WMDs Nuts

An A+++++ inaugural newsletter, if I do say so myself.

There’s always been news percolating at every moment of every day. In the past, geographical distance, technological limitations, and the demands of our time and attention in the immediate vicinity kept our news diet comparatively localized. Sure, there’d be an occasional town crier proclamation or “Extra! Extra!” speaking to wars or wonders in far-off lands. But these announcements may as well have been pages from a novel, given how abstracted those stories were from the audience’s day-to-day.

By contrast, today we learn of countless injustices and witness unspeakable acts of carnage from all over the globe, simultaneously, in real time, and in 4K. We vacillate between outrage and numbness.

And why wouldn’t we? In the same way our minds are so dogshit at conceptualizing huge numbers that we now live in a world where tons of people are cool with one person hoarding $1 trillion, our brains are also biologically incapable of healthily processing the torrent of news we mainline each day.

So what can you do? Checking out entirely is for the privileged and/or heartless. Still, there’s got to be a better way of staying informed than Clockwork Orange-ing through the day’s apocalyptic news, memes, and increasingly-inescapable AI diarrhea for a few crumbs of useful info scattered around the mess.

My proposal: I step in as something somewhere between sin eater and mother bird. I absorb psychic damage from the doom scroll trenches so you don’t have to and masticate the carrion I come across into nutritious morsels, palatable and pre-digested for my brood back at the nest.

But reading is believing, so dig into the meaty bits of this week’s news below, let me know what you think, and I promise I’ll never use this now egregiously-worn out metaphor again.

---

The third-to-last week of 2025 began like so many others in recent memory—in the hangover of recent tragedies.

While the rest of the world reeled in the aftermath of mass shooting one-two punches at Australia’s Bondi Beach and Brown University, Vichy CBS News had all hands on deck to promote Bari Weiss desperately trying (and failing) to manufacture enough consent to keep Erika Kirk in the public sphere.

As if that weren’t enough, the weekend closed with the shocking murder of Rob and Michelle Reiner, allegedly by the couple’s son. Naturally, President Trump responded to the news of the deeply personal and apolitical tragedy by asserting the universally beloved director died because of… Trump Derangement Syndrome in a typically unhinged Truth Social post. For whatever reason, this particular bridge was one too far for many Republicans, so the news of the early week was cluttered with finger-wagging, rebukes, and other “this is not who we are” reactions-to-the-reactions over the President’s remarks.

Abroad, the ICC rejected Israel’s bid to not be investigated for war crimes, though that minor check hasn’t stopped the IDF from continuing to demolish buildings in Gaza. Don’t worry. The ghouls behind “Alligator Alcatraz” are the current top contenders to rebuild the rubble. Making matters worse, the UN warns that aid shipments into the region are being deprioritized when Palestinians in Gaza need them more than ever.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration continued forging right ahead on its various nefarious projects. Continuing with the theme of “2003 Iraq invasion, but dumber and more brazen,” Trump announced on Tuesday by executive order that fentanyl is now a “weapon of mass destruction. Though everyone paying attention fully understood the purpose of this absurd pretense, that didn’t stop the President from attempting to distract us with a jangling keychain in the shape of a… potentially forthcoming EO that would… uh… reclassify marijuana from schedule I to III.

That same day, the administration launched its proposed “tech force,” a project intended to overhaul the government via the obscure Office of Personnel Management. If you’re worried about this “modernization” effort being just another excuse to destabilize the government while making AI companies richer and the police state more robust, you’re not wrong.

While Trump spent more of his time this week suing the BBC for $10 billion over an edit in a documentary and hanging plaques in the White House that either self-glaze the current POTUS or talk shit on Presidents past, the average American is going through it. Closing out the year with energy bills that have gone up 13 percent since January, many Trump voters can’t even afford the very McDonalds meals he handed out during his campaign photo op.

I’ve got a hunch this all might factor into why a Reuters poll on Tuesday showed Trump’s approval rating dropping to 36%—his lowest this term! The ever-growing schism of dissatisfaction within MAGA clearly has Trump shook. I mean, why else would he pout out an impromptu Wednesday night national address declaring the A+++++ economy is “doing numbers, I swear! Here, look at this check I’m sending you. It’s for $1776. Get it?”

Though only time will tell if the country is honest-to-goodness great again, today’s order of “a complete and total blockade” of Venezuelan oil tankers a mere two days before the mandated release of the Epstein files doesn’t instill confidence.

Rounding things out with a move almost disrespectfully on-the-nose, the folks at Merriam-Webster decided to kick us while we’re down and declare “slop” the official word of 2025.

Thanks for reading and hang in there!

- Tommy/QQ