Source: Show-Me Institute
by Susan Pendergrass & Cory Koedel

“Under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), states must identify unsafe schools and notify families of students who attend them that they have the right to move their child to a safer public school. This requirement is called the Unsafe School Choice Option (USCO). In Missouri, it isn’t working. The problem comes down to one word in state policy. Right now, Missouri only classifies a school as unsafe if it has a high rate of violence and a high number of expulsions for three years in a row. Because expulsions almost never happen, the conditions are almost impossible to meet. As a result, no school is ever designated as unsafe, and families aren’t allowed to transfer out. Changing one word, from ‘AND’ to ‘OR,’ would finally make the rule work the way federal law intended.” (12/18/25)

https://showmeinstitute.org/blog/education/one-word-could-let-missouri-students-leave-unsafe-schools/

Source: Bluegrass Institute
by Shaka Mitchell & Gary W Houchens

“As education freedom sweeps across the country, Kentucky stands out as an unfortunate bulwark against innovation, improved academic outcomes, and parental choice. For decades, Kentucky families have watched neighboring states take bold steps to expand educational opportunity while policymakers in Frankfort debate the same old questions. … Now, a new federal tax credit scholarship program offers a rare chance to leap forward — and it’s time for Kentucky to take it.” (12/18/25)

https://www.bluegrassinstitute.org/new-federal-tax-credits-can-unlock-kentuckys-educational-freedom/

Source: The Daily Beast
by David Rothkopf

“From a psychological perspective, it offered a textbook case of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’[s] theory of the stages people go through as they grapple with impending mortality. Trump displayed not just one but all three of the first stages observed by the psychiatrist in dying subjects: denial, anger and bargaining. He denied reality. He ranted angrily. He promised checks of $1,776 each to every member of the military, even though he, as president, has no authority to independently do so. And, as it turns out, of course, he hadn’t. … If you’d otherwise heard an aging relative howling at the moon as Trump did, you would gently remove any sharp implements from their immediate vicinity and start to talk to them about the nice men who would soon be arriving with the butterfly nets. Breaks with reality like we saw Wednesday night usually end with Thorazine drips and soothing elevator music, after all.” (12/18/25)

https://archive.is/lOjWJ

Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff

“Over the past week, Romania has been rocked by protests against corruption. Like many of its neighbors, the Eastern European nation has seen similar uprisings for more than a decade. This time, however, many protesters have appealed to people’s better angels. They lean toward affirming principles of governance rather than merely opposing evil acts. One chant favored during the protests, for example, is ‘Justice, no corruption’. Another is ‘Integrity, not complicity’. One protest sign reads: ‘Respect for honest magistrates’. In the midst of the demonstrations – which focus on a media report that some judges helped officials avoid trials on corruption charges – hundreds of judges and prosecutors signed an open letter. It supports whistleblowers inside the judicial system who, despite threats of punishment, bravely expose wrongdoing. ‘Truth and integrity must not be penalised but protected,’ the letter stated.” (12/17/25)

https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2025/1217/Invites-for-a-corruption-free-life

Source: Reason
by Damon Root

“The First Amendment says that ‘Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.’ But one prominent conservative judge, whose name has been mentioned as a possible U.S. Supreme Court nominee by President Donald Trump, thinks that protection against government censorship may not apply to non-citizens who are present in the United States. Is the judge right? Writing for himself in the recent case of United States v. Escobar-Temal, Judge Amul Thapar of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit asserted that ‘neither history nor precedent indicates that the First Amendment definitively applies to aliens.’ Yet in Bridges v. Wilson (1945), the Supreme Court unambiguously stated that ‘freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country.'” (12/18/25)

https://reason.com/2025/12/18/yes-the-first-amendment-applies-to-non-citizens-present-in-the-united-states/

Source: Center for a Stateless Society
by Kevin Carson

“At Reason (‘The Anarchist and the Republican,’ April 13), Jesse Walker writes of a period in the 1970s when an Old Rightist speechwriter for Barry Goldwater turned New Leftist (Karl Hess), and a Nixon Republican and future Reagan speechwriter (John McClaughry), could reach unlikely consensus around values like worker self-management and ownership, and neighborhood self-governance. Reading it makes me nostalgic for that period in the 70s where the New Deal model of capitalism had become unsustainable, and elements of both the left and right were exploring decentralist/worker-controlled and direct democratic alternatives to large-scale corporate/state capitalism.” (12/18/25)

https://c4ss.org/content/60923