Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:

Here’s a gift link to this stunner Washpost story, quoting the 60 Minutes correspondent on the CECOT story, who accuses Bari Weiss of spiking the piece all because the Trump Administration wouldn’t comment. “Government silence is a statement, not a VETO.” wapo.st/3YL4T3D

Better picture. Sorry for the redundancy, this is a big day for me.

Apparently there are a few left in the Tennessee warehouse, so you could them faster on the East Coast and in the South.

Apparently this NYT mention today was enough to wipe out the warehouse inventory. If you can’t find it in stores, please order and be patient. You don’t have to use Amazon. Thank you for all the love! #hacking #books

Reps. Ro Khanna (D-California) and Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) said that they will seek to find Attorney General Pam Bondi in contempt of Congress for not releasing more documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Whew!

In retrospect maybe the guy who refused to return classified documents while out of power was not obviously going to release personally embarrassing material when back in power.

FACT CHECK American companies never owned oil or land in Venezuela, and officials didn’t kick them out. Venezuela, following Mexico, Brazil and Saudi Arabia, nationalized its most lucrative sector in 1976 and developed mutually beneficial partnerships with American and other firms wapo.st/4jblLKs

lol. lmao. missionlocal.org/2025/12/sf-w...

NYT online today.

I don’t understand why people are questioning the integrity of leadership at the Donald J. Trump Federal Bureau of Investigation and Redaction.

lol

Did you know that the US hasn’t had an ambassador in Moscow in 6 months? Or that our chief envoy to Russia won’t take briefings from the CIA? But wait, there’s more. Much more in this 6-byline WSJ piece on the Witkoff-Putin axis. Free link www.wsj.com/world/putin-...

Damning.

They picked her up at a Taco Bell, and they are still arguing she was born in Mexico? www.huffpost.com/entry/us-cit...

The Epstein file is the only thing Trump has ever taken his name off of

Following up on Justice targeting leftist groups despite political speech protections--A new arrest in alleged LA bomb plot, and the prosecutor said: “Groups like TILF are a menace to society and a threat to the values that make America the greatest nation on Earth.” www.justice.gov/opa/pr/membe...

Today in print.

Space news is the best. Like, what do you mean there's a runaway supermassive black hole 10 million times bigger than the sun moving through space at 2 million miles per hour www.space.com/astronomy/bl...

David Brooks being in the Epstein pics reminded me he got divorced from his wife of 28 years for sleeping with his 20 year old research assistant, but I'd forgotten *this* was the book she assisted him with lol

It's actually pretty impressive to go to the heads of the big oil companies with your big new idea and have them go, 'dude, that's a bit dark for our tastes. too much carnage, too many crimes'. www.politico.com/news/2025/12...

Yikes

I am reliably informed that trade paperbacks can fit inside most stockings.

A memo from AG Bondi has given federal law enforcement marching orders to go after anti-government groups, alarming legal experts and former FBI agents who say it could jump-start deep surveillance aimed at political opposition. Archive, no paywall: archive.ph/FEub4

“Gasoline is now under $2.50 in much of the country. Would you believe it? $2.50! … Would you believe $2.60?”

Weird how no one at the premiere business paper knows that Congress decides spending. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

A story I found about Haiti: In 1999, a group of Haitians were tired of political disorder and dreamed of a better life in the United States. So they built a small, 23-foot boat by hand using pine trees, scrap wood, and used nails. They called the boat "Believe in God."

Trump Immigration Crackdown Confronts Bad Juju

NEW: The families of two teenage boys who died by suicide filed a lawsuit today against Meta, alleging that for years the tech company ignored the danger of sexual blackmail schemes targeting teens on Instagram. www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-... I interviewed one of the parents.

Huge thanks to the New York Times Book Review for naming the revised Cult of the Dead Cow one of its three nonfiction paperback picks of the week. Here is no-paywall version: www.pilotonline.com/2025/12/17/p... #books #hacking

Per @garretthaake.bsky.social, the extremely tacky "presidential wall of fame" that lines the colonnade to the West Wing now has obviously-Trump-penned plaques insulting or praising the presidents.

That magical time of the year when tech journos get pitched the trifecta of new year's predictions, CES previews AND gift-giving recommendations.

wapo.st/48V6Jni marketing gift link for my colleague’s story.

we just went through a months-long cultural project where people lost their jobs for speaking ill of a dead man's politics

I am so very tired of things happening that I am glad my father wasn’t alive to see.

Terrible weekend.

Armed ICE agents trapped US citizens in a restaurant and demanded their papers. Federal agents walked into East African restaurants in Cedar-Riverside, MN. They closed and blocked the doors. Then they demanded to see everyone’s papers. Every person present was a US citizen.

If you’re in the business of facts and accuracy, you can forget entry into the United States. Apparently they want none of that. Makes sense for an emerging autocracy www.poynter.org/news-release...

“‘All the people who didn't believe in me, I have to thank them, because it gives me a lot of motivation,’ she said.” www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12... @abcnewsbot.bsky.social

It was @dahlialithwick.bsky.social who described these executive orders as "letters to Santa," I believe.

Big congrats to measles. www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

I'm so used to telling people "you're not interesting enough to be targeted by spies", but ever since DPRK went all in on state-sponsored cybercrime, now it's more like "no, actually it's entirely plausible the dude who stole your Roblox works for a foreign intelligence agency".

Fullest account to date of the reasoning behind the second strike that killed shipwrecked sailors. Paywall. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

GLASHEEN: Antifa is our primary concern right now. That's the most immediate violent threat we're facing BENNIE THOMPSON: Where is antifa headquartered? GLASHEEN: ... ... ... we are building out the infrastructure right now THOMPSON: What does that mean?

While previous administrations have included the ultrarich, the wealth held by this group is larger than even the first Trump administration, previously the wealthiest in U.S. history. Here’s who they are.

Well imagine that.

This article explains why the right's "censorship industrial complex" myth has been so successful: "The government wasn’t defending her, she was banned from defending herself, and even potential allies were staying quiet, having sensed which way the wind was blowing."