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
Source: CNN
“The protective shield built around the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site in Ukraine can no longer do its job to confine radioactive waste as a result of a drone strike earlier this year, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The New Safe Confinement (NSC) at Chernobyl, which was ‘severely damaged’ by the drone strike in February, has ‘lost its primary safety functions, including the confinement capability,’ the IAEA said in a Friday statement. Ukraine accused Russia of carrying out the February 14 strike at Chernobyl, which the Kremlin denied.” (12/06/25)
https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/06/europe/chernobyl-drone-strike-radiation-latam-intl
Source: Fox News
“Idaho bar owner Mark Fitzpatrick said his saloon has been flooded with both praise and outrage after a promotion offering ‘free beer’ to anyone who helps Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) identify and deport an illegal [sic] immigrant went viral. The Old State Saloon’s promotion, which was posted Nov. 29 on X, was viewed nearly 8 million times. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also reposted it, generating both excitement and online attacks, including threats to burn down the business and kill its outspoken owner.” (12/06/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/us/idaho-bar-owner-faces-death-threats-after-viral-promo-offering-free-beer-assisting-ice
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
“[T]he Trump administration has its agents arresting green card applicants as they show up for their final meeting. These are not ‘the worst of the worst’ as Donald Trump likes to put it: One was a British mother with her 4-month-old baby in her arms. (The New York Times has the whole ugly story.) These people were not accused of having entered the country illegally or of violating U.S. immigration law in some way other than following a legal process that takes a long time and creates ambiguities. Some of them were shipped off to detention centers. Why are federal agents arresting these people? Because they are the easiest people to arrest …. Some strategy: Abuse the weak, the vulnerable, and the law-abiding — chasing down the actual malefactors is too much work.” (12/05/25)
https://thedispatch.com/article/immigration-criminals-green-card-arrests-trump/
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“The Guardian has a report out which says that at least 60,000 people were murdered by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) when they captured El Fasher in October, which would be the largest single massacre since Rwanda in 1994. Just in the last few days the RSF have reportedly killed 46 children and scores of adults in suicide drone attacks. These massacres are made possible by the United Arab Emirates, who have been funneling weapons to the RSF through a complex international supply chain. Much like the Saudi-led genocide in Yemen from 2015 to 2022 (which the UAE also participated in), this is yet another instance of a tyrannical Gulf state monarchy committing unfathomable atrocities while its friends in Washington look the other way.” (12/07/25)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/12/07/sudan-venezuela-and-other-notes/
