Source: The Hill
by Jonathan Turley

“There are few characters more repellent than the late Jeffrey Epstein. His life left a line of human wreckage and misery. Those associated with Epstein have also faced public backlash and recriminations throughout the years. Recently, however, the Epstein scandal took a new turn. Due to unprecedented access to once-sealed material, the public is now combing through emails, appointment books, and photos with a voracious interest in his private associations and contacts. Most of these people are not accused of any criminal conduct, mind you — just notorious association. The result has been the humiliation and condemnation of various individuals revealed in the files. The question is whether we should consider the implications of such transparency and how it can expose those who are not accused of any crime.” [editor’s note: “If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear” instantly disappears when it’s the powerful getting exposed – TLK] (12/13/25)

https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/5647158-epstein-files-guilt-association/

Source: The Daily Economy
by Daniel J Smith & Scott Beaulier

“When Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani recently rallied with striking Starbucks workers, they trumpeted a ‘New York where every worker can live a life of decency.’ Mr. Mamdani promised a $30 minimum wage in the name of dignity on the campaign trail. Their intentions might be noble; their logic isn’t. By artificially hiking entry-level wages through political mandates rather than skills, productivity or experience, they don’t lift up workers; they wall off the very on-ramp to mobility. We know this firsthand. Neither of our first real jobs was glamorous. They were at McDonald’s in Iron Mountain, Michigan (Scott) and Kmart in Midland, Michigan (Dan).” (12/12/25)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/we-learned-leadership-flipping-burgers-dont-close-americas-on-ramp/

Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson

“A ‘Pareto improvement’ (named for the 19th-century polymath Vilfredo Pareto) is a useful idea from economics: It is change that makes at least one party better off without making anyone worse off — because different people have different preferences and priorities, it is possible to reallocate goods in a way that is not zero-sum. … Being able to spot a Pareto opportunity is also a big part of how political negotiation works — at least it was back when negotiation and compromise were what politicians normally did with their time instead of being part-time pundits and full-time social-media trolls. Donald Trump likes to present himself as the great deal-maker …. but he is not very good at it …. he cannot calculate the trade-offs, because he lacks two pieces of information critical to any negotiation: He doesn’t understand what the other guy wants, and he doesn’t know what he wants.” (12/12/25)

https://thedispatch.com/article/pareto-improvement-punishment-trump-economics/

Source: OtherWords
by Farrah Hassen

“Gabriel Garcia-Aviles was a 56-year-old grandfather with a work permit who’d been living in the US for over 30 years. He was a beloved member of his Southern California community. This fall, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained Garcia-Aviles and sent him to the Adelanto immigration detention center. He died around a week later, with ICE only informing his family that he was in critical condition once he was on his deathbed. At the hospital, his daughter Mariel found him ‘unconscious, intubated,’ and with ‘dried blood on his forehead.’ He had ‘a cut on his tongue and blood on his lips’ and ‘broken teeth and bruising on his body,’ according to reporting from LA Taco. No clear cause of death was given, leaving his family shattered and still searching for answers. That’s the second death this year at Adelanto.” (12/13/25)

https://otherwords.org/ice-prisons-are-growing-deadlier/

Source: Reason
by C Jarrett Dieterle & Shawn Regan

“As traditional gathering places disappear, market-based funding could expand parks, courts, and other spaces that help people reconnect without raising taxes.” (12/13/25)

https://reason.com/2025/12/13/americans-need-more-and-better-third-places-user-fees-can-help/

Source: The Weekly Dish
by Anrew Sullivan

“My opponents feared it would destabilize marriage more generally. It didn’t. Marriage rates were 6.9 per 1,000 in 2015 and 6.1 today — a decline in line with the previous half-century. Not great, but there’s no sign that gay marriage had any serious impact. Divorce rates? They have actually improved since 2015: from 3.1 to 2.4 per 1,000 in 2023. … Married couples have higher household incomes, lower poverty rates, higher levels of employment, better health than unmarried ones, higher home-ownership rates — and report greater social acceptance. … queer activists, of course, loudly insisted that same-sex couples rejected the institution of marriage and would never join it. But the number of married gay men and lesbians more than doubled from 390,000 in 2015 to 823,000 now; and nearly 60 percent of same-sex cohabiting couples are now married, compared with 40 percent in domestic partnerships.” (12/12/25)

https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/ten-years-of-marriage-equality-471