What Happened Today - 10 Dec 2025
What Happened Today – 10 December 2025
Crazy PA “rally”…in a casino ballroom
You can do pull-ups at the airport now!
California and the National Guard Halt
Impeachment….probs not (Hegseth/RFK)
Venezuelan Oil Ship Take Over
Denmark…
AI Concerns
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Crazed PA “rally”…in a casino ballroom
The Pennsylvania rally at the casino last night was pure chaos theater dressed up as “economic messaging,” and it just made Trump and his whole operation look completely unhinged instead of serious about actually fixing anything for regular people.
Crowd and overall vibe
The event at the Mount Airy Casino Resort in the Poconos pulled a solid but hardly earth‑shattering rally crowd…maybe 1-2k (Obama pulled 7-8k during his latest event…and it was still overflowing) “packed” into the resort space, nowhere near the over-the-top “massive” numbers Trump always brags about at his events in that state. Local coverage described it more as a long, drag‑on rally crowd in a casino ballroom than some stadium‑size movement moment, which makes his usual inflated ego about attendance even more ridiculous given how obsessed he is with looking like the biggest thing on earth.
What he was supposed to talk about
This thing was marketed as a “major affordability speech” where he’d supposedly lay out real plans to deal with prices and cost of living, but he immediately wandered off into his greatest hits of grievance, score‑settling, and culture‑war nonsense. Instead of a coherent plan, it turned into a 90‑plus minute ramble that bounced from the economy to immigrants, to Democrats being “evil,” to random asides about how “respected” he is, like watching somebody flip channels in their own head.
The wildest lies and delusions
Here’s a rundown of some of the most absurd stuff he pushed and why it’s nonsense:
• He claimed prices are “coming way down” and gave himself an “A-plus-plus-plus” on the economy while people in that very state are still getting hammered by housing, groceries, and basic bills, and polling shows voters deeply unhappy with affordability under him. Actual data and voter interviews out of Pennsylvania show people do not feel like they’re living in the magical boom he keeps describing onstage.
• He flat-out asserted that under Biden “100 percent of new jobs went to migrants” and that now, under him, “100 percent of net job creation is going to American citizens,” which is just made-up math with no basis in any labor statistics. Government jobs data does not track jobs in that cartoonish way, and economists across the spectrum have already said there is nothing remotely factual backing up those numbers.
• He bragged that they’ve created “nearly 60,000 new Pennsylvania jobs” and thousands of manufacturing jobs, spinning it as a total turnaround from “Democrat disaster,” when Pennsylvania job growth is part of a complicated national trend that started before this latest speech and is driven by a lot more than him ranting at a casino. Fact‑checkers note that he cherry-picks time frames and ignores losses and broader national patterns to paint himself as the sole savior.
• He repeated his fantasy that his tax agenda means “no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security” for seniors as if that’s already the reality, when in practice that’s a wish‑list slogan, not current law, and the details he’s floated would blow a hole in the budget while skewing benefits toward higher earners. Analysts point out that similar promises he’s made in the past either died in Congress or were structured in ways that did not deliver what he tells people from the stage.
• He amped up the lie that he’s totally “stopped inflation” and that “prices are down” now that he’s back, even though official data still shows elevated costs and voters in Pennsylvania telling reporters they’re feeling the squeeze despite some easing in certain categories. Saying reality out loud differently at a rally doesn’t magically change what people see at the grocery store and gas pump.
The ugly anti-immigrant bile
On top of the economic nonsense, he went hard into his favorite hateful lane, turning what was supposed to be an affordability speech into a long anti‑immigrant tirade. He talked about a “permanent pause” on immigration from what he called “hellholes” and “filthy” countries like Afghanistan, Haiti, and Somalia, which is pure dehumanizing garbage designed to get the crowd riled up, not to solve any real policy problem.
He threw around the idea of “reverse migration” like he’s proudly engineering some mass expulsion, claiming that sending immigrants away is the key to “more jobs, better wages, higher income,” even though economists have repeatedly shown the economy relies on immigrant labor in multiple sectors. He even revived attacks on Rep. Ilhan Omar, falsely implying she’s here illegally, which fed the crowd’s xenophobic energy and echoes the same gross “send her back” vibe he’s leaned on for years.
Election nonsense and self‑mythology
He couldn’t resist dipping back into his election obsession, suggesting once again that the “real vote” in 2024 was much larger for him and hinting at fraud without evidence, as usual. At the same time, he puffed himself up with lines about being the most loved by Black voters and winning places like Pennsylvania “massively,” even though his margin there was narrow and most Black voters supported his opponent.
He also kept doing his standard crowd‑size ego routine, talking like everything he does is historically huge while independent estimates for his Pennsylvania events have again and again come in way below his bragged‑about numbers. It’s the same insecure pattern: inflate the crowd, inflate the win, and pretend sheer repetition makes it true.
How it makes him and his team look
Put together, the night was a bizarre mix of fake statistics, grievance therapy, and open bigotry that made the whole operation look more like a cult rally than a serious presidency trying to grapple with real economic pain. Voters who are actually hurting in Pennsylvania got a lot of ranting, scapegoating, and fantasy numbers, but nothing resembling a grounded, reality‑based plan, which only reinforces the sense that this administration is living in its own alternate universe while demanding everyone else clap along.
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You can do pull-ups at the airport now!
Duffy and RFK turning a serious air-travel mess into a damn pull-up contest at Reagan National is exactly the kind of clown show energy this administration specializes in, and it fixes absolutely nothing about what actually makes flying miserable.
What they actually did
They rolled out a $1 billion “Make Travel Family Friendly Again” scheme, pitching grants so airports can add “family-friendly” stuff like play areas, nursing pods, and, yes, literal workout zones with pull-up bars and step-up stations in terminals. To sell it, RFK Jr. and Sean Duffy did a cheesy on-camera pull-up competition at Reagan National, with Kennedy knocking out around 20 and Duffy doing his reps while staff and press watched like this was normal governance.
Meanwhile, the same DOT has either stalled or walked back tougher passenger protections, including earlier moves to rein in airlines on refunds and penalties for long delays, and reporters have explicitly noted that this “fitness” circus is happening after the administration shrank or rescinded rules that would actually hold airlines accountable when they screw travelers. So yeah, instead of fixing the system that lets airlines strand people without consequences, we get pull-up bars and vibes.
What they’re ignoring on air travel
Air traffic control staffing shortages, chronic delays, and airline games with refunds and rebooking are still the real pain points, and nothing about a $1 billion “mini-gym” grant pool changes that structural mess. Even coverage that’s trying to be neutral points out Duffy admitted he has no actual plan to lower costs for passengers while hyping this grant program, which is basically aesthetic fluff layered on top of a broken system.
On top of that, critics are already flagging that this administration has softened or sat on consumer protection moves that would have forced airlines to cough up real cash for cancellations and major delays, all while pretending “healthier airports” are the priority. So you’re right on the instinct: they’re laser-focused on optics and side quests instead of the hard, boring work of regulation and enforcement.
RFK and measles reality
And RFK of all people posturing as the wellness guy while there’s a measles outbreak tearing through parts of South Carolina is just insult on top of injury. Spartanburg County has had dozens of confirmed measles cases since October, with state health officials scrambling to run mobile MMR vaccine clinics and warning that dropping childhood vaccination rates plus years of misinformation are exactly why these outbreaks are coming back.
National public health reporting ties these outbreaks—South Carolina, Texas, and others—to the same “health freedom” and anti-vax currents RFK has helped fuel for years, even as he occasionally turns around and mouths pro-vaccine lines when the politics demand it. So instead of being laser-focused on cleaning up that mess and pushing hard, consistent pro-vaccination messaging to keep kids from getting a completely preventable disease, he’s out here doing pull-ups under a MAHA (“Make America Healthy Again”) banner like that’s public health leadership.
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California and the National Guard Halt
California didn’t change its mind on the Guard today – a federal judge just slapped Trump down and told him he has to give California’s National Guard back.
What the judge ordered
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled that Trump’s move to federalize and deploy thousands of California National Guard troops in Los Angeles for his immigration crackdown was illegal and has to end, and control of those troops must be returned to Gov. Gavin Newsom. Breyer called the LA mission “profoundly un-American” and agreed with California that the president was essentially using Guard members as his personal law-enforcement force in violation of long-standing limits on military involvement in domestic policing.
How Trump abused the Guard
Back in June, Trump ordered more than 4,000 California Guard troops into LA over Newsom’s objections, using a rarely invoked federal power that historically has not been used without a governor’s consent. By now that deployment is down to roughly a hundred troops, but the administration extended it into next year and tried to justify it as necessary to “protect federal property” from protests over immigration raids, even though courts and legal experts say there was no rebellion or breakdown of normal law enforcement.
What this means for California
Newsom and the state had already sued, arguing Trump was effectively creating a standing domestic army answerable only to him, and this ruling is the court telling him: no, you don’t get to commandeer California’s Guard for your political immigration stunt. The order is paused until Monday to give the administration time to appeal, but unless a higher court bails him out, those remaining Guard troops in LA go back under California’s control and this particular power grab is dead in the water.
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Impeachment….probs not (Hegseth/RFK)
This week it’s been impeachment season for Trump’s cabinet more than for Trump himself, and nothing that’s dropped so far looks likely to actually remove anyone unless Republicans start to crack.
RFK Jr. in the impeachment crosshairs
Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. just got hit with formal articles of impeachment in the House from Michigan Democrat Haley Stevens. She accuses him of weaponizing HHS to push fringe science, spreading dangerous vaccine misinformation from inside the government, and sabotaging core public health functions in a way that’s put people’s lives at risk.
Politically, it is almost certainly not going to stick in this Congress. Republicans control the House floor and committee process, so they can bury it in Judiciary or just table it, and there is zero sign a Republican-led Senate would convict even if the House somehow passed it. What it does do is put a big, flashing “this guy is a public health hazard” marker on RFK in the official record and keep his screw-ups and the measles-outbreak backdrop front and center.
Pete Hegseth and the broader impeachment push
On top of that, there’s also an impeachment push brewing against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the deadly Red Sea boat strikes and broader abuses of military power. Texas Rep. Shri Thanedar and others have drafted articles accusing Hegseth of authorizing or overseeing unlawful attacks and dragging the U.S. toward undeclared conflict, but those articles are only just being filed and haven’t gone anywhere procedurally yet.
Same story here: unless Republicans suddenly decide Hegseth is expendable, it’s noise, not removal. The mechanism Thanedar is using (privileged impeachment resolution) forces a vote or a move to table, but a GOP majority can swat it down in a day if they want. So in terms of “will it stick,” both RFK and Hegseth are under real political fire, but their jobs are safe as long as Trump’s party keeps closing ranks around the chaos.
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Venezuelan Oil Ship Take Over
The ship the U.S. grabbed off Venezuela today is a giant, sanctioned oil tanker loaded with more than a million barrels of crude, and it blows up the White House’s whole “this is just about drugs and cartels” narrative on these Venezuela ops.
What actually happened with the tanker
Trump announced that U.S. forces “took control” of a very large tanker off Venezuela’s coast, identified by maritime trackers as the Skipper, which had just left the main oil port at José carrying around 1.1 million barrels of heavy Merey crude. This ship was already under U.S. sanctions for its past ties to Iranian oil trades, and the seizure comes after months of the administration parking an aircraft carrier, warships, fighter jets, and thousands of troops in the Caribbean explicitly to squeeze Maduro’s oil‑based economy.
The tanker was reportedly headed to Cuba, which fits perfectly with the broader sanctions/pressure campaign on Venezuela’s exports, not some last‑minute “drug bust” narrative. And Trump himself basically gave the game away by bragging that taking the ship helped drive up oil prices, which is about economic leverage and market impact, not stopping fentanyl on its way to U.S. streets.
Why this looks like oil war, not drug war
For months, this same administration has been blowing up small Venezuelan boats and selling it as a “war on narco‑terrorists,” even though experts keep pointing out that Venezuela is a minor player in U.S.-bound drug flows compared to Mexico and the Caribbean corridors. Independent investigations and legal analysts have called those strikes extrajudicial killings, with at least 80+ people killed on small vessels, no publicly verifiable drug evidence, and many of the hits happening hundreds of miles from any U.S. territory.
Now layer this tanker grab on top of that:
• It targets Venezuela’s core revenue stream—oil shipments—right as Maduro’s exports are rising again.
• It happens in the middle of a massive U.S. force buildup openly described as a pressure campaign to weaken or topple Maduro’s government.
• It immediately moves global oil markets and adds to the message that Washington is willing to use hard power to choke Venezuela’s energy lifeline.
That’s regime-change and resource pressure 101, not some tidy anti-cartel police action. Even national-security reporting flat-out says the “drug war” framing is a political cover for a coercive campaign against a hostile oil state, with intelligence and human-rights people warning that the legal justification is shaky as hell.
Why it feels like Iraq 2.0
Calling this “Iraq v2.0” isn’t exaggeration so much as recognizing the pattern: big talk about an evil threat (this time “narco‑terrorists” instead of WMDs), a huge military build-up near an oil‑rich adversary, and operations that just happen to revolve around who controls the country’s main export commodity. Venezuela’s oil reserves are among the largest in the world, and Maduro’s whole ability to stay afloat rests on exporting that crude to buyers like Cuba and Asia—exactly what this seized tanker was doing.
So while Trump’s crew keeps tossing out lines about “boats full of poison” and “saving 25,000 lives” every time a vessel is hit, they still haven’t produced hard evidence on those drug claims, but they’ve very clearly shown they are willing to kill people at sea and grab tankers to tighten a noose around an oil state they want to break. Strip away the spin and what’s left is a resource and regime-pressure campaign with a drug-war mask pulled over it.
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Denmark…
Denmark basically put it in black and white today: the U.S. under Trump is now considered a potential security problem, not just a partner they can blindly trust, and that’s a huge shift coming from a small NATO ally that usually picks its words very carefully.
What Denmark actually said
Denmark’s defense intelligence service dropped its annual threat report and, for the first time, explicitly listed the United States as a potential security concern, alongside the usual suspects like Russia and China. The report warns that the U.S. is willing to weaponize tariffs and economic pressure against allies and doesn’t rule out using military force, even in ways that could harm partners, while its commitment to defending Europe looks shakier and more self‑interested.
They also tie it directly to Trump’s behavior: the threat isn’t “America exists,” it’s that Washington under this crew is unpredictable, transactional, and ready to strong‑arm friends, and that Russia will try to exploit Trump’s rush to wrap up Ukraine on the cheap to split Europe and the U.S. even more.
Will allies pull away to stay “safe”?
You’re already seeing early versions of that. Denmark has pointedly excluded U.S. forces from Arctic Light 2025, the biggest modern military exercise in Greenland, inviting other NATO states but not American units, which is a loud, diplomatic way of saying “we’ll do some of this without you.” That exercise is explicitly about showing Denmark and European partners can manage Greenland’s defense themselves, after Trump floated “taking” Greenland and refused to rule out force, which spooked Copenhagen and triggered formal diplomatic protests.
But it’s not a clean break, more like a messy decoupling in slow motion. At the exact same time, the U.S. has just approved billions in new missile and air-defense sales to Denmark, framed as strengthening a key NATO ally and keeping their air force tightly interoperable with U.S. and NATO forces. So no, Europe isn’t ripping the plug out overnight—but yes, countries like Denmark are clearly building work‑arounds, tightening ties with other Europeans, and carving out spaces where they can keep distance from Trump’s madness to protect themselves while still staying inside NATO.
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AI Concerns
There is real reason to be concerned right now, especially with guardrails being stripped away while the tech gets more powerful and easier to abuse.
What’s changing on regulation
Trump has rolled back Biden’s “safe, secure, and trustworthy AI” order and replaced it with a deregulatory “Removing Barriers” framework that explicitly prioritizes speed and “dominance” over safety checks, testing, or transparency. On top of that, he’s moving to preempt or gut tougher state‑level AI rules with a single, weaker federal standard, which would make it harder for places like California or New York to enforce stricter protections on bias, safety, or disclosure.
How LLMs can be manipulated
Large language models are already vulnerable to all kinds of manipulation:
• Prompt injection and “jailbreaks” that push them to ignore safety rules and generate harmful or deceptive content.
• Training-data poisoning, where attackers seed data so the model behaves in a slanted way or activates hidden “backdoors” under certain prompts.
• Fine‑tuning or weight releases that let bad actors strip out safety layers and repurpose models for spam, scams, and targeted propaganda at scale.
• Security researchers are already showing that mainstream models can produce convincing phishing emails, malware, and tailored social‑engineering campaigns with relatively little effort, and newer models only increase that capability.
• Disinformation and democracy risks
• On the information side, AI is absolutely supercharging disinformation:
• Studies show AI‑generated fake news and political content can fool people about as often as real articles, and fake‑news sites using generative AI have exploded into the thousands.
• Deepfakes and AI‑generated “statements” from politicians make it harder for people to know what’s real, and the so‑called “liar’s dividend” lets bad actors dismiss real evidence as fake whenever it’s inconvenient.
• Election researchers are warning that AI‑driven campaigns—bots, fake personas, tailored messaging—are now a systemic threat, not a hypothetical future problem.
With less regulation and weaker accountability, platforms and developers are under less pressure to build in guardrails or support independent audits that could catch this early.
How concerned to be, and what to watch
The realistic concern level right now is:
• High for misuse (fraud, scams, disinformation, targeted harassment, biased decision tools).
• Medium for “model manipulation” and subtle backdoors (because we’re only starting to see what motivated actors can do with fine‑tuning and poisoning).
• Longer‑term but nontrivial for big “alignment” failures or autonomous agents doing things their creators didn’t intend.
Given the current U.S. trend toward weaker rules and more industry self‑policing, it makes sense to be seriously concerned and push for: independent safety evaluations, transparency about training/fine‑tuning, watermarking or provenance for critical media, and real accountability when AI systems are used in elections, policing, hiring, and healthcare.
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Another day of chaos. Hang in there!
Speak Truth! Keep speaking TRUTH!
Don’t Give up the Ship!
Go Cause Good Trouble, with Your Elbows Up!
These are facts that I researched and verified – AI helped put together some sentence structure, but the words and tone are mine. These are my views based upon facts, research and thoughtful consideration using logic. I own the copyright to any images used. I’m comfortable to stand alone to uphold truth. Feel free to check me, but do not attack me. I am only causing good trouble.