If You Have To Ask, You Can’t Afford A Bawitdaba: Tabs, Mon., Dec. 15, 2025

News and things to read and watch!

Dec 15, 2025

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Happy Monday! Time for tabs and coffee, tea, hair of the dog, wake and bake, smoke and a Coke, whatever, we don’t judge and are just happy to see you!

Ugh, a violent weekend: eight were shot and two killed at Brown University in the nation’s 465th mass shooting of the year. And the President put lives at risk by claiming a suspect was in custody while said suspect was still at large. (A person of interest was later arrested, then released.) Also at least 15 were killed and more than 40 hospitalized in an attack at a Hanukkah celebration in Bondi Beach, Australia. (Al Jazeera / BBC)

Hoo boy, the House Oversight Committee released new Epstein photos, including ones with Trump in them and one of a novelty HUUUUUGE Trump condom. Plus cameos from Steve Bannon, Woody Allen, Bills Clinton and Gates, Alan Dershowitz, Emirati businessman Ahmed bin Sulayem, the Andrew formerly known as Prince, and some kind of sexual glove at at the bottom of the page there that cannot be unseen, so, click with discretion. And apparently the Committee has 95,000 more photos to come, so, brace yourself. (SkyNews)

Meanwhile, Trump said the photos were no big deal and intensified his creeper ray some more:

The youths are mighty cynical! A Harvard poll found that only 13 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds say the country is headed in the right direction. Meanwhile the University of Chicago’s GenForward survey found only 30 percent of that age group approves of Trump, and 62 percent had an unfavorable view of Republicans. But 57 percent disapprove of Democrats, too. And Pew found that of all age groups the under-30s claim to follow the news the least closely, and are most likely to get their news from social media. Which they trust. We’re in trouble. (Harvard / NPR / Pew)

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said he thinks federal data may be overstating job creation, and the economy is actually losing about 20,000 jobs a month, not gaining jobs. Uh oh! (Wall Street Journal gift link)

Trump couldn’t be any clearer that he plans to abandon NATO and Ukraine, but Europe doesn’t have the same luxury of being able to ignore Putin’s intensifying incursions. Now Germany has sent soldiers to help fortify the Polish border, and the EU voted to indefinitely freeze $246 billion in Russian sovereign assets to use as loans to Ukraine, to be paid back only when Russia pays Kyiv war damages. Which is to say, never. Meanwhile Zelenskyy is in Germany to present his own peace plan to Berlin; as of press time the US has no comment. (Radio France Internationale / Reuters / Kyiv Post)

Texas has installed State Troopers outside of the women’s bathroom in the Capitol building in Austin, to make sure everyone who enters is performing gender to their standards. (Texas Tribune)

Meanwhile, “More redistricting bad news for Republicans: Texas may not net five GOP seats like they planned.” Whoops! (CNN)

A father and his three kids work for ICE, dad was surprised to discover Americans don’t think they are heroes. (USA Today)

It’s always unsettling when Rand Paul is the voice of reason:

And Trump is blaming ISIS making noises about doing “big damage” in Syria now, after two US soldiers and an interpreter were killed in an attack Saturday in Palmyra. Guess he did not get rid of ISIS after all. (Bloomberg)

In 2021, an Army base in Virginia named for Robert E. Lee was renamed to Fort Gregg-Adams. Law prevented Trump from giving it the name of another Confederate, so he re-re-named it to Fort Fitz Lee. But who was Fitz Lee? A buffalo soldier who died in 1899 blinded by malarial fever, and homeless at 33. Guess he symbolizes how the regime plans to treat our veterans? (New York Times gift link)

Pvt. Fitz Lee in 1899, from the National Museum of African American History and Culture

Kyle Clark did the math: Lauren Boebert spent $170 per diggy at her $12k per person fundraiser at a Kid Rock show:

Pobrecito Elon Musk went on Katie Miller’s podcast to moan about fashion, and also express his regret about getting involved with DOGE, because it made everybody hate his cars, and how he should have just stuck to running his companies. (IBT)