https://couriernewsroom.com/news/leaked-epstein-files-talking-points-instruct-republicans-how-to-point-blame-away-from-trump/

A leaked memo that circulated through Congress Tuesday details talking points Republicans are expected to use when talking about the Epstein Files as a way to protect President Donald Trump, conveying an image of a party resigned to the fact that those files will indeed be published on Friday and that their leader will be implicated in one of the most extensive international sex trafficking operations in recent history.

The memo, first published by Fox News, outlines how congressional Republicans should direct any discussion surrounding the contents of the Epstein Files away from Trump, and outlined a list of accusations to allege against journalists and Democratic lawmakers. In essence, the memo gives step-by-step instructions on how to utilize a psychological manipulation tactic known as DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim and offender) in order to brush aside any alleged wrongdoing by the president, while villainizing his opposition and framing Trump as the victim.

“Democrats have demonstrated a sustained pattern of misconduct,” the memo reads. “To fabricate yet another politically motivated hoax targeting President Trump. As a result, nothing Democrats post or leak on this matter can be taken at face value. Equally troubling, much of the Legacy Media has uncritically amplified these falsehoods, acting as a willing conduit rather than performing basic due diligence.”

Missing from the document are any points that refute the accuracy or legitimacy of the actual contents of the Epstein Files, or any calls for accountability for the alleged co-conspirators. Instead, Republicans have been given marching orders to endlessly litigate to the press how the information has been released — and then attack the press for not sugarcoating the contents of the files.

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https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/palantir-ceo-alex-karp-pays-record-120-million-for-colorado-monastery/ar-AA1StL46

"Palantir CEO Alex Karp has paid a record $120 million for a ranch outside Aspen, Colo., that was used for decades as a monastery, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.

Located in Snowmass, about 30 minutes from Aspen, St. Benedict’s Monastery was listed for $150 million last year, said Ken Mirr of Mirr Ranch Group, one of the listing agents. The deal is the priciest residential sale to date in Colorado’s Pitkin County, Mirr said.

Spanning about 3,700 acres, the property had been owned for about 70 years by an order of Trappist monks, Mirr said, although only about five still live there.

Mirr declined to comment on the identity of the buyer, but said the purchaser does plan to use the property as a home.

Karp is the co-founder and chief executive of Palantir, a data-analysis firm best known for working with the U.S. military and intelligence agencies. The company, which was founded in 2003 by a group of entrepreneurs including Silicon Valley heavyweight Peter Thiel, has made Karp a billionaire many times over. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates his net worth at about $18 billion. Karp is also known to be an avid skier.

Nine-figure home sales are a new phenomenon in the Aspen area. The first took place last year, when former casino mogul Steve Wynn and financier Thomas Peterffy teamed up to pay $108 million for an estate at the base of Red Mountain. And the monastery deal, Mirr said, isn’t “your typical sale of a property in Aspen with a 20,000-square-foot home on it.”"

A 74-acre property in Aspen is currently on the market for $300 million.

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So far under trump, mass shootings have plummeted with the sharpest year over year decline in a decade, and the fewest since any year on record
But experts are totally and completely befuddled given that no new gun control laws were passed, meaning gun control laws had nothing to do with this
https://www.newsweek.com/mass-shooting-dropped-2025-school-violence-gun-control-11198530
Mass Killings Plummeted in 2025, Despite No New Gun Control Laws

Mass killings in the United States dropped to their lowest level in two decades in 2025, even as Congress failed to enact any new federal gun control laws.

Seventeen incidents met the threshold for mass killing this year, down from 42 in 2023 and the fewest since national tracking began in 2006, according to recent data from the Mass Killing Database, a project led by Northeastern University in collaboration with USA Today and the Associated Press.

“This is not a victory lap for gun reform—it’s a return to a more typical level,” said James Alan Fox, a research professor of criminology, law, and public policy at Northeastern who oversees the database, in an interview with Newsweek.

Researchers say the drop is less about federal legislation — or the lack thereof — and more about a statistical "settling" after pandemic-era volatility. The decline, they argue, reflects a regression to the mean following several years of elevated violence, paired with localized policy shifts and evolving patterns in how mass killings occur.

“We had a spike after the pandemic, and we’re now back at pre-COVID levels,” Fox said. “But that doesn’t mean we’re safe. These events are still tragic, and they can still happen.”


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https://www.axios.com/2025/12/15/israel-violate-ceasefire-gaza-strike-trump

The White House sent a stern private message to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressing that the killing of a top Hamas military commander over the weekend constituted a violation of the ceasefire agreement brokered by President Trump, two U.S. officials tell Axios.

Why it matters: The angry message from the White House comes amid growing tensions between the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government around the next phase of the agreement to end the war in Gaza and over Israel's broader regional policy.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner have become very frustrated with Netanyahu, according to the two U.S. officials.
Netanyahu is expected to meet Trump in Mar-a-Lago on December 29.

Driving the news: On Saturday, Israel killed Raed Saad, the deputy commander of Hamas' military wing and one of the alleged architects of the Oct. 7 attacks. The attack in Gaza City killed four people in total.

U.S. officials said the Israeli government didn't notify or consult the U.S. ahead of the strike.

Behind the scenes: "The White House message to Netanyahu was: 'If you want to ruin your reputation and show that you don't abide by agreements be our guest, but we won't allow you to ruin President Trump's reputation after he brokered the deal in Gaza," a senior U.S. official said.


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https://edition.cnn.com/2025/12/15/politics/us-military-strikes-three-boats-pacific
The US military conducted strikes against three alleged drug-trafficking boats in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Monday, killing 8 people, according to US Southern Command.

“On Dec. 15, at the direction of @SecWar Pete Hegseth, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted lethal kinetic strikes on three vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters,” SOUTHCOM wrote on X. “Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and were engaged in narco-trafficking.”

At least 95 people have now been killed in strikes on suspected drug boats as part of a campaign, dubbed Operation Southern Spear, that the Trump administration has said is aimed at curtailing narcotics trafficking. The US military most recently struck a suspected drug boat on December 4 in the Eastern Pacific, killing four people on board, according to another social media post from US Southern Command.

The latest strikes come as questions about the Trump administration’s offensive on the alleged drug boats continue to mount.

The Trump administration has told Congress that the US is in an “armed conflict” against drug cartels that began with its first attack on September 2. The US military carried out a follow-up strike on the suspected drug vessel operating in the Caribbean that day, after an initial attack did not kill everyone on board, CNN previously reported, which some Democratic lawmakers and legal experts said could amount to a war crime.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said Monday there will be an all-senators briefing Tuesday on the strikes, featuring Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“The American people deserve oversight. We intend to deliver it,” he said in a post on X.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/12/15/military-command-plan-caine-hegseth/
Senior Pentagon officials are preparing a plan to downgrade several of the U.S. military’s major headquarters and shift the balance of power among its top generals, in a major consolidation sought by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, people familiar with the matter said.

If adopted, the plan would usher in some of the most significant changes at the military’s highest ranks in decades, in part following through on Hegseth’s promise to break the status quo and slash the number of four-star generals in the military. It would reduce in prominence the headquarters of U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command by placing them under the control of a new organization known as U.S. International Command, according to five people familiar with the matter.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine is expected to detail the proposal, which has not previously been reported, for Hegseth in the coming days. Such moves would complement other efforts by the administration to shift resources from the Middle East and Europe and focus foremost on expanding military operations in the Western Hemisphere, these people said. Like others interviewed for this report, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the effort before it is conveyed to the secretary.

Hegseth’s team said in a statement that they would not comment on “rumored internal discussions” or “pre-decisional matters.” Any insinuation that there is a divide among officials over the issue is “completely false — everyone in the Department is working to achieve the same goal under this administration,” the statement said.

The Pentagon has shared little to no details with Congress, a lack of communication that has perturbed members of the Republican-led Senate and House Armed Services committees. Top officers at the commands involved are awaiting more details as well, officials said.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/12/16/trump-executive-orders-second-term/
President Donald Trump has signed more executive orders in less than a year of his presidency than he did in his entire first term — repeatedly bypassing Congress and forcing the courts to grapple with the constitutional bounds of his power.

Trump on Monday signed an order instructing fentanyl to be designated as a “weapon of mass destruction,” the 221st executive order of his second term. Since his inauguration, Trump has used the orders to impose sweeping tariffs, seek retribution against his perceived enemies and weigh in on cultural issues big and small, from challenging immigration laws to regulating water pressure from showerheads.

One third of Trump’s executive orders have been explicitly challenged in court as of Dec. 12, a Washington Post analysis of data from nonprofits CourtListener and JustSecurity found.

American presidents have consolidated executive power to skirt Congress since the beginning of the 20th century. But Trump has accelerated the trend that intensified in recent decades amid a decline in legislative activity and rising partisan brinkmanship.

Trump supercharged that trajectory by repeatedly bypassing a Congress that his party controls. The approach has allowed for swift results in a way legislating rarely affords, but it has also left some of his most prized achievements vulnerable to court challenges and potential reversals by future administrations.

Among the 11 orders aimed at punishing Trump’s political enemies, almost three-quarters have been challenged.

“While President Trump brilliantly took immediate action to quickly reverse Joe Biden’s catastrophe causing Americans four years of pain, many of these policies are expected to be codified by Congress, ensuring the President’s popular policies keep America great for future generations,” said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers.

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https://www.reuters.com/world/china/hong-kongs-last-opposition-party-vote-disbandment-under-china-pressure-2025-12-14/
HONG KONG, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Hong Kong's last major opposition party disbanded on Sunday after a vote by its members, the culmination of Chinese pressure on the city's remaining liberal voices in a years-long security crackdown.

The Democratic Party has been Hong Kong's flagship opposition since its founding three years before the financial hub's return to Chinese rule from Britain in 1997. It used to sweep city-wide legislative elections and push China on democratic reforms and upholding freedom.

However, mass pro-democracy protests in 2019 against a perceived tightening of China's grip on the city prompted Beijing to enact a sweeping national security law to stifle dissent.
On Sunday, members of the Democratic Party voted to disband the party and to enter liquidation, Chairman Lo Kin-hei told reporters after an extraordinary general meeting.

"To have journeyed through these three decades, shoulder to shoulder with the people of Hong Kong, has been our greatest honour. Throughout these years, we have always treated the well-being of Hong Kong and its people as our guiding purpose," Lo said.

Of 121 votes cast, 117 voted to disband while 4 abstained.
Senior party members previously told Reuters they had been approached by Chinese officials or middlemen and told to disband or face severe consequences, including possible arrest.

There was no immediate response to a request for comment from the Hong Kong Liaison Office, China's main representative body in Hong Kong.


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https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/how-a-trump-business-deal-with-a-crypto-firm-exposes-potential-conflicts-of-interest

WASHINGTON (AP) — Crypto.com was under siege.

For more than a year, the firm had been investigated by President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, part of an aggressive push to regulate the largely unregulated cryptocurrency industry. Financial regulators had told the company that enforcement action was likely.

Then Donald Trump won the 2024 election, and the company’s legal peril dissipated.

Crypto.com ramped up spending to a lobbyist close to Trump and donated $11 million to political committees tied to the Republican president, records show. Within months, the investigation was dropped. By August, Crypto.com announced it was plunging roughly $1 billion worth of assets into a venture with a new partner — Trump’s social media company.

Legal and ethics experts say Crypto.com’s journey from investigative target to Trump business partner provides a case study of the conflicts of interest that have arisen in Trump’s second presidency. Unlike any of his predecessors in the modern era, Trump has allowed his family businesses to enter lucrative arrangements with companies regulated by the federal government, some of which have benefited from action taken by his administration.

In this instance, the deal struck with Crypto.com was favorable for the president’s social media company, which has lost hundreds of millions of dollars since its 2021 launch. Trump Media and Technology Group put up little cash yet received a substantial ownership stake in the new treasury for Crypto.com’s Cronos token.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn41gqq8vyko
A suspected New Year's Eve terror plot by an extremist group has been foiled by federal authorities in Los Angeles, officials say.
Four alleged members of the Turtle Island Liberation Front - an offshoot of a pro-Palestinian anti-government group - have been arrested on suspicion of planning a coordinated bombing attack in at least five locations across southern California, the FBI and LA law enforcement said on Monday.

The suspects were apprehended last week while traveling to the desert east of Los Angeles to test improvised explosive devices, officials said.
The FBI believes it has "disrupted the plot", but an investigation to identify other potential suspects is ongoing.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi said on X on Sunday that the agencies prevented "far-left" extremists from executing "a massive and horrific terror plot".
Audrey Illeene Carroll, 30; Zachary Aaron Page, 32; Dante Gaffield, 24; and Tina Lai, 41, face charges including conspiracy and possession of an unregistered destructive device, according to the complaint filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California.

On 12 December, the group travelled to the desert with "precursor chemicals" and were allegedly going to create bombs with their wares, officials said during a media conference on Monday.
A surveillance plane captured footage of their movements and the Los Angeles FBI SWAT team, along with the FBI, moved in and arrested the quartet without incident.

The bombing plot involved explosive devices being planted at locations that targeted two US companies described as logistic centres at midnight on New Year's Eve in the Los Angeles area.

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Meat head is kill
Press F

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz0np02znezo

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Federal authorities have arrested 4 members of a far-left terror cell who were building explosives to carry out bombings across the country
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-alleged-terror-plot-turtle-island-liberation-front-doj-fbi/
4 members of far-left group charged for alleged terror plot in California, feds say

Washington — Federal law enforcement officials said Monday that four members of a far-left anti-government group have been arrested and face charges for allegedly planning a series of bomb attacks across Southern California on New Year's Eve.

Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X that the Justice Department and FBI "prevented what would have been a massive and horrific terror plot in the Central District of California," which encompasses Los Angeles and Orange County.

FBI Director Kash Patel said that the four people who face charges were members of a group known as the Turtle Island Liberation Front. Bondi described the Turtle Island Liberation Front as a "far-left, pro-Palestine, anti-government, and anti-capitalist group."

Bill Essayli, who leads the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, said at a press conference that the four individuals were arrested Friday in San Bernardino County, where they gathered to construct and detonate test explosive devices in the Mojave Desert. He said the suspects allegedly crafted a "detailed, coordinated plot" to bomb two U.S. companies on New Year's Eve, with the devices simultaneously exploding at midnight. Essayli did not name the companies but said they were "logistics centers."

"This case is another reminder about the dangers that radicalized antifa-like groups pose to people, public safety and the rule of law," he said.

The defendants are identified in court papers as Audrey Carroll, Zachary Page, Dante Gaffield and Tina Lai.

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https://apnews.com/article/australia-shooting-sydney-bondi-beach-31f711f09f677d0f88091ece25f651c1
SYDNEY (AP) — Two gunmen shot dead at least 11 people on Sunday at a Jewish event being held at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, Australian authorities said, declaring it a terrorist attack. One gunman was fatally shot by police and the second arrested.

The suspect was in critical condition, authorities said. At least 29 people were confirmed wounded, including two police officers, said Mal Lanyon, the police commissioner for New South Wales state, where Sydney is located.

“This attack was designed to target Sydney’s Jewish community,” the state’s Premier Chris Minns said. The massacre was declared a terrorist attack due to the event targeted and weapons used, Lanyon said.

Hundreds had gathered for an event at Bondi Beach called Chanukah by the Sea, which was celebrating the start of the Hanukkah Jewish festival.

Dramatic footage apparently filmed by a member of the public and broadcast on Australian television channels showed someone appearing to tackle and disarm one of the gunmen, before pointing the man’s weapon at him.

Lanyon said the death toll was “fluid” and that wounded people were still arriving at hospitals.

Lachlan Moran, 32, from Melbourne, was waiting for his family nearby when he heard shots, he told The Associated Press. He dropped the beer he was carrying for his brother and ran.


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https://www.reuters.com/world/us/multiple-people-shot-brown-university-official-says-2025-12-13/
Dec 13 (Reuters) - More than 400 law enforcement personnel were deployed on Saturday as police sought the suspect in a shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island that left two students dead and another nine people wounded at the Ivy League school, officials said.
The Providence university remained in lockdown hours after a suspect with a firearm entered a building where students were taking exams. Officials do not believe there is any "specific, ongoing threat" from the suspect, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said late Saturday, but with law enforcement agencies canvassing the area and conducting a manhunt, a shelter-in-place order for the campus and the surrounding neighborhood will remain for now.

The shelter-in-place allows (law enforcement) to do their work in the first phase of the investigation," Smiley said.
Streets around the campus were packed with emergency vehicles and security was heightened around the city as law enforcement agencies sought the gunman, who has not yet been identified, officials said. Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are working with local and state police on the investigation.
Officials released a video of the suspect, a male possibly in his 30s and dressed in black. Providence Deputy Police Chief Timothy O’Hara said the individual may have worn a mask, but officials are not certain.
Investigators retrieved shell casings from the scene of the shooting, but police are not prepared to release details yet, O'Hara said.
The gunman escaped after shooting students in a classroom in Brown's Barus & Holley engineering building, where outer doors had been unlocked while exams were taking place, officials said. Detectives are looking into why that location was targeted, police Chief Oscar Perez told reporters at a news conference.

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15385535/donald-trump-presidential-library-fake-news-wing.html

President Donald Trump could include a 'fake news wing' as part of his high-rise presidential library that he wants to build in downtown Miami.

The Washington Post reported Sunday on the progress that's been made on the Trump presidential library, with $50 million raised this year by the Donald J. Trump Library Foundation.

Part of that headway was the state of Florida, somewhat controversially, giving Trump a parcel of land appraised at $60 million, but that real estate investors have said could be worth closer to $300 million.

The land, which had been used as a parking lot for Miami Dade College, is located next to the Freedom Tower, a recently restored landmark on Biscayne Boulevard that represents 'freedom of the press,' having formerly housed the Miami News.

It's also called the 'Ellis Island of the South,' as the building was used by the federal government to process Cuban refugees in the 1960s, fleeing Communism.

Building a Trump library next door to the Freedom Tower has been met with opposition by some groups, who point to the president's hardline immigration policies.

Including a 'fake news wing' in a high-rise adjacent to a press freedom monument could also ruffle some feathers.