WASHINGTON, Dec 8 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will unveil a $12 billion aid package for American farmers affected by his trade policies on Monday, two White House officials said.
Monday, December 08, 2025
Fixing The Problems I Created
I'm sure this money mostly won't go to "farmers" who have sympathetic standing with the public, but will instead mostly go to giant agribusiness.
They Lie All The Time
Not criticizing this piece, but any political journalism that doesn't acknowledge that as a fundamental fact of the Trump administration is just fiction.
A U.S. immigration judge on Monday ordered the release of a Brazilian woman with family ties to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt from a detention center in Louisiana, setting her free on a $1,500 bond as she continues to fight her potential deportation.|
The release of Bruna Ferreira, 33, who shares custody of an 11-year-old son with her former fiancé, Leavitt’s brother Michael, comes after immigration officers arrested her in Massachusetts on Nov. 12 while she was on her way to pick up her son from school and sent her to the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center.
Immigration Judge Cynthia Goodman ordered Ferreira to be set free on the lowest-dollar bond possible, Ferreira’s lawyers said. One of those lawyers, Jason Thomas, told Goodman that the U.S. government’s characterization of Ferreira — whom the Trump administration described last week as a “criminal illegal alien” with a previous arrest for battery — is “both unfair and untrue.”
Sure Why Not
There are various schisms in Trumpworld and the broader wingnutosphere at the moment, and while I don't think they really matter, they do provide some entertainment, at least.
I called out Stinky Steve Bannon
— Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr) December 8, 2025
—who perjured himself at my Soviet-style show trial as Mueller’s star witness against me, who was pedo Jeffrey Epstein’s associate, and who is currently pushing for Chinese Communist AI—
to meet me in the @BareKnuckleFC ring mano a mano.
👊🏼KO pic.twitter.com/of3TzBcCND
Fire Bari
I believe it is the only way to make it up to you, sir. Or maybe she could grovel on live TV.
I suspect this is Stahl's last appearance.
Sunday, December 07, 2025
Welch
It is rare for the NYT to cover critics who aim from the left.
In April, when Rahm Emanuel suggested that the party’s members mute their support of transgender rights, she called him a sellout. In June, she accused Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, of being “one of those corporate Democrats” despised by many Americans. A few months later, when he did not appear at a rally in support of Mr. Mamdani, she hopped on their spinoff podcast “IHIP News” and implored him to “get your shit together.”All of this has made Ms. Welch into the rare figure who appeals to the mainstream liberal, angers the Fox News viewer and thrills the dirtbag left. As she challenges Democrats from a more progressive stance, a portrait of Kate Moss in the frame behind her, she provides the sensation of watching the Overton window shift in real time.
I think there are plenty of people like that. The dirty little secret of the dirtbag left is they aren't all that hard to please. But it does take wine mom vibes (complimentary) for the NYT to notice.
Minor Amusement
Trump is enraged that pardon recipient Henry Cuellar is running for re-election ad a Democrat, though I suppose I am too.
Good Nazis, Bad Nazis
I have long been fascinated with how some conservatives hold the view that Nazis are good, akshually, except the liberal Nazis, who are very bad.
Saturday, December 06, 2025
Saturday Afternoon
When I was a kid, a cold winter afternoon meant a kung fu movie or some weird British TV series on PBS.
Credit Where Credit Is Due
NPR edition.
President Trump made racist comments about Somali immigrants and Somalia multiple times this week. It's a common tactic used by the president to get attention from those who share his nativist views.
Kavanaugh Stops
Even the best spin on such things, as Kavanaugh provided, should be seen as unacceptable. The reality is of course worse. A crucial bit of this story is that she has been stopped 3 times, and there is no reason it won't keep happening over and over.
Friday, December 05, 2025
Bring On The Tiny Cars/Trucks
I thought that would be obvious for people who read me regularly, but of course that's a Trump initiative I support! I'm just curious about how it came to him...
Sure Why Not
I am sure some senators do work hard - though I think that is less true now than it used to be - but it's hardly a demanding job if you don't want it to be.
Progressives are already plotting a primary challenge to Sen. John Fetterman when he’s up for reelection in 2028. But whether Fetterman’s around to be primaried at all is another question.
The freshman senator seems to be leaving all doors open, insiders told NOTUS: reelection, retirement and even a long-shot run for president. Some think he’s likely to leave the Senate, which they say he doesn’t seem to enjoy much.
“I don’t think he’s running,” one former Fetterman staffer told NOTUS. “He didn’t like the job, he missed home, and now is a pariah within the party. I think he wants no part of being in D.C.”
Tiny Cars
I do hope this is the new MAGA cause. Fuck those disgusting big ass Democrat trucks. Real Americans drive Kei trucks.
Just to see how far they will go...
FIFA Peace Prize
I can't even get mad at that one. Well-played, FIFA. Give the Mad King a shiny gold object.
An Oral History Of How Donald Trump Came To Love Tiny Cars
I think some journalists need to sleep with their sources to get the full story, if necessary.
Pardon Incoming
Apparently the "Jan. 6 pipebomber" was a Trump-supporting election conspiracy believer.
But What Will Happen To My Stories
I have no deep thoughts about Netflix purchasing Warner Brothers other than "consolidation is probably bad" and "maybe better than Paramount buying it."
Thursday, December 04, 2025
When Will People Learn
Even when it isn't his money, he doesn't pay.
If it’s not one thing at the Kennedy Center these days, it’s another. Even before Democrats opened an investigation into alleged “cronyism and self-dealing,” the Trump-era leadership was already fending off reports of plummeting ticket sales and internal dysfunction. Now add a fresh headache: Several artists say the center has been stiffing them on their fees.
Representatives for three performers tell THR they’re still waiting on checks months after their shows. Veteran booking agent Wayne Forte — whose roster includes the Tedeschi Trucks Band and former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett — says two of his developing acts, Ashes & Arrows and Brazilian guitarist Lari Basilio, played the Millennium Stage back in September and have yet to see a dime. The Kennedy Center staffer who handled their bookings was let go in October, Forte says, and efforts to reach a replacement apparently have gone nowhere.
In Politico
Notable because it's there.
The answer is that Trump is living his best life in this second and final turn in the White House. Coming up on one year back in power, he’s turned the office into an adult fantasy camp, a Tom Hanks-in-Big, ice-cream-for-dinner escapade posing as a presidency.
The brazen corruption, near-daily vulgarity and handing out pardons like lollipops is impossible to ignore and deserves the scorn of history. Yet how the president is spending much of his time reveals his flippant attitude toward his second term. This is free-range Trump. And the country has never seen such an indulgent head of state.
Yes, he’s one-part Viktor Orbán, making a mockery of the rule of law and wielding state power to reward friends and punish foes while eroding institutions.
But he’s also a 12-year-old boy: There’s fun trips, lots of screen time, playing with toys, reliable kids’ menus and cool gifts under the tree — no socks or trapper keepers.
Bari's World
I regularly think about how a bunch of older/retired Times guys would assemble into Bari Defense Voltron whenever she was criticized.
CBS News staffers are less than thrilled with the idea of Bari Weiss, the network’s new editor-in-chief, booking herself as the moderator for a televised town hall that will feature Charlie Kirk’s widow.
“How embarrassing,” one network staffer told The Independent. “Bari’s been Editor-in-Chief for five seconds and has revealed that all she really wants is to be on TV herself.”
Seems Bad
Though I admit I don't quite understand why this crosses the line that just blowing up the boats didn't.
The Job Market
I don’t think everything about The Economy has been good over this time period, and I am not going to argue that The Kids who entered the labor force in this period had it great, but for 10 years, unemployment has been <5% (except for covid).
Economists, like Larry Summers, used to assert 6% was the minimum it could go before out of control inflation would hit. This governed policy choices for decades.
A weak job market, which seems to be likely, will be a "new" problem for some. Zoomers don't believe millennials when they say they couldn’t get fast food jobs during the Great Recession.
Is It Hillary Clinton
They have arrested a suspect for the "Jan. 6 pipe bomber." Should be interesting!
Wednesday, December 03, 2025
Who Amongst Us
A reasonable - if not necessarily correct - inference from the House Minority Leader's applause of the pardon of his colleague is that it is a precedent he thinks is desirable to support for many more colleagues.
Your Opposition Party
Jeffries has praised Trump's pardon of Cuellar and said the border is secure thanks to Trump.
Just today!
About That Safety Thing
I've never seen a Waymo in action, but people who have describe them as being annoying, even if they're working "perfectly," in that they hesitate a bit more than normal drivers. That's how you keep them driving safely, of course, but it isn't surprising that they have a new idea.
For years while training on the streets of San Francisco and eventually transporting passengers, Waymos were the most polite drivers on the road. Pull up to a stop sign at the same time as a Waymo and it would wait, as if to say, “No, please, after you.” If you were trying to go around another car making a left, a Waymo was sure to let you in. In short, they were drivers you wouldn’t want to get stuck behind while in a hurry.
The training wheels are off. Like the rule-following nice guy who’s tired of being taken advantage of, Waymos are putting their own needs first. They’re bending traffic laws, getting impatient with pedestrians and embracing the idea that when it comes to city driving, politeness doesn’t pay: It’s every car for itself.
Has It Been 5 Years Already?
About every 5 years, George Will says something reasonable.
The killing of the survivors by this moral slum of an administration should nauseate Americans. A nation incapable of shame is dangerous, not least to itself. As the recent “peace plan” for Ukraine demonstrated.
You don't have to hand it to him, but it is notable.
Shrinkage
Absent some sort of stock/financial crash or a global pandemic, the real economy is unlikely to implode very quickly, though the inevitable consequences of Trump's policies have taken a little bit longer than I expected.
The U.S. labor market slowdown intensified in November as private companies cut 32,000 workers, with small businesses hit the hardest, payrolls processing firm ADP reported Wednesday.
With worries intensifying over the domestic jobs picture, ADP indicated the issues were worse than anticipated. The payrolls decline marked a sharp step down from October, which saw an upwardly revised gain of 47,000 positions, and was well below the Dow Jones consensus estimate from economists for an increase of 40,000.
Tuesday, December 02, 2025
Sleepy Don
Trump's inability to stay awake isn't actually just normal old guy stuff. Grandpas might nod off in the la-z-boy, but not in these situations.
...I make typos for lots of reasons, but one that isn't my fault is google putting a hovering "AI" button covering the blogger CMS so I can't see what I am typing.Exploding Conference
No idea what will happen in this Tennessee special election, but if a Dem upset does happen, will this prediction come true?
“If our victory margin is single digits, the conference may come unhinged,” one senior House Republican said. A loss would be catastrophic and the conference would “explode,” the Republican added.
Elite On Elite Violence
I had missed Larry Lessig going after Summers/Harvard in the Crimson. Doesn't Lessig understand that Summers is a member of the club?
From 2003 through 2019, Summers had been a central figure in Epstein’s relationship to Harvard. He had attended events hosted by Epstein and planned private meetings. Besides Epstein’s lawyer, and now-professor emeritus, Alan M. Dershowitz, he was by far the most prominent of the Harvard elite at the center of Harvard’s Epstein relationship....and the hits keep coming.
Yet Summers is essentially invisible in the official accounts. A gift to support the work of Summers’s wife was mentioned in a footnote to the 2020 report, though obscurely, since she does not share Summers’s name. And never subsequently has Harvard disclosed anything more about his ongoing relationship with Epstein, which continued, as we’ve now learned through the published Epstein emails, until Epstein’s 2019 arrest.
The American Economic Association (AEA) has accepted Lawrence H. Summers' voluntary resignation from membership and, pursuant to the AEA's Policies, Procedures, and Code of Professional Conduct, has imposed a lifetime ban on his membership. In addition, effective immediately, the AEA has imposed a lifetime prohibition on Mr. Summers' attending, speaking at, or otherwise participating in AEA-sponsored events or activities, including serving in any editorial or refereeing capacity for AEA journals. The AEA condemns Mr. Summers' conduct, as reflected in publicly reported communications, as fundamentally inconsistent with its standards of professional integrity and with the trust placed in mentors within the economics profession. Consistent with longstanding AEA practices and to protect the integrity and confidentiality of AEA processes, the AEA will not comment further on individual matters or the specific considerations underlying this determination.
I'm In Charge
It is amusing that Pete Hegseth thought he could take control of the fucking military, which is, mostly, a giant civilian corporation, and just yell things at it and have it behave.
One doesn't have to imagine the DoD - civilian or military bits of it - are "good" in any sense to understand that it existed before Pete and it will exist after him.
Modern "Masculinity"
Hegseth and Trump do epitomize it. Do horrible things you refuse to take responsibility for.
Officials in Congress and the Pentagon said Monday they are increasingly concerned that the Trump administration intends to scapegoat the military officer who directed U.S. forces to kill two survivors of a targeted strike on suspected drug smugglers in Latin America, as lawmakers made initial moves to investigate whether the attack constituted a war crime.Not that the admiral is innocent.
Monday, December 01, 2025
Out To Dry
Gotta admit the admiral involved deserves this.
Karoline Leavitt defends second strike on alleged drug-smuggling boat; Trump says he believes Pete Hegseth’s statement ‘100%’ that defense secretary didn’t ordered the attackWe did not do the thing which was good, akshually.
We're Going To Kill You And Everybody You Know
And a lot of other people, too, of course.
As Washington prepares to launch land attacks inside Venezuela, a long-awaited phone call between the White House and Caracas aimed at defusing the crisis carried a blunt message for strongman Nicolás Maduro: You can save yourself and those closest to you, but you must leave the country now, sources familiar with the exchange told the Miami Herald.
The call — which The New York Times reported took place last week — quickly reached an impasse as it became clear that the two sides’ positions were far apart. Washington demanded that Maduro and his top allies leave Venezuela immediately to allow the restoration of democratic rule, while regime leaders proposed handing political control to the opposition but retaining command of the armed forces.
According to the sources, the U.S. message to Maduro was direct: Safe passage would be guaranteed for him, his wife Cilia Flores, and his son only if he agreed to resign right away.
The Gang Of 500
Reminisicing a bit here, though of course it still has relevance, but the press corps we were "gifted" with for the post 9/11 era were people who had spent years absolutely having the time of their fucking lives over Monica Lewinsky and related. They decided that they - and the trivialities and gossip that obsessed them - ran That Town and that politics basically didn't matter except for their personal entertainment an bank accounts.
Sure put George W. Bush in charge, it'll be fun! Much more fun than that AL BORE amirite? You might remember how after 9/11 a few of them asserted that it was time to get serious, without giving much thought to why they had approached the previous few years as a party at Gatsby's.
Sure put George W. Bush in charge, it'll be fun! Much more fun than that AL BORE amirite? You might remember how after 9/11 a few of them asserted that it was time to get serious, without giving much thought to why they had approached the previous few years as a party at Gatsby's.
A Good Senator
Van Hollen is one of the few who has been getting out there on a variety of issues other than healthcarandaffordability.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said Sunday he believes "it's very possible there was a war crime committed" in the administration's first strike against an alleged drug trafficking boat in the Caribbean Sea in September.
"I think it's very possible there was a war crime committed. Of course, for it to be a war crime, you have to accept the Trump administration's whole construct here ... which is we're in armed conflict, at war with this particular -- with the drug gangs. Of course, they've never presented the public with the information they've got here," Van Hollen said on ABC News' "This Week." "If that theory is wrong, then it's plain murder."
Always Be Posting
It isn't the most important thing, but I do find it rather odd that all these weirdos are always thinking about how their instagram posts might look. Always posing, always posting.
Flip
This kind of kool kid banter tone reminds me of the Mark Halperin/The Note era of political journalism. It never went away entirely, but I wouldn't say it is the dominant dialect of the Gang of 500 anymore.
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