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Remember Kilmar Abrego Garcia?

— Author: Heidi Li Feldman — Friday 12th December 2025

Today, Judge Paula Xinis ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia released from immigration detention, granting his petition for habeas corpus. This is a signal ruling, though not the end of Abrego Garcia's journey through the looking glass world of a lawless executive branch's treatment of him.

Paying for Hong Kong’s mass transit railway

— Organisation: Prosper Australia — Friday 12th December 2025

By Andrew Purves Growing up in Hong Kong in the 1970s, I remember the noise and disruption of the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) construction. Cut-and-cover tunnelling tore up roads, while new property developments rose above the stations. These developments would reshape Hong Kong’s urban landscape — little did I know that I would be writing […]

The post Paying for Hong Kong’s mass transit railway first appeared on Prosper Australia.

Oil Companies Aren't Friends With Renewables

— Organisation: Climate Town — Thursday 11th December 2025

Ken Burns Gives America the Wrong Parents

— Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Thursday 11th December 2025

Every few years, someone tells us the United States is not really the child of the long tradition of republicanism, English common law, colonial self-government, the natural rights principles enshrined in our Declaration, and the debates involving the framing of a new government that transpired in Philadelphia after the war. No, we’re subtly led to assume that our political father is someone else entirely: this time, it’s the Haudenosaunee—the Iroquois Confederacy.

Ken Burns’s new PBS documentary on the American Revolution leans into that claim, suggesting in the first episode’s preamble that the very idea of our Union was inspired by the Iroquois. By subtly juxtaposing the Iroquois and the Founding Fathers, viewers are invited to believe that if they thought Franklin, Washington, and company fathered America, then they’ve been building the wrong monuments.

Burns tells a vivid story. But it’s also a deeply misleading one—and the very treaty on which his opening narrative depends says almost the opposite of what he needs it to say.

The scene in question is the 1744 Lancaster treaty council. Representatives of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia met with Iroquois leaders to settle land disputes and keep them allied against the French. During the talks, an Iroquois speaker did just as Burns relates—namely, he advised the colonial governors to live at peace with one another and act together as the Iroquois nations did. But the colonial reply—effectively omitted by Burns—matters just as much.

The American Mind Podcast: The Roundtable Episode 297

— Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Thursday 11th December 2025

The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Spencer Klavan, and Mike Sabo devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

Somalia et Alia | The Roundtable Ep. 297

Rediscovering the Soul of Conservatism, Part II

— Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Thursday 11th December 2025

In the first part of my extended reflection on the character of conservatism, I warned that the American Right is confronted by a “pseudo-Rightist culture of repudiation” that in important respects mirrors the intellectual and political Left. The crude white nationalism and vociferous anti-Semitism of the so-called “groypers,” who delight in the nasty, transgressive utterings of the internet chameleon Nick Fuentes, present the most recent example of that phenomenon.

On another front, a spirit of ingratitude dominates in certain precincts of the Right. There is a marked tendency to dismiss even the most admirable conservative wisdom of the past as outdated, irrelevant, or worse. A young critic of mine at The American Conservative, who writes very much in that dismissive spirit, accuses me of making “rote” appeals to the likes of Burke and Churchill, as if deep immersion in the thought and action of these two great conservatives can only be formulaic and irrelevant.

But a conservatism that forgets the most capacious meaning of the social contract, the enduring bond that connects the living to the dead and the yet to be born, and the multiple reasons for gratitude to our noble if imperfect forebears—Burkean themes par excellence—has lost essential bearings, and will rather quickly lose its soul.

What is a Farmer and How Does the Government Count Them? The High Politics of a Seemingly Mundane Statistical Task

— Author: Nathan Tankus — Publication: Notes on the Crisis — Thursday 11th December 2025

The Encampments (w/ Mahmoud Khalil and Michael Workman) | The Chris Hedges Report

— Author: Chris Hedges — Thursday 11th December 2025

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

*All clips used in this interview are from the film, ‘‘The Encampments,” and are credited to Watermelon Pictures and BreakThrough Media*

The ongoing genocide in Gaza has become a litmus test of institutional integrity. When a university denies the reality of Israel’s brutality, it reveals complicity with the genocidal regime’s actions. To then misrepresent campus dissent over institutional investment in the Zionist entity as illegitimate — or even “antisemitic” — makes it clear that that these institutions are invested in the existence of Israeli apartheid and genocide.

It’s a time for bravery

— Organisation: The Australia Institute — Thursday 11th December 2025

On the final episode of Dollars & Sense for 2025, Greg and Elinor discuss why it’s a time for bravery in our economic policy-making and whether rate hikes are on the way in 2026.

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 11 December.

A time for Bravery: what happens when Australia chooses courage is available now via Australia Institute Press. Use the code ‘POD5’ to get $5 off.

Host: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist, the Australia Institute // @grogsgamut

Host: Elinor Johnston-Leek, Senior Content Producer, the Australia Institute // @elinorjohnstonleek

Show notes:

No wonder Michele Bullock’s dramatic departure from the RBA’s interest rate script left markets swinging wildly by Greg Jericho, Guardian Australia (December 2025)

Four years of OA Week: Takeaways from 2022-2025

— Organisation: Open Access Australasia — Thursday 11th December 2025

OAA/CAUL Joint Submission: NRI Roadmap for 2026

— Organisation: Open Access Australasia — Wednesday 10th December 2025

What Is Total Boomer Luxury Communism?

— Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Wednesday 10th December 2025

For half a decade, the Right has debated “free market fundamentalism.” This phenomenon is also known as “zombie Reaganism,” “libertarian neoconservatism,” and “neoliberalism.” Whatever you call it, it never happened. That is to say, the reduction in government expenditure and size that Reaganites promised and liberals feared turned out to be a mirage. What happened instead is that, starting in the 1980s, both parties set the country on a course toward Total Boomer Luxury Communism (TBLC).

TBLC is driving every aspect of American decline—from skyrocketing national debt and the erosion of our defense industrial base to the despair of young people. It’s not the only reason for the decline, to be sure, but it’s a major part of the problem. Yet TBLC has been entirely obscured from view.

The essence of TBLC is that it redistributes wealth from younger families and workers to seniors, who are on average much richer. America has achieved the Marxist paradise of hunting in the morning, fishing in the afternoon, rearing cattle in the evening, and criticizing after dinner. Only it looks more like golf in the morning, horseback riding in the afternoon, drinks at the social club in the evening, and a restful night’s sleep in a million-dollar home—all thanks to the largesse of the U.S. government.

Making Gaza Safe for Capitalism: De-risking Palestine for Business

— Publication: Progress in Political Economy — Wednesday 10th December 2025

Within 48 hours of the United Nations Security Council approving US President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza on 17th November, Israel launched several airstrikes across Gaza that killed 28 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 70 others. In the same time period, Israel bombed numerous locations in Lebanon, including a Palestinian refugee camp that killed 13 people, and Prime Minister Netanyahu, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, toured parts of Syria illegally occupied by Israel. In this context, the latest overtures towards peace by Western, Arab, and Israeli leaders at the Security Council are resoundingly hollow.

A House Divided

— Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Wednesday 10th December 2025

The Trump Administration recently released an extremely promising National Security Strategy (NSS)—but the same cannot be said about the proposed FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The House and Senate’s compromise NDAA, which was published on Sunday night, appears to be in tension with the goals of the NSS. While the National Security Strategy prioritizes a hemispheric defense of the American homeland, the NDAA locks decision makers into maintaining unnecessary overseas troop levels. Despite the stated aims of the NSS, Congress seems to be looking to safeguard the national security priorities and infrastructure of previous eras.

Restricting the drawdown of troops stationed overseas, increasingly murky foreign entrenchment through legally binding efforts to sell arms, and dubious clauses requiring congressional approval at every turn all serve to bind the commander in chief’s hands. All of this reeks of a shadowy order desperately trying to maintain the status quo at the expense of the will of the people who elected Donald Trump in 2024.

This cannot stand.

Australia dumps its care crisis on the Pacific – new report

— Organisation: The Australia Institute — Wednesday 10th December 2025

A report by the Centre for Future Work at The Australia Institute and Public Services International has also found that when workers get to Australia, many are being deskilled, underpaid and exploited.

Care workers have been added to the Pacific Australia Labor Mobility (PALM) scheme, traditionally aimed at seasonal agriculture workers like fruit pickers. This has led to skilled health workers – like nurses – quitting their jobs to take up better paid but lower skilled jobs in Australia.

The report details the harrowing state of the health systems in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Many health services and hospitals have been decimated, operating at 30-40 percent capacity or below.

The research reveals that not only are Pacific workers doing lower-skilled care jobs in Australia, they are vulnerable to poor treatment, due to their visa status.

“Workers have the right to cross borders for a better life for themselves and their families,” said Fiona Macdonald, Director of the Centre for Future Work at The Australia Institute.

“But the current system is broken. It is rich countries taking from poor countries and giving nothing back. Australia and New Zealand are offloading their own care crises to their Pacific neighbours.

“Australia has vowed to invest in the health systems of its Pacific neighbours, not destroy them. It should be helping to build better, safer health facilities and train workers, not lure them away.

Walkable Cities But They Keep Getting More Affordable

— Publication: CityNerd — Wednesday 10th December 2025

Bell Fountain Retreat

— Author: Sarah Kendzior — Wednesday 10th December 2025

I woke to light as harsh as the internet. The screen, I thought, find the screen and kill it. I rose to hunt the offender. It was three a.m., the dark hour of the soul, or as we call it in the 21^st century, any hour that ends in “o’clock.”

There was no screen: the glow of fresh snow lit the night. I couldn’t turn it off. 2025 had scrambled and stolen the seasons. Summer lasted until late October, followed by two weeks of fall. Now white light flooded my room like the inverse of a shadow.

Winter was early. I felt stuck and circumscribed, like living inside an app. I avoid apps when I can. The ones I have line my phone like little prisons. “Walled gardens,” they call them, like you can stop to smell the roses and the hills don’t have eyes.

Will Canada follow Australia’s disastrous path on gas?

— Organisation: The Australia Institute — Wednesday 10th December 2025

On this episode of Follow the Money, Hereditary Chief Na’Moks of the Wet’suwet’en Nation, Gwii Lok’im Gibuu Jesse Stoeppler of the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en Nations, and Kai Nagata from not-for-profit Dogwood tell us about their fight to stop gas giants including Woodside on unceded Indigenous lands.

Join Hereditary Chief Na’Moks and Gwii Lok’im Gibuu Jesse Stoeppler at the Stop Woodside in Canada event at Victorian Trades Hall at 6.15pm AEDT on Thursday 11 December.

A time for Bravery: what happens when Australia chooses courage is available now via Australia Institute Press. Use the code ‘POD5’ at checkout to save $5 off the price – available for a limited time only.

Guest: Hereditary Chief Na’Moks,Wet’suwet’en Nation

Guest: Gwii Lok’im Gibuu Jesse Stoeppler, Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en Nations and the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition

Guest: Kai Nagata, Communications Director, Dogwood

Host: Leanne Minshull, co-Chief Executive Officer, the Australia Institute // @leanneminshull

The welfare system isn’t just on fire, it’s burning out of control

— Organisation: The Australia Institute — Wednesday 10th December 2025

Governments are a bit like that, too. It’s not that they don’t see the fire before the smoke, it’s just they figure it will be someone else’s problem to deal with it by the time it’s all ablaze.

We can see this with the gas industry – Labor is now looking at a couple of cabinet proposals for an east coast gas reservation policy, which would either take the form of an exporter permit model (where exporters can’t send gas offshore unless the domestic market has been taken care of) or a market-wide model (where all producers would have to contribute to the domestic market, potentially meaning smaller gas projects would have to purchase excess gas from the major ones in order to meet their supply obligations).

Of the two, the first would mean less gas being dug up. Which means, of course, cabinet is leaning towards the second.

But in terms of how we got here, the flames have been lingering for some time.

This is not the first government to have to consider a domestic gas reserve, but it’s the first one to do so under such undeniable pressure. Back in 2009, the Queensland Bligh government raised the need for a gas reservation policy because the future fires were clear.

That warning was repeated in 2010, when the reservation was rejected following a campaign by the same gas giants fighting against one now.

Liberals twist RBA remarks to sell a false narrative on public spending

— Organisation: The Australia Institute — Monday 8th December 2025

The demonisation of public spending has long been a strategy of conservative forces around the world – blaming it for any economic ill at hand.

The Liberals’ Treasury spokesperson, Ted O’Brien, has gone back to the old canard that inflation and interest rates are higher because the government is spending too much.

O’Brien likes to say that government spending is now higher than it has been since 1986 (outside of recessions).

This is kind of a dumb point. Because previously the NDIS was not a thing. Takeaway the extra spending due to the NDIS and government spending is not unusually high:

But the full weakness of the argument was highlighted this week when Ted O’Brien and Shadow Finance Minister James Paterson were reduced to massively verballing the Governor of the Reserve Bank in a desperate attempt to suggest they had a point.

Towards a Regenerative Future

— Organisation: Multisolving Institute — Tuesday 9th December 2025

Improving the Mental Health of American Diplomats

— Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Tuesday 9th December 2025

Suicide is a growing public health crisis in the United States.

In 2023, approximately 49,300 Americans died by suicide, with an age-adjusted rate of 14.1-14.7 per 100,000 people. The rate for men was 22.8 per 100,000, which is roughly four times higher than that of women, at 5.9 per 100,000. Suicide rates among young men have been rising steadily since 2010, with men ages 15-34 being the fastest-growing segment. In 2023, the suicide rate for men ages 15-24 was 21 per 100,000, compared with 5 per 100,000 for women of the same age.

Today’s suicide prevention efforts must focus more on men, yet public awareness and policy attention remain limited. Unsurprisingly, mainstream media coverage often fails to report these age- and gender-specific trends accurately, making it harder to direct resources and interventions where they are most urgently needed.

A First Principles Approach

— Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Tuesday 9th December 2025

With his lead symposium essay, Jesse Merriam revisits the constructive criticism he offered of “A Better Originalism,” the manifesto I, Hadley Arkes, Josh Hammer, and Matthew Peterson co-authored in these pages at the advent of the Biden presidency. As Merriam wrote in 2021, “The failure of legal conservatism is principally a product of how it is structured, not the product of an inadequate legal theory.” By structured, he meant not only the institutions that dominate the conservative legal movement, but also the aims at which those institutions pull oars together to achieve.

Legal conservatism needs substantive goals to which the movement can orient its activities, a point on which Merriam is correct. Indeed, a hyperfocus on the methodologies of the prevailing form of originalism, the original public meaning variety, masks the ultimate ends of a legal conservatism worth pursuing in the first place.

Rate hold shows RBA uncertainty

— Organisation: The Australia Institute — Tuesday 9th December 2025

The Australia Institute’s Chief Economist Greg Jericho says if the RBA had hiked rates today in response to the most recent inflation data, it would have been a brutal knee-jerk reaction, especially with real wage growth slowing.

He says the slight uptick in inflation is likely to be short-term, due to the ending of government power bill subsidies.

“The inflation increase in October, from 3.6% to 3.8%, was largely a one-off response to the ending of power bill subsidies. That isn’t a trend,” said Greg Jericho, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute.

“The truth is, market predictions of rate hikes and cuts will swing with new data on inflation, economic growth, real wages and unemployment.

“The RBA has chosen to wait and see. That’s at least a small mercy for mortgage holders a fortnight out from Christmas.”

The post Rate hold shows RBA uncertainty appeared first on The Australia Institute.

Join Live Q&A NOW — Come Ask Me a Question!

— Author: Chris Hedges — Tuesday 9th December 2025

Statement by the Monetary Policy Board: Monetary Policy Decision

— Organisation: Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) — Tuesday 9th December 2025

At its meeting today, the Board decided to leave the cash rate unchanged at 3.60 per cent.

“Maximum lethality”: the US military under the Trump administration

— Organisation: The Australia Institute — Tuesday 9th December 2025

On this episode of After America, Allan Behm and Angus Blackman discuss the American ‘double-tap’ strike on an alleged drug boat, Pete Hegseth’s use of Signal to share sensitive military information, and why Trump spent a night posting 160 times on Truth Social.

This discussion was recorded on Friday 5 December 2025.

A time for Bravery: what happens when Australia chooses courage is available now via Australia Institute Press. Use the code ‘POD5’ to get $5 off.

Aiming Higher: Universities and Australia’s future by Professor George Williams is also available now.

Guest: Allan Behm, Advisor, International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute

Host: Angus Blackman, Executive Producer, the Australia Institute // @AngusRB

Show notes:

War Crimes: Where do Responsibility and Accountability Start and End? By Allan Behm, the Australia Institute (May 2025)

12/08/2025 Market Update

— Organisation: Applied MMT — Tuesday 9th December 2025

Shock Therapy for Our Lawless Legal System

— Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Monday 8th December 2025

Jesse Merriam persuasively argues that legal conservatives are no longer committed to maintaining the essential features of the American legal and political order. They are instead obsessed with matters of constitutional interpretation, emphasizing the related doctrines of originalism and textualism. So they consider it something of a victory when progressive justices such as Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson embrace those doctrines, even though it’s perfectly clear they will use them for progressive ends. Indeed, even Justice Neil Gorsuch, an avowed textualist, did so in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020) when he insisted, absurdly and ahistorically, that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects individuals from employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. His pretextual textualism is as lawless as anything that has animated judicial supremacists since at least the 1950s.

Furthermore, making originalism and its variants the core of legal “conservatism” is a fool’s errand. It does not give conservatives a positive legal language in which to express, or a legal agenda with which to fight, the substantive evils that non-originalist decisions represent. And this assumes that originalism even provides the tools to overturn such decisions, which is hardly clear.

There’s a simple way to solve Australia’s “gas crisis” … and cut energy bills

— Organisation: The Australia Institute — Monday 8th December 2025

With the federal government seeking a new way to fix Australia’s self-inflicted “gas crisis”, Australia Institute research shows a 25% tax on gas exports would solve the problem.

The research shows a tax, proposed by the ACTU and supported by the Greens, would increase supply and cut energy bills for Australians.

It would also raise around $17 billion for Australians annually, bringing Australia closer to other gas exporting countries like Norway and Qatar.

Gas giants Origin and Shell, which both have surplus gas, are lobbying to continue exporting as much uncontracted gas to the global spot market as possible, ahead of supplying Australians. Santos, which doesn’t have enough gas, wants to continue taking gas out of the Australian market for export.

“A 25% tax on gas exports would solve the gas crisis. It would cut energy bills, ensure there is enough gas for Australians. It would also provide $17 billion annually for better housing, health care, education and childcare,” said Mark Ogge, Principal Advisor to The Australia Institute.

“A 25% tax on gas exports would solve the problem immediately and provide a huge financial benefit the Australian community.”

Compulsion

— Author: Zoe "Doc Impossible" Wendler — Monday 8th December 2025

Expiration Dates Are Fake

— Organisation: Climate Town — Monday 8th December 2025

We Shouldn’t Let Blue States Dictate Our AI Policy

— Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Monday 8th December 2025

Given the generation-defining AI race that’s currently moving at breakneck speed, one would think Congress might have a productive thought about it by now. But this assumption would unfortunately be a mistake. Instead, federal legislators have chosen to mostly ignore a crucial issue that has deep ramifications for our nation. By the time they step up and see the bigger picture, it might just be too late.

Recently on Truth Social, President Donald Trump slammed the “patchwork” of state regulations Congress has allowed to flourish. AI policy is being drafted not in Washington but in states like California. It’s being crafted not by sensible, informed actors but by out-of-touch lawmakers who few people know, who won’t be held accountable, and whose motivation lies in appeasing their constituents rather than strengthening U.S. national security.

Inclusionary Zoning Cheat Sheet: Key Points to Email Your MP

— Organisation: Per Capita — Monday 8th December 2025

Subject: Please support mandatory inclusionary zoning in Victoria

Dear [MP Name],
I’m writing to express my concern that the current planning reforms do not include any mechanism to secure affordable housing. Victoria urgently needs mandatory inclusionary zoning to ensure new developments contribute to addressing our housing crisis.

Why this matters

Victoria is planning huge housing growth, including 60 new Activity Centres, but none of this requires affordable housing.
Voluntary agreements have produced almost no affordable homes since introduced.
Developers, planners and councillors prefer mandatory inclusionary zoning because it gives certainty and consistency.

What inclusionary zoning is

A proven planning tool used worldwide that requires or incentivises developers to include affordable or social housing in new developments.

What’s On Dec 8-14 2025

— Organisation: Free Palestine Melbourne — Monday 8th December 2025

What’s On around Naarm/Melbourne & Regional Victoria: Dec 8-14, 2025.

Chris Hedges Live Q&A TOMORROW: Mass Mobilization and Stopping Authoritarianism

— Author: Chris Hedges — Monday 8th December 2025

Join me for a live Q&A on my YouTube channel and X account tomorrow, December 8, at 7:00pm ET. Questions will be taken from the comment section of this Substack post, as well as during the livestream on YouTube/X. We will discuss the importance of mass mobilization and strikes in pushing back against our rapidly consolidating authoritarianism — something recently demonstrated by the dock worker’s strike in Italy that I participated in.

Please attempt to keep your questions direct and relatively brief, as I cannot read entire paragraphs during the show.

Uneasy Peace

— Author: Julia Doubleday — Monday 8th December 2025

I’ve had Long COVID for over two years now, and I’ve been homebound for well over a year.

No miraculous recoveries for me. Nor the slow, day-by-day improvement either. If anything, I seem to have gotten worse with time; November was a particularly bad month for me. My step count was egregiously low, hovering around 320 per day after a better September and October had me between 500-600 steps daily.

Australia’s Public Sector Is Far Smaller Than Debates Suggest

— Organisation: Per Capita — Sunday 7th December 2025

Over the past year, a chart by The Economist from April 2025 has gone viral – circulating heavily on LinkedIn and cited by conservative thinktanks and parliamentarians to argue that Australia has a “bloated” government. The chart claims that, adjusted for population, Australia has 143 public sector employees per 1,000 people or about 29% of all workers, placing it among the largest public sector workforces in the world.

Chart: The Economist

The great gas rip off: how the government can stop us all getting burned

— Organisation: The Australia Institute — Thursday 4th December 2025

The gas industry has been trying to convince us all there is a gas shortage, but that’s nonsense and it will no longer fly. Politicians from across the political spectrum now acknowledge that Australia has a gas export problem.

It is hard to understate what a complete disaster unlimited gas exports have been for Australian households and business.

Around 80 per cent of Australia’s gas is used for export. In just the past five years, governments have allowed the export of enough gas to supply Australia for more than 20 years.

Since Australia began exporting gas in 2015, domestic gas prices have tripled, and electricity prices have doubled. The Opposition Leader, Sky News, and others like to blame renewables (more on that later), but excessive gas exports are the main reason wholesale electricity prices have doubled.

And what do Australians get in return for using 80 per cent of our gas for export? Apart from higher energy bills, we get bupkis. Peanuts. Chump change. Australia Institute research shows multinational gas export companies paid zero royalties on over half the gas they exported overseas.

Join Me In Supporting the Palestine Action Hunger Strike!

— Author: Chris Hedges — Saturday 6th December 2025

The Toxic Pursuit of Greatness in Chess (w/ Brin-Jonathan Butler) | The Chris Hedges Report

— Author: Chris Hedges — Saturday 6th December 2025

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

Achieving greatness requires immense sacrifice. Nobody knows this better than perhaps professional athletes or, as author and journalist Brin-Jonathan Butler reveals, chess players. Butler joins host Chris Hedges to discuss his book, The Grandmaster: Magnus Carlsen and the Match That Made Chess Great Again and how the history of chess’ greatest players is riddled with psychological dysfunction.

Newfoundland’s First Mass Party

— Publication: Perspectives Journal — Friday 5th December 2025

There is a notion that Canada was late to the ‘mass party’ formation of labour or social democratic parties in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries that rose primarily across Europe, as well as independent Latin America and among colonial entities across industrializing Asia. In Canada, the Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation was founded in 1932 as an adaptation of the mass party before its predecessor, the present-day New Democratic Party, was established in 1961. In Europe, the mass party played a hegemonic role in the lives of the working-classes during the height of the European age of imperialism, providing them with a sense of community, education, a basic social safety net, and a political voice within the metropole. Starting with the Social Democratic Party of Germany, in its present form established in 1875, the mass party formation quickly spread across continental Europe.^[1] The mass party structure played a vital role in establishing trust between labour parties and the working-classes they represented in parliaments, giving them a political base of support. It was through the buildup of working-class power that these early mass parties could enact transformative change that improved societies within the confines of this turn-of-the-century period.

Misunderstanding Originalism

— Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Friday 5th December 2025

Legal conservatives find themselves in an unusual position: originalism has reached unprecedented acceptance within the judiciary and the bar. A majority of Supreme Court justices—including at least one appointed by a Democratic president—identify as originalists, or at least strive toward originalism. Guided by the original understanding of those who ratified the Constitution and the Reconstruction Amendments, the High Court has overruled Roe v. Wade, ended the use of race in higher education, and recognized the individual right to own firearms.

But some find these successes disorienting. Originalism’s victories have triggered an important debate among conservatives. Some wonder if originalism is up to the task of fashioning an approach to constitutional interpretation rooted in a conservative morality that can supply a positive agenda for law and policy. For these conservative critics, the moral neutrality of originalism, which arose in opposition to the explicit policymaking of the Warren Court, appears to be its central defect.

Professor Jesse Merriam’s essay in The American Mind is an example of this view. He writes,

Damien Richardson: In His Own Words

— Organisation: White Rose Society — Friday 5th December 2025

Neighbours star and conspiracist leader Damien Richardson was recently found guilty of performing a salute indistinguishable from a Nazi salute in Victoria. The salute was performed at a gathering organised by the neo-fascist group the National Workers Alliance and attended by several neo-Nazis from the National Socialist Network, who actively engaged in friendly discussion with both Richardson and event organiser Matt Trihey.

In pre-sentencing hearings, we've particularly made note of two claims made by Richardson's defence: that he has suffered due to being associated publicly with Nazism, and that his salute had no underlying fascist motive – it was merely mocking the characterisation of him as having fascist leanings made in a recent article in The Age. In fact, Richardson's own grandfather fought the Nazis, so he couldn't possibly be sympathetic.

In much of the reporting on this matter, not much attention has been paid to what Richardson actually said.

Richardson's salute came in the context of describing an event he had attended in the Latrobe Valley.

The Age's reporting gives an idea of how this went:

Les utopistes pragmatiques de Québec solidaire

— Publication: Perspectives Journal — Thursday 4th December 2025

Le parti souverainiste de gauche, Québec solidaire (QS), a tenu son congrès du 7 au 9 novembre dernier à Québec. Les délégué·e·s y ont élu le député Sol Zanetti comme nouveau co-porte-parole, aux côtés de la députée Ruba Ghazal qui poursuit son mandat. Les deux ont ratifié un nouveau programme politique qui orientera l’élaboration des prochaines plateformes électorales. Alors que les sociaux-démocrates ailleurs au pays se demandent comment revitaliser la gauche dans la conjoncture difficile que l’on connaît aujourd’hui, l’histoire de Québec solidaire et ses efforts de renouveau offrent matière à réflexion.

Welcome to Leaving the Party, Pal!

— Author: Sarah Kendzior — Thursday 4th December 2025

Thank you, subscribers, for your thoughtful questions! I answered most and addressed the main points of the rest. I also answered a few on the question page itself.

I am grateful for new paying subscribers since some folks had to stop paying due to the economy. I understand that: it’s why I refuse to paywall. But if you can afford to become a paying subscriber, please consider it. It keeps articles open to all and feeds my family of four! You also get the perk of submitting a question for the next Q & A:

Iron Men

— Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Thursday 4th December 2025

On July 19, 1776, after New York’s delegates had received instructions from the new Provincial Congress in their colony to support independence, Congress resolved that the Declaration “be fairly engrossed on parchment, with the title and stile of ‘The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America,’ and that the same, when engrossed, be signed by every member of Congress.”

The formal handwritten document, the one now displayed in the Rotunda of the National Archives building in Washington, D.C., was probably prepared by Timothy Matlack, clerk to the Second Continental Congress, who was known for his fine penmanship. He was also a colonel in the Philadelphia Fifth Battalion and later became a delegate to Congress.

The Journals of the Continental Congress records on August 2, 1776, that “The Declaration of Independence, being engrossed, and compared at the table, was signed [by the members].” Most signed the Declaration on that date, though several delegates signed later. Delaware delegate Thomas McKean was a colonel of the Philadelphia Fourth Battalion, in New Jersey reinforcing Washington’s troops, and was the last person to sign the Declaration, perhaps as late as 1781.

Current ScholarshipObscene Finance

— Organisation: Just Money — Thursday 4th December 2025

Amin Samman

The American Mind Podcast: The Roundtable Episode 296

— Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Thursday 4th December 2025

The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Spencer Klavan, and Mike Sabo devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

Double Tap Dance | The Roundtable Ep. 296

Why your Spotify Wrapped probably doesn’t have any new Australian music on it

— Organisation: The Australia Institute — Wednesday 3rd December 2025

For most people, this list didn’t include any Australian artists, and if it did it was likely someone well-established, like Vance Joy or The Kid Laroi.

Research by the Australia Institute looked at the top 10,000 artists being streamed inside Australia between 2021 and 2024 and found that the presence of Australian artists has declined, both in terms of the total number of artists and the total number of streams.

In 2024 Australia’s most streamed domestic artist was The Wiggles. The number of Australian artists appearing in even the bottom 5000 has dropped, which means new artists aren’t getting a look in.

The reason? If you rely on automated playlists – like the mixes Spotify recommends to its users – algorithms are deciding what music you hear.

Most streaming services now use large language models (LLMs) to make these playlists, which are based on the data of masses of listeners with similar tastes.

These algorithms can filter for language, but not for geography or culture, which means that all English language listeners – be they American, British, Irish, Canadian, Kiwi or Australian – are put into the same pool.