The European Union has fined the X social media platform (formerly Twitter), owned by Elon Musk and his investment group, $140 million (usd) for violations of the EU Digital Services Act.  The decision by the EU is likely to create even more friction between President Trump and the European Union.  However, this problem is not difficult to solve.

The collective government within the EU accuse Elon Musk and X of permitting misinformation, disinformation and malinformation to appear on the platform.

The European DSA is ultimately designed to control information, that reality should not be debated. All efforts to control traditional and social media are efforts to control information.

The specifics of the reasoning for the fine are typically European.  (1) Twitter allows ordinary people to deliver information at the same level as people who should be defined as more important.  (2)  Advertisers of those who pay for promotion of information on X are not easily identifiable – people need to figure it out on their own.  (3)  It is too difficult to figure out who is providing the information.

Basically, all of the EU concerns center around information control.  It’s really an ideology issue.  In the outlook of the EU, bureaucrats and elites feel they are superior and must rule/protect the people under them.  Ordinary people having access to information that may or may not be approved by the EU is the underlying issue.

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In the world of Trumpian geopolitical trade stuff, three issues are very interesting to watch. (1) The strategic reset with Russia which could break the official western construct of financial control. (2) The proactive and defensive positioning of Mexico (desperate attempt to retain economic attachment), and (3) the certain dissolution of the USMCA what Canadians call CUSMA.

Canadian media are starting to realize something we have talked about on these pages for years; President Trump intends to end the USMCA because the USMCA was used as a fracture point to eliminate NAFTA.

Wall Street, the U.S. Congress, the massive K-Street lobbying network around the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the entire political apparatus of business and industry would never permit the end to NAFTA; too many trillions at stake. So, President Trump replaced NAFTA with the interim USMCA, which was better but factually more useful in elimination of the original.

Now, as we have discussed by highlighting President Trump’s no-so-subtle words on the issue, the Canadian media is realizing the USMCA will be dissolved in favor of two independently negotiated bilateral trade agreements; one with Canada and one with Mexico.

🚨MAJOR BREAKING

Trump signals that he could EXIT from USMCA entirely.

This is EXTINCTION LEVEL to Canada.

He going to do it. I have a strong feeling about this.

We’re talking about 400,000 jobs and an instant severe recession! pic.twitter.com/X2uIQaJLQ3

— Tablesalt 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@Tablesalt13) December 4, 2025

(CTV) – U.S. President Donald Trump could decide next year to withdraw from the Canada-United States-Mexico trade agreement (CUSMA), Politico reported on Thursday, citing U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

“The president’s view is he only wants deals that are a good deal. The reason why we built a review period into CUSMA was in case we needed to revise it, review it or exit it,” Greer told Politico’s White House bureau chief Dasha Burns in a podcast episode that airs Friday.

Greer also raised the idea of negotiating separately with Canada and Mexico and dividing the agreement into two parts in the podcast, adding that he spoke with Trump about that possibility just this week.

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As the kids say, “this crazy”.

If the story surrounding the J6 pipe bomber, Brian Cole, seemed suspicious this set of coincidences takes that suspicion to new levels of interesting.

According to the grandmother of suspected J6 pipe bomber Brian Cole Jr, he is a simple-minded man; an “autistic-like” 30-year-old who lived with his parents. “He would wear shorts all winter long, no matter how cold it was, he would be outside in shorts, walking — and he would wear red Crocs,” one longtime neighbor recalled.  {SOURCE}

Brian Cole’s father is Brian Cole Sr. As noted by the Daily Wire, “Brian Cole, Jr. worked for a bail bonds company run by his father that worked to free illegal immigrants from ICE facilities and sued the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security.” {SOURCE} “Weeks before 30-year-old Cole Jr. allegedly planted pipe bombs at the headquarters of the Democrat and Republican parties on January 5, 2021, a court ruled against the company in its lawsuit attacking the Trump administration on immigration issues.”

Brian Cole Sr, operated bail bond companies in various states.  Brian Cole Sr. accused a Rutherford County, Tennessee, Assistant District Attorney named John Zimmerman of racial persecution and asked the Biden DOJ to investigate after Zimmerman questioned the bail bond company’s business practice after the county suspended Cole from operating in a nearby district.  Brian Cole Sr then hired, wait for it, Benjamin Crump to represent his interests.

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Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino appears on Fox News to listen to Sean Hannity tell him everything that happened in the J6 pipe bomb investigation.

But seriously, despite Hannity’s annoying and ongoing narrative explanation that eventually leads to a pause for the interviewee to quickly fill, Dan Bongino repeats and emphasizes a point that the J6 investigative stuff is only just now beginning to surface, there is much more to come.  WATCH:

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Earlier today, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, Deputy Director Dan Bongino and U.S. Attorney for DC Jeanne Pirro, held a press conference to announce the arrest of 30-year-old Brian Cole as the suspect in the January 6, 2021, Washington DC pipe bombs. [Indictment pdf HERE]

The FBI say, in the indictment, Brian Cole spent 2019 and 2020 buying components that match those used in the bombs (galvanized metal pipe, end caps, kitchen timers, wiring, steel wool, and 9-volt battery connectors) from various hardware stores across Northern Virginia. The FBI also alleges that Cole resumed buying similar parts in the days after the devices were discovered.

A license plate reader captured Cole’s car less than a mile from where the bomber first appeared on CCTV video on foot, and his height at 5′-6″ matches the FBI surveillance estimate for the bomber’s height.  Both devices were confirmed to be viable improvised explosive devices.  WATCH:

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READ INDICTMENT HERE

Brian Cole’s motive for planting the pipe bombs remains unknown.  According to the Daily Wire, Cole and his father worked as bail bondsmen under multiple company names. One was StateWide Bonding, Inc., which handles immigration bonds, helping illegal aliens avoid prison. The bonding company sued DHS, alleging racism.  In November 2020, the case was thrown out.  The suspect is expected to appear in court on Friday.

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While Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin advances the efforts of the Intelligence Community to undermine, isolate, ridicule and marginalize President Trump, ultimately a seditious coup, Virginia Senator Mark Warner now calls for the military to engage in supporting that coup.

As with all things espoused by the professional, the language is worded for plausible deniability; however the expressed intent is clear for those non-pretending.  What else is meant by:

…”I think in many ways the uniformed military may help save us from this president and his lame people like Hegseth. Because I think that their commitment is to the constitution and obviously not to Trump.”

Now put your mindset back about a decade, and ask yourself what would have been the response from media if Senator Jeff Sessions said it was his hope the U.S. military would reject instructions from President Obama, and instead follow the guidelines of his political opposition?

But rather than play ‘whataboutism’, let’s evaluate if Mark Warner was successful. What exactly does that success look like?

A military overthrow of the United States government from within?

A follow up question should be: “Senator Warner, are you asking for a military led overthrow of the United States government?”  If no, then how is your expressed preference any different?  Please explain the distinction.

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Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Paris talking to Emmanuel Macron last weekend while Rubio, Witkoff and Kushner were meeting with Ukraine officials in Florida.  This telephone call is reported to have taken place the following day, on Monday.

French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy together with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and European Council President António Costa held a conference call.

A transcript of the call was leaked to Spiegel, a German news outlet. According to the narrative the assembled group of EU leaders were discussing how the Trump administration was going to betray Ukraine in order to get a peace deal with Russia. The gist of the narrative sounds accurate, though some of the EU leaders are denying the specifics of the wording used.

EUROPE – “There is a possibility that the U.S. will betray Ukraine on the issue of territory without clarity on security guarantees,” Macron said, according to Spiegel, adding there was “a great danger” for Zelenskyy. The Élysée did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment. Spiegel reported the Élysée denied in a statement to the German outlet that Macron spoke of any betrayal. “The president did not use those words,” Macron’s office said, per Spiegel.

Merz chimed in that Zelenskyy had to be “extremely careful in the coming days.”

“They are playing games, both with you and with us,” Merz said, seemingly referring to Washington’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — the son-in-law of American President Donald Trump — who spent five hours locked in talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.

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The authority for the United States government to capture the electronic records of all Americans without warrant falls under the auspices of FISA-702.  The current authority expires in April of 2026.

Some administrative state defenders will argue this issue with me. However, having researched almost every aspect to the construct, and the argument, I am confident FISA-702 authority underpins the much bigger, quasi-constitutional justification for the wholesale collection of U.S. citizen metadata.  Without the 702 authority, the legal justification for the apparatus of surveillance no longer exists.  It really is that simple.

That said, there remains ZERO justification for the wholesale capture of U.S. citizen data by the government. It is not the searching of the database that presents the issue; the capture itself violates the Fourth Amendment.

The only way the government can justify the capture of U.S. Citizen data is if there is some quasi-constitutional or national security reason for it.  That’s where FISA-702 comes in.

Take away “702” search authority, and the data collection argument collapses; ANY “incidental” search of the database then loses any plausible legal justification.  702 is the camel’s nose under the tent that forms the baseline for all data records to be intercepted, stored and ultimately available for review.

This is a very key component to fully understand.  Most practical applications of surveillance are contingent upon the capture of electronic records for tracking.  Ex. – if domestic travel records are considered private papers (never argued yet), then government agencies have no right to exploit them without a valid search warrant underpinned by a national security justification.  The government, not private sector – government, tracking people becomes more difficult if privacy rules are applied.

The legal aspect runs through the 4th Amendment, which -while historically undefined in the modern era- likely stirs in the background of the recent TSA decision to provide a $45 opt-out, for the use of REAL ID in domestic transit (interstate commerce application notwithstanding).

The Fourth Amendment aspect to the ‘warrantless’ government capture of American citizen records has never been fully argued in court; the modern definitions are opaque, and the govt has a vested interest in retaining the untested status quo.

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In an effort to return common sense, practicality and affordability to the American consumer base for automobiles, President Trump announced the elimination of Joe Biden’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for manufactured cars and trucks.

Under the auspices of the “Green New Deal”, the Biden administration mandated ridiculous quotas for EVs and demanded lower power combustible engines, or pay a climate change tax. These CAFE standards resulted in a surcharge for large vehicles, large engine autos and SUVs, and essentially bifurcated the auto consumer into those who could afford to pay for efficiency and stability, and those who could not.

“We’re officially terminating Joe Biden’s ridiculously burdensome, horrible actually, CAFE standards that impose expensive restrictions and all sorts of problems, gave all sorts of problems to automakers,” President Trump announced from the Oval Office. “It put tremendous upward pressure on car prices, combined with the insane electric vehicle mandate. Biden’s burdensome regulations helped cause the price of cars to soar more than 25%,” President Trump said. WATCH:

(Via White House) – DELIVERING A WIN FOR AMERICAN FAMILIES AND AUTOMAKERS: Today, President Donald J. Trump is delivering major relief to American families by resetting the Biden Administration’s costly and unlawful Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards.

President Trump is returning CAFE standards to levels that can actually be met with conventional gasoline and diesel vehicles. The Biden Administration standards imposed unrealistic fuel economy targets that effectively resulted in an electric vehicle (EV) mandate.

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Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio appears on Fox News for an extensive interview about current events. Within the interview Secretary Rubio discusses the current status of immigration vetting and the pause therein.

Additionally, Rubio outlines the current state of the U.S. operation in/around Venezuela and the ongoing negotiations with Ukraine and Russia to end the conflict in Eastern Europe. WATCH:

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