Source: CounterPunch
by Jeffrey St. Clair
“He’s easily triggered. He speaks on impulse. But where are the triggers? What are the impulses? Do the warps and perversions of Trump’s crude patois erupt from his subconscious? Or has Trump’s subconscious completely floated to the surface now and we are hearing directly from the fractured idiom of his Id? … Trump isn’t speaking in code so much as he is connecting at an instinctual level to a network of cultural affinities, prejudices and insecurities that exist beyond grammar and etymology and without which Trump and his followers would be lost. … Here then is a sampler of some of Trump’s most perplexing pronouncements over the last year. Good luck mining the meaning from the madness.” (12/25/25)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/12/25/goodbye-to-language-the-year-in-trumpspeak/
Source: CBS News
“The Justice Department said Wednesday that ‘over a million more documents’ potentially related to the Jeffrey Epstein case have been found by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and FBI, and it is reviewing them for release. DOJ released thousands of new documents from the Epstein files on Tuesday, including many that mention President Trump. … One notable file includes a 2020 email from a prosecutor in New York saying that flight logs revealed that Mr. Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet ‘many more times’ than was previously known. Emails from July 2019 showed investigators discussing ’10 co-conspirators’ before Epstein’s arrest. Another email from 2020 showed that prosecutors had drafted a memo about ‘co-conspirators we could potentially charge.'” (12/24/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/epstein-files-released-documents-2025/
Source: Pink Flame of Liberty
“Doug Wilson’s Christian Nationalist LIE.” (12/24/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DTuzptbDw8
Source: The Daily Economy
by Laura Williams
“We conserve capital, tend embers, make plans, and orient ourselves toward the future. Prosperity demands we tend the embers, rather than curse the cold.” (12/25/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/evergreens-and-embers-what-the-solstice-teaches-us-about-economic-renewal/
Source: The Atlantic
by Jonathan Chait
“The year is 2029. President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, having spent years raging against Fox News as a propaganda organ whose very operation is illegal, has found a pressure point to control it. She enables its sale to owners who are friends of hers, and whose business depends on regulatory favors she has made a practice of doling out to allies. As the new editor in chief of Fox News, the owners install Tim Miller, a skeptic of conservatism who has never previously worked in television news. But then AOC complains that her friends at Fox News aren’t moving fast enough, and the network is still running critical coverage of her. Days later, Miller kills a long-scheduled report showing how AOC may have flouted the Constitution in order to have people tortured. It is safe to say, I think, that conservatives would be upset. … And they would be right.” (12/24/25)
https://archive.is/hsT4b
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal
“Merry Christmas! This is the traditional ‘Peace on earth; Good will to men’ season. It’s hard to keep this spirit alive even in the best situations. It’s nearly impossible with government around. Government doesn’t thrive on peace, but on conflict. War is the health of the state, after all. Where there isn’t conflict, government creates it. Where there is already conflict, government fans the flames and uses it against you and your liberty. This is true both overseas and within America’s increasingly militarized borders. You can’t show good will to others while governing them.” (12/24/25)
https://www.easternnewmexiconews.com/story/2025/12/24/voices/opinion-peace-on-earth-government-says-no/232406.html
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“At least five people have been killed in a bomb explosion in a packed mosque in Nigeria’s north-eastern Borno state, a police spokesman has said. Nahum Daso told local media another 35 people were injured in the blast in the Gamboru market of Maiduguri, the state capital, during evening prayers. Unverified footage on social media appears to show the aftermath of the explosion, with people stood in a market area with dust particles in the air. No group has admitted carrying out the attack, but militants have previously targeted mosques and crowded places in the area with suicide attacks and improvised explosive devices (IED).” (12/24/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0je3v3en01o
Source: Washington Post
“Charlie Kirk was killed on her campus. This is what happened next.” (12/24/25)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/impromptu/charlie-kirk-was-killed-on-her-campus-this-is-what-happened-next/
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Galen Carpenter
“It is increasingly apparent that the new political leaders in both Taiwan and Japan are adopting more assertive, even explicitly confrontational, policies toward the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Their moves are stoking geostrategic tensions throughout the western Pacific. Washington has long regarded Taipei and Tokyo as important U.S. strategic partners. However, the Trump administration also wants to discourage any new military crises in the region. Achieving such a balance may prove to be challenging.” (12/24/25)
https://original.antiwar.com/ted_galen_carpenter/2025/12/23/the-increasingly-assertive-japan-taiwan-axis
Source: The Hill
by Sheldon H Jacobson
“Recall the firing of the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics by the president this summer when a labor report did not shine a favorable light on the job market. Then the Environmental Protection Agency stopped collecting data in the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. Now, even economic reports are being cancelled. … Anytime data and statistics are ignored or compromised, the underpinnings of a well-functioning society are at risk of manipulation. Statistics permit the condition of a society to be measured, providing transparency and the ability to draw conclusions. If an activity is not measured, then it is difficult to assess its strengths and limitations. Without statistics, unlawful activities can be hidden and obfuscated. ” (12/24/25)
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/5661319-politicizing-data-threatens-democracy/
