J.D. Hester

January 19, 2026

Each MLK Day, supporters of Israel invoke the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. to draw a false parallel between the civil rights movement and Zionism. While MLK did sympathize with the state of Israel, he consistently supported nonviolence. During the Six-Day War, MLK supported a UN-mediated peace settlement that addressed the economic and security […]

Martin Luther King

January 19, 2026

The sermon which I am preaching this morning in a sense is not the usual kind of sermon, but it is a sermon and an important subject, nevertheless, because the issue that I will be discussing today is one of the most controversial issues confronting our nation. I’m using as a subject from which to […]

Rick Sterling

January 17, 2026

Richmond, California is across the bay from San Francisco. It is a working class city, most famous for the shipyards which produced the Liberty ships in World War 2. Under the leadership of Mayor Eduardo Martinez, in late October 2023, Richmond California became the first city in the USA to pass a resolution calling for […]

William Astore

January 17, 2026

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Recently, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists featured a fiction contest: “Write Before Midnight.” I sent in an entry, which, sad to say, didn’t win. (The winners can be found here.) But that’s OK: I enjoyed writing something other than my usual essays. My “losing” entry to […]

Noah Carl

January 16, 2026

The impression you get listening to US politicians talk about Iran is that Iranians overwhelmingly oppose the regime. Mike Waltz says, “The people of Iran want freedom.” Ted Cruz says, “the people of Iran want to stand with America” and “they want to stand with freedom.” Newt Gingrich says, “the overwhelming majority of Iranians want […]

Kyle Anzalone

January 16, 2026

Missed signals are costly; misplaced confidence is worse. We open by unpacking the concrete indicators that war planners watch—carrier deployments, airspace changes, and last‑minute strike deliberations—and what they tell us about the real likelihood of a U.S. hit on Iran. From there, the conversation widens to a quieter battlefield: development frameworks that trade normalization for […]

John Mearsheimer

January 16, 2026

Reprinted from John’s Substack:  On 15 January 2026, I was on “Judging Freedom” talking with the Judge about a variety of topics, but most importantly on the evolving situation in Iran. I laid out my thinking on 1) what the US and Israel were trying to do in Iran — upend the regime and wreck […]

Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams

January 15, 2026

On today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report: The world waited anxiously last night as all signs pointed to a US strike on Iran. The attack did not come and many wonder whether this is more trickery or if the president has wisely decided to resist neocon demands. Polls suggest Americans overwhelmingly oppose US strikes on Iran. […]

Kyle Anzalone

January 15, 2026

What happens when war becomes a market and foreign policy turns into an odds board? We dive into the uneasy world of prediction platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi, where traders place bets on battlefield maps, covert raids, and even the exact words politicians will say. With researcher Nick Cleveland Stout from the Quincy Institute, we […]

William Astore

January 15, 2026

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Perhaps you’ve heard the quip that no matter who you vote for in America’s presidential derby, you get warhorse John McCain. Well, not literally John McCain, but someone much like him, someone who believes in militarism, bombing Iran, and shoveling more money to the Pentagon. That is […]