Andy Henry watches bulldozers circle his 175-year family farm while the State Department promotes cultural ignorance. Trump's deregulation blitz frees manufacturers, but his Hyundai raid reveals how government control breeds chaos. It's episode 55 of Dispatches from the Rebellion!

1. Trump's Vicious Cycle of Government Control
2. Economic Carnage from Trump's Tariffs Spreads
3. State Department Promotes Culture of Ignorance
4. EPA Targets Biden's Regulatory Extremism
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Note: this week's edition includes limited source links as my domain's reputation recovers from a false spam flag.

Ellabell, GA — His own handpicked Bureau of Labor statistics chief delivered Trump a gut punch with this week’s jobs report: just 22,000 new positions in August, with revised June numbers showing the first net job loss since peak COVID. Unemployment climbed, while the number of jobless without work for over six months reached the highest level in nearly a decade.
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These are the predictable results of Trump’s command-and-control economy.
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Meanwhile, Trump’s promised manufacturing renaissance continues its spectacular flop, with 12,000 jobs lost. One must wonder if he still blames the manufacturing’s decline on his favorite scapegoat: illegal immigration.
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Enter Hyundai's nightmare. Faced with crushing tariff costs, the Korean automaker had warned dealers in March it was evaluating its pricing strategy amid 25% import duties. Unable to absorb indefinite losses, Hyundai turned to the oldest corporate survival tactic: cheap labor. Desperate to cut costs, subcontractors at their Georgia plant hired workers on tourist visas prohibited from employment—allowing Hyundai plausible deniability.
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On Thursday, ICE descended on Hyundai's facility like an occupying army, arresting 475 workers in the largest single-site raid in agency history. While Hyundai's illegal act and prior labor violations warranted action, the heavy-handedness—just two weeks after South Korean President Lee Jae-myung agreed to a $350 billion investment deal—further alienated a staunch ally critical to containing Chinese aggression.
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Friedrich Hayek warned of this trap: the "fatal conceit" that government planners can control complex economic systems. Tariffs distort markets, forcing rational actors like Hyundai into increasingly desperate measures. When adaptations are deemed "illegal," the state justifies expanded enforcement powers. Each intervention spawns new problems that bureaucrats insist only more intervention can solve.
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This is how tyranny grows, and how Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” gets paved.

Fairfax, VA — Sarah Wells' phone rang at midnight with news that could destroy her life's work. Her shipment of breast-pump backpacks had been seized at customs, hostage to an unexpected $15,000 tariff bill that had doubled while her goods crossed the Pacific.
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Should one man's signature have the power to destroy her dreams?
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Last week, seven federal judges delivered a thundering "NO", (accurately) designating Trump's global tariffs illegal. The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled the president had seized "core Congressional power" granted in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, creating levies that were "unbounded in scope, amount, and duration." With the Supreme Court set to take up the case in November, the executive overreach that struck Wells' Virginia warehouse could reshape presidential power forever.
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The economic carnage is spreading. U.S. lumber dropped sharply this week—a possible harbinger of a housing collapse and one of countless pernicious impacts now propagating through the economy. According to Industry Week, nearly 70% of business leaders now say tariffs are "significantly" affecting operations, with another 8% feeling the impact now. Only 19% expect minimal impact.
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Wells’ 13-year-old company now faces an impossible choice: absorb costs that devour her profits or raise prices until customers flee. "Even if we pass some cost to the consumer, we can't pass it all," she says. "The honest answer is that businesses will close."
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This is the Founders' nightmare realized—executive power crushing the very entrepreneurship that built American prosperity.

Washington, DC — Last week, thousands of emails landed in Foreign Service candidates’ inboxes with devastating news: the rigorous tests they had passed had been nullified. Months of preparation meant nothing—all must retake Trump’s “merit-based” version to qualify for diplomatic service.
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As American meritocracy came under attack from the far left, the Biden administration made DEI the paramount consideration in every government function—politicizing promotions and endangering combat readiness. Reform was justifiable.
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But Trump's cure proves worse than the disease. Gone are questions measuring diplomatic aptitude, including inquiries about "how often applicants seek out activities with diverse ethnic and cultural groups" and likelihood "to develop relationships with people for whom English was not a first language."
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For diplomats expected to navigate complex international relationships, such cross-cultural competence apparently constitutes dangerous thinking.
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State Department officials claim they're "restoring a system where talent, not affirmative action, drives opportunities," eliminating assessments "designed to exclude ordinary Americans." Yet this rebranding of ignorance as merit misses the point: effective diplomacy requires understanding other cultures.
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The American Foreign Service Association condemned the change Friday, accurately claiming it "abandons merit-based principles while putting an unfair burden on those who have already satisfied all requirements."
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America's diplomatic corps, already hemorrhaging talent after massive July layoffs, now faces an expertise exodus. When cultural understanding becomes suspect, we're not building merit—we're institutionalizing diplomatic incompetence.

Salt Lake City, UT — Natalie Kaddas knows firsthand how regulatory burden crushes small manufacturers. As CEO of Kaddas Enterprises, her Salt Lake City company faces "$28,000 per employee per year" in regulatory compliance costs, according to her congressional testimony. Her family business manufactures plastic products for energy, transportation, and aerospace industries, generating $6.2 million annually with 31 employees.
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That's nearly 15 percent of revenue devoured before manufacturing a single product—leaving consumers and 31 families to bear the cost.
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Kaddas's burden reflects the Biden administration's indifference to the human cost of environmental regulation: Per the conservative think tank American Action Forum, Biden's regulatory machine imposed $1.8 trillion in regulatory costs on the American economy, roughly $10,000 per American household. EPA alone accounted for $1.3 trillion, far exceeding Obama-era levels. Facing identical regulatory requirements, small manufacturers bear disproportionate costs because they lack the legal armies and compliance departments of large corporations.
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Since March, Lee Zeldin's EPA has launched a major counteroffensive: a deregulatory blitz that unleashed "the greatest and most consequential…deregulation in U.S. history." The closure of Biden’s EPA Museum symbolized Zeldin’s revolt—costing taxpayers $4 million to build and $600,000 annually to operate, it underwhelmed a mere 2,000 visitors in 10 months.
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Recent EPA reductions in greenhouse gas emission standards warrant scrutiny, and this week’s suspension of over 100 EPA employees for signing a dissent letter is very troubling. But when regulations crush small manufacturers, environmental protection becomes a luxury only the wealthy can afford.
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Zeldin grasps what Biden ignored: regulatory extremism destroys the families it claims to protect.
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American Renegade of the Week

Dana Berliner, Warrior Against Government Theft

Andy Henry, 72, now watches helplessly as his township plots to seize the 21-acre farm his family has worked for 175 years—home to belted Galloway beef cows and the last open space in a sea of warehouses. This is exactly what Dana Berliner warned would happen after the Supreme Court's devastating 2005 Kelo decision.
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Berliner stood with another homeowner twenty years ago: Susette Kelo, who lovingly restored her little pink house overlooking the Thames River, never imagining her own government would hand it to pharmaceutical giant Pfizer for parking lots. When the Supreme Court delivered its crushing 5-4 ruling that governments could steal private property for virtually any reason labeled "economic development," Berliner had lost the battle as Kelo's lead attorney, but refused to surrender the war.
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A Yale Law graduate who chose public interest work over the lucrative private practice that her credentials could have commanded, Berliner transformed defeat into a nationwide crusade. She documented the post-Kelo carnage as local governments condemned nearly 5,800 properties in just one year, then traveled state by state, testifying before legislatures and drafting model legislation. Her relentless advocacy drove eight state supreme courts and 43 state legislatures to strengthen property rights protections.
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But Berliner's warnings fell on deaf ears in New Jersey, which failed to enact meaningful reforms—leaving families like the Henrys exposed to the exact predatory seizures she had fought to prevent. As Senior Vice President and Litigation Director at the Institute for Justice, Berliner continues her mission to restore the constitutional principle that your home is your castle, not government inventory awaiting redistribution to the highest bidder.

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