The attempt by CBS Übermeister Bari Weiss to spike a segment on the venerable news program 60 Minutes failed spectacularly. The segment was leaked and is now circulating widely online. (Search for The Breakdown with Allison Gill on Substack.) Weiss claimed that she pulled the segment at the last minute because it did not include an on-the-record response by Steven Miller (White House) or Tom Homan (Homeland Security). Weiss’s explanation was met with derision because the reporters who produced the segment asked both Homeland Security and the White House for comments. They refused.
Weiss is being pilloried in the press, and there are widespread reports of threatened resignations and turmoil at “America’s #1 news program” for the last 50 years. See The Independent, ‘Holy f***ing dumpster fire’: Bari Weiss sparks ‘revolt’ at ‘60 Minutes’ by spiking CECOT segment.
Here’s the problem: Bari Weiss has no newsroom or journalistic experience and has no business making such judgments. Weiss developed an “anti-woke opinion newsletter on Substack before being installed as the classroom monitor at CBS by David Ellison. David’s father, billionaire Larry Ellison, signaled to Trump that there would be “changes” at CBS if Trump approved Ellison’s acquisition of CBS’s parent company. See New York Post, Trump says CBS under David Ellison will be ‘fairer’ but it won’t ‘become like Fox’.
The evidence strongly suggests Weiss was sent to CBS to quash pesky liberal opinions about democracy and justice by platforming MAGA opinions of grievance and resentment over the loss of the “golden age” of America that never existed. Her ham-fisted handling of the CECOT story shows that she is hell-bent on carrying out her assignment, damn the cost to her personal reputation. She is the dutiful foot soldier of a Trump billionaire techbro committed to taking over all media outlets in the US.
Among the many withering critiques of Weiss’s actions, I highly recommend this essay by Jonathan Alter, Old Goats on Substack, The Trump Boomerang Effect: Bari Weiss, Meet Ozymandias.
Alter writes,
Here’s what I’m confident will happen next: Weiss will scramble to protect her reputation. This piece will run soon—probably next Sunday— and will get monster ratings. Weiss will then learn the lesson that Bob Iger absorbed when ABC briefly bent the knee to Trump, who wanted to kill Jimmy Kimmel’s show.
Alter then quotes Percy Bysshe Shelley’s powerful poem Ozymandias, which has chilling resonance with our situation today. The poem tells the story of a traveler who comes upon a colossal stone statue toppled in a barren desert. The monument bears the boastful inscription of King Ozymandias, which now lies in ruins:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
We can see the cracks developing in the clay feet of Trump’s gaudy monument. And when he topples, so will the techbros and hangers-on. It is just a matter of time, as Weiss’s misstep with the 60 Minutes CECOT report proves.
Bari Weiss is learning the hard way that having a boss with all the money in the world can’t force people to like or respect you—which is what she seeks more than anything in the world.
Speaking of hubris and vain monuments to power, see Trump’s proposal to build the next generation of “Trump” battleships.
Trump proposes new “Trump class” of battleships to usher in “Golden Fleet.”
Trump announced on Monday that the Navy would build a new class of battleships named for Trump. See ABC News, Trump announces new class of US battleships named after himself
In reality, what happened is this: Trump told the Navy to develop a new “Trump class” of battleships. The Navy, knowing that it will never fund or build a new class of battleships, said (with tears in their eyes), “Yes, sir! We will get right on that project.”
The US gave up building battleships long ago. The last battleship was decommissioned in 1992, but battleships were effectively no longer part of the Navy’s fleet after WWII. They are vulnerable to missiles, have limited capability, are easily replaceable by aircraft, and are costly to build and maintain.
Trump has long had a fascination with WWII movies that show ships and planes winning the war. What better way to build his own Ozymandias monument than by building battleships named after Trump that will star in future movies? It is the height of narcissism and delusion. See the excellent essay in What Did Donald Trump Do Today? | Substack, Obsolete Man Wants To Bring Back Obsolete Ships.
As What Did Trump Do Today writes,
Ultimately, the “Golden Fleet” reveals a governing philosophy rooted in spectacle rather than substance. Deterrence is reduced to intimidation theater, procurement to impulse, and history to aesthetic preference. The Navy’s real challenges—maintenance backlogs, shipyard capacity, workforce shortages, cyber vulnerability, and integration with allies—are waved away with slogans and superlatives.
What’s being launched here isn’t a credible maritime strategy, but a floating monument to excess: bigger ships, bigger claims, bigger numbers, untethered from reality.
If these battleships ever materialize, they won’t stand as proof of American strength so much as evidence that national security policy has been hijacked by one man’s obsession with size, shine, and having the loudest, most heavily armed reflection staring back at him from the sea.
The “Trump class” battleships won’t ever be built. But Trump’s ego has been stroked by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, which is his highest and best use.
Bill Clinton calls DOJ’s bluff on Epstein files
The DOJ and Trump have been falsely suggesting that Bill Clinton appears in the Epstein files. On Monday, Bill Clinton called Trump’s bluff by asking the DOJ to produce everything in the files relating to Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. See Fox News, Clinton team demands Trump DOJ release ‘any remaining’ docs related to former president, Epstein.
A spokesperson for Bill Clinton challenged the DOJ to immediately release all files relating to the former president, explaining,
there are “two types of people” involved in the Epstein scandal: those who did not know of Epstein’s crimes and cut him out of their lives upon his conviction and a second group of people who “continued relationships with him after” his crimes came to light.
“We’re in the first. No amount of stalling by people in the second group will change that,” the Clinton spokesman continued. “Everyone, especially MAGA, expects answers, not scapegoats.”
The fact that Fox News is reporting Bill Clinton’s challenge shows the effectiveness of Clinton’s strategy: The person calling for transparency has nothing to hide; the person slow walking the production of documents is trying to hide something.
Trump appoints the Louisiana governor as special envoy to Greenland
As part of Trump’s effort to annex Greenland, he has appointed the governor of Louisiana as “special envoy” to the island that is a self-governing territory of Denmark:
Trump on Sunday appointed the governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, as US special envoy to the vast, mineral-rich Arctic island. The US president has on several occasions said the US needs to acquire Greenland for security reasons, while refusing to rule out the use of force.
See The Guardian, You cannot annex other countries, Danish and Greenlandic leaders tell Trump.
Per The Guardian, leaders of Greenland and Denmark reacted angrily, saying
“We have said it very clearly before. Now we say it again. National borders and the sovereignty of states are rooted in international law … You cannot annex other countries,” Mette Frederiksen and Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a joint statement.
The two leaders added that “fundamental principles” were at stake. “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders, and the US should not take over Greenland,” they said. “We expect respect for our common territorial integrity.”
Like the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Trump class battleships, Trump’s plan to take over Greenland is part of an effort to create a legacy as a great president. Spoiler alert: That isn’t going to happen.
The Trump administration’s renewed assault on transgender people should matter to us all.
In Trump’s nationally televised debacle of a speech last week (likely written by Steven Miller), Trump went out of his way to include his standard attacks on transgender people. See The Advocate, Trump’s fact-short speech includes ‘trans for everybody’. Trump said that before he took office, “We had men in women’s sports, transgender for everybody.”
As noted by The Advocate,
For the record, trans women are not men, and no one has proposed that everyone should transition their gender, but Trump has a beyond-odd obsession with that concept.
The fact that Trump went out of his way to include an attack on transgender people in a national address speaks volumes. Trump’s speech was immediately panned by commentators on major cable and broadcast platforms. But almost no one mentioned Trump’s attack on transgender people.
Why?
Trump and MAGA have managed to normalize attacks on transgender people through sheer repetition, using a “flood the zone” strategy. As noted last week, the House passed a bill sponsored by Marjorie Taylor Greene that criminalizes healthcare for transgender youth by adopting Texas-style bounties for doctors and others who provide medical care, transportation, or support for minors obtaining gender affirming care. See The Hill, House passes Marjorie Taylor Greene’s anti-trans bill .
It is doubtful that Greene’s bill will pass in the Senate because of the filibuster. Still, it is possible that some Democratic Senators may support the bill. See, for example, Gavin Newsom’s attempt to pander to conservative voters by agreeing with Charlie Kirk during a podcast that it was “deeply unfair” to allow transgender people to participate in sports.1 See ABC News, California Gov. Gavin Newsom breaks with party on transgender athletes in women’s sports, sparking backlash.
Given that Congress will not likely pass Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill, the Trump administration is attempting to impose by rule that which it cannot do by legislation. See Erin in the Morning, ACLU Pledges To Challenge Trump Admin In Court Over National Trans Youth Care Ban Rule.
Per EITM,
The proposed rule, RIN 0938-AV87, would bar any hospital system that participates in Medicaid or Medicare from offering gender-affirming care to transgender youth, regardless of whether that care is paid for with federal funds or privately.
If enacted, it would represent the most sweeping executive overreach yet by the administration in its campaign against transgender people, and appears to be advancing precisely because similar measures—though passed by the U.S. House—face steep odds in the Senate.
Now, in response, the American Civil Liberties Union has pledged to take the administration to court if the rule is finalized, vowing to challenge its implementation.
The Trump administration is targeting transgender people because it can, because not enough Americans are raising their voices against the blatant discrimination against transgender people.
Trump and MAGA are using discrimination against transgender youth as a starting point for discrimination against all LGBTQ people, and then all non-white people, then all non-Christians, etc. We should rise to the defense of transgender people because they are people entitled to the full protection of the Constitution. But we should also rise to their defense to prevent what comes after Trump normalizes discrimination against transgender people. We are in this together, and we rise and fall together.
Concluding Thoughts
As we enter the final week of the year, many outlets are publishing retrospectives that help place the last year in context. I found this article interesting and affirming: Vox, 2025’s surprising good news: crime, overdoses, suicides, crashes fell.
Despite what we see on our screens, life in America is becoming safer (mostly). Medical science is poised to make giant leaps against genetic diseases through the CRISPR-Cas9 technology (gene editing). Most categories of crime and violent deaths are down—homicides, drug overdoses, suicides, and traffic accidents. We are shrinking the size of the ozone hole over the Antarctic by regulating ozone-depleting chemicals—a rare win for global environmental cooperation. And although our democracy is under severe stress, the grassroots movement rallied in 2025 to meet the moment.
So, as we anticipate the new year, we have much to be thankful for. At the top of my list, right after family and friends, is this newsletter community, which has helped me make it through a daunting eight years. Thanks to each and every one of you for your support and steadfast commitment to democracy. Together, there is nothing we cannot do. I look confidently toward the new year with each of you by my side.
Talk to you tomorrow!
Pro-democracy protest photos
Silverlake, CA
On my spot-lighted, light strung Japanese black pine in the front yard of my Silver Lake home, so far there’s 28 political messages on “ornaments” made from aluminum pie plates, foam board circles painted in multicolors, messages written with a tip-tube of whiteout, finished by a rubber cemented transparency film.
Riverhead, NY
“Bad weather is no match for fearless freedom fighters.”
Westport, CT
Washington, D.C.
I just learned how to send you photos. These are older now, but I’m sending them along anyway. These are from No Kings 2.0 in Washington on October 18 and you can see me next to Simon Rosenberg from Hopium Chronicles. Some of us locals arranged to meet up with Simon there.
Middletown, CT
A picture from our weekly Saturday protest. It was a balmy 36 degrees with not much wind, much better than last week! Onward!
Greenfield, MA
Daily Dose of Perspective
The image below shows the distance between two galaxies. (I neglected to label them when I imported the image into Lightroom.) I inserted the scale marker to give a sense of perspective. If you stretched your arm and raised your thumb to locate the two galaxies depicted below, the tip of your thumb would cover both galaxies, which are separated by 5.5 million light-years. From horizon to horizon, the night sky spans about 93 billion light-years in distance.
The issue of transgender people in sports is a nearly non-existent phenomenon and is used as a stalking horse to justify discrimination against transgender people in other contexts. See The Hill, (10/18/24), NCAA president says there are ‘less than 10’ transgender athletes in college sports.
To place the 10 transgender athletes in context, there were more than 550,000 NCAA athletes in competition in 2024-25. See A record number of NCAA student-athletes participated in 2024-25 - NCAA.org.
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