December 21, 2025
Word
Polls
February
Kamala Harris 5%
AOC 4% P
Pete Buttigieg 2%
No one specific in mind 64%
No one specific in mind 64%
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Good questions
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| Occupy Democrats |
Trump tries to create a royal presidency
For surprised White House veterans who were paying attention, the unusual flourishes looked a little familiar. Just two months earlier, King Charles III of Britain welcomed Mr. Trump for a state visit that included, yes, a stirring military flyover, a procession of black horses and a long, regal table for the lavish dinner in St. George’s Hall at Windsor Palace.
In his first year back in office, Mr. Trump has unabashedly adopted the trappings of royalty just as he has asserted virtually unbridled power to transform American government and society to his liking. In both pageantry and policy, Mr. Trump has established a new, more audacious version of the imperial presidency that goes far beyond even the one associated with Richard M. Nixon, for whom the term was popularized half a century ago.
How the Supreme Court’s Mail-In Ballot Ruling Could Affect Voters
NY Times - The Supreme Court is set to decide this term whether states can count mail-in ballots received after Election Day. The case centers on a law in Mississippi, but a total of about 18 states and territories accept such late-arriving ballots as long as they are postmarked by Election Day.
Should the court rule that all ballots nationwide must be received by Election Day, it could lead to the rejection of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of ballots in the future, affecting a swath of American voters in rural and urban areas.
In 2024, at least 725,000 ballots were postmarked by Election Day and arrived within the legally accepted post-election window, according to election officials in 14 of the 22 states and territories where late-arriving ballots were accepted that year. (Four of these states — Kansas, North Dakota, Ohio and Utah — have since changed their policies and will accept only mail ballots that arrive by Election Day.)
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Democrats not releasing their study of the 2024 election
The DNC has completed the report after extensive data analysis and hundreds of interviews in all 50 states. But according to a DNC official, the committee determined that releasing it would spark a media frenzy and retrospective finger-pointing that could divide the party and distract from its winning streak in recent elections.
Denmark to stop delivering mail
Announcing the decision earlier this year to stop delivering letters, PostNord, formed in 2009 in a merger of the Swedish and Danish postal services, said it would cut 1,500 jobs in Denmark and remove 1,500 red postboxes amid the “increasing digitalisation” of Danish society.
Describing Denmark as “one of the most digitalised countries in the world”, the company said the demand for letters had “fallen drastically” while online shopping continued to increase, prompting the decision to instead focus on parcels....
Danes will still be able to send letters, using the delivery company Dao, which already delivers letters in Denmark but will expand its services from 1 January from about 30m letters in 2025 to 80m next year. But customers will instead have to go to a Dao shop to post their letters – or pay extra to have it collected from home – and pay for postage either online or via an app.
The Danish postal service has been responsible for delivering letters in the country since 1624. In the last 25 years, letter-sending has been in sharp decline in Denmark, with a fall of more than 90%.
Reading declines
Trump regime
December 20, 2025
People Struggling With Money Problems Face 60% Higher Death Risk
Study Finds - An analysis of nearly 300,000 electrocardiograms found that financial strain showed the strongest association with accelerated cardiac aging among nine social factors examined, even outweighing some traditional medical risk factors.
People reporting financial struggles faced 60% higher death risk over two years, a stronger association than having had a previous heart attack, which showed only 10% increased risk in the same study.
Food insecurity ranked second among social determinants linked to faster heart aging, while housing instability increased mortality risk by 18%, highlighting how economic factors affect cardiovascular health.
The findings suggest doctors may need to screen patients for financial strain and food insecurity alongside traditional risk factors like cholesterol and blood pressure to identify hidden cardiovascular risk.
Trump Judge Threatens to Hold Government in Contempt Over ICE
U.S. District Judge Gary Brown, who was appointed by Trump in 2019, issued a 24-page ruling Thursday vehemently castigating the Department of Homeland Security for refusing to provide photos of a holding room that illegally held a noncitizen for multiple nights, calling it “putrid and cramped.”
“ICE held them, day after day, without access to bunks, bedding, soap, showers, toothbrushes or clean clothes,” Brown stated in his ruling. “The space is unheated or poorly heated at night, while the outside temperature dropped to as low as 21 degrees.... To the extent they could sleep, they did so, crammed on the filthy floor, while the lights blared 24 hours a day.
“After nearly 35 years of experience with federal law enforcement in this judicial district, encompassing service as a prosecutor and a judge, I have never encountered anything like this,” Brown wrote.
Another Democratic presidential possibility
The Kentucky governor has been able to win elections in a fiercely red state as a measured, moderate Democrat. He’s not a brash, in-your-face kind of politician, and that’s the appeal, Democrats say.
“For those craving normalcy, he is their answer,” said John Morgan, a Democratic donor and injury lawyer, who recently met with Beshear and found him to be impressive.
Morgan says he has a “very good chance” of winning a presidential contest, should he choose to enter, highlighting the governor’s “authenticity.” “He has won 3 times in a very red state,” Morgan said. “He knows the path.”
Trump regime
ABC News - The amount of money Americans are paying for their energy bills has increased 13% since President Trump took office earlier this year, according to a new report.
Roll Call - For months, there were signs that appropriators were not on board with a Trump administration plan to wipe out funding for a decades-old Justice Department program tasked with coordinating major drug-trafficking and transnational-crime investigations.
Republican-led spending proposals rejected the idea. A Senate report said eliminating the program’s appropriations account would be “infeasible” without more consultation, while a House report touted the program’s “demonstrated ability” to share information efficiently to “keep Americans safe.”
During a September markup, veteran House appropriator Harold Rogers put it this way: “Our commitment to the work of the task forces can’t be underestimated or understated.”
The Justice Department disbanded it anyway.
The fate of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces is one example of how the Trump administration has bulldozed past Congress’ appropriations power as it reorganizes the federal government to match the vision of the president, oftentimes with little to no meaningful public pushback from GOP lawmakers.
Meanwhile. . .
Christmas creep
But it has accelerated significantly in recent years. According to a recent Financial Times article, Christmas in Britain this year arrived three weeks earlier than it did a decade ago. In practical terms, this means that in some shops Christmas displays appeared in August. In my native Greece, Christmas decorations appeared as early as early November for the first time ever. This follows an already established trend in America, where it is not unheard of for Christmas to overtake Halloween; the New York Times recently reported its first “Christmas in July.”
Like with other creeping cultural phenomena, the difficult question is knowing what or who causes the trend. For while it may be straightforward to find the cause of an action by pointing to a particular mind behind it, when a phenomenon is so ubiquitous, where shall we look for the cause?
Jeffrey Epstein case
The Guardian - The Department of Justice on Friday released a long-awaited and huge tranche of documents detailing its investigations into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a major development in the lengthy saga that turned into one of the biggest political setbacks Donald Trump has suffered since his re-election last year.
While significant portions of the files are redacted, those that were viewable included images of Epstein socializing with an array of prominent figures, including entertainers like Michael Jackson, Chris Tucker and Diana Ross, and the entrepreneur Richard Branson. Bill Clinton appears in several photos, including one in which he is in a swimming pool along with Epstein’s convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. The images also show former British royal Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
Another cache of documents showed photos of evidence gathered including drives and computers but did not reveal details as to the contents. There was also a photo of what appeared to be a dog in a garbage bag, placed inside a box.
In a letter to Congress, Todd Blanche said the documents, which date back to 2006, when Epstein was investigated on child prostitution charges, were only the first set of what is planned for release. “The volume of materials to be reviewed … means that the department must publicly produce responsive documents on a rolling basis,” the deputy attorney general wrote in the letter obtained by Fox News.
He also acknowledged an array of redactions, including the identifying details of more than 1,200 victims and their family members.
Congressional Democrats accused the Trump administration of failing to adhere to the letter of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which requires the justice department to release all “unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” in its possession related to the financier’s cases by 19 December. Epstein died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal charges of sex-trafficking minors.
The law also requires the justice department to publish any materials from the investigations that relate to Maxwell, who was found guilty in 2021 of aidingEpstein’s sex trafficking of teen girls and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
“Technically they’re not in compliance,” said Democratic congressman Ro Khanna, a leader of the push to get the legislation passed.
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The Guardian - Photographs of the child sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell released by the US justice department appear to show how Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor facilitated their access to British high society.
Epstein and Maxwell are pictured hunting with the former prince at Balmoral and with him in the royal box at Ascot. A separate picture shows Maxwell outside 10 Downing Street.
One image shows Mountbatten-Windsor reclining across the legs of five people, whose faces have been redacted, with his head near a woman’s lap. In this image, Maxwell appears to peer down and smile at him.
The Guardian - Investigative notes describing Jeffrey Epstein’s detailed demands of the people he sent to procure children for his sexual predation are among the documents released by the Department of Justice on Friday.
They cast a grim spotlight on the actions of Epstein and those around him amid their efforts to procure young women and underage girls for the late disgraced financier. They were part of a long-awaited release of documents from Donald Trump’s justice department, which has been slammed for being only a partial release and heavily redacted.
But one document, called EFTA00004179, consists of a formal FBI evidence cover sheet and 13 pages of handwritten investigative notes from an interview conducted on 2 May 2019. The interview subject is redacted, as is some of the content.
Still, themes emerge; recruitment of girls, sexual encounters under the guise of “massages” and Epstein’s specific preferences regarding age and race.
