The alleged peace talks to end Russia’s war on Ukraine continue to generate confusing and inconsistent signals. After it appeared last week that the US had released a Russian “wish-list” as a US-sponsored peace plan, US and Ukrainian negotiators developed a “response” to the US plan. (Yes, you heard that right: the US is working with Ukraine to develop a response to the US peace plan, which was really a Russian demand for surrender.) See The Guardian, US and Ukraine promise ‘updated’ peace framework after criticism of pro-Russian points in original plan.

As of Sunday evening, many media outlets are reporting that the counterproposal developed by the US and Ukraine is a significant step forward. See, e.g., NYTimes, Ukraine and U.S. Cite Progress in Talks on Ending War With Russia.

But other outlets are reporting that the US demanded that Ukraine publish a “positive” statement that praised the progress of the peace talks. In other words, the US is telling Ukraine to manipulate the US media by claiming that the US and Ukraine are making rapid progress. See Axios, US, Ukraine make progress on Trump’s peace plan, Rubio says.

Per Axios,

Behind the scenes: Two sources with knowledge of the talks said Rubio’s and [Ukraine’s] upbeat statements came hours after a tense meeting Sunday morning during which the American side accused Ukrainian officials of leaking negative details about the plan in the U.S. press.

The Ukrainians agreed to issue a positive statement by one of their negotiators in order to clear the air, a source said.

Later Sunday, Ukrainian officials presented a counterproposal with requests for changes to Trump’s plan and the U.S. expressed willingness to make some changes based on this, a source with knowledge of the talks said.

Here’s the rub: Someone needs to tell Russia that the concessions the US agreed to represent progress from Russia’s perspective. That seems unlikely. See Institute for the Study of War, Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment Nov. 23, 2025, which states,

Russian officials and ultranationalist voices continued to reject any peace plan, including the initial US-proposed 28-point plan, that does not achieve Russia’s longstanding demands for the destruction of Ukrainian statehood and the weakening of the NATO alliance.

The US is applying maximum pressure to Ukraine by threatening to withhold intelligence and stop the flow of weapons. Perhaps those threats are enough to force Ukraine to surrender to Russia. If so, it will be one of the darkest days in US foreign policy in the history of our nation.

President Zelensky said the following about the US pressure to accept the “peace plan,”

The pressure on Ukraine is now at its most intense. Ukraine may now face a very difficult choice: either the loss of dignity, or the risk of losing a key partner, or 28 difficult points, or an extremely harsh winter.

So, perhaps a peace deal forcing Ukraine to surrender is close at hand. Or not.

I don’t know what to believe. I do know that this is no way to run a peace negotiation. And I also know that threatening to abandon our ally in the struggle to contain Russia’s expansionism is wrong.

Government lawyers keep telling Trump and Hegseth the bombings are illegal.

Trump surrogates are still pushing back on the video by six Democratic members of Congress that urges members of the US military to refuse to obey unlawful orders. Over the weekend, Vice President JD Vance posted a statement saying,

If the president hasn’t issued illegal orders, then members of Congress telling the military to defy the president is by definition illegal.

The problem with Vance’s statement is that many government lawyers believe that Trump’s orders to kill drug smugglers are illegal. But when they tell Trump that he is acting unlawfully, Trump fires them or shops for other internal lawyers. See The New Republic, Trump’s Team Didn’t Care That Deadly Boat Strikes Could Be Illegal.

Per the New Republic:

According to government officials who were familiar with the situation, the administration initially planned for the CIA to conduct the strikes—but when CIA lawyers pushed back, [the administration] pivoted to using the U.S. military. The Trump administration’s justification for the lethal attacks is that the U.S. is engaged in an armed conflict with “designated terrorist organizations.”

But many national security experts, both inside and outside of the administration, told the Post that this justification “does not stand up to facts.”

What’s more, many of the lawyers who raised concerns or attempted to institute guardrails had either left the government, or had been reassigned or removed from their positions. The National Security Council’s full-time legal staff was completely gutted by this summer, including former Pentagon general counsel Paul Ney, who had raised concerns about the legality of the strikes, according to former officials.

In short, Trump is firing or ignoring government lawyers who tell him that the bombings are illegal. That is why we need members of Congress and other officials to urge the military to refuse to obey unlawful orders.

DOGE has been disbanded.

The Trump administration has quietly disbanded DOGE as an entity, while scattering some of its former staffers throughout the federal government. See Huffington Post, Trump Disbands DOGE Despite Eight Months Left On Its Charter.

Per HuffPo,

[DOGE] has disbanded with eight months left to its mandate, ending an initiative launched with fanfare as a symbol of Trump’s pledge to slash the government’s size but which critics say delivered few measurable savings.

“That doesn’t exist,” Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor told Reuters earlier this month when asked about DOGE’s status.

It is no longer a “centralized entity,” Kupor added, in the first public comments from the Trump administration on the end of DOGE.

If true, the demise of DOGE marks a welcome, long-overdue end to a wholesale attack on the Constitution and the rule of law. DOGE repeatedly violated the separation of powers by usurping or ignoring Congress’s Article I powers.

Several federal judges ruled that DOGE’s efforts were unlawful. See, e.g., Oregon Council for the Humanities v. US Department of the Treasury Service, ruling that the Department of the Treasury’s cuts to grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities were illegal.

But the Supreme Court frequently lifted the injunctions issued by lower courts against DOGE cuts. See, e.g., Supreme Court clears way for Trump to move forward with mass layoffs of federal workers. (“The high court’s order clears the way for the Trump administration to resume its efforts to reorganize and scale back the federal government, which has been led by . . . DOGE.)

DOGE will be remembered as a symbol of the cruelty and lawlessness of Trump’s second term. It disrupted the lives of millions of Americans who rightfully relied on acts of Congress to fund scientific and medical research, predict the weather, recover from disasters, help Americans with disabilities, and fight poverty and hunger. A priority in the next administration should be identifying and prosecuting those who violated federal criminal laws during DOGE’s reign of terror.

Twitter reveals “country of origin” of accounts. Surprise! Many MAGA influencer accounts are located outside the US.

The cesspool known as X, formerly Twitter, introduced a new feature late last week that allows users to identify the country of origin of accounts opened on the social media platform. The new feature immediately revealed that many leading MAGA influencer accounts are located outside the US, including Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia. See The Guardian, Many prominent Maga personalities on X are based outside US, new tool reveals.

Per The Guardian,

Many of the most influential personalities in the “Make America great again” (Maga) movement on X are based outside of the US, including Russia, Nigeria and India, a new transparency feature on the social media site has revealed. [¶]

As soon as the update was rolled out, users found numerous Maga and rightwing influencers who presented themselves as patriotic Americans were operating from other countries. [¶]

The account MAGANationX, with nearly 400,000 followers and a bio reading “Patriot Voice for We The People”, is actually operated from eastern Europe, according to the Daily Beast.

Another popular profile, IvankaNews, an Ivanka Trump fan account with around one million followers that frequently posts about illegal immigration, Islam and support for Trump, was revealed to be based in Nigeria.

Twitter appears to be a leading source for disinformation by foreign actors and malicious bots. While every social media platform struggles with impostors and disinformation, Twitter appears to have cornered the market.

Trump to propose a plan for addressing rising healthcare insurance costs

After voters rebuked Trump’s policies on November 4, 2025, the president has become laser-focused on “the affordability,” an awkward phrase that suggests he has no idea why Americans are upset with the economy.

Many outlets are reporting that Trump will propose a plan to address spikes in ACA healthcare premiums that will occur when current subsidies expire—thanks to the GOP Big Ugly Bill. See CNN, Trump expected to unveil new health care cost proposal.

Recall that a mere 17 days ago, Democrats were demanding that Trump extend ACA subsidies as a condition of reopening the government. Eight Democrats agreed to end the shutdown without securing a promise to extend the healthcare subsidies—although they did secure a promise for a vote on the Senate floor in December to extend the subsidies.

Trump now appears to be circumventing Democratic efforts to extend the subsidies by offering an extension that simultaneously curtails eligibility and reduces subsidies. Per the CNN article,

But the framework under discussion envisions temporarily extending the ACA subsidies in some form, while incorporating a series of guardrails aimed at limiting their scope — potentially including new income limits and a requirement that all enrollees pay some form of premium.

While we should welcome any assistance to those facing increases in healthcare costs, Democrats should not relent in their effort to extend the existing subsidies. By ending the shutdown without securing that goal, Democrats gave up their maximum leverage. Let’s hope that in the coming battle, strong public opinion will force Republicans to restore the subsidies cut in the Big Ugly Bill to fund tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.

Concluding Thoughts

As we head into the Thanksgiving holiday, it feels as though the news cycle is slowing. If so, we should make the most of the break by resting and recharging our emotional reserves. We are emerging from a daunting ten months unlike any other in the history of our republic.

The good news is that we have seized the momentum and flipped the narrative. Trump is politically vulnerable, historically unpopular, and constitutionally incapable of changing his malignant narcissism to put the interests of the people above his own.

We can capitalize on his weaknesses over the next 12 months to regain control of Congress in 2026. The fact that Trump is pretending to offer relief to Americans facing sticker shock for healthcare premiums shows that Trump recognizes this issue threatens his presidency.

Let’s keep up the pressure, to repair Trump’s damage but also to ensure that Americans who deserve relief will receive it as soon as possible.

Talk to you tomorrow!

Pro-democracy protest photos

Very popular Visibility Brigade on a chilly November day in Lawrenceville, NJ:

Democracy Rally - Indivisible Mendocino Coast. Small town America says YES to democracy, NO to Trump’s scourge. Photographs: Robert Dominy

A dozen members of our North Country Resilience Bridge Brigade came out to wave to the cars going by the I-93 northernmost overpass in Franconia Notch (NH) today. It was windy and snowy. There were many honks and flashing lights for our messages this weekend.”

Salisbury, CT. Weekly protest. And yes, although we’re wearing our masks in jest, we’re squealing like pigs in distress.

Framingham, MA.

Metrowest Sings Out, elected officials (including our Senate President and State Representatives), environmentalists, immigrant organizations, LUCE, tables from organizations, and a very successful food drive (in spite of the cold and rain!).

Daily Dose of Perspective

Below, the Andromeda Galaxy—the nearest “complete spiral galaxy” to the Milky Way, our home. The two galaxies are on a 4-billion-year collision course.

Photographers will immediately recognize the struggles I encountered with exposure. I considered giving the photo the name, “Concepts of a Galaxy,” or “The Old Man and the Overexposured Galaxy.”

Most deep sky objects are faint. Not Andromeda. After just a few minutes, the central region is overexposed, while the outer regions of the galaxy need another 60 minutes of exposure. The result is a photo with a blown-out central region and underexposed outer regions.

I fought with Lightroom for nearly an hour to balance the exposure. (FYI, I normally shoot ten-second exposures at 2000 ISO. For this image, I set the exposure to two seconds at 200 ISO. Still way overexposed.)

After an hour of tinkering, I gave up, having made the photo much worse for my effort. I figured that people who don’t do astrophotography will think it is a cool photo, and the people who practice the dark art of astrophotography will roll their eyes and think, “Poor guy. I hope he is okay.” I willingly accept your sympathy.

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