November 18, 1493, Columbus caught first sight of the island now known as Puerto Rico.
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Columbus Sees Puerto Rico
Transparency is usually a good thing. But so is privacy. And so, too, are limits on government power.
Which bring me to the Epstein files — or, more accurately, those files bring me here.
“I don’t think we’ve had a scandal like this in this country,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) offered yesterday on Meet the Press, “and what we’re asking for is justice for those survivors.”
I want justice, too — that is, the prosecution of any crime grand juries honestly believe was likely committed.
By anyone! No matter how powerful that suspect might be.
On the other hand, the Epstein File Transparency Act, which will be voted on this week in the U.S. House of Representatives and for which Khanna is a primary sponsor, “would require the Justice Department to declassify and release all files pertaining to the prosecution of the late sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein.”
The public has a right to know!
But does it?
And if so, does that ‘right’ mean we permit the federal Department of Justice to use prosecutorial power to grab incriminating evidence on “suspected criminals” and then weaponize and deploy that information not to prosecute a crime in a court of law, but rather to publicize the damaging dirt discovered in the court of public opinion?
From then-FBI Director James Comey’s ridiculous public preening over the non-prosecution of Hillary Clinton in 2016 to the demanded release of the Epstein files today, we must be careful the DOJ does not become an opposition research firm for the party in power, using badges and guns. Or the world’s most outrageous doxxing scheme.
Our criminal justice system should do one thing and only one thing: Prosecute crimes.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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David Graeber
If the existence of bullshit jobs seems to defy the logic of capitalism, one possible reason for their proliferation might be that the existing system isn’t capitalism — or at least, isn’t any sort of capitalism that would be recognizable from the works of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, or, for that matter, Ludwig von Mises or Milton Friedman.
David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (2018).
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A First in Washington
The United States Congress held its first session in Washington, D.C., on November 17, 1800.
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Trumpcare — or Whatever We Want to Call It
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.”
It is the common error of Socialists to overlook the natural indolence of mankind; their tendency to be passive, to be the slaves of habit, to persist indefinitely in a course once chosen. Let them once attain any state of existence which they consider tolerable, and the danger to be apprehended is that they will thenceforth stagnate; will not exert themselves to improve, and by letting their faculties rust, will lose even the energy required to preserve them from deterioration. Competition may not be the best conceivable stimulus, but it is at present a necessary one, and no one can foresee the time when it will not be indispensable to progress.
John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy (1848; 1871), Volume II, Book IV, Chapter 7.
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The Fed Begins
On November 16, 1914, the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opened.
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Not Just a Light Show
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.
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H.L. Mencken
Socialism is the theory that the desire of one man to get something he hasn’t got is more pleasing to a just God than the desire of some other man to keep what he has got.
H.L. Mencken, A Little Book in C Major (1916) p. 51.
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The Articles
On November 15, 1777, after 16 months of debate, the Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation.