The endless “holiday season” will be over soon, and it will be 2026. Nothing will have changed. We’re still stuck with Trump and he is still a psychopathic malignant narcissist with dementia. Here are the stories leading the news on this final day of 2025.
Trump and Venezuela
Trump blabbed about a secret CIA strike inside Venezuela. He just can’t keep his mouth shut.
The CIA reportedly carried out a drone strike earlier this month on a dock in Venezuela that the United States has alleged is a port for trafficking drugs, marking a major escalation of the Trump administration’s military actions in the Caribbean.
The U.S. government believed the site was used by members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to store and ship drugs overseas, according to CNN.
No one was present at the port at the time of the strike, according to the network’s source. Still, the operation allegedly destroyed the facility, even if it represented just one of many such docks along Venezuela’s coastline that might be used by smugglers. The strike is the first known U.S. operation inside the country.
President Donald Trump appeared to acknowledge the operation during an interview Friday, saying U.S. military assets struck a “big facility where ships come from.”
Asked again on Monday, the president said American forces had attacked “the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs.”
“So we hit all the boats, and now we hit the area,” the president added. “It’s the implementation area, that’s where they implement, and that is no longer around.” [….]
So the President did disclose a CIA drone strike inside Venezuela.And this does cross a red line of violating the UN Charter — where the boat strikes on high seas had not.www.cnn.com/2025/12/29/p…
President Donald Trump has thrust the country into a significant new phase in his showdown with Venezuela with a CIA strike on a port facility.
But as he approaches grave new decisions on even greater escalations, his team has not yet spelled out a clear consistent public rationale for its actions.
Nor has it prepared the country for what might come next.
Top officials haven’t explained how long the massive naval buildup in the Caribbean will last or what US service members will be asked to do in an operation that is already raising legal and constitutional alarms.
If the goal really is to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro, as recent comments from top officials and the logic of the deployment imply, there’s been no White House effort to show Americans the administration is planning for the aftermath. This is an especially relevant point given the quagmires that developed after US military action to topple the rulers of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
Trump doesn’t recognize any responsibility to inform the American people of is plans, if there are any. He sees himself as a dictator.
A bit more from Collinson:
Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told CNN’s Brianna Keilar Tuesday that the CIA attack was a significant sharpening of US pressure and raised a knot of thorny questions.
“Where it goes from here, I think, is the thing to be concerned about, because Trump clearly wants to drive Maduro from power,” Smith said, arguing that boat strikes and other means of duress didn’t seem like they would have the intended effect. If they don’t, Smith continued, “What is Trump prepared to do next? How far is he willing to take this effort at regime change in Venezuela?”
Perhaps Trump’s fogginess is deliberate. If the buildup and steady escalations are part of a psychological operations campaign to wrong-foot Maduro or to persuade his regime cronies they’d be safer without him, confusion and disorientation could act as weapons. Even from the outside, it’s obvious the CIA strike on the port facility — in which, sources said, no one was killed — is a performative warning that far greater US capabilities can be brought to bear.
Yet the more serious the situation gets — especially now the US has crossed the threshold into land attacks — the more acute is the obligation to inform Americans of the administration’s plans. The founders never envisaged presidents being able to wage war on a whim. And large and intractable conflicts have sometimes started with discrete actions that mushroom into consequences that can cascade out of control. Take Vietnam as an example.
A thunderous boom rang out through the windless late-afternoon air. Seconds later, smoke began rising out of the sea as if the horizon were on fire.
Watching from the shore on Nov. 6, Erika Palacio Fernández whipped out her phone, she said, unwittingly recording the only verified and independent video known to date of the aftermath of an airstrike in the Trump administration’s campaign against what it calls “narco-terrorists.”
Two days later, on that same shore, a scorched 30-foot-long boat itself would wash up. Then, two mangled bodies. Then charred jerrycans, life jackets and dozens of packets that were observed by The New York Times and were similar to others that have been found after anti-narcotics operations in the region. Most packets were empty, though traces of a substance that looked and smelled like marijuana were found in the lining of a few.
The assortment of singed flotsam appears to be the first physical evidence of the U.S. campaign, which has destroyed 30 vessels and killed more than 100 people in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Every other struck boat is presumed to have sunk along with its crew and cargo. The U.S. military has offered no evidence that the boats it has destroyed were transporting illicit substances or belong to criminal networks.
Remains of a burned boat on the beach near Puerto López on the Guajira Peninsula in Colombia.
A Times analysis matched the wreckage of the boat to the one in a video posted by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on the night of Nov. 6, hours after Ms. Palacio took her video. Mr. Hegseth described the strike as having targeted a vessel in the Caribbean operated by an unnamed “designated terrorist organization.” He said the strike killed three people and took place in international waters.
The Times analysis of Ms. Palacio’s video indicates the strike took place in the Gulf of Venezuela, where Colombia and Venezuela have long disputed their maritime boundary. The analysis could not determine the exact location of the strike.
The shape of the wreckage, a slender design typical of speedboats, matches that of the boat targeted in the video shared by the Defense Department, the Times analysis found, and shows damage to the boat’s hull and interior structure consistent with the impact of an airstrike. The military video shows the boat exploding and on fire beneath a large plume of smoke.
That such rare, tangible evidence is coming to light nearly two months after the early November strike is a testament both to the remoteness of the Guajira Peninsula, where the wreckage was found, and the lack of a sizable presence of the Colombian state in the area. The region is governed semiautonomously by an Indigenous community, the Wayuu, whose more than half a million people straddle the border between Colombia and Venezuela.
So Trump and Hegseth are blowing up boats carrying Marijuana–a substance that is legal in 24 states and more for medical use.
More artists have announced they are backing out of upcoming dates at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in protest of President Donald Trump’s takeover, and recent potentially illegal renaming of the institution as the Trump-Kennedy Center.
Jazz supergroup The Cookers announced on its website it will not be performing across a series of two New Year’s Eve concerts.
“Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice,” the group wrote in a statement. “Some of us have been making this music for many decades, and that history still shapes us.”
“I would never even consider performing in a venue bearing a name (and being controlled by the kind of board) that represents overt racism and deliberate destruction of African American music and culture,” Billy Harper, a saxophonist in the group, reportedly added in a statement to Jazz Stage.
The Doug Varone and Dancers troupe on Monday added that it will not carry out a planned April performance at the center.
The group wrote in a statement on Instagram that while it opposed the president’s decision to replace the center’s bipartisan board in February with a group of allies who later installed him as chairman, it initially still planned to carry out the engagement. That changed when center’s board voted earlier this month to rebrand the institution the Trump-Kennedy Center, according to the statement.
“We can no longer permit ourselves nor ask our audiences to step inside this once great institution,” the statement said. “The Kennedy Center was named in honor of our 35th President who fervently believed that the arts were the beating heart of our nation, as well as an integral part of international diplomacy. We hope in three-year’s time, that the Center and its reputation will return to that glory.” [….]
The wave of cancellations follows the news that drummer and vibraphonist Chuck Redd canceled a longstanding Christmas Eve jazz concert at the center in protest of the name change.
The Kennedy Center adopted bylaws earlier this year that limited voting to presidentially appointed trustees, a move that preceded a unanimous decision this month by board members installed by President Donald Trump to add his name to the center.
The current bylaws, obtained by The Washington Post, were revised in May to specify that board members designated by Congress — known as ex officio members — could not vote or count toward a quorum. Legal experts say the move may conflict with the institution’s charter.
Days later, on Dec. 18, the board voted to add the president’s name to the institution, and within 24 hours it was on the website and the building itself: “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” [….]
The Kennedy Center lists 34 presidentially appointed board members, including Trump himself as chair, and 23 ex officio seats. The center’s president, Richard Grenell, is also an officer of the board.
The federal law that established the Kennedy Center designates specific government and federal positions — including the librarian of Congress; the mayor of Washington, D.C.; the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; and the majority and minority leaders of the Senate — to serve as ex officio members.
The law identifies them as part of the board of trustees, which it directs to maintain and administer the facility as a living memorial. But it does not distinguish between voting and nonvoting members, which has been a point of ambiguity in the days following the vote to rename the Kennedy Center….
A former Kennedy Center staffer with knowledge of board proceedings, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution, told The Post that ex officio members were “always included in debate and discussion” during their tenure, but the person did not recall a time when those members’ votes were counted.
“Theoretically they could vote, but our practice was not to have them vote or count toward quorum,” the person said, noting they were not aware of the new leadership’s practices at the center.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are planning to spend $100 million over a one-year period to recruit gun-rights supporters and military enthusiasts through online influencers and a geo-targeted advertising campaign, part of what the agency called a “wartime recruitment” strategy it said was critical to hiring thousands of new deportation officers nationwide, according to an internal document reviewed by The Washington Post.
The spending would help President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation agenda dominate media networks and recruitment channels, including through ads targeting people who have attended UFC fights, listened to patriotic podcasts or shown an interest in guns and tactical gear, according to a 30-page document distributed among officials in this summer detailing ICE’s “surge hiring marketing strategy.”
Uncle Sam looms large on ICE’s recruitment site.
The Department of Homeland Security has spoken publicly about its fast-tracked effort to significantly increase ICE’s workforce by hiring more than 10,000 new employees, a surge promoted on social media with calls for recruits willing to perform their “sacred duty” and “defend the homeland” by repelling “foreign invaders.” The agency currently employs more than 20,000 people, according to ICE’s website.
But the document, reported here for the first time, reveals new details about the vast scale of the recruitment effort and its unconventional strategy to “flood the market” with millions of dollars in spending for Snapchat ads, influencers and live streamers on Rumble, a video platform popular with conservatives. Under the strategy, ICE would also use an ad-industry technique known as “geofencing” to send ads to the phone web browsers and social media feeds of anyone who set foot near military bases, NASCAR races, college campuses or gun and trade shows.
The document was also distributed among ICE officials in the days after the agency published a request for bids seeking contractors who could use “precise audience targeting, performance media management, and results-driven creative strategies” to “accelerate the achievement of [its] recruiting goals.” The language in the published bid closely mirrored language in the strategy document. That same month, DHS awarded two marketing firms nearly $40 million to support ICE’s public affairs office “recruitment campaign,” according to federal awards data.
It’s unclear how much of the spending and strategy have been carried out. But the plans outlined in the document have coincided with a rush of recruitment ads online seeking Americans who will “answer the call to serve.”
The rapid-recruitment approach is unlike anything ICE has ever pursued, said Sarah Saldaña, a director of ICE during the Obama administration, who recalled the agency filling its open positions through local police departments and sheriff’s offices with appeals to officers’ interests in federal public-safety work.
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Trump wants to cancel the Constitution
Heather Cox Richardson at Letters from an American: December 30, 2025
The hallmark of the first year of President Donald J. Trump’s second term has been the attempt of the president and his cronies to dismantle the constitutional system set up by the framers of that document when they established the United States of America. It’s not simply that they have broken the laws. They have acted as if the laws, and the Constitution that underpins them, don’t exist.
As soon as the 2024 election results were clear, billionaire Elon Musk, who had supported Trump’s campaign both through his purchase of Twitter—now X—and with $290 million in cash, posted on social media: “Novus Ordo Seclorum,” Latin for “New World Order.” Although he won with less than 50% of the vote, Trump announced that he had an “unprecedented and powerful mandate.” Musk would head a new “Department of Government Efficiency” that Musk vowed would cut at least $2 trillion from the federal budget.
Musk and his operatives muscled their way into government offices and gained access to computer systems. With strokes of a keyboard they eliminated jobs and programs, including, as Musk put it, feeding “into the wood chipper” most of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the government agency aimed at combating disease and malnutrition around the globe. That dismantling has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, recently concluded that while the Department of Government Efficiency did not actually reduce spending, it did cut almost 10% of federal employees, a key goal of Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought, a key author of Project 2025.
And, crucially, it put operatives in virtually all government departments and agencies, where they gained access to privileged information about Americans, including citizens, legal residents, and undocumented immigrants.
Musk and DOGE also established the idea that the unelected officials in the Trump administration could do whatever they wished, without regard to the laws or the Constitution. The Constitution, judicial precedent, and the 1974 Impoundment Control Act all make it very clear that the power of the purse belongs to Congress. As the elected representatives of the American people, only members of the House of Representatives and the Senate can determine how the nation’s money is spent. Then the president must “take Care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
Democrats objected to the administration’s dramatic usurpation of the power of Congress, but Republicans did not complain. Most backed the administration’s claims it was eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Although Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress, meaning that Trump should have been able to get any legislation he wanted, he continued to try to get around the Constitution by declaring nine “emergencies” that would permit him to act without congressional oversight. This reliance on emergencies reflected the ideas of Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt, whose writings were followed by right-wing leaders, including billionaire Peter Thiel and the man who influenced him, Curtis Yarvin. Schmitt argued that power belongs to the leader who can exploit emergencies that create exceptions to the constitutional order, enabling him to exercise power without regard to the law.
That was part of President Trump’s explanation in October of his executive order that purports to criminalize burning the American flag. Though his words fail as a constitutional rationale, they inadvertently distill many of his efforts at smothering dissent during the past 11 months.
Since returning to office, Mr. Trump and his administration have tried to undermine the First Amendment, suppress information that he and his supporters don’t like and hamstring parts of the academic, legal and private sectors through lawsuits and coercion — to flood the zone, as his ally, Steve Bannon, might say.
Some examples are well known, such as when ABC briefly took Jimmy Kimmel off the air after Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, objected to a reference in one of Mr. Kimmel’s monologues about the killing of Charlie Kirk. Other examples received less attention, but by my count, this year there were about 200 instances of administration attempts at censorship, nearly all of which I outline in a new report.
Mr. Trump’s playbook isn’t random. It employs several recurring modes of attack.
The president has tried to cow the press. His administration banned Associated Press reporters from certain parts of the White House and Air Force One because the outlet uses “Gulf of Mexico” rather than the term Mr. Trump prefers, “Gulf of America.” It tried and failed to force some of the nation’s biggest news organizations to agree to restrictions on coverage of the Pentagon. He has said critical coverage of his initiatives is “really illegal.”
A journalist from El Salvador, Mario Guevara, was arrested while reporting on a No Kings protest in Georgia; he was detained for more than three months, then deported. At an Oval Office meeting between Mr. Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, an ABC News correspondent, Mary Bruce, asked about the killing of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and about the Jeffrey Epstein files. Mr. Trump replied by berating her at length, at one point describing one of her questions as “insubordinate” — a characterization that upends the entire notion of a free press.
The administration has used immigration status to try to suppress political speech. In March, Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder and a leader of pro-Palestinian demonstrations on the Columbia campus, was arrested and detained by immigration officials for several months. That month, Rumeysa Ozturk, a student visa holder, was arrested by immigration officials and detained for several weeks, apparently because she was an author of an opinion essay criticizing Tufts University for its response to the Israel-Hamas war.
It seems almost no one is beyond the scope of administration efforts to muzzle views or decisions that conflict with Mr. Trump’s agenda: After Federal District Court Judge James Boasberg ruled against the administration in a case involving the deportation of Venezuelans to El Salvador, Mr. Trump called for the judge to be impeached. A trainee was dismissed from the F.B.I.’s academy, apparently for having displayed an L.G.B.T.Q. Pride flag. The F.B.I. also appears to have fired agents for kneeling during George Floyd protests.
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Those are my recommended reads for today. I still can’t see very well, so please forgive any mistakes. Take care everyone!
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“The Art of the Deal in real life!” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The Trump-infested news cycle never ends these days. Gone are the days when weekend news reporting meant a lot of soft topics, and breaking news usually came in the form of natural disasters. Now, everyone’s busy trying to cover Trump’s latest disaster. It wouldn’t be 2025 without Trump making everything worse. Anyone who saw even the slightest bit of the Trump/Zelenski presser got a feel for the deranged statements of Trump. Zelenski’s exhausted and exasperated looks were priceless.
This is from the New York Times. “For Zelensky, Just Keeping Trump Talking Counts as a Win. Though discussions produced little tangible progress, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at least avoided the type of setbacks that have blighted earlier meetings.” Constant Méheut has the analysis. I’ve shared the article so you may read it.
A new round of peace talks between President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and President Trump on Sunday seems to have produced little beyond a promise to meet again next month and a reminder of how distant a peace deal remains.
Yet for Mr. Zelensky, even a stalemate in the discussions counts as a measure of success.
Following setbacks in U.S. support for Ukraine this year, one of Mr. Zelensky’s main priorities when meeting Mr. Trump has been to prevent talks from derailing. After the meeting, Mr. Trump signaled that he would remain engaged in the negotiations — a win for Ukraine given his repeated threats to walk away. Mr. Trump also backed away from setting another deadline to reach a peace deal, after having previously floated Thanksgiving and Christmas as target dates.
“I don’t have deadlines,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he greeted Mr. Zelensky at Mar-a-Lago in Florida for the talks. “You know what my deadline is? Getting the war ended.”
Most important for Ukraine, Mr. Trump did not echo Russia’s maximalist demands to stop the fighting, a departure from earlier in his term when he often appeared to side with the Kremlin. The change was also notable because Mr. Trump had spoken with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia just before meeting Mr. Zelensky, the type of last-minute Russian intervention that has derailed Ukrainian hopes before.
That outcome may leave Mr. Zelensky hopeful that Kyiv and Washington have become more closely aligned in the peace negotiations. Several European leaders also joined the talks by phone, and Mr. Zelensky said that the United States might host a new round of negotiations next month that could include them.
“The fact that they’re talking is a victory in and of itself,” Harry Nedelcu, a senior director at Rasmussen Global, a research organization, said of the American and Ukrainian presidents.
Still, Mr. Zelensky acknowledged some division between them on Monday, noting that while Mr. Trump has agreed to help secure Ukraine, he offered such guarantees for only 15 years, short of the several decades that Mr. Zelensky and Ukrainians seek.
The situation between Israel and Gaza certainly shows the lack of any serious negotiations or peace plans in that region. This is from The Nation. This is written by Jeet Heer. “Netanyahu Is Destroying Trump’s Flimsy Peace Plans. The talk of a new Middle East is belied by Israel’s attacks on Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.”
No foreign leader has easier access to President Donald Trump than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose scheduled meeting today at Mar-a-Lago will be the fifth time he’s hobnobbed with the US president in the past 10 months. In February, Netanyahu was the first overseas dignitary to visit the White House in Trump’s second term, and now the year ends with another meeting. Few foreign leaders have buttered up Trump with the aplomb of Netanyahu, who describes Trump as Israel’s “greatest friend.”
In Trump’s first four years in office, these enthusiastic words were more than earned. As Al Jazeeranoted, “During his first term, Trump pushed US policy further in favour of Israel’s right-wing government. He moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognised and claimed Israeli sovereignty over Syria’s occupied Golan Heights and cut off funding to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).”
Remarkable progress has, however, also been made in a year. Mr. al-Sharaa has garnered support from the United States, Russia and China. He has secured the lifting of economic sanctions. He has remained steady in the face of repeated military provocations from Israel, and has begun to lay the basis of state institutions. He has been embraced by Mr. Trump and was ushered to the White House last month.
“There has been growing frustration in Washington that Israeli actions were setting back something most of Washington and everyone in the Middle East would actually like to see succeed: a stabilized, unified Syria. The basic argument to Israel is, look, you actually have leaders in Damascus who are willing to say the word ‘Israel’ and talk about a potential future with normalized relations, yet you just keep bombing or looking for a surrogate to work through.”
And then, there’s the Venezuelan thing. This is from The Guardian. “US struck ‘big facility’ in Venezuela, Trump claimed without offering details. Trump alleged that US forces hit ‘very hard’ in what would mark his team’s first land strike on Venezuela if confirmed.” Edward Helmore has the lede.
Donald Trump has claimed that US forces struck a “big facility” in Venezuela last week – but the president did not specify what it was, or where, and the White House has not commented further.
“We just knocked out – I don’t know if you read or you saw – they have a big plant, or a big facility, where the ships come from. Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard,” Trump told Republican donor and New York supermarket owner John Catsimatidis on Friday.
If a US strike is confirmed, it will mark the first land strike on Venezuela since the Pentagon began a buildup of US strike forces in region to interdict drug traffickers operating – the Trump administration claims – under the direction of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.
The initial, stated purpose of the military buildup has since morphed into a blockade to disrupt the country’s oil exports that uses a global shadow fleet of oil tankers outside of Chevron, the single licensed exporter of Venezuelan oil.
Trump has for weeks warned that US forces are ready to expand the military campaign by striking targets inside Venezuela, a tactic that would in theory require congressional authorization.
The domestic situation of our country is not much better. Most of it is due to the deranged and unfit Trump appointments across the federal government. Nancy Gertner, writing for The Atlantic, has this headline. “Why the Supreme Court Is Giving ICE So Much Power. The Constitution inarguably applies to federal immigration agents—but the Supreme Court has taken away the hope of ever holding them to that standard.
Untold numbers of ICE agents have appeared on America’s streets in recent months, and many of them have committed acts of aggression with seeming impunity. ICE agents have detained suspected illegal immigrants without cause—including U.S. citizens and lawful residents. They have, in effect, kidnapped people, breaking into cars to make arrests. They have used tear gas and pepper spray on nonviolent protesters. They have refused to identify themselves, wearing masks, using unmarked cars, and switching license plates, presumably to avoid detection. They have kept people in detention without access to lawyers. They have questioned people simply for appearing Latino, speaking Spanish, and being in areas believed to be frequented by illegal immigrants.
Many of these tactics are plainly illegal. The Constitution incontestably applies to federal immigration officers: The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures and excessive force and requires a warrant to search a private home. The Fifth Amendment guarantees due process and bans self-incrimination. The Sixth Amendment establishes a person’s right to counsel. Why, then, are they getting away with not following the Constitution?
Their impunity traces back to two Supreme Court decisions that put far too much faith in ICE’s commitment to respecting people’s constitutional rights. As a result of these cases, people whose rights are violated by ICE agents have little to no recourse. Contrast that with the rules for police officers. If a police officer kicks down your door and searches your home without a warrant, questions you without a Miranda warning, or illegally arrests you, a provision known as the exclusionary rule may prevent the evidence gathered through those tactics from being admitted in your prosecution. And if you happen to be acquitted, you can sue for damages. None of that is true when it comes to ICE.
The first of these two cases is a 1984 decision, INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, that untethered ICE from the exclusionary rule. In a 5–4 opinion, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor rejected the exclusionary rule for immigration courts, favoring, instead, “a deliberately simple deportation hearing system.” In a typical criminal case, the exclusionary rule is designed to deter police misconduct—the idea being that the police will avoid such conduct if it risks undermining a conviction. But for ICE, the Court decided, such deterrence is not necessary. Unless ICE conduct amounts to an “egregious” violation of the Fourth Amendment, the evidence that agents gather even through illegal means can be used in immigration courts. Key to the Court’s decision was a presumption that Fourth Amendment violations by ICE officers were not “widespread” and that the Immigration and Naturalization Service “has already taken sensible and reasonable steps to deter Fourth Amendment violations by its officers.” Such assumptions may not have been reasonable then; they are certainly not reasonable now.
A second Court decision appears to have eliminated, or at least seriously limited, the possibility of lawsuits for damages after individuals are unlawfully detained, searched, or experience excessive force at the hands of ICE. When the police engage in misconduct, the victimcan sue the responsible officers for damages. Again, not so for ICE. In the 2022 decision Egbert v. Boule, Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, denied the rights of plaintiffs to sue Border Patrol agents for excessive use of force in the name of “national security.” There is every reason to believe that the Supreme Court would extend the rationale in Boule to shield ICE from liability as well. The Court would effectively be greenlighting ICE’s abusive tactics and insulating agents from damages when they are, in fact, no different from any state or city police officer who violates a person’s constitutional rights. As in INS v. Lopez-Mendoza,the rationale in Boule relies on the agency’s purported ability to self-regulate; after all, Thomas suggested, Border Patrol “must investigate ‘alleged violations’ and accept grievances.” Can anyone count on such care to come from Border Patrol under this administration? Again, the faith in these institutions to self-regulate seems tragically misplaced.
We’ve definitely seen some terrible things that go against our Constitution and the rule of law. It’s even more sad to see a rogue Supreme Court team up with the Rotter in the White House to initiate authoritarian measures. This final suggested read comes from ProPublica. It shows more evidence of the suppression of our Free Press. “Our Reporters Reached Out for Comment. They Were Accused of Stalking and Intimidation. Our journalists reach out to people they’re writing about to ensure fairness. But in this environment, they’ve found their efforts to do so are more likely to be vilified than appreciated.” Charles Ornstein has the story.
This summer, my colleagues were reporting out a story about the Department of Education’s “final mission,” its effort to undermine public education even as the Trump administration worked feverishly to close the agency.
As we do with all stories, the reporters reached out to those who would be featured in the article for comment. And so began a journey that showed both the emphasis we place on giving the subjects of our stories an opportunity to comment, as well as the aggressively unhelpful pushback we’ve faced this year as we’ve sought information and responses to questions.
Megan O’Matz, a reporter based in Wisconsin on ProPublica’s Midwest team, first asked the department’s press office for an interview in mid-August. At the same time, we emailed top administration officials who were making crucial decisions within the agency, including Lindsey Burke, deputy chief of staff for policy and programs, and Meg Kilgannon, director of strategic partnerships.
In response to the outreach to Kilgannon, department spokesperson Madison Biedermann told O’Matz to “Please direct all media inquiries to press@ed.gov.” Reached on her cellphone that day, Biedermann said she was happy to look into the request. We asked for a response within a week.
At that time, the published press phone number for the department appeared, at all hours, to be a black hole, with a recorded message saying it was “temporarily closed.” (It still indicates that.)
Hearing nothing more, O’Matz emailed the press office again Aug. 18. And again Aug. 28 with detailed questions. She left follow-up messages on Biedermann’s cell. And on Burke’s cell, including once on her husband’s cell as ProPublica tried to find a direct way to contact Burke. To ensure fairness and accuracy, it is our long-standing practice to try to reach those who are part of our stories so that they have an opportunity to respond to them. We’d rather get responses before we publish an article than after.
Reached on her cell Aug. 29, Kilgannon said she had no comment and hung up before O’Matz could explain what we planned to publish about her and her work. She did not respond to a subsequent email with those details.
On Sept. 8, still hearing nothing from Burke, O’Matz reached out to the department’s chief of staff, writing: “We have been seeking to talk to the secretary and to Dr. Burke. … Can you help us arrange that?” A week later, ProPublica arranged for a letter to be delivered via FedEx to Burke’s home outlining what our reporting had found so far and to let us know if anything was inaccurate or required additional context. We invited her again to talk with us, to comment or provide any additional information.
Finally, on Sept. 17, Biedermann wrote: “Just heard from an ED (Education Department) colleague that you sent these inquiries in writing to their home address. This is highly inappropriate and unprofessional. You have also reached out to employees on their personal cell phones, emails, and even reached out to employee’s family members. This is disturbing. Do not use an employee’s home addresses or relatives to contact them.” (The emphasis was hers.)
ProPublica replied the following day that it’s common practice for journalists to reach out to people we are writing about. “In fact, it’s our professional obligation,” O’Matz wrote.
Biedermann responded: “Reaching out to individuals about a work matter at their private address is not journalism — it is borderline intimidation. In today’s political climate it is particularly unacceptable. We received your inquiries (via email, phone calls, text messages, both on work and personal email address) and made a conscious decision not to respond, as we have every right to do.”
“You are not entitled to a response from us, or anyone, ever,” Biedermann wrote.
To be clear, at no time prior to this email did the department tell O’Matz that it had received her inquiries and would not comment. The article ran on Oct. 8, about two months after we first contacted the department. (I would highly encourage you to read it.)
The world has come a long way since the days of “All the President’s Men” and “Spotlight,” movies that favorably portrayed journalists knocking on doors and trying to reach sources to tell important stories — in those cases, about the Watergate break-in that led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation and the abuse scandal that enveloped the Roman Catholic Church in Boston and beyond.
I know these reads are long and perhaps a bit tedious and difficult to read. However tough it may be, it is essential that we pay attention to every single civil right, law, and constitutional value of this country that is under attack. I hope that next year will bring better responses as we strive to hold these officials accountable. We owe it to ourselves, our future citizens, and to every one of those who worked hard to make this country “a more perfect union.” We cannot go down this way.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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I’m having some serious eye problems that I’m being treated for. I can’t see that well on the computer, but I’m going to do my best to post a few stories along with some lovely watercolor cat art.
#5. TODD BLANCHE. Most of the worst abuses in multiple areas by DOJ are orchestrated by Blanche. While Bondi and Patel have gotten most of the public blame and scrutiny, Blanche is the architect of it all. Blanche was Trump’s criminal defense lawyer before he became president, and has acted as his criminal defense lawyer while running DOJ. He met privately with Ghislaine Maxwell in prison, then had her moved to a minimum security Club Fed. He has repeated lies about the contents of the Epstein files and is the point person for covering them up with delays and redactions. He ended investigations and dropped charges against some of America’s worst criminals for political reasons. While Bondi and Patel are bad, Blanche is even worse.
#4. RUSS VOUGHT. The man who orchestrated the comprehensive right-wing policy blueprint for this admin called ‘Project 2025’, this zealot keeps a lower profile than others – preferring tangible results with ruthless efficiency behind the scenes as OMB Director. Vought is the brains behind Stephen Miller’s evil bombast, organizing the policy agenda that controls the administration. During the 4 years Trump was out of office, Vought organized and drafted 350 different executive orders and regulations to implement if Trump got a second term – most of the ones he issued came from Vought – including the plan to invoke emergency powers and national security to justify bypassing Congress in a variety of areas. In fact, most of the agenda Vought devised was specifically intended to find ways an authoritarian-minded president could implements things while ignoring Congress, or reversing legislative acts by executive order.
#3. PETE HEGSETH. Chaos ensuedalmost immediately after the drunken fool former Fox host took over an office that he was unfit and unqualified for. He divulged war plans and classified info in a Signal chat which included a reporter, but then tried to cover himself by claiming he declassified it. He fired his own senior advisors because of his paranoia over press leaks, then ousted the Pentagon press corps with onerous rules that abused their first amendment rights. He gleefully released videos of nearly 100 people on boats he has murdered, without providing any evidence of their guilt or due process. He alienated allies with an insane speech in Europe that resulted in the admin sidelining him from giving any more. He ousted seasoned career officers and made it clear he has no use for women serving in the military in any role other than support positions, or for rules of engagement designed to minimize collateral damage and civilian casualties. He summoned hundred of Generals and Admirals from their commands around the world to DC so he could give them a deranged speech they found utterly ridiculous and juvenile. He constantly gives partisan political speeches to active-duty troops in violation of laws and regulations, which he mixes with a healthy dose of christian nationalism. It is hard to imagine how Trump could have found a worse person for one of the most important jobs on the planet.
Cat’s Promenade Yuliya Podlinnova
#2. HOWARD LUTNICK. The architect of so many corrupt, shady and misguided policies of the Trump admin while serving as Commerce Secretary – including tariffs and selling citizenship in the form of ‘Trump Gold Cards’. Lutnick is a shameless habitual liar and flip-flam huckster, constantly hyping his policies with fantastical claims while moving the goalposts weekly on his predictions. In a different century he’d be selling miracle cures out of tent at a carnival. In this century, he’s a billionaire. Lutnick is the prime mover behind the admin’s embrace of data centers, AI, and Stalinist moves like the government ownership of companies. Even Trump has grumbled behind the scenes to aides that Lutnick is a “manipulator”, but despite that he continues to adopt each of his worst ideas. Trump constantly had to reverse himself on catastrophic tariff announcements after disastrous consequences ensued – which resulted in the moniker ‘TACO’ for caving so much. All of those disastrous announcements came directly from Lutnick, with Bessent, Musk and others seeking reversal from Trump.
Note – I fully realize Bessent should probably be in this Top 25 somewhere, but I left him off simply because there is a lot of reporting that he has reversed some of the worst ideas behind the scenes despite his repugnant public persona. Go ahead and yell at me if you want – I personally can’t stand the guy either. But I have read comments from a lot of people I respect who say that without Bessent pushing back on some things behind the scenes we would be far worse off economically than we already are because everyone else is much worse. I guess I will buy that he might be the voice of reason behind the scenes, but time will tell.
#1. STEPHEN MILLER. This was the easiest selection, and there was probably never any doubt from most of you that he would be first. He is the WH policy director who is really running the US govt while Trump plays golf, receives awards, puts gold of everything, trolls social media, and builds his ballroom. Most of the policies aren’t Miller’s original ideas because he really isn’t that smart, but he knows how to implement them with a ruthlessness not seen since 1930s Germany. He has made the 2nd most TV appearances this year after Homan, much to the chagrin of Republicans running for election in swing districts. We know all the things that make Miller the worst person to ever serve in a senior position in US history, so there is no point in cataloguing them or this column would go on forever. The hate, the racism and bigotry, the phobias – he’s the personification of political evil. Trump is the only person who would even consider putting this twisted misfit in a position of authority. But he has, and as dementia takes hold and the old man plays with this trophies, ballrooms and golden baubles, Stephen Miller is running the country. Trump is President In Name Only.
God help us.
Check out the rest at the Meidas+ Substack.
Filipkowski’s next project: “Tomorrow, I will begin my list of the ‘500 Worst Things Trump Did in 2025’, with my first 100 in chronological order beginning with things he did in January 2025 and continuing to present.”
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital with missiles and drones early Saturday morning, killing one person and wounding 27, a day before talks between Ukraine and the U.S., authorities said.
Porter and Sully, by Dora Hathazi Mendes
Explosions boomed across Kyiv for hours as ballistic missiles and drones hit the city. The attack began in the early morning hours Saturday and was continuing as day broke.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepared to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday for further talks on ending the nearly 4-year-old war. Zelenskyy told reporters he was on a plane en route to Florida on Saturday afternoon, and would stop in Canada on the way to meet Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Zelenskyy said he and Trump plan to discuss issues including security guarantees and territorial issues in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions….
Poland scrambled fighter jets and closed airports in Lublin and Rzeszow near the border with Ukraine for several hours during the Russian attacks, the country’s armed forces command said on X. There was no violation of Polish airspace, it said. Civil aviation authority Pansa said the two airports had since resumed operations. It was unclear what caused the alert in Poland when the Russian attacks were focused on Kyiv, which is far from the border.
As President Trump prepares for an expected meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Sunday, he is facing some pressure from within his party to take a tough approach to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
Three Republican senators joined five of their Democratic colleagues in issuing a statement on Thursday that described Mr. Putin as a “ruthless murderer who has no interest in peace” and who “cannot be trusted.” It decried Russian attacks on Ukraine that continued over the Christmas holiday.
The statement was signed by the Republican senators John Barrasso of Wyoming, Jerry Moran of Kansas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. It did not criticize Mr. Trump’s handling of the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, and it was not joined by the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Jim Risch, Republican of Idaho and a close Trump ally, nor by most of the G.O.P. members on that committee. (Mr. Risch’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.) Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the committee, led the statement.
Still, the statement took a harsher tone toward Mr. Putin than Mr. Trump has often used. Although Mr. Trump has at times berated Mr. Putin on social media, urging him to stop his military assault on Ukraine, he has also boasted about their positive relationship, saying he gets along well with the Russian leader. He has repeatedly threatened severe sanctions on the Russians to urge them to make peace, but he has followed through only occasionally.
“It bears repeating that President Zelensky agreed to a Christmas truce, but Putin declined, yet he directs soldiers to continue to commit brutal crimes of aggression on one of Christianity’s holiest days,” said the statement, which was also signed by Senator Angus King, a Maine independent, and by Senators Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Chris Coons of Delaware, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, all Democrats.
Abuja, Nigeria — A day after part of a missile fired by the United States hit their village, landing just meters from its only medical facility, the people of Jabo in northwestern Nigeria are in a state of shock and confusion.
Suleiman Kagara, a resident of this quiet and predominantly Muslim farming community in Tambuwal district of Sokoto state, told CNN he heard a loud blast and saw flames as a projectile flew overhead at around 10 p.m. on Thursday.
Soon after, it came crashing down, exploding on impact with the ground and sending the villagers fleeing in fear.
“We couldn’t sleep last night,” Kagara said. “We’ve never seen anything like this before.”
White Liza, by Roman Franta
Kagara did not realize it at the time, but what he was witnessing was part of a US strike that President Donald Trump would later refer to as a “Christmas present” for terrorists.
Not long after the impact in Jabo, Trump declared on Thursday that the US had carried out a “powerful and deadly strike” against ISIS militants in the region, who he accused of “targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even centuries!”
According to US Africa Command, the operation neutralized multiple ISIS militants.
But Trump’s explanation has left Kagara and his fellow villagers scratching their heads.
While parts of Sokoto face challenges with banditry, kidnappings and attacks by armed groups including Lakurawa – which Nigeria classifies as a terrorist organization due to suspected affiliations with Islamic State – villagers say Jabo is not known for terrorist activity and that local Christians coexist peacefully with the Muslim majority.
But Trump is supposedly the “peace president.”
Trump’s plan to build giant battleships is being panned by folks who actually know what they are talking about.
President Donald Trump announced Monday the Navy will build a new class of battleships called the Trump class, with the first ship to be named USS Defiant (BBG-1).
The ship will displace more than 35,000 tons and be capable of speeds exceeding 30 knots, according to the Navy. The battleship will carry nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles, hypersonic weapons, electromagnetic railguns and directed energy weapons. Navy Secretary John Phelan said Trump plans to begin with two ships and eventually build 20 to 25 battleships.
The announcement marks the first battleship construction plan since 1944, when the USS Missouri was delivered to the Navy. The Missouri was the last active battleship in U.S. service before it was decommissioned in 1992.
Trump claimed the new battleships will be “the fastest, the biggest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built.” The claim is factually incorrect. In fact, the American Iowa-class battleships of World War II were larger by 15,000 to 20,000 tons.
Japan’s battleship Yamato, launched in 1940, displaced 72,000 tons and remains the largest warship ever constructed and put to sea. Trump’s proposed battleship is less than half Yamato’s size. American carrier aircraft sank Yamato in 1945, proving bigger is not better.
Historically speaking, battleships have been obsolete since at least 1921, when a simple bombing demonstration off Virginia’s coast proved the large warships are vulnerable to air attack. That vulnerability has been validated repeatedly through World War II and ever since as aircraft, submarines and cruise missiles systematically demonstrated that bigger and more expensive warships are easier to sink.
Once symbols of naval might with their massive guns, battleships have long since been eclipsed by aircraft carriers and modern destroyers armed with long-range missiles.
While labeling the new surface combatants as “battleships” could be a misnomer, defense experts say that there remain several gaps between Trump’s vision and modern naval warfare.
Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, dismissed the idea, writing in a Dec. 23 commentary that “there is little need for said discussion because this ship will never sail.”
Cats and Fruit by Mary Fedden, 1990
He contended the program would take too long to design, cost far too much and run counter to the Navy’s current strategy of distributed firepower.
“A future administration will cancel the program before the first ship hits the water,” Cancian said.
Bernard Loo, senior fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, described the proposal as “a prestige project more than anything else.”
He compared it to Japan’s World War II super-battleships Yamato and Musashi — the largest ever built — which were sunk by carrier-borne aircraft before playing a significant role in combat….
He added that the size of the proposed battleship — displacing more than 35,000 tons and measuring more than 840 feet, or a little over two football fields long — would make it a “bomb magnet.”
“The size and the prestige value of it all make it an even more tempting target, potentially for your adversary,” Loo said.
The “president” is a moron. But we already knew that.
Trump apparently thinks his economy will win the 2026 midterms for Republicans.
President Donald Trump says he believes the 2026 midterm elections will center on “pricing” as Republicans head into a critical period with control of Congress on the line.
And he told POLITICO Friday night that he is confident Americans will be receptive to his economic message: that his administration is cleaning up the mess he inherited from former President Joe Biden.
“I think it’s going to be about the success of our country. It’ll be about pricing,” Trump said in an exclusive interview. “Because, you know, they gave us high pricing, and we’re bringing it down. Energy’s way down. Gasoline is way down.”
Trump’s comments follow a string of favorable economic reports over the last two weeks showing inflation is cooling and the economy is hotter than expected. The White House is keen to tout the latest data as it confronts cost-of-living concerns that have underpinned a string of Democratic overperformances across the country.
Still, polls show Americans are struggling. Nearly half of respondents said they find groceries, utility bills, health care, housing and transportation difficult to afford, according to The POLITICO Poll conducted last month by Public First.
Trump’s acknowledgment that 2026 will focus on “pricing” underscores the administration’s concern that the Democrats have, for the moment, a popular message. After insisting that affordability was a Democratic “con job”, Trump over the last few weeks has repeatedly sought to reframe the issue, arguing that it was the Democrats under Biden who caused prices to increase and that he is bringing them down.
Corporate bankruptcies surged in 2025, rivaling levels not seen since the immediate aftermath of the Great Recession, as import-dependent businesses absorbed the highest tariffs in decades.
At least 717 companies filed for bankruptcy through November, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. That’s roughly 14 percent more than the same 11 months of 2024, and the highest tally since 2010.
Companies cited inflation and interest rates among the factors contributing to their financial challenges, as well as Trump administration trade policies that have disrupted supply chains and pushed up costs.
But in a shift from previous years, the rise in filings is most apparent among industrials — companies tied to manufacturing, construction and transportation. The sector has been hit hard by President Donald Trump’s ever-fluid tariff policies — which he’s long insisted would revive American manufacturing. The manufacturing sector lost more than 70,000 jobs in the one-year period ending in November, federal data shows.
By Hiroki Takeda
Consumer-oriented businesses with “discretionary” products or services, such as fashion or home furnishings, represented the second-largest group. This contingent usually tops the list and includes many retailers, and its retrenchment is a signal that inflation-weary consumers are prioritizing essentials….
Economists and business experts say the trade wars have pressured import-heavy businesses, which are reluctant to raise prices by too much for fear of alienating consumers. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Though inflation is currently lower than many economists expected — prices climbed at an annual pace of 2.7 percent in November — many businesses still are eating new costs themselves to hold the line on prices for buyers, experts say. That’s leading to a certain culling of the herd as already-fragile companies struggle to keep up.
“These companies are acutely aware of the affordability crisis confronting the average American,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at Yale University’s school of management. “They are doing their best to offset the cost of tariffs and higher interest rates but can only do so much. Those with pricing power will pass on the costs over time … others will fold.”
Not content with completing his takeover of the Kennedy Center by slapping his own name on the building, President Donald Trump has revealed the next phase of his current redesign obsession.
The 79-year-old president hinted on Truth Social that the ’60s modernist building in Washington, D.C., would be getting the Mar-a-Lago special with a gold and marble interior refit, starting, of course, with the theater’s armrests.
“Potential Marble armrests for the seating at The Trump Kennedy Center. Unlike anything ever done or seen before!” Trump announced on Friday evening.
Accompanying images show the hard-stone armrest examples that Trump apparently wants to install in the chairs of the center’s three main theaters.
It’s just the latest round in the president’s ongoing commandeering of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a “living memorial” to the 35th president, who was assassinated in 1963.
See photos of the ugly proposed armrests at the link.
That’s it for me today. I hope you found something worthwhile to read here.
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
Trump took over the Kennedy Center in February, purging its board of members he had not appointed. The months that followed saw struggling ticket sales and programming changes that began to align the arts complex with the Trump administration’s broader cultural aims, culminating with the annual Kennedy Center Honors hosted by the president.
The situation between Israel and Gaza certainly shows the lack of any serious negotiations or peace plans in that region. This is from 
And then, there’s the Venezuelan thing. This is from 
The domestic situation of our country is not much better. Most of it is due to the deranged and unfit Trump appointments across the federal government. Nancy Gertner, writing for 
We’ve definitely seen some terrible things that go against our Constitution and the rule of law. It’s even more sad to see a rogue Supreme Court team up with the Rotter in the White House to initiate authoritarian measures. This final suggested read comes from 
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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