Welcome back, friends!

I will host a livestream on Saturday, December 27 at Noon Pacific / 3:00 PM Eastern. Please note this is three hours later than usual—I will be driving my daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter to LAX to help return a rental car early Saturday morning. Don’t worry if you cannot join us for the later start time. I will keep it brief and light, but I do not want to miss a weekly livestream. They have become an important part of my connection to the reader community. I hope many of you feel the same. Instructions on how to join the livestream can be found here.

A brief Christmas reflection

Thanks for your understanding of the unusual two-day break. Jill and I were able to enjoy having our three daughters, their husbands, and our five grandchildren under the same roof for the first time. It was truly special.

One moment stands out. We hosted our 45th Annual Christmas Eve Party on Wednesday. We had nearly 50 guests, including 11 children aged 5 and under. Halfway through the party, one of the new dads announced that Santa had been spotted over California.

The kids rushed into the backyard, craned their necks, and stood in a tight pack looking skyward for a glimpse of Santa’s sleigh. They kept looking for about 3 minutes—in silence and expectation. It was a fleeting moment of innocence, the kind that can be created only by children when they do not know they are being watched.

And now, the news . . .

A few brief comments on the news of the last few days. Unfortunately, most of the news relates to Trump’s desecration of a holiday rooted in peace and hope. If you don’t feel like reading the rest of today’s edition, I understand, and I will talk to you on Monday! Otherwise, read on!

Trump is unclear on the concept of Christmas.

As the world celebrated a holiday rooted in peace, Trump did his best to ruin Christmas for hundreds of millions of Americans by stoking the flames of division and hate with an unprecedented string of hundreds of vile posts on Christmas Day on his vanity social media platform. He also deliberately timed a missile attack on Nigerian terrorists as a “Christmas present.” And he preemptively dismissed the peace efforts of Volodymyr Zelensky in advance of a Sunday meeting at Mar-a-Lago, saying, “He doesn’t have anything until I approve it.”

Historians will look back at this period in our nation’s history with shock and disbelief, bewildered that the Republican Party and Trump’s evangelical Christian base continued to support and celebrate a man who is the antithesis of the message of the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”

Trump’s Christmas tirade was ignited by an announcement from the DOJ that it had miraculously “discovered” a million additional documents that are part of the Epstein files.

Before discussing Trump’s reaction, it is appropriate to reflect on the fact that the DOJ is running the Epstein document review and production in a manner that would result in the immediate termination of any lawyer in private practice who acted with such ineptitude.

As noted in an earlier newsletter, the redactions by the DOJ can be “unmasked” merely by highlighting the redactions (in an Adobe PDF format) and pasting the redactions into a MS Word document. And just like that—*Presto Incompetus!—*the redacted text is viewable in the Word document.

The flaw in Adobe’s redaction function has been well known for decades. The solution? Purchase the “deluxe” version of Adobe, which includes a tool that prevents the unmasking of redacted text.

When Trump was elected, the DOJ subscribed to the “deluxe” version of Adobe, but Elon Musk’s DOGE team canceled the premium subscription, presumably because having industry-standard document management tools amounted to “waste, fraud, or abuse.” See International Business Times, Epstein Files Redactions Failed After Funding Cuts Forced DOJ to Use Basic Adobe Tools.

It is not clear how the DOJ managed to lose and then “rediscover” a million additional pages of Epstein files, but the specific reasons fall into the category of “gross incompetence.” CNN, DOJ says it has found over a million additional documents potentially related to Epstein.

The acknowledgment has profound implications for the claim by Pam Bondi and Kash Patel that their review of the files (as of July), led them to conclude that the files provided no basis for prosecution of additional defendants. See Joint Memo by DOJ and FBI dated July 2025.

The DOJ/FBI Joint Memo said, in part,

Teams of agents, analysts, attorneys, and privacy and civil liberties experts combed through the digital and documentary evidence . . . .

This systematic review revealed no incriminating “client list.”

There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions.

We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.

Obviously, if Bondi and Patel were unaware of 1 million documents, their conclusions set forth above are meaningless, and must be revisited.

After the announcement of the discovery of additional documents, Trump exploded on social media, asking, “When do they [DOJ] say NO MORE?”

Of course, the DOJ cannot arbitrarily say, “No more documents.” The Epstein Files Transparency Act requires the production of ALL Epstein files.

The discovery of additional files set off a wave of more than 100 posts by Trump on Christmas Day. See Mother Jones, Trump Spent Christmas Posting Over 100 Times on Truth Social.

The fact that Trump spent Christmas Day posting hateful comments tells us that he spent most of Christmas Day by himself, marinating in a stew of hate and self-pity.

But his final message was the worst, because it mocked the very “Merry Christmas” greeting that the GOP and Christian right seek to protect and preserve:

Merry Christmas to all, including the many Sleazebags who loved Jeffrey Epstein, gave him bundles of money, went to his Island, attended his parties, and thought he was the greatest guy on earth, only to “drop him like a dog” when things got too HOT.”

The desecration of Christmas continued when Trump delayed an attack on terrorist camps in Nigeria (in cooperation with the Nigerian government). See The Guardian, Trump supporters hail US strikes in Nigeria as ‘amazing Christmas present’.

Per The Guardian,

Trump told Politico on Friday that the Christmas strike was originally to take place on Wednesday, but the president had the operation delayed until Thursday for symbolic reasons.

“I said, ‘Nope, let’s give a Christmas present,’” Trump remarked to the outlet. “They didn’t think that was coming, but we hit them hard. Every camp got decimated.”

Other right-wing influencers and politicians echoed Trump’s statements, claiming that an act of violence, even if justified, was somehow an appropriate way to celebrate Christmas.

The situation in Nigeria is complex, with sectarian violence marring large swaths of the country without any effort by the government to stop the violence. See Vox, Why is the US bombing Nigeria?.

Per Vox,

The problem Trump is talking about here is a real one. The hardline Islamist terror group known as Boko Haram and its offshoots have waged a brutal insurgency against the Nigerian state in the northern part of the country since 2009 . . . .

This isn’t the only religious conflict going on. Recent years have also seen a wave of clashes and attacks between predominantly Muslim herders and predominantly Christian farming communities in Northwest and North Central Nigeria. The Nigerian military has been fighting the insurgency for years, but President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been accused of ignoring the plight of Christians, in particular, and the military campaign has been hampered by widespread corruption and alleged human rights abuses.

Stopping the violence in Nigeria is a laudable goal. Using US cruise missiles as part of the peace effort when the Nigerian government has refused to act seems dubious, at best.

Finally, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet with Trump on Sunday at Mar-a-Lago. Zelensky will propose a 20-point peace plan that includes, for the first time, a quasi-territorial concession—the creation of a “de-militarized zone” in the contested Donetsk region. See New York Times, Zelensky Opens Way to Demilitarized Zone in Eastern Ukraine to Reach Peace. (Accessible to all.)

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine told reporters on Tuesday that he was ready to pull his troops back from areas of the eastern Donetsk region still under Kyiv’s control and turn those areas into a demilitarized zone as part of a possible peace deal with Moscow.

The offer was the closest Mr. Zelensky has come to addressing the thorny territorial disputes in Donetsk that have repeatedly derailed peace talks, signaling his willingness to compromise after weeks of U.S.-mediated negotiations.

But the proposal also hinted at the significant gaps that remain between Ukraine and Russia. Mr. Zelensky’s offer of a demilitarized zone came with a condition: Russia would have to pull its forces from an equivalent stretch of land in Donetsk. So far, the Kremlin has given no indication that it is willing to accept anything less than full control over the region.

Trump has already trash-talked the proposal, saying that Zelensky “doesn’t have anything until I approve it.” See Politico, Trump to POLITICO: Zelenskyy ‘doesn’t have anything until I approve it’.

Taking a cue from Trump, Russia has already rejected Zelensky’s 20-point peace proposal. See Institute for the Study of War, Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 26, 2025 | ISW.

Per ISW,

[Russian Deputy Foreign Minister] Ryabkov rejected the 20-point peace plan, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shared on December 24 after talks with the United States and Europe, claiming that it “differs radically” from the points Russia has been working on with the United States in recent weeks.

US Envoy and Condo Developer Steve Witkoff and Boy Blunder Jared Kushner have been talking to Russia directly on a separate track, ignoring the other party to Russia’s war of aggression, Ukraine.

Concluding Thoughts

January will bring another budget fight. Congress must pass twelve appropriations bills to enact a 2026 budget. To date, Congress has passed only three of twelve appropriations bills: Military Construction & VA, Legislative Branch, and Agriculture. See Appropriations Status Table: FY2026 | Congress.gov | Library of Congress.

It seems unlikely that Congress will pass nine appropriations bills before the current continuing resolution expires on January 30, 2026. So, Senate Democrats will be faced with another decision about supporting Trump’s unlawful activities by passing another continuing resolution.

In short, January will be a challenging month for grassroots activists trying to inject quick-set epoxy into the spines of congressional Democrats. So, after the first of the year, we must be back to the barricades, the post office, the keyboard, and the phones.

Rest up, if you can. And to those of you still out on the front lines in the bitter cold, you have a warm place in our hearts!

Talk to you tomorrow at Noon Pacific / 3:00 PM Eastern on a Substack livestream.

Pro-democracy protest photo

Greetings from the Desert Road Bridge over I-295 in Freeport, Maine.

The Freeport Visibility Brigade wishes you the best this holiday season.

Daily Dose of Perspective

On April 9, 2024, Jill and I traveled to Texas to observe the solar eclipse. Reader and fellow tour member Sandro Menzel took the photos below.

Here comes the sun!

---

From Today’s Edition Newsletter via this RSS feed