Trump case goes to the jury today . . . Former President Donald Trump's attorney on Tuesday told the jurors in his hush money trial that they "should want and expect more" evidence to convict the presumptive Republican nominee. Defense attorney Todd Blanche said prosecutors managed to show that Mr. Trump wanted to win an election — not carry out some evil plot — and that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg made a huge blunder by making the "greatest liar of all time" his star witness. "He's literally like an MVP of liars," Mr. Blanche said of Michael Cohen. Washington Times
Stefanik demands investigation into 'random' selection of Trump Judge Merchan . . . House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) is requesting an investigation into the judge overseeing Donald Trump's criminal case in New York, pointing to his role in at least two other trials related to the former president in possible violation of state laws that dictate judges must be randomly assigned to cases. "One cannot help but suspect that the 'random selection' at work in the assignment of Acting Justice Merchan, a Democrat Party donor, to these cases involving prominent Republicans, is in fact not random at all," Stefanik wrote. Washington Examiner
Trump, GOP, favorites to win White House, Congress . . . Former President Trump and the GOP are the favorites to win the races for the White House and for both chambers of Congress a little more than five months before Election Day, according to a forecast model released Wednesday by Decision Desk HQ and The Hill. The model gives Trump a 58 percent chance of winning the presidency and shows him with slight leads in most of the key swing states in the presidential race. Republicans are a more comfortable favorite in the House and Senate, the model says. The GOP holds a 79 percent chance of winning the Senate majority and a 64 percent chance of holding its House majority. The Hill
If Trump is not convicted in New York, it undermines all the other cases against him and could lead to a landslide.
PAC backing House Dems plans $100M spend leveraging abortion issue . . . In a memo to donors, the House Majority PAC outlined the Reproductive Freedom Accountability Fund, which it said will be spent in swing districts across the country for advertising and voter mobilization. The fund will also focus on voter outreach in House districts where there aren't competitive presidential or Senate races, such as in New York, California, Oregon, Washington and Virginia. Wall Street Journal
Former Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson wins tight Texas GOP primary . . . A former Trump campaign official has won a tight primary fight and will now serve as the representative of a deep-red Texas House district. Republican Katrina Pierson, who served as the spokesperson for former President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, defeated incumbent state Rep. Justin Holland in Tuesday's primary runoff for Texas' 33rd House District, and is the presumptive winner of November's general election since no Democrat candidate is standing in the race. Fox News
Top adviser to Democrat Senate candidate posted photo with Farrakhan. . . A top political adviser to a House Democrat, who is running for the Senate in a state that has become a hotbed for anti-Israel activism, attended a convention organized by one of the most notorious antisemites in the United States. Democratic Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin's deputy political director, Terra Defoe, posted on Facebook in 2017 about her "full week" of "supporting the Nation of Islam and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan" at the Nation of Islam's "Saviours' Day Convention." Fox News
Biden uses Jan. 6 police officers to campaign. . . President Joe Biden's reelection campaign is going all-in on presenting former President Donald Trump as a threat to democracy as polling continues to show Biden sinking in swing states. Biden's campaign has enlisted the assistance of three police officers who worked at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, to further its latest strategy, CNN reports. Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, Officer Harry Dunn, and Officer Danny Hodges will accuse Trump of posing a threat to democracy in key swing states, beginning in Nevada and Arizona. Breitbart
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National Security
Is China stockpiling resources to prepare for war? . . . China's rapid accumulation of commodities has drawn global attention and led some analysts to speculate President Xi Jinping's country is girding itself for war over Taiwan. "Xi seems to have studied the sanctions playbook the West used against Russia over Ukraine and subsequently initiated long-lead protective measures to batten down the hatches of China's economy to resist similar pressure," former Office of Naval Intelligence head Michael Studeman wrote recently on foreign policy analysis website War on the Rocks. Newsweek
South American gangs using U.S. immigration law to create burglary 'industry' . . . Federal authorities have identified a new crime "industry" involving robbery crews from South America who exploit America's immigration system, break into a string of homes and make off with loot before fleeing back to their home countries.
Some arrive in the U.S. legally on short-term visas specifically to steal, while others are part of the ongoing border surge and are recruited into sophisticated theft operations. Last week, six Chileans were arrested in New Jersey. Washington Times
International
Israel expands Rafah offensive, penetrates to the center of city . . . Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tanks reached the center of the town of Rafah on Tuesday, according to multiple media outlets, indicating that Israel intended to fight outwards toward the periphery rather than closing in from the outside. The tactic of penetrating to the heart of an enemy city and fighting back out was pioneered by Israel in the West Bank during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, and later became a model of urban counter-terror warfare. The idea is to confuse enemy fighters by attacking them from the rear. Breitbart
Israel figured out that Biden isn't serious with his "red lines" and "just don't" pronouncements.
North Korea sends balloons filled with excrement over the South . . . North Korea sends balloons over An unusual sight drifted into South Korean skies on Wednesday: Large white balloons carrying plastic bags of North Korean trash. Some contained something even more vile. All told, around 260 balloons were found scattered across a country roughly the geographic size of Indiana. Some journeyed more than 180 miles. One landed gently on a street—the pair of balloons and a clear plastic bag left intact. Another crashed through the greenhouse roof of a local grape farmer. Many others broke apart and spilled their contents onto sidewalks and streets: shreds of pink, blue and white paper, an empty laundry-detergent bag and dark clumps that looked like excrement. Wall Street Journal
Money
OpenAI readying an even more advanced model . . . OpenAI said on Tuesday that it has begun training an advanced artificial intelligence model that will succeed the San Francisco start-up's own GPT-4 system that currently serves its ChatGPT chatbot. The Microsoft-backed company said in a blog post that it expects its "next frontier model" to bring "the next level of capabilities" as it works toward building artificial general intelligence, the advanced technology with similar capabilities to that of humans. Fox Business
Store brands filling up more of your shopping cart . . . Goodbye, Chips Ahoy cookies and French's mustard. Hello…Great Value, Private Selection and Signature Select. U.S. consumers are trying many tactics to cut their food spending: eating out less, buying less groceries and ditching name brands. That is boosting lower-cost store brands, which last year claimed 22 cents out of every dollar spent in grocery stores—the largest share ever for so-called private-label products. Wall Street Journal
Culture
California school district preps "anti-racist" and "anti-oppressive" curriculum . . . A Silicon Valley school district is gearing up for a makeover, in which kids will be urged to check their coursework for "white supremacy," "colonial mentality," and "cis-heterosexism," and all teachers pushed to filter their curriculum "through an anti-racist and anti-oppressive lens." The San Francisco area district plans to roll out this method of teaching in 2025. Under the model, kids may help choose and change their curriculum—which is supposed to follow tenets of critical race theory and focus on the most "oppressed" perspectives—and direct how teachers manage the classroom and assign projects. Washington Free Beacon
Are addition and subtraction also in the curriculum?
You should also know
Josh Gibson becomes MLB career batting leader as Negro Leagues statistics incorporated . . . Josh Gibson became Major League Baseball's career leader with a .372 batting average, surpassing Ty Cobb's .367, when Negro Leagues records for more than 2,300 players were incorporated Tuesday after a three-year research project. Gibson's .466 average for the 1943 Homestead Grays became the season standard, followed by Charlie "Chino" Smith's .451 for the 1929 New York Lincoln Giants. They overtook the .440 by Hugh Duffy for the National League's Boston team in 1894. Gibson also became the career leader in slugging percentage (.718) and OPS (1.177), moving ahead of Babe Ruth (.690 and 1.164). Associated Press
Houston supplants Newark as America's dirtiest city . . . Do you think New York's filthy sidewalks, gross subway cars and rat infestations make it America's dirtiest city? You're in for quite a surprise. A recent study by LawnStarter has crowned Houston, Texas, as the nation's dirtiest city — bumping Newark, New Jersey from the top spot. New York City, despite its notorious grime, didn't even crack the top 10. It landed in 12th place. While the Big Apple dodged the title of dirtiest, it's still grappling with its trash and pest problems. New York Post
Ancient Egyptians sought to treat cancer . . . The ancient Egyptians may have used surgery to attempt to treat cancer, a pair of 4,000-year-old skulls suggest. The ancient Egyptians were exceptionally skilled at medicine for their time. But while they may have succeeded at dental fillings and proto-pregnancy tests, treating cancer was more of a challenge. But that doesn't mean they didn't try. In a new study appears to have found evidence of brain tumor extraction in patients 4,000 years ago. Newsweek
Astronomers identify potential alien megastructures within 1,000 light-years . . . A team of astronomers has identified seven candidates for alien megastructures, specifically Dyson spheres, that warrant further analysis. The seven objects are classified as "M-dwarfs." These stars are smaller and less bright than our sun. The concept of Dyson spheres was first introduced by physicist Freeman Dyson in 1960 as a hypothetical structure that an advanced civilization might build to harness a star's energy. The structures would consist of floating power collectors, factories, and habitats that would eventually encircle the star entirely. Washington Times
Guilty Pleasures
Hampton Inn builds a cult around its free waffles . . . Free breakfast is a Hampton hallmark, one of the top three reasons travelers book the budget-friendly chain. Its waffles are the main attraction. Adults and kids make an estimated 30 million waffles a year at the chain's more than 3,000 hotels, carb counting and sugar highs be damned. Waffles earned their own section in Hilton's 100-year retrospective in 2019. And a Hampton employee known as the Waffle Lady flew from North Carolina to California last summer to make strawberry cheesecake waffles with Paris Hilton. Wall Street Journal
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Megyn Kelly -> Pete Hegseth responds to 2017 rape accusation. 🔥 vol. 3, issue 13 | December 6, 2024 Quick Hits All the news you need in...
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