Source: New York Post
by staff
“America’s kids are paying a steep price for lower standards and less testing in schools — and there’s no obvious sign of a turnaround. It’s particularly troubling for New York kids, especially as state ‘leaders’ have decided to stop requiring passing scores on Regents exams to graduate high school starting in the 2027-’28 school year. How crucial are hard standards? Well, after colleges (in the benighted name of ‘equity’) stopped requiring SAT or ACT scores as part of the admissions process a few years back, a host of high schools evidently stopped teaching the skills needed to do well on such tests — even though such skills are vital to getting through college, and life. Kids who are unprepared don’t face consequences until it’s too late — i.e., when they’re already in college and struggling to do the work expected of them.” (12/06/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/12/06/opinion/alarming-signs-kids-are-paying-a-steep-price-for-low-standards-and-less-testing-in-schools/
Source: Yascha Mounk
“Richard Thaler on Why People are Much More Irrational than Economists Believe.” (12/06/25)
https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/richard-thaler
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
“Europeans at the Doha Forum in Qatar were quite clear in their disdain for President Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy and his peace plan for Ukraine, but his ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker came out swinging in favor of both, unabashedly telling an audience Saturday that U.S. partners need to step up if they want continued support from Washington and not to criticize the sausage (peace deal) while it’s being made.” (12/06/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-nato-trump/
Source: Fox News
“ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons, as well as the Archdiocese of Boston, are calling for the removal of an ‘ICE was here’ sign that was placed at a Nativity scene at a Massachusetts church. ‘The actions of the activist reverend, Stephen Josoma, are absolutely abhorrent and add to a dangerous narrative responsible for a more than 1,150% increase in assaults on ICE officers,’ Lyons told Fox News Digital in a statement. A Nativity scene at St. Susanna Parish in Dedham, a suburb of Boston, shows an empty manger with a sign reading ‘ICE was here,’ along with contact information for a group that monitors immigration enforcement in Massachusetts. Rev. Stephen Josoma, the pastor at St. Susanna, said the church’s peace and justice group organizes a display annually.” (12/06/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/media/ice-director-boston-archdiocese-demand-ice-here-nativity-removed-from-mass-church
After a “zero-dollar day,” our year-end fundraiser total remains at $1,433.84.
We’re more than 75% of the way through our only annual fundraiser period, but only 52% of the way to our goal. I don’t know if we’ve ever been this far behind, this late in the game, before.
In order to reach our goal of $5,501, we must raise another $1,316.66. That will get us to the halfway point, after which reader GL has pledged to “match funds” for the other half.
But unless we raise the first half, we don’t get the second.
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
Source: The Bulwark
by Will Saletan
“Donald Trump’s latest assault on immigrants — threatening to ‘denaturalize’ U.S. citizens who were born in other countries — is an affront to human rights and American values. It’s also a betrayal of the six million naturalized Americans who voted for him last year. Without their ballots, he wouldn’t be president. And if they turn against him, his party will be out of power. … if Trump thinks he can strip naturalized Americans of their citizenship, he’d better move fast. The backlash from nonwhite voters has already cost his party two governorships.” (12/05/25)
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-bites-the-hand-that-voted-for-him-naturalized-immigrants-citizens
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“It’s been nearly 10 years since the people of Haiti have voted in an election – and more than 50 since this soccer-loving nation has fielded a team in the World Cup tournament. In 2026, they’ll get to do both. On Dec. 5, a few weeks after Haiti’s November qualifying victory, World Cup organizer FIFA announced group draws for the competition. Around the same time, with somewhat less fanfare, Haiti’s transitional government announced election plans. Meanwhile, the United States called on countries to support a new United Nations-approved multinational mission to quell rampant gang violence in the Caribbean island nation. Neither the World Cup berth nor the proposed international Gang Suppression Force promise easy wins for Haitians. But they hint at a possibility of parlaying the unity and persistent effort demonstrated on the soccer pitch to the arena of politics and governance.” (12/05/25)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2025/1205/In-Haiti-soccer-joy-and-longed-for-unity
Source: Reason
“On housing policy, America needs to be less fascist King Kong and more free-market Godzilla.” (12/05/25)
https://reason.com/2025/12/05/what-america-can-learn-from-japanese-housing/
Source: Law & Liberty
by Jason Gehrke
“About two weeks after America’s final withdrawal from Kabul, Al-Qaeda issued an open letter praising ‘the Almighty, the Omnipotent,’ the one who ‘broke America’s back’ in Afghanistan ‘the graveyard of empires.’ Al-Qaeda’s boast transformed a self-fulfilling prophecy into the Taliban’s triumphant honorific, according to Choosing Defeat, a new book by Paul D. Miller, Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Georgetown University. … In his telling, the phrase ‘graveyard of empires’ haunted U.S. policymaking for twenty years. Every wartime president invoked it, as did American generals, senior civilians, defense intellectuals, and journalists. There’s only one problem: Afghanistan never was known as the graveyard of empires — not until Milt Bearden penned an article in 2001. When asked, Bearden said he ‘just came up with the name for [his] piece for Foreign Affairs.'” (12/05/25)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/strategy-and-culture-in-the-graveyard-of-empires/
Source: Fox News
by David Marcus
“President Donald Trump has seen recent setbacks in his polling numbers on many issues, but one bright spot in surveys has been his aggressive approach to Venezuela, including taking out drug cartel boats. But there is another purpose at work here, one that may help to end the war in Ukraine. What is important to understand is that Venezuela is a client state of Russia, as is Iran, and as was Syria until the recent overthrow of Bashar al-Assad. One by one, Trump has been proving that against American might, Putin cannot keep his sketchy global friends safe.” (12/06/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/david-marcus-trumps-aggression-toward-venezuela-warning-putin
