Hey, everyone …
It’s a “Hybrid Friday” at the freedom movement’s daily newspaper — we’ve got a full 60-item email and social media edition going out, plus another 50 (maybe more by the time you read this) news stories, opinion pieces, and audio/video links here at our web edition. Enjoy!
Crass commercialism:
If you’re looking for a new ISP, please check out Starlink via the link below — you get your second month free and I get a free month as well. I’ve been using Starlink for more than two months now. My short and sweet review: “Cheaper, more reliable than, and at least as fast as my previous cable Internet provider.”
https://starlink.com/residential?referral=RC-DF-8980236-19330-50
Have a happy, healthy, and prosperous weekend!
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
Source: Associated Press
“The toll in Iran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests has reached at least 5,002 people killed, activists said Friday, warning many more were feared dead as the most comprehensive internet blackout in the country’s history crossed the two-week mark. The challenge in getting information out of Iran persists because of authorities cutting off access to the internet on Jan. 8, even as tensions rise between the United States and Iran as an American aircraft carrier group moves closer to the Middle East. U.S. President Donald Trump likened the carrier group to an ‘armada’ in comments to journalists late Thursday. Analysts say a military buildup could give Trump the option to carry out strikes, though so far he’s avoided that despite repeated warnings to Tehran.” (01/23/22)
https://apnews.com/article/iran-protests-crackdown-death-toll-acb1968a973f19be217ea28b4a7adb0b
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“Writ large, Canada’s move away from the US and toward China is just the latter part of Mike’s answer, in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises — ‘Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly’ — to the question of how he went bankrupt. Which, in turn, is just a waypoint in another transition. In Mike’s case, it was all downhill from the bankruptcy. In America’s case, who knows? It’s easy to just blame Trump for all this craziness, but it’s also a little bit lazy. Yes, Trump’s trade and economic policies seem purpose-built for the task of dismantling American prosperity at home and power (‘soft’ and ‘hard’) abroad. In reality, though, the American empire and the supposed global ‘rules-based order’ have been in continual decline pretty much since that happy accident 80 years ago, when World War 2 ended with most of the world’s industry wrecked, but America’s untouched.” (01/22/26)
https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20283
Source: Liberty International
“On January 13th, Liberty International hosted an engaging webinar titled ‘Venezuela’s Struggle for Freedom: Past Failures, Future Hopes,’ bringing together audiences to reflect on Venezuela’s dramatic past, difficult present, and uncertain yet hopeful future. The discussion was moderated by Jacek Spendel, President of Liberty International, and featured Board Member José Cordeiro as the special guest.” (01/22/26)
https://liberty-intl.org/2026/01/22/venezuelas-struggle-for-freedom-past-failures-future-hopes-liberty-international/
Source: USA Today
“With just a week left to avoid another government shutdown, the U.S. House of Representatives voted Jan. 22 to send a $1.2 trillion spending package to the Senate. The appropriations bills passed despite widespread consternation from Democrats over keeping the lights on at the Department of Homeland Security. The Trump administration’s nationwide immigration enforcement operations – which came to a head recently with the [murder] of Renee Good in Minneapolis – prompted most Democrats to vote against funding the agency, which includes Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Seven Democrats supported the DHS bill.” (01/22/26)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/01/22/shutdown-deadline-house-dhs-funding-package/88301498007/
Source: Isonomia Quarterly
by Kevin Vallier
“Libertarian political philosophy in the analytic tradition nears the half-century mark. Libertarian theorists have produced sophisticated defenses of limited government and individual liberty, but these defenses diverge in fundamental ways. The divergences reflect incompatible views about the nature and source of justice itself. This philosophical diversity may point toward a more complete understanding of libertarian justice. Two recent works capture these divergent strands. Billy Christmas’s Property and Justice advances a natural rights libertarianism that derives a complete theory of justice from the single principle of non-interference. Nick Cowen’s Neoliberal Social Justice builds a contractualist case for classical liberal institutions that takes seriously the epistemic limitations plaguing any attempt at social organization.” (01/22/26)
https://isonomiaquarterly.com/archive/volume-3-issue-4/towards-a-complete-libertarianism/
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“Before the US military snatched Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, earlier this month, Delcy Rodríguez and her powerful brother pledged to cooperate with the Trump administration once the strongman was gone, four sources involved at high levels with the discussions told the Guardian. Rodríguez, who was sworn in on 5 January as acting president to replace Maduro, and her brother Jorge, the head of the national assembly, secretly assured US and Qatari officials through intermediaries ahead of time that they would welcome Maduro’s departure, according to the sources. The communications between US officials from Delcy Rodríguez, who was then Maduro’s vice-president, began in the fall and continued after Trump and Maduro spoke in a crucial phone call in late November, the Guardian has learned, in which Trump insisted that Maduro leave Venezuela. Maduro rejected the demand.” (01/22/26)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/22/delcy-rodriguez-capture-maduro-venezuela
Source: The Dispatch
by Larry Diamon
“A growing share of voters (some 60 percent) are dissatisfied with the way our democracy is working and feel alienated from both major political parties. One factor is polarization: the growing emotional and policy distance and declining trust between supporters of the two parties. Another is the parties’ perceived failure to address the country’s economic and social problems. Related to this is a sense that both parties have become too captive to their most militant elements. … Ranked-choice voting (RCV) for president in November (state by state) could ease this problem by enabling voters to cast a sincere vote for their first preference, knowing that if their candidate didn’t make it and no one won an initial majority, their vote would be transferred to their second preference.” (01/22/26)
https://archive.is/IU0LE
Source: United Press International
“Immigration and Customs Enforcement has [abducted] four children from the same Minnesota school district this month, including a 5-year-old boy. Preschooler Liam Ramos was [abducted] in the driveway of his home along with his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, on Tuesday. The father and son were then transported to a detention center in Texas. … Ramos is the fourth child in the Columbia Heights Public School District to be [abducted] by ICE this month.” (01/22/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/01/22/ice-detains-5-year-old-child-minnesota/2641769093606/
Source: Orange County Register
by Veronique de Rugy
“For some years now, conservatives who believe in free markets and limited government have been labeled RINOs — ‘Republicans in name only’ — as GOP liberals or moderates have historically been known. The MAGA movement flings this term as an insult and a signal that respecting the realities of supply and demand instead of endorsing price controls is a character flaw. But after watching the last few weeks unfold, it’s hard not to ask this: If believing in markets makes you a RINO, what exactly do we call Republicans who now openly embrace ideas lifted from the playbooks of Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts)? How about ‘Depublicans?'” (01/22/26)
https://archive.is/AhmTq
