Meanwhile. . .

The Hill  Rep. Adelita Grijalva says ‘very aggressive’ ICE agent pepper-sprayed her during Tuscon raid

 

Brian Allen - The Trump administration has quietly removed MLK Day and Juneteenth from the list of national holidays that grant free entry to U.S. national parks and replaced them with Trump’s own birthday.  

With Mortgage Rates Declining, Should You Refinance?

Polls

 Pew Research 

• Americans are following the news less closely than they used to 
• 55% of Americans say most people can be trusted, while 44% say the opposite. Across 25 countries, public trust ranges from 83% in Sweden to 14% in Turkey. 
• Americans’ trust in one another | How connected do people feel to their neighbors.

Word

Via Quienton

The US city with the worst traffic

Independent,UK -  Chicago has the worst traffic in America, according to a new analysis, overtaking the previous year’s number one, New York City.  Drivers in the Windy City lost at least 112 hours a year in traffic on average, up 10 percent from the previous year and more than double the U.S. average of 49 hours lost to congestion, according to this year’s Global Traffic Scorecard report from transportation metrics firm INRIX. 

Trump wants to recreate a white America that never existed

Rebecca Solnit, The Guardian -  As Donald Trump deteriorates and his grasp on power fades, he has been lashing out furiously at female journalists and ethnic groups, most recently Somali Americans. His insults land because of their animosity and his power, not their accuracy. Likewise, his administration’s attacks on immigrants are sloppy and driven by lies. It’s strikingly clear that the target is not individuals with criminal records. It’s anyone and everyone guilty of being brown. Native Americans with tribal identification cards, US citizens, people doing crucial work from construction to nursing, military veterans, college students, people sleeping in their own beds, small children: all kinds of residents of this country are under attack..

This terrorizing and demonizing pretends to be in service of recreating a white America that never existed. The US when white supremacists like Trump were young was whiter, but this was never a white country. In 1776, the 13 colonies that became the United States included a significant percentage of Black and Indigenous people (some southern states were a third or more Black). When the US annexed Texas in 1844 and then in 1848 took Mexico’s whole northern half, a Spanish-speaking population was already settled across parts of what’s now the south-west and California. The first African Muslim in what is now the United States came in a Spanish expedition almost a century before the Mayflower brought its fanatical Puritans to the shores of Massachusetts in 1620.

The persecution of huge numbers of brown people and even the mass deportations will not create the white country of far-right fantasy. Los Angeles, for example is an almost 50% Latino city, and despite the ICE and border patrol outrages, arrests, imprisonments and deportations, it remains so. The city’s very name is Spanish, a reminder of who was here first. All the hatred, all the persecution, seems like the panic of racists pretending they can stop the future of this country no longer being majority white through sheer cruelty.

Gen Z and telephobia

The Guardian - f you are a millennial, part of gen X or a boomer, you probably do not give a second thought to picking up the phone to talk to someone or chit-chatting beside the office water cooler. But for gen Z, those common workplace moments are a huge source of anxiety.

According to a study released this week, early mornings, working with older colleagues and making small talk are just some of the things employees born between 1997 and 2012 dread.

The study, commissioned by Trinity College London, surveyed more than 1,500 people aged between 16 and 29 across the UK. It found that 38% of young people dread having to make small talk in the workplace. Almost 60% said they would struggle to work with older colleagues while 30% feared picking up the phone.

More snow in western US

Newsweek - Winter storm warnings, issued when "a significant combination of hazardous winter weather is occurring or imminent," are in place for central Iowa, western Colorado, northwest Washington, as well as parts of Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming.

In Colorado’s Elkhead and Park Mountains, the NWS said that additional snow accumulations between eight and 16 inches, with higher amounts up to two feet at the higher peaks of the Park Range would be possible.

In Utah, the Central Mountains, Wasatch Plateau/Book Cliffs, and the Western Uinta Mountains could see between one and two feet of snow, according to the agency. It warned that winter driving conditions are to be expected on all mountain routes "with significant impacts to conditions on Soldier Summit."

The winter storm warnings for these areas are in place until 5 a.m. MST Sunday as of reporting.

Act locally

Jamelle Bouie, NY Times - A few years ago, I wrote that “some of the most important and impactful work we can do as citizens takes place in our own communities.”

I still think that is true.

It is incredibly easy, in our modern political environment, to get caught up in the spectacle of national politics — to obsess over the twists and turns of events in Washington and to treat the consumption of political media as a kind of civic engagement. But watching politics transpire on our screens isn’t political participation any more than watching an N.F.L. game is playing football. We’re just spectators. To be involved in a real way, we have to take it to the streets, as it were. We have to join our neighbors in a common endeavor. We have to step away, go outside and make ourselves active members of our communities.

As you think about your holiday giving, I want you to consider local organizations — people and institutions that are doing work in your area, for the people around you. For my part, I am sharing three organizations near me in Charlottesville, Va., that are doing work to try to mitigate some of the worst harms perpetrated by the administration in Washington.

Indigenous tribe reacquires 900 acres in California

Nice News - An Indigenous tribe in California has reacquired 900 acres of its land nearly two centuries after it was forced off due to settlements and the establishment of Yosemite National Park. The Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation was transferred the land — situated between a part of the park and the Sierra Forest — by conservation org Pacific Forest Trust.

“Having this significant piece of our ancestral Yosemite land back will bring our community together to celebrate tradition and provide a healing place for our children and grandchildren,” Tribal Council Chair Sandra Chapman said in a press release. “It will be a sanctuary for our people.”

Encompassing the Henness Ridge, a major migration corridor for deer and other animals, the acreage is a key site for the tribe, which cared for the forests and its wildlife for generations. The deal will enable the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation to use traditional practices to reignite biodiversity in the area.

“We will be able to harvest and cultivate our traditional foods, fibers, and medicines and steward the land using traditional ecological knowledge,” said Tribal Secretary Tara Fouch-Moore, “strengthening our relationships with plants and wildlife, and benefiting everyone by restoring a more resilient and abundant landscape.”

Municipal-Owned Grocery Stores

J Patrick Patterson, In These Times -   Across the country, entire neighborhoods are losing their grocery stores — and not just big chains, but independents as well as family-owned shops and markets....

"Grocery prices have gone up, depending on the category, 30-60% in the last five years. If you’re talking about french fries and tater tots, you’re talking nearly 70% increase in price since 2019." —  Errol Schweizer, Former National Vice President of Grocery at Whole Foods

Have city-run stores been tried? 

Yep! But mostly in rural areas. Baldwin, Fla. — a town of about 1,300 — opened its own grocery store, in 2019, after the last independently owned one closed. The store was run like a public utility, emphasizing fresh food, fair prices and community jobs. Though the store struggled to remain open and eventually closed, its presence provided a glimpse of what local access to fresh food can do for a community.

St. Paul, Kan. — a town of about 600— lost its only grocery store in the 1980s. Residents relied on volunteer-run efforts and a local café to fill the gap until 2013, when the city stepped in. Within a few years, the small grocery was even turning a profit.

Chicago has floated the idea, and a city-commissioned study from the Economic Security Project, released in 2024, determined a municipal store would be feasible with funding, coordination and a long-term commitment...

Grocery retail is a hard business, with thin margins and tricky supply chains, so places would be taking on real financial risk. In Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration eventually shifted to building a network of public markets for food vendors, farmers and small grocers to sell directly to the community.

Still, private markets don’t guarantee access to food, and small towns like St. Paul have made it work.

Explore your Medicare coverage options

Pick your 2026 plan by Dec. 7.

Trump’s Top 10 Worst Criminal Prosecutions

Word

Via Lakota Man

Where the money for Trump's ballroom came from

Wall Street Journal -  Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats are pressing the leaders of Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon.com and Meta to provide details on their donations to support President Trump’s White House ballroom—and whether the companies have any quid pro quo arrangements with the Trump administration.

Warren (D., Mass.), Rep. Dave Min (D., Calif.) and a group of other Democratic lawmakers noted in letters to corporate executives Thursday that many of the donors supporting the $250 million ballroom under construction at the White House have active business before the federal government, raising questions about whether the donations could lead to more favorable treatment. 

Where employees are fading

The Kobeissi Letter: Recent Layoff Announcements:

1. US Government: 307,000 employees
2. UPS: 48,000 employees
3. Amazon: Up to 30,000 employees
4. Intel: 24,000 employees
5. Nestle: 16,000 employees
6. Verizon: 15,000 employees
7. Accenture: 11,000 employees
8. Ford: 11,000 employees
9. Novo Nordisk: 9,000 employees
10. Microsoft: 7,000 employees
11. PwC: 5,600 employees
12. Salesforce: 4,000 employees
13. IBM: 2,700 employees
14. American Airlines: 2,700 employees
15. Paramount: 2,000 employees
16. Target: 1,800 employees
17. General Motors: 1,500 employees
18. Applied Materials: 1,444 employees
19. Kroger: 1,000 employees
20. Meta: 600 employees

Meanwhile

Hannaford sold out to a massive foreign corporation. Now, profits go overseas instead of staying in our communities. 

Robert Reich - A startup backed by Donald Trump Jr.'s venture capital firm just got a $620M loan from the DoD, months after the Pentagon gave a major drone contract to ANOTHER Trump Jr.-backed company.

Donald Trump

Independent UK - Within the first year of his second term in office, after campaigning on ending what he called the “politicization” of the Justice Department under his predecessor, Donald Trump has issued a historic number of pardons for white-collar criminals and political allies accused of fraud, bribery and corruption.

In more than a dozen cases, Trump even issued pardons for people who were prosecuted or convicted within his first and second terms, only to unravel those cases entirely this year. An entertainment executive accused of public corruption was pardoned this week only four months after he was indicted for conspiracy.

Trump’s pardon of former president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernández, who the Justice Department once said was at the center of the “largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world,” has not only raised questions about what’s fueling Trump’s lethal campaign against alleged drug traffickers but has also erased the work of Emil Bove, Trump’s former criminal defense attorney who was once a federal prosecutor leading the case against Hernández..

Trump’s wave of pardons — largely targeting charges that he has similarly faced — have relied on the sweeping powers of the executive branch to effectively redefine what is criminal, from bailing out dozens of people who support his agenda to “normalizing public corruption” and downplaying the crimes of convicted fraudsters who stripped millions of dollars from victims, according to former Pardon Attorney Liz Oyer. 

Polls

Newsweek -  [A]  poll of 2,040 18- to 29-year-olds conducted on November 3-7 found that only 13 percent believe that the U.S. is generally headed in the right direction. “Financial fears, political polarization, and concerns over an uncertain future have shattered young Americans’ trust in the world around them,” Jordan Schwartz, student chair of the Harvard Public Opinion Project, said.

Forty-three percent of the younger set say they are struggling or getting by with limited financial security and only 30 percent believe they will be better off financially than their parents.

Young Americans rate President Donald Trump and both major political parties poorly, offering overwhelmingly negative descriptions of Democrats and Republicans alike, the poll found.

Trump has a 29 percent overall approval rating, with just 26 percent on the economy, 25 percent on health care, 32 percent on immigration and 35 percent on illegal immigration.

Congressional Democrats fare no better, with a 27 percent approval rating, while congressional Republicans are at 26 percent. “A generation facing economic and technological uncertainty does not see national leaders as responsive or capable. These numbers reflect a deeper lack of trust in institutions during a moment of widespread anxiety about affordability, opportunity, and the future of work,” the Institute of Politics said in its report on the poll.

NY Times -  Much of the drop in support for Mr. Trump’s job performance has come among voters who describe themselves as political independents; just 31 percent said they approved of his job as president in a November Marquette University Law School poll, down from 41 percent in July.

The president has also lost support among men, particularly white, college-educated men. Among them, his approval rating has dropped to 40 percent, down from 47 percent in June, according polling from Fox News. Exit polls suggest Mr. Trump won 50 percent of college-educated white men in November last year.

New parents worry heaviy about bad possibilities

Study Finds -  A study published in the Community Mental Health Journal found that 96% of new parents experience at least one intrusive thought during the 12 months following their baby’s birth. Nearly 91% reported that these thoughts caused them distress. The most common intrusive thought, as noted by 93.4% of participants, was the fear that their baby might stop breathing. But the researchers also found that 46% of parents had thoughts about screaming at, shaking, or slapping their baby, and nearly 9% experienced thoughts about intentionally drowning their infant.

The findings come from a survey of 349 UK-based parents conducted by researchers at the University of East Anglia and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. Lead researcher Dr. Jo Hodgekins and her colleagues wanted to explore not just how common these experiences are, but how distressing they feel to the parents who have them.
Intrusive Thoughts Are Not Intentions

Intrusive thoughts are unpleasant, unwanted mental images or ideas that pop into a person’s head without warning. They are not wishes or intentions, and having them does not mean a parent poses any risk to their child. ...

In this study, 94% of parents said these thoughts occurred every single day. Nearly 63% felt the thoughts interfered with their daily functioning, and only 13.5% felt they had complete control over them.

Ninety-five percent of parents engaged in at least one coping behavior, with reassurance-seeking being the most common at 95.4%. About 80% said they would feel distressed if unable to perform their coping strategies, and 54% felt these behaviors interfered with daily life.

Pro Palestinian tenured college professor fired

The Guardian -  A tenured professor at San José State University in California is fighting for her job after the university fired her last month over her pro-Palestinian activism – the first tenured faculty member fired from a public university in connection to campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.

Sang Hea Kil, a longtime member of the university’s justice studies department and a faculty adviser for its Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, is the latest in a growing list of university professors and staff who have been suspended, investigated and in some cases dismissed or forced out in connection to the wave of pro-Palestinian protests that swept US campuses in the first year of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Kil, who is contesting her dismissal, was the second tenured faculty member dismissed from a US public university over pro-Palestinian activism after Steven Salaita, who was fired in 2014 from the University of Illinois over a series of social media posts critical of Israel’s bombing of Gaza that year. Maura Finkelstein, another tenured professor, was fired from Muhlenberg College, a private liberal arts college, following her criticism of Israel’s most recent war in Gaza, while Katherine Franke, a Columbia University law professor and longtime advocate for Palestinian rights was forced out amid what she called a “toxic and hostile environment for legitimate debate around the war in Israel and Palestine”.

Kil’s firing adds to mounting concerns about academic freedom and campus free speech at a time when universities are facing unprecedented pressure from the Trump administration – but her case also raises questions about faculty’s free speech rights when engaged in so called “extramural” speech outside the classroom.

Gem 7 giving more to charity

Newsweek-  Gen Z is giving more to charity while the older generations actually pull back, according to a new report from fundraising platform Tiltify.

While Gen Z only holds 6 to 7 percent of all U.S. household wealth, they increased their giving by 67 percent since the pandemic. This means they roughly give the same as much yearly as baby boomers, at between $50 and $249, despite earning far less.

Jeffrey Epstein

NBC News -  A federal judge in Florida has ordered the release of material from grand jury investigations into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein from 2005 and 2007.

A similar bid was rejected earlier this year, but U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith said he was granting the Justice Department's renewed request in light of the bill that Congress passed last month requiring the DOJ to release all of its records related to Epstein.

NYC wealthy buying houses

Rev Daley -  Buyers signed contracts on 176 Manhattan homes worth $4 million or more in November, up 25% from October.  "In the lead up to the city's mayoral race, critics of [Mayor-elect] Zohran Mamdani claimed his election could spur an exodus of rich New Yorkers, a critical tax base whose flight would hurt the city's finances and property market. But one month after Mamdani's victory, affluent homebuyers seem unfazed," Bloomberg's Paulina Cachero reports.

Why small farmers can't end the hunger problem

The Guardian -  The most significant food system failure since the pandemic was not a natural disaster: in October, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) was temporarily suspended for the month of November due to the government shutdown

More than 40 million people had to ration food, skip meals and make sacrifices we might associate with the Great Depression, not 21st-century America. Churches, community groups and neighbors sprang into action. They checked on single moms juggling multiple jobs, elderly friends living alone, people with disabilities and large families with children too young for school lunch programs. And though food stamps were restored, the Trump administration is now threatening to pull Snap funds from Democratic-led states.

During the shutdown and this continuing uncertainty, many people scrambling for food have turned to local farmers, expecting them to give away fresh produce, meat, milk and eggs. Their logic was simple: farmers grow food and care about the community. Shouldn’t they be able to help us? But small farmers and local food advocates say it’s not simple at all....

Alesha Gonzales of La Huerta de Alesha farm in Hephzibah, Georgia, put it into context: “We are feeling the squeeze. So many [small family] farms will not make it to see 2026.” Small family farms, like Gonzales’s, are majority-owned by families and generate gross cash farm income (GCFI) of less than $350,000 annually, according to a USDA definition. Data from 2022 suggests that between half to 79% of those farms are at deep financial risk.

Food is medicine, and that’s a fact. Why we all need Native American foodways

Read more

“What many don’t see,” he continued, “is that small farms feel the shock of a crisis just as quickly as households do. Sales channels dry up, costs continue and the margin for error disappears almost overnight. Giving food away without a structure in place isn’t just unsustainable. It can jeopardize the farms people rely on.”

Supreme Court approves ethnic biased Tex voting map

NY Times - The Supreme Court cleared the way on Thursday for Texas lawmakers to use newly redrawn congressional maps favoring Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections.

The decision overturns, at least for now, a lower-court ruling that the new maps were likely an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. That decision had blocked lawmakers from using the maps in the midterms.

The Supreme Court’s order comes days before a Dec. 8 deadline for candidates to file to run for office in Texas. It marks a victory for Texas Republicans and for President Trump, who has pushed Republican-led states to revise their congressional maps to try to secure G.O.P. victories in the midterms.

The ruling also adds to the growing list of successes for the Trump administration before the justices, particularly on their emergency docket of cases heard without oral arguments, where the court’s orders are intended to be merely interim. Critics refer to it as the “shadow docket” and note the temporary decisions can have broad consequences.

In a five-paragraph order, the majority wrote that Texas was “likely to succeed on the merits of its claim” that a lower court had wrongly blocked the new maps. The trial court, the majority wrote, had “improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections.”...

In a 17-page dissent, Justice Elena Kagan, joined by the court’s two other liberals, argued that the majority had wrongly overturned a careful, 160-page lower court ruling, “based on its perusal, over a holiday weekend, of a cold paper record.”

“We are a higher court than the district court, but we are not a better one when it comes to making such a fact-based decision,” she wrote.

Justice Kagan wrote that the Supreme Court’s order “disserves the millions of Texans whom the district court found were assigned to their new districts based on their race,” adding that “because this court’s precedents and our Constitution demand better, I respectfully dissent."

Netflix to Buy Warner Bros.

NY Times -  Netflix announced plans on Friday to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming business, in a deal that will send shock waves through Hollywood and the broader media landscape.

The cash-and-stock deal values the business at $82.7 billion, including debt. The acquisition is expected to close after Warner Bros. Discovery carves out its cable unit, which the companies expected be completed by the third quarter of 2026. That means there will be a separate public company controlling channels like CNN, TNT and Discovery.

Netflix is already the world’s largest paid streaming service, with more than 300 million subscribers. Bulking up with Warner Bros. Discovery assets would create a colossus with greater leverage over theater owners and entertainment-industry unions. It could force smaller companies to merge as they scramble to compete.

The acquisition would also complete the conquest of Hollywood by tech insurgents. Instead of acquiring studios, tech companies have mostly grown under their own steam in Hollywood. In 2022, Amazon closed its $8.5 billion acquisition of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, home to James Bond and Rocky franchises...

NY Times - The pitch from Netflix was notable in part because it included a pledge to continue theatrical releases for movies from Warner Bros. Discovery. That is a significant development for Netflix, which pioneered at-home viewing and has so far avoided going all in at the box office.

Health

The Hill -  The vaccine advisory panel for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday voted in favor of changing long-held guidance for newborn hepatitis B vaccinations.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 8-3 in favor of altering the recommendation that all newborns receive hepatitis B vaccinations at birth.

The language of the vote was: “For infants born to HBsAg-negative women: ACIP recommends individual-based decision-making, in consultation with a health care provider, for parents deciding when or if to give the HBV vaccine, including the birth dose. A Parents and health care providers should consider vaccine benefits, vaccine risks, and infection risks. For those not receiving the HBV birth dose, it is suggested that the initial dose is administered no earlier than 2 months of age.”

There was a clear divide in the committee, with a minority of panelists strongly opposed to what they believed was a perceived harm that would stem from the vote and the lack of data supporting a change to the guidance.

Presidential pardons

CNN: 

Bush: 189 

Obama: 212 

Trump First term
144 

Biden: 80 

Trump Second term
1500+

Trump Asserting Executive Privilege in January 6 Case

Newsweek -   President Donald Trump has reportedly asserted executive privilege to prevent his courtroom opponents from getting access to evidence in the lawsuit in which he is accused of stoking violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

What occurred on January 6, 2021—when Trump supporters attacked the Capitol to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's win in the 2000 election—has become one of the most contentious political issues of recent years.

The attack caused millions of dollars of damage at the Capitol and about 140 police officers were injured, some of whom brought legal action....

It is unclear exactly which records Trump is aiming to keep out of the hands of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

However, Politico has reported that a White House spokesperson confirmed that the president has decided to fight disclosure of some material subpoenaed last year from the National Archives and Records Administration.

"The President asserted executive privilege over the discovery requests in this case because the overly broad requests demanded documents that were either presidential communications or communications among the president’s staff that are clearly constitutionally protected from discovery," the spokesperson, Abigail Jackson, said in a statement.

The police officers who filed the lawsuit say Trump’s remarks to a crowd of supporters fueled the riot that nearly derailed the transfer of power from Trump to Joe Biden.