How Lincoln saw it

Via Snowman

Jobs

NBC News - The United States shed 105,000 jobs in October and added 64,000 jobs in November, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Tuesday, lifting a monthslong fog that had shrouded the labor market. The unemployment rate rose to 4.6% in November.

The national employment picture already looked fragile before Tuesday’s report. Jobs reports in June and August showed net job losses, the first time since 2020 that there have been two months of contractions before November.

 

Donald Trump

 Washington Post -  President Trump has signed more executive orders in less than a year of his presidency than he did in his entire first term — repeatedly bypassing Congress and forcing the courts to grapple with the constitutional bounds of his power. 

 

Peter Baker, NY Times -   President Trump’s chief of staff said she tried to get him to end his “score settling” against political enemies after 90 days in office, but acknowledged that the administration’s still ongoing push for prosecutions has been fueled in part by the president’s desire for retribution.

Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, told an interviewer that she forged a “loose agreement” with Mr. Trump to stop focusing after three months on punishing antagonists, an effort that evidently did not succeed. While she insisted that Mr. Trump is not constantly thinking about retribution, she said that “when there’s an opportunity, he will go for it.”

Ms. Wiles made the comments in a series of extraordinarily unguarded interviews over the first year of Mr. Trump’s second term with the author Chris Whipple that are being published Tuesday by Vanity Fair. Not only did she confirm that Mr. Trump is using criminal prosecution to retaliate against adversaries, she also acknowledged that he was not telling the truth when he accused former President Bill Clinton of visiting the private island of the sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.  More

Polls

 Newsweek -  Americans remain concerned about the state of the health care system, according to a Gallup poll released on Monday. Twenty-three percent of Americans view the system as being in a “state of crisis.”

That’s the highest percent to say that since the pollster began asking the question in 1995. Forty-seven percent also said the health care system has “major problems,” while only 26 percent said it has “minor problems.”

Meanwhile, a record low of 16 percent said they are satisfied with the general cost of health care in the United States. However, when asked about their satisfaction with their personal health care costs, 57 percent said they are satisfied.

6 polls show Donald Trump in deep economic trouble

NBC News - President Donald Trump’s approval rating remains steadily underwater among adults as he nears the end of his first year back in the White House, and he has lost some ground among his “Make America Great Again” base, according to a new NBC News Decision Desk Poll powered by SurveyMonkey.

Trump’s approval has inched down in 2025 amid concern about the economy, while Americans remain worried about inflation and costs after Trump’s campaign promises to ease those anxieties. Respondents’ concerns were apparent in everyday spending decisions like grocery shopping, holiday spending and more, the poll shows.

Other high-profile Trump decisions, including his handling of the controversy over the so-called Jeffrey Epstein files, have scored negatively with Americans. Trump initially opposed a congressional move to force the release of the files before relenting to pressure from both parties last month....

American adults largely disapprove of Trump’s job performance, with his approval rating at 42% and disapproval at 58% in the new poll. That’s a slight approval rating drop of 3 points (from 45%) over the course of four polls since April, the first time the survey was conducted. The new poll surveyed 20,252 adults online, including people registered to vote and not registered to vote, from Nov. 20 to Dec. 8, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.9 percentage points.

Books

State of the Free Press 2026: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition marks fifty years of Project Censored's work in identifying the most important stories that US corporate media missed or refused to cover. This edition features reporting on ICE surveillance, Meta censorship, and police violence, plus a special zine-style guide for evaluating digital content, creating infographics, and understanding the importance of critical media literacy online.

Craig Aaron, President of Free Press, says it's "a glimpse at the media system we should have." Lee Rowland of the National Coalition Against Censorship calls it "essential reading for anyone who values an independent press, an educated public, and a free society."

Trump’s chief of staff allegedly tells Vanity Fair alot but denies she said it

Independent UK -  White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles confirmed that President Donald Trump’s name is in the Epstein files, claiming the late sex offender and Trump were “young, single playboys together.”

In wide-ranging interviews with Vanity Fair, Wiles also torched Attorney General Pam Bondi for her handling of the Department of Justice’s investigation into Epstein.

During the sit-downs, the Florida-born chief of staff, whom Trump calls the “ice maiden,” said she misjudged the importance of the scandal surrounding Epstein.

“Whether he was an American CIA asset, a Mossad asset, whether all these rich, important men went to that nasty island and did unforgivable things to young girls,” she said, “I mean, I kind of knew it, but it’s never anything I paid a bit of attention to.”

Wiles, who also managed Trump’s 2024 campaign, told Vanity Fair she has read what she described as “the Epstein file.”

The president “is in the file,” she said. “And we know he’s in the file. And he’s not in the file doing anything awful.”

 Axios -   President Trump is defending chief of staff Susie Wiles after her blunt, private views on the past year were revealed in a series of stunning on-the-record Vanity Fair interviews.

    "I didn't read it, but I don't read Vanity Fair — but she's done a fantastic job," Trump told the New York Post.

    "I think from what I hear, the facts were wrong, and it was a very misguided interviewer, purposely misguided."

Trump minimized Wiles' saying that he has an "alcoholic's personality."

    "I've said that many times about myself," Trump said. "I'm fortunate I'm not a drinker. If I did, I could very well, because I've said that — what's the word? Not possessive — possessive and addictive type personality. Oh, I've said it many times, many times before."

Wiles is the most powerful White House aide, credited with running a more disciplined, loyal and effective operation than Trump's first term, Axios' Zachary Basu writes.

That makes her candid interview — in which she questioned the execution and outcome of some of Trump's most aggressive policies — all the more striking.  

 Mediaite - Wiles herself denied that her comments had been characterized correctly, issuing a statement that read:

     The article published early this morning is a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history.

    Significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out of the story. I assume, after reading it, that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our team.

    The truth is the Trump White House has already accomplished more in eleven months than any other President has accomplished in eight years and that is due to the unmatched leadership and vision of President Trump, for whom I have been honored to work for the better part of a decade.

    None of this will stop our relentless pursuit of Making America Great Again!

Money

Study Finds -  On average, Americans will spend close to $2 million dollars on major debt payments before their life ends. That staggering figure, according to an eye-opening study, represents every car loan, mortgage payment, student loan bill, and credit card balance between age 18 and death at 78.

A new analysis by JG Wentworth concludes that the average American will pay off $1,786,810 in debt across their lifetime. That’s money tied up in monthly obligations rather than available for savings, investing, or simply having more breathing room in the budget.

The study breaks down exactly where that $1.8 million goes over 60 years of adult life. The calculation includes four major debt categories affecting most Americans: mortgages, auto loans, student debt, and credit cards. Each follows a predictable pattern, spiking at key life stages and gradually declining through years of payments. The total includes both principal and interest, though credit card interest was excluded due to variable rates.

Newsweek -   Debt is rising nationwide and across nearly every lending category, as Americans grapple with recent policy changes as well as broader financial strains toward the end of 2025.

In the third quarter of 2025, 49 states saw a year-over-year increase in average total debt levels, according to a recent study by the online lending marketplace LendingTree.

Whre Americans moved in 2025

Newsweek -  In 2025, Americans moved at historically low rates, but noticeable patterns emerged in the states where people chose to relocate. 

As fewer Americans move compared with decades past, the motivations and destinations for interstate relocation are shifting—driven by affordability, job opportunities, lifestyle changes, and family considerations.

Tracking these moves helps explain demographic changes, regional growth, and economic pressures across the nation.

 According to Atlas [Van Lines] , the top inbound states for 2025 were:

    Arkansas
    Idaho
    North Carolina
    Hawaii
    Washington, D.C.
    Tennessee
    Washington (state)
    Alabama
    North Dakota
    New Hampshire

Conversely, the states with the highest proportion of outbound moves were:

    Louisiana
    West Virginia
    Wyoming
    Delaware
    Nebraska
    Arizona
    Iowa
    Oklahoma
    South Dakota
    South Carolina

Notably, over two-fifths of interstate movers to Arkansas settled in Bentonville, home to Walmart’s corporate headquarters.

250,000 packages stolen daily in US

Independent, UK- A recent study has revealed that roughly 250,000 packages get stolen from U.S. households every day, costing Americans an estimated $15 billion over the past year.

Over 104 million packages were stolen nationwide over the past year, an apparent decline for the first time in recent years, according to a November study by safety research company SafeWise.

While porch pirates cost Americans roughly $15 billion over the past 12 months, retailers paid an even steeper price of $22 billion, according to data collected by ZFLO Technologies.

The number of estimated package thefts dropped by about 16 million this year, from 120 million in 2023 to about 104 million in 2024-2025, according to the study.

Cities that saw the biggest financial toll from package thefts included Chicago, New York City, Miami, Houston and Baltimore, according to the study. 

Meanwhile. . .

Axios - A Hong Kong court today convicted pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai of sedition and colluding with foreign forces in a landmark national security trial. Lai, 78, founded Apple Daily, Hong Kong's now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper before authorities forced it to close in 2021. He became a symbol of the city's pro-democracy movement.  His conviction effectively concludes an era of open political challenge in Hong Kong and marks the city's transformation under Chinese rule.

The impact of rising house insurance

New Republic -   Health insurance has been a prime example of rising costs in this country. Democrats have regularly put these costs at the center of their messaging, focusing most recently on expiring Obamacare subsidies. But in recent years, due in large part to the skyrocketing rate and scope of climate-related extreme weather disasters, home insurance has become an increasingly salient pocketbook concern, as millions of Americans have seen their rates soar, their coverage shrink, or their communities labeled “uninsurable.”

Nationally, home insurance rates have risen by 58 percent since 2018. In many regions the increases are far higher, and it’s not just coastal states that are suffering. For example, the average cost for home insurance in Nebraska this year is $6,400, a massive burden that’s been driven in large part by the increased destructiveness of hail storms, which are getting worse due to climate change. As one insurance agent in Omaha put it, “It’s just becoming unaffordable in our state, is the new reality.” Renters are affected, too—rising insurance rates for rental properties mean that many renter households may see their already-high rents continue to grow, while the supply of subsidized affordable housing and rent-stabilized housing dwindles.

For many Americans, getting any insurance at all is becoming impossible. Since 2021, at least 36 property insurers in 11 states have canceled more than 1.4 million policies, and many insurers are abandoning parts of the country completely—all while continuing to rake in obscene profits. For example, Progressive reported $8.5 billion in profits in 2024, the same year the company canceled 115,000 policies in Florida and stopped writing new policies in Texas; Allstate raised rates by 34 percent in California last year, while reporting $4.7 billion in profits and awarding its CEO $26.7 million total compensation.

And at the same time that rates are rising and coverage is shrinking, millions of Americans’ property values are falling. According to research published last month, houses in areas that are particularly exposed to hurricanes and wildfires have sold for an average of $43,900 less than they otherwise would have because of climate-induced shocks in the home insurance market. For most Americans, the home is the biggest investment they will ever have—a significant decline in its value can be financially devastating.

Children's share of US population dropping

Axios - Young children's share of the population dropped across major U.S. metros over the past two decades, census data shows, mirroring national trends...

Among the 50 biggest metros, Salt Lake City (-3.2 percentage points), San Jose (-3pp) and Los Angeles (-2.8pp) had the biggest dips in young children's share of their overall population between 2005 and 2024.

• Phoenix (-2.8pp), Denver (-2.6pp) and Atlanta (-2.5pp) also had sizable drops.
• That's compared with -1.6pp among the U.S. broadly, and includes children younger than 5.

The U.S. birth rate hit a record low in 2024, while life expectancy is approaching 80 following a pandemic-era dip..

Between the lines: Falling birth rates are fueling concerns about economic growth and societal change in some corners, particularly among "pro-natalist" conservatives. Share this

Health

Axios - Spending on behavioral health for kids almost doubled in a decade, reaching 40% of all child medical expenditures in 2022, according to a new study.

The findings help quantify growing concern about youth mental health, and highlight the financial hardship the issue has for many families.

The study from Northwestern University researchers finds behavioral health spending rose from 22% of all child medical expenditures in 2011 to 40%, or $42 billion, in 2022. The study was published in JAMA Pediatrics.

• Of that amount, families paid $2.9 billion out of pocket. And out-of-pocket spending rose 6.4% annually for child behavioral health, much faster than the rate for other forms of health care...

• "Our findings underscore the critical need for adequate networks and improved insurance coverage to reduce the financial burden on families," Jennifer Hoffmann, an assistant professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said in a statement.A

Trump sues BBC for $10 billion

Bloomberg -   Trump sued the BBC for $10 billion over a misleading edit in a documentary last year that gave the impression he’d made a direct call for violence in a speech leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. The BBC has already issued a formal apology, and two of its top execs stepped down, but the news organization will now face what’s likely to be a costly lawsuit.

Ukraine

Bloomberg -  Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he reached a deal with the US that the guarantees will be voted on by Congress to become legally binding. 

Word

The future of human creativity is inextricably linked to the future of creative labor. The sooner we recognize this, the better chance we have to preserve artists’ livelihoods — and human-made art itself.”  — Caitlin Petre and Julia Ticona, sociologists who study the effects of technology on society and culture. Read now 

Polls

The Hill - Overall, 44 percent approve of the job Trump is doing, according to RealClearPolitics’ average. 

However, individual polls show lower numbers. The most recent AP-NORC poll showed that just 36 percent of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s performance, whereas 61 percent disapprove. That said, Trump’s intensely loyal base and deeply entrenched partisan views seemingly mask widespread, growing frustration with the administration.

Having been elected largely due to anger towards the former Biden administration’s handling of the economy, inflation and immigration, polls show that those same issues are rapidly becoming vulnerabilities for Trump.  

Climate crisis set to kill hundreds of glaciers

The Guardian  - Glaciers in the European Alps are likely to reach their peak rate of extinction in only eight years, according to a study, with more than 100 due to melt away permanently by 2033. Glaciers in the western US and Canada are forecast to reach their peak year of loss less than a decade later, with more than 800 The melting of glaciers driven by human-caused global heating is one of the clearest signs of the climate crisis. Communities around the world have already held funeral ceremonies for lost glaciers, and a

About 200,000 glaciers remain worldwide, with about 750 disappearing each year. However, the research indicates this pace will accelerate rapidly as emissions from burning fossil fuels continue to be released into the atmosphere.

Current climate action plans from governments are forecast to push global temperatures to about 2.7C above preindustrial levels, supercharging extreme weather. Under this scenario, glacier losses would peak at about 3,000 a year in 2040 and plateau at that rate until 2060. By the end of the century, 80% of today’s glaciers will have gone.

Mass shootings

Robert Reich  -Mass shootings in the US, per Gun Violence Archive:

2015: 332
2016: 383
2017: 347
2018: 335
2019: 414
2020: 611
2021: 689
2022: 644
2023: 659
2024: 503

So far in 2025...392 mass shootings in 349 days.

Meanwhile. . .

People -   Nick Reiner has been taken into custody following the deaths of his parents, Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner.  Rob and Michele were killed in their Los Angeles home on Sunday, Dec. 14. Sources previously told PEOPLE they were found by their daughter Romy.  According to Los Angeles Sheriff's Department records, Nick was taken into custody and is being held on $4 million bail. 

Americca's neediest cities

WalletHub - WalletHub compared more than 180 U.S. cities across 28 key metrics to determine where Americans are most economically disadvantaged. The data set includes factors like the child poverty rate, food insecurity rate and uninsured rate.
 

Neediest Cities in America
1. Detroit, MI	11. Baton Rouge, LA
2. Brownsville, TX	12. Los Angeles, CA
3. Shreveport, LA	13. Fort Smith, AR
4. Cleveland, OH	14. Philadelphia, PA
5. Little Rock, AR	15. Newark, NJ
6. Gulfport, MS	16. Memphis, TN
7. Corpus Christi, TX	17. Baltimore, MD
8. Birmingham, AL	18. Houston, TX
9. Laredo, TX	19. Columbia, SC
10. New Orleans, LA	20. Las Cruces, NM

 
Key Stats

• Overland Park, Kansas, has the lowest child poverty rate, which is 11.8 times lower than in Cleveland, Ohio, the city with the highest. 
   
• Gilbert, Arizona, has the lowest adult poverty rate, which is 5.4 times lower than in Detroit, the city with the highest. 
   
• Columbia, Maryland, has the fewest homeless persons (per 1,000 residents), which is 42.2 times fewer than in New York, the city with the most. 
   
• Sioux Falls and Rapid City, South Dakota, have the lowest unemployment rate, which is 5.4 times lower than in Detroit, the city with the highest. 
   
• South Burlington, Vermont, has the lowest share of uninsured residents, which is 13 times lower than in Brownsville, Texas, the city with the highest.

 To view the full report and your city’s rank

Nancy Pelosi doesn't expect a woman president in her lifetime

The Guardian -  Nancy Pelosi, the outgoing congresswoman and former House speaker, has conceded that she may not see a woman be elected US president in her lifetime.

The California Democrat said as much in a USA Today interview published on Sunday with her retirement looming after four decades in Congress – and invoked a turn of phrase referring to a metaphorical barrier impeding advancement in a profession that often confronts women and racial minorities.

“It’s not a glass ceiling. It’s a marble ceiling,” Pelosi told the publication while discussing the defeats her party colleagues Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris respectively endured against Donald Trump in the 2016 and 2024 presidential elections – as well as institutional resistance she met during her own rise on Capitol Hill.

Health

The Guardian -  With subsidies for Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance set to expire, Americans who rely on them will probably switch to plans with lower monthly premiums and high deductibles or decide not to purchase any coverage, which will have a serious and damaging impact on the entire sector, according to healthcare policy experts.

The average amount ACA plan enrollees pay annually for premiums is estimated to more than double, from an average of $888 this year to $1,904 in 2026, according to a KFF analysis.

That will then have economic downstream effects, including for rural hospitals and people who have employer-sponsored health insurance, according to the experts.

With “a significant portion of people dropping their marketplace coverage and being uninsured, it doesn’t just impact them, it impacts everyone”, said Emma Wager, a senior policy analyst for KFF’s program on the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

In 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic, Congress passed legislation to extend eligibility for ACA health insurance subsidies and increased the amount of financial assistance available to people who were already eligible for subsidies, which caused a dramatic increase in how many people enrolled in coverage through the healthcare marketplace.

Those premium tax credits are set to expire at the end of the year, despite a push from Democratic lawmakers and a small minority of Republicans to extend them for three years. On Thursday, legislation to preserve the credits failed to clear the 60-vote hurdle needed to pass in the Senate

Ukraine

NBC News - Ukraine has relinquished its ambition to join NATO in exchange for Western security guarantees, in an effort to end Russia’s war, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Politics

MS NOW -  Two dates ought to be circled in red on the calendars of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. Dec. 31 is when a set of expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies expire. Without new legislation, health care costs will skyrocket for millions of their members’ constituents.

Jan. 30 is the expiration date of the short-term funding bill lawmakers passed to reopen the government in November. Absent another continuing resolution or an appropriations bill for the rest of the fiscal year, we’ll find ourselves right back in another shutdown.

 

Stupid Trump stuff

Donald Trump

Multi-ethnicity doesn't have to be that hard

Sam Smith- I lived a majority of my life in Washington DC, much of it during a time when being white there put you in the minority. In fact, DC had a black majority from the time I returned to it in 1959 after college to when I moved away fifty years later. But I can't think of any time when the color of my skin caused me a major personal or political problem, though DC got little credit for its lack of ethnic conflict. 

For me, it was never a big issue in part in part because I had grown up with four sisters and a brother and we didn't always agree with each other. From an early age I learned that people were highly varied and you had to learn how to live with them anyway. And you did that in part by emphasizing issues and things you agree about.

Looking back, there was one thing about DC's multi-culturalism that made it much easier for those of different ethnicities to get along: you looked different but you shared issues.  

In fact, this was the reason I got more heavily involved with civil rights in the first place. I had taken part in a day log protest against a DC Transit fare increase, including driving 71 folks for free. After the day was over I wrote a piece about it and shortly thereafter got a call for assistance from the protest's organizer - a black guy also in his 20s named Marion Barry. Some years later  Barry would become our controversial mayor and once said, "Sam's a cynical cat." But an issue affecting both blacks and whites had brought us together for a number of years. 

There were other examples of causes that affected both whites and blacks  that I worked on such as plans to build freeways through both black and white neighborhoods and a bi-ethnic drive for home rule and statehood. 

One day I drove to the SNCC headquarters to help drive protesters and quoted one of them: 'We've got to live together, man. You're white and you can't help it. I'm Negro and I can't help it. But we still can get along. That's the way I feel about it." I agreed.

 The freeway issue was helped by this poster:

The black journalist Chuck Stone described me as "one of a small group of whites with whom many blacks would trust their political lives." In short, what I learned as a minority white guy in DC was to find ways  to join with blacks to fight for causes that would help everyone. It's not a bad strategy for various ethnicities to use nationally - aiming at issues such as the mess Trump is making of the economy. Find something that's hurting both white and blacks and you can build a coalition fast. 

Two views of Trump and Jesus

 

  

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