He Tried to Protect His Son From Bullies. He Didn’t Know How Far They Would Go.; The New York Times Magazine, December 15, 2025

Matthew Shaer, The New York Times Magazine; He Tried to Protect His Son From Bullies. He Didn’t Know How Far They Would Go.

"Then came the incident that would connect Tristan’s case to a larger epidemic of bullying in the East Valley. In late October, news broke of the fatal assault on 16-year-old Preston Lord, who was attacked by several peers outside a Halloween party in the desert town of Queen Creek. Preston was knocked down, kicked and punched repeatedly in the head. After his assailants fled, other partygoers attempted to perform C.P.R.; approximately 48 hours later, doctors at a nearby hospital pronounced him dead.

“I remember we published something on the Lord death, and right away we got an absolute flood of community tips — people across the East Valley coming out of the woodwork to say that they had info to share,” Ashley Holden, a television reporter with an ABC affiliate, told me. “And a lot of the rumblings had to do with a group that called itself the Gilbert Goons.”

Many of the teenagers reportedly came from wealthy families, dealt drugs and carried guns. Anyone could label themselves a member, or, with equal facility, disavow their association — there was no official swearing in, no hierarchy, no leaders...

As is increasingly common in cases involving bullying or teen violence, many of the incidents subsequently attributed to the Goons involved exchanges that took place via text, social media platforms or video game chat logs visible only to the participants. Even when investigators were able to obtain a warrant for the information, says Jim Bisceglie, an assistant chief for the Gilbert police, “sometimes the data is already gone from Company A or B or C by the time it’s sent over to us. It’s piecemeal, and you’ve got the complexity of reading through all the messages, trying to understand the order."...

Rick later met with the parents of Connor Jarnagan and Preston Lord, who gave him the validation he had been seeking for more than two years. He wasn’t alone — he hadn’t lost his mind. In extensive interviews with reporters across the East Valley, Rick took to railing loudly against the police for ignoring a clear and present danger in their midst. “They could have had all this stuff done months ago,” he said in one exchange with a reporter from The Arizona Republic. Had the authorities done so, he went on, his son would still be home, and Preston Lord would still be alive. He made a point of attending school board meetings, community rallies...

To Rick, the underlying issue was one of “reactivity versus proactivity” — a phrase I heard him use often. “You had the city and the schools essentially sweeping this stuff under the rug,” he said. “Hoping it would go away. Hoping it was just kids being kids.”"

Christianity Today Editor Slams Trump’s “Disgusting, Immoral Behavior”; The New Republic, December 15, 2025

Hafiz Rashid, The New Republic; Christianity Today Editor Slams Trump’s “Disgusting, Immoral Behavior”

"The editor-at-large of Christianity Today magazine on Monday sharply condemned Donald Trump’s deranged post about the murders of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele.

Russell Moore, formerly the magazine’s editor in chief, called out Trump’s post blaming Reiner for the murders “through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” Moore called Trump’s comments “vile, disgusting, and immoral behavior.”"

Mourning Michelle Obama Rebukes Trump for Psychotic Rob Reiner Post; The Daily Beast, December 16, 2025

Meera Navlakha, The Daily Beast; Mourning Michelle Obama Rebukes Trump for Psychotic Rob Reiner Post

[Kip Currier: Democratic societies are strengthened by those who have the courage and conviction to speak out against hatred, cruelty, and divisiveness and those who traffic in such toxic behaviors.

Hans Christian Andersen's (1837) The Emperor's New Clothes is as timely as ever.]

[Excerpt]

The former first lady said that Rob and Michele Reiner were nothing but decent and courageous people.

"Michelle Obama calmly slammed President Donald Trump’s deranged comments on the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele. 

In an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, the former first lady said the 78-year-old film director and his 68-year-old wife were courageous people who cared about their country.

“Let me just say this, unlike some people, Rob and Michelle Reiner are some of the most decent, courageous people you ever want to know. They’re not deranged or crazed,” Obama said, referring to Trump’s descriptions of the couple in the wake of their gruesome slaying, allegedly at the hands of their 32-year-old son. 

“What they have always been are passionate people, in a time when there are not... there’s not a lot of courage going on. They were the kind of people who were ready to put their actions behind what they cared about, and they cared about their family, and they cared about this country, and they cared about fairness and equity,” she said. 

“That is the truth,” Obama, 61, concluded. “I do know them.”

Trump has been condemned for his bizarre comments on the Reiners’ murder. The president said the director suffered from “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” a term often used by Trump and his supporters to undermine his critics."

A hidden life in the era of social media can still change history, as the story of Jesus shows; The Guardian, December 14, 2025

Justine Toh, The Guardian ; A hidden life in the era of social media can still change history, as the story of Jesus shows

[Kip Currier: Resonant brief piece by Justine Toh, sharing the insights of 19th century Victorian writer George Eliot (nee Mary Ann Evans). As Toh observes:

...the spotlight needn’t be on you for you to live an influential life. A life might be “hidden” – a heresy in the social media era, where everything exists to be shared – yet still well lived. You can shape the course of history, even if you leave little trace on it.

So relevant -- and a welcome antidote -- to this social media era that demands and amplifies "attention", "likes", "notice", and "influence".]

[Excerpt]

"Do you want to be influential?

So do 57% of gen Zs in the US who aspire to be influencers, presumably lured by money and fame. But say you also want to make the world a better place. In that case, maybe the spiritual instruction you need emerges in the famous final lines of George Eliot’s 1871 novel Middlemarch:

“… the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

Eliot offers a bracing reality check: the spotlight needn’t be on you for you to live an influential life. A life might be “hidden” – a heresy in the social media era, where everything exists to be shared – yet still well lived. You can shape the course of history, even if you leave little trace on it.

This strange idea takes on added significance for me at Christmas. The story of Jesus’s birth is nothing if not “unhistoric” – in the sense of being ignored – even if today we live in the wake of his influence...

Eliot gives us a place to start renewing our attention – by recognising that “the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts”.

If nothing else, the line doubles as a fitting description of Christianity’s lasting effect. That it was penned by a woman who shed her Christian faith, but largely retained its ethics, is even more ironic. Whatever you believe, Eliot’s is excellent advice: keep adding to the world’s growing good by small acts. Unhistoric on their own, perhaps, but that still prove generative, spawning possibilities long after."

'Bad for our country.' Trump doubles down on attack of late Rob Reiner; USA TODAY, December 15, 2025

Joey Garrison, USA TODAY; 'Bad for our country.' Trump doubles down on attack of late Rob Reiner

"President Donald Trump doubled down on his widely criticized attack of the late film director Rob Reiner, expressing no regret nor offering an apology for comments that even some Republican supporters have since denounced.

"I thought he was very bad for our country," Trump said on Dec. 15 when asked whether he stands by his social media post about Reiner from earlier in the day."

MAGA breaks with Trump on mocking Rob Reiner's killing; Axios, December 15, 2025

• Tal Axelrod, Axios ; MAGA breaks with Trump on mocking Rob Reiner's killing

"President Trump torpedoed MAGA influencers' calls for compassion after the killing of director Rob Reiner, mocking the longtime liberal activist as a victim of "Trump derangement syndrome."

Why it matters: Many MAGA influencers vowed after the assassination of Charlie Kirk that they would never celebrate or mock the untimely death of a political opponent. 

• Trump abandoned that moral high ground the morning after Reiner and his wife were found dead in their Los Angeles home — drawing rare criticism from his Republican allies.
• 
  

What they're saying: "Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME," Trump posted on Truth Social Monday.

• "He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before."

Driving the news: When news initially emerged of Reiner's death Sunday night, many MAGA voices expressed sympathy and drew direct comparisons to Kirk's assassination.

• "You won't see people on the right celebrating the horrific murder of Rob Reiner and his wife. Compare to the Left's reaction to Charlie Kirk's murder," MAGA podcaster Jack Posobiec posted Sunday night.
• 
  
• Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet tweeted a clip of Reiner responding "with grace and compassion" to Kirk's assassination: "This video makes it all the more painful to hear of he and his wife's tragic end. May God be close to the broken hearted in this terrible story."
• 
  

After Trump's incendiary post, several Republicans criticized the president for politicizing the apparent murder. Reiner's son Nick has been arrested in connection with the death of his parents.

• "Rob Reiner and his wife were tragically killed at the hands of their own son, who reportedly had drug addiction and other issues, and their remaining children are left in serious mourning and heartbreak. This is a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies," Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a Trump ally-turned-critic, wrote Monday.
• 
  
• "A man and his wife were murdered last night. This is NOT the appropriate response. The Right uniformly condemned political and celebratory responses to Charlie Kirk's death. This is a horrible example from Trump (and surprising considering the two attempts on his own life) and should be condemned by everyone with any decency," added Trump's former lawyer Jenna Ellis."

U.S. to mandate checks of some tourists’ social media history from past 5 years; CNBC, December 10, 2025

Sawdah Bhaimiya, CNBC; U.S. to mandate checks of some tourists’ social media history from past 5 years

 "The U.S. is planning to impose social media inspections on some tourists as President Donald Trump continues to ramp up travel restrictions for foreign visitors. 

Tourists — including those from Britain, Australia, France, and Japan — will be mandated to provide five years of their social media history as part of their applications to visit the U.S., according to a notice posted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, on Wednesday. The proposal, which has been given a 60 day-notice with requests for comments from the public, is not final and may see some revisions. 

Tourists from nations that are included in the U.S.′ Visa Waiver Program can apply to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, or ESTA, to visit the country for 90 days or less, with a fee of $40. The social media check will now form a “mandatory data element” as part of the ESTA application.

The border force said it will also collect “several high value data fields,” including applicants’ email addresses from the past 10 years, their telephone numbers used in the past five years, and names and details of family members."

A.I. Videos Have Flooded Social Media. No One Was Ready.; A.I. Videos Have Flooded Social Media. No One Was Ready., December 8, 2025

Steven Lee Myers and Stuart A. Thompson, The New York Times ; A.I. Videos Have Flooded Social Media. No One Was Ready.

Apps like OpenAI’s Sora are fooling millions of users into thinking A.I. videos are real, even when they include warning labels.

"Videos like the fake interview above, created with OpenAI’s new app, Sora, show how easily public perceptions can be manipulated by tools that can produce an alternate reality with a series of simple prompts.

In the two months since Sora arrived, deceptive videos have surged on TikTok, X, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, according to experts who track them. The deluge has raised alarm over a new generation of disinformation and fakes.

Most of the major social media companies have policies that require disclosure of artificial intelligence use and broadly prohibit content intended to deceive. But those guardrails have proved woefully inadequate for the kind of technological leaps OpenAI’s tools represent."

Dan Bongino Admits to Lying During His Pundit Days; The Atlantic, December 8, 2025

David A. Graham , The Atlantic; Dan Bongino Admits to Lying During His Pundit Days

"The suspect, Brian Cole Jr., reportedly recently told investigators that he was a Donald Trump supporter who believed Trump’s bogus claims of fraud in the 2020 election. But various people in conservative media and politics have insisted for years that the pipe bombs were actually planned or placed by the government in order to make Trump look bad—which was why no one had been apprehended.

One of the most prominent backers of that claim was the podcaster and radio host Dan Bongino. Even the Fox News host Sean Hannity, one of the administration’s most sycophantic pundits, had to point this out during an interview on Thursday night, noting that before joining the FBI, Bongino had called the bombs an “inside job.” Bongino’s answer was astonishing.

“I was paid in the past, Sean, for my opinions, that’s clear, and one day I will be back in that space—but that’s not what I’m paid for now,” he said. “I’m paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts.”"

Indiana Republican with disabled child rejects redistricting bid after Trump-Walz spat; The Hill, November 29, 2025

 RYAN MANCINI , The Hill ; Indiana Republican with disabled child rejects redistricting bid after Trump-Walz spat

"A Republican state Senator from Indiana on Friday said he will vote against President Trump’s redistricting effort in his state after the president used a slur demeaning people with disabilities in his online spat with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D).

“Many of you have asked my position on redistricting,” state Sen. Michael Bohacek (R) wrote in a Facebook post. “I have been an unapologetic advocate for people with intellectual disabilities since the birth of my second daughter. Those of you that don’t know me or my family might not know that my daughter has Down Syndrome.

“This is not the first time our president has used these insulting and derogatory references and his choices of words have consequences,” Bohacek continued. “I will be voting NO on redistricting, perhaps he can use the next 10 months to convince voters that his policies and behavior deserve a congressional majority.”

Trump attacked Walz in a Truth Social post on Thursday and called him the slur. He slammed the governor for doing “nothing” about the number of Somali refugees in Minnesota, either “through fear, incompetence, or both.”"

How To Practice Gratitude (Even When You Don’t Feel It): GRATITUDE IS MORE ABOUT ACTION THAN FEELING.; Christianity Today, November 24, 2025

O. ALAN NOBLE, Christianity Today ; How To Practice Gratitude (Even When You Don’t Feel It): Gratitude is more about action than feeling.

"We must often practice and embody gratitude before we feel and experience it in our hearts. The key is choosing to practice gratitude as a habit, not an emotional state. Gratitude may come spontaneously, but more often, it is a habit, choice, and action in response to what we know to be true."

‘Trump is inconsistent with Christian principles’: why the Democratic party is seeing a rise of white clergy candidates; The Guardian, November 15, 2025

David Smith , The Guardian; ‘Trump is inconsistent with Christian principles’: why the Democratic party is seeing a rise of white clergy candidates

"He grew up on a farm in Indiana, the son of a factory worker and eldest of five children. He studied at Liberty, a Christian university founded by the conservative pastor and televangelist Jerry Falwell, and recalls wearing a T-shirt expressing opposition to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

Two decades later, Justin Douglas is running for the US Congress – as a Democrat.

He is among around 30 Christian white clergy – pastors, seminary students and other faith leaders – known to be potential Democratic candidates in next year’s midterm elections, including a dozen who are already in the race. While stressing the separation of church and state, many say that on a personal level their faith is calling them into the political arena...

Douglas is a county commissioner looking to unseat Republican Scott Perry in Pennsylvania’s 10th district. But he was previously the lead pastor of a growing church that allowed LGBTQ+ individuals to participate fully in its community; over the course of a year, this developed into a huge bone of contention and in 2019 Douglas eventually lost his licence. He had to find a new house and go from one job to three jobs including driving an Uber and CrossFit coaching. He started a new church that is still operating today.

Douglas recalls: “I paid the price for standing with the LGBTQ+ people. I would do it again. It taught me that doing what’s right is often costly but always necessary, and everyone deserves to be safe, respected and fully included. That’s not a religious belief. It’s a human belief that I have.”

James Talarico, a Texas state representative and a 36-year-old part-time seminary student who has amassed a sizable social media following – has become an unlikely standard-bearer in the Democrats’ 2026 Senate primary.

In a series of social media posts, he deploys scripture to champion the poor and vulnerable while castigating Republicans for what he casts as their drift towards Christian nationalism and corporate interests. He asked in one: “Instead of posting the Ten Commandments in every classroom, why don’t they post, ‘Money is the root of all evil’ in every boardroom?”"

Ultra-rich media owners are tightening their grip on democracy. It’s time to wrest our power back; The Guardian, November 13, 2025

Robert Reich , The Guardian; Ultra-rich media owners are tightening their grip on democracy. It’s time to wrest our power back

"The richest man on Earth owns X.

The family of the second-richest man owns Paramount, which owns CBS, and could soon own Warner Bros, which owns CNN.

The third-richest man owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

The fourth-richest man owns the Washington Post and Amazon MGM Studios.

Another billionaire owns Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.

Why are the ultra-rich buying up so much of the media? Vanity may play a part, but there’s a more pragmatic – some might say sinister – reason.

If you’re a multibillionaire, you might view democracy as a potential threat to your net worth. Control over a significant share of the dwindling number of media outlets would enable you to effectively hedge against democracy by suppressing criticism of you and other plutocrats, and discouraging any attempt to – for example – tax away your wealth...

As the Washington Post’s slogan still says, democracy dies in darkness. Today, darkness is closing in because a demagogue sits in the Oval Office and so much of the US’s wealth and media ownership is concentrated in the hands of a few people easily manipulated by that demagogue.

We must fight to get our democracy back. Supporting the Guardian is one good place to begin."

To Help SNAP Recipients, Bookstores Set Up as Food Banks; The New York Times, November 11, 2025

Elizabeth A. Harris and Alexandra Alter, The New York Times ; To Help SNAP Recipients, Bookstores Set Up as Food Banks

"With federal funding for food stamps threatened, employees at a bookstore in Lincoln, Neb., went to their boss with an idea: If people were going hungry, maybe they could help.

Workers at the store, Sower Books, soon set up a food collection bin near the front door. Customers and neighbors brought in bags and boxes of groceries; others came to browse for books, saw the bin and returned later with their own donations. Within a week, the storage room was stuffed with close to 2,000 pounds of food.

Nearly out of storage space, the bookstore put out a call for drivers on social media, and earlier this month, customers volunteered their cars and pickup trucks to ferry boxed and canned goods to a food pantry across town. The store’s back room has since filled up again with donations. On Monday, staff members made another run to the pantry, delivering more than 830 pounds of food — enough for roughly 1,700 meals...

Tory Hall, Sower’s owner, said the food drive felt like a natural extension of the store’s role as a community gathering place, where people drop in to do puzzles, have coffee, attend a book club and snuggle with the store’s adoptable rescue cats. Many customers seemed grateful that Sower gave them an easy way to help, Hall said.

“We’re not sitting here sad that everything is burning,” Hall said. “We’re going to find a fire extinguisher.”"

SNAP Benefits: Josh Shapiro’s Rebuke of JD Vance Goes Viral; Newsweek, November 8, 2025

Khaleda Rahman, Newsweek ; SNAP Benefits: Josh Shapiro’s Rebuke of JD Vance Goes Viral

"Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s scathing rebuke of Vice President JD Vance has gone viral on social media.

At a press conference on Friday, Shapiro was asked about Vance, who had called a court order that directed the Trump administration to fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for November "absurd."

Shapiro, a Democrat, called Vance a “total phony” who “doesn’t give a damn about all Americans” and had turned his back on the Appalachian communities he once said he represented.

A clip of Shapiro’s comments garnered more than a million views after it was posted on X by the senior digital editor of the liberal Meidas Touch website...

Vance “rose to some prominence by writing a book about growing up in Appalachia, where there’s a whole lot of people who get SNAP," Shapiro said, referring to Vance's 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.

"He made millions of dollars on the backs of telling their stories, and then he turned his damn back on those very people who he likes to write about and claim as his own.”

Shapiro also said Vance’s stance runs counter to his Christian faith.

“He claims to be a person of faith. I know my Bible. And my Bible teaches us that we are to love thy neighbor and we are to feed the hungry,” Shapiro said."

In Grok we don’t trust: academics assess Elon Musk’s AI-powered encyclopedia; The Guardian, November 3, 2025

Robert Booth, The Guardian ; In Grok we don’t trust: academics assess Elon Musk’s AI-powered encyclopedia

"The eminent British historian Sir Richard Evans produced three expert witness reports for the libel trial involving the Holocaust denier David Irving, studied for a doctorate under the supervision of Theodore Zeldin, succeeded David Cannadine as Regius professor of history at Cambridge (a post endowed by Henry VIII) and supervised theses on Bismarck’s social policy.

That was some of what you could learn from Grokipedia, the AI-powered encyclopedia launched last week by the world’s richest person, Elon Musk. The problem was, as Prof Evans discovered when he logged on to check his own entry, all these facts were false.

It was part of a choppy start for humanity’s latest attempt to corral the sum of human knowledge or, as Musk put it, create a compendium of “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” – all revealed through the magic of his Grok artificial intelligence model."

Elon Musk launches encyclopedia ‘fact-checked’ by AI and aligning with rightwing views; The Guardian, October 28, 2025

Chris Michael, The Guardian ; Elon Musk launches encyclopedia ‘fact-checked’ by AI and aligning with rightwing views

"Elon Musk has launched an online encyclopedia named Grokipedia that he said relied on artificial intelligence and would align more with his rightwing views than Wikipedia, though many of its articles say they are based on Wikipedia itself.

Calling an AI encyclopedia “super important for civilization”, Musk had been planning the Wikipedia rival for at least a month. Grokipedia does not have human authors, unlike Wikipedia, which is written and edited by volunteers in a transparent process. Grokipedia said it is “fact-checked” by Grok, Musk’s AI chatbot.

Musk said the idea was suggested by the Trump administration’s AI and cryptocurrency czar, David Sacks.

Musk has frequently attacked Wikipedia for citing reporting by the New York Times and NPR, and regularly lambasts what he calls the “mainstream media” in an effort to encourage people to rely on X, formerly Twitter, the social media site he owns and which he has programmed to encourage the domination of conservative and far-right voices, including his own.

Grokipedia’s entries appear to hew closely to conservative talking points. For example, its entry for the January 6 insurrection on the Capitol cites “widespread claims of voting irregularities” – a lie pushed by Donald Trump and his allies to delegitimize Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 – and downplays Trump’s own role in inciting the riot."

From CBS to TikTok, US media are falling to Trump’s allies. This is how democracy crumbles; The Guardian, October 29, 2025

Owen Jones, The Guardian; From CBS to TikTok, US media are falling to Trump’s allies. This is how democracy crumbles

"Democracy may be dying in the US. Whether the patient receives emergency treatment in time will determine whether the condition becomes terminal. Before Donald Trump’s return to the presidency, I warned of “Orbánisation” – in reference to Hungary’s authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán. There, democracy was not extinguished by firing squads or the mass imprisonment of dissidents, but by slow attrition. The electoral system was warped, civil society was targeted and pro-Orbán moguls quietly absorbed the media.

Nine months on, and Orbánisation is in full bloom across the Atlantic. Billionaire Larry Ellison, the Oracle co-founder, and his filmmaker son, David, have become blunt instruments in this process. Trump boasts they are “friends of mine – they’re big supporters of mine”. Larry Ellison, second only to Elon Musk as the world’s richest man, has poured tens of millions into Republican coffers...

US democracy has always been heavily flawed. It is so rigged in favour of wealthy elites that a detailed academic study back in 2014 found that the political system is rigged in favour of what the economic elites want. Yet because, unlike Hungary, the US has no history of dictatorship, with a system of supposed checks and balances, some felt it could never succumb to tyranny. Such complacency has collided with brutal reality. In just nine months, the US has been dragged towards an authoritarian abyss. A warning: Trump has 39 months left in office."