[News With Views] In his December 2025 commentary for The Daily Signal, "Leaders Fail When the Threat of Radical Islam Is Ignored," Victor Davis Hanson does not merely contribute to the 24-hour news cycle; he pens a digital memento mori for a fading civilization. To review this piece from the perspective of a cultural archaeologist is to see Hanson as a man standing amidst the marble dust of a crumbling forum, frantically sketching the silhouette of a storm that the city's architects insist is merely a light fog. Hanson emerges here as a "Prophet in the Ruins," an intellectual classicist who recognizes that the collapse of a society rarely begins with an external breach of the walls, but with an internal rot of the language used to describe the danger.
From this perspective, Hanson's article is a primary source document on the "Era of Euphemism." He dissects a peculiar 21st-century pathology: the belief that naming a demon is more dangerous than the demon itself.
Hanson begins by mapping a series of violent tremors – shootings in Australia, cancellations in Paris, and executions in Rhode Island. However, his focus isn't on the ballistics or the blood; it is on the lexicon of the aftermath. He observes a recurring ritual among Western elites: the "nanosecond" pivot. Whenever a radical Islamist strikes, the political apparatus performs a linguistic sleight of hand, widening the lens until the specific threat disappears into a foggy generality of "all extremism."
Hanson's critique of the Bondi Beach response is particularly sharp. He views the Australian government's refusal to name the ideology of the killers – preferring to pivot to "white extremism" even when the perpetrators were on terrorist watchlists – as a form of state-sponsored gaslighting. Through the lens of a cultural historian, this is the "Suicide of Clarity." Hanson argues that when a society loses the courage to identify its enemies, it has already lost the will to protect its citizens.
Text taken from the Telegram channel of belshkvarka
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics
[ColonelCassad] An Israeli billionaire calls on the US to abolish the First Amendment's right to freedom of speech. Not an American citizen? Why, then, should we care what he thinks? Also, just to clarify to both Mr. Kramer and our good colonel: Hell No! Shlomo Kramer, co-founder of the major global cybersecurity company Check Point Software Technologies, demands complete government control over all social media platforms. He argues that the First Amendment in the US should be limited, adding that AI will play a key role in limiting free speech.
"AI is going to revolutionize cyberwarfare... from critical infrastructure to the structure of society and politics - undermining it... And the time has come to limit the First Amendment in order to protect it." He adds: "We need to assess the credibility of every person expressing their opinion online and control what they say."
On the issue of the current topic of verification of LiveJournal commentators. As mentioned earlier, the trends in this direction are obvious. Both in our country and elsewhere.
The state will strive for complete control over its segment of the network.
Kramer did not respond publicly to the social media criticism.
Kramer did not call for abolishing the Constitution outright but repeatedly argued that constitutional protections must be restricted in order to survive in the age of AI warfare.
He said governments must also build cyber defense programs "as sophisticated as the sub-attack," noting that the current imbalance between attackers and defenders is "1 to 100."
Until governments act, Kramer said, private companies are being forced to fend for themselves by buying increasingly expensive cybersecurity tools.
Enterprises "can’t afford all these solutions by themselves," he said, pushing instead for platform-based security models offered by firms like Cato Networks, CrowdStrike and Wiz.
Kramer told The Post that his remarks were taken out of context and that he is a supporter of the First Amendment.
He said his intent was to combat disinformation and online "operations [that] leverage anonymity and non-human actors to drown out authentic voices and tear at the social fabric of Western democracies."
"The goal is not to limit the speech of individuals, but to ensure that the public square remains a place for transparent, human debate, protected from the corrosive impact of covert digital manipulation," Kramer told The Post.
Posted by: chris ||
01/03/2026 0:36 Comments ||
Top||
#3
The Stokers
Herb McCoy: "Antisemites! Oy, vey!"
Shlomo Kramer: "Muh 'Merika! Say,
Since it's such a good look,
We'll be burning bad books,
Not debating the hate away, 'kay?"
2026 is the 250th anniversary of our country’s conception. A few years later when the Constitution was ratified, we became a republic — “if you can keep it,” Ben Franklin cracked to anxious citizens waiting outside the great hall in Philadelphia. Our country was predicated on the resolve of virtuous men operating under the rule of law. We are lately under an astounding siege of villains without principle seeking to wreck the republic.
The big question facing the USA is whether our political life can become even more deranged than it has been in the past ten years, or can we possibly sober up. How is it we’re still arguing about men in women’s locker rooms? The self-evident has gone missing. A lot has gone very wrong.
The Woke-Jacobin war against our country continues, led by a Democratic Party made even more vicious, depraved, and insane by the 2024 election victory of Mr. Trump, who was left a broken polity after the four-year tableau vivant of “Joe Biden.” Can our nation recover its balance, its sense of purpose, its traction in history? Can we reconstruct a coherent common culture that will afford us some means to carry on as an upright people? I will try to answer without wasting pixels.
[News With Views] I am sure many of you have been watching President Trump's address the nation..
Some of you may have walked away, scratching your head, saying "but the prices of goods I buy are still too high!" Trump said he would lower prices. He didn't. Actually, he did.
It took Biden 4 years to destroy America. Fixing America will not happen overnight.
When Biden took office in Jan 2021, inflation was around 2%. By June 2021, with Biden's reckless spending, printing money and just plain corruption… inflation leaped to 9% with interest and rising. Biden's great economy was based on jobs for illegals, effectively leaving Americans begging for some government program handouts. The price of goods escalated, the dollar lost value and interest rates and inflation soared. Enter Trump.
Think of Trump as a farmer.
♦ Farmer Trump had to till and condition the soil. He did that by closing the border.
♦ Farmer Trump had to plant the seeds. He did that by eliminating the stranglehold of overbearing regulations stifling businesses.
♦ Farmer Trump had to make sure the crops were irrigated. Throwing out the Green energy scam took care of that. As all types of energy can be used. This will reduce the cost of all 6000 goods using fossil fuel.
♦ Farmer Trump realized we can't just be dependent on the weather for rain, so he brought back manufacturing making America self-sufficient.
♦ Healthy plants need fertilizers. So, using tariffs, Trump made deals with other countries to invest in America.
♦ Lastly, Farmer Trump had to get rid of the weeds that were strangling those baby plants. Therefore, illegals who were stealing America's wealth were sent out of the country.
It takes a tree about 5 years to bear fruit. President Trump put all of this in place in a year. Amazing! Don't think the prices will lower immediately. There is no magic wand to make that happen. But he can, and did, put more money in the hands of hard-working Americans so they will be able to afford the things they need. He did this by lowering and/or eliminating many taxes and regulations.
Beware of the lies of the Anti-Trumpers. They hate everything Trump does. The Media/Democrats/Islamists/RINOS twist and turn and spin the truth to make it appear that Trump is actually causing high prices. Remember, they are the ones who created the failing economy. They caused the crisis and now they want you to think they can solve the problem. Their solutions are expensive and don't work, but it makes them rich.
To me the RINOs are the worst offenders. We thought "they are Republicans and we are all in this together." Wrong. The RINOs are worse because they lead us to believe they will work to make America First when they are just waiting out Trump's term. Things are getting better and where are the RINOs? Where is the "attaboy"? Income is outpacing inflation. Where is the messaging? Why does the GOP let the DNC control the narrative?
“Being able to see weeds, I guess, is actually the biggest thing,” he said. “In the beginning we were just shooting any size. But we quickly found out that large weeds take an exponential amount of time to kill. So getting better camera sensors, we can see weeds that are one-day old and spend 300 milliseconds on it. If we can go into a field when it’s in that state, we clear weeds significantly faster than if a farmer loses control. A six-week-old plant is going to take maybe 50 times longer to kill.”
[Daily Caller] Economist Steve Moore said throughout 2025 that policy changes under President Donald Trump were already improving wages, energy output and household finances.
In multiple television appearances and commentaries throughout 2025, Moore pointed to a combination of expanded domestic energy production, rising wages, improving labor data, and regulatory rollbacks as evidence the economy was shifting to favor workers. He argued those developments were not isolated wins but early indicators of structural changes that could deliver broader, more durabl1. Energy Independence Could Lower Costs And Strengthen U.S. Power
In June, Moore said expanded domestic oil and gas production would free Americans from foreign energy pressure and lower costs across the economy. He added that producing more energy at home strengthens wages, stabilizes prices, and shields families from overseas shocks.e economic gains for Americans heading into 2026.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] The year 2025 has been a challenging one for Iran. The country faces pressure on all fronts, from military to diplomatic. Domestic and foreign policy challenges, as well as social and environmental issues, have all overlapped.
And although Tehran has successfully navigated most of its difficult situations, it's too early to talk about the country's darkest hour. Not least because the country is currently gripped by protests by merchants, sparked by the depreciation of the Iranian rial.
DIPLOMATIC DIFFICULTIES
Contrary to expectations, Iran failed to achieve major diplomatic victories in 2025. Negotiations on the nuclear deal, on which Tehran had placed great stakes, reached a deadlock by the summer.
It became clear that the parties (primarily the US) were unwilling to make even minimal compromises and wanted to "sell" Iran even more restrictions under the guise of a deal. After a series of high-level meetings, the discussions were frozen.
Tehran also failed to reach an agreement with Europe and thereby create a counterweight to the United States: the "European troika" (France, Great Britain, Germany) took a "hawkish" position and at some point even surpassed the United States in the toughness of its demands in negotiations.
As a result, the situation for Iranian diplomacy has become a stalemate.
Of course, the miscalculations in the Western direction were stabilized by expanding contacts with Russia and China, but Tehran was unable to fully utilize the “friends from the East” factor in negotiations, including on Syria.
A certain desynchronization is also evident in the dialogue with movements and parties that make up the pro-Iranian "Axis of Resistance" in the Middle East. Tehran, apparently, has not yet fully determined the limits of its support for the forces fighting in Gaza. Moreover, it was caught off guard by Donald Trump's "peace plan" for Gaza and therefore de facto withdrew after the ceasefire was declared.
Forces loyal to Iran have also had to change their strategy on their own – which is especially noticeable in the example of the Yemeni Houthis and Lebanese Hezbollah, who stopped their operations literally “on the fly.”
ELITE SPLIT
The most acute internal challenge for Tehran has long been the rivalry between the "hawks" (conservative politicians, clergy and military) and the more flexible reformists.
The polarization of Iranian elites that arose after the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a plane crash in late 2024 has only intensified over time.
The "hawks," aligned with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and key figures in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), advocated a tougher stance toward the West, a "tightening of the screws" within the country, and a gradual transition to a "besieged fortress" regime.
Reformists led by President Masoud Pezeshkian, on the contrary, tried to initiate a "thaw" in the country by repealing some controversial laws and regulations of the "hawks", and also to reach a diplomatic deal with the West.
The forces and influence of the disputing parties were roughly comparable, forcing them to seek balance in the new system of relations. And by the end of the year, such a balance had indeed been achieved.
After the 12-day war with Israel in June 2025, when the West de facto supported Israeli strikes, the hawks received a universal argument in the dispute with those who saw peace as an opportunity to escape the sanctions trap.
Hardliners were able to maintain the national nuclear program's vector and achieve the consolidation of Iranian society in the face of a common enemy.
The reformists also reaped benefits: for example, they completed the liberalization of rules related to wearing the hijab, strengthened technological sovereignty, and carried out reforms in education.
It's hard to say that either camp is happy with the current status quo, but given the ongoing conflict with Israel, neither wants to be seen as a "fifth column." Therefore, internal squabbles have been put on hold until better times.
DROUGHT AND SPY MANIA
But despite the relative stabilization of Iran's elites, numerous challenges remain within the domestic political landscape, undermining the country's stability. The most obvious is the water crisis.
In 2025, Iran faced a record-breaking drought, the likes of which local residents had not seen for at least half a century. Water shortages in major cities reached catastrophic levels; several cities, including the capital, have already begun evacuation plans.
Although precipitation gradually returned to normal by December, the acute phase of the crisis remains unresolved. The republic is virtually defenseless against a recurrence.
The Western-imposed economic blockade remains a major problem. Due to disagreements over Iran's nuclear program, the US and EU countries have dramatically increased sanctions pressure on Tehran, which has hit the well-being of ordinary Iranians.
Despite the fact that the country has long since established alternative financing mechanisms, and trade chains have been restructured to non-Western markets since the 2010s, it has not been possible to completely eliminate the problem.
The growing burden on the financial sector also hits the image of the government, which promised to reboot the economy and return the country to the global market.
Finally, residual reactions to official Tehran's confusion in the first hours of the June war, further exacerbated by spy mania, persist in society. Mutual suspicion has a significant impact on social cohesion and complicates its preparation for new challenges.
PREPARING FOR THE SIEGE
Tehran has little doubt that Iran will once again face Israel on the battlefield in 2026. Therefore, it is rapidly expanding its national defense capabilities to repel a hypothetical attack.
In the six months since the ceasefire, the Iranians have almost completely reformatted their air defense system, strengthening their defenses even in areas previously considered safe.
Furthermore, a rotation of personnel took place within the senior command staff, resulting in a nearly 80% renewal of the General Staff. Apparently, this was done to reshuffle the command and complicate any potential leaks from the highest offices.
On the other hand, the Iranians remain convinced that Israel will strike the same targets as last time – airfields, nuclear facilities and key military bases.
The Iranian leadership considers the likelihood that Tel Aviv will go beyond these limits to be minimal, and therefore, in a sense, they are preparing for “yesterday’s war.”
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
