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Tuesday, December 2, 2025

Today: Special Election for Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District

Ed Morrissey: Last call for Tennessee’s seventh congressional district voters. Will they turn out to support Donald Trump, not to mention God and country music? Or will Republicans lose another special election in the House, putting their control of the lower chamber at risk? Will Democrats gain even more political momentum? The key to any special election is turnout, and it matters even more in the election tomorrow in and around Nashville. Emerson’s data shows Behn winning the early vote, while Van Epps would dominate Election Day tomorrow – assuming voters turn out (Hot Air). Trump: I am asking all America First Patriots in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District to please GET OUT AND VOTE TOMORROW for a phenomenal Candidate, Matt Van Epps, on Election Day, Tuesday, December 2nd! You can win this Election for MAGA Warrior Matt Van Epps, who has my Complete and Total Endorsement. HE WILL BE A GREAT CONGRESSMAN and, unlike his Opponent, he cherishes Christianity and Country Music — She has openly stated that she hates them both! (Truth).

White House Defends Hegseth Over Second Strike on Drug Boat

The administration has been accused of a potential war crime after a second hit on a drug boat after the initial hit did not completely destroy the intended target. Wall Street Journal: The White House said Monday that the U.S. military conducted two strikes on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean in September, deepening questions about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s role in an operation that led to the killing of two survivors. Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, the head of Special Operations Command, was acting legally under authority to use lethal force granted by Hegseth in conducting the attacks on the boat, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said (Wall Street Journal). Strief at RedState: this is not now, nor has it ever been, about “war crimes.” It has two purposes. The first is to attack Pete Hegseth, who is definitely making changes in the Pentagon that the left sees as a direct threat to their “long march through the institutions.” The second part is a direct attack on the authority of President Trump to issue orders to the U.S. military. The same claims of illegality that have been aimed at this incident have also been directed at, for example, National Guard deployments (Red State). Hegseth on Monday evening: Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support. I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made — on the September 2 mission and all others since (Hegseth).

Trump Keeps Pressure on Maduro

There’s no question that Maduro is pushing drugs into the U.S.—though we receive far more from Mexico. But Venezuela is an easier target to impact, with Trump pursuing a realignment of the Western Hemisphere—where Russia and China have considerably less influence on our part of the planet. Mark Montgomery: The short-term goal should be convincing Maduro to leave, or convincing those around him to remove him themselves. The longer-term goal is to create the conditions where those in power, the military and police forces, allow those legally elected to power to take the presidency — Edmundo Gonzalez or Maria Corina Machado, who Gonzalez stood in for when she was barred from running (FDD). Samuel Ben-Ur on what led to this moment: In the face of sustained American pressure, Maduro aligned more closely with America’s strategic adversaries. For example, in early 2019, US officials tracked roughly 100 Russian soldiers deploying to Caracas to bolster Maduro’s security and communications. China continued its practice of selling advanced surveillance equipment to Venezuela’s security services. Iran and Venezuela signed a 20-year cooperation plan in 2022 that promised collaboration in oil, defense, petrochemicals, tourism, and culture. In addition, Cuban intelligence agents trained Venezuelan forces, including on repression techniques, in exchange for drastically subsidized oil (Long War Journal).

Senator Schmitt: Senate Likely to Hold “Watergate-style hearings” Over Arctic Frost

Arctic Frost is the vast surveillance of Republicans by the Biden administration in the wake of the 2020 election. Washington Times: The Missouri Republican said special counsel Jack Smith tried to “weaponize” the federal justice system to place Mr. Trump behind bars before the 2024 election. He said Mr. Smith will eventually be called as a witness in the hearings…. Mr. Schmitt predicted that the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which he is a member, will hold public hearings to expose the Biden administration’s efforts to investigate Mr. Trump and initiate criminal prosecutions after the 2020 election…. “This is a big deal,” the senator said. “The fact that Jack Smith — really what he was trying to do is create this massive nationwide show trial where people got caught up and criminally prosecuted for their political views. He thought he was going to be the hero in this story. He’s really the villain. “I can’t wait for Jack Smith to come” testify, Mr. Schmitt said. “But before that happens, we need to make sure we have all the information. What we don’t want to have is that Jack Smith is the only one who has been privy to a lot of this information” (Washington Times).

Governor Walz Facing Scrutiny as Fraud Inquiries Mount

Dmitri Bolt reports for Townhall: The House Oversight Committee and the U.S. Treasury have both launched investigations into Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s involvement in a massive fraud scheme where Somali Immigrants stole more than $1 billion from state taxpayers and funneled it to Al-Shabaab terrorists. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, told the New York Post that his panel “will conduct a thorough investigation into Governor Walz’s failure to safeguard taxpayer dollars.” “Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was warned about massive fraud in a pandemic food-aid program for children, yet he failed to act. Instead, whistleblowers who raised concerns faced retaliation,” Comer said. “Because of Governor Walz’s negligence, criminals — including Somali terrorists — stole nearly $1 billion from the program while children suffered.” The investigation could lead (and better lead), to criminal charges, as Comer can issue subpoenas and refer alleged crimes to the Department of Justice for prosecution (Townhall). Treasury Secretary Bessent: At my direction, @USTreasury is investigating allegations that under the feckless mismanagement of the Biden Administration and Governor Tim Walz, hardworking Minnesotans’ tax dollars may have been diverted to the terrorist organization Al-Shabaab (Bessent).

Teens Mourning Loss of Access to AI Chatbots

In just one of many strange and troubling aspects of AI that we’ll be seeing much more of in the years to come. The companies have begun limiting access to those under 18 after the role of AI chatbots in a number of suicides. Wall Street Journal: When Olga López heard she would lose access to her collection of role-playing chatbots, she felt a surge of emotions: sadness, outrage, bewilderment. Olga, who is 13, turns to her chatbots from artificial-intelligence company Character.AI for romantic role playing when she doesn’t have homework. Like the company’s other under-18 customers, she was notified in October that she would no longer be able to have ongoing chat interactions with digital characters soon. “I’m losing the memories I had with these bots,” she said. “It’s not fair” (Wall Street Journal). Albert Mohler: I think we need to take this very seriously. And I think if nothing else, those who work with young people and children, and frankly all of us, parents and grandparents, we should be very, very concerned about the threat to all of us, to every single user of any AI chatbot, the potential vulnerability of all of us to harm (Mohler).

A Shifting Media Landscape: Could It Re-Shape Our Culture Wars?

Joel Kotkin looks at the significant shifts we’re seeing with new ownership of key media outlets. Kotkin: The purchase of Paramount and CBS by David Ellison – scion of Larry Ellison, the world’s third-richest man, with a $250 billion tech fortune – marks a shift away from one-party domination of the media and culture. It follows Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, now X, and the Trumpian capture of Washington DC’s Kennedy Center. Long a cakewalk for progressives, the culture war is edging towards high noon. For the first time in decades, the left faces competitors who read from different scripts and come from different perspectives…. We are at the beginning of a new and less predictable era in media. New players like Legacy Productions and the Free Press challenge the old guard, while the likes of the LA Times and the Washington Post are trying to edge back towards the centre. The real driver of change is not values or politics – as some Trumpists might like to think – but the marketplace. In the years ahead, the new outlets will produce their share of clunkers. Some will fail. But for the first time in decades, the media barons are reassessing their assumptions and preparing for a showdown on America’s Main Street (Spiked).

JK Rowling Responds to Those Who Argue: “Why can't you be nice? Why won't you pretend? We thought you were one of us!”

The pressure on the transgender question—even now—is to use language that obfuscates the issues at hand. But it has been the blunt clarity in language that has been successful in winning the argument. Rowling: ‘ We dissenters were supposed to find a way of questioning the chemical castration of children while calling it ‘gender affirming care.’ We were meant to defend the rights of vulnerable women while also using female pronouns for male rapists. We should have found a way to discuss fairness for women and girls in sport, while pretending that the ineradicable physical advantage men have over women doesn’t exist…. The alternative to being ‘blunt’ – using accurate, factual language to describe what was going on – was to surrender freedom of speech and espouse ideological jargon that obfuscated the issues and the harms caused. We’ve always needed blunt people, but we need them most of all when being asked to bow down to a naked emperor (Rowling).

Maybe the Four-Year Degree Just Isn’t Worth It

That’s the emerging opinion of a growing number of Americans. NBC News: Almost two-thirds of registered voters say that a four-year college degree isn’t worth the cost, according to a new NBC News poll, a dramatic decline over the last decade. Just 33% agree a four-year college degree is “worth the cost because people have a better chance to get a good job and earn more money over their lifetime,” while 63% agree more with the concept that it’s “not worth the cost because people often graduate without specific job skills and with a large amount of debt to pay off.” … The eye-popping shift over the last 12 years comes against the backdrop of several major trends shaping the job market and the education world, from exploding college tuition prices to rapid changes in the modern economy — which seems once again poised for radical transformation alongside advances in AI (NBC News).

10.

Oxford’s Word of the Year: Rage Bait

It’s certainly prevalent today. Oxford: Why rage bait? Rage bait is defined as “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic to or engagement with a particular web page or social media content”. With 2025’s news cycle dominated by social unrest, debates about the regulation of online content, and concerns over digital wellbeing, our experts noticed that the use of rage bait this year has evolved to signal a deeper shift in how we talk about attention—both how it is given and how it is sought after—engagement, and ethics online. The word has tripled in usage in the last 12 months. Rage bait was first used online in a posting on Usenet in 2002 as a way to designate a particular type of driver reaction to being flashed at by another driver requesting to pass them, introducing the idea of deliberate agitation (Oxford).

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