Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Nick Cleveland-Stout

“On November 15, as Russian forces were advancing on the outskirts of the town of Myrnohrad in eastern Ukraine, retail investors placed risky bets in real time on the battle using Polymarket …. If Russia took the city by nightfall — an event that seemed exceedingly unlikely to most observers — a handful of retail investors stood to earn a profit of as much as 33,000% on the battle from the comfort of their homes. When nightfall came, these longshot gamblers miraculously won big, though not because Russia took the town (as of writing, Ukraine is still fighting for Myrnohrad). Instead, it was because of an apparent intervention by a staffer at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a D.C.-based think tank that produces daily interactive maps of the conflict in Ukraine that Polymarket often relies on to determine the outcome of bets placed on the war.” (12/11/25)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/isw-polymarket-ukraine-war-map/

Source: CounterPunch
by Dean Baker

“Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan, recently said that he was refusing to make a contribution to Trump’s ballroom monstrosity because he was concerned how a post-Trump Justice Department might view it. This comment should be taken very seriously. JP Morgan is by far the largest bank in the country, which Dimon has run for two decades. Also, Mr. Dimon is an astute businessman who clearly puts business above politics. Early in 2024 he gave Trump a pseudo-endorsement when he famously said that he thought the economy would do fine regardless of whether Trump or Biden won. That he is now thinking of a world with a normal Justice Department is huge. It’s not just Dimon who is thinking about a world beyond Trump. A near record number of Republican members of Congress have announced their retirement.” (12/11/25)

https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/12/11/glimmers-of-a-post-trump-world/

Source: Law & Liberty
by John O McGinnis

“On December 21, 1989, Romania’s communist dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu, strode onto the balcony of the presidential palace to address an enormous crowd. Many in the square below had been bused in to show their support, and surrounding buildings had been draped with propaganda posters hailing his brilliant leadership. As soon as he began to speak, however, some of the crowd started to boo and hiss, and the murmurs of dissent swelled into a crescendo that drowned him out. His advisers urged him inside, and the regime cut off the national broadcast. It was too late. In that instant, the entire nation saw that multitudes of their compatriots hated him, just as they did themselves, though until then only in private. Within days, Romanians were in open revolt, and Ceaușescu was executed on Christmas Day. The demonstration created public knowledge of what had previously been widely held private knowledge.” (12/11/25)

https://lawliberty.org/book-review/common-belief-versus-common-knowledge/

Source: Fox News
by David Marcus

“One would think that running a profitable legal marijuana industry would be just about the easiest thing in the world, but don’t tell that to the Democrat leadership of Minnesota, which allowed wokeness and apparent corruption to grind their legalization rollout into dust. Wherever one lands on the benefits or increasingly evident harms of marijuana legalization, once a state decides to do it, it has a responsibility to do it in a way that most benefits all the citizens. Of course, Gov. Tim Walz and the Minnesota Democrats made it all about social equity.” (12/11/25)

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/david-marcus-minnesotas-botched-legal-weed-rollout-reeks-dei-corruption-tim-walz

Source: Wired
by Alexandra Talty

“With support from Microsoft, Stripe, and Shopify, Running Tide billed itself as on the cutting edge of carbon removal. In the end, it resorted to dumping thousands of tons of wood chips in the sea.” (12/11/25)

https://archive.is/hjSEC