Jonathan Alter: "[WLF] is a cryptocurrency platform co-founded by the Trump family and Steve Witkoff... Trump’s top diplomat. A [United Arab Emirites sheikh] bought a 49% stake for $500m just before [POTUS] reversed...national security policy and approved the export of advanced AI chips to the UAE."

Factcheck.org: "Spending to build, expand and rehabilitate manufacturing sites in the U.S. has declined since President Donald Trump took office, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Yet, Trump has repeatedly boasted that 'factory construction' is up 41%."

Over 73% of ICE detainees have no criminal convictions. tracreports.org/immigration/...

I went to send Roger Wicker (Republican Senator from Mississippi) a message and was amused to see that his online letter-writing form offers an option in "Topic" for "Second Amendment"—but no other Amendments (including, say, the First) make the cut. 🤷‍♂️

"ICE is not doing what they say they’re doing,” said Kaohly Her, the St Paul mayor and a Hmong American, in a statement about Thao’s arrest. “They’re not going after hardened criminals. They’re going after anyone and everyone in their path. It is unacceptable and un-American."

“This administration refuses to take responsibility for the chaos, death, and destruction DHS is causing in our communities. It’s clear that Congress will have to hold Kristi Noem and her Department responsible instead.” - Bennie Thompson

Just canceled Paramount over CBS (and, let's be honest, the email they just sent raising fees).

Dear MAGA. We literally told you all of this.

I'll just leave this right here (source: CNBC)

Rep. Dan Goldman: "Seventy percent of those arrested in New York by ICE have no criminal record whatsoever. Seventy. And yet we’re told it’s the worst of the worst and it’s criminals and all this. It’s not." Goldman and Rep. Eric Swalwell plan to introduce the ICE Out act.

Go Timberwolves.

Dan Rather: "[Good]'s death will not be in vain. It has already drawn needed attention to a rogue president and agency acting with impunity. She could be any mother, in any city, at any time. She could be any one of us. It is time to draw the line in the sand. And to say her name while doing it."

"The move came after officials at Roosevelt High School said *armed* U.S. Border Patrol officers came on school property during dismissal Wednesday and began tackling people, handcuffed two staff members and released chemical weapons on bystanders." (Emphasis mine.)

"The public should not believe every ... post and Fox News soundbite from DHS political talking heads – including Secretary Noem – until the unadulterated facts come out. Too often DHS lies directly to the American people only to later have to quietly retract their claims.” - Rep. Bennie Thompson

“There’s a theory among some pundits that… Trump’s brain is stuck in the 1980s and early ’90s—that his formative years as a real estate tycoon in New York in the go-go Reagan years calcified his worldview, his politics, his icons… his definition of success.” www.wired.com/story/3-keys...

"[POTUS] announced that he’s ending his National Guard deployment in Los Angeles, along with attempted military takeovers in Chicago and Portland. That decision came just a week after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling halting his efforts to send ... Guard troops into Chicago."

Robert Reich quoted Reagan back to MAGA: "… anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American. A person becomes an American by adopting America’s principles, especially those principles... such as 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

One of the small pleasures of my life is checking aviation weather on Christmas. Always good for a chuckle.

ACA results: "We are probably looking at 200,000 people dropping their insurance coverage and going on to the uninsured category... that means that if they need health care, they go into an emergency room...[for] uncompensated care," said Mike Chaney, Mississippi's Republican insurance commissioner.

I'm only recent back in a Cessna, but I'm happy to say I've already had a few successful landings. (Which is all you can ask for... 😀)

New Republic: “To win big and… hold onto power, the Democrats need to work harder to build a party brand that answers voters’ real concerns and differentiates them from Republicans.” “That doesn’t mean behaving like a weather vane… It means having the courage and strength to make your own weather.”

Factcheck.org: "[Trump] falsely claimed he had 'inherited the worst inflation' in U.S. history and that it 'stopped' since he returned to the White House. The worst inflation period occurred after World War I, and inflation was up 3% for the 12-month period ending in September."

"Trump hung up on a ProPublica reporter after being asked whether his Florida mortgages were similar to those of others he had accused of fraud." - ProPublica

Factcheck.org: "Hernández had been found guilty by a jury after a three-week trial. He was sentenced by a U.S. District judge last year to 45 years in prison for using his position to help drug traffickers import more than 400 tons of cocaine into the United States, while accepting bribes..."

ICYMI: POTUS approval is at it's second-term low of 36%—although he hasn't broken his own first-term record... yet.

70% of Latinos disapprove of POTUS. 76% are dissatisfied with the way the country is going, which is higher than the General Public (which is at 72%). www.pewresearch.org/race-and-eth...

"[Trump] distorted his predecessor’s record on employment, falsely claiming that government jobs were increasing while 'real jobs' were declining. The number of private-sector jobs increased every year under [Biden’s] term and was up about 12% by the time he left office."

"On Nov. 19, the CDC replaced its webpage on autism and vaccines with a new one that leans into the discredited idea that vaccines might cause autism." "Numerous rigorous studies have repeatedly failed to identify any link between vaccination and autism."

All you need to know about this man in the headline. "Trump Turns to US Supreme Court to Block Order to Fully Fund SNAP Food Aid"

"Republicans had held a supermajority in the Senate since sweeping the state government in 2011."

The Hill: Senate GOP blocks Dem effort to fund SNAP "Senate Republicans nixed an attempt by Democrats to fully fund Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits on Monday after those funds dried up over the weekend amid the government shutdown."

"SNAP has become the third rail of shutdowns. You don’t let people go hungry to prove a political point. All while the president is building multimillion-dollar ballrooms, buying private jets for his cabinet members, and traveling around Asia rather than working to end the shutdown." - Dan Rather

"Can you imagine the reaction if Joe Biden said he pardoned someone because Hunter told him to? If Biden blindly freed a scammer based solely on his son’s recommendation... conservative media would be frothing at the mouth." - Mike Nellis open.substack.com/pub/endlessu...

"Trump promoted a military pay raise of 3.8% for next year, claiming that this was 'something you weren’t getting from the past administration.'" "Military pay increased by 4.6%, 5.2% and 4.5% in 2023, 2024 and 2025... Military raises are automatically determined by a formula set by law."

Factcheck.org: "...donations for the ballroom are being coordinated through a nonprofit charitable organization, the Trust for the National Mall... 'I don’t see how adding a ballroom to the White House grounds benefits the public. So it’s not clear to me how a 501(c)(3) should be funding this.'"

[RFK Jr.] further added to the ... administration’s problematic claims about Tylenol and autism on Oct. 9, alleging during a Cabinet meeting that circumcision-related studies provide evidence that the drug causes the condition when given to children. The studies, however, do no such thing.

Oct 2025 = $26.99.

After reading a piece about the rise in coffee prices, I decided to go into my shopping history and check to see what I used to pay for this staple in our household. Nov 2024 = $15.99 for 36 ounces. Aug 2025 = $24.99 (!!) ~56% increase. Thanks, 🌮!

"Gabbard’s claim relies heavily on an alleged contradiction between a Jan. 6, 2017, intelligence assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered an “influence campaign” ... and earlier intelligence assessments that concluded Russia did not successfully use cyberattacks..."

Does the WSJ letter "sound" like Trump? TL/dr: He's used "enigma," "pal," recounts narratives of himself in the third person, has a history with the poet (first line) and is known to draw with a sharpie and sign the bottom.

Just in case you've been wondering what the answer to this question is: 71.7% of ICE detainees as of June 29 have no criminal record or pending criminal charges. www.mississippifreepress.org/among-trumps...

Factcheck.org: "Contrary to [Trump's] claim that no one will die as a result of the [GOP] budget bill, an analysis from the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University estimated that the legislation’s changes to Medicaid and the [ACA] will result in at least 42,500 preventable deaths each year."

"What has made Baltimore — which President Trump and other conservatives deride as a 'filthy' Democrat-controlled 'slum' — so successful in making its streets safer?" popular.info/p/the-secret...

Tell me I'm crazy—I thought all of this was about the price of eggs. (Chart: CNBC).

He had no criminal record and was living with his grandparents in Iowa. Abducted by ICE, imprisoned and shipped off with no due process. It's simply un-American. Great work by Little Village. littlevillagemag.com/iowans-rally...

Gut-wrenching read. Mom abducted at work by ICE. Kids left at home. 15-year-old son: “I don’t know what to tell [my brothers] because I don’t want them to freak out. Because they’re little, they’re little kids.” Amplify this work by Santa Barbara Independent.

"Trump’s supporters are discovering that they have become 77 million Ivanas. They are 77 million Marla Maples. They are 77 million customers of Trump steaks or Trump universities, 77 million of the creditors he left high and dry." - David Rothkopf

"... make no mistake: This 3,000-bed facility quickly built with cages and razor-wire by floundering Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—who is trying to get back into the cruelty spotlight—should be seen for what it is... a concentration camp. This is no mere hyperbole." -Steven Beschloss

Can anybody tell me why MAGA/GOP/🌮 wouldn’t want to harvest all the American-made solar and wind energy we possibly could? Doesn’t that make us greater than lying about gas prices being lower?

At IKEA to buy $85 chairs. Got to the warehouse section and they were priced at $125. When we got to the front, we told the sales rep, who scanned them and they rung up $85. We asked what the deal was. "They're probably marking things up back there for when the tariffs hit next week."