Politics

Citizens for Ethics  - 

•  1. In April, Trump announces 46% tariff on Vietnam
• 2. In May, Eric Trump attends groundbreaking for new $1.5 billion Trump golf resort in Vietnam 
• 3. In July, Vietnam becomes only the second country to reach a tariff deal, cutting its rate to 20%

The Hill -  Democrats face dwindling options to move forward with redistricting after the Supreme Court handed Republicans a major victory this week allowing them to use a redrawn map in Texas next year. While Virginia Democrats are signaling they’ll move forward with redrawing their congressional lines, Democrats in other states have expressed opposition, posing a challenge for those in the party who want to net as many additional seats as possible before the midterms.

MS Now - Trump’s decision to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving a 45-year sentence for funneling hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States, is baffling enough. But it comes at a time when his administration is killing people on suspected drug boats and threatening to depose the president of Venezuela over supposed drug trafficking, writes Zeeshan Aleem. The disconnect calls into question Trump’s real motives and emboldens corrupt political leaders in Latin America. Read more.

 

Education Department wants some staff back to handle discrimination cases

USA Today -  Facing a backlog of school discrimination cases, the U.S. Department of Education has asked hundreds of employees it fired months ago to temporarily return to work.

A Dec. 5 email obtained by USA TODAY shows the agency ordered a significant portion of staffers in the Office for Civil Rights to come back later this month. In the "return to duty" directive, officials acknowledged they're facing a sizable caseload of civil rights complaints, and they underscored a need to utilize every resource at the government’s disposal to work through them.

The agency said the request applies to roughly 250 workers who've been on administrative leave for months amid legal challenges to their March firings. Julie Hartman, the Education Department's press secretary for legal affairs, stressed there still aren't any plans to fully rehire those workers permanently.

Elon Musk

Polls

Washington Post -  More than 40 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds surveyed last month said they are struggling or just getting by, and one-quarter believe they’ll be worse off financially than their parents. Many distrust the White House and Congress, both major political parties and, to some extent, each other. And while most reject political violence, nearly 40 percent say it is acceptable under certain circumstances.

Newsweek -  U.S. President Donald Trump's approval rating has improved among millennial voters, new polling shows.Accor ding to polling by The Economist/YouGov, Trump's net approval rating among this demographic, roughly those born from 1981 to 1996, has increased from -19 percentage points in September to -16 points in December. While his approval rating among this group remains underwater, it is up three percentage points.

Data for Progress -   In a new survey, Data for Progress finds that 65% of voters support a Medicare for All system — described as a “national health insurance program…that would cover all Americans and replace most private health insurance plans.” This includes majorities of Democrats (78%) and Independents (71%), and a plurality of Republicans (49%)

Donald Trump

 Action Network -  Donald Trump’s military occupation of U.S. cities has already cost the American public $473 million, according to an expert estimate provided exclusively to The Intercept. The expenditures come as Trump and Republicans have cut more than $1 trillion from domestic services, instead funneling tax dollars toward tax cuts for the rich and Trump’s crackdown on dissent....

Through mid-November, the estimated cost per city for Trump’s National Guard deployment is:

    $270 million – Washington, DC
    $172 million – Los Angeles, CA
    $15 million – Portland, OR
    $13 million – Chicago, IL
    $3 million – Memphis, TN

Newsweek - Donald Trump has scolded a Texas lawmaker's "lack of LOYALTY" for announcing he will seek election again as a Democrat only days after the president issued a “full and unconditional” pardon.

“Only a short time after signing the Pardon, Congressman Henry Cuellar announced that he will be ‘running’ for Congress again, in the Great State of Texas [...], as a Democrat, continuing to work with the same Radical Left Scum that just weeks before wanted him and his wife to spend the rest of their lives in Prison—And probably still do,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on Sunday morning.

President Trump added: “Oh well, next time, no more Mr. Nice guy!”

People  -    Kaitlan Collins became the latest target in Donald Trump’s streak of lashing out at female reporters when the president called her “stupid and nasty” for inquiring about the cost of his sprawling White House ballroom project.

Trump, 79, kicked off a Truth Social post shared on Saturday, Dec. 6, with an attack on the 33-year-old journalist, who is CNN’s Chief White House Correspondent and host of The Source with Kaitlan Collins.

He seemingly targeted Collins, whose name he spelled incorrectly in the post, because she inquired about the controversial project, though it is unclear when the interaction occurred.

“Caitlin Collin's of Fake News CNN, always Stupid and Nasty, asked me why the new Ballroom was costing more money than originally thought one year ago,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “I said because it is going to be double the size, and the quality of finishes and interiors has been brought to the highest level. Also, the column SPAN has been substantially increased for purposes of viewing.” 

Are wealthy students getting a health break?

Axios - A growing number of students at wealthy high schools and colleges are receiving academic support designed to help students with disabilities — including more time on tests, flexible deadlines and single dorm rooms.The rising share of students qualifying for these "accommodations" is raising concerns about overuse, and whether they're being siphoned from the students who need them most.

Professors and psychologists fear this special help is becoming yet another advantage disproportionately available to students from wealthier families. "The increase is driven by more young people getting diagnosed with conditions such as ADHD, anxiety and depression, and by universities making the process of getting accommodations easier," The Atlantic's Rose Horowitch writes.

38% of Stanford undergraduates are registered as having a disability this year. 20% of undergraduates at Brown and Harvard and 34% of students at Amherst College are registered as disabled.

• The number of UChicago students qualifying for support has more than tripled in the last eight years.
• But at public two-year colleges, just 3-4% of students receive accommodations.

Keep reading

Winner Take All Economy

Axios - Everything is becoming more concentrated — from merging streaming giants, to a stock market powered by a handful of AI winners, to an economy increasingly driven by the spending of the wealthy.

With fewer participants, winning is harder, whether you're an investor looking for returns, a consumer looking to build wealth or a business trying to compete.

Netflix's victory in bidding to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery's studio and streaming assets, potentially combining two of the world's largest streaming platforms, is part of a larger trend of dealmaking soaring under the Trump administration — due in part to its friendlier regulatory practices.

In streaming, scale has become one of the only viable strategies for growth. (Netflix can't increase its subscriber count forever, which may be why the company stopped reporting that figure in earnings releases.)

The same forces driving consolidation in media are playing out across the economy.

A tiny cluster of AI stocks accounts for 40% of the S&P 500. They've delivered a bull market with back-to-back years of double-digit gains. But a wobble in AI could take down the broader market.

The top 10% of earners in America now make up half of all consumer spending — and any pullback by that small group can drag down growth. Share this story.

For the First Time This Century, Child Mortality Is Likely to Rise

Time -  For the first time in 25 years, child mortality rates for preventable diseases are projected to increase, after having declined for 25 years.

The new estimate comes from models created by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington and was released for the first time in the Goalkeepers report from the Gates Foundation. It shows that an additional 200,000 children under age five may die this year of a disease that modern medicine can prevent, either with vaccines or other treatments. The deaths can be traced to a number of economic and political factors, the most important of which are significant cuts to spending in global health from the world’s largest donors, including the U.S., according to the report.

Why did ATT kill its DEI programs?

Congressional Insider -  AT&T’s recent decision to terminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs has ignited a national debate regarding corporate motives and the evolving landscape of American business values. Citing a shift towards merit-based policies, the telecommunications giant made its announcement concurrently with seeking crucial FCC approval for major transactions. This move, which mirrors a broader industry trend influenced by the Trump administration’s anti-DEI stance, raises critical questions: Is this a genuine policy overhaul or a strategic maneuver to satisfy federal regulators while preserving some internal inclusion efforts?

Maryland's free bus service

Truthout  - The largest free bus program in Maryland by ridership is in Montgomery County, a suburb north of Washington, D.C. Montgomery County first made its “Ride On” buses free to all riders under 18 in 2019. Then on June 29, 2025, it made all of its buses fare-free for all passengers. The system has a fleet of nearly 400 buses, 80 routes, and provided 19.2 million rides in the 2025 fiscal year. In the three months since free fares were instituted, ridership has increased by 5.4 percent.

Word

Via Robert Hubbell  

 

Trump regime

The Hollywood Reporter -   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. 

The role of arts in medical healing

Arts Journal -  There was a report from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) last month .... concerning the power of the arts literally to heal. 

Across Canada, these issues have been in play for years. In the CBC report, for example, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra has partnered with Médecins francophones du Canada to allow doctors to prescribe the symphony as medicine to “reduce loneliness, improve health outcomes, ease the burden on the healthcare system, and build much-needed trust between doctors and their patients.”

 “Physicians will give prescriptions to patients. The patients will call us. We give each patient that calls us two tickets, free of charge. And they can select the concert they want.” - Mélanie La Couture, CEO of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra 

 ... It’s important to lean on the doctors and scientists to make the call on the power of music to heal the body. It’s important (and more impressive) to society-at-large when an arts organization chooses to bring people out of their self-imposed isolation chambers and electronic mind-control machines with activities prescribed by those same doctors and scientists.

Your arts organization can do this, too. Actually, it should. Regardless of your financial strengths or weakness (whether you’re swimming in cash or holding a going out of business sale), this is a way to prove to your community that you can help them. To some, it will be a revelation that your company might not be a toxic luxury for the rich, but indispensable to all. 

The Somalis in Lewston, Maine

Kathleen Sullivan - How did you feel reader, when you read a few days ago what that nasty man called the President said about our Somali population? When he called them “garbage” and said they were destroying our country and wanted them sent “back to where they came from?” Or when Vice President JD Vance banged the table in agreement and the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called his remarks “amazing” and an “epic moment?”….

The city of Lewiston [Maine] has a large population of Somali immigrants. I did a little research about how the Somalis in Lewiston are being treated and what I discovered gives me hope and helps me to refocus on the good that exists in the world…

The very good news is that in the last twenty years, by all accounts, the city has successfully begun to address racism and discrimination. Several organizations and political leaders support the Wabanaki and French Canadians who were once so vilely treated. Stories are being told. Art is being made. Music is being played. Many Franco Americans and Wabanaki in Maine are reclaiming with pride, and now without fear, their heritage.

When the Somali’s fleeing civil war, drought and famine first arrived in Lewiston in the early 2,000, things did not go well. The mayor at the time, Laurier T. Raymond Jr.’s, addressed a letter to the Somali community asking them to stop coming and to stop bringing their families. In 2003 a white supremacist group hosted a rally in support of Raymond Jr.’s request. The governor, John Baldacci, attended that rally. But a rally in support of the Somali population was organized at Bates College and over 4, 000 people attended. Only 39 attended the white supremacist rally.

In the twenty years since that time, Lewiston has, by all accounts proven to be a model city for immigration. In August 2010, the Lewiston Sun Journal reported that Somali entrepreneurs had helped reinvigorate downtown Lewiston by opening dozens of shops in previously closed storefronts. Amicable relations were also reported by local merchants of French-Canadian descent and Somali storekeepers.

Earlier this year I was fortunate to have been in a group of women who came together to consider how we could respond to the harms of this administration. There I met Catherine Besteman, a professor of anthropology at Colby College and a lifelong advocate for social justice…

I contacted Catherine a few days ago. She told me that the Somalis’ have formed strong organizations of advocacy and support for the community. “I guess I would just offer that the Somali community IS the Lewiston community now. They are elected officials, small business owners, EDs of organizations, college students, nurses and doctors and pharmacists, farmers who provide a TON of food to local food banks, and much, much more.”

In a piece in the Christian Science Monitor she had this to say: “These small American towns are being transformed quietly without ruckus or violence – they are stories we don’t pay attention to…. When people are screaming and fighting about immigration, they aren’t looking at places like Lewiston and saying, ‘Huh, this is working.”

Take that Donald Trump, JD Vance, Karoline Leavitt.

 

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.