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Another attempted "gotcha moment" on X by Democrats backfired, revealing that their political strategists and whoever handles their social media accounts lack the most basic chart-reading skills. However, X users pointed out that these political operatives aren't DEI fools; instead, they seem incapable of telling the truth.

The X account for the Senate Majority PAC, which focuses on supporting left-wing Senate elections, posted four decades of USDA average beef price charts, trying to pin the rise on Trump.

"Let's be honest for a second. Republicans don't care about the price of beef because they don't answer to working Americans," SMPAC wrote on X. 

Let’s be honest for a second.

Republicans don’t care about the price of beef because they don’t answer to working Americans. pic.twitter.com/i5ed769k6O

— Senate Majority PAC (@MajorityPAC) December 9, 2025

Just like eggs earlier this year and power bills this fall, Democrat operatives are seizing any opportunity to blame Trump for soaring prices that mainly occurred in the previous four years.

X user ALX shows why context matters. 

Via X user Peter Shrink... 

Comments...

The better question is: Is there a single democrat that is capable of telling the truth?

They're not idiots, they're partisans. They'll lie, cheat and steal to stay in power. The last 8 years have proven that.

— Scott Wickstrum (@swickstrum) December 10, 2025

The way they’ve shared this same chart related to other groceries on other official accounts and then deleted it several times every few weeks will always be hilarious.

— krish kothari (@wisekrish) December 9, 2025

The operatives can read a chart just fine. What's at issue: Their presumptions about whether their own constituency can read charts.

— Craig S. Bell (@craig_s_bell) December 10, 2025

That chart doesn’t show what they think it does.

— Rebelgate (@Just_Pops) December 9, 2025

And this...

The Democrats know that their constituents don't know how to read charts. That's why they keep posting these things.

— Dadof7 (@dm6013) December 9, 2025

SMPAC's chart isn't the first time Democrats have either misread charts or tried to deceive the public with them, and they've been called out time and time again: 

• Propaganda Blunder: Democrat Senator Accidentally Highlights Biden's Epic Failure

Kyle Bass, founder and chief investment officer of Hayman Capital Management, recently pointed out another propaganda blunder the Democratic Party made with grocery prices... 

Do you understand what you are showing here? It’s identical to grocery prices. ?? pic.twitter.com/8PpfJSniUX

— ???? Kyle Bass ???? (@Jkylebass) November 26, 2025

SMPAC failed to mention Trump's moves to open global supply chains and address the cattle-shortage crisis to lower supermarket beef prices.

SMPAC's organizational structure... and there's a familiar name. 

The Biden-Harris regime had four full years to fix the beef problem, yet failed to act; instead, they focused on nation-killing progressive policies, if that's 'green' or open borders, that have caused the current mess we're in today. 

Indonesia’s financial regulators are stepping up action against social-media investment gurus after a wave of losses tied to risky digital platforms and unverified financial advice. Beginning this week, a new rule issued by the Financial Services Authority (OJK) will force securities firms to vet, supervise and assume legal responsibility for content produced by influencers they pay, according to Nikkei.

Influencers who analyze investments must be licensed advisers, while those promoting products must register as marketing partners and clearly disclose paid endorsements. They will also be required to explain risks, not just potential returns. As the OJK cautioned in an October campaign, “The next time a piece of financial advice blows up on your feed, take a pause. Just because it’s viral doesn’t mean it’s sound.”

The crackdown coincides with mounting complaints against peer-to-peer lending (P2P) apps once hyped by finfluencers. Akseleran, one of the country’s most recognizable platforms, is being sued by at least 19 investors who say they collectively lost around 6 billion rupiah. The company attributes its problems to borrowers defaulting en masse. Several other platforms, including KoinP2P, Crowde and Dana Syariah Indonesia, are under similar scrutiny. The OJK recently revoked Crowde’s license and is coordinating with police to investigate potential criminal activity tied to other platforms.

Nikkei writes that one casualty of that boom-and-bust cycle is 29-year-old Surabaya resident Anita Carolina. Three years ago she was persuaded by a financial influencer to invest 471 million rupiah (about $28,000) in Akseleran. Today she is still trying to recover the money. The experience, she says, changed the way she invests. “Investing should not be marketed as a casual game. Influencers are salespeople, not financial advisers,” she said, adding that she now avoids them “entirely.”

Carolina’s story reflects a broader shift in Indonesia’s financial landscape. Investor participation has exploded, climbing from 2.5 million registered participants in 2019 to 19.2 million in October 2024, fueled by easy-to-use apps and pandemic-era interest in alternative income. Many new retail investors — dominated by millennials and Gen Z — chased high returns through stocks, crypto and P2P lending, often guided not by licensed professionals but by relatable personalities on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. A 2023 CELIOS survey found that 70% of Indonesians trust finfluencers, nearly equal to the 69.5% who trust certified advisers.

Experts say that reliance has created a fertile market for unqualified “advisers” who blur the line between education and marketing. “It has become easy for individuals to label themselves as finfluencers without a proper background,” said economist Tauhid Ahmad. Many fail to disclose paid partnerships, while others promote products they barely understand. Regulators have also struggled to keep up: from 2017 to September 2024, the OJK says it blocked over 13,000 illegal financial entities, most involving online loans or investment schemes that quickly resurface in new forms.

Some influencers now admit their own role in fueling unsustainable P2P enthusiasm. TikTok creator Felicia Putri Tjiasaka, who has 1.4 million followers, said she also invested in Akseleran but exited in 2023. “In Indonesia, it’s the productive P2P sector that is failing,” she told her followers, citing economic pressures and lax credit screening.

Others argue regulations are long overdue. Educator and influencer Roy Shakti says untrained personalities are “positioning themselves as experts to teach trading,” and supports measures similar to China’s ban on wealth-flaunting. “You won’t find me promising easy money,” he said. “Instead, I teach people how to raise funding and avoid scams.”

Though she continues to invest in mutual funds and bitcoin, Carolina now conducts her own research before committing a single rupiah. “It’s disappointing, as I followed their advice,” she said. “But now, I avoid them entirely.”

Conservative and outspoken libertarian-leaning Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky introduced legislation Tuesday for the United States for formally withdraw from NATO. Sen. Mike Lee is also helping lead the charge, introducing companion legislation in the Senate.

The bill argues that the US military cannot be seen as the police force of the world, and that given NATO was created to counter the long-gone Soviet Union, which no longer exists, American taxpayers’ money would be better spent elsewhere.

"We should withdraw from NATO and use that money to defend our own country, not socialist countries… US participation has cost taxpayers trillions of dollars and continues to risk US involvement in foreign wars… America should not be the world’s security blanket - especially when wealthy countries refuse to pay for their own defense," Massie said.

That latter part is likely designed to gain Trump's attention and sympathy, given the president has been emphasizing this point all the way back to his first term.

The bill if passed would require the US government to formally notify NATO that it intends to end its membership and halt the use of American funds for shared budgets. Republican Senator Lee actually introduced similar legislation earlier this year, but it stalled in committee.

Of course, most Congress members have viewpoints which merely reflect the 'pro-NATO' established position of the vast majority of Western politicians generally, so it's very unlikely to ever be passed.

Massie wrote on X, "NATO is a Cold War relic. The United States should withdraw from NATO and use that money to defend our country, not socialist countries. Today, I introduced HR 6508 to end our NATO membership." 

"Our Constitution did not authorize permanent foreign entanglements, something our Founding Fathers explicitly warned us against," he said additionally. 

The NATO Act:

• Requires the President to formally notify NATO of U.S. withdrawal under Article 13 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
• Concludes that NATO’s original Cold War purpose no longer aligns with current U.S. national security interests.
• Finds that European NATO members have adequate economic and military capacity to provide for their own defense.
• Prevents use of U.S. taxpayer funds for NATO’s common budgets, including its civil budget, military budget, and the Security Investment Program.

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) has introduced companion legislation, S.2174, in the United States Senate. The text of the NATO Act is available at this link.

"If you could snap your fingers and get us out of NATO today, would you?" Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, asked in a post on X.

"Yes," Massie replied.https://t.co/Nifjbtt7O1

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) January 29, 2025

Under pressure from Trump, NATO members agreed this year to gradually raise their defense spending to 5% of GDP, significantly above the old 2% guideline. European leaders were finally amenable to this, despite mocking it years ago during Trump's first term, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the "threat" to Europe that they perceive.

Moscow has denied time and again that it has 'expansionist' ambitions - yet US and EU leaders continue to portray Putin as some who dreams of reestablishing an old empire, or else revive Soviet power and borders.

Ukraine is desperately seeking more money, which has been a persistent reality of the war, and the European Union is scrambling to find solutions amid a general Western war weariness which has already seen hundreds of billions poured into Kiev's coffers.

Currently EU member states are rapidly advancing a plan to permanently freeze as much as €210 billion ($244.38 billion) in Russian state assets to finance Ukraine for at least the next two years. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is seeking to use a loophole to rush this through, based on invoking emergency powers to sanction the frozen assets on a permanent basis, instead of holding the funds based on current six-month renewals, which requires unanimous agreement from all member states.

The plan would see €90 billion (roughly $104.71 billion) released over the next two years. Von der Leyen's scheme would allow for the plan to pass merely with a qualified majority, and so couldn't be derailed by just a lone veto. Nations like Germany and Spain have already signaled their support. 

EU leadership is rushing it forward to circumvent holdout Hungary in getting what's being dubbed a "reparations loan" to Ukraine, and there's also the idea that it would bolster the EU’s negotiating position in US-led peace negotiations.

EU summits chairman Antonio Costa has vowed to deliver the desired outcome by any means. "The leaders are to decide at a summit on December 18 in Brussels how to deliver on their pledge and Costa told reporters in Dublin he would keep them talking for days, if necessary, until they reach an agreement," Reuters reports.

It will involve more than just overcoming the hurdle of Hungarian objections, however, given Belgium is not onboard at this point, and the bulk of the Russian funds are kept in Belgian banks.

For starters, Brussels fears immediate negative repercussions from Russia, which could deeply hurt its economy, and so wants guarantees ahead of any EU vote that all members would help absorb the impact.

Von der Leyen has acknowledged the issue, posting on X: "Belgium’s particular situation regarding the use of the frozen Russian assets is undeniable and must be addressed in such a way that all European states bear the same risk."  She added: "We agreed to continue our discussions with the aim of reaching a consensus at the European Council meeting on December 18."

Belgium's initial reaction was to call it "complete madness" - according to The Hungarian Conservative:

‘This is complete madness,’ [Belgian Prime Minister Bart] de Wever said of the proposal in October, according to POLITICO Brussels. The Belgian prime minister argued that the risk of legal and financial retaliation from Moscow is simply too great. He told his colleagues that if Russia were to win lawsuits against Belgium or Euroclear—which holds the frozen assets—the country would be forced to compensate the entire amount itself.

De Wever’s concerns are not unfounded. Reacting to the Commission’s proposal, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that any ‘illegal action’ involving frozen assets would provoke the ‘harshest reaction’, adding that Moscow is already preparing a package of countermeasures. Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev described the plan as a ‘casus belli’, labelling the move tantamount to outright theft.

EU diplomats have been in back-and-forth negotiations with Belgium. Germany's Chancellor Merz has also acknowledged, "What we decide now will determine Europe's future: Belgium's particular vulnerability in the issue of utilizing the frozen Russian assets is indisputable and must be addressed in such a way that all European states bear the same risk."

?? @PM_ViktorOrban: Brussels wants to seize frozen Russian assets, but we must first ask what countermeasures would follow. If Hungarian companies in Russia lose their assets, why should Hungary support such a move? pic.twitter.com/CBXd54f4PV

— Zoltan Kovacs (@zoltanspox) October 16, 2025

The European Commission is working on 'safeguards'. "The Belgian government, along with Euroclear, are looking for financial guarantees from fellow EU member states before committing to supporting the plan," Fox News writes. "De Wever fears that Belgium will ultimately be held responsible and be forced to pay back the assets that are seized in the event a sanctions deal is negotiated with Russia as a way to end the war in Ukraine." But without doubt, the Kremlin has been brainstorming the punitive actions it could in turn unleash to make Belgium and Europe feel the pain.

via Middle East Eye

Pakistan has reportedly offered to take back grooming gang leaders in exchange for Britain handing over Pakistani political dissidents living in the UK.

Pakistani media reported that the proposal was made in a private meeting last Thursday in Islamabad between Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi and Jane Marriott, the British high commissioner. Naqvi reportedly urged the UK to hand over anti-government figures Shahzad Akbar and Adil Raja.

Akbar, who was a minister in Imran Khan's government, and Raja, a former army major, are both living in the UK. They have both strongly criticized the Pakistani government over its alleged human rights abuses and suppression of political dissent. 

The British government has previously requested that Pakistan extradite Adil Khan and Qari Abdul Rauf, who were jailed in 2012 as ringleaders of a grooming gang that sexually assaulted and abused 47 girls over two years in Rochdale.

Both Khan and Rauf, Pakistani immigrants, were stripped of their British citizenship after being convicted. But days before a judge ordered them to be deported to Pakistan, they renounced their Pakistani citizenship. Pakistan has since refused to accept them.

According to Pakistani media, the Pakistani government said it would accept Khan and Rauf if the UK hands over dissidents Akbar and Raja.

'Unprecedented and deeply disturbing'

This comes as the Labor government is facing mounting pressure to take further action on child sexual exploitation. Its attempts to set up a nationwide inquiry into grooming gangs have faced repeated delays and debates about how wide its scope should be.

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said on Monday the inquiry must "consider the role of ethnicity, religion and other cultural factors" and should "leave no stone unturned".

It is thought that Britain is highly unlikely to agree to the reported Pakistani proposal, and the Home Office and Foreign Office have declined to comment on the reports.

Raja, now a freelance journalist, told The Telegraph that the report "is unprecedented and deeply disturbing. It shows the extent to which an authoritarian regime is willing to go to suppress dissent".

"I have broken no UK law. My only 'offence' is practicing journalism and exercising free expression," he said. "I trust that the UK, a country committed to the rule of law and press freedom, will not allow political critics to be traded away under pressure from a foreign government."

The Beasts won and they’re still here !

A member of a Rochdale grooming gang who is fighting to remain in the UK has told a tribunal he “has not committed that big a crime”.
Adil Khan, 51 and Qari Abdul Rauf, 52, have been told they are to be sent back to Pakistan for the… pic.twitter.com/ygHMs0vwft

— Deport Foreign Criminals (@peterstopcrime) February 16, 2025

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted from government in April 2022 through a parliamentary no-confidence vote following a fallout with the country's influential military.

He has spent more than two years in prison. Last year a UN report concluded that his detention is arbitrary and in contravention of international law.

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

A suspected leader of the criminal gang MS-13 has been arrested in Nebraska, FBI Director Kash Patel said in a Dec. 9 post on X.

Gerson Cuadra Soto, a Honduran national, “is believed to be responsible for overseeing one of their major kill squad units—and suspected of executing the assassination of the son of the former President of Honduras,” Patel wrote.

“This is part of the FBI’s Joint Task Force Vulcan investigation out of @FBIHouston to locate, indict, and arrest members of MS-13 leadership ‘La Mesa.’”

On July 14, 2022, Saíd Omar Lobo Bonilla, son of former Honduran President Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo Sosa, and three other men were killed outside a nightclub in Honduran capital city Tegucigalpa.

Joint Task Force Vulcan is an initiative launched in August 2019 under the first Trump administration that aims to disrupt and eliminate MS-13.

La Mesa, or “The Table,” is a group of senior MS-13 gang leaders who allegedly authorize murders throughout the United States.

Patel commended FBI Omaha, Nebraska, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Drug Enforcement Administration, and other partners for their work that resulted in Soto’s arrest.

“This admin is taking a whole of government approach to dismantling MS-13 and their presence within the country,” he said. MS-13, also known as Mara Salvatrucha, was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the State Department in February.

In a Dec. 9 statement, Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen welcomed the arrest of Soto, who he said was illegally in the country and living in the city of Grand Island.

“Cuadra Soto, a leader of the terrorist MS-13 gang and Honduran assassin, entered the United States illegally in 2022 under Biden’s watch—eventually obtaining a California driver’s license before establishing a residence in Grand Island,” Pillen said.

“Here’s the simple truth: Weak borders put our families at risk. Thankfully, under conservative Republican leadership, our border has never been more secure.”

Expanding Scope

Under the Trump administration, the FBI has intensified its targeting of foreign criminal groups.

In March, the FBI announced that it was expanding its counterterrorism mission to aggressively battle transnational organized crime.

The announcement was made after the State Department designated several international cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.

The FBI changed the name of its Terrorist Screening Center to the Threat Screening Center, saying that the updated name expands the scope of national security screening to cover groups such as MS-13 and Tren de Aragua that operate in the United States.

U.S. military personnel escort alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and the MS-13 gang recently deported by the U.S. government to be imprisoned in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison, as part of an agreement with the Salvadoran government, in San Luis Talpa, El Salvador, on March 30, 2025. Secretaria de Prensa de la Presidencia/Handout via Reuters

“Border security is essential to protecting our country and providing safer communities for our citizens,” Patel said in a statement at the time.

“We’re expanding the watchlist to include cartel and gang members from newly designated foreign terrorist organizations. This change will assist our law enforcement and Intelligence Community partners as we all work together toward the goal of crushing violent crime within our borders.”

In a Dec. 3 statement, the Department of the Treasury said that its Office of Foreign Assets Control has sanctioned key affiliates of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.

“Under President Trump, barbaric terrorist cartels can no longer operate with impunity across our borders. The Tren de Aragua network’s narcotrafficking and human smuggling operations have long posed a grave threat to our nation,” Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said in the statement.

A March report from the State Department detailed the threats posed by transnational criminal organizations. It specifically highlighted Mexican criminal organizations as “one of the greatest threats” to the United States.

Mexico was deemed to be the most significant source of illicit fentanyl and fentanyl analogues, with Mexican groups Sinaloa Cartel and New Generation Jalisco Cartel the primary distributors of these drugs in North America, the report said. Mexico is also the source of most of the heroin and meth seized in the United States.

Palantir Technologies is becoming a deeper partner to the US military as the Navy launches ShipOS, a $448 million effort to use the company’s AI and data tools to improve submarine production, according to a new report from Bloomberg.

The deal will provide Palantir’s Foundry and Artificial Intelligence Platform across select shipyards and suppliers.

The Navy wants to fix chronic delays and overruns affecting its Virginia- and Columbia-class programs. Secretary of the Navy John Phelan said the goal is to speed up an industry that has struggled with labor issues and subcontractor delays: “By enabling industry to adopt AI and autonomy tools at scale, we’re helping the shipbuilding industry improve schedules, increase capacity, and reduce costs.”

Palantir CEO Alex Karp emphasized the scale of the challenge, saying, “It takes 10 million man hours to build a submarine. There are 2,000 businesses involved. Every single one of these components is specialized.” He added that tracking parts through software is vital because “that’s exactly why you need software” to remove bottlenecks, arguing that “already that problem’s gone.”

Bloomberg writes that two major shipbuilders and three public shipyards will receive the software first, and Phelan said the same system could later support carriers, the fleet, and even fighter jets.

The Navy expects the Palantir approach could “significantly” reduce the Columbia-class delay, currently projected to push delivery to March 2029. The contract uses a new “shared risk” model. Phelan said, “If they perform well…they’re going to do well and they should.” Karp responded, “You’re forcing us to absorb risk,” adding, “We get paid as we perform…This is not your typical ‘you get paid after everything fails’ kind of contract…We want to change contracting across the US government to ‘you get paid when it works.’”

Among names worth watching in the submarine space are Kraken Robotics, which has signed cooperative R&D agreements with the U.S. Navy for next-generation sonar systems, Huntington Ingalls Industries, the parent of Newport News Shipbuilding, and General Dynamics, which owns Electric Boat, builder of the Virginia- and Columbia-class nuclear submarines.

Palantir, meanwhile, is expanding its work with the U.S. Navy, using AI and data management platforms to support fleet readiness, logistics, and complex maintenance programs across submarine and surface operations.