December 24, 2025

Hillel Italie of the AP: “A planned Christmas Eve jazz concert at the Kennedy Center, a holiday tradition dating back more than 20 years, has been canceled. The show’s host, musician Chuck Redd, says that he called off the performance in the wake of the White House announcing last week that ... Donald Trump’s name would be added to the facility.... 'When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert,' Redd told The Associated Press in an email Wednesday. Redd, a drummer and vibraphone player who has toured with everyone from Dizzy Gillespie to Ray Brown, has been presiding over holiday 'Jazz Jams' at the Kennedy Center since 2006, succeeding bassist William 'Keter' Betts.” 

David Edwards of the Raw Story: "'The Kennedy Center Honors' reportedly drew its lowest ratings ever after ... Donald Trump announced he would host the event. 'According to preliminary Nielsen data, "The Kennedy Center Honors" on CBS drew its smallest audience ever on the night of December 23, 2025, averaging an estimated 2.65 million viewers,' Programming Insider reported on Wednesday. 'To put that in perspective: the 2024 broadcast averaged 4.1 million.'"

Devlin Barrett & Michael Gold of the New York Times: “The Justice Department said on Wednesday that it had discovered over a million more documents potentially related to the investigation of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — increasing the amount previously known and lengthening the time it will take to release the material. To date, the department has released about 130,000 pages of information, some of it redacted.... On Wednesday, the Justice Department said the F.B.I. and the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York, which oversaw the investigations into Mr. Epstein and his longtime confidante, Ghislaine Maxwell, had informed the department 'that they have uncovered over a million more documents potentially related to the Jeffrey Epstein case.'” The link appears to be a gift link.

Joey Cappelletti of the AP: “A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a March presidential memorandum to revoke the security clearance of prominent Washington attorney Mark Zaid, ruling that the order — which also targeted 14 other individuals — could not be applied to him.... The March presidential memorandum singled out Zaid and 14 other individuals who the White House asserted were unsuitable to retain their clearances because it was 'no longer in the national interest.' The list included targets of Trump’s fury from both the political and legal spheres, including former Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, New York Attorney General Letitia James, former President Joe Biden and members of his family. The action was part of a much broader retribution campaign that Trump has waged since returning to the White House....”

Sarah Fortinsky of the Hill: “A federal judge on Tuesday rejected the Trump administration’s bid to block New York’s so-called Green Light Law, which allows the state to issue driver’s licenses to people without requiring proof that they’re in the country legally. U.S. District Judge Anne Nardacci in Albany ruled that the Trump administration failed to support its claims that certain provisions of the state law are preempted by federal law, impermissibly regulate the federal government, or impermissibly discriminate against the federal government.”

Marie: Apologies to Clement Clarke Moore. This is not exactly your "A Visit from St. Nicholas" sort of story. Yesterday, I posted this:

⭐“No Longer at This Address” Edward Helmore of the Guardian: “A disturbing letter that appears to have been written by Jeffrey Epstein and sent to Larry Nassar, the US Olympics gymnastics team doctor convicted of sexual abuse, is included the latest batch of Epstein-related documents released by the US government. 'As you will know by now, I have taken the “short route” home,' the letter, which appears to have been signed from Epstein to Nasser, reads. 'Good luck! We shared one thing … our love & caring for young ladies and the hope they reach their full potential.' The letter continues: 'Our president [Trump] also shares our love of young, nubile girls. When a young beauty walked by he loved to “grab snatch”, whereas we ended up snatching grub in the mess halls of the system.' The letter is signed: 'Life is unfair. Yours, J. Epstein.'... 

“The existence of the letter was first reported in 2023 by the Associated Press after it was discovered in the midst of more than 4,000 pages of documents held by the Bureau of Prisons. The letter is postmarked 13 August 2019, notably three days after Epstein died in custody in what was ruled a suicide. It was found by investigators in the jail mail room weeks later after it was returned from a prison in Arizona and marked 'no longer at this address'.” ~~~

~~~ Update: CNN is now reporting on-air that DOJ claims this letter -- which DOJ itself released, of course -- is a fake. Who knows? ~~~

~~~ Update 2: The Guardian article linked above has now been modified to indicate the DOJ says the letter is a fake. The Guardian links to the FBI's "proofs" -- outlined in an X post -- that the letter isn't real. ~~~

Marie: Then this evening I watched the video embedded next. Keith Edwards is among the sensationalist left-wing podcasters who populate the Internet. I listen to them occasionally, but I seldom link their podcasts, because they're so biased, so often bathed in breathless unproven assumptions and generally over-the-top. Nevertheless, Edwards is one of the more sensible people working this genre, and his report this evening on the supposedly debunked Epstein letter to Nassar makes a sense to me. ~~~  

The design possibilities for an anachronistic battleship may be endless, but can you spot what they have in common? 

     ~~~ Thanks to RAS for the link. AND to Akhilleus for the U.S.S. Deviant submission: ~~~

Nothing Wrong with These People ~~~ 

~~~ A Christmas Eve Message from Donald Trump: Stephen Colbert is a pathetic trainwreck, with no talent or anything else necessary for show business success. Now, after being terminated by CBS, but left out to dry, he has actually gotten worse, along with his nonexistent ratings. Stephen is running on hatred and fumes ~ A dead man walking! CBS should, ‘Put him to sleep,’ NOW, it is the humanitarian thing to do! – One of a spree of rants about late night TV hosts Trump posted to Truth Social (via Joe Jervis; thanks to RAS for the link) ~~~

~~~ Tom Ambrose of the Independent: “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has released an AI-generated Christmas advert, showing Santa Claus working as an ICE agent. The video, in which an imposing Father Christmas is seen wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying weapons, urges undocumented immigrants to leave the country voluntarily.... The video encourages undocumented immigrants to 'avoid Santa’s naughty list' by self-deporting using the CBP One app, which was previously used by the Biden administration to allow migrants to enter the U.S. legally. A caption for the video says participants will receive $3,000 and a free flight to their home country if they leave voluntarily.... DHS followed up the post with a GIF of ... Donald Trump doing his signature dance move, but superimposed onto Santa’s sleigh.” ~~~

~~~~~~~~~~ 

Marie: I don't suggest that travel guide & PBS personality Rick Steves was ever a Scrooge stand-in, so this real-life Christmas Carol lacks the dramatic tension of Dickens' story. Still, I found it inspiring. And in the spirit, so to speak, the link to this Washington Post report is a gift link. 

Marie: Last night, CBS broadcast the Kennedy Center Honors. Turns out not everyone at CBS is bending the knee to Trump. Bari Weiss, take note. The chief of standards and practices -- which, BTW. approved the '60 Minutes" CECOT exposé -- does have standards, and he practices them. ~~~

~~~ Janay Kingsberry & Scott Nover of the Washington Post: “Tuesday’s CBS broadcast of the Honors, recorded Dec. 7, premiered with the cultural institution’s long-standing title.... The televised broadcast presented a pared version of Trump’s opening remarks, cutting his introduction from about 12 minutes live to two minutes for viewers at home — and leaving out several of his looser jokes, including a reference to the laughing audience as 'miserable, horrible people.'... 'On Tuesday, CBS will broadcast the annual Kennedy Centers Honors,' Jack Renaud, senior director of standards and practices, wrote. 'Yesterday, the newly appointed board of the Kennedy Center voted to change the facility’s name to the Trump-Kennedy Center,' read the email. 'But it would take Congressional approval to officially change the name.... Therefore, CBS News will continue to use the ‘Kennedy Center.’... 

“On Tuesday morning, Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social: 'THE TRUMP KENNEDY CENTER HONORS will be broadcast tonight, on CBS, and Stream on Paramount+....' Shortly after the president’s post, according to two staffers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share nonpublic materials, Renaud sent another note: 'We should NOT be calling it Trump Kennedy Center, or the Trump Kennedy Center Honors, unless quoting from those who don’t realize an official name change only comes from Congress.'” ~~~

~~~ Short Answer: “Yes.” Will Neal of the Daily Beast, republished by Yahoo! News: “Donald Trump says if people are nice enough about it, he might abandon his scandal-plagued second stint at the White House for a return to his glory days as a star of the small screen. 'Tell me what you think of my “Master of Ceremony” abilities,' the former reality TV star wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday ahead of a scheduled broadcast of the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony, which he says he hosted earlier this month 'at the request of the Board, and just about everybody else in America.... If really good, would you like me to leave the presidency in order to make “hosting” a full time job?'...” 

Debra Kamin, et al., of the New York Times: “The latest batch of files related to the investigations of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein disclosed hundreds of references to ... [Donald] Trump and contained two subpoenas sent to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s residence in Florida, where, he once said, Mr. Epstein 'hired away' an employee.... A day after federal agents arrested Mr. Epstein on sex-trafficking charges in 2019, they were also apparently trying to contact about 10 people they called potential 'co-conspirators,' according to a redacted email exchange in the new release. Because of the redactions, it is unclear who sent the emails. The list of co-conspirators included three people whose names were not redacted: Leslie Wexner, the retail magnate behind The Limited and Victoria’s Secret stores; Jean-Luc Brunel, a former French modeling agent who was found dead in his Paris jail cell in 2022 and who was suspected of scouting girls for Mr. Epstein; and [Ghislaine] Maxwell.” ~~~

     ~~~ Dareh Gregorian of NBC News: "The president, the plane and the prince: Top takeaways from the 3rd Epstein files release." Here are Politico's takeaways.

Santul Nerkar of the New York Times: “Portions of some files released from the Justice Department’s investigation of Jeffrey Epstein ... were not properly redacted digitally, with some censored information easily revealed by copying and pasting blacked-out text into a separate file. The information from the failed redactions surfaced by The New York Times shed no additional light on the well-documented ties between ... [Donald] Trump and Mr. Epstein.... The ease of recovering the material suggested that at least a few materials in the trove of documents released by the Justice Department were hastily censored.... A spokesman for the Justice Department declined to comment.” ~~~

     ~~~ George Chidi of the Guardian: “People examining documents released by the Department of Justice in the Jeffrey Epstein case discovered that some of the file redaction can be undone with Photoshop techniques, or by simply highlighting text to paste into a word processing file. Un-redacted text from these documents began circulating through social media on Monday evening.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Yesterday RAS wrote yesterday, “I know this administration is incompetent, but I still get surprised now and again at their levels of failure.” That link is to a BlueSky post by the appropriately-named "Anonymous" who discovered the failed redactions. Nerkar writes, “It is unclear how the files were redacted in a way that could allow for withheld names and entities to be identified.” But if you scroll through the comments to Anonymous's post, you'll find some suggestions on how the DOJ failed. Maybe one of the many DOGE bros who are now embedded in the DOJ (and across the administration) was in charge of tech support for the Epstein release. 

David Enrich of the New York Times: “In a 2020 email released on Monday by the Justice Department, a federal prosecutor informed colleagues that ... [Donald] Trump’s name appeared on the flight logs for Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet 'many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware).' The email, written in January 2020 by an unidentified federal prosecutor in Manhattan, noted that Mr. Trump was listed as a passenger on Mr. Epstein’s jet at least eight times from 1993 to 1996, including a few instances in which other passengers apparently included young women. The prosecutor wrote the message for 'situational awareness' and 'didn’t want any of this to be a surprise down the road.'...” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Not mentioned in Enrich's report, the flight logs would be “a surprise to Donald Trump down the road.” He claimed in January 2024, “I was never on Epstein’s Plane, or at his ‘stupid’ Island.” Maybe he would not have told such a whopper if he knew there was extensive, fairly irrefutable evidence of his travels with Jeffrey.

Cheyenne Haslett of Politico: “... Donald Trump expressed sympathy Monday for powerful and influential people caught up in convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s orbit, including former President Bill Clinton, telling reporters that he doesn’t 'like the pictures of other people being shown.' His remarks, which came during a press conference to announce new battleships for the Navy, were the first since the Department of Justice began releasing a slew of documents related to Epstein last week.... 'I don’t like the pictures of Bill Clinton being shown. I don’t like the pictures of other people being shown. I think it’s a terrible thing,' Trump said.... 'A lot of people are very angry that pictures are being released of other people that really had nothing to do with Epstein, but they’re in a picture with him because he was at a party, and you ruin a reputation of somebody, so a lot of people are very angry that this continues,'  Trump said.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Wouldn't it be great if Trump had as much empathy for poor working people who can't afford a nice Christmas dinner or for middle-class working people who have to forego their families' health insurance this year and just hope for the best? Instead it's, oh gosh, let's not upset the rich people.

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “Pro-Trump influencers have always had a lot to say about the Jeffrey Epstein files.... But many of them were conspicuously quiet on Tuesday, when the Justice Department released a batch of materials that contained hundreds of mentions of Mr. Trump. Their silence contrasted with the uproar made over the weekend when the department’s first release focused on former President Bill Clinton.... One Trump-friendly account did, however, post about the newly released files: the one run by the Justice Department. The department released a statement on Tuesday...[:] 'Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the F.B.I. right before the 2020 election.'... The claims, it added, were 'unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.'” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I know this will come as a shocking revelation to Pam Bondi & Todd Blanche, but the purpose of the DOJ is to protect victims of crime from criminals, not to protect criminals from bad publicity. 

On the TrumpArmada  

~~~ Konstantin Toropin & Aamer Madhani of the AP: “... Donald Trump has announced a bold plan for the Navy to build a new, large warship that he is calling a 'battleship' as part of a larger vision to create a 'Golden Fleet.'... A U.S. official ... told The Associated Press that design efforts are now underway for the new ship and construction is planned to begin in the early 2030s.... Trump has long held strong opinions on specific aspects of the Navy’s fleet, sometimes with a view toward keeping older technology instead of modernizing.... [Navy Secretary John] Phelan told senators at his confirmation hearing that Trump 'has texted me numerous times very late at night, sometimes after one (o’clock) in the morning' about 'rusty ships or ships in a yard, asking me what am I doing about it.' On a visit to a shipyard that was working on the now-canceled Constellation-class frigate in 2020, Trump said he personally changed the design of the ship. 'I looked at it, I said, “That’s a terrible-looking ship, let’s make it beautiful,’” Trump said at the time. He said Monday he will have a direct role in designing this new warship as well.” Thanks to RAS for the lead. ~~~

     ~~~  For more on how stupid the TrumpArmada is, do see Akhilleus's and RAS's commentary in yesterday's thread. Some people will mock & deride a nincompoop, especially when he is the POTUS*.

Benjamin Starrow & Kelsey Tamborrino of Politico: Donald Trump's “decision to pause construction of five offshore wind projects capable of powering nearly 2.7 million homes along the East Coast marked an escalation of a yearlong effort to shut down the industry, jolting the political debate surrounding rising electricity prices. In New England, the regional grid operator warned the stoppage could send power prices soaring and threaten the reliability of its six-state electric system. In Virginia, the utility building the country’s largest coastal wind project said the pause hinders its ability to keep up with rising electricity consumption from data centers. And on Capitol Hill, the order threatened to stymie a long-debated bipartisan energy permitting bill winding its way through Congress.... 'President Trump has been clear: wind energy is the scam of the century,' said Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson, repeating a favorite administration talking point.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Steve Benen of MS NOW: “Donald Trump and his team took new steps to destroy the wind energy industry this week, pausing construction of five offshore wind projects capable of powering almost 2.7 million homes, in a step even some of the president’s allies saw as radical. Pressed for an explanation, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the move was 'due to national security risks.' A week earlier, facing a lawsuit from the National Trust for Historic Preservation over the president’s ballroom vanity project, the White House said construction had to continue — for 'national security' reasons. On Sunday, Trump renewed his effort to annex Greenland to the United States, and a day later, the president told reporters, 'We need Greenland for national security.' With increasing frequency, the White House sees 'national security' as the answer to every question.”

Aaron Wiener & Karla Adam of the Washington Post: “European political leaders and tech watchdogs pushed back sharply against what they called 'an act of repression' after the State Department blocked five Europeans from entering the United States for allegedly censoring digital free speech. In an escalation of the Trump administration’s attacks on European regulators, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Tuesday that the State Department would 'bar leading figures of the global censorship-industrial complex from entering the United States.' Visa sanctions were imposed on Thierry Breton, the former top tech regulator at the European Commission, and the leaders of organizations that monitor digital hate and disinformation.” The New York Times story is here. AP stories are here and here. MB: It's no surprise that Little Marco is all in favor of hate speech and disinformation.

Perqs of the Office. Ken Dilanian & Carol Leonnig of MS NOW: "FBI Director Kash Patel is being driven around in specially armored BMWs that the FBI bought at his request.... FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson confirmed that the FBI purchased BMW X5s for the director’s use, saying the bureau planned to acquire updated vehicles and this choice was less expensive than others it considered. He declined to provide documents showing the cost of the new vehicle or buttressing his contention that it would save money compared with the existing government fleet [of Chevy Suburbans] available for FBI use. MS NOW has also learned ... that Patel earlier this year pressed the FBI to purchase a new, more modern FBI jet for his use, but the proposal was abandoned over cost estimates that were between $90 million and $115 million.... Patel has also come under fire for taking personal trips on the FBI’s Gulfstream jet....”

“Like Prime, But With Human Beings.” Douglas MacMillan & Jonathan O'Connell of the Washington Post: “The Trump administration is seeking contractors to help it overhaul the United States’ immigrant detention system in a plan that includes renovating industrial warehouses to hold more than 80,000 immigrant detainees at a time, according to a draft solicitation reviewed by The Washington Post. Rather than shuttling detainees around the country to wherever detention space is available, as happens now, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement aims to speed up deportations by establishing a deliberate feeder system, the document says.... 'We need to get better at treating this like a business,' ICE Acting Director Todd M. Lyons said at a border security conference in April, according to the Arizona Mirror. The administration’s goal, he said, was to deport immigrants as efficiently as Amazon moves packages: 'Like Prime, but with human beings.'” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: People like Lyons are too barbaric to realize how barbaric they are.  

Joe Heim of the Washington Post: “A 22-year-old woman was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers this month and is facing deportation despite her lawyer’s insistence that she is a U.S. citizen born in Maryland. ICE says the woman is in the country illegally and is not a citizen. The case landed in federal court last week where a Maryland District Court judge barred the government from deporting Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales while the court considers a petition her lawyers submitted to determine whether her detention is lawful. According to her lawyer, Victoria Slatton, Diaz Morales lived in Mexico for about 13 years but has a birth certificate from a Prince George’s County hospital and immunization records from Anne Arundel County, all of which have been provided to ICE as evidence of her citizenship.... Affidavits of multiple people who were at the hospital following Diaz Morales’s birth were also sent to ICE, said Slatton, whose pleas for the woman’s release have gone viral on social media.”

David Goodhue & Ana Chacin of the Miami Herald: “The woman who was dragged out of her car by federal immigration agents in Key Largo while screaming she was a U.S. citizen said the feds had already stopped her twice within a few weeks, including when they had detained her undocumented husband in a traffic stop in the same location just last month. The woman was commuting alone in her husband’s car to her job at a Plantation Key school, raising questions of why she was pulled over weeks after agents already detained the man they were seeking. Newly released body cam footage from a Monroe County Sheriff’s deputy at the traffic stop shows masked federal immigration agents threatening to break her car windows if she didn’t get out of the car or provide her ID.... A Miami Herald reporter witnessed the agents forcefully removing Dayana — who is 4-feet, 11-inches tall and weighs 85 pounds — from her white Toyota Corolla.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: What with all the feds policing D.C., couldn't a few of them please just drag Brett Kavanaugh from his car, cuff him, and detain him in one of the capital's lovely lockups for a few hours? I don't want him to suffer any more than other U.S. citizens have suffered because of his "Kavanaugh stop" racial-profiling permission slip. He sure "looks Irish" to me, and there are thousands of undocumented Irish who have lived & worked in the U.S. for years. Maybe an over-Christmas stay in a cell crowded with "I like beer" holiday revelers. Ho ho hope nobody throws up.

Friends in High Places. Guy Trebay of the New York Times: “On Dec. 10, [José] Gonzalez, 53, was stopped by Florida Highway Patrol while driving a nephew’s pickup truck. The apparent offense was having tinted car windows. Mr. Gonzalez was arrested and turned over to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Then, as has happened to thousands of others in Florida, he was taken deep into the Everglades to the state-run immigration detention center known as Alligator Alcatraz. On Monday, nearly two weeks after his arrest, Mr. Gonzalez was released.... Since immigrating to the United States from Mexico at age 16, Mr. Gonzalez has worked in the restaurant business — the last two decades at Bice [an upscale Italian restaurant] on Worth Avenue [in Palm Beach].... His face is familiar not only to the billionaires, politicians and dignitaries..., but also to the workers who keep the daily lives of the superrich friction-free.... 

“There was also a robust 'Free José' campaign on Facebook and Instagram. The media attention and community support set the arrest and detention of Mr. Gonzalez apart from the thousands of similar cases that have made Palm Beach County an 'epicenter of ICE arrests in Florida,' according to Representative Lois Frankel, a Democrat who represents Palm Beach County. What happened to Mr. Gonzalez 'is just one horror story' among many, she noted in a phone interview on Tuesday.”

Mark Bonamo of the New York Times: “Representative LaMonica McIver on Tuesday returned to the migrant detention center in Newark where seven months ago she clashed with federal agents as they tried to arrest the city’s mayor. U.S. authorities later charged her with assault in the incident. The latest stop at the center, Delaney Hall, unfolded less dramatically, with Ms. McIver and two other members of Congress spending more than three hours touring the troubled, privately run detention center and emerging with stories of neglect and harsh conditions. In a news conference after the visit, Ms. McIver, Democrat of New Jersey, urged federal immigration officials to shut down the center, where a detainee suffered a fatal medical emergency recently and where four inmates in June staged a jailbreak through a flimsy wall. 'There is not adequate food,' she said. 'There is not adequate medical care. Women are not having access to OB-GYN or female products.'” MB: They arrested her to silence her. 

Aamer Madhani of the AP: “The Trump administration is deploying 350 National Guard troops to New Orleans ahead of the New Year, launching another federal deployment in the city at the same time that an immigration crackdown led by Border Patrol is underway.Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Tuesday that Guard members, as they have in other deployments in large cities, will be tasked with supporting federal law enforcement partners, including the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. Parnell added that the National Guard troops will be deployed through February. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, praised ... Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for coordinating the deployment and predicted the Guard’s presence would have a positive impact.” ~~~

~~~ “Operation Buckeye.” Billy Witz & Kevin Williams of the New York Times: “A surge of enforcement in Columbus[, Ohio,] by Immigration and Customs Enforcement over the past week has created turmoil there and angered local leaders, who find their city the latest target of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. A blue city in a red state, Columbus is home to the Ohio State University and a host of immigrant communities. The increased ICE action in the city comes weeks after federal agents carried out big sweeps in New Orleans and Charlotte, N.C., which, like Columbus, are Democrat-led cities in states where Republicans hold much of the political power. In a statement over the weekend ICE highlighted the arrests of 10 men in Ohio as part of 'Operation Buckeye,' saying they had criminal records and were in the country illegally. Of the 10, three were arrested before the operation, according to the statement.... Somalis make up one of the largest immigrant communities in Columbus, and Somali immigrants nationwide have been a target of ... [Donald] Trump.”

So Much Losing 

~~~ MEANWHILE.... Mark Berman & Julian Mark of the Washington Post: “The Supreme Court said Tuesday it would not allow ... Donald Trump to deploy the National Guard in the Chicago area for now, a significant setback for his campaign to push troops into cities across the country over the objections of local and state  leaders. The president’s ability to federalize the National Guard likely only applies in “exceptional” circumstances, the court’s unsigned order said. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch dissented from the court’s unsigned order. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh filed a separate concurrence.... While temporary, the order could have far-reaching effects by repudiating Trump’s claim of virtually unchecked authority to mobilize and deploy troops.... The order could affect how lower courts rule in other cases where local and state officials have sued to block Trump’s deployments.... Although the administration told the court that the situation was an emergency, requiring swift action, the justices took weeks to consider it.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mark Sherman of the AP: “The Supreme Court took more than two months to act.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Rebecca Falconer of Axios: "A federal judge [-- District Judge Mary McElroy --] blocked Trump administration efforts to reallocate Department of Homeland Security counterterrorism and security grants away from states that won't cooperate on the president's immigration enforcement policies.... New York's attorney general called the Trump-appointed judge's ruling that was scathing of the administration a "significant win" for N.Y. and the 10 other Democratic-run states and D.C., which brought the lawsuit." Here's the AP story. ~~~

~~~ Scott Dance of the New York Times: “A federal magistrate judge in Oregon ruled on Tuesday that the Trump administration could not withhold emergency preparation money from states that failed to provide updated population counts that accounted for deportations. The Federal Emergency Management Agency imposed the requirement in October, adding a hurdle for states in order to access hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to buy equipment, pay staff and otherwise prepare for disasters. The Census Bureau is responsible for population estimates across the country. The ruling, by Magistrate Judge Amy Potter, also said FEMA could not arbitrarily shorten the window in which states could use the emergency grants or money awarded through another program focused on investments in homeland security. The administration had sought to shorten the three-year grants to a single year.” ~~~

~~~ NPR: "A federal judge on Monday said the U.S. government denied due process to the Venezuelan men it deported to a prison in El Salvador in March after ... [Donald] Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act.... 'On the merits, the Court concludes that this class was denied their due-process rights and will thus require the Government to facilitate their ability to obtain such hearing. Our law requires no less,' [D.C. District Court Chief Judge James] Boasberg wrote in his opinion." Linked below: related stories re: a "60 Minutes" segment on the El Salvador prison. (Also linked yesterday.)

Jeff Cox & Fred Imbert of CNBC: "The U.S. economy grew at a much greater-than-expected pace in the third quarter, boosted by strong consumer spending, a delayed report released Tuesday showed. U.S. gross domestic product, a sum of all goods and services produced in the sprawling U.S. economy, expanded by 4.3% in the July-September period, the Commerce Department said in its initial reading of third-quarter growth. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect a gain of 3.2%. Consumer spending expanded by 3.5% in the third quarter after rising 2.5% in the second quarter. Increases in exports and government spending also boosted growth, while a smaller dip in private fixed investment helped as well." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I find this almost unbelievable. Will wait and see what Krugman says. ~~~

~~~ There's This. Sam Sutton of Politico: “... Donald Trump’s economy has exceeded expectations in his first year back in office. Mainly for America’s wealthiest households, that is. The top 10 percent of U.S. earners spent $20.3 trillion through the first half of 2025 — nearly matching the $22.5 trillion shelled out by everyone else, according to the Royal Bank of Canada. That splurge has been primed by a buoyant stock market, elevated real estate prices and solid wage gains for the wealthy. Bank of America says its top account holders saw take-home pay climb 4 percent over the last year, while income growth for poorer households grew just 1.4 percent. That spending power has kept Trump’s economy humming.... But the robust numbers mask the extent to which the wealthy are driving growth.” ~~~

~~~ Paul Krugman: "For high-income Americans who own a lot of stock, the past year has treated them pretty well. But for those who don’t, not so much.... David Autor, Arindrajit Dube and Annie McGrew have documented that the Biden era post-pandemic economic recovery was the opposite of what we are experiencing now. In fact, during the Biden recovery wage gains for low-paid workers were much larger than for those further up the income scale.... In going from the Biden Administration to the Trump Administration, we have traded an economy that disproportionately benefited low-income workers to one that disproportionately benefits the well-off (particularly those who own a lot of stocks)."

A Dish Best Served Cold. Mother Pence's Holiday Recipe: Poached Heritage White Meat on Toast. Alex Nguyen of Mother Jones: “Former Vice President Mike Pence poached over a dozen senior officials from the Heritage Foundation to join his own conservative think tank in the latest sign that all is not well in right-wing politics. The Heritage Foundation is arguably the most prominent conservative think tank in America. Pence, meanwhile, started his competing think tank, Advancing American Freedom, to promote 'exactly what the Trump-Pence Administration did every day.' Many prominent Republicans framed this to the Wall Street Journal as a return to conservative fundamentals, blocking out 'what they see online.' As my colleague Anna Merlan recently reported, MAGA is eating itself alive. Pence’s move came after the Heritage Foundation’s leader, Kevin Roberts, defended Tucker Carlson for hosting white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes on his show, according to the Journal.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Life Is Unfair. (Not as Epstein Meant It.) Adeel Hassan of the New York Times: “Ben Sasse, a Republican former senator from Nebraska and a former president of the University of Florida, announced on Tuesday that he had received a diagnosis of terminal Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. 'Since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase,' Mr. Sasse, 53, wrote in a long message on X. 'Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.' Mr. Sasse, who has degrees from Harvard, St. John’s College and Yale, was a U.S. senator from Nebraska from 2015 to 2023. Mr. Sasse was appointed president of the University of Florida in November 2022. Mr. Sasse stepped down last year as Florida’s president, citing the health of his wife, Melissa, who had an aneurysm and a series of strokes in 2007, and had just been diagnosed with epilepsy. In the Senate, Mr. Sasse was reliably conservative but also a critic of ... [Donald] Trump.” (Also linked yesterday.)

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Australia. Victoria Kim of the New York Times: “The Australian state of New South Wales, of which Sydney is the capital, on Wednesday passed new laws that further restrict gun ownership and empower police to shut down protests, in response to last week’s terrorist attack on a Hanukkah celebration. The state legislation comes just 10 days after the country’s deadliest mass shooting in decades, which left 15 people dead at Bondi Beach in Sydney. It is the first of a slew of actions the country’s leaders have pledged in the wake of the massacre to tighten gun laws, criminalize hate speech and crack down on groups spreading extremist ideology. The slate of laws was passed at 3 a.m. after a lengthy debate. Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales, acknowledged that they were 'extraordinary measures' that would be controversial, but said they were proportionate and necessary steps to keep the public safe in light of the attack in Bondi.”

Canada. Amanda Coletta of the Washington Post: “From [Mark Carney's] earliest days as prime minister, a raft of official government publications ... are full of words rendered in British, not Canadian, English. Most prominent has been his predilection for the British 'ise' and 'yse'  endings over the Canadian (and American) 'ize' and 'yze.'... The plethora of -ises and -yses in the budget was the catalyst for a letter from a group of editors and linguists to Carney this month. They noted that governments here 'consistently' used Canadian spellings 'from the 1970s to 2025' and urged him to continue the practice as 'a matter of our national history, identity and pride.' The prime minister’s office did not respond to a request for comment.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Thailand/Cambodia. Sui-Lee Wee of the New York Times: “... [Thailand's airstrike on Cambodia was] part of the latest flare-up of a decades-old border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia. Thailand said the attack on Dec. 8 was a strike on a complex that was a covert military hub housing drones. In the following days, it bombed at least five other compounds that it said were military targets. But locals described them as scam centers, which in recent years have become a pillar of Cambodia’s economy.... Pen Bona, a spokesman for the Cambodian government, rejected Thailand’s accusation that these were military hubs. 'Thailand always finds excuses to violate Cambodia’s territory and attack civilians and infrastructure,' he said. 'It is unacceptable.'” MB: I'm so confused. I thought Trump won a Nobel FIFA Peace Prize for ending the Thailand/Cambodia conflict. For some reason, Wee doesn't even mention Trump's prize-winning peace accord.