“[A] bipartisan Senate coalition led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tim Sheehy (R-MT) managed to add the commonsense notion that the military should be allowed to repair the equipment it buys, building off a mandate instituted by the secretary of the Army. Needing someone to fly in every time a tank or aircraft carrier breaks wastes time and money, and serves as a second bite at the apple for lucrative military contractors. But because Congress is often just a pass-through for corporate America, the contractors’ lobbyists are blitzing Capitol Hill to secure their position as the military’s high-priced mechanics.” (11/20/25)
“The U.S. Justice Department will release files from its investigation into the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein within 30 days, Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Wednesday, after Congress voted nearly unanimously to force President Donald Trump’s administration to make them public. The material could shed more light on the activities of Epstein, who socialized with Trump and other notable figures before his 2008 conviction on charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution. The scandal has been a thorn in Trump’s side for months, partly because he amplified conspiracy theories about Epstein to his own supporters. Many Trump voters believe his administration has covered up Epstein’s ties to powerful figures and obscured details surrounding his death, which was ruled a suicide, in a Manhattan jail in 2019 as he faced federal sex trafficking charges.” (11/19/25)
“In a referendum on Sunday, voters in Ecuador – where some 70% of global cocaine flows – soundly rejected the idea of foreign bases in the country to help fight the drug trade. And in the last three months, as the United States military has built up forces near Venezuela and conducted lethal strikes against alleged drug-carrying boats – dubbed by the White House as ‘narco-terrorists’ – cries have grown louder that such attacks might violate international law. Meanwhile, amid this forceful approach, one country in the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic, has received a largely unnoticed accolade for an alternative tactic to dealing with crime – whether it is petty theft or international drug runners coming to its shores.” (11/18/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Former Obama speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz made some very revealing remarks during an appearance at the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly on Sunday, expressing frustration with the way younger Jews are dismissing pro-Israel arguments because of the carnage they’ve seen in Gaza. ‘We are now wrestling with a new I think generational divide here, and I think that’s particularly true in that social media is now our source of media,’ Hurwitz said. ‘It used to be that the news you got in America was American media, and it was pretty mainstream … You had to go to a pretty weird bookstore to find global media and fringe media. But today we have social media, which is the global medium; its algorithms are shaped by billions of people worldwide who don’t really love Jews” (11/19/25)
“The Democrats’ lurch to the extreme left is accelerating at warp speed — and Connecticut is the latest victim. The state legislature’s Democratic supermajority last week rammed through a bill, HB 8002, that’s a thinly disguised socialist wishlist. Cynically couched as a remedy for the affordable housing crisis, its real purpose is ideological: forcing Connecticut’s 169 towns to achieve what the bill calls ‘economic diversity’. Translation: If you’ve worked hard to own a home in a leafy suburb with quiet streets, you can’t live there unless everybody can — including the homeless and those with low incomes. The state, through regional councils, will dictate how many people at each income level a town must house. The councils are mere middlemen, a cosmetic addition to paper over a fundamental loss of local control.” (11/19/25)
“At this very second, Washington is pouring billions into escalations toward a potential invasion of Venezuela that would set Latin America on fire, escalate tensions with neighbors, and trap US troops in another undefined quagmire. It has already conducted about a dozen strikes on unproven ‘drug boats’ in the Caribbean, without congressional approval, a trial, or even demonstrated intelligence, killing innumerable Venezuelan and foreign civilians, while it has moved Naval strike groups and carriers near Venezuela’s shores. This is one of the disastrous and preventable results of American militarism, exceptionalism, and the military-industrial complex that fuels them. Such is the context in which The Trillion Dollar War Machine lands on bookshelves.” (11/19/25)
“Like an interstellar rolling stone. NASA scientists were baffled after uncovering a rock on Mars that didn’t belong there — with a composition pointing to potentially interstellar origins. ‘This rock was identified as a target of interest,’ the space agency wrote in a recent blog post detailing the potentially intergalactic gravelstone. … while finding a stone on Mars might not seem groundbreaking, this particular specimen stood out due to its ‘sculpted, high-standing appearance that differed from that of the low-lying, flat and fragmented surrounding rocks.’ Subsequent analysis by the Rover’s SuperCam revealed that the Martian pebble was high in iron and nickel — an element combo associated more with ‘iron-nickel’ meteorites rather than more run-of-the-mill rocks.” (11/19/25)
“Gerrymandering has been a staple of the Republic since its beginning. The practice has such a storied tradition that it is named after Elbridge Gerry, one of our founding fathers who served as vice president under President James Madison. For decades, leftists attempted to outlaw partisan gerrymandering. Justice Anthony Kennedy could not make up his mind on the issue, so it languished until he retired. Fortunately for the Constitution, President Trump replaced Justice Kennedy — the Court’s swing vote for over a dozen years — with solid constitutionalist Justice Brett Kavanaugh. In 2019, thanks to Kavanaugh’s addition, the Court upheld partisan gerrymandering in Rucho v. Common Cause. Legislatures cannot gerrymander based on race, but they can do so based on partisanship.” (11/19/25)
“The government lawyer knew what was coming as she stood inside a courtroom and texted an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent waiting in a corridor a few feet away. ‘I can’t do this,’ the lawyer said in a text message as she looked at her docket of cases. ‘This is a new emotional load.’ ‘I understand,’ the agent responded. ‘Hopefully we meet again in a better situation.’ Nearby, a Cuban man who had lived in the United States for years stepped from an elevator and into the courtroom where the government lawyer was waiting for what the man thought was a routine hearing. The man was doing what the law required, and brought along his wife, a legal resident, and their 7-month-old infant. Then the lawyer quickly moved to have the man’s asylum claim dismissed and a judge agreed, making the man eligible for ‘expedited removal.'” (11/19/25)
“One thing I’ve been tracking this year is the areas where Wall Street and Silicon Valley are going to war. Tech firms clearly want to become banking apps and receive special charters, private equity and crypto are jostling for position in worker 401(k) plans, and the tech right in general wants to supplant big banks as the go-to director of conservative business policy. That’s all still going on. But in one area, Silicon Valley and Wall Street are in sync: conjuring up sketchy credit deals that are pointing us toward another financial crash.” (11/19/25)
