Senate filibuster rule ahead of an anticipated budget battle in January. Bessent submitted an op-ed that The Washington Post published on Saturday and blames Senate Democrats and the filibuster for blocking passage of a resolution to keep the federal government open while negotiating the 2026 fiscal year budget and causing a record 43-day shutdown of the federal government. … Senate Democrats control 47 seats, including two occupied by independents who caucus with Senate Democrats, while the GOP controls 53 seats, so neither party can overcome the filibuster rule without help from the other.” (12/27/25)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2025/12/27/senate-filibuster/8511766875059/
US Trade Dominance Will Soon Begin to Crack
Source: Wired
by Cory Doctorow
“In 2026, the leaders of America’s (former) trading partners are going to have to grapple with the political consequences of tit-for-tat tariffs. A tariff is a tax paid by consumers, and if there’s one thing the past four years have taught us, it’s that the public will not forgive a politician who presides over a period of rising prices, no matter what the cause. Luckily for the political fortunes of the world’s leaders, there is a better way to respond to tariffs. Tit-for-tat tariffs are a 19th-century tactic, and we live in a 21st-century world — a world where the most profitable lines of business of the most profitable US companies are all vulnerable to a simple legal change that will make things cheaper for billions of people, all over the world, including in the US, at the expense of the companies whose CEOs posed with Trump on the inaugural dais.” (12/26/25)
UK: Lloyds shuts invoice financing service as small businesses feel squeeze
Source: Financial Times [UK]
“Lloyds Banking Group is shutting an invoice financing service for small business customers as the UK’s biggest lenders pivot to focus on more lucrative corporate clients. The UK’s biggest high street bank will close its invoice factoring service by the end of the year, according to two people familiar with the matter, in a blow to small enterprise customers operating on thin margins. The move to end the service, under which Lloyds buys unpaid invoices from small businesses in return for the right to receive the payments from their customers, follows similar closures by other top lenders. It comes as businesses confront rising costs after increases in the minimum wage and successive tax-raising budgets by chancellor Rachel Reeves.” (12/28/25)
The Anarchist Experience, episode 560
Source: The Anarchist Experience
“Everyone Else has a Holiday Hangover, so Rich E Rich Reads the News. HEADLINES: CRYPTO RIDDLE The ‘crypto curse’ killing millionaires from chopper crashes to concrete burial as FBI cop reveals chilling theories … Trump’s pardons wipe out payments to defrauded victims … Cocaine Dogs and ‘Safe Space Ambassadors’: Rand Paul Highlights Wild Government Waste in Annual ‘Festivus’ Report … Tennessee Judge Postpones Abrego Garcia Trial Amid Claims Of Vindictive Prosecution.” (12/27/25)
https://theanarchistexperience.wordpress.com/2025/12/27/the-anarchist-experience-560/