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In 2026, CBS News is turning sharply away from the “extremes” on both sides to instead bring back the measured, non-partisan journalism that most people in our country want so badly—or, at least, that’s what Bari Weiss and her new team want us to think.

This article is adapted from a lecture presented at the 2025 Supporters Summit in Delray Beach, Florida.

Anyone who is paying a modicum of attention can see we live in troubled times. We have inherited a civilization made possible by peace and prosperity, but presently man is everywhere in conflict. It may seem that this is a recent phenomenon, but the idea that conflict between social groups is normal and inevitable goes back a long time.

In a 1787 letter, Benjamin Franklin wrote to a colleague, “I am of the same opinion with you respecting the freedom of commerce. . . . Nothing can be better expressed than your sentiments are on this point, where you prefer liberty of trading, cultivating, manufacturing, etc., even to civil liberty, this being affected but rarely, the other every hour.”

President Trump recently signed an executive order changing marijuana’s Controlled Substances Act classification from Schedule I to Schedule III. Schedule I is supposed to include especially dangerous drugs that are likely to be abused and have no medical purpose. Whatever one thinks of the wisdom and morality of using marijuana, the fact is it is less addictive, and quite possibly safer, than alcohol. Many Americans who live in one of the 40 states that have legalized medicinal marijuana use it for a variety of ailments.

The root cause of our current health care affordability crisis is a broken market structure on the supply side resulting in out-of-control costs. The (apparently) core public policy issues: insurance, pre-existing conditions, employment linkage, lack of portability, the extent of coverage, denials, out of pocket costs, and deductibles would all become non-issues if health care was a normal expense that people could afford out of their income.

Among the many rationalizations that the Trump administration is using to initiate massive force and violence against the Venezuelan people is that the Venezuelan government nationalized American oil interests many years ago. The notion is that since “they stole our oil” several decades ago, it is entirely proper, U.S. officials say, for the U.S. government to retaliate against Venezuela, including, presumably, getting back the oil they supposedly “stole from us.”