•READ Contributing Pundit Jerry Lanson's column, "A Change of Direction in the New Year" in The Gray Area.
•SCROLL DOWN THIS COLUMN for details on Q3 GDP numbers.
UPDATE: Trump Buys Putin’s Charge – Moscow so far has not provided any proof that Russian dictator/President Vladimir Putin’s state residence was attacked by drones, from Ukraine or anywhere else. Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that “President Trump has concluded a positive call with President Putin concerning Ukraine,” though the Kremlin already has announced that “Russia’s negotiating position” on erstwhile peace talks will be revised.
Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago that he “heard” about the attack, adding; “That would be too bad. That would not be too good,” according to Politico.
Asked a second time, Trump’s response sounds a bit reminiscent of his reaction at the 2018 Helsinki summit in which Putin told him Russia was not responsible for interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
“I have President Putin, he said it’s not Russia,” Trump said at the time, accepting Putin’s word over official US intelligence. “I will say, I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
Trump’s second response to Moscow’s claim Ukraine attacked Putin’s home? That he is “angry” about any “offensive” attack by Ukraine that would jeopardize the peace talks.
Putin Knows No Peace – Predictable, really, that Russian dictator/President Vladimir Putin would put the kibosh on what looked like a peace plan Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was on the brink of reaching with President Trump after the former’s two-hour visit Sunday with the latter at Mar-a-Lago.
Putin on Monday claimed via his foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, that one of his Russian state residences had been the subject of a drone attack, according to CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. Putin blamed it on Ukraine, calling the alleged attack “terrorism,” while Ukraine immediately denied it had anything to do with such an attack.
Zelenskyy called Putin’s allegation “another lie. …”
The Kyiv Independent reports Zelenskyy told Ukrainian media Monday; “With this statement about an alleged attack on some residence, they are preparing the ground to strike, most likely the capital and government buildings. We’ve already seen this before, when they attacked the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.”
Indeed, Lavrov said that though there were no injuries or damage to Putin’s state residence, Russian military has selected targets for “retaliatory strikes” (CNN).
“Russia’s negotiating position will be revised,” Lavrov said of peace negotiations that had finally appeared to be going somewhere.
At Mar-a-Lago, the Trump administration’s original 28-point plan, developed with Moscow, was revised to a 20-point plan that reportedly includes drafts for three-part security guarantees between Ukraine, the US and Europe and a bilateral security agreement with the US, the Independent reports. A separate document called “roadmap for Ukraine’s prosperity” outlines economic cooperation.
Zelenskyy believes deployment of foreign troops on Ukrainian soil would ensure Putin “will not come again with aggression against Ukraine.” –TL
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Healthy Q3 GDP Growth – Real Gross Domestic Process, a key indicator of US economic health, grew by 4.3% in the third quarter of the year, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Tuesday. That initial number is up from an already favorable +3.8% for the second quarter, though these latest BEA numbers come late due to the government shutdown.
Without that shutdown, preliminary Q3 GDP numbers would have been released October 30, with a second estimate scheduled for November 26.
In any case, the GDP growth reflects healthy consumer spending, even as economists continue to warn of a growing “K-economy” gap between the well-off and the working and middle-classes. This Q3 number is the greatest increase in two years, which would have been during the first year of pandemic recovery, during the Biden administration.
This year’s Q1 GDP number was, in fact, negative to the tune of 0.3%.
According to public radio’s Marketplace the economy is splitting, not only among well-off and not-so-well-off consumers, but also between companies building AI data centers (the well-off) versus those seeking to finance other commercial buildings. And with payroll stalling in April after months of growth to pay for such spending, the prognosis is for not so much growth in 2026.
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Trump’s Class -- President Trump announced the new Trump Class of US Navy battleships with “100 times” the force or power of current battleships, at Mar-a-Lago Monday afternoon. The Navy will begin with two ships and end up with 20 to 25 before it’s done, Trump said, and will lead the design of the ships, “along with me, because I’m a very aesthetic person.”
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New Excuse for Epstein Files – President Trump’s name appears “multiple times” in tens of thousands of additional emails, court documents, photos and videos from years of investigation of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Newsweek reports. In releasing the documents four days past The Epstein Files Transparency Act’s deadline Tuesday morning, the Justice Department issued a statement that tries to explain multiple appearances of Trump’s name.
“Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election,” the DOJ says. “To be clear: the claims made were unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.”
The Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed by Trump November 19 required the Justice Department to release the files and make them easily searched and downloaded, no later than last Friday. The department released a first batch of files December 19 then removed 16 photographs the next day, including one with a photo of a photo, showing Trump’s picture on a credenza in Epstein’s Manhattan home.
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CECOT is Not a Disney World Attraction – “Is CBS News censoring 60 Minutes?” Vox asks rhetorically after Bari Weiss, editor-in-chief of the network news arm – you know, the one that gave us Edward R. Murrow and Walter Conkrite -- spiked a story hours before it was to air, on El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison that’s taking in Venezuelans deported by the Trump administration from the US.
The Mayday Network has posted the 60 Minutes segment as recorded directly off the television screen in Canada. Watch the full segment HERE.
Weiss, hired from her rightward-leaning The Free Press by Paramount Skydance founder David Ellison – himself son of Friend of The Donald and Oracle founder Larry Ellison – said in a statement she pulled the 60 Minutes piece because it lacked comment from the Trump White House.
“This is 60 Minutes. We need to be able to get the principals on the record or on camera,” Weiss said, according to NPR’s media reporter, David Folkenflik, on Morning Edition.
Weiss reportedly wanted White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller – “Donald Trump’s Joseph Goebbels,” Jonathan Alter calls him in his Old Goats Substack – while 60 Minutes correspondent Sharon Alfonsi, who reported the CECOT piece, said she had sought comments from the Department of Homeland Security, White House, and State Department. All to no avail.
“If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient,” Alfonsi said in an email to CBS News colleagues, obtained by several news outlets. Weiss’ spiking of the story was “not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”
Two things: Too many politicians in recent years have failed to return requests for comment from mainstream news organizations seeking balanced views for various stories. When the story is published or aired without such a response, those politicians, whether conservative or liberal, can tell their followers the news organization is “biased” against their “side.”
The other thing?: CBS network owner Paramount Skydance and its founder David Ellison want to make nice with the Trump administration to ease potential anti-trust friction in the company’s bid to buy Warner Brothers. But it looks like Paramount Skydance has the edge over Netflix, which also has put in a bid for Warner Brothers, what with David Ellison’s father, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, a longtime friend of Donald J. Trump. –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa