Source: Antiwar.com
by Greg Pence

The United States finds itself at a moment when the gap between power and prudence has rarely been more visible. As American society grapples with structural inflation, deep social fragmentation, a crisis of institutional credibility, and the steady erosion of public trust, renewed talk of military confrontation with Venezuela is once again circulating within Washington’s political and security circles. In recent months, this rhetoric has intensified, driven in part by President Donald Trump and influential figures around him – most notably Senator Marco Rubio – who have pushed an increasingly confrontational line toward Caracas, bringing the country closer to the threshold of conflict. These developments are not the product of a genuine threat, but rather reflect a dangerous habit in U.S. foreign policy: transforming domestic deadlock into external military adventure.” (12/19/25)

https://original.antiwar.com/greg_pence/2025/12/18/a-war-no-american-needs-confrontation-with-venezuela-brings-neither-security-nor-benefit/

Source: New York Post
by staff

“Brace for another government shutdown early in the new year …. The short-term funding bill that Democrats finally allowed to pass last month, ending the record-long shutdown, only runs through Jan. 30. The federal Fiscal Year 2026 started Oct. 1 this year, yet the House and Senate have so far passed only three of the 12 appropriations bills to fund various parts of the government. And they’re not even close on the other nine; they’d need a Christmas miracle to get it done in time. And it’ll be brutally hard to pass yet another stopgap bill, or alternately another ‘omnibus’ to cover everything through next Oct. 1: Too many Republicans are sick of these contraptions, while too few Democrats are willing to give the GOP any help at all.” [editor’s note: The Democrats didn’t have to “allow” the funding bill to pass; the Republicans could have passed it without their help at any time – TLK] (12/20/25)

https://nypost.com/2025/12/20/opinion/brace-for-and-blame-congress-for-another-looming-government-shutdown/

Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Corynne McSherry & Kit Walsh

“Since earliest days of computer games, people have tinkered with the software to customize their own experiences or share their vision with others. From the dad who changed the game’s male protagonist to a girl so his daughter could see herself in it, to the developers who got their start in modding, games have been a medium where you don’t just consume a product, you participate and interact with culture. For decades, that participatory experience was a key part of one of the longest-running video games still in operation: Everquest. Players had the official client, acquired lawfully from EverQuest’s developers, and modders figured out how to enable those clients to communicate with their own servers and then modify their play experience – creating new communities along the way. Everquest’s copyright owners implicitly blessed all this. But the current owners, a private equity firm called Daybreak, want to end that independent creativity.” (12/19/25)

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/online-gamings-final-boss-copyright-bully

Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone

“You are allowed to subvert and undermine Israel’s interests, because Israel is trying to subvert and undermine your rights. You are allowed to interfere in Israel’s affairs, because Israel is interfering in your country’s affairs. As Israel tries to exert more and more influence over western society and pushes western governments to crush our freedom of speech and assembly, we should be doing everything we can to make sure that western society turns against Israel, and that western governments alienate this freakish apartheid state on the world stage. And we should feel perfectly entitled in doing so, because Israel certainly feels comfortable coming after us and our rights. If Israel is going after us, then we get to go after Israel. It’s just basic self-defense at this point.” (12/21/25)

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/12/21/if-israel-gets-to-undermine-our-rights-then-we-get-to-undermine-israel/

Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Patrick Barron

“There is a deadly cancer that is eating away at Western society — welfare. It is supported by a web of lies that are so pervasive that no one dare question them. Two of the most ingrained are: * There is no substitute for helping the unfortunate than government-provided welfare on demand; *The monetary stimulus from welfare spending adds to aggregate demand and helps to stimulate the economy.” (12/19/25)

https://mises.org/mises-wire/protecting-societal-cancer-web-lies