Crime Novella With A Crazy Ending — Pardon! December 29, 2025December 27, 2025 Erasing the Verdict: The Ongoing Shock of Trump’s Cocaine Kingpin Pardon Yikes!!!!! Of the pardoned former Honduran president’s brother, Tony: Just eight days after [Lopez] helped convict Tony Hernández, a surveillance camera on the wall of the prison captured the following scene: López, in a white T-shirt and black shorts, was talking with the prison warden and a guard in a hallway. As they chatted, another guard wearing a black mask approached a side door with a key and opened it. The guard stepped aside to let six men burst into the hall. One pointed a submachine pistol at López and quickly fired at least a half-dozen shots at close range. As the trafficker lay facedown on the floor, clearly dead, the gunman fired what appears to be at least 20 more shots at López’s lifeless corpse, most of them in his head, painting the white cinderblock wall red. Another of the men dropped to the floor and began stabbing his corpse with a machete-like knife. Finally, the man began to saw at the bottoms of López’s legs, as if trying to remove them. The story reads like a novella. The absolute least of it: [Former President Hernandez] continued to court Trump’s favor even after his brother’s guilty verdict. The following spring, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the US Food & Drug Administration publicly rebuked Trump’s claim that hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial medicine, could effectively treat the virus. Hernández seized an opportunity. “Well, I never spoke to a scientist,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, “but I will tell you this: I did speak with the president of Honduras, just a little while ago. I didn’t bring it up—he brought it up. He said they use the hydroxychloroquine, and he said the results are just so incredible, with the hydroxychloroquine. Check with him. Call him. The president of Honduras. A really nice guy.” As to the pardon (in tiny part): Although the investigations into Hernández, as well as the conviction of his brother, happened under the first Trump administration, the family and their backers leaned into the idea that his prosecution was a Biden-Harris conspiracy. In June, Roger Stone on his podcast interviewed Shane Trejo, a conservative activist and leader of the Third Term Project, which aims to extend Trump’s presidency beyond the constitutional limit. A pardon, they agreed, could be a political masterstroke that could tank the political influence of Hernández’s leftist successor and delegitimize her entire party. So much more to it, if you like crime novels. Just totally yikes.
From Stalingrad To Ulupuene To The Antarctic December 28, 2025December 27, 2025 But first . . . JON STEWART Nails it (42 seconds). PROJECT 2029 Yesterday I posted South Park’s Project 2029 (30 seconds). Peter S.: “I [bleep]ing love South Park. My additions: Make DC and PR states . . . Pass universal online voting using block chain for verification . . . Start universal basic income based on need, funded by taxing the 1% and richest corps and honor and celebrate those richest individuals and corps for their generosity and contributions to the welfare of the nation and for leading the way to a future when AI and robots replace most of the existing jobs and professions and fund the liberation from daily toil for humans . . . Abolish Gerrymandering and the electoral college . . . Pass Medicare for all with Plan F Medigap included eliminating deductibles and copays . . . Develop passively safe nuclear power . . . Phase out non-biodegradable plastics . . . Massively fund renewable energy sources and research on a scale equal to fossil fuel funding and subsidies over the last 100+ years . . . Remove every trace of the name Trump from everywhere it’s been added . . . Investigate and prosecute the most egregious violations of law by his administration . . . Reverse all RFQuack Jr changes . . .” → Giving new definition, perhaps, to the phrase “easier said than done.” Yet you can just feel the excitement of the age that is dawning and the need to think smarter than “drill baby drill” with everything renamed for Trump. (Stalin took over in 1924. By 1925, he had renamed a city “Stalingrad.”) One of the worthy non-profits I’ve touted here from time to time is the Amazon Conservation Team. For those of us who don’t think climate change is a hoax, and that biodiversity is important, it’s heartening to see what they’ve accomplished since founding 29 years. This year-end thank-you note will give you an idea: Deep in the Brazilian savanna, on the southeastern edge of the Amazon rainforest, is a village called Ulupuene. The Amazon Conservation Team first began our partnership with the Wauja people in this territory 21 years ago, working with them to map important cultural sites and preserve their cultural heritage. This year, members of our staff had the opportunity to make the very long journey to this special place along the Bakiri River once again, and it highlighted how longstanding partnerships, led by those who have called the Amazon home for generations, offer hope for saving it. Over the decades, we supported the Wauja in establishing native gardens for food and medicine. When nearby agricultural runoff threatened their water supply, we supported them in building a well. After devastating fires in the region a few years ago, which are becoming more common due to climate change, we worked with the Wauja to rebuild traditional structures and provided resources to create a professionally trained volunteer indigenous fire brigade. Ulupuene is a bright spot in the Amazon, literally during our visit, we saw that the forest around the village is vibrant and diverse compared to the desert of ever-encroaching soybean fields you’ll find across the region. But Ulupuene is just one example of what’s possible. With your generosity, we have created hundreds of bright spots just like this one, always in collaboration with communities, from the rainforests to the coasts. Nearly three decades of groundbreaking work can only be hinted at through a few numbers: 3 million acres of indigenous reserves created or expanded 8 million acres zoned to protect isolated indigenous peoples in national parks and reserves More than 150,000 baby sea turtles hatched through Ancestral Tides, a marine conservation effort uniting communities from Mexico to Costa Rica 60 community rangers trained and 7 ranger posts established across Suriname’s vast rainforests More than 100 million acres of ancestral rainforest collaboratively mapped Thank you for standing with us. Together, we are building healthier ecosystems, resilient livelihoods, stronger rights, and thriving cultures. Our shared imagination and commitment can guide us toward a more hopeful future for tropical forests, for our planet, and ultimately for ourselves. Those who do think climate change is a hoax . . . or who don’t but want to be inspired by a heroic 77-year-old with a heart transplant . . . could do worse than to watch a documentary called Canary (as in: the coal mine). It which scores 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and can be seen here, for free. And/or watch a 10-minute preview on The Daily Show, here. Have a great week.
From Jesus To South Park December 26, 2025 Before you invest the time and money to read Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds . . . . . . watch 3 minutes of this author interview to see whether it grabs you. It grabbed me. If you haven’t already listened to David Litt’s It’s Only Drowning, I have what may be an even better suggestion: Listen to his Thanks, Obama first. So fun. Then listen to It’s Only Drowning, which may be even more fun having gotten to know him as a novice White House speechwriter. Project 2029, via South Park (30 seconds). Might need a little refinement (and bleeping), but you can’t beat the energy.
America! Christmas! Two Amazing Sonnets December 24, 2025December 23, 2025 I love Christmas and I love America. AMERICA! The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Is there anything more beautifully American than that? (Other than “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”?) The current administration, with Republican assent, has rewritten its last lines to read: “Send not your poor, your garbage (etc.) . . . for if they come, we will greet them with unspeakable cruelty” — as documented in this “60 Minutes” exposé Team Trump blocked from airing Sunday. If you have time for context (and if that bootlegged copy hasn’t been blocked, too, by the time you click), start here instead. CHRISTMAS! I have loved it for as long as I can remember. Not for its religious aspect . . . I’ve never believed He walked on water (or that Moses got God to part the Red Sea or that Santa Claus is real) . . . but for its spirit of love and kindness, generosity and joy, innocence and wonder. A friend’s holiday card wished me “love, peace, and kindness” and chose this sonnet as her text: Love is Not All by Edna St. Vincent Millay Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink And rise and sink and rise and sink again; Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; Yet many a man is making friends with death Even as I speak, for lack of love alone. It well may be that in a difficult hour, Pinned down by pain and moaning for release, Or nagged by want past resolution’s power, I might be driven to sell your love for peace, Or trade the memory of this night for food. It well may be. I do not think I would. Wishing you, too, dear readers, love, peace, and kindness. YET MORE FUN WITH HYMC Up another $2.50 to $27. If you sold some HYMC 25 January 2028 calls Monday at around $14.50, as suggested yesterday, consider replacing them with the newly-added January 2028 37 calls that give someone the right to buy your shares for $37 instead of $25. I did that, taking a $2 loss on the 25’s . . . but giving my shares $12 further to run before being called away. If HYMC were above $37 by the time the calls expired, you’d have that $37 plus the $14 or so from selling the calls . . . so $51 in all on your original $2.50 investment. If HYMC somehow drops to zero (which seems unlikely), you’d still have the $14 or so for which you sold the calls.
More Fun With HYMC December 23, 2025December 22, 2025 But first . . . THE TIDE IS TURNING Gavin Newsom and Tim Miller (60 seconds). WHY I VOTED FOR TRUMP “Because I Was an Idiot” (60 seconds). (To learn who “Donna” is, click here. It’s blood-boiling.) And now . . . FUN WITH HYMC HYMC jumped 50% yesterday to $24.50, up nearly 8-fold since suggested in June. Rather than sell shares, I sold more calls, as described Sunday — this time for $14.50 each. They give the buyer the right to buy my shares for $25 anytime until January 21, 2028. The buyer is betting the stock may be above $39.50 by then, after which his having paid $14.50 for the right to buy it at $25 ($39.50 in total) won’t look so dumb. Indeed, if the stock were $60 or $80 by then, it would look downright brilliant. And I’m not sure the buyer won’t be right. Which is why I’m keeping a good bit of my position without writing calls against it. After all, look at it this way: When AMC paid $27.9 million for 2.34 million shares at $10.70 each, it wasn’t doing it out of the kindness of its heart; it was taking a considerable risk in hope of considerable return. (It also got warrants to buy an additional 2.34 million shares for an additional $27.9 million, which sweetened the deal.) Now, nearly three years later, HYMC stock is more than double what AMC paid — and the warrants to buy more at $10.70 mean that, all told, AMC has pretty close to a quadruple.* But wait! When AMC took this gamble, perhaps hoping to make 10 or 15 times its money, gold was around $1,900 an ounce. Today, it’s $4,400 . . . . . . which is more than “more than double” $1,900 when you take into consideration the cost of mining each ounce. If that cost is $900, then the net profit per ounce AMC might have been shooting for would have been $1,000 ($1,900 less $900). Now, it would be $3,500 ($4,400 less $900) — three and a half times as much. Plus, as noted Sunday, there’s the recently reported silver. So — while none of this is really “analysis,” it’s just fun — if you figure AMC hoped to make $200 million on its $27.9 million gamble back when gold was $1,000 net of costs . . . might it now fairly hope for three and a half times that kind of profit? $700 million? Even more? For its $27.9 million investment to be worth $700 million, the 4.68 million HYMC shares it bought (and would own if it exercised all its warrants) would have to be $150 apiece — not yesterday’s $24.50. I’m not for a moment suggesting or predicting that. I know virtually nothing about mining gold, let alone where the prices of gold and silver will be a year or two from now. Indeed, it’s just when I start to giddy about something that the top may be at hand. But I like to think whoever bet $14.50 a share yesterday that HYMC will be meaningfully higher than $39.50 by 2028 will prove to have been spectacularly right. BONUS: REMEMBER CIVILITY? A former president and first lady. *Sharp-eyed readers will note that AMC sold some of its holdings this month before much of the run-up. To keep the math simple, I’ve ignored that.
Now We Know Who Stephen Miller Was In A Prior Life December 21, 2025 I was hoping not to like Rachel Maddow’s new podcast, Burn Order, because who has the time, right? Plus, we all know about the Japanese internment and that, in retrospect, it was a mistake. Well, I have bad news: Burn Order is riveting. And relevant. The good news is that it’s just six episodes that, at 1.3X speed, will go by very fast. I can’t imagine any Republican senators will listen, let alone Stephen Miller or Tom Homan or Kristi Noem; but, boy, should they ever. It’s their story. While we’re on the subject, here is a piece on what it’s like to be detained by ICE, written by Trump’s former fixer. It begins: Four people died in ICE custody this week, proving the cruelty isn’t the arrest itself — it’s the neglect, indifference, and silence that follow once the doors lock. I’ve been out of federal custody for a while now, but the memories don’t fade. They wake you up at night like a phantom pain from a limb you didn’t even know the government could amputate. Since my release from FCI Otisville, I’ve been very clear about what it means to be a human warehoused by the United States government. . . . Don’t miss Burn Order. As my mother used to say, “Let it be a lesson to us all.”
China, Coke, Gold … And The Winter Solstice December 21, 2025 CHINA From the Economist: China proved its strengths in 2025—and Donald Trump helped The extraordinary thing is that Mr Trump has played into Mr Xi’s hands, both with his tariffs abroad and his wrecking-ball at home. . . . [His] attack on science will impede American innovation. Framed as an effort to eliminate inefficiency and woke ideology, his efforts have curbed financing for vital research. His hostility to foreign scientists, especially ethnic Chinese ones, [has also hurt]. China has already benefited. COCAINE I’m no fan. I tried it a few times but was lucky — I didn’t love it. It didn’t grab and ruin my life as it has so many. That said, I think it should be legal. (Shouldn’t Americans be free to drink or smoke, or even do coke, in their pursuit of happiness, if they want to?) And that attempting to transport it from Venezuela to Trinidad for eventual export, presumably, to the U.S. should not be punishable by death-without-trial. Legalizing coke is understandably controversial. But the death-without-trial for Venezuelans part? It blows my mind that House and Senate Republicans are fine with that (or pretend to be). HYMC A lot of our speculations crater (see, for fun, Google Puts and Soap Slivers from 20 years ago). Others, like PRKR, ANIX, OPRT, CNF, UNIT, RNGE, VERU — even BOREF, I guess — “remain to be seen.” But every once in a while we get lucky. The latest example: HYMC, which reached $17.11 in after-hours trading Friday — up from $3.20 when suggested six months ago; $2.20 a couple of years before that. By now, I’ve sold about half in my tax-sheltered accounts — though it’s certainly acting as though it wants to go higher, and very well may. Not only is it “a potential gold mine” — literally — with the price of gold more than double what it was when we first started buying . . . it now seems also to be a potential silver mine, with the price of silver also going through the roof. This recent HYMC write-up offers fair market valuations ranging from $4 to $40 a share, so what it’s currently worth seems to be anybody’s guess. I haven’t sold any in my taxable accounts, but Friday I sold some “covered calls” against about a quarter of my position. Specifically, calls that paid me $778* each and gave some nameless faceless buyer the right to “call away” from me 100 shares at 25 a share anytime between now and January 21, 2028.** Let’s say you gambled $2,500 to buy 1,000 shares a couple of years ago. It’s grown to $17,000. Now, worried it might drop — but not eager to pay tax on the gain or miss out on possible further gains — you don’t sell. Instead, you “write covered calls” on those 1,000 shares at $8. You get $8,000, and here’s what could happen: 1. HYMC goes to $60. Whoever bought those calls from you at 8 is pretty happy. He limited his risk to $8 a share, in case HYMC collapsed; and he had to pay you $8 for the right to buy your shares from you at the $25. But that left him with a $27 long-term gain in a year or two on an investment of just $8. But you’re not miserable, either. Instead of selling your 1,000 shares today for $17,000 you got paid $25,000 for them — and got an $8,000 premium (taxed as a short-term gain) — all on a $2,500 bet (made with money you could truly afford to lose. 2. HYMC never gets much higher than $25 (so is unlikely to be called away), but limps across the finish line on January 21, 2028, at exactly $25. He loses everything, but you — you lucky bastard — wound up with $33,000 (before tax, if in a taxable account) on a $2,500 investment. 3. HYMC has fallen to 9 by January 21, 2028. You keep the $8,000 and either sell the stock, if you want to, or hold it and are not much worse off than you are today (though in a taxable account you’d owe tax on that $8,000) — and it still might go up to $25 or $60 or who knows. The only way this can work out badly is for HYMC to crater. Even then, you’d keep the $8,000 — not the worst result on a $2,500 bet. *No tax is due on that $778 until the calls are exercised or expire, or I buy them back for less than I was paid. **Because these are long-term calls, they “suspend” the holding period of the underlying shares . . . but that’s not an issue for me, because I have already held them more than a year. If you’re thinking of writing calls against shares in which you have a short-term profit, the IRS will “stop the clock” on those shares if the calls you write have a long expiration date or are “deep in the money.” Not the end of the world, but something to consider. AND A HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE TO ALL 45 seconds!
Jimmy Kimmel – 3 Minutes December 19, 2025 Like you, I had heard about “the plaques” but — perhaps unlike you — I had not actually seen them until I watched this portion of Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue (3 minutes). He has turned the presidency into a joke. A mockery. An egomaniacal frenzy of corruption and self-adoration, untethered from reality and indifferent to human suffering. (Among so much else — the closing of rural hospitals, the return of measles — hundreds of thousands of innocents have needlessly died. Each one an actual human being.) Not to mention his preference for dictators. How can this be happening? Watch those 3 minutes and tell me he is not deranged. TWO QUESTIONS FOR TRUMP SUPPORTERS 1. Why is Trump protecting Hunter Biden?! They have the laptop — and every MAGA knows it contains wild bombshells that would have flipped the millions of votes by which Trump lost in 2o2o — so why has he not revealed them? (If only to distract from the Epstein files.) 2. “If the 2020 elections involved widespread coordinated fraud and conspiracy, why hasn’t this administration arrested or indicted anyone?” — asked by Republican congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky.* *By contrast, during the first Trump administration, a federal grand jury indicted 12 Russians for allegedly interfering in the election; and more than 1,000 former Republican and Democratic U.S. attorneys said Trump himself would have been indicted on multiple counts of obstruction had Justice Department policy not shielded a sitting president. See Volume 2 of the Mueller report. Volume 1 raised endless suspicious of collusion, though not enough to meet the strict legal definition — perhaps because investigators were obstructed from getting the full story. LINCOLN SQUARE FACT-CHECKS THE SPEECH: The Eight Big Lies from Wednesday Night The “Warrior Dividend” Deception: Trump asserted that $1,776 checks “were on their way” to U.S. troops. The Fact: The President does not have the “power of the purse”—Congress does. Furthermore, while he offers a one-time $1,776 payment supposedly funded by tariffs, analysts estimate those same tariffs have already cost the average American household $1,700 this year alone. The Prescription Price Policy: Trump claimed he has cut the cost of prescription drugs by 400%–500%. The Fact: This is mathematically impossible. A 100% price cut would mean the drugs are free ($0); anything beyond that would imply Americans are being paid to take their medicine! (ha! we wish!) The Inflation Myth: He claimed he inherited the worst inflation in 48 years. The Fact: While inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022, it had already fallen to approximately 2.4% by the time Trump took office in January 2025. Current data for late 2025 shows inflation at roughly 3.0%—an increase since he took office, which economists attribute partly to the tariffs implemented in April. The Food Price Fib: Trump says food prices are ‘plummeting.’ The Fact: His own Agriculture Department released a report this week showing food prices are currently rising faster than inflation. In fact, food prices have never been higher. The Manufacturing Mirage: He touted record factory growth. The Fact: The U.S. has seen seven consecutive months of manufacturing job losses. The Foreign Investment Scam: Trump provided no evidence for his claim of securing $18 trillion in investment. Even the White House website reports only $9.6 billion in investment promises—a figure that includes investments initiated during the Biden administration. Gaslighting on Gas Prices: Trump claimed the cost of gas is significantly lower. The Fact: While gasoline prices have seen some declines (averaging around $2.94 nationally), they are nowhere near the $2.00 national average Trump claimed. A Wage Whopper: Trump stated that “for the first time in years, wages are rising much faster than inflation.” The Fact: Incorrect. Real wage growth has been positive since mid-2023. Recent 2025 data shows that while wages are still rising, the gap has actually narrowed as inflation ticked back up toward 3% this fall. (Also from Lincoln Square: RFK Jr.’s Making Disease Great Again.) A SEPARATE FACT-CHECK Did Vice President J.D. Vance really say Trump could be “America’s Hitler”? Yes. In 2016, apparently, he did. Too harsh, in my view — though, as discussed Wednesday, there are powerful parallels. In case you can help fund the infrastructure that will help begin to put an end to this madness next November, click here! I’ll see what you do and jump through the screen to say thanks.
Very Briefly: December 18, 2025 Simon Rosenberg’s post from last night — in full: There Is Only One Story Tonight — Trump Is Unwell This was without question the most disturbing public speech by an American President in modern times. It’ s not OK, and really dangerous. That’s it. That’s all I have to say. More tomorrow. More tomorrow.
Carl And I Agree December 17, 2025December 16, 2025 He writes, in response to yesterday‘s post: Rob Reiner was the ultimate mensch for me too. I agree Trump was 100% wrong to say what he did. If you remember I said he has flaws he is at times crude and talks before he thinks. But I don’t remember Meathead calling Archie Hitler or fascist. I don’t remember him saying Archie is “the single most unqualified human being to ever be a father” or in the case of Trump “assume the presidency of the United States.” In 2017, Reiner told Variety at the Dubai International Film Festival that Trump was “mentally unfit” to serve as president. “Do we want fascism or do we want to continue the 248 years of self-rule?” he asked during the interview. “Do we want to continue democracy or do we want to slip into fascism?” I replied: We seem to agree not just that Rob Reiner was a mensch but also that fascism is a bad thing. When I look up the characteristics of a fascist leader, Trump seems to check all the boxes: Authoritarian Rule — Centralized power under a single leader or party, rejecting democracy. Cult of Personality — Leader portrayed as infallible, heroic, or the embodiment of the nation. Ultranationalism — Extreme devotion to the nation or race, often tied to myths of national rebirth. Militarism — Glorification of war, violence, and military strength as tools of renewal. Suppression of Opposition — Forcible silencing of dissent, censorship, imprisonment, or elimination of rivals. Scapegoating & Demonization — Targeting minorities, immigrants, or political opponents as “enemies” of the nation. Rigid Social Hierarchy — Belief in natural inequality, with strict class, racial, or gender roles. Economic Control (Dirigisme) — State intervention in the economy to achieve self‑sufficiency (autarky). Mass Mobilization — Use of propaganda, rallies, and symbols to unify citizens under one ideology. Anti‑Liberalism & Anti‑Communism — Rejection of pluralism, socialism, and liberal democracy as “degenerate.” How do YOU define fascism, and/or what do YOU see as the characteristics of a fascist leader? I might have added that most of us are careful NOT to call Trump Hitler. There’s a distinction between that and noting (for example) that he kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside or that there are stylistic parallels. And I might have added that Rob wasn’t the only one to call Trump out as mentally unfit for the job. His niece Mary, for example. His ghost writer Tony Schwartz. Senator Lindsey Graham, who called him “batshit crazy.” See, also: The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President. If Carl responds, I’ll let you know. BONUS Peter Thiel and the Anti-Christ (90 seconds).