Source: Associated Press
“Mexico’s Congress approved Wednesday most of the tariff increases proposed by the government on more than 1,400 products imported from China and other countries that do not have free trade agreements with Mexico. … The governing Morena party of President Claudia Sheinbaum, who said the tariffs were necessary to spur domestic production, controls both chambers. … Analysts say the real motivation is ongoing negotiations with Washington, Mexico’s most important trading partner. Sheinbaum has been trying to find relief from remaining tariffs imposed on Mexican imports by the Trump administration, which has accused China of using Mexico as a backdoor into the U.S. market.” (12/10/25)
https://apnews.com/article/mexico-china-tariffs-fa89b687e6fc61996b67083b3f789243
Source: National Public Radio [US state media]
“Supreme Court considers vastly expanding the president’s powers.” (12/10/25)
https://www.npr.org/2025/12/10/nx-s1-5639791/supreme-court-considers-vastly-expanding-the-presidents-powers
Source: Niskanen Center
“How media incentives stoked the culture war.” (12/10/25)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/how-media-incentives-stoked-the-culture-war
Source: The UnPopulist
by Eric K Ward
“Every era has its witch. Every empire, its scapegoat. The person painted green so the rest of us can pretend we’re clean. That’s the real story of Wicked, the celebrated Broadway musical adapted into two feature films in 2024 and 2025 that are part origin narrative and part reinterpretation of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 children’s novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. … We are living through our own Emerald City moment. Propaganda repeats on loop; scapegoats fill the headlines; teachers are called indoctrinators; artists are called subversives; journalists are labeled enemies; officeholders from the opposition party are deemed America-haters. Entire communities are remixed into villains so authoritarians can stay in charge. Same playbook, new costumes.” (12/10/25)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/wicked-shows-us-the-moral-strategies
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“Forty-four million views later, the University of Oklahoma has advised student Samantha Fulnecky that the zero her paper received won’t be factored into her final course grade. While it’s good that the school won’t hold that zero against her, she deserves a grade — an honest, objective grade — for her work. Fulnecky did submit a paper, contrary to what is implied by the zero. She did indeed turn in an essay on the topic of ‘gender, peer relations and mental health’ that her class was assigned. Perhaps the word ‘gender’ has given you the clue. You guessed it: she took the wrong view.” (12/10/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/12/10/zero-not-zero/
Source: Orange County Register
“NASA has lost contact with a spacecraft that has orbited Mars for more than a decade. Maven abruptly stopped communicating to ground stations over the weekend. NASA said this week that it was working fine before it went behind the red planet. When it reappeared, there was only silence. Launched in 2013, Maven began studying the upper Martian atmosphere and its interaction with the solar wind once reaching the red planet the following year. Scientists ended up blaming the sun for Mars losing most of its atmosphere to space over the eons, turning it from wet and warm to the dry and cold world it is today.
Maven also has served as a communication relay for NASA’s two Mars rovers, Curiosity and Perseverance.” (12/10/25)
https://archive.is/Be1vd
Source: The Bulwark
“The Clock Is Ticking — DOJ Can’t Keep Hiding Epstein Records.” (12/10/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km_smCvpqIo
Source: The Scott Horton Show
“William Van Wagenen on Life in Post-Assad Syria.” (12/10/25)
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/12-5-25-william-van-wagenen-on-life-in-post-assad-syria/
Source: Independent Institute
by Allen Gindler
“President Trump recently posted a declaration that confused me a bit. He wrote that he has approved ‘TINY CARS to be built in America,’ proclaiming that they will be inexpensive, safe, fuel-efficient, and amazing. He thanked the Department of Justice and the Departments of Transportation and Environment and demanded that manufacturers start building them now. It sounded like the leader of a centrally planned economy who personally decides which products are permitted. The tone was almost [sic] authoritarian, as if the market had been waiting for permission from the state to innovate. There is a saying: perception is reality. Trump wants us to believe that he is in charge of everything in the country and the world, from diverting hurricanes to stopping wars, regulating trade, and producing automobiles.” (12/10/25)
https://www.independent.org/article/2025/12/10/approved-tiny-cars/
Source: Show-Me Institute
by David Stokes
“There is a long list of really dumb taxes in Missouri. The St. Louis and Kansas City earnings taxes are actively harmful to growth and opportunity. The personal property taxes on livestock are absurd. The pool table tax has long been an anachronism. But I have always thought that the single worst tax is Missouri is the local economic development sales tax. Why is it the worst? Because while the other taxes are harmful, they at least fund, in part, necessary functions of government. The economic development sales tax is a tax that entirely funds actions that cities should not be engaged in. It’s a tax that collects more money from people to make our communities worse off.” (12/10/25)
https://showmeinstitute.org/blog/special-taxing-districts/webster-groves-should-not-institute-an-economic-development-sales-tax/
