“The European Commission is fining the X platform 120 million euros (140 million dollars), for ‘transparency failures’: not sharing advertising and user data with the EU and not making it easy to censor account holders. As Reclaim the Net reports, the European Union wants platforms to open themselves to what it calls ‘independent research.’ In practice, this means that ‘academics and NGOs, often with pro-censorship political affiliations’ get special access to the data, ‘exactly the kind of surveillance the [Digital Services Act] claims to prevent.… The EU is angry that X is not policing speech the way it wants.’ My advice to Elon Musk is to shut down X (formerly Twitter) throughout the EU. And refuse to pay the fine.” (12/08/25)
“A major theme of American politics over the past few decades is Democrats repeatedly bailing Republicans out from the political consequences of their own actions, particularly with health care. During the Obama years, House Republicans voted dozens of times to repeal Obamacare, which Democrats blocked every time. During Trump’s first term, the GOP came within one vote of actually repealing it. Now, with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), Republicans have finally gotten what they wanted: namely, taking a trillion-dollar bite out of Medicaid, and allowing Biden-era Obamacare subsidies to lapse, meaning premiums on the exchanges are going to more than double. Except, whoops, it turns out that people don’t like this at all, and even the more dim-witted congressional Republicans are starting to fear this might blow up in their faces.” (12/08/25)
Source: The American Conservative
by Harrison Berger
“Russia hawks in Congress and their allies in corporate media have been on the warpath against the Trump administration’s 28-point peace plan for ending the Ukraine war, dubbing the plan a ‘Russian wish-list.’ The MSNBC host Rachel Maddow went so far as to hold it up as proof that ‘the Kremlin runs U.S. foreign policy.’ … Yet there are also criticisms of the plan from the other end of the ideological spectrum. Among the most prominent voices who argued from the start that the United States should never have been drawn into the Ukraine conflict are the War Room host and former White House advisor Steve Bannon and the University of Chicago’s Professor John Mearsheimer. They now warn that far from being a ‘Russian wish list,’ the Trump administration’s plan may not actually address the underlying political problems that ultimately caused the Ukraine proxy war.” (12/08/25)
“In early November of last year, the Assad regime had a lot to look forward to. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had just joined fellow Middle Eastern leaders at a pan-Islamic summit in Saudi Arabia, marking a major step in his return to the international fold. … Less than a month later, Assad fled the country in a Russian plane as Turkish-backed opposition forces began their final approach to Damascus. Most observers were taken aback by this development. But long-time Middle East analyst Neil Partrick was less surprised. As Partrick details in his new book, ‘State Failure in the Middle East,’ the seemingly resurgent Assad regime had by that point been reduced to a hollowed-out state apparatus, propped up by foreign backers. When those backers pulled out, Assad was left with little choice but to flee.” (12/08/25)
“Way back in the 1700s there was this fucked up little place called Florida, or at least that’s what the Spaniards called it. The original natives of the region had multiple different names for this untamable swampland but most of them were wiped out by slaughter and disease from the Conquistadors who declared the wild mess, Florida. They didn’t last long though. In fact, those butchers only managed to build and populate a few colonialist missions before their glorious Catholic empire collapsed in the tall grass surrounding them and, in spite of such efforts, most of Florida remained a verdant wilderness teeming with all kinds of shit that freaked white people the fuck out- snakes, alligators, mosquitos, humidity … But there was one tribe of Indians just wild enough to call this no-man’s-land home.” (12/07/25)
“For years, Democrats assured us that expanding government programs was an act of moral heroism — that the only thing standing between America and utopia was more taxpayer money flowing through more ‘community-based’ nonprofits embracing ‘equity-centered’ missions. Then Minnesota happened, exposing a truth the radical left will never admit: The system isn’t broken. This is exactly how it’s designed to work. Over 70 people connected to the Minnesota nonprofit Feeding Our Future face federal charges in the country’s largest COVID pandemic fraud scandal. It was primarily Somali American defendants who allegedly stole funds meant for low-income children by submitting falsified invoices, fake meal counts and fabricated rosters. The organizations billed the government for tens of millions of unserved meals, using the stolen money for luxury cars, beachfront property and homes. It’s jaw-dropping — but it’s not surprising. And it happened because Democrats built a system practically engineered for abuse by the nonprofit industrial complex.” (12/08/25)
“Man, I don’t know. Lately it’s hard to know where even to start or where to begin. Do I have to list all the news stories? Either you’re aware or you aren’t. Many aren’t. I don’t know what to do with that fact, but it seems like a choice, though an understandable one. Awareness carries a high cost these days. It’s exhausting. It’s meant to be exhausting, I think. This is how supremacy works. The costs of reparation are very high, and the cost of awareness comes first of all.” (12/07/25)
“Donald Trump recaptured the White House in part by relentlessly exploiting Joe Biden’s failure to heed widespread concerns about the rising cost of living. Now, bizarrely, President Trump is walking himself — and his party — into the same perilous trap by denying the economic reality that working families are living.” (12/07/25)
“Angelique Estes knew her stay would be rough as soon as she arrived at her new home in Arlington, Texas, in early December 2023. At 53 years old, Estes had learned to read her environment quickly. She’s lived with cerebral palsy all her life, and her health quickly deteriorated after her husband of nearly 30 years died two years prior …. [she] turned to group homes as a low-cost alternative to the nursing home she couldn’t afford. By the time she arrived at 1210 Woodbrook Street, a squat, three-bedroom brick house in a quiet suburban neighborhood, she had already cycled through five such boarding homes, none of which had been good. As she took in the tight hallways — so narrow that her ambulance gurney couldn’t fit through — she sensed this time was no better.” (12/08/25)
