WI: Judge convicted of helping immigrant avoid gang abduction

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan was found guilty of a felony count of obstructing federal agents seeking to make an immigration [abduction] outside her courtroom, a precedent-setting case that has been closely watched nationally and drawn passionate protests. A jury of seven men and five women deliberated more than six hours before delivering a split verdict. They found the judge not guilty on a lesser misdemeanor charge of concealing a wanted person. … The case has become a bellwether in the clash between the judiciary and the Trump administration as it executes a sweeping immigration crackdown nationwide.” (12/18/25)

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2025/12/18/milwaukee-county-judge-hannah-dugan-found-guilty-of-felony-obstruction/87675227007/

The US Is Stealing From Millennials and Gen Z To Make Boomers Even Richer

Source: Reason
by Veronique de Rugy

“For years, pointing out the obvious was considered impolite: America’s biggest, most distortionary transfer of wealth does not flow from elites to the working class. Nor does it show up as corporate welfare. It flows from the relatively young and poor to the relatively old and wealthy. It’s the defining injustice of our fiscal regime, the largest driver of our government debt, and the quiet engine behind the malaise of Millennials and Gen Z. More than a decade ago, Reason editor at large Nick Gillespie and I wrote a piece arguing that Social Security and Medicare had together become the great cause of America’s generational inequity. We noted that senior households were wealthier than ever while young households still working to make ends meet had to prop them up further.” (12/18/25)

https://reason.com/2025/12/18/the-u-s-is-stealing-from-millennials-and-gen-z-to-make-boomers-even-richer/

TikTok signs deal for sale of US unit to Trump cronies

Source: Axios

“TikTok has signed a deal to divest its U.S. entity to a joint venture controlled by American investors, per an internal memo seen by Axios. A deal would end a yearslong saga to force TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance to sell the company’s U.S. operation to domestic owners to alleviate [fake] national security concerns. … Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX will collectively own 45% of the U.S. entity, which will be called ‘TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC.’ Nearly one-third of the company will be held by affiliates of existing ByteDance investors, and nearly 20% will be retained by ByteDance.” [editor’s note: MGX used Trump’s “World Liberty Financial” stablecoin for a $2 billion deal; Oracle’s Larry Ellison is also a Trump crony – TLK] (12/18/25)

https://archive.is/g6QOE

The Grifters Behind the Nazis

Source: Law & Liberty
by Rachel Lu

“[George L.] Mosse had a particular genius for identifying second and third-rate thinkers that nevertheless had deep cultural impact, particularly in the half-century before Hitler’s rise. Figures like Paul de Lagarde and Julius Langbehn easily fade from the historian’s view because they were gauche and intellectually unserious; revisited today, their works are easily dismissed as trash. It’s far more interesting to debate real philosophical luminaries like Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, whose genuinely groundbreaking work did nevertheless have real connections to fascism. Those thinkers are extremely abstruse, however. Normal people don’t read or understand them. Mosse grasped the importance of looking at the ‘sub-intellectual realm,’ where cranks and grifters peddle conspiracy theories and paranoid just-so stories. These, he suggests, were the men who truly paved the way for Hitler’s rise.” (12/18/25)

https://lawliberty.org/the-grifters-behind-the-nazis/

India: Regime Overhauls Nuclear Law to Allow Private Investment

Source: Bloomberg

“India’s parliament passed a bill that will open up its nuclear industry to private firms and unlock investment opportunities worth $214 billion, after tight regulations stifled the sector for decades. The bill comes at a time of renewed global interest in nuclear as a steady source of clean energy, and as part of India’s plan to expand its atomic fleet to to support economic growth and help decarbonize its coal-dependent economy. The proposed law abolishes the decades-old state monopoly in atomic power generation and makes sweeping changes to the country’s liability provisions that had spooked investors.” (12/18/25)

https://archive.is/v6Kkf

Coffee, Nicotine, and the Politics of Acceptable Addiction

Source: Brownstone Institute
by Roger Bate

“Every morning, hundreds of millions of people perform a socially approved ritual. They line up for coffee. They joke about not being functional without caffeine. They openly acknowledge dependence and even celebrate it. No one calls this addiction degenerate. It is framed as productivity, taste, wellness—sometimes even virtue. Now imagine the same professional discreetly using a nicotine pouch before a meeting. The reaction is very different. This is treated as a vice, something vaguely shameful, associated with weakness, poor judgment, or public health risk. From a scientific perspective, this distinction makes little sense.” (12/18/25)

https://brownstone.org/articles/coffee-nicotine-and-the-politics-of-acceptable-addiction/

Romania: Court Sentences US Rapper Wiz Khalifa to 9 Months for Drug Possession

Source: US News & World Report

“American rapper Wiz Khalifa was sentenced by a court in Romania on Thursday to nine months in jail for drug possession, more than a year after he took part in a music festival in the Eastern European country. Khalifa was stopped by Romanian police in July 2024 after allegedly smoking cannabis on stage at the Beach, Please! Festival in Costinesti, a coastal resort in Constanta County. Prosecutors said the rapper, whose real name is Cameron Jibril Thomaz, was found in possession of more than 18 grams of cannabis, and that he consumed some on stage. … It isn’t clear whether Romanian authorities will seek to file an extradition request, since Khalifa is a U.S. citizen and doesn’t reside in Romania.” (12/18/25)

https://www.usnews.com/news/entertainment/articles/2025-12-18/romanian-court-sentences-us-rapper-wiz-khalifa-to-9-months-for-drug-possession

Some Victims Are More Equal Than Others

Source: Town Hall
by Derek Hunter

“Two students were murdered by an unknown monster at Brown University over the weekend and the odds are pretty high you don’t know their names. I don’t blame you; you don’t have to, and, unless you knew them, you have no real reason to. But I bet you know the names of some of those left-wing gun control students who’ve formed anti-Second Amendment groups and have gone on to become progressive cable news celebrities. Seems odd, doesn’t it? Until you realize that not all victims are created equally. It’s a deviant sect on the left that only cares about people’s well-being if those people agree with them; everyone else is disposable. Unless, that is, Democrats can use their deaths to advance their agenda, then they’ll pretend to care.” (12/18/25)

https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2025/12/18/some-victims-are-more-equal-than-others-n2668074