12/09 -- Doom, Despair, and Agony on Us (Year-End Fundraiser Update); Trump unveils $12 billion ag bailout; NATO Is a Menace, Not a Benefit, to America
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Thomas L. Knapp
Dec 9, 2025, 6:20:56 AM (2 days ago) Dec 9
to Freedom News Daily
Freedom News Daily, 12/09/25
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Today's Freedom News:
0) Doom, Despair, and Agony on Us (Year-End Fundraiser Update)
1) Trump unveils $12 billion ag bailout
2) Jerusalem: Israeli forces raid UNRWA headquarters
3) Bitcoin Treads Water Near $90k
4) Congress to withhold Pentagon travel funds until it sees boat strike videos
5) European pols discuss “positive progress” on making use of stolen Russian assets
6) ICEBlock developer sues Bondi, others over Apple censorship pressure
7) Peru: Hitmen ambush and kill reporter who covered corruption
8) Trump Says He’ll Sign Executive Order Curbing State AI Rules
9) Brazil: Thieves snatch eight Matisse artworks from library
10) SC: Court clerk who helped with Alex Murdaugh’s trial pleads guilty to showing sealed exhibits
11) IL: ICE gang whines that state officials aren’t honoring non-warrant rendition demands
12) Fight Over Trump’s Power to Fire FTC Member Heads to SCOTUS
13) Nigeria: 100 abducted schoolchildren released
14) Mexico: Car bomb kills five in front of police station
15) Benin: Coup leader’s location and fate of hostages unknown after failed takeover
16) Romania: Bucharest voters elect centrist mayor
17) Environmental Groups Call On Congress to Impose Moratorium on New AI Data Centers
18) Trump: Nice merger deal ya got there … be a shame if anything happened to it
19) FBI agents fired for kneeling during racial justice protest sue to get their jobs back
20) China: Trade surplus tops $1 trillion for first time amid pivot to counter US lull
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) NATO Is a Menace, Not a Benefit, to America
22) Trump’s Affordability Bombast Won’t Solve his Real Economic Problems
23) Bill of Rights Day: How Your Rights Keep Authoritarianism in Check
24) Hashtag Handcuffs: The Global Rise of Online Speech Policing
25) The Combat Cowardice Ribbon
26) Immigration Gone Wild
27) Deporting Democracy, Importing Authoritarian Logic
28) The Seven Deadly Economic Sins
29) History Shows Why the US Must Leave Venezuela Alone
30) Herodotus the Storyteller
31) Trump Targets Car Affordability With Regulatory Reform
32) The Fed’s Losses, Atlanta’s Lesson, and the Case for Balance-Sheet Reform
33) There Can Be No Peace With Marco Rubio Around
34) Dollar Stores: Where Trumpian Sleaze Meets Affordability
35) Wealth Inequality is Not a Problem in Britain
36) Elon Musk is right about the EU
37) Poem: The Blue Whales Have Stopped Singing
38) Quantum Vibe, 12/08/25
39) Agree with him or not, Noam Chomsky’s ideas are still worth grappling with
40) Don’t Pay, Don’t Play
41) As Obamacare Deadline Looms, Republicans Scramble for Health Care Ideas
42) Bannon, Mearsheimer: Trump’s Ukraine Plan Won’t End the War
43) “This ain’t gonna work’: How Russia pulled the plug on Assad
44) It’s Time to Make America Truly Tribal Again
45) Minnesota’s $70 million fraud exposes how Dems built system designed to be robbed
46) Cult(ure) of Abuse
47) Ignorance and Indignation
48) Trump Is Repeating One of Biden’s Big Mistakes
49) Nowhere to Go: Inside the Texas Boarding Home System Abuse
50) The Constitution and the Trump Tariffs
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Reason Roundtable, 12/08/25
52) Conflicts of Interest, episode 858
53) Rising, 12/08/25
54) The Kyle Anzalone Show, 10/08/25
55) The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, 12/08/25
56) EconTalk, 12/08/25
57) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 12/08/25
58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 12/08/25
59) Fountainhead Forum, episode 397
60) Dave DeCamp on The Scott Horton Show
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
0) Doom, Despair, and Agony on Us (Year-End Fundraiser Update)
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.
PLEASE SUPPORT THE FREEDOM MOVEMENT'S DAILY NEWSPAPER AT:
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Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
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1) Trump unveils $12 billion ag bailout
Source: Yahoo! Finance
“President Trump on Monday unveiled $12 billion in aid to US farmers, as the agricultural sector deals with the fallout from his sweeping tariff policies. Trump and other top administration officials discussed the package at a roundtable event with farmers at the White House. … Trump said the money for farm relief would come from a ‘small portion’ of tariff-related revenues.” (12/08/25)
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/trump-tariffs-live-updates-trump-unveils-12-billion-bailout-for-us-farmers-as-tariffs-bite-231853651.html
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2) Jerusalem: Israeli forces raid UNRWA headquarters
Source: The New Arab [UK]
“Israeli forces raided the headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in occupied East Jerusalem on Monday morning, in the latest assault on the body by Israeli authorities. Troops stormed the premises, carried out searches and confiscated the phones of security guards, witnesses told Palestinian news agency WAFA. The Jerusalem Governorate said security guards were detained during the raid, which occurred during the early hours of the morning. … ‘The unauthorised and forcible entry by Israeli forces is an unacceptable violation of UNRWA’s privileges and immunities as a UN agency,’ said agency spokesperson Tamara Alrifai.” (12/08/25)
https://www.newarab.com/news/israeli-forces-raid-unrwa-headquarters-east-jerusalem
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3) Bitcoin Treads Water Near $90k
Source: CoinDesk
“Bitcoin attempted a late weekend rally, but even those small gains were mostly reversed in early U.S. action Monday, with the price quietly settling in near the $90,000 area for the remainder of the day. Trading around $90,500 as U.S. stocks closed, bitcoin was lower by about 1% over the past 24 hours. Altcoin majors also struggled to hold on to their gains. … While the crypto action was muted, long duration government bond yields spiked amid fears of trouble in Japanese bonds spilling over to the other markets. The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield surged to 4.19%, its highest level in about three months, while U.K. and other European countries’ government debt also sold off.” (12/08/25)
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/12/08/bitcoin-treads-water-near-usd90k-as-bitfinex-warns-of-fragile-setup-to-shocks
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4) Congress to withhold Pentagon travel funds until it sees boat strike videos
Source: Politico
“Congress is using its marquee defense [sic] bill to force the Pentagon into turning over videos of strikes against suspected drug-smuggling boats off the coast of Latin America. Lawmakers plan to withhold a quarter of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget until the Pentagon provides them with the videos. The demand, quietly tucked into the final draft of the annual defense [sic] policy bill, calls for ‘unedited video of strikes conducted against designated terrorist organizations in the area of responsibility of the United States Southern Command’ to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. Congressional leaders released their final draft of the defense [sic] bill Sunday, which is expected to be approved — without changes — by the House later this week and then the Senate.” (12/08/25)
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/08/ndaa-boat-strikes-congress-hegseth-without-funds-00680679
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5) European pols discuss “positive progress” on making use of stolen Russian assets
Source: Reuters
“British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the leaders of France and Germany discussed the ‘positive progress’ made to use frozen Russian sovereign assets to support Ukraine, Downing Street said on Monday. ‘The leaders all agreed that now is a critical moment and that we must continue to ramp up support to Ukraine and economic pressure on Putin to bring an end to this barbaric war,’ said a spokesperson for Starmer.” (12/08/25)
https://archive.is/c3HT7
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6) ICEBlock developer sues Bondi, others over Apple censorship pressure
Source: New York Times
“For six months, Apple distributed an app called ICEBlock that allowed users to alert people when they saw Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. But after the Trump administration complained that the app endangered officers, Apple removed it. On Monday, the app’s developer, Joshua Aaron, sued top Trump administration officials, accusing them of pressuring Apple to stifle his free speech and his right to create, distribute and promote ICEBlock. The suit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, claimed that Attorney General Pam Bondi abused the government’s power when the Justice Department contacted Apple and demanded it remove the app, which she said she had done in a statement to Fox News in October. She said that Apple removed the app after her request.” (12/08/25)
https://archive.is/uUhiG
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7) Peru: Hitmen ambush and kill reporter who covered corruption
Source: CBS News
“Peruvian journalist Fernando Nunez, whose reporting dug into municipal corruption cases, was shot and killed by hitmen while returning from an assignment, Peru’s National Association of Journalists (ANP) said Sunday. Nunez, a reporter for the digital outlet Kamila TV, ‘was attacked by hitmen while riding a motorcycle with his brother’ on Saturday, the ANP said in a statement on social media. Nunez died instantly and his brother was in critical condition. Nunez is the third journalist killed by organized crime in Peru in 2025, following the slayings of journalists Gaston Medina and Raul Celis.” (12/08/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hitmen-kill-reporter-covered-corruption-peru-journalist-group/
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8) Trump Says He’ll Sign Executive Order Curbing State AI Rules
Source: Bloomberg
“President Donald Trump said he would approve an executive order this week to establish ‘ONE RULE’ on artificial intelligence regulation and limit state-level policies regulating the technology. ‘I will be doing a ONE RULE Executive Order this week. You can’t expect a company to get 50 Approvals every time they want to do something,’ Trump posted on social media Monday. The forthcoming order marks the latest bid by Trump to put his imprint on policy for AI, a technology that is rapidly developing and seen increasing adoption by business, government and the public.” (12/08/25)
https://archive.is/ns8Gn
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9) Brazil: Thieves snatch eight Matisse artworks from library
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Two armed men have stolen eight engravings by French artist Matisse and at least another five by Brazilian painter Cândido Portinari from a library in São Paulo. Brazilian officials say the thieves held up a security guard and an elderly couple who were visiting the library before making off with the artworks on foot. … The heist comes less than two months after the art world was rocked by a brazen break-in at the Louvre museum in Paris, where thieves made off with priceless jewels. … Bibilioteca Mário de Andrade is the country’s second largest library and officials say that its building in the centre of São Paulo had cameras with facial recognition technology. The mayor of São Paulo told local media the thieves had already been identified but so far they remain on the run.” (12/08/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0mp4nevdz7o
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10) SC: Court clerk who helped with Alex Murdaugh’s trial pleads guilty to showing sealed exhibits
Source: Associated Press
“The former court clerk in South Carolina who helped out with the murder trial of attorney Alex Murdaugh pleaded guilty Monday to criminal charges for showing sealed court exhibits to a photographer and lying about it in court. Former Colleton County Clerk of Court Mary Rebecca ‘Becky’ Hill pleaded guilty in Colleton County Circuit Court to four charges — obstruction of justice and perjury for showing a reporter photographs that were sealed court exhibits and then lying about it — as well as two counts of misconduct in office for taking bonuses and promoting through her public office a book she wrote on the trial. Judge Heath Taylor sentenced Hill, 58, to three years of probation.” (12/08/25)
https://apnews.com/article/becky-hill-alex-murdaugh-court-clerk-5e25491cb1dc802f9a0a8e1c0151dda8
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11) IL: ICE gang whines that state officials aren’t honoring non-warrant rendition demands
Source: Fox News
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is warning that Illinois officials are releasing violent criminal illegal [sic] aliens despite active immigration detainers, a move the agency says is putting the public at risk. In the letter shared with Fox News Digital, Todd Lyons, ICE’s senior official performing the duties of director, said Illinois has ‘tens of thousands of criminal illegal [sic] aliens’ in custody – individuals who, he noted, have committed crimes ranging from murder and rape to child pornography and armed robbery. Lyons said these offenders ‘should be swiftly removed from the United States … and not be returned to our streets to wreak havoc on law-abiding citizens’. According to data provided by ICE, Illinois has released 1,768 criminal aliens with active detainers since January 2025. ICE said the crimes tied to those offenders include homicides, assaults, burglaries, weapons offenses and sexual-predatory crimes.” (12/08/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/us/ice-warns-illinois-releasing-violent-criminal-illegal-aliens-despite-detainers-risking-public-safety
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12) Fight Over Trump’s Power to Fire FTC Member Heads to SCOTUS
Source: US News & World Report
“The U.S. Supreme Court is set on Monday to weigh the legality of Donald Trump’s firing of a Federal Trade Commission member in a major test of presidential power that could imperil a 90-year-old legal precedent. The court will hear arguments in the Justice Department’s appeal of a lower court’s decision that the Republican president exceeded his authority when he moved to dismiss Democratic FTC member Rebecca Slaughter in March before her term was set to expire. The case gives the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, an opportunity to overturn a New Deal-era Supreme Court precedent in a case called Humphrey’s Executor v. United States that has shielded the heads of independent agencies from removal since 1935.” (12/08/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2025-12-08/fight-over-trumps-power-to-fire-ftc-member-heads-to-us-supreme-court
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13) Nigeria: 100 abducted schoolchildren released
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“About 100 children who were abducted from a Catholic school in central Nigeria last month have been freed. They arrived in the Niger state capital, Minna, in a fleet of minibuses escorted by military vans and armoured vehicles, and were received by Governor Umar Bago. Details about their release remain unclear, including whether it was secured through negotiation or by force, and whether any ransoms were paid.” (12/08/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgjvg4ylwpo
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14) Mexico: Car bomb kills five in front of police station
Source: CBS News
“Mexican authorities on Sunday said at least five people died and three more were injured after a car exploded near a police station in the restive western state of Michoacan. The explosion took place shortly before noon local time on Saturday in front of the police headquarters in the coastal city of Coahuayana, according to Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office, which has taken over investigation of the case. The state prosecutor’s office raised the initial toll from three fatal victims to five, adding that three of them were local police officers. … At least three of the six drug cartels that the Trump administration has designated as terrorist organizations – Jalisco New Generation, United Cartels and The New Michoacan Family – operate in Michoacán, in addition to a slew of homegrown armed splinter groups, some supported by the Sinaloa Cartel.” (12/08/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/car-bomb-deaths-officers-police-station-michoacan-mexico/
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15) Benin: Coup leader’s location and fate of hostages unknown after failed takeover
Source: SFGate
“The apparent leader of a failed coup in Benin remained on the run and the fate of hostages remained unclear on Monday, a day after a group of soldiers attempted to overthrow the government of the West African nation. The soldiers, calling themselves the Committee for Refoundation, stormed the national television station on Sunday morning. Led by Lt. Col. Pascal Tigri, eight soldiers appeared in a broadcast announcing the removal of President Patrice Talon, dissolution of the government and suspension of state institutions. Before the coup, Tigri was a member of Talon’s protection detail. As an artillery officer, he commanded a National Guard battalion between 2023 and 2025. By Sunday afternoon, the coup was foiled by Benin’s military, supported by Nigerian air and ground forces, which launched attacks against fleeing mutineers. At least a dozen soldiers were arrested, while others remained at large. Tigri’s whereabouts weren’t known.” (12/08/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/benin-coup-leader-s-location-and-fate-of-hostages-21229920.php
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16) Romania: Bucharest voters elect centrist mayor
Source: Politico
“Center-right politician Ciprian Ciucu will be Bucharest’s new mayor after defeating a far-right candidate in Sunday elections. Ciucu, the candidate of the center-right National Liberal Party and a close ally of Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, won roughly 36 percent of the vote. Ciucu defeated Anca Alexandrescu, a TV presenter backed by Romania’s largest far-right party (AUR), who finished second with about 22 percent. The Social Democratic Party’s candidate Daniel Băluță came third, despite being projected to win in many opinion polls.” (12/08/25)
https://www.politico.eu/article/bucharest-election-mayor-centril-ciprian-ciucu-reject-far-right
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17) Environmental Groups Call On Congress to Impose Moratorium on New AI Data Centers
Source: Common Dreams
“Environmental and economic justice advocates alike have been sounding the alarm for months regarding the Trump administration’s push to built massive data centers to support artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency in communities across the United States (regardless of local opposition) and on Monday Congress heard from a coalition of more than 200 groups demanding action to stop what they called ‘one of the biggest environmental and social threats of our generation’. Led by Food and Water Watch (FWW), which originally demanded a moratorium on new AI data centers in October, more than 230 organizations have signed a letter warning that thus far, Congress has failed to take action to stop the rapid expansion despite the fact that ‘the harms of data center growth are increasingly well-established, and they are massive.'” (12/08/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/news/ai-data-centers-energy-news
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18) Trump: Nice merger deal ya got there … be a shame if anything happened to it
Source: NBC News
“President Donald Trump said Sunday that the proposed $72 billion merger between Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery ‘could be a problem’ because of the amount of market share the resulting company would have. … Trump said he would consult ‘some economists’ before the deal get his stamp of approval. ‘I’ll be involved in that decision, too,’ he said. Historically, presidents have not often gotten involved in antitrust approvals when companies seek to merge. Neither Netflix nor Warner Bros. own any broadcast stations, so the deal would not require approval by Federal Communications Commission. However, it may still require approval by the Justice Department’s antitrust division.” (12/07/25)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-says-netflix-warner-bros-deal-problem-will-involved-approval-rcna247923
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19) FBI agents fired for kneeling during racial justice protest sue to get their jobs back
Source: SFGate
“Twelve former FBI agents fired after kneeling during a 2020 racial justice protest in Washington sued Monday to get their jobs back, saying their action had been intended to de-escalate a volatile situation and was not meant as a political gesture. The agents say in their lawsuit that they were fired in September by Director Kash Patel because they were perceived as not being politically affiliated with President Donald Trump. But they say their decision to take a knee on June 4, 2020, days after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, has been misinterpreted as political expression. The lawsuit says the agents … became outnumbered by hostile crowds they encountered and decided to kneel to the ground in hopes of defusing the tension, the lawsuit said.” (12/08/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/12-fbi-agents-fired-for-kneeling-during-racial-21230699.php
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20) China: Trade surplus tops $1 trillion for first time amid pivot to counter US lull
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“China’s annual trade surplus in goods has topped $1 trillion for the first time, with plunging exports to the United States amid a tariff war more than compensated for by shipments to other markets, new data shows. Figures released by China’s General Administration of Customs on Monday showed the trade surplus for the first 11 months of the year hit $1.08 trillion in November, as exports climbed 5.9 percent year-on-year that month, reversing a 1.1 percent decline the month prior. The leap came despite a continued slump in exports to the US, which fell 28.6 percent to $33.8bn last month, the data showed.” [editor’s note: As Don Boudreaux occasionally reminds us, exports are the price paid for imports. Consumers in a country “enjoying” a “trade surplus” are getting a worse, not better, deal – TLK] (12/08/25)
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/12/8/china-trade-surplus-tops-1tn-for-first-time-amid-pivot-to-counter-us-lull
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) NATO Is a Menace, Not a Benefit, to America
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Galen Carpenter
“Since its creation in 1949, NATO has been the keystone of U.S. foreign policy in Europe. Indeed, the alliance has been the most important feature of Washington’s overall strategy of global primacy. America’s political and policy elites have embraced two key assumptions and continue to do so. One is that NATO is essential to the peace and security of the entire transatlantic region and will remain so for the indefinite future. The other sacred assumption is that the alliance is highly beneficial to America’s own core security and economic interests. Whatever validity those assumptions may have had at one time, they are dangerously obsolete today. The toxic, militaristic views toward Russia that too many European leaders are adopting have made NATO into a snare that could entangle the United States in a large-scale war with ominous nuclear implications.” (12/08/25)
https://original.antiwar.com/ted_galen_carpenter/2025/12/07/nato-is-a-menace-not-a-benefit-to-america
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22) Trump’s Affordability Bombast Won’t Solve his Real Economic Problems
Source: JimBovard.com
by James Bovard
“‘Affordability’ epitomizes how Trump is floundering on what had been one of his strongest issues. A Gallup survey found that only 36% of Americans approve of Trump’s economic performance while a Fox News poll found that 76% of voters disapprove of Trump’s economy — an even worse rating than Joe Biden scored at the end of his presidency. The White House acts as if more bluster can solve the problem. But is the Trump administration now targeting its economic message solely to people who failed high-school mathematics? On Truth Social last month, Trump proclaimed, ‘DRUG PRICES ARE FALLING AT LEVELS NEVER SEEN BEFORE, 500%, 600%, 700%, and more.’ Actually, drug prices cannot fall more than 100% unless people are getting paid to swallow the durn free pills. But it’s worse than that. Prescription-drug prices have in fact increased roughly 2% this year, according to federal data.” (12/08/25)
https://jimbovard.com/blog/2025/12/08/n-y-post-trumps-affordability-bombast-wont-solve-his-real-economic-problems/
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23) Bill of Rights Day: How Your Rights Keep Authoritarianism in Check
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille
“In these fraught political times when our political choices are largely limited to authoritarian Republicans and totalitarian Democrats and federal agencies vie for opportunities to violate individual rights, it’s difficult to feel anything other than contempt for government. It’s worth remembering, though, that the current mess isn’t a good representation of the Founding ideals of our republic. In particular, consider the protections for liberty embodied in the Bill of Rights, which is celebrated every December 15.” (12/08/25)
https://reason.com/2025/12/08/bill-of-rights-day-how-your-rights-keep-authoritarianism-in-check/
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24) Hashtag Handcuffs: The Global Rise of Online Speech Policing
Source: The Daily Economy
by Julian Adorney
“In one sense, the global crackdown on online speech is understandable. Most people support freedom of speech, but balance this support with their support of other priorities, such as their desire to cultivate a culture that respects the rights and dignity of minorities. In the last decade, social media has shocked many of us with evidence of how heinous the views of some of our fellow citizens are. It’s understandable that someone might see a post on X with thousands of likes that implies that black Americans are genetically inferior to white Americans, and conclude that the government ought to do something to punish this kind of hateful speech. But for all that the impulse to censor can be noble-hearted, it’s also wrong-headed. In practice, attempts to punish so-called hate speech run into several big problems.” (12/08/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/hashtag-handcuffs-the-global-rise-of-online-speech-policing/
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25) The Combat Cowardice Ribbon
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“The U.S. Navy has a Combat Action Ribbon (CAR) that is comparable to the Combat Infantry Badge (CIB) in the army. These are awarded to military personnel who engage in combat during wartime. Does the U.S. Navy plan on handing out the CAR to all the Navy personnel who have participated in the attacks on those small boats on the high seas near Venezuela, which have resulted in the killings of more than 80 people? Given President Trump’s and the Pentagon’s ‘we-are-at-war’ assertion, I don’t see why they wouldn’t hand out that combat ribbon. But if I were one of those Navy personnel, I’d be embarrassed to wear that ‘combat’ ribbon on my uniform. … In fact, I think the Navy should issue a brand new ribbon — the Combat Cowardice Ribbon — to all the Navy personnel who have participated in those drug-war killings.” (12/08/25)
https://www.fff.org/2025/12/08/the-combat-cowardice-ribbon/
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26) Immigration Gone Wild
Source: American Greatness
by Victor Davis Hanson
“It is hard now even for Democrats to defend illegal [sic] immigration, given that the Biden administration allowed in more than 10 million entrants. Among them were an estimated 500,000 criminals. No one believes that was wise or should ever be repeated. Worse, the message went out that there would be few, if any, deportations* and no real ICE kinetic activity beyond the border. The world’s poor, sick, both law-abiding and criminal, young and old, understood that anyone could now enter the U.S. at will. Deterrence and legality were lost. In its place, the message went out that if it was permissible to cross the border unlawfully [sic], then, by extension, it would be seen as equally fine to reside illegally [sic] as well, and perhaps further to ignore laws, on the theory that the host had sanctioned all such exemptions.” [editor’s note: * Trump still hasn’t caught up with Biden’s deportation numbers. Or Obama’s – TLK] (12/08/25)
https://amgreatness.com/2025/12/08/immigration-gone-wild/
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27) Deporting Democracy, Importing Authoritarian Logic
Source: Independent Institute
by Abigail R Hall & Patrik Ward
“As tensions between Washington and Caracas intensify, over 250,000 Venezuelans living legally in the United States are set to lose their Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a temporary immigration status that allows individuals from certain countries to live and work in the United States if their home country is considered unsafe. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has framed keeping these Venezuelans in the country as ‘contrary to national interest.’ In reality, revoking TPS is not sound policy; it is bad economics aligned with worse ethics. This policy does nothing to help the American public. It does, however, endanger thousands of people who fled an erratic authoritarian regime and lays bare the overwhelming hypocrisy coming from Washington.” (12/08/25)
https://www.independent.org/article/2025/12/08/deporting-democracy-importing-authoritarian-logic/
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28) The Seven Deadly Economic Sins
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Mark Thornton
“The seven deadly sins of Christianity are serious ‘capital’ sins because they spawn sinful behavior in general. The seven economic sins of economic policy destroy capital, undermine wage rates, and lower the standard of living. They actually kill people via poverty, malnutrition, suicide, and the like.” (12/08/25)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/seven-deadly-economic-sins
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29) History Shows Why the US Must Leave Venezuela Alone
Source: TomDispatch
by Eric Ross
“In recent months, the Trump administration has escalated a decades-long campaign against the Venezuelan government and people. The renewed, intensifying threats of regime change, justified through false or inflated claims that Nicolás Maduro, its president, is directing narco-terrorism against the United States, serve as a convenient pretext for deeper and more direct intervention. A recent wave of extrajudicial killings at sea, the directing of the CIA to launch covert ops inside Venezuela, the surge of US troops into the Caribbean, the reopening of a long-shuttered naval base in Puerto Rico, and the deployment of the aircraft carrier the USS Gerald Ford in the region represent striking but not surprising developments. These are little more than the latest expression of an ideological project through which Washington has long sought to shape the hemisphere in ways that would entrench US power further and protect the profits of Western multinationals.” (12/07/25)
https://tomdispatch.com/the-trump-corollary/
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30) Herodotus the Storyteller
Source: Law & Liberty
by Matthew K Reising
“We often forget ourselves in this modern age, and one can’t help but feel that the amnesia is by design. For better or worse, the digital revolution has turned attention into a challenge and a commodity. Because of social media’s predominance, brain rot and doomscrolling are now part of everyday vernacular. Moreover, AI has raised serious questions about the nature of human consciousness, and distress about disinformation and polarization in the political sphere is rampant. Given these woes, Emily Katz Anhalt’s latest book, Ancient Wisdom for Polarized Times, hopes to remind us what it is to be human by enlisting an unlikely ally: the fifth-century BC historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus.” (12/08/25)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/herodotus-the-storyteller/
-----
31) Trump Targets Car Affordability With Regulatory Reform
Source: Town Hall
by EJ Antoni, Ph.D.
“President Trump put the affordability crisis squarely in his sights this week when he announced a major regulatory reform that will save American families billions of dollars on vehicles in the coming years. By rolling back onerous overreach from the Biden administration, Mr. Trump is ensuring consumers will be able to buy the cars and trucks they want, and at lower prices. The regulation concerned here is the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which are promulgated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. CAFE standards regulate fuel economy for cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks. Under Biden, these standards were raised to completely unreasonable levels, forcing costly changes for consumers and automakers alike. The Biden-era regulation would’ve required automakers to meet a fleet average of more than 50 miles per gallon for cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks in model year 2031, which is just a few years away.” (12/08/25)
https://townhall.com/columnists/ej-antoni/2025/12/08/trump-targets-car-affordability-with-regulatory-reform-n2667472
-----
32) The Fed’s Losses, Atlanta’s Lesson, and the Case for Balance-Sheet Reform
Source: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus
by David Beckworth
“President Trump will soon announce his pick for the next Federal Reserve Chair. Whoever takes the helm will inherit a full plate of challenges from Jerome Powell: interest-rate decisions, balance-sheet runoff, payment-system reform, regulatory overhaul, growing political pressures, and more. One thing the new chair will not inherit, however, is a Federal Reserve still incurring operating losses. Yes, as our friend Bill Nelson first reported, the Fed is now generating net interest income for the first time since August 2022. … The primary reason for the recent losses is that the Fed’s interest expenses exceeded its interest income.” (12/08/25)
https://macroeconomicpolicynexus.substack.com/p/the-feds-losses-atlantas-lesson-and
-----
33) There Can Be No Peace With Marco Rubio Around
Source: Common Dreams
by Medea Benjamin & Nicolas JS Davies
“Donald Trump campaigned on ending endless wars and now boasts that he has resolved eight wars. In reality, this claim is delusional, and his foreign policy is a disaster. The United States remains mired in ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, and now Trump is careening blindly into new wars in Latin America. The dangerous disconnect between Trump’s delusions and the real-world impacts of his policies is on full display in his new National Security Strategy document. But this schism has been exacerbated by putting US foreign policy in the hands of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose neocon worldview and behind-the-scenes maneuvering has consistently undercut Trump’s professed goals of diplomacy, negotiated settlements and ‘America First’ priorities.” (12/08/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/marco-rubio-venezuela
-----
34) Dollar Stores: Where Trumpian Sleaze Meets Affordability
Source: CounterPunch
by Dean Baker
“The Guardian had a fascinating piece on how the Dollar store chains (both Dollar General and Family Dollar) seem to have a practice of advertising lower prices on their shelves than what they ring up at the register when the person checks out. The evidence they present in the piece indicates that these mispricing cases may account for more than 20 percent of all sales. … This piece is striking for three reasons. First, insofar as this sort of cheating is common, it indicates that inflation could be greater than is generally recognized. Second, it brings home the problem of ‘affordability’ in a way that many of us probably did not anticipate. … Finally, it shows how the Trump-Musk habit of laughing at consumer fraud has very real pocketbook effects.” (12/08/25)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/12/08/dollar-stores-where-trumpian-sleaze-meets-affordability/
-----
35) Wealth Inequality is Not a Problem in Britain
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Kritsian Niemietz
“Gary Stevenson thinks that he has discovered the root cause of Britain’s malaise: wealth inequality. In his version of events, the super-rich are monopolising all the assets, including property and they are using the returns on those assets to buy even more assets — a self-reinforcing downward spiral. A small, super-wealthy elite is getting wealthier and wealthier, while the rest of the country is sinking into abject poverty. Gary has assembled a mass following on the basis of this thesis, so it is clearly persuasive to a lot of people. It is also completely wrong, for a number of reasons. ” (12/08/25)
https://fee.org/articles/wealth-inequality-is-not-a-problem-in-britain/
-----
36) Elon Musk is right about the EU
Source: spiked
by Brendan O’Neill
“Musk’s irate philippics against the Brussels machine might be driven by self-serving impulses. His conversion to what we might call the Brexit spirit followed the EU’s slapping of a €120million fine on X for breaching the transparency rules in its authoritarian Digital Services Act. In response, Musk taunted EU officials on X and openly called for the EU’s dismantling. ‘The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries, so that governments can better represent their people’, he tweeted. So it was the EU’s meddling with his bank balance, rather than its meddling with the European people’s sovereign rights, that pushed him over the edge into Euroscepticism. He’s still right, though.” (12/08/25)
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/12/08/elon-musk-is-right-about-the-eu/
-----
37) Poem: The Blue Whales Have Stopped Singing
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“The blue whales have stopped singing / because the krill are vanishing / because the oceans are warming / because we are ruled by long-toothed liars / whose insides are full of dead leaves. / The great whales have gone silent / and my bird has gone blind / and there are chatbots in the basement / and corpses in the corn. / Under the overpass it is dry and still. / You would never know that everything is dying. / You should come and visit me. / Meet me over there under the sepia streetlights / with the strangleporn perverts and fentanyl fallen, / all the stillborn scar tissue extractions / from the wreckage of a banished womb, / the NAFTA-noosed factory towns full of deserted buildings / and the window-snarling meth towns full of deserted people, / where the cries of orphaned Palestinians mingle / with the cries of the last baby orangutan / ever born in the wild …” (12/08/25)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/12/08/the-blue-whales-have-stopped-singing/
-----
38) Quantum Vibe, 12/08/25
Source: Big Head Press
by Scott Bieser
Cartoon. (12/08/25)
https://www.quantumvibe.com/strip?page=2564
-----
39) Agree with him or not, Noam Chomsky’s ideas are still worth grappling with
Source: Orange County Register
by Sal Rodriguez
“Today marks the 97th birthday of Noam Chomsky, known both for his status as ‘the father of modern linguistics’ as well as his prolific political commentary. I’m aware that as the opinion editor of an editorial page that tilts libertarian he’s an unusual figure to highlight, but he was intellectually influential to me ever since I read a booklet of his (‘9/11’) sometime in 2002 (I would’ve been 11). Though I came to identify more with thinkers like Milton Friedman, Chomsky is still someone whose writings and speeches I return to.” (12/08/25)
https://archive.is/8l2Bh
-----
40) Don’t Pay, Don’t Play
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“The European Commission is fining the X platform 120 million euros (140 million dollars), for ‘transparency failures’: not sharing advertising and user data with the EU and not making it easy to censor account holders. As Reclaim the Net reports, the European Union wants platforms to open themselves to what it calls ‘independent research.’ In practice, this means that ‘academics and NGOs, often with pro-censorship political affiliations’ get special access to the data, ‘exactly the kind of surveillance the [Digital Services Act] claims to prevent.… The EU is angry that X is not policing speech the way it wants.’ My advice to Elon Musk is to shut down X (formerly Twitter) throughout the EU. And refuse to pay the fine.” (12/08/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/12/08/dont-pay-dont-play/
-----
41) As Obamacare Deadline Looms, Republicans Scramble for Health Care Ideas
Source: The American Prospect
by Ryan Cooper
“A major theme of American politics over the past few decades is Democrats repeatedly bailing Republicans out from the political consequences of their own actions, particularly with health care. During the Obama years, House Republicans voted dozens of times to repeal Obamacare, which Democrats blocked every time. During Trump’s first term, the GOP came within one vote of actually repealing it. Now, with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), Republicans have finally gotten what they wanted: namely, taking a trillion-dollar bite out of Medicaid, and allowing Biden-era Obamacare subsidies to lapse, meaning premiums on the exchanges are going to more than double. Except, whoops, it turns out that people don’t like this at all, and even the more dim-witted congressional Republicans are starting to fear this might blow up in their faces.” (12/08/25)
https://prospect.org/2025/12/08/republicans-scramble-for-health-care-ideas-obamacare-deadline-looms/
-----
42) Bannon, Mearsheimer: Trump’s Ukraine Plan Won’t End the War
Source: The American Conservative
by Harrison Berger
“Russia hawks in Congress and their allies in corporate media have been on the warpath against the Trump administration’s 28-point peace plan for ending the Ukraine war, dubbing the plan a ‘Russian wish-list.’ The MSNBC host Rachel Maddow went so far as to hold it up as proof that ‘the Kremlin runs U.S. foreign policy.’ … Yet there are also criticisms of the plan from the other end of the ideological spectrum. Among the most prominent voices who argued from the start that the United States should never have been drawn into the Ukraine conflict are the War Room host and former White House advisor Steve Bannon and the University of Chicago’s Professor John Mearsheimer. They now warn that far from being a ‘Russian wish list,’ the Trump administration’s plan may not actually address the underlying political problems that ultimately caused the Ukraine proxy war.” (12/08/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/bannon-mearsheimer-trumps-ukraine-plan-wont-end-the-war/
-----
43) “This ain’t gonna work’: How Russia pulled the plug on Assad
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Connor Echols
“In early November of last year, the Assad regime had a lot to look forward to. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had just joined fellow Middle Eastern leaders at a pan-Islamic summit in Saudi Arabia, marking a major step in his return to the international fold. … Less than a month later, Assad fled the country in a Russian plane as Turkish-backed opposition forces began their final approach to Damascus. Most observers were taken aback by this development. But long-time Middle East analyst Neil Partrick was less surprised. As Partrick details in his new book, ‘State Failure in the Middle East,’ the seemingly resurgent Assad regime had by that point been reduced to a hollowed-out state apparatus, propped up by foreign backers. When those backers pulled out, Assad was left with little choice but to flee.” (12/08/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/assad-regime-collapse/
-----
44) It’s Time to Make America Truly Tribal Again
Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid
“Way back in the 1700s there was this fucked up little place called Florida, or at least that’s what the Spaniards called it. The original natives of the region had multiple different names for this untamable swampland but most of them were wiped out by slaughter and disease from the Conquistadors who declared the wild mess, Florida. They didn’t last long though. In fact, those butchers only managed to build and populate a few colonialist missions before their glorious Catholic empire collapsed in the tall grass surrounding them and, in spite of such efforts, most of Florida remained a verdant wilderness teeming with all kinds of shit that freaked white people the fuck out- snakes, alligators, mosquitos, humidity … But there was one tribe of Indians just wild enough to call this no-man’s-land home.” (12/07/25)
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2025/12/its-time-to-make-america-truly-tribal.html
-----
45) Minnesota’s $70 million fraud exposes how Dems built system designed to be robbed
Source: Fox News
by Jason Rantz
“For years, Democrats assured us that expanding government programs was an act of moral heroism — that the only thing standing between America and utopia was more taxpayer money flowing through more ‘community-based’ nonprofits embracing ‘equity-centered’ missions. Then Minnesota happened, exposing a truth the radical left will never admit: The system isn’t broken. This is exactly how it’s designed to work. Over 70 people connected to the Minnesota nonprofit Feeding Our Future face federal charges in the country’s largest COVID pandemic fraud scandal. It was primarily Somali American defendants who allegedly stole funds meant for low-income children by submitting falsified invoices, fake meal counts and fabricated rosters. The organizations billed the government for tens of millions of unserved meals, using the stolen money for luxury cars, beachfront property and homes. It’s jaw-dropping — but it’s not surprising. And it happened because Democrats built a system practically engineered for abuse by the nonprofit industrial complex.” (12/08/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/minnesotas-70-million-fraud-exposes-democrats-built-system-designed-robbed
-----
46) Cult(ure) of Abuse
Source: The Reframe
by AR Moxon
“Man, I don’t know. Lately it’s hard to know where even to start or where to begin. Do I have to list all the news stories? Either you’re aware or you aren’t. Many aren’t. I don’t know what to do with that fact, but it seems like a choice, though an understandable one. Awareness carries a high cost these days. It’s exhausting. It’s meant to be exhausting, I think. This is how supremacy works. The costs of reparation are very high, and the cost of awareness comes first of all.” (12/07/25)
https://www.the-reframe.com/cult-ure-of-abuse/?ref=the-reframe-newsletter
-----
47) Ignorance and Indignation
Source: Quillette
by Brian Stewart
“Obama veterans never understood the Middle East, and they never will.” (12/07/25)
https://quillette.com/2025/12/07/ignorance-and-indignation-ben-rhodes-democrats-obama-israel-gaza-hamas/
-----
48) Trump Is Repeating One of Biden’s Big Mistakes
Source: The Atlantic
by David Axelrod
“Donald Trump recaptured the White House in part by relentlessly exploiting Joe Biden’s failure to heed widespread concerns about the rising cost of living. Now, bizarrely, President Trump is walking himself — and his party — into the same perilous trap by denying the economic reality that working families are living.” (12/07/25)
https://archive.is/MKb1l
-----
49) Nowhere to Go: Inside the Texas Boarding Home System Abuse
Source: In These Times
by Ottavia Spaggiari
“Angelique Estes knew her stay would be rough as soon as she arrived at her new home in Arlington, Texas, in early December 2023. At 53 years old, Estes had learned to read her environment quickly. She’s lived with cerebral palsy all her life, and her health quickly deteriorated after her husband of nearly 30 years died two years prior …. [she] turned to group homes as a low-cost alternative to the nursing home she couldn’t afford. By the time she arrived at 1210 Woodbrook Street, a squat, three-bedroom brick house in a quiet suburban neighborhood, she had already cycled through five such boarding homes, none of which had been good. As she took in the tight hallways — so narrow that her ambulance gurney couldn’t fit through — she sensed this time was no better.” (12/08/25)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/texas-boarding-homes-elderly-disability-justice-healthcare-investigation-nursing-neglect-abuse
-----
50) The Constitution and the Trump Tariffs
Source: Tenth Amendment Center
by Rob Natelson
“Are tariffs always taxes? When does a statute granting powers to the president go too far? These are some of the questions the Supreme Court will address in two consolidated tariffs cases: Learning Resources, Inc v. Trump and Trump v. V.O.S. Selections. This essay unpacks the principal constitutional issues for you. It examines those issues through the lens of the Constitution’s original meaning, irrespective of any mistaken later interpretations.” (12/07/25)
https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2025/12/07/the-constitution-and-the-trump-tariffs/
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Reason Roundtable, 12/08/25
Source: Reason
"Why Elizabeth Warren and Donald Trump Hate the Netflix Deal." (12/08/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/12/08/why-elizabeth-warren-and-donald-trump-hate-the-netflix-deal/
-----
52) Conflicts of Interest, episode 858
Source: Libertarian Institute
"Will Israel Annex the West Bank?" (12/08/25)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/kyle/coi-858-will-israel-annex-the-west-bank/
-----
53) Rising, 12/08/25
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave delivers his radar on Rep. Ilhan Omar(D-Minn.) speaking out regarding the massive welfare fraud that occurred in Minnesota under the watch of Governor Tim Walz.” (12/08/25)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5638533-rising-december-8-2025/
-----
54) The Kyle Anzalone Show, 10/08/25
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Craig Pasta Jardula: Is Trump Imploding?” (1/08/25)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/blog/the-kyle-anzalone-show-guest-craig-pasta-jardula-is-trump-imploding
-----
55) The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, 12/08/25
Source: The Dispatch
“Yankee in Kevin Williamson’s Court | Interview: Colin Woodard.” (12/08/25)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/remnant/yankee-in-kevin-williamsons-court-interview-colin-woodard/
-----
56) EconTalk, 12/08/25
Source: EconTalk
“Colonialism, Slavery, and Foreign Aid (with William Easterly).” (12/08/25)
https://www.econtalk.org/colonialism-slavery-and-foreign-aid-with-william-easterly/
-----
57) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 12/08/25
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Press Sec Goes Full Cult as Spin on Mental State Flies Off Rails.” (12/08/25)
https://newrepublic.com/article/204077/trump-press-sec-goes-full-cult-spin-mental-state-flies-off-rails
-----
58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 12/08/25
Source: Antiwar.com
“IDF Chief Says Gaza’s ‘Yellow Line’ Is a ‘New Border,’ US Bombs Somalia 7 More Times, and More.” (12/08/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9ub8xPW9-Y
-----
59) Fountainhead Forum, episode 397
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Cassie Clark on the unique history and culture of North Carolina.” (12/07/25)
https://rumble.com/v72q3o8-ff-397-cassie-clark-on-the-unique-history-and-culture-of-north-carolina.html
-----
60) Dave DeCamp on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
“Dave DeCamp on the Boat Strikes, Somalia and Trump’s Al Qaeda Friend.” (12/07/25)
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/12-5-25-dave-decamp-on-the-boat-strikes-somalia-and-trumps-al-qaeda-friend/
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Today's Freedom News:
0) Doom, Despair, and Agony on Us (Year-End Fundraiser Update)
1) Trump unveils $12 billion ag bailout
2) Jerusalem: Israeli forces raid UNRWA headquarters
3) Bitcoin Treads Water Near $90k
4) Congress to withhold Pentagon travel funds until it sees boat strike videos
5) European pols discuss “positive progress” on making use of stolen Russian assets
6) ICEBlock developer sues Bondi, others over Apple censorship pressure
7) Peru: Hitmen ambush and kill reporter who covered corruption
8) Trump Says He’ll Sign Executive Order Curbing State AI Rules
9) Brazil: Thieves snatch eight Matisse artworks from library
10) SC: Court clerk who helped with Alex Murdaugh’s trial pleads guilty to showing sealed exhibits
11) IL: ICE gang whines that state officials aren’t honoring non-warrant rendition demands
12) Fight Over Trump’s Power to Fire FTC Member Heads to SCOTUS
13) Nigeria: 100 abducted schoolchildren released
14) Mexico: Car bomb kills five in front of police station
15) Benin: Coup leader’s location and fate of hostages unknown after failed takeover
16) Romania: Bucharest voters elect centrist mayor
17) Environmental Groups Call On Congress to Impose Moratorium on New AI Data Centers
18) Trump: Nice merger deal ya got there … be a shame if anything happened to it
19) FBI agents fired for kneeling during racial justice protest sue to get their jobs back
20) China: Trade surplus tops $1 trillion for first time amid pivot to counter US lull
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) NATO Is a Menace, Not a Benefit, to America
22) Trump’s Affordability Bombast Won’t Solve his Real Economic Problems
23) Bill of Rights Day: How Your Rights Keep Authoritarianism in Check
24) Hashtag Handcuffs: The Global Rise of Online Speech Policing
25) The Combat Cowardice Ribbon
26) Immigration Gone Wild
27) Deporting Democracy, Importing Authoritarian Logic
28) The Seven Deadly Economic Sins
29) History Shows Why the US Must Leave Venezuela Alone
30) Herodotus the Storyteller
31) Trump Targets Car Affordability With Regulatory Reform
32) The Fed’s Losses, Atlanta’s Lesson, and the Case for Balance-Sheet Reform
33) There Can Be No Peace With Marco Rubio Around
34) Dollar Stores: Where Trumpian Sleaze Meets Affordability
35) Wealth Inequality is Not a Problem in Britain
36) Elon Musk is right about the EU
37) Poem: The Blue Whales Have Stopped Singing
38) Quantum Vibe, 12/08/25
39) Agree with him or not, Noam Chomsky’s ideas are still worth grappling with
40) Don’t Pay, Don’t Play
41) As Obamacare Deadline Looms, Republicans Scramble for Health Care Ideas
42) Bannon, Mearsheimer: Trump’s Ukraine Plan Won’t End the War
43) “This ain’t gonna work’: How Russia pulled the plug on Assad
44) It’s Time to Make America Truly Tribal Again
45) Minnesota’s $70 million fraud exposes how Dems built system designed to be robbed
46) Cult(ure) of Abuse
47) Ignorance and Indignation
48) Trump Is Repeating One of Biden’s Big Mistakes
49) Nowhere to Go: Inside the Texas Boarding Home System Abuse
50) The Constitution and the Trump Tariffs
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Reason Roundtable, 12/08/25
52) Conflicts of Interest, episode 858
53) Rising, 12/08/25
54) The Kyle Anzalone Show, 10/08/25
55) The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, 12/08/25
56) EconTalk, 12/08/25
57) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 12/08/25
58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 12/08/25
59) Fountainhead Forum, episode 397
60) Dave DeCamp on The Scott Horton Show
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
0) Doom, Despair, and Agony on Us (Year-End Fundraiser Update)
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.
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-----
1) Trump unveils $12 billion ag bailout
Source: Yahoo! Finance
“President Trump on Monday unveiled $12 billion in aid to US farmers, as the agricultural sector deals with the fallout from his sweeping tariff policies. Trump and other top administration officials discussed the package at a roundtable event with farmers at the White House. … Trump said the money for farm relief would come from a ‘small portion’ of tariff-related revenues.” (12/08/25)
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/trump-tariffs-live-updates-trump-unveils-12-billion-bailout-for-us-farmers-as-tariffs-bite-231853651.html
-----
2) Jerusalem: Israeli forces raid UNRWA headquarters
Source: The New Arab [UK]
“Israeli forces raided the headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in occupied East Jerusalem on Monday morning, in the latest assault on the body by Israeli authorities. Troops stormed the premises, carried out searches and confiscated the phones of security guards, witnesses told Palestinian news agency WAFA. The Jerusalem Governorate said security guards were detained during the raid, which occurred during the early hours of the morning. … ‘The unauthorised and forcible entry by Israeli forces is an unacceptable violation of UNRWA’s privileges and immunities as a UN agency,’ said agency spokesperson Tamara Alrifai.” (12/08/25)
https://www.newarab.com/news/israeli-forces-raid-unrwa-headquarters-east-jerusalem
-----
3) Bitcoin Treads Water Near $90k
Source: CoinDesk
“Bitcoin attempted a late weekend rally, but even those small gains were mostly reversed in early U.S. action Monday, with the price quietly settling in near the $90,000 area for the remainder of the day. Trading around $90,500 as U.S. stocks closed, bitcoin was lower by about 1% over the past 24 hours. Altcoin majors also struggled to hold on to their gains. … While the crypto action was muted, long duration government bond yields spiked amid fears of trouble in Japanese bonds spilling over to the other markets. The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield surged to 4.19%, its highest level in about three months, while U.K. and other European countries’ government debt also sold off.” (12/08/25)
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/12/08/bitcoin-treads-water-near-usd90k-as-bitfinex-warns-of-fragile-setup-to-shocks
-----
4) Congress to withhold Pentagon travel funds until it sees boat strike videos
Source: Politico
“Congress is using its marquee defense [sic] bill to force the Pentagon into turning over videos of strikes against suspected drug-smuggling boats off the coast of Latin America. Lawmakers plan to withhold a quarter of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget until the Pentagon provides them with the videos. The demand, quietly tucked into the final draft of the annual defense [sic] policy bill, calls for ‘unedited video of strikes conducted against designated terrorist organizations in the area of responsibility of the United States Southern Command’ to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. Congressional leaders released their final draft of the defense [sic] bill Sunday, which is expected to be approved — without changes — by the House later this week and then the Senate.” (12/08/25)
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/08/ndaa-boat-strikes-congress-hegseth-without-funds-00680679
-----
5) European pols discuss “positive progress” on making use of stolen Russian assets
Source: Reuters
“British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the leaders of France and Germany discussed the ‘positive progress’ made to use frozen Russian sovereign assets to support Ukraine, Downing Street said on Monday. ‘The leaders all agreed that now is a critical moment and that we must continue to ramp up support to Ukraine and economic pressure on Putin to bring an end to this barbaric war,’ said a spokesperson for Starmer.” (12/08/25)
https://archive.is/c3HT7
-----
6) ICEBlock developer sues Bondi, others over Apple censorship pressure
Source: New York Times
“For six months, Apple distributed an app called ICEBlock that allowed users to alert people when they saw Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. But after the Trump administration complained that the app endangered officers, Apple removed it. On Monday, the app’s developer, Joshua Aaron, sued top Trump administration officials, accusing them of pressuring Apple to stifle his free speech and his right to create, distribute and promote ICEBlock. The suit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, claimed that Attorney General Pam Bondi abused the government’s power when the Justice Department contacted Apple and demanded it remove the app, which she said she had done in a statement to Fox News in October. She said that Apple removed the app after her request.” (12/08/25)
https://archive.is/uUhiG
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7) Peru: Hitmen ambush and kill reporter who covered corruption
Source: CBS News
“Peruvian journalist Fernando Nunez, whose reporting dug into municipal corruption cases, was shot and killed by hitmen while returning from an assignment, Peru’s National Association of Journalists (ANP) said Sunday. Nunez, a reporter for the digital outlet Kamila TV, ‘was attacked by hitmen while riding a motorcycle with his brother’ on Saturday, the ANP said in a statement on social media. Nunez died instantly and his brother was in critical condition. Nunez is the third journalist killed by organized crime in Peru in 2025, following the slayings of journalists Gaston Medina and Raul Celis.” (12/08/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hitmen-kill-reporter-covered-corruption-peru-journalist-group/
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8) Trump Says He’ll Sign Executive Order Curbing State AI Rules
Source: Bloomberg
“President Donald Trump said he would approve an executive order this week to establish ‘ONE RULE’ on artificial intelligence regulation and limit state-level policies regulating the technology. ‘I will be doing a ONE RULE Executive Order this week. You can’t expect a company to get 50 Approvals every time they want to do something,’ Trump posted on social media Monday. The forthcoming order marks the latest bid by Trump to put his imprint on policy for AI, a technology that is rapidly developing and seen increasing adoption by business, government and the public.” (12/08/25)
https://archive.is/ns8Gn
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9) Brazil: Thieves snatch eight Matisse artworks from library
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Two armed men have stolen eight engravings by French artist Matisse and at least another five by Brazilian painter Cândido Portinari from a library in São Paulo. Brazilian officials say the thieves held up a security guard and an elderly couple who were visiting the library before making off with the artworks on foot. … The heist comes less than two months after the art world was rocked by a brazen break-in at the Louvre museum in Paris, where thieves made off with priceless jewels. … Bibilioteca Mário de Andrade is the country’s second largest library and officials say that its building in the centre of São Paulo had cameras with facial recognition technology. The mayor of São Paulo told local media the thieves had already been identified but so far they remain on the run.” (12/08/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0mp4nevdz7o
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10) SC: Court clerk who helped with Alex Murdaugh’s trial pleads guilty to showing sealed exhibits
Source: Associated Press
“The former court clerk in South Carolina who helped out with the murder trial of attorney Alex Murdaugh pleaded guilty Monday to criminal charges for showing sealed court exhibits to a photographer and lying about it in court. Former Colleton County Clerk of Court Mary Rebecca ‘Becky’ Hill pleaded guilty in Colleton County Circuit Court to four charges — obstruction of justice and perjury for showing a reporter photographs that were sealed court exhibits and then lying about it — as well as two counts of misconduct in office for taking bonuses and promoting through her public office a book she wrote on the trial. Judge Heath Taylor sentenced Hill, 58, to three years of probation.” (12/08/25)
https://apnews.com/article/becky-hill-alex-murdaugh-court-clerk-5e25491cb1dc802f9a0a8e1c0151dda8
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11) IL: ICE gang whines that state officials aren’t honoring non-warrant rendition demands
Source: Fox News
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is warning that Illinois officials are releasing violent criminal illegal [sic] aliens despite active immigration detainers, a move the agency says is putting the public at risk. In the letter shared with Fox News Digital, Todd Lyons, ICE’s senior official performing the duties of director, said Illinois has ‘tens of thousands of criminal illegal [sic] aliens’ in custody – individuals who, he noted, have committed crimes ranging from murder and rape to child pornography and armed robbery. Lyons said these offenders ‘should be swiftly removed from the United States … and not be returned to our streets to wreak havoc on law-abiding citizens’. According to data provided by ICE, Illinois has released 1,768 criminal aliens with active detainers since January 2025. ICE said the crimes tied to those offenders include homicides, assaults, burglaries, weapons offenses and sexual-predatory crimes.” (12/08/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/us/ice-warns-illinois-releasing-violent-criminal-illegal-aliens-despite-detainers-risking-public-safety
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12) Fight Over Trump’s Power to Fire FTC Member Heads to SCOTUS
Source: US News & World Report
“The U.S. Supreme Court is set on Monday to weigh the legality of Donald Trump’s firing of a Federal Trade Commission member in a major test of presidential power that could imperil a 90-year-old legal precedent. The court will hear arguments in the Justice Department’s appeal of a lower court’s decision that the Republican president exceeded his authority when he moved to dismiss Democratic FTC member Rebecca Slaughter in March before her term was set to expire. The case gives the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, an opportunity to overturn a New Deal-era Supreme Court precedent in a case called Humphrey’s Executor v. United States that has shielded the heads of independent agencies from removal since 1935.” (12/08/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2025-12-08/fight-over-trumps-power-to-fire-ftc-member-heads-to-us-supreme-court
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13) Nigeria: 100 abducted schoolchildren released
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“About 100 children who were abducted from a Catholic school in central Nigeria last month have been freed. They arrived in the Niger state capital, Minna, in a fleet of minibuses escorted by military vans and armoured vehicles, and were received by Governor Umar Bago. Details about their release remain unclear, including whether it was secured through negotiation or by force, and whether any ransoms were paid.” (12/08/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgjvg4ylwpo
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14) Mexico: Car bomb kills five in front of police station
Source: CBS News
“Mexican authorities on Sunday said at least five people died and three more were injured after a car exploded near a police station in the restive western state of Michoacan. The explosion took place shortly before noon local time on Saturday in front of the police headquarters in the coastal city of Coahuayana, according to Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office, which has taken over investigation of the case. The state prosecutor’s office raised the initial toll from three fatal victims to five, adding that three of them were local police officers. … At least three of the six drug cartels that the Trump administration has designated as terrorist organizations – Jalisco New Generation, United Cartels and The New Michoacan Family – operate in Michoacán, in addition to a slew of homegrown armed splinter groups, some supported by the Sinaloa Cartel.” (12/08/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/car-bomb-deaths-officers-police-station-michoacan-mexico/
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15) Benin: Coup leader’s location and fate of hostages unknown after failed takeover
Source: SFGate
“The apparent leader of a failed coup in Benin remained on the run and the fate of hostages remained unclear on Monday, a day after a group of soldiers attempted to overthrow the government of the West African nation. The soldiers, calling themselves the Committee for Refoundation, stormed the national television station on Sunday morning. Led by Lt. Col. Pascal Tigri, eight soldiers appeared in a broadcast announcing the removal of President Patrice Talon, dissolution of the government and suspension of state institutions. Before the coup, Tigri was a member of Talon’s protection detail. As an artillery officer, he commanded a National Guard battalion between 2023 and 2025. By Sunday afternoon, the coup was foiled by Benin’s military, supported by Nigerian air and ground forces, which launched attacks against fleeing mutineers. At least a dozen soldiers were arrested, while others remained at large. Tigri’s whereabouts weren’t known.” (12/08/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/benin-coup-leader-s-location-and-fate-of-hostages-21229920.php
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16) Romania: Bucharest voters elect centrist mayor
Source: Politico
“Center-right politician Ciprian Ciucu will be Bucharest’s new mayor after defeating a far-right candidate in Sunday elections. Ciucu, the candidate of the center-right National Liberal Party and a close ally of Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, won roughly 36 percent of the vote. Ciucu defeated Anca Alexandrescu, a TV presenter backed by Romania’s largest far-right party (AUR), who finished second with about 22 percent. The Social Democratic Party’s candidate Daniel Băluță came third, despite being projected to win in many opinion polls.” (12/08/25)
https://www.politico.eu/article/bucharest-election-mayor-centril-ciprian-ciucu-reject-far-right
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17) Environmental Groups Call On Congress to Impose Moratorium on New AI Data Centers
Source: Common Dreams
“Environmental and economic justice advocates alike have been sounding the alarm for months regarding the Trump administration’s push to built massive data centers to support artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency in communities across the United States (regardless of local opposition) and on Monday Congress heard from a coalition of more than 200 groups demanding action to stop what they called ‘one of the biggest environmental and social threats of our generation’. Led by Food and Water Watch (FWW), which originally demanded a moratorium on new AI data centers in October, more than 230 organizations have signed a letter warning that thus far, Congress has failed to take action to stop the rapid expansion despite the fact that ‘the harms of data center growth are increasingly well-established, and they are massive.'” (12/08/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/news/ai-data-centers-energy-news
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18) Trump: Nice merger deal ya got there … be a shame if anything happened to it
Source: NBC News
“President Donald Trump said Sunday that the proposed $72 billion merger between Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery ‘could be a problem’ because of the amount of market share the resulting company would have. … Trump said he would consult ‘some economists’ before the deal get his stamp of approval. ‘I’ll be involved in that decision, too,’ he said. Historically, presidents have not often gotten involved in antitrust approvals when companies seek to merge. Neither Netflix nor Warner Bros. own any broadcast stations, so the deal would not require approval by Federal Communications Commission. However, it may still require approval by the Justice Department’s antitrust division.” (12/07/25)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-says-netflix-warner-bros-deal-problem-will-involved-approval-rcna247923
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19) FBI agents fired for kneeling during racial justice protest sue to get their jobs back
Source: SFGate
“Twelve former FBI agents fired after kneeling during a 2020 racial justice protest in Washington sued Monday to get their jobs back, saying their action had been intended to de-escalate a volatile situation and was not meant as a political gesture. The agents say in their lawsuit that they were fired in September by Director Kash Patel because they were perceived as not being politically affiliated with President Donald Trump. But they say their decision to take a knee on June 4, 2020, days after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, has been misinterpreted as political expression. The lawsuit says the agents … became outnumbered by hostile crowds they encountered and decided to kneel to the ground in hopes of defusing the tension, the lawsuit said.” (12/08/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/12-fbi-agents-fired-for-kneeling-during-racial-21230699.php
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20) China: Trade surplus tops $1 trillion for first time amid pivot to counter US lull
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“China’s annual trade surplus in goods has topped $1 trillion for the first time, with plunging exports to the United States amid a tariff war more than compensated for by shipments to other markets, new data shows. Figures released by China’s General Administration of Customs on Monday showed the trade surplus for the first 11 months of the year hit $1.08 trillion in November, as exports climbed 5.9 percent year-on-year that month, reversing a 1.1 percent decline the month prior. The leap came despite a continued slump in exports to the US, which fell 28.6 percent to $33.8bn last month, the data showed.” [editor’s note: As Don Boudreaux occasionally reminds us, exports are the price paid for imports. Consumers in a country “enjoying” a “trade surplus” are getting a worse, not better, deal – TLK] (12/08/25)
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/12/8/china-trade-surplus-tops-1tn-for-first-time-amid-pivot-to-counter-us-lull
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) NATO Is a Menace, Not a Benefit, to America
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Galen Carpenter
“Since its creation in 1949, NATO has been the keystone of U.S. foreign policy in Europe. Indeed, the alliance has been the most important feature of Washington’s overall strategy of global primacy. America’s political and policy elites have embraced two key assumptions and continue to do so. One is that NATO is essential to the peace and security of the entire transatlantic region and will remain so for the indefinite future. The other sacred assumption is that the alliance is highly beneficial to America’s own core security and economic interests. Whatever validity those assumptions may have had at one time, they are dangerously obsolete today. The toxic, militaristic views toward Russia that too many European leaders are adopting have made NATO into a snare that could entangle the United States in a large-scale war with ominous nuclear implications.” (12/08/25)
https://original.antiwar.com/ted_galen_carpenter/2025/12/07/nato-is-a-menace-not-a-benefit-to-america
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22) Trump’s Affordability Bombast Won’t Solve his Real Economic Problems
Source: JimBovard.com
by James Bovard
“‘Affordability’ epitomizes how Trump is floundering on what had been one of his strongest issues. A Gallup survey found that only 36% of Americans approve of Trump’s economic performance while a Fox News poll found that 76% of voters disapprove of Trump’s economy — an even worse rating than Joe Biden scored at the end of his presidency. The White House acts as if more bluster can solve the problem. But is the Trump administration now targeting its economic message solely to people who failed high-school mathematics? On Truth Social last month, Trump proclaimed, ‘DRUG PRICES ARE FALLING AT LEVELS NEVER SEEN BEFORE, 500%, 600%, 700%, and more.’ Actually, drug prices cannot fall more than 100% unless people are getting paid to swallow the durn free pills. But it’s worse than that. Prescription-drug prices have in fact increased roughly 2% this year, according to federal data.” (12/08/25)
https://jimbovard.com/blog/2025/12/08/n-y-post-trumps-affordability-bombast-wont-solve-his-real-economic-problems/
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23) Bill of Rights Day: How Your Rights Keep Authoritarianism in Check
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille
“In these fraught political times when our political choices are largely limited to authoritarian Republicans and totalitarian Democrats and federal agencies vie for opportunities to violate individual rights, it’s difficult to feel anything other than contempt for government. It’s worth remembering, though, that the current mess isn’t a good representation of the Founding ideals of our republic. In particular, consider the protections for liberty embodied in the Bill of Rights, which is celebrated every December 15.” (12/08/25)
https://reason.com/2025/12/08/bill-of-rights-day-how-your-rights-keep-authoritarianism-in-check/
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24) Hashtag Handcuffs: The Global Rise of Online Speech Policing
Source: The Daily Economy
by Julian Adorney
“In one sense, the global crackdown on online speech is understandable. Most people support freedom of speech, but balance this support with their support of other priorities, such as their desire to cultivate a culture that respects the rights and dignity of minorities. In the last decade, social media has shocked many of us with evidence of how heinous the views of some of our fellow citizens are. It’s understandable that someone might see a post on X with thousands of likes that implies that black Americans are genetically inferior to white Americans, and conclude that the government ought to do something to punish this kind of hateful speech. But for all that the impulse to censor can be noble-hearted, it’s also wrong-headed. In practice, attempts to punish so-called hate speech run into several big problems.” (12/08/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/hashtag-handcuffs-the-global-rise-of-online-speech-policing/
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25) The Combat Cowardice Ribbon
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“The U.S. Navy has a Combat Action Ribbon (CAR) that is comparable to the Combat Infantry Badge (CIB) in the army. These are awarded to military personnel who engage in combat during wartime. Does the U.S. Navy plan on handing out the CAR to all the Navy personnel who have participated in the attacks on those small boats on the high seas near Venezuela, which have resulted in the killings of more than 80 people? Given President Trump’s and the Pentagon’s ‘we-are-at-war’ assertion, I don’t see why they wouldn’t hand out that combat ribbon. But if I were one of those Navy personnel, I’d be embarrassed to wear that ‘combat’ ribbon on my uniform. … In fact, I think the Navy should issue a brand new ribbon — the Combat Cowardice Ribbon — to all the Navy personnel who have participated in those drug-war killings.” (12/08/25)
https://www.fff.org/2025/12/08/the-combat-cowardice-ribbon/
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26) Immigration Gone Wild
Source: American Greatness
by Victor Davis Hanson
“It is hard now even for Democrats to defend illegal [sic] immigration, given that the Biden administration allowed in more than 10 million entrants. Among them were an estimated 500,000 criminals. No one believes that was wise or should ever be repeated. Worse, the message went out that there would be few, if any, deportations* and no real ICE kinetic activity beyond the border. The world’s poor, sick, both law-abiding and criminal, young and old, understood that anyone could now enter the U.S. at will. Deterrence and legality were lost. In its place, the message went out that if it was permissible to cross the border unlawfully [sic], then, by extension, it would be seen as equally fine to reside illegally [sic] as well, and perhaps further to ignore laws, on the theory that the host had sanctioned all such exemptions.” [editor’s note: * Trump still hasn’t caught up with Biden’s deportation numbers. Or Obama’s – TLK] (12/08/25)
https://amgreatness.com/2025/12/08/immigration-gone-wild/
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27) Deporting Democracy, Importing Authoritarian Logic
Source: Independent Institute
by Abigail R Hall & Patrik Ward
“As tensions between Washington and Caracas intensify, over 250,000 Venezuelans living legally in the United States are set to lose their Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a temporary immigration status that allows individuals from certain countries to live and work in the United States if their home country is considered unsafe. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has framed keeping these Venezuelans in the country as ‘contrary to national interest.’ In reality, revoking TPS is not sound policy; it is bad economics aligned with worse ethics. This policy does nothing to help the American public. It does, however, endanger thousands of people who fled an erratic authoritarian regime and lays bare the overwhelming hypocrisy coming from Washington.” (12/08/25)
https://www.independent.org/article/2025/12/08/deporting-democracy-importing-authoritarian-logic/
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28) The Seven Deadly Economic Sins
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Mark Thornton
“The seven deadly sins of Christianity are serious ‘capital’ sins because they spawn sinful behavior in general. The seven economic sins of economic policy destroy capital, undermine wage rates, and lower the standard of living. They actually kill people via poverty, malnutrition, suicide, and the like.” (12/08/25)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/seven-deadly-economic-sins
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29) History Shows Why the US Must Leave Venezuela Alone
Source: TomDispatch
by Eric Ross
“In recent months, the Trump administration has escalated a decades-long campaign against the Venezuelan government and people. The renewed, intensifying threats of regime change, justified through false or inflated claims that Nicolás Maduro, its president, is directing narco-terrorism against the United States, serve as a convenient pretext for deeper and more direct intervention. A recent wave of extrajudicial killings at sea, the directing of the CIA to launch covert ops inside Venezuela, the surge of US troops into the Caribbean, the reopening of a long-shuttered naval base in Puerto Rico, and the deployment of the aircraft carrier the USS Gerald Ford in the region represent striking but not surprising developments. These are little more than the latest expression of an ideological project through which Washington has long sought to shape the hemisphere in ways that would entrench US power further and protect the profits of Western multinationals.” (12/07/25)
https://tomdispatch.com/the-trump-corollary/
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30) Herodotus the Storyteller
Source: Law & Liberty
by Matthew K Reising
“We often forget ourselves in this modern age, and one can’t help but feel that the amnesia is by design. For better or worse, the digital revolution has turned attention into a challenge and a commodity. Because of social media’s predominance, brain rot and doomscrolling are now part of everyday vernacular. Moreover, AI has raised serious questions about the nature of human consciousness, and distress about disinformation and polarization in the political sphere is rampant. Given these woes, Emily Katz Anhalt’s latest book, Ancient Wisdom for Polarized Times, hopes to remind us what it is to be human by enlisting an unlikely ally: the fifth-century BC historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus.” (12/08/25)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/herodotus-the-storyteller/
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31) Trump Targets Car Affordability With Regulatory Reform
Source: Town Hall
by EJ Antoni, Ph.D.
“President Trump put the affordability crisis squarely in his sights this week when he announced a major regulatory reform that will save American families billions of dollars on vehicles in the coming years. By rolling back onerous overreach from the Biden administration, Mr. Trump is ensuring consumers will be able to buy the cars and trucks they want, and at lower prices. The regulation concerned here is the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which are promulgated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. CAFE standards regulate fuel economy for cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks. Under Biden, these standards were raised to completely unreasonable levels, forcing costly changes for consumers and automakers alike. The Biden-era regulation would’ve required automakers to meet a fleet average of more than 50 miles per gallon for cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks in model year 2031, which is just a few years away.” (12/08/25)
https://townhall.com/columnists/ej-antoni/2025/12/08/trump-targets-car-affordability-with-regulatory-reform-n2667472
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32) The Fed’s Losses, Atlanta’s Lesson, and the Case for Balance-Sheet Reform
Source: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus
by David Beckworth
“President Trump will soon announce his pick for the next Federal Reserve Chair. Whoever takes the helm will inherit a full plate of challenges from Jerome Powell: interest-rate decisions, balance-sheet runoff, payment-system reform, regulatory overhaul, growing political pressures, and more. One thing the new chair will not inherit, however, is a Federal Reserve still incurring operating losses. Yes, as our friend Bill Nelson first reported, the Fed is now generating net interest income for the first time since August 2022. … The primary reason for the recent losses is that the Fed’s interest expenses exceeded its interest income.” (12/08/25)
https://macroeconomicpolicynexus.substack.com/p/the-feds-losses-atlantas-lesson-and
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33) There Can Be No Peace With Marco Rubio Around
Source: Common Dreams
by Medea Benjamin & Nicolas JS Davies
“Donald Trump campaigned on ending endless wars and now boasts that he has resolved eight wars. In reality, this claim is delusional, and his foreign policy is a disaster. The United States remains mired in ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, and now Trump is careening blindly into new wars in Latin America. The dangerous disconnect between Trump’s delusions and the real-world impacts of his policies is on full display in his new National Security Strategy document. But this schism has been exacerbated by putting US foreign policy in the hands of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose neocon worldview and behind-the-scenes maneuvering has consistently undercut Trump’s professed goals of diplomacy, negotiated settlements and ‘America First’ priorities.” (12/08/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/marco-rubio-venezuela
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34) Dollar Stores: Where Trumpian Sleaze Meets Affordability
Source: CounterPunch
by Dean Baker
“The Guardian had a fascinating piece on how the Dollar store chains (both Dollar General and Family Dollar) seem to have a practice of advertising lower prices on their shelves than what they ring up at the register when the person checks out. The evidence they present in the piece indicates that these mispricing cases may account for more than 20 percent of all sales. … This piece is striking for three reasons. First, insofar as this sort of cheating is common, it indicates that inflation could be greater than is generally recognized. Second, it brings home the problem of ‘affordability’ in a way that many of us probably did not anticipate. … Finally, it shows how the Trump-Musk habit of laughing at consumer fraud has very real pocketbook effects.” (12/08/25)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/12/08/dollar-stores-where-trumpian-sleaze-meets-affordability/
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35) Wealth Inequality is Not a Problem in Britain
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Kritsian Niemietz
“Gary Stevenson thinks that he has discovered the root cause of Britain’s malaise: wealth inequality. In his version of events, the super-rich are monopolising all the assets, including property and they are using the returns on those assets to buy even more assets — a self-reinforcing downward spiral. A small, super-wealthy elite is getting wealthier and wealthier, while the rest of the country is sinking into abject poverty. Gary has assembled a mass following on the basis of this thesis, so it is clearly persuasive to a lot of people. It is also completely wrong, for a number of reasons. ” (12/08/25)
https://fee.org/articles/wealth-inequality-is-not-a-problem-in-britain/
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36) Elon Musk is right about the EU
Source: spiked
by Brendan O’Neill
“Musk’s irate philippics against the Brussels machine might be driven by self-serving impulses. His conversion to what we might call the Brexit spirit followed the EU’s slapping of a €120million fine on X for breaching the transparency rules in its authoritarian Digital Services Act. In response, Musk taunted EU officials on X and openly called for the EU’s dismantling. ‘The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries, so that governments can better represent their people’, he tweeted. So it was the EU’s meddling with his bank balance, rather than its meddling with the European people’s sovereign rights, that pushed him over the edge into Euroscepticism. He’s still right, though.” (12/08/25)
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/12/08/elon-musk-is-right-about-the-eu/
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37) Poem: The Blue Whales Have Stopped Singing
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“The blue whales have stopped singing / because the krill are vanishing / because the oceans are warming / because we are ruled by long-toothed liars / whose insides are full of dead leaves. / The great whales have gone silent / and my bird has gone blind / and there are chatbots in the basement / and corpses in the corn. / Under the overpass it is dry and still. / You would never know that everything is dying. / You should come and visit me. / Meet me over there under the sepia streetlights / with the strangleporn perverts and fentanyl fallen, / all the stillborn scar tissue extractions / from the wreckage of a banished womb, / the NAFTA-noosed factory towns full of deserted buildings / and the window-snarling meth towns full of deserted people, / where the cries of orphaned Palestinians mingle / with the cries of the last baby orangutan / ever born in the wild …” (12/08/25)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/12/08/the-blue-whales-have-stopped-singing/
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38) Quantum Vibe, 12/08/25
Source: Big Head Press
by Scott Bieser
Cartoon. (12/08/25)
https://www.quantumvibe.com/strip?page=2564
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39) Agree with him or not, Noam Chomsky’s ideas are still worth grappling with
Source: Orange County Register
by Sal Rodriguez
“Today marks the 97th birthday of Noam Chomsky, known both for his status as ‘the father of modern linguistics’ as well as his prolific political commentary. I’m aware that as the opinion editor of an editorial page that tilts libertarian he’s an unusual figure to highlight, but he was intellectually influential to me ever since I read a booklet of his (‘9/11’) sometime in 2002 (I would’ve been 11). Though I came to identify more with thinkers like Milton Friedman, Chomsky is still someone whose writings and speeches I return to.” (12/08/25)
https://archive.is/8l2Bh
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40) Don’t Pay, Don’t Play
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“The European Commission is fining the X platform 120 million euros (140 million dollars), for ‘transparency failures’: not sharing advertising and user data with the EU and not making it easy to censor account holders. As Reclaim the Net reports, the European Union wants platforms to open themselves to what it calls ‘independent research.’ In practice, this means that ‘academics and NGOs, often with pro-censorship political affiliations’ get special access to the data, ‘exactly the kind of surveillance the [Digital Services Act] claims to prevent.… The EU is angry that X is not policing speech the way it wants.’ My advice to Elon Musk is to shut down X (formerly Twitter) throughout the EU. And refuse to pay the fine.” (12/08/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/12/08/dont-pay-dont-play/
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41) As Obamacare Deadline Looms, Republicans Scramble for Health Care Ideas
Source: The American Prospect
by Ryan Cooper
“A major theme of American politics over the past few decades is Democrats repeatedly bailing Republicans out from the political consequences of their own actions, particularly with health care. During the Obama years, House Republicans voted dozens of times to repeal Obamacare, which Democrats blocked every time. During Trump’s first term, the GOP came within one vote of actually repealing it. Now, with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), Republicans have finally gotten what they wanted: namely, taking a trillion-dollar bite out of Medicaid, and allowing Biden-era Obamacare subsidies to lapse, meaning premiums on the exchanges are going to more than double. Except, whoops, it turns out that people don’t like this at all, and even the more dim-witted congressional Republicans are starting to fear this might blow up in their faces.” (12/08/25)
https://prospect.org/2025/12/08/republicans-scramble-for-health-care-ideas-obamacare-deadline-looms/
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42) Bannon, Mearsheimer: Trump’s Ukraine Plan Won’t End the War
Source: The American Conservative
by Harrison Berger
“Russia hawks in Congress and their allies in corporate media have been on the warpath against the Trump administration’s 28-point peace plan for ending the Ukraine war, dubbing the plan a ‘Russian wish-list.’ The MSNBC host Rachel Maddow went so far as to hold it up as proof that ‘the Kremlin runs U.S. foreign policy.’ … Yet there are also criticisms of the plan from the other end of the ideological spectrum. Among the most prominent voices who argued from the start that the United States should never have been drawn into the Ukraine conflict are the War Room host and former White House advisor Steve Bannon and the University of Chicago’s Professor John Mearsheimer. They now warn that far from being a ‘Russian wish list,’ the Trump administration’s plan may not actually address the underlying political problems that ultimately caused the Ukraine proxy war.” (12/08/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/bannon-mearsheimer-trumps-ukraine-plan-wont-end-the-war/
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43) “This ain’t gonna work’: How Russia pulled the plug on Assad
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Connor Echols
“In early November of last year, the Assad regime had a lot to look forward to. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had just joined fellow Middle Eastern leaders at a pan-Islamic summit in Saudi Arabia, marking a major step in his return to the international fold. … Less than a month later, Assad fled the country in a Russian plane as Turkish-backed opposition forces began their final approach to Damascus. Most observers were taken aback by this development. But long-time Middle East analyst Neil Partrick was less surprised. As Partrick details in his new book, ‘State Failure in the Middle East,’ the seemingly resurgent Assad regime had by that point been reduced to a hollowed-out state apparatus, propped up by foreign backers. When those backers pulled out, Assad was left with little choice but to flee.” (12/08/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/assad-regime-collapse/
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44) It’s Time to Make America Truly Tribal Again
Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid
“Way back in the 1700s there was this fucked up little place called Florida, or at least that’s what the Spaniards called it. The original natives of the region had multiple different names for this untamable swampland but most of them were wiped out by slaughter and disease from the Conquistadors who declared the wild mess, Florida. They didn’t last long though. In fact, those butchers only managed to build and populate a few colonialist missions before their glorious Catholic empire collapsed in the tall grass surrounding them and, in spite of such efforts, most of Florida remained a verdant wilderness teeming with all kinds of shit that freaked white people the fuck out- snakes, alligators, mosquitos, humidity … But there was one tribe of Indians just wild enough to call this no-man’s-land home.” (12/07/25)
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2025/12/its-time-to-make-america-truly-tribal.html
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45) Minnesota’s $70 million fraud exposes how Dems built system designed to be robbed
Source: Fox News
by Jason Rantz
“For years, Democrats assured us that expanding government programs was an act of moral heroism — that the only thing standing between America and utopia was more taxpayer money flowing through more ‘community-based’ nonprofits embracing ‘equity-centered’ missions. Then Minnesota happened, exposing a truth the radical left will never admit: The system isn’t broken. This is exactly how it’s designed to work. Over 70 people connected to the Minnesota nonprofit Feeding Our Future face federal charges in the country’s largest COVID pandemic fraud scandal. It was primarily Somali American defendants who allegedly stole funds meant for low-income children by submitting falsified invoices, fake meal counts and fabricated rosters. The organizations billed the government for tens of millions of unserved meals, using the stolen money for luxury cars, beachfront property and homes. It’s jaw-dropping — but it’s not surprising. And it happened because Democrats built a system practically engineered for abuse by the nonprofit industrial complex.” (12/08/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/minnesotas-70-million-fraud-exposes-democrats-built-system-designed-robbed
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46) Cult(ure) of Abuse
Source: The Reframe
by AR Moxon
“Man, I don’t know. Lately it’s hard to know where even to start or where to begin. Do I have to list all the news stories? Either you’re aware or you aren’t. Many aren’t. I don’t know what to do with that fact, but it seems like a choice, though an understandable one. Awareness carries a high cost these days. It’s exhausting. It’s meant to be exhausting, I think. This is how supremacy works. The costs of reparation are very high, and the cost of awareness comes first of all.” (12/07/25)
https://www.the-reframe.com/cult-ure-of-abuse/?ref=the-reframe-newsletter
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47) Ignorance and Indignation
Source: Quillette
by Brian Stewart
“Obama veterans never understood the Middle East, and they never will.” (12/07/25)
https://quillette.com/2025/12/07/ignorance-and-indignation-ben-rhodes-democrats-obama-israel-gaza-hamas/
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48) Trump Is Repeating One of Biden’s Big Mistakes
Source: The Atlantic
by David Axelrod
“Donald Trump recaptured the White House in part by relentlessly exploiting Joe Biden’s failure to heed widespread concerns about the rising cost of living. Now, bizarrely, President Trump is walking himself — and his party — into the same perilous trap by denying the economic reality that working families are living.” (12/07/25)
https://archive.is/MKb1l
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49) Nowhere to Go: Inside the Texas Boarding Home System Abuse
Source: In These Times
by Ottavia Spaggiari
“Angelique Estes knew her stay would be rough as soon as she arrived at her new home in Arlington, Texas, in early December 2023. At 53 years old, Estes had learned to read her environment quickly. She’s lived with cerebral palsy all her life, and her health quickly deteriorated after her husband of nearly 30 years died two years prior …. [she] turned to group homes as a low-cost alternative to the nursing home she couldn’t afford. By the time she arrived at 1210 Woodbrook Street, a squat, three-bedroom brick house in a quiet suburban neighborhood, she had already cycled through five such boarding homes, none of which had been good. As she took in the tight hallways — so narrow that her ambulance gurney couldn’t fit through — she sensed this time was no better.” (12/08/25)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/texas-boarding-homes-elderly-disability-justice-healthcare-investigation-nursing-neglect-abuse
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50) The Constitution and the Trump Tariffs
Source: Tenth Amendment Center
by Rob Natelson
“Are tariffs always taxes? When does a statute granting powers to the president go too far? These are some of the questions the Supreme Court will address in two consolidated tariffs cases: Learning Resources, Inc v. Trump and Trump v. V.O.S. Selections. This essay unpacks the principal constitutional issues for you. It examines those issues through the lens of the Constitution’s original meaning, irrespective of any mistaken later interpretations.” (12/07/25)
https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2025/12/07/the-constitution-and-the-trump-tariffs/
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Reason Roundtable, 12/08/25
Source: Reason
"Why Elizabeth Warren and Donald Trump Hate the Netflix Deal." (12/08/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/12/08/why-elizabeth-warren-and-donald-trump-hate-the-netflix-deal/
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52) Conflicts of Interest, episode 858
Source: Libertarian Institute
"Will Israel Annex the West Bank?" (12/08/25)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/kyle/coi-858-will-israel-annex-the-west-bank/
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53) Rising, 12/08/25
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave delivers his radar on Rep. Ilhan Omar(D-Minn.) speaking out regarding the massive welfare fraud that occurred in Minnesota under the watch of Governor Tim Walz.” (12/08/25)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5638533-rising-december-8-2025/
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54) The Kyle Anzalone Show, 10/08/25
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Craig Pasta Jardula: Is Trump Imploding?” (1/08/25)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/blog/the-kyle-anzalone-show-guest-craig-pasta-jardula-is-trump-imploding
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55) The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, 12/08/25
Source: The Dispatch
“Yankee in Kevin Williamson’s Court | Interview: Colin Woodard.” (12/08/25)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/remnant/yankee-in-kevin-williamsons-court-interview-colin-woodard/
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56) EconTalk, 12/08/25
Source: EconTalk
“Colonialism, Slavery, and Foreign Aid (with William Easterly).” (12/08/25)
https://www.econtalk.org/colonialism-slavery-and-foreign-aid-with-william-easterly/
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57) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 12/08/25
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Press Sec Goes Full Cult as Spin on Mental State Flies Off Rails.” (12/08/25)
https://newrepublic.com/article/204077/trump-press-sec-goes-full-cult-spin-mental-state-flies-off-rails
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58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 12/08/25
Source: Antiwar.com
“IDF Chief Says Gaza’s ‘Yellow Line’ Is a ‘New Border,’ US Bombs Somalia 7 More Times, and More.” (12/08/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9ub8xPW9-Y
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59) Fountainhead Forum, episode 397
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Cassie Clark on the unique history and culture of North Carolina.” (12/07/25)
https://rumble.com/v72q3o8-ff-397-cassie-clark-on-the-unique-history-and-culture-of-north-carolina.html
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60) Dave DeCamp on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
“Dave DeCamp on the Boat Strikes, Somalia and Trump’s Al Qaeda Friend.” (12/07/25)
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/12-5-25-dave-decamp-on-the-boat-strikes-somalia-and-trumps-al-qaeda-friend/
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