Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
“Many conservatives are embracing big government, from police-state immigration tactics to socialist economic policies.”
There were some true believers, but for the most part, don’t tread on me Republicans were just anti-Obama reactionaries who globbed on to whatever justification they could to complain about Obama.
https://reason.com/2026/01/23/where-have-the-dont-tread-on-me-republicans-gone/
“Carr threatens network daytime and late-night shows with reprisal if they don’t offer candidates equal time. But Fox News’ late-night show Gutfeld!, which draws more viewers than any of the networks, can have on any guests it wants, since the content of cable TV generally falls outside the FCC’s purview. The same goes for social media platforms like TikTok, where 1 in 5 Americans regularly gets their news. The idea that ABC, NBC, and CBS control the flow of information is quaint.
…
“Streaming represented 44.8% of TV viewership in May 2025,” Nielsen found in June 2025, “while broadcast (20.1%) and cable (24.1%) combined to represent 44.2% of TV.” In other words, 80 percent of all that we watch on TV is not even subject to the same level of FCC regulation, including the equal-time rule.
…
Carr “sees correcting anti-Trump bias as an important part of his job,” Jacob Sullum wrote in the February/March issue of Reason, in a piece about the FCC’s history of policing speech. “In fact, Carr seems eager to embrace what he once derided as ‘a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the “public interest.”‘”
The equal-time rule is an antiquated regulation that becomes more obsolete with each passing year. It’s no longer the case that broadcast networks are Americans’ only—or even main—source of information. It shouldn’t be up to the FCC to decide if talk shows are the right amount of partisan. If viewers don’t want to watch, it’s easier than ever to just watch something else.”
https://reason.com/2026/01/23/the-fcc-wants-to-police-how-many-conservatives-appear-on-the-view/
The government raided the home of a Journalist supposedly to get information about a leaker, but “its own prosecutors don’t seem to believe they need Natanson’s data to proceed…Given that the Justice Department apparently has everything it needs to go forward with the prosecution of Perez-Lugones for leaking classified information, the raid on Natanson and seizure of her devices looks like harassment of a journalist who annoyed powerful people combined with a general search for anything the government might not want revealed.
The government doesn’t get to torment people who receive and publish information that’s inconvenient to the powers that be. It certainly isn’t entitled to go trawling through private property for information it doesn’t want to see the light of day.”
https://reason.com/2026/01/26/embarrassed-by-leaks-feds-raid-washington-post-journalists-home/
Compared to the alternatives, coal is worse for air pollution, worse for ocean pollution, worse for global warming, uses more water, is less efficient, and costs more. Coal was a competitive source of energy before we had modern gas plants.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfvBx4D0Cms
Despite some changes, the Venezuelan regime is still the same authoritarian regime, just with a new dictator who is, at least for now, trying to give the Americans what they want.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX9qBqnQBDw
Why Smart People Don’t See What’s Wrong With Trump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlBZHecP7Qw
“When federal judges told the Trump administration that it was necessary to provide due process to suspected undocumented immigrants before deporting them, Homan said the administration was “not stopping,” and added: “I don’t care what the judges think.”
…
The FBI reportedly recorded Homan accepting a $50,000 bribe from undercover agents posing as potential government contractors. Homan has denied taking the money or doing anything wrong, and the White House has dismissed the case as politically motivated, but lots of questions remain unanswered”
https://reason.com/2026/01/27/tom-homan-isnt-the-solution/
“They batter bodies with rubber bullets and sear eyes with pepper spray. They lob tear gas and explosive flash-bangs at chanting crowds. They smash car windows. They shove people to the ground. They ram vehicles and point their guns.
Federal officers carrying out President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in cities across the country have shot 13 people with guns. But far more often, they have used harsh tactics to scare or repel those they see as getting in their way. The officers, masked and kitted out with military-grade armor and rifles, have faced down peaceful protesters and people who have threatened, obstructed or attacked them, with methods that are less deadly than guns but still inflict grievous injuries. Hundreds have been hurt, and courts in at least four states have found that officers used force inappropriately and indiscriminately.
NBC News reviewed dozens of incidents since the spring and found that Department of Homeland Security officers have repeatedly deployed “less lethal” weapons in ways that appear to violate their own policies or general policing guidelines, unless they believed their lives were in danger. The review was based on interviews with lawyers, experts and protesters who were injured as well as witness statements, documents from criminal and civil cases and videos taken at protests.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/broken-bones-burning-eyes-trumps-110000513.html
“The federal government’s data do not show this “burst” in construction jobs. In fact, quite the opposite: Construction jobs declined by 11,000 in December, the most recent month for which Bureau of Labor Statistics data are available, and grew by just 0.2 percent during 2025 as a whole. Like most other blue-collar professions, jobs in the construction industry have been underwater since last April.
The president’s tariffs aren’t the only factor shaping that job market, but they surely aren’t helping. The Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) reports that overall construction input prices climbed 3.4 percent during 2025.
“Many tariff-affected materials, like derivative metal products and switchgear equipment, have experienced considerable price escalation in 2025,” Anirban Basu, chief economist for the ABC, said in a statement earlier this month. He pointed out that the price of aluminum, which is subject to huge new tariffs imposed by Trump in early 2025, climbed by more than 25 percent last year.
…
Why are gas prices falling when other products are getting more expensive?
For one, we are enjoying a period of low oil prices globally. That’s a good thing, though it is also largely beyond the president’s control.
It also seems important to note that gasoline and other oil products are exempt from the Trump administration’s tariffs.
In other words, when a barrel of crude oil crosses the border from Canada, it doesn’t suddenly have an extra 25 percent tax tacked onto it. But when a roll of aluminum or a pallet of lumber crosses the same border, it suddenly becomes significantly more expensive for Americans to buy. As a result, it has become more expensive to build things but gasoline has remained more affordable.”
https://reason.com/2026/01/29/scott-bessent-says-construction-jobs-are-booming-under-trumps-tariffs-government-data-show-the-opposite/
“Trump’s second-term raids are not merely designed to sweep up immigrants for deportation; they are designed to act as shows of force, a dangerous and occasionally deadly form of political theater. And while Trump bears ultimate responsibility for the immigration sweeps and their consequences, it is Miller who has most clearly shaped their operational character. The masks, the menace, the militarism—these are all direct manifestations of a cruel and apocalyptic worldview, in which force is the only real governing power, illegal immigration represents a form of “invasion,” legal immigration mechanisms like birthright citizenship are “destructive and ruinous policies aimed at the heart of the Republic,” and public protest of deportation raids that turn violent is tantamount to “insurrection.”
…
Some of this can be understood as an outgrowth of Trump’s own worldview. The president notoriously launched his first campaign by declaring that “when Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best…They’re bringing crime. They’re bringing drugs. They’re rapists.” But Trump’s personal ability to implement policy and execute on his impulses is limited without competent staff to follow through. Miller is the White House aide who turns Trump’s immigration ideas into reality. As the Atlantic profile put it, he’s “the man who turns President Trump’s most incendiary impulses into policy.””
https://reason.com/2026/01/29/stephen-millers-hardline-immigration-tactics-are-backfiring/