On December 8, 2024, the 24-year reign of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad came to an end after a rebel coalition of  Al-Qaeda offshoots, Turkish proxies, and other Islamist militants overwhelmed the capital of Damascus. In effect, a Sunni Islamist saturnalia brought an end to the Middle East’s last secular Arab government. The Assad family, starting with Hafez al-Assad in 1971, has held an iron grip on Syrian politics for over five decades. As committed members of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party, the Assads aligned with rivals to the West and Israel such as the Soviet Union, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and later on the Russian Federation.For it being a perennial thorn in the US‘s and Israel’s side, Syria was mentioned as a potential target for regime change by

Politicians thoroughly enjoy times of war. Periods of bellicosity are when the most power-hungry members of the political class indulge in their most depraved political fantasies. The Russo-Ukrainian War has been no exception to this trend.
Western politicians have been taking advantage of the largest conventional military conflict on European soil since World War II to crack down on civil liberties at home and drag their countries closer to an open conflict with a nuclear power. The domestic measures Western governments have pursued have been particularly breathtaking.
For example, the European Union has already banned Russian state media outlets such as RT and Sputnik for allegedly spreading disinformation. In the United States, which has stronger free speech

While geopolitical commentators are fixated on Russia’s border with Ukraine, a more interesting development is slowly boiling underneath the surface of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict that could potentially reorder international relations—namely, the death of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Founded in 1949, NATO began with only twelve member nations. Presently, NATO counts on thirty member nations, with national security elites in the Anglo-American sphere wanting to bring Georgia and Ukraine into the fold. In both countries’ cases, NATO membership is in limbo.
Despite calls for expanding NATO, the military alliances undergirding the organization could be in for an unexpected shake-up. Ever since French president Emmanuel Macron declared in 2019 that

Could Texas usher in a uniquely decentralized approach to immigration?
Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently embarked on a unique policy drive to have the state government lead the charge on immigration policy. It’s no secret that talks of immigration evoke powerful emotions on both sides — another indication of the elevated levels of polarization present in the US.
As I’ve previously mentioned, the present level of friction in Washington DC has effectively prevented comprehensive reform — be it abortion, gun control, healthcare, etc. — from being passed by either side of the aisle. Similar cases of gridlock have extended to any kind of immigration reform, which has motivated states to construct their own immigration agendas.
Perturbed by the federal government’s

Few political movements can boast of success like the firearms movement in the United States. Often overlooked is how before the 1980s there was no concept of licensed, let alone unlicensed, concealed carry in the overwhelming majority of the country. The sole exception was Vermont, which through an idiosyncratic state supreme court decision in 1903 has had unlicensed carry for over a century. “Vermont Carry,” the concept of unlicensed concealed carry, would be the Holy Grail for Second Amendment advocates for up to a century.
In the intervening decades, in large part motivated by notable transgressions on the right to bear arms during the 1930s and 1960s, activists took to using gradualist methods in their efforts to relax gun control laws at the state level.

Pulling troops out of South Korea is an important step in changing the conversation on American foreign policy, which is swamped in platitudes of promoting missionary enterprises abroad and finding new bogeymen to confront.

Original Article: “It’s Time for the US to Withdraw from Korea”
America’s military footprint abroad is unmatched in human history. With more than eight hundred military bases in over seventy countries across the globe, the US is in an ideal position to carry out all sorts of imperial adventures, though the emerging multipolarity on the world stage with the rise of Russia and China has thrown several wrenches into many of the regime change orchestrators’ wildest fantasies.
America’s overstretched presence abroad began to receive significant

On October 25, 2020, 78 percent of Chilean voters went to the ballot box to approve rewriting the country’s constitution, largely viewed as Latin America’s most stable constitution. After nationwide protests kicked off in October 2019, the Chilean left was able to successfully compel President Sebastián Piñera to let Chilean voters decide the fate of the country’s political charter. In the next step, Chileans will decide if the new constitution will now be drafted by a constitutional convention made up of politicians and other elected representatives or a constituent assembly completely made up of citizens. Both options would necessitate a two-thirds majority and must be carried out within a year.
Proponents of the constitutional rewrite alluded to the fact that

The Democrats, Liz Cheney, and the Never Trumpers still want endless wars, and they hate Trump’s apparent lack of enthusiasm for embracing their dreams of empire.

This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon. Narrated by Michael Stack.
Original Article: “On Foreign Policy, Trump Is Still the Lesser Evil“.

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Walter Berns and the Cult of “Patriotic” Sacrifice
[unable to retrieve full-text content]In his great new book The Problem with Lincoln, Tom DiLorenzo brought back an old memory. As Tom points out, Walter Berns, who taught political science at Cornell and then worked for the American Enterprise Institute, was one of the main figures urging us to worship

The NRA would be wise to vote with its feet. Millions of Americans have already escaped the high taxes and freedom-destroying blue state regimes by doing the same.
This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon. Narrated by Michael Stack.

Original Article: “The NRA Would Be Wise to Leave New York ASAP“.

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Money-Supply Growth Hits New High For Third Month In a Row
In June, for the third month in a row, money supply growth surged to an all-time high, following new all-time highs in both April and May that came in the wake of unprecedented quantitative easing, central bank asset purchases, and various stimulus packages.

The Government Wants Your

Scandinavian welfare states continue to allure leftist onlookers across the world. The Nordic welfare model is marketed as a humane alternative to the cutthroat nature of Western capitalism. It received a massive boost when Vermont senator Bernie Sanders campaigned on emulating these countries in both of his presidential runs during 2016 and 2020.
But it’s not just your typical Bernie Bro that’s obsessing over the Nordic model. Technocrats at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) insist that inequality is the economic crisis of our time and must be solved through higher taxation and income redistribution.
Like good global busybodies, they go out of their way to shame certain countries such as Chile for maintaining relatively low

In the increasingly polarized America, Black Swan moments like the COVID-19 pandemic have further confirmed growing divides in the country. Our textbooks would like us to believe that emergencies create fertile grounds for unity. But when you have a populace that is politically dividing itself even when it comes to the TV shows it watches, there comes a point when we have to start recognizing that the prospect of national unity is becoming more of a mirage as the days go by.
Amusingly, the COVID-19 saga has been host to some of the most flagrant political posturing in recent memory. Early in March (which feels like eons ago in today’s frenetic media cycle) New York City mayor de Blasio was telling people to go to the movies and have fun. Now, he’s done a

As we watch in real-time how governments respond to the novel coronavirus pandemic, some of the most predictable forms of state overreach—from restrictions on the freedom of assembly to the suppression of regular commerce—have been rolled out. Thankfully, there is no unified world government, so there exist various examples of how certain countries are dealing with the crisis that we can closely examine and learn from.
Pessimism and cynicism are generally warranted under the political climate we’re living in. However, there are some silver linings we can take away from America’s response to the coronavirus. In a previous article, I noted that several states have started adopting deregulation on a whole host of issues. With the coronavirus still raging on, now