December 7, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson remembers Pearl Harbor and World War II. "But as the impulse of WWII pushed Americans toward a more just and inclusive society after it, those determined not to share power warned their supporters that including people of color and women as equals in society would threaten their own liberty. Those reactionary leaders rode that fear into control of our government, and gradually they chipped away the laws that protected equality. Now, once again, democracy is under attack by those who believe some people are better than others.... Donald J. Trump and his cronies have abandoned the principles of democracy and openly embraced the hierarchical society the U.S. fought against in World War II."

Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: Donald “Trump has long portrayed European allies as freeloaders that fail to pay enough for their own security and argued that the European Union was 'formed to screw the United States.' Now, that hostility is official White House policy. The Trump administration issued a national security strategy paper this week that called for European nations to take 'primary responsibility' for their own defense, indicating that the United States should no longer guarantee Europe’s security. It accused the European Union of stifling 'political liberty,' warned that some NATO members risked becoming 'majority non-European,' and said the U.S. should align with 'patriotic European parties' — code for Europe’s far-right movements. The blunt, bracing and official nature of the document added injury to incessant insult.... The now explicit prospect of the United States’ withdrawing its protection came days after Russia — whose talking points on European countries, some experts said, were echoed in the strategy document — warned that it was ready for war with Europe.” The link appears to be a gift link. ~~~

~~~ From the consequential to the laughable ~~~ 

Betsy Klein of CNN: “... Donald Trump doesn’t have his name on the Kennedy Center yet, but he’s already shaped it to his tastes. Just days after participating in the FIFA World Cup draw onstage — and accepting the first-ever FIFA Peace Prize — Trump is expected to host the Kennedy Center Honors, bestowing awards upon Sylvester Stallone, the rock band KISS and Gloria Gaynor, among others. Later this month, he’s assembling the center’s board of trustees, which he chairs, in Palm Beach, Florida — nearly 1,000 miles away from the institution’s home in Washington, DC — for a 'full schedule of events.'... Board meetings, one attendee says, now mirror Trump Cabinet meetings, with members going around the room to 'talk about how great and visionary the president is and how he has so much class and taste.'... [Trump has reshaped the Kennedy Center's] leadership, secur[ed] multimillion-dollar congressional funding for renovations, and reimag[ed] its programming. The moves have led to profound internal upheaval and drawn scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers, members of the arts community and former Kennedy Center staffers.” ~~~

~~~ Travis Andrews & Janay Kingsberry of the Washington Post: “The [Kennedy C]enter is now guided by a board of Trump loyalists and a new staff including the center’s president, Richard Grenell, a pugnacious veteran of the first Trump administration. They have terminated much of the former staff, lambasted the former leadership and made changes including the addition of high-wattage events like the World Cup draw. They have embarked on a $257 million renovation, in line with Trump’s broader effort to leave his mark on Washington’s cityscape. They’ve boasted about hefty fundraising.... And a new kind of right-leaning programming has begun to take root.... And — wittingly or not — the new leadership has made the center a political football for the first time since its opening in 1971. House Republicans have suggested renaming it for Trump (the whole building) and the first lady (just the Opera House). Conservative groups have flocked there to host conferences and meetings. Senate Democrats are investigating the Kennedy Center, accusing Grenell of 'self-dealing, favoritism, and waste.'...” ~~~

~~~ Darlene Superville of the AP: “... Donald Trump on Saturday presented the 2025 Kennedy Center honorees with their medals during a ceremony in the Oval Office, hailing the slate of artists he was deeply involved in choosing as 'perhaps the most accomplished and renowned class' ever assembled.... The president placed around each honoree’s neck a new medal that was designed, created and donated by jeweler Tiffany & Co., according to the Kennedy Center and Trump.It’s a gold disc etched on one side with the Kennedy Center’s image and rainbow colors. The honoree’s name appears on the reverse side with the date of the ceremony. The medallion hangs from a navy blue ribbon and replaces a large rainbow ribbon decorated with three gold plates that rested on the honoree’s shoulders and chest and had been used since the first honors program in 1978.” Read on. ~~~

     ~~~ Here's Mediaite's report on Trump's attacks on Jimmy Kimmel.

Jennifer Bahney of Mediaite: “World Central Kitchen founder Chef José Andrés expressed his dismay that the International Federation of Football Association (FIFA) chose to honor ... Donald Trump with a fabricated 'peace prize.'... 'How can FIFA give a “peace” award to someone who does the opposite? Someone who divides with hate, trashes Somalis and Haitians and makes Latinos fear walking the street. That’s anti-football. And bombing boats in the Caribbean? This prize betrays the beautiful game.'” 

Zachary Leeman of Mediaite: “Jake Tapper hit back at ... Donald Trump over a rant against Tapper’s CNN colleague Kaitlan Collins in which he called her 'stupid' and 'nasty' over a question he didn’t like. In a Truth Social rant posted on Saturday morning Trump blasted “fake news” CNN and raged against Collins — misspelling her name in the process — over a question about his White House ballroom costing more money than originally projected.” MB: I'm not much of a fan of either Tapper or Collins, but the POTUS*'s ad hominem attacks (he called Collins “always Stupid and Nasty”) on reporters are inexcusable. 

⭐Courtney Kube, et al., of NBC News: "Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the U.S. military on Sept. 2 to kill all 11 people on a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean Sea because they were on an internal list of narco-terrorists who U.S. intelligence and military officials determined could be lethally targeted, the commander overseeing the operation told lawmakers in briefings this past week, according to two U.S. officials and one person familiar with the congressional briefings.... The commander who oversaw the Sept. 2 strikes, Adm. Frank 'Mitch' Bradley, told lawmakers that U.S. intelligence officials had confirmed the identities of the 11 people on the boat and validated them as legitimate targets, then the military launched airstrikes as part of ... Donald Trump’s military campaign against alleged drug-smuggling vessels, the U.S. officials and person familiar with the congressional briefings said.... Bradley told lawmakers the second strike killed the two survivors, but did not sink the boat, so he ordered a third and a fourth strike to complete the mission.... 'As with all such actions, a uniformed JAG provided advice and counsel every step of the way,' [and administration] official said in a written statement....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If this version of the story is true, then both Trump's and Hegseth's dirty fingerprints are on the trigger, too. Let's look at Trump: We know that from the git-go (January 2025), Trump had (probably falsely) asserted that the Maduro government was sponsoring the Tren de Aragua gang's drug- and human-trafficking ops. In February, Trump labeled Tren de Aragua a terrorist organization (like Al Qaida). On September 2, Trump posted: "Earlier this morning, on my Orders, US Military Forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility.... The strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action...." I didn't find any specific statements from Trump before the fact on his intentions toward extrajudicial killing of drug couriers, but here he is on October 23 discussing his intention to invade Venezuela: "I don’t think we’re necessarily going to ask [Congress] for a declaration of war. I think we’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. We’re going to kill them. They’re going to be, like, dead." ~~~

~~~ Rob McLean of NBC News: “Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Saturday defended the Sept. 2 strike on survivors of an initial U.S. military attack on an alleged drug boat.... At the Reagan National Defense Forum..., he told [Fox 'News' correspondent Lucas] Tomlinson that he had left the room after the first strike and before the second-strike order was given but said that he would have made the same decision. 'A couple hours later [after moving on], I was told, hey, there had to be a re-attack, because there were a couple folks who could still be in the fight,' Hegseth told Tomlinson. 'Access to radios. There was a link-up point of another potential boat. Drugs were still there. They were actively interacting with them.... I said, Roger, sounds good,' Hegseth said.... Asked whether [he] at any time said everyone on board should be killed, the Secretary of Defense said he did not. 'It's just patently ridiculous,' he said. 'It's meant to create a cartoon of me in the decisions that we make and how we make them. Just ridiculous.'” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Pete, Pete, you got that just right. You are a cartoon character. Unfortunately, because you make (bad) life-and-death decisions, nothing you do is funny. Well, maybe sometimes a little funny: ~~~

Ashley Ahn of the New York Times: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Saturday was noncommittal about releasing the full video of the U.S. military’s Sept. 2 attack on a boat in the Caribbean, after ... [Donald] Trump said he would release whatever footage his administration had. During an appearance at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, Calif., Mr. Hegseth ... [said,] 'We’re reviewing the process, and we’ll see.'... Mr. Hegseth suggested that part of the review process was to make sure 'sources and methods' were secure....” A Mediaite report is here. MB: This would be a more convincing excuse if Hegseth hadn't let it all hang out in his Signalgate group chats and if he wasn't posting videos every few days of blowing of boats full of people in the Caribbean & Pacific.

Emily Ngo of Politico: “A massive purge of judges has left the federal government’s web of immigration courts decimated and in disarray. Ousted jurists believe that’s by design. The roster of those who’ve lost their jobs since ... Donald Trump returned to office includes judges with higher than average rates of granting migrants asylum, judges with dual citizenship and those with a history of providing legal defense to immigrants.... So far this year, the Trump administration has dismissed at least 98 of the approximately 700 immigration judges who were on the bench.... Immigration judges ... fall under the purview of the Department of Justice and are not part of the judiciary branch. Rulings by judges in those immigration courts can ultimately be overturned by the attorney general. The oustings have renewed calls for the immigration courts to be independent of the executive branch — a push unlikely to gain traction in a Republican-controlled Congress.”

Winston Szeto of Oregon Public Broadcasting: “The Vancouver[, Washington,] Police Department is investigating after a man appeared to have his legs run over by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement truck while being detained Thursday. In a press release Friday, police said they became aware of the incident through a cellphone video circulated by community members. The video appears to show the man being struck by an ICE agent’s vehicle while being arrested. According to The Columbian, the man, named Jose Paniagua Calderón, was detained in front of a Mexican restaurant on East 4th Plain Boulevard. Videos on social media show him screaming in pain as a silver-colored SUV drives over his legs. Carmen Paniagua, who created a GoFundMe campaign for Jose Paniagua, wrote that he is her brother-in-law. She said ICE agents denied him medical care and forced him inside their vehicle....

“In Washington state, another alleged ICE detention and assault has raised concern from U.S. Sen. Patty Murray. She condemned what she called a 'violent and unwarranted assault” on Wilmer Toledo-Martinez, a Vancouver resident who came to the U.S. at 15 and is married to a U.S. citizen. He was detained Nov. 14 and is now being held at the Tacoma ICE facility, according to Murray’s office. 'Wilmer was mauled by an ICE attack dog even though he has consistently explained that he was not resisting arrest or attempting to flee,' Murray said in a written statement Friday. 'For hours afterward, he was denied even basic medical care following this unprovoked assault.'” ~~~

     ~~~ Shawn Cohen of the Daily Mail (Dec. 4): "The Trump administration's frantic push to hire 10,000 new deportation officers by year's end ... [has led to] lax vetting and a signing bonus of up to $50,000 luring in a wave of woefully unfit recruits.... Immigration and Customs Enforcement has lowered standards so dramatically that the new cohort now includes recent high school graduates and applicants who can 'barely read or write' as well as those who lack basic physical fitness and even have pending criminal charges. Most of the new hires in the $30 billion initiative are retired law enforcement who are receiving virtual training and being repurposed for desk duty. Meanwhile, total novices are being fast-tracked into the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia.... 'We have people failing open-book tests and we have folks that can barely read or write English,' one Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official told the Daily Mail. 'We even had a 469-lb man sent to the academy whose own doctor certified him not at all fit for any physical activity.' Insiders say the vetting process has been so rushed that officials didn't even wait for drug test results..., only to discover afterward that tests came back positive." Thanks to RAS for the link, which was posted timely. ~~~

~~~ Rebecca Solnit of the Guardian: “As Donald Trump deteriorates and his grasp on power fades, he has been lashing out furiously at female journalists and ethnic groups, most recently Somali Americans. His insults land because of their animosity and his power, not their accuracy. Likewise, his administration’s attacks on immigrants are sloppy and driven by lies.... The US when white supremacists like Trump were young was whiter, but this was never a white country.... [The attacks on Black & brown people are] coupled with an attack on reproductive rights that is sometimes openly intended to make white women have more babies.... The anti-immigration and pronatalist policies add up to fantasies of redirecting the demographic future of this country. Both amount to, in the end, dim-witted bullying by haters inadvertently demonstrating that their claims to superiority have to be based on race and gender, because otherwise they’re incoherent idiots.” 

Adam Sella of the New York Times: “The Trump administration said on Friday that it would waive an $11 million fine levied against Southwest Airlines over the company’s 2022 holiday travel meltdown, when the airline canceled nearly 17,000 flights around Christmas during a period of severe weather. The $11 million was part of a $140 million fine that the Biden administration had imposed in 2023, which was the largest penalty the Department of Transportation had applied to an airline for consumer protection violations.... To account for ... $11 million [Southwest owes the federal government], the order said that the airline would receive an $11 million 'credit' to improve its performance.”

Ruby Mellen & Hannah Natanson of the Washington Post: “As snow blankets a broadening swath of the United States and meteorological winter sets in, the National Weather Service remains constrained by a severe staffing shortage, despite a Trump administration commitment to refill hundreds of jobs cut by Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service. The administration gave the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the Weather Service, permission to post 450 critical roles — seeming to acknowledge that DOGE had gone too far in a push for cuts that resulted in some 550 firings, resignations and early retirements.... But months later, offices in more than half a dozen states, from Maine to Wyoming, have vacancies.... In some locations, nearly half of the meteorologist roles were left vacant.... Any shortages could put communities at risk, weather experts said.”

Doktor Zoom of Wonkette: It appears the Trump administration, in response to a court order last month, is restoring funding to the Institute of Museum & Library Services, a small federal agency from which Trump cut grant funds in March. MB: Of course Doktor Zoom makes this bit of news a lot funnier than I have here.  

New York Times Editors: “Many lower courts have responded heroically to Mr. Trump’s ill-founded efforts to centralize power and weaken democracy.... In many of those instances, however, the Supreme Court later overruled the lower courts, allowing Mr. Trump’s power grabs. It did so almost entirely on its emergency docket, issuing rulings that are preliminary but often last for at least a year or two, with little or no explanation.... The Supreme Court is flirting with a maximalist version of executive power that facilitates an unaccountable White House — one that, for instance, blows up boats without due process.... The justices also seem friendlier to claims of executive power under Mr. Trump than they were under President Joe Biden.... They are enabling a Republican president as he goes much further while relying on weaker rationales. Just as important, the justices are ignoring the evidence that Mr. Trump is not acting in good faith.... The court’s overarching mistake has been to allow Mr. Trump to grab power in dubious ways.... Given the largely supine nature of Congress under Republican control, the stability of American democracy depends more than it should on the Supreme Court. So far, it is failing to live up to its constitutional role.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The Supine Court (as Akhilleus calls it) made another "overarching mistake" in regard to Despot Don. You will likely recall that in the past, a good deal of ink has been spilled over the question of whether or not the Constitution allows a president to pardon himself. No need to worry about that anymore: in a July 1, 2024, decision in Trump v. United States, the Supremes effectively pre-pardoned Trump for nearly all of the crimes he is committing while in office by granting him absolute immunity from criminal liability for some "official acts" and presumptive immunity for others. So, to borrow the Times' example of "blowing up boats," Trump has confessed to/boasted about ordering the strikes that many experts say are unlawful -- but Trump can't even be tried for murder, much less convicted.

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “A federal judge on Saturday night threw up a roadblock to the Justice Department’s plans to seek another indictment against James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, as early as next week. The decision by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of Federal District Court in Washington temporarily blocked the department from using a crucial trove of evidence in its efforts to bring new charges against Mr. Comey.... The move effectively prevents the Trump administration from using the same proof to seek new charges in the coming days.... But it was unclear whether the ruling would permanently stop prosecutors from trying to re-indict him.... 

“The initial indictment of Mr. Comey charged him with lying to and obstructing Congress about testimony he gave five years ago.... The bulk of the evidence came from communications between Mr. Comey and one of his close confidants, Daniel C. Richman.... But in an emergency filing to Judge Kollar-Kotelly on Friday night, Mr. Richman argued that the Justice Department had obtained his files in violation of his constitutional rights, and that it should not be permitted to use them.... Another judge who has worked on Mr. Comey’s case echoed Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s findings last month, ruling that the way the government gained access to Mr. Richman’s messages likely violated the Constitution.... The case is now technically dead after a separate judicial ruling determined that Mr. Trump’s handpicked choice to run the office, Lindsey Halligan, had been put into her job illegally.” ~~~

     ~~~ Politico's story is here. (MB: If the NYT explanation is vague, Politico's story helps explain the crux of the dispute over Richman's data files.) The decision, via the courts, is here. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Ukraine, Russia, et al. Cassandra Vinograd, et al., of the New York Times: “In recent weeks, Russian forces have advanced on [Ukrainian] several fronts.... The advances have been slow and costly, in both lives and equipment.... But Russia’s pace is quickening, and incremental moves have started to add up.... [Vladimir Putin],  in an interview with an Indian news outlet that was published on Thursday, said Russia would take additional territory in Donetsk by whatever means necessary.” ~~~

~~~ Marie: Last week, I speculated that the corruption at the top of the Ukrainian government, which President Zelensky is trying to eliminate, can't be nearly as bad as the corruption at the top of our government. Someone who actually knows what she's talking about says that's true: ~~~

     ~~~ Anne Applebaum of the Atlantic in an article titled, “Trumpian Corruption Is Worse Than Ukrainian Corruption”: “Ukraine is fighting for its survival.... Many Ukrainians nevertheless want, even now, to have a government that’s accountable to the public. Meanwhile, American and Russian kleptocrats are circling the country, looking for ways to do deals that benefit themselves.... From the beginning of his career, Vladimir Putin ... has sought to enrich himself and his entourage at the expense of ordinary Russians. Putin himself was a pioneer in the use of secret offshore accounts and shell companies to transfer state assets into his own pockets. He has also spent years seeking to prevent those ordinary Russians from finding out about his finances.... Last month, The Wall Street Journal revealed that [Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner & Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev] met in Miami Beach in October to discuss not just Ukraine but also future Russian-American business deals. Russian businessmen who are known to be close to Putin have been  'dangling multibillion-dollar rare-earth and energy deals' in front of American companies, the Journal explained, to 'reshape the economic map of Europe — while driving a wedge between America and its traditional allies.' Some of the companies have connections with Donald Trump’s family.” Thanks to akaWendy for this gift link. So do read on.