12/19/25
Good morning! It’s Friday, December 19th.
Ugly Sweater Day
I want you to know that I really wanted to wear an ugly sweater for this recording but this is a professional news broadcast and how dare you, quite frankly, to think I’d stoop to such low standards just for the bit.
And now, the news.
Update: Brown University
-via CBS News
Okay, this is the last episode before a two-week break so as I record this, no there is still no update but, yes, obviously, we hope that’s outdated by the time you hear this, and please for the love of everything that’s everything, let it be very outdated by the time the show is back in January.
The police are, however, investigating a link between the shooting and the death of an MIT professor. The professor was found on Monday night and died on Tuesday. However, that’s all they’ve announced.
North Carolina Crash
-via CNN
In North Carolina, a private plane crashed Thursday morning, killing the pilot and all five passengers. Obviously an investigation will take place but the plane never got to more than 2,000 feet.
On board were former NASCAR driver Greg Biffle and his family.
Trump’s Presidential Address
Starting with the news that Trump addressed the nation on Wednesday night. I don’t really want to cover it because at a certain point it’s like – I mean in theory, when the president of the United States says he wants to address the nation, you kind of have to let him do it, but on the other hand, the guy is clearly in cognitive decline and couldn’t someone just have pretended to press record?
It was a speech about the economy that opened with: “Good evening, America. Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess, and I’m fixing it. When I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years, and some would say in the history of our country, which caused prices to be higher than ever before, making life unaffordable for millions and millions of Americans. This happened during a Democrat administration, and it’s when we first began hearing the word affordability.”
Ah yes, you know, that word that just got invented and certainly for sure doesn’t originate from the 17th century, “affordable,” and it, itself, hasn’t been around for 115 years.
Just because you haven’t heard of something before doesn’t make it new, it just makes it new to you.
ANYWAY!
He jumped straight into racism from there and then somehow was like: and now I was say numbers that can, indeed, be fact checked and yet somehow I think this is a good idea to lie about them.
He says airline prices are coming down. They are up 3.2%
He said gas prices rose 30-50% under Biden. Yes, but they also fell just as much in that time and additionally, now they’ve only fallen .5%. Meaning Trump has only brought them down .5%
“Hotel rates rose 37%. Airfares rose 31%.”
Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics: hotel room rates are down .8% and car rental prices are down 5.0%.
And what of your precious eggs?
“The price of eggs is down 82%since March.”
Well first of all, eggs are an outlier because of the avian flu so you wouldn’t look at them as a marker of anything anyway but even if you could… they’re only down 43%.
Notice he didn’t mention meat, though? Beef is up 8.5%, while meat, at large, is up 14.7%.
That inflation he mentioned at the top? It was higher at recently at the 70s and 80s.
“Already, I’ve secured a record-breaking $18 trillion of investment into the United States.”
His own White House says only $9.6 trillion has been secured, and more than half of that is from foreign countries, in a very informal way, with experts warning that the number is unrealistic.
He did say one thing no one can argue with: “Nobody can believe what’s going on.”
So that’s… the… speech the president made.
Epstein Files
-via BBC
On Thursday, ahead—actually wait, let me be honest and tell you that I’m recording this on Thursday (sorry, not to get into the weeds of how the tofurkey is made), so I don’t know what on earth will have happened by the time you hear this but ahead of what is supposed to be the release of the DOJ’s Epstein files, the House Oversight Committee released 68 additional photos. No one in the photos is a surprise, meaning it’s not anyone whose relationship with Epstein wasn’t already known. But it doesn’t mean the pictures aren’t still… weird.
Or gross.
While no one knows who Scout or J are, there’s a text where someone says they have a friend named Scout who sent some girls, one of which is 18 from Russia, who might be good for J. $1000 each.
There a picture of a someone holding a bottle of UTI medication, another of 2 bow and arrow bows.
Another is a Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office inmate request form, from Christmas 2008. But it’s not an actual request. It’s hard to read, but it appears to be just a bunch of personal references, something about Paris and Dubai, and is clearly a love note. The names are redacted.
There’s a woman’s foot with a quote from Lolita on it, with a copy of Lolita in the frame as well.
Again, these are not the Epstein files. These are files, they are related to Epstein. But the Epstein files that are supposed to, are legally-mandated to, come out today, are coming from the Department of Justice. Different.
I will note that Congress has gone for their winter break early and it’s believed to be because Speaker Johnson who, again, has never had a brave, doesn’t want to have to use his big boy voice to tell the DOJ to release those files. So if they don’t release them today, the House won’t be there to tell them to do so.
But they are still legally required to do so. Additionally, the House can’t be on vacation forever. This isn’t a forever solution. This is a temporary thing (that Speaker Johnson is doing to protect and child-sex-trafficking ring… what a choice. And right before Christmas. That man is getting nothing but coal!)
Transgender Care
-via NY Times
On Thursday, Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr (cursed sentence, cursed human), as well as Dr. Oz, a TV doctor, announced new rules that would pull federal funding from hospitals that offer gender-affirming care to youths.
These rules would basically shut down hospitals that fail to comply with their hate-filled rules, cruel for the sake of being cruel.
I’m not even… I…
I will not be reading any quotes from this administration on this story.
Yes, of course it will be challenged in court. Yes of course some states will allow it and some states won’t.
It won’t be dissimilar to, say, abortion rights in this country.
Your right to survive in this country depends on state lines. County lines.
How much gas do you have in your car?
And others also pay the price as well. People who voted for this administration, who may even support this policy, who also pay the price. In desperate need of a doctor’s appointment and unable to find one because the closest hospital has closed, and they were thrilled to see it because it meant a trans kid they’ve never met can’t play a sport they love.
This is what it’s like to live in a cold civil war.
These are kids.
And all they are trying to do is live their most authentic lives. Why can’t they? RFK Jr. gets to do it. He’s out there chopping heads off dead whales and being friends with ravens. People let him live his authentically creepy life. Just let these kids live their lives. That’s all they’re asking.
And yeah no, good call on making things harder for hospitals. They’ve had it far too easy lately.
Banner choice all around.
Anyway, just thought I’d let you know about something headed to Court.
Laugh at Clowns
And finally, because we laugh at clowns…
Two things.
First, you’ll be shocked to hear that Trump’s hand-picked Kennedy Center board came back and decided to rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center.
Incredible stuff!
I’m sure he was shocked to hear this news!
“Who me?? Wowsers!!”
It’ll take an act of Congress to make it official, but in the meantime, I’m sure he’s so proud.
Also, there’s a new Walk of Fame thing in the White House, with portraits of each president and plaques under the names and they are really… something.
President Obama is “a community organizer, one-term Senator from Illinois, and one of the most divisive political figures in American History.” Also it calls the Affordable Care Act, the highly ineffective ‘Unaffordable Care Act.”
W Bush “started wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which should not have happened.”
Clinton fairs well(ish) but the plaque says it’s because of the Republicans and the tech boom and happned, “despite the scandals that plagued his Presidency.”
“In 2016, President Clinton’s wife, Hillary, lost the Presidency to President Donald J. Trump!”
Trump himself has two portraits, for two terms. His first refers to an imaginative popular vote win. It also calls his 2016 Electoral College margin of 304-227 a “landslide.”
By far, the funniest is that Joe Biden’s portrait is just a picture of the autopen. Everyone else has a picture, and he has a picture of the autopen. It starts “Sleepy Joe Biden was, by far, the worst President in American history.”
It ends with “despite it all, President Trump would get re-elected and SAVE AMERICA!”
You’ll be shocked to hear Trump wrote some of them.
But which ones???
Give him fake things.
Give him a fake America.
Have you ever thought about that?
And that’s it. That’s the news.
For the year!
(Maybe. We’ll see what’s up with these Epstein files. I presume nothing now that our bravest little Mikey has to go ski or whatever.)
Another year in the books! Whether you just started this week, this month, this year… whether you’ve been here the whole time, or you’re Zazz and you’re the one who made me do this to begin with… I can’t thank you enough for being here.
The news sucks! It’s bad in there. My friends and I talk about this all the time – it’s bad out there. But I do this because I think it’s important. It’s important that we stay paying attention. We can’t all do everything, we can all do something.
Enjoy your break from me.
I will miss you immensely, so it’s kind of weird that you’re taking a break from me. I will, however, enjoy the break from the news.
And we’ll get right back into it in January.
And because of everything… all the good that’s ever even tried to be good. Because you’re the best good that’s even been good… I’m proud of you.