The weekend should have been quiet. Instead, a Hanukkah celebration on a Sydney beach turned into a massacre, a Muslim bystander tackled a shooter, and within hours the tragedy was weaponized. We dig into what happened, why the early “false flag” whispers took hold, and how Benjamin Netanyahu used the moment to argue that supporting a Palestinian state is the same as fueling antisemitism. That framing doesn’t just poison debate—it endangers Jewish communities by collapsing criticism of state policy into bigotry against a people.

We also trace another deadly thread: three Americans killed near Palmyra, Syria, and the fog that followed. First it was ISIS. Then reports pointed to a member of Syria’s own security forces with a jihadist past. If the original mission in Syria was to destroy the Islamic State, why are U.S. troops still in harm’s way years later? We lay out the mission creep, the shifting justifications, and the growing talk of adding troops to “monitor” ceasefires that rarely hold. If the rationale has evaporated, the policy should too.

On the media front, we examine Barry Weiss’s interview framing around the Charlie Kirk case and why public trust erodes when legitimate questions are lumped with the most absurd conspiracies. Candace Owens scored early with receipts, then drifted into claims she hasn’t substantiated. That pattern fuels both cynicism and polarization. And on Capitol Hill, Chuck Schumer’s resolution condemning “platforming” Nick Fuentes tries to police conversations rather than win arguments. We break down why Tucker Carlson’s approach—separating people from governments, rejecting blood guilt, and aiming to persuade the audience—may be the smarter way to defuse extremist appeal.

If you care about free speech, accurate reporting, and a foreign policy that reduces risk instead of multiplying it, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who follows world news, and leave a review telling us where you think U.S. policy and media narratives go wrong.

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I love it that the National Health Service (NHS) socialist medical horror show in the UK uses the handle NHSuk on the X.

The United Kingdom prides itself on this crown jewel of medical malpractice & incompetence that is a love child of Benny Hill, Trofim Lysenko and Nikolai Alexandrovich Semashko.

Yes, it does indeed SUCK.

The foreign purchase entanglement and moral hazard of overspending of the F35 is emblematic of making a two trillion dollar purchase over time where the money is simply wasted but driven to completion by the sheer momentum of the insane and imbecilic US military acquisition system.

If you have read my blog here at LI, you know I take the F35 to task all the time because it is a warning for today and far into the future on what NOT to do. The F35 fiasco has literally stripped the US military capability to fight in the 21st century peer combat theaters of this century.

The military value of a weapon program is the only valid justification for its expense. If someone does feel the need to defend a program, the argument should be based on the weapon’s demonstrated effectiveness and its centrality to the nation’s defense. If a weapon doesn’t work or can’t be purchased in the numbers the services need, then what is the point?

The American people today spend far more on defense than they did just a generation ago. Pentagon spending levels are nearly 50% higher than they were in the year 2000. That extra money has been sunk into numerous acquisition failures. The Littoral Combat Ship, the Army’s Future Combat System, the Zumwalt-class destroyer, the KC-46 aerial tanker, and the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle are just a few significant disappointments from the past 25 years.

The system is clearly broken. The incoming Trump administration will have to take drastic steps to rein in the excesses of the past 25 years. With influential people now at least unwittingly admitting the F-35’s failures, it could be a good starting point. Cancelling the program outright would be very difficult because of all the foreign entanglements that were baked into it from the beginning. But limiting production until engineers complete the F-35’s design may send the proper signal to the defense industry that the status quo is intolerable.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/f-35/