Roundup!
(1) The New York Times isn’t go along entirely with the WaPo’s hit piece on Hegseth about the second strike. The Times is saying it can’t find any sources that implicate Hegseth. What’s going on at the Times? First the expose of Walz and the Minnesota fraud, and now this.
(2) Around 16K people in Canada killed themselves through medically assisted suicide last year. Of these, 95.6% were people whose death was “medically foreseeable” and the rest were not. Each year the program has been operating since 2019, the numbers using the program have grown.
The entire thing is highly depressing, IMHO. There are plenty of statistics at that link, but nothing really tells us: who are these people, and why did they make this choice?
(3) Whistleblowers say that Minnesota’s Governor Walz looked the other way and allowed the fraud committed by Somalis in Minnesota to run rampant. The reason he would have done that isn’t too hard to guess:
Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett said Monday that Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz allowed the state’s massive COVID-era fraud scandal to fester because he sought political favor from the state’s large Somali community.
Walz defended his administration Sunday by claiming Minnesota “attracts criminals” and telling the public not to “demonize” the Somali community, even as he faced questions over more than $1 billion in welfare fraud tied to Somali-linked schemes. Appearing on “The Evening Edit,” Jarrett said the question many Minnesotans want answered is simple: Why would Walz allow a massive fraud scheme to flourish?
“So if all of this is true, and I suspect it is, the question is, why would he do it? Well, the answer is he was currying favor with the large Somali community where the fraud was largely happening. He was turning a blind eye for political gain,” Jarrett told host Elizabeth MacDonald.
What percentage of Minnesota’s voters are Somali? It’s a large group compared to other states, but it’s really not all that large:
(4) Jack Smith had several reasons for spying on GOP members of Congress:
House and Senate Republicans targeted by former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s subpoenas were gearing up for significant oversight of both the Justice Department and the FBI when their phone records were seized.
This raises questions about whether the subpoenas served a dual purpose—to investigate Jan. 6, as Smith was appointed to do, and to keep tabs on the oversight probes into agency conduct, one former representative whose phone records were seized by Smith suggested.
“They were trying to spy on us to see what we were doing,” former Rep. Louie Gohmert told the John Solomon Reports podcast. “And also, I think they were looking for anything that they could use to come after us, or hold over our heads, because, you know, you can intimidate the people that are coming after you.”
(5) The same media that covered up for Biden’s completely obvious decline is engaged in trying to get us to believe that Trump is ill and senile:
President Trump has been working up to 12-hour days this month, according to Oval Office logs the White House provided to The Post after the New York Times claimed there were “signs of fatigue” in his less detailed public schedule.
The previously unpublished “private narrative” documents span 10 weekdays between Nov. 12 and Nov 25 — the day the Times story was published — and show the president worked roughly 50-hour weeks, not counting any official duties that may have been performed on weekends.
The White House made the rare decision to share the logs to counter the narrative that Trump, 79, is slowing with age — with the files instead showing him working longer hours than the average American as he overhauls trade and immigration policies, attempts to end the Russia-Ukraine war and spearheads the most significant construction at the White House in decades.
He also released a normal MRI report.
Of all the criticisms that can be mounted against Trump, this seems the oddest to me. Not only is he obviously vigorous, not just for a man of his age but compared to most people over forty, but the left’s covering up of Biden’s obvious lack of vigor was blatant. But this contradiction doesn’t seem to faze Trump’s critics. After all, sooner or later his health will decline, and then they’ll say, “See, I told you so!” In the meantime, there are plenty of gullible Trump-haters who will believe what the MSM says.
(2) Everyone’s death is “medically foreseeable”
(5) No criticism of Trump is too “odd” or at variance from reality for his critics.
2. Through my Wife’s 18 months of treatment for Cancer, she never once though about ending her life. Yes, once she thought about stopping treatment, but didn’t. We had Hospice that last 2 weeks. Some drugs to help her with anxiety. Didn’t need any for pain. She had her very strong faith. And now she is with our Cat Family, at peace.
5. Retread of last time
#2.
NEVER EVER GIVE UP:
“Brigitte Bardot reveals ‘miracle’ saved her after multiple suicide attempts in her youth”—
https://nypost.com/2025/12/02/entertainment/brigitte-bardot-reveals-miracle-saved-her-after-suicide-attempts/
File under: Build Brigitte Bardot Back Better
SHIREHOME:
Once again, please accept my condolences.
Being as I’m Roman Catholic, I’m obliged (albeit willingly and happily) to oppose suicide and abortion. I like what Katherine Hepburn once said in regard to suicide and her disapproval thereof: “It’s bad manners to go to a party when you haven’t been invited to it.”
Republican Van Epps wins TN-07. Too close against the AOC of the south but any win is good.
https://redstate.com/terichristoph/2025/12/02/results-for-special-election-in-tn-07-n2196751
Bob Wilson:
I just put up a new post about that.
As they say, “This IS CNN”…
“CNN To Sponsor Qatar’s ‘Doha Forum’ Featuring Lineup of America- and Israel-Bashing Arab Officials”—
https://freebeacon.com/media/cnn-to-sponsor-qatars-doha-forum-featuring-lineup-of-america-and-israel-bashing-arab-officials/
H/T Powerline blog.
– – – – – –
SHIREHOME, my, condolences.
“and show the president worked roughly 50-hour weeks, not counting any official duties that may have been performed on weekends.”
I imagine it is not at all difficult for most professionals to have many 50 hour weeks in a given year. Occasionally much greater and sometimes less for dr. appts, etc. [the “privilege” of the salaried “elite”] I was happy to spend the extra few hours at work per day to avoid the congestion of commuting home, plus get that final sense of getting something done.
And if your personal and professional life includes the resources to avoid mowing the lawn, repairing stuff, planning and cooking and shopping for food, etc., then those hours are also freed up to do what still must be an exciting and challenging job, even for the seasoned executive we perceive Trump to be.
Also, a lot of work gets done “under the covers” and by others before the final result is promoted and made visible – so it is made to look easier than it really was [consider the tariff arm twisting but also that we still have no real confidence that Putin will stop killing people and settle for less than his heart’s desire.]
#5.
Looks like the gloves are off.
Again.
(Have they ever been “on”?)
And so…this might become rather, um, interesting:
“Trump declares all Biden autopen pardons to be void”—
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/all-things-trump/trump-declares-all-biden-autopen-pardons-be-void
Good news!
https://x.com/JohnBasham/status/1995638873494610000
Canadian here. I can’t give you general answers for (2), but I can share a specific one. A long-term employee of mine (who I will call Mike) worked for me for thirty-three years, and was diagnosed with ALS in late 2023. He was 64, and on the cusp of retirement.
He knew the expected trajectory of his disease, and said when it got bad enough, he would choose MAID. He had no wife, no children, and had watched his younger sister die with this exact disease in the pre-MAID era. Her passing was unpleasant.
The progress of Mike’s disease was slow, but inexorable: It only goes one way. Reduction in use of limbs, inability to swallow, loss of mobility, independence, reliance on feeding tube to survive. Eventually, he would be diaper-clad and bed-bound.
There was no government coercion, no pushing of MAID: Home care and palliative care were all available. Just the availability as an option if he wished to pursue it. Lots of checks and balances and discussions with medical professionals.
ALS does not follow a steady path: It can plateau, then suddenly significant changes and restrictions occur. Mike decided in September that he was ready, and arranged for MAID on October 15.
We spent the previous week visiting him. It is still a bit surreal: He was here October 14 and gone October 15. He did not want me present during the process, so my last communication with him was by email early in the morning the day he died.
Good, bad, right, wrong? I don’t know. He felt he was able to regain some control of a disease that robbed him of so much. He made the choice willingly, and honestly, I might do the same in his position.
Thanks much for that story/testimony.
One assumes that your friend (and his condition) is exactly what MAID was intended to address.
However, one quickly starts to read about the abuses and questionable decisions.
…Speaking of “unintended consequences”…
“HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: AI is Destroying the University, and Learning Itself.”—
https://instapundit.com/759925/
(OTOH, should one assume they’re “unintended”…?)
#2,
It’s an interesting question that came up in my mind over the past year. As my sister-in-law who is now 5 years out from colon cancer says, “cancer f’s with your mind.” I just passed my first 6 month eval, but the damn thing is always in the back of my thoughts. One may have passed the medically defined cure state of 5 years, but one never feels really cured.
I have, at this point, decided if any subsequent 6 month eval comes up positive, I probably, like Shirehome’s wife, go for just palliative care. I’m too old to hold out for another few years by going through more medical torture. If I was 50, maybe a different decision. And yes, if the disease gets bad enough, the thought of just ending it all has crossed my mind.
2 Melanoma surgeries in 3 years here.
Bet you ass I’m sweating it for weeks before my 2X yearly exam.
Selfie-abortions are a fetus… feature of Planned Personhood. Progress. Throw another baby on the barbie, it’s over.
The hard cases, the incurable and terminal suffering cases, those are the camel’s nose under the tent. The true point of MAID is to deny expensive care: it’s being sold as compassion but it’s actually finance.
If Canada is anything like the US, then about 5% of the sickest people are responsible for more than 50% of the total medical costs. Quite aside from the medical costs, you also have the costs of keeping healthy old people who are retired for 20-30 years.
The other big source of expense is newborns with congenital problems. Oh you’d better believe MAID is intended for such cases. Their bills at the beginning of their lives are of course enormous when heroic interventions are made to save them, and often their early childhood is expensive as well, when most children don’t have anything worse than chicken pox and owies and booboos.
For terminally ill people who truly wish to refuse treatment (as opposed to those whose existence is inconvenient to the relatives with their power of attorney) there is almost certainly some simple way to accommodate that, without creating a slippery slope system down which to shove sick people who are spending too much money–usually the government’s money.