Category: Update

Readers of Paul Jacob’s Common Sense are quite aware that he has long targeted the FCC on this site, as can be seen by just a few of his past Common Sense commentaries:

• Net Neutrality, Dead Again (January 16, 2025)
• Gloating Time (December 17, 2019)
• Freak-Out, Death Threats and … Neutrality (December 17, 2017)

But if you yearn for something more, consult Robby Soave on Ayn Rand:

In 1962, Rand penned a prophetic warning about the public interest standard, which then–FCC Chair Newton N. Minow was citing to justify pressuring television companies to create more educational programming. Minow famously railed against a supposedly “vast wasteland” of shoddy television shows, and he claimed that the FCC’s charter empowered him to push for editorial changes to the medium that would align with his view of the public interest.

“You must provide a wider range of choices, more diversity, more alternatives,” said Minow in his well-remembered 1961 speech. “It is not enough to cater to the nation’s whims; you must also serve the nation’s needs.”

Minow repeatedly claimed that he was not in favor of government censorship and was not trying to tell broadcasters what they could and could not say. Rather, he charged them to make nebulous and ill-defined improvements to the product that he believed would be better appreciated by the American public — i.e., the public interest.

In her March 1962 essay “Have Gun, Will Nudge,” Rand argued that this was censorship by another name. “It is true, as Mr. Minow assures us, that he does not propose to establish censorship; what he proposes is much worse,” she wrote. Unlike explicit bans on speech, Rand warned, the modern method of censorship “neither forbids nor permits anything; it never defines or specifies; it merely delivers men’s lives, fortunes, careers, ambitions into the arbitrary power of a bureaucrat who can reward or punish at whim.”

Robby Soave, “Ayn Rand Denounced the FCC’s ‘Public Interest’ Censorship More Than 60 Years Ago,” Reason (January 2026).

Read the whole magazine piece at Reason’s online site.

When Thomas Jefferson entered the White House, he promptly began firing civil servants, high-level and -low. It was a big house-cleaning effort, a streamlining after Federalist bloat. The new Democratic-Republican president demanded an efficient and minimal government.

Since then, it’s gotten harder for presidents to do such big house-cleaning jobs, as The Epoch Times explains in a new article:

For months, federal judges have been ordering President Donald Trump to reinstate heads of agencies despite his interest in removing them.

Their decisions have been based on a 90-year-old Supreme Court precedent, known as Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, that says Congress can limit the reasons for which presidents remove officials like members of labor boards.

However, that precedent and various legal blocks on Trump’s firings could be removed depending on how the Supreme Court rules in an upcoming case — potentially giving Trump and his successors more flexibility with personnel.

Sam Dorman, “Supreme Court Set to Consider Trump’s Power to Remove High-Level Bureaucrats,” The Epoch Times (December 6, 2025).

The case, Trump v. Slaughter, goes before the union’s highest court on Monday. It regards Trump’s firing of Rebecca Slaughter as a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Something to remember about this “balance of powers” case is that it is not about balancing the constitutional “three branches” of the general government. The permanent bureaucracy, insulated from firing by the “Executive,” has, arguably, become a de facto fourth branch, uncontrolled by an inertial Congress as well as the elected president.

Whatever the Supreme Court decides, the effects of its decision are expected to ripple through many other cases — including ones involving Trump.

For example, two fired labor board officials have filedamicus briefs suggesting the outcome of Slaughter’s case could impact their cases as well.

Trump has not only challenged Humphrey’s Executor but said that even if Congress can insulate certain officers from removal, judges shouldn’t be able to reinstate those officers.

Sauer told the court that while fired officers can seek back pay, their reinstatement intruded on executive power and forces the president to “entrust executive power to someone he has removed.”

Slaughter disagreed, arguing “there is no Article II problem with requiring the President to ‘entrust executive power to someone he has removed’ if he has no Article II authority to remove that person in the first place,” her brief added.

The Supreme Court’s recent decisions on its emergency docket indicated it was sympathetic to Trump’s position.

In at least five separate cases, including Slaughter’s, the justices have allowed Trump to temporarily fire officials as litigation unfolded.

The court has repeatedly said that the executive branch “faces greater risk of harm from an order allowing a removed officer to continue exercising the executive power than a wrongfully removed officer faces from being unable to perform her statutory duty.”

Ibid.

The issue is obviously complicated. The Epoch Times article does a pretty good job explaining that complexity.

President Donald John Trump’s blowing up of Venezuelan boats on the high seas have not been just here and there, one or two . . . as an Epoch Times article’s title and blurb ably elaborates: “Trump Declares Venezuelan Airspace Closed as US Intensifies Pressure on Maduro” (November 29, 2025), and

The United States has carried out at least 21 lethal strikes on suspected drug-smuggling vessels since September, killing more than 80 alleged traffickers.

The USS Gerald R. Ford arrived in the Caribbean mid-month, and “Operation Southern Spear” is well underway with 12,000 troops and a dozen or so ships in play.

Trump signaled the possibility of expanded operations earlier this week, telling U.S. troops on Nov. 27 that American forces may soon conduct ground actions targeting drug-trafficking routes inside Venezuela. He praised the work of the Air Force’s 7th Bomb Wing in deterring maritime smuggling, saying traffickers have increasingly shifted away from sea routes.

“You probably noticed that people aren’t wanting to be delivering by sea, and we’ll be starting to stop them by land also,” the president said.

“Venezuela’s foreign ministry has accused the U.S. of trying to manufacture a pretext for military escalation,” The Epoch Times story goes on to explain. Since this war has been a ramping up of the War on Drugs, of which Donald Trump has long been a fan, the accusation looks plausible.

Senator Rand Paul (R.-Ky.) has offered his warning:

There are undoubtably war-hungry voices in Washington.

If the administration enters into an invasion of Venezuela or sends more Ukraine aid, it would be detrimental to the party, and would reopen the same divisions we are still trying to mend.

Senator Rand Paul stated an obvious possibility, the other day: soon the U.S. federal government’s official debt will roll over another trillion dollar mark, to $39 trillion.

His Thanksgiving message was not unrelated to the debt:

And there was a follow-up poll:

Speaking of time, the $36 trillion mark was hit a year ago, in late November.

The $37 and $38 trillion marks both hit this year. Will we squeeze a third trillion dollar mark in for 2025? No, if the Congressional Budget Office’s predictions are correct. The CBO expects the debt will rise above $39 trillion in mid-2026, with $40 trillion achieved later in the year.

The ongoing UFO/UAP disclosure movement, covered periodically in this space, has made some headway in the last year, with a few stories coming out of the congressional hearings led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna. But the biggest current publicity push for disclosure is the new documentary The Age of Disclosure, directed by Dan Farah and released on November 21, 2025, via Amazon Prime Video following limited theatrical runs in New York and Los Angeles. 

It features interviews with over 30 former U.S. government officials (including figures like ex-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, ex-Pentagon UFO program head Luis Elizondo, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio) alleging an 80-year cover-up of non-human intelligence, reverse-engineered alien craft, and a global “secret war” over such technology.

But all is not sweetness and light shimmering from an upward spiral of increased government transparency. Not a few of the subject’s most interesting figures have upped their skepticism level, uttering dark and disturbing thoughts about the veracity and agendas of the disclosure movement’s current key figures. These dissenters in the UFO/UAP watcher community — ufologists, whistleblower advocates, and disclosure activists — suggest that the current disclosure movement is adding a fresh and disturbing layer of government deception:

• Prominent ufologist and podcaster Daniel Liszt (@darkjournalist), known for “deep dives” into UFO history and covert ops, has repeatedly called the film a “CIA Threat Narrative” and “Big Budget False UFO Threat Documentary,” accusing it of being steered by intelligence insiders (e.g., Clapper as a “disgraced ex-DNI and admitted perjurer”) to hijack genuine disclosure efforts and push a fear-based agenda. He highlights director Farah’s ties to Steven Spielberg (a Hollywood figure long rumored in UFO lore to collaborate with intel agencies) and his role as former AATIP head Luis Elizondo’s agent, suggesting it’s “counter intelligence” to drown out “real UFO file” leakers. 
• Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) described the current disclosure angle as the “Deep State’s Attempt To Take Back Control Of The UFO/UAP Narrative From Genuine Whistleblowers & Leakers,” aired in a joint segment with Liszt.
• Other community voices, like @M_M_Aimee (a quantum/UFO commentator), analyzed the film’s transcript via AI and concluded it’s a looped “framing device” turning unknowns into “threats” to justify government overreach: “They’re not informing you. They’re framing you.”
• Similarly, @ZachBrowne (a hidden history/UFO explorer) ran a “psyop checklist” on it, flagging the coordinated hype, lack of hard evidence, and emotional manipulation as signs of an “engineered influence op” benefiting insiders pushing for more funding and control.
• Broader X threads from accounts like @PostDisclosure (a disclosure-focused outlet) and @AmericaShaman (Jake Angeli, a Q-adjacent UFO skeptic) amplify this, viewing the film’s reliance on “95% intelligence officials who have repeatedly lied” as proof it’s “more Deep State BS propaganda” to obscure real tech like zero-point energy or TR-3B craft.

These critiques may be gaining traction in real-time X conversations among thousands of followers in the UFO niche. Liszt’s posts, for example, appear to be doing well enough, if not showing cultural domination, with 9K–12K views each in the past week.

Could the government be lying via the documentary itself? That notion is largely absent from mainstream news and review outlets, finally (after decades) allowed to treat the subject as respectable — consecrated, as it seems to be, by the government itself.

After a record-tying federal government shutdown, Congress is held in even lower repute than before:

Voters have a less favorable opinion of House and Senate leaders in the aftermath of the 43-day government shutdown, with House Speaker Mike Johnson suffering the worst decline.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 36% of Likely U.S. Voters have a favorable impression of Johnson – down from 45% in May – including 19% with a Very Favorable opinion of the Louisiana Republican. Forty-one percent (41%) now view Johnson unfavorably, including 30% with a Very Unfavorable impression. Twenty-three percent (23%) are not sure. 

“After Shutdown, Congressional Leadership Less Popular,” Rasmussen Reports (November 21, 2025).

But do most people focus on President Trump, however, blaming him for the shutdown? Apparently not. While Rasmussen Reports indeed showed Congress’s approval plummeting to historic lows post-shutdown, President Trump’s job approval ratings proved more resilient but still took a hit. Based on daily tracking from Rasmussen — America’s most frequent presidential pollster — Trump’s numbers held steady in the low-to-mid 40s through early October but eroded gradually as the 43-day shutdown dragged on, bottoming out around November 12, the day it ended. Disapproval climbed, driven by independents and even some GOP softening on his handling of the crisis. Post-shutdown, there’s been a modest rebound.

So, what’s happening with Obamacare?

President Donald Trump this week elaborated more on how he would deal with health care subsidies and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), suggesting an account for citizens where payments can be made for health-related issues. Trump wrote in a Nov. 8 post on Truth Social that Senate Republicans should direct hundreds of billions in funding away from insurance companies and into people’s accounts, allowing them to purchase their own health insurance.

“Trump Proposes ‘Trumpcare’ Alternative to Obamacare; Sec. Rollins Says SNAP Benefits to Be Restored by Monday,” NTD News at The Epoch Times (November 16, 2025).

If this sounds awfully familiar — like the gist if not the wording of Bush Era medical-financial reforms — we may have to wait and see. But Obamacare long ago betrayed its promise of reducing healthcare costs overall. Might there be hope?

There will be more to come on this, here, but for now: what has the president actually said?

• November 8, 2025 (Truth Social post): Trump urged Senate Republicans to end ACA subsidies to “money sucking Insurance Companies” and instead “BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE, and have money left over.” He framed this as a way to “save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare.”
• November 11, 2025 (Fox News interview with Laura Ingraham): Trump elaborated slightly, suggesting Americans could “negotiate their own health insurance” with direct payments, calling it “so exciting, and dubbing it “Trumpcare” or “whatever you want to call it — anything but Obamacare!”
• November 13, 2025 (Bill signing event): He reiterated the plan, stating, “We’re gonna pay a lot of money to the people. They’re gonna go out and buy their own health care, and we’re gonna forget this Obamacare madness.”

Maybe you saw the lights. Or maybe you just caught the news on Tim Pool’s show. It was an important story: a big solar storm that, had it been just a tad more intense could’ve taken down computers (which are in your watch and toaster) as well as the electric grid.

Why, yes, it could have ended our civilization, which is now utterly dependent on easily-overloaded electrical circuits and electronic components.

Actually, it was two sets of solar storms. And they had nothing to do with manmade global warming or MAGA politics or the death of Hollywood:

A severe (G4) geomagnetic storm lit up skies across the Northern Hemisphere overnight (Nov. 11-12), with vivid northern lights visible across Canada, the U.S, and as far south as Mexico.

The incredible display followed the arrival of multiple coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — eruptions of magnetic field and plasma from the sun — launched by sunspot AR4274, one of the most energetic sunspot groups of the current solar cycle. The ongoing storm ranks among the strongest of Solar Cycle 25 and last night’s peak at G4 clocked in as the third strongest geomagnetic storm this solar cycle. The first two CMEs struck in quick succession last night, compressing Earth’s magnetic field and unleashing spectacular aurora shows that lasted well into the night.

Daisy Dobrijevic, “Severe geomagnetic storm sparks northern lights across North America and as far south as Mexico,” Space.com (November 12, 2025).

This was a set of real events that took place this past week. Thankfully, we live on to talk about manmade global warming, MAGA politics, and the death of Hollywood.

As Rona Barrett likes to say, keep thinking the good thoughts.

It has been two months. On September Fifth of this year, Paul Jacob brought up the strange case of mysterious deaths of politicians for the anti-establishment Alternative für Deutschland party, in Germany. Dr. John Campbell discussed the odds on YouTube:

But it is no longer just six or seven AfD politicians who died suddenly before the recent election.

Four more have died:

You may have seen headlines noting that 3I/ATLAS has changed colors again. You may also have seen reports that it has broken up, as one might expect of a comet this size.

The truth?

It has indeed changed colors.

And no, it has not broken up. Latest reports suggest that it is quite intact.

The color change is not shocking: changes in color have occurred roughly once every month or so. The initial color was reddish; in mid-approach (August-September) it appeared greenish; at perihelion, last month, it turned blue.

The headlines about 3I/ATLAS “breaking apart” appear to stem from misinformation or AI-generated videos circulating online. Neither NASA, ESA, nor peer-reviewed studies report a breakup.

No fragmentation: Post-perihelion images (e.g., November 5 from R. Naves Observatory, Spain) show a compact, fuzzy “ball of light” with a diffuse greenish-white coma (~0.6 arcmin diameter) but no visible tail or fragments. SOHO/LASCO C3 data confirms residual sunward jets and four faint tails from outgassing, not breakup. Mass loss is ~13–50% from evaporation (half-life ~6 months), but the nucleus (est. 1–6 km wide) remains whole.

Activity and trajectory: It’s outbound at ~62 km/s on its hyperbolic path (eccentricity >5), showing non-gravitational acceleration from outgassing recoil. Position: In Virgo constellation (RA 13h 26m 52s, Dec -06° 46′ 12″), low on the eastern horizon before dawn (~8–12° altitude). Magnitude ~14 (fading to ~18 by mid-Nov), visible with 15–25 cm telescopes from Nov 11.

Inexplicable Increase in Speed: An eleventh anomaly can be added to Avi Loeb’s official count. On October 29th, the interstellar object sped up and moved a bit outward from the Sun. Loeb figured to accomplish this the object wuld have to eject one-sixth its mass. A week later? Nothing observed. No ejecta. The likelihood of an artificial object just went up — or it being a form of life itself became a possibility. So far? No good explanation for the non-gravitational alteration in trajectory has been offered.

China released new data and images of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS (C/2025 N1) in early November 2025, filling a gap during the U.S. government’s ongoing shutdown. The key release came from the China National Space Administration (CNSA) on November 6, showcasing images captured by the Tianwen-1 (Zhurong) Mars orbiter. These were taken on October 3, 2025, from approximately 30 million km away during the comet’s closest approach to Mars (about 0.2 AU, or 30 million km). 

Details of the images: The sequence, obtained using the orbiter’s High Resolution Imaging Camera (HiRIC) with a 15.2-inch aperture, reveals a bright nucleus surrounded by a diffuse coma (thousands of kilometers across) and faint dust tails. The resolution is sharp enough to show structural details like asymmetric outgassing jets, though not as fine as Earth-based telescopes due to distance. CNSA described it as “one of the closest probe-based looks at the object to date,” highlighting its role as a testbed for the upcoming Tianwen-2 asteroid sample-return mission in 2025.

Scientific insights: Spectral analysis from the images confirms elevated CO₂ and CO emissions, consistent with pre-perihelion data, and no signs of fragmentation. Chinese astronomers noted the coma’s greenish tint from CN and C₂ fluorescence, aligning with September observations.

NASA, citing the federal government shutdown, has furloughed ~15,000 NASA employees and halted most non-essential operations, including public data releases and non-critical science processing, has not yet released any new post-perihelion images of 3I/ATLAS as of November 7, 2025.

Because of NASA’s silence, outrageous speculation is rampant. Who knows? Maybe some of it is warranted.