Nobel Schmobel – FIFA President Gianni Infantino awarded President Trump the first FIFA Peace Prize Friday, which includes a “beautiful medal for you that you can wear everywhere you go.” On Sunday, Kennedy Center Chairman Trump hosted the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors recognizing C&W songwriter George Strait, actors Michael The Phantom of the Opera Crawford, Sylvester Rocky Stallone, singer Gloria Gaynor and rock band KISS.
MONDAY 12/8/25
Will SCOTUS Advance the Unitary Executive Theory? – Oral arguments commenced 9:30 a.m. Eastern time over Trump v. Slaughter, part of the Trump administration’s effort to codify the unitary executive theory (see Project 2025), which posits that the president should have complete control over the executive branch.
SCOTUSblog is live-blogging oral arguments HERE.
The case involves Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, whom Trump had fired along with FTC member Alvaro Bedeya, both of them "associated" with the Democratic Party.
SCOTUS last upheld restrictions on a president’s ability to fire members of an independent agency in Humphrey’s Executors v. United States after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt fired FTC Commissioner William Humphrey before his term ended. That case was cited in a lower-court ruling favoring Rebecca Kelly Slaughter.
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Other Side of the Peace Talks – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is in London Monday to meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to jump-start efforts for a ceasefire to the Russia-Ukraine war.
There’s no agreement on Donbas Oblast yet, Zelenskyy said, according to The Kyiv Independent, referencing Moscow’s demand in negotiations with White House envoy Steve Witkoff and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, which have so far occurred without any connection to Kyiv and/or its European allies.
Moscow’s demands for complete takeover of the Donbas region, including land it has not conquered, and security guarantees for Ukraine remain “sensitive issues,” Zelenskyy told Bloomberg News. Russia also has refused to compromise on its demands for a ban on Ukraine joining NATO, even as the original 28-point plan largely written by the Kremlin was cut to 19 points.
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Pardoned, then Disloyal – Last Wednesday, President Trump pardoned Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), who was to stand trial with his wife, Imelda, who were accused of taking $600,000 in bribes from an oil company controlled by the Azerbaijan government and a Mexico-based bank. Then Cuellar, one of the most conservative Democrats in the House announced his decision to run for re-election as a Democrat.
How did that go over with Trump?
“Such a lack of LOYALTY,” Trump Truth Socialed according to The Washington Post, which reports that the president implied Sunday that as a result of the pardon, Cuellar should not run for re-election as a Democrat to his swing district along the Texas border.
Speaking of 'loyalty' … Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who is resigning from the House of Representatives January 5, says she is no longer “MAGA” but is “America First.” She told CBS News’ Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes that President Trump has betrayed his MAGA creed by signing a crypto bill backed by crypto donors, blindly supports Israel and has bombed Iran as a result and sides with big pharma regarding COVID vaccines.
Trump’s rift with “Marjorie Traitor Greene” peaked when she signed discharge papers calling for release of the Epstein Files. She says she has received pipe bomb threats and threats against her son.
When Stahl asked MTG how other congressmembers talk about Trump behind his back, the congresswoman replied; “It would shock people.”
MTG continued: “I’ve watched many of my colleagues making fun of him, making fun of how he talks, making fun of me constantly for supporting him, to when he won the primary in 2024 they all stated, excuse my language, Leslie, kissing his ass. And decided to put a MAGA hat on for the first time.”
MTG told Stahl she has no plans to run for the Senate, which she “hates,” nor for Georgia governor nor president. --TL
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FRIDAY 12/5/25
Netflix to Buy Warner Bros.-Discovery – Netflix will purchase Warner Bros.-Discovery for $72.6 billion after Warners splits off its cable network, which includes CNN, TNT and TBS, according to The Wall Street Journal. It’s a sort of David slews Goliath deal in which Netflix as David outbid the Paramount and Comcast Goliaths.
After the purchase, Netflix will operate HBO and HBO Max as standalone streaming services, Netflix co-chief Ted Sarandos said in a call with investors Thursday.
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Don’t Mess with the Gerrymander – The US Supreme Court handed President Trump a victory Thursday in his efforts to secure five additional GOP-majority US congressional districts from Texas when it overturned a lower court ruling that said the state had likely sorted out voters based on race (per SCOTUSblog). Currently 22 of Texas’ 38 US House seats are held by Republicans. With Thursday’s SCOTUS ruling, that should reach 27 Republican seats after the November 2026 elections. The GOP currently has a 219-214 House majority with two seats vacant.
Trump wants to maintain the Republican House majority after the midterms, which typically flip against a sitting president from either party.
A three-judge district court in El Paso had overturned the Texas state legislature’s redistricting, but that was stayed November 21 by SCOTUS Justice Samuel Alito, who oversees emergency appeals from Texas.
Thursday’s brief unsigned ruling said, “The district court improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections.”
The 6-3 ruling was split between the six justices appointed by Republican presidents, including three by Trump, and three appointed by Democratic presidents.
In her dissent, Justice Elana Kagan wrote that the order “announces that Texas may run next year’s elections with a map the district court found to have violated all our oft-repeated strictures about the use of race in districting. Today’s order disrespects the work of a district court that did everything one could ask to carry out its charge – that put aside every consideration except getting the issue before it right.”
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DOJ Arrests Alleged Bipartisan Pipe-bomber – The Justice Department Thursday announced charges against Brian Cole, 30, for allegedly planting pipe bombs at the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee headquarters on Capitol Hill the night of January 5, 2021.
“Four years, 10 months and 28 days ago, an individual placed a pipe bomb in the vicinity of both the RNC and DNC, and for that amount of time, that individual evaded accountability,” Jeanine Pirro, US attorney for the District of Columbia, told reporters Thursday, The Hill reports.
There was no apparent reference to the event that happened the next day, when supporters of President Trump, who had lost re-election that previous November, stormed the Capitol to try and prevent Congress from counting Electoral College votes that affirmed Joe Biden as the 46th president. Afterward, eponymous host of The Dan Bongino Show on Rumble began floating a conspiracy theory that the FBI planted the pipe bombs in a false-flag effort connected with the January 6th attack on Capitol Hill. Now as FBI deputy director, Bongino said: “You’re not going to walk into our capital city, put down two explosive devices and walk off in the sunset. Not going to happen. We were going to track this person to the end of the Earth. There was no way he was getting away.” –TL
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THURSDAY 12/4/25
Trump’s Attack – It’s on Somalia, Somalians, Somalian-Americans, Minnesotans.
On Tuesday, President Trump said this about Somalians and Somalian-Americas: “They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country. We can go one way or the other, and we’re going to the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.”
On Wednesday, the president added: “Somalians should be out of here. They’re destroying our country.”
On Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (a critic of Trump’s rhetoric): “I wouldn’t be proud to have the largest Somalian population.”
Hamse Warfa, a Somali-born entrepreneur in Minneapolis compared Trump’s rhetoric, according to Politico, with presidential candidate Trump’s lie in 2024 that Haitian’s were “eating cats and dogs” in Ohio.
“I am not garbage,” Warfa said.
Politico quotes a person familiar with planning that federal authorities are preparing targeted immigration enforcement in Minnesota, focusing on Somalis living illegally in the US.
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No Defense for Signal – Most of the federal government’s inspectors general have been sacked by the Trump 47 administration, but not all. The Pentagon’s inspector general is employed and well enough to release Thursday a report that concludes War (Defense) Sec. Pete Hegseth’s use of the Signal app to discuss a missile attack by US Military on Houthi rebels in Yemen last March violated the Pentagon’s policies by discussing the attack via app rather than in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF).
The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg listened in by invite last March and reported on the attack plans, leaving out any sensitive details, weeks after he realized the Signal chat was real.
The Pentagon IG’s report is said to conclude that the information Hegseth shared in the chat could have put US Military personnel and national security at risk had it fallen into the wrong hands, The Atlantic Daily reports. –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa