1.The Ground News option looks good - except for its partial reliance on Media Bias Fact Checker to assess the bias and factuality of news sources, along with 2 other orgs. The Media Bias Fact Checker is itself saturated with a really weird US media bias that does not reflect international standards.
For instance, last week when I checked it, it rated the WaPo as 'left'! Good grief. In what world? And it rated This Will Hold as beyond its spectrum. Um. A few issues there.
However, I REALLY like the Blind Spot idea offered by Ground News. That's excellent. And I'm delighted to learn it's a Canadian company.
2. Huge and accessible deposits of rare earth minerals were found by a Utah mining company. Easy to mine and process because in clay-ish soils. Therefore, cheap mining and processing costs, all told. === The US does not need to take-over or invade any country or territory for the specious reason of wanting their rare earth minerals! (Nor for defense reasons.)
Re#2, TACO doesn't care. He has no common sense or diplomacy. He's a cruel bully with a child's mentality. Self-control is a choice. He sees something and says “mine.” It's vulgar and humiliating to the presidency.
WTAF?!?! All of this is SO ALARMING. Even though I knew this whole world-divided into three thing is something I’ve been worried about since the get-go with these megalomaniacs, the bunker thing is just gonna put me over the f**king edge. How do we stop this insanity?!?!
I love you guys for giving us the facts; the truth. Period. Full stop! In response to the ongoing horrors to date, it seems the MO of donald's fascist regime is to provoke a war against Venezuela! The intentions being to then declare martial law, which could cause voter interference of 2026?
Horrifying that there are Americans wanting to have their photo taken in the re-created setting of C Kirk’s shooting, and paying for such abombination.
I don't think MAGA wants the US in a war when he promised them no war. So, like Putin, he is going to give them money if they are in the military, and the jobs are disappearing in their communities. I watched a German documentary where the journalist was in a poor country in West Virginia and was being shown around the county by a photographer who was taking pictures of coal miners who are all suffering from Black Lung rot, and there is no more administrative support for diagnosing because that costs the coal companies. Also, many had been hit by a flood that destroyed their homes and FEMA under Trump is not coming through.
Anyway it was big Trump country, but the people interviewed except for one either said they would not vote for him again, or not at all. One man said that he thought he was better off with Trump. When asked how, he said that we need to give the Big Beautiful Bill time to work. So, nada. Just denial that he voted like a fool. However, if more people in MAGA turn against MAGA then it will snowball.
However, from a Trump POV or Trump fascist backers and cabinet POV they are looking at the checklist of things that they want to accomplish. They plan to take over "the Americas" either through "diplomacy" or through war. However, I don't think that is why many of the people in the US military signed up, but we shall see. Argentina ✅ Bought for the 20-40 billion given to Milei. Venezuela is looking at a US war on them. Trump seems to think he can buy Greenland, but may think war is needed.
I am going to add in that with Russia and China backing Venezuela, will we see their war ships (oops does Russia have any left?) accompanying any deliveries they make anywhere, and perhaps causing a conflict that way? I agree with Jacob that build up is deterrence. However another part is the messaging. We need to be messaging that Russia is weak. That needs to get across. It will shake Trump's confidence. Also, one needs to amplify things going wrong for Trump.
I do not see any way that Americans can beat Europeans. The American soldiers don’t know what they’re fighting for. Europeans are fighting for their homes. C’mon Europe. You can find a commander.
By the way, for anyone running a website that uses MySQL (a popular open-source database): Oracle, which Larry Ellison is CEO of, has owned MySQL ever since they bought Sun Microsystems in 2010, because Sun Microsystems bought MySQL AB, which owned MySQL, in 2008. I heard at the time that the primary reason Oracle bought Sun was to get JAVA, which Sun Microsystems also owned. They didn't care about MySQL but it came with the package.
In any case, when Oracle took over MySQL, some developers of the latter forked MySQL and called their new version MariaDB. If you're still using MySQL, you might want to switch to MariaDB. It's supposed to be faster and more up-to-date, too. I believe WordPress, for example, can use either one and many WordPress installations now default to using MariaDB.
1.The Ground News option looks good - except for its partial reliance on Media Bias Fact Checker to assess the bias and factuality of news sources, along with 2 other orgs. The Media Bias Fact Checker is itself saturated with a really weird US media bias that does not reflect international standards.
For instance, last week when I checked it, it rated the WaPo as 'left'! Good grief. In what world? And it rated This Will Hold as beyond its spectrum. Um. A few issues there.
However, I REALLY like the Blind Spot idea offered by Ground News. That's excellent. And I'm delighted to learn it's a Canadian company.
2. Huge and accessible deposits of rare earth minerals were found by a Utah mining company. Easy to mine and process because in clay-ish soils. Therefore, cheap mining and processing costs, all told. === The US does not need to take-over or invade any country or territory for the specious reason of wanting their rare earth minerals! (Nor for defense reasons.)
https://www.mining.com/massive-critical-minerals-deposit-found-in-utah/
Re#1, interesting. Good to know.
Re#2, TACO doesn't care. He has no common sense or diplomacy. He's a cruel bully with a child's mentality. Self-control is a choice. He sees something and says “mine.” It's vulgar and humiliating to the presidency.
I agree about their rating of the news as being weirdly US in focus.
I say, once again, Dan Rather is alive and writing on substack. He has a good piece on this today.
Why did Bari Weiss Pull ‘60 Minutes’ Report on brutal El Salvador Prison? Follow the Federal money to CBS owner Larry Ellison!
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/12/22/60-minutes-trump-bari-weiss-larry-ellison/
The Canadian unpulled version is circulating on Democrats Abroad and Indivisible Abroad Chat groups.
WTAF?!?! All of this is SO ALARMING. Even though I knew this whole world-divided into three thing is something I’ve been worried about since the get-go with these megalomaniacs, the bunker thing is just gonna put me over the f**king edge. How do we stop this insanity?!?!
I love you guys for giving us the facts; the truth. Period. Full stop! In response to the ongoing horrors to date, it seems the MO of donald's fascist regime is to provoke a war against Venezuela! The intentions being to then declare martial law, which could cause voter interference of 2026?
Trump is like a randy dog who has to piss on every single hydrant he comes to.
Horrifying that there are Americans wanting to have their photo taken in the re-created setting of C Kirk’s shooting, and paying for such abombination.
This war talk is frightening. The morbidly wealthy have their underground bunkers. I’m convinced they want a lot of the rest of us to just go away.
It’s weird how there is a certain personality type for dictators. They all want bunkers!
I don't think MAGA wants the US in a war when he promised them no war. So, like Putin, he is going to give them money if they are in the military, and the jobs are disappearing in their communities. I watched a German documentary where the journalist was in a poor country in West Virginia and was being shown around the county by a photographer who was taking pictures of coal miners who are all suffering from Black Lung rot, and there is no more administrative support for diagnosing because that costs the coal companies. Also, many had been hit by a flood that destroyed their homes and FEMA under Trump is not coming through.
Anyway it was big Trump country, but the people interviewed except for one either said they would not vote for him again, or not at all. One man said that he thought he was better off with Trump. When asked how, he said that we need to give the Big Beautiful Bill time to work. So, nada. Just denial that he voted like a fool. However, if more people in MAGA turn against MAGA then it will snowball.
However, from a Trump POV or Trump fascist backers and cabinet POV they are looking at the checklist of things that they want to accomplish. They plan to take over "the Americas" either through "diplomacy" or through war. However, I don't think that is why many of the people in the US military signed up, but we shall see. Argentina ✅ Bought for the 20-40 billion given to Milei. Venezuela is looking at a US war on them. Trump seems to think he can buy Greenland, but may think war is needed.
I am going to add in that with Russia and China backing Venezuela, will we see their war ships (oops does Russia have any left?) accompanying any deliveries they make anywhere, and perhaps causing a conflict that way? I agree with Jacob that build up is deterrence. However another part is the messaging. We need to be messaging that Russia is weak. That needs to get across. It will shake Trump's confidence. Also, one needs to amplify things going wrong for Trump.
I do not see any way that Americans can beat Europeans. The American soldiers don’t know what they’re fighting for. Europeans are fighting for their homes. C’mon Europe. You can find a commander.
Then there is the CECOT thing
Is Tom Landry good at grift and dividing spoils, and so forth like Witkoff and Kushner??
Few Americans would join an army to invade Greenland or Canada. Good luck to Trump on that one.
By the way, for anyone running a website that uses MySQL (a popular open-source database): Oracle, which Larry Ellison is CEO of, has owned MySQL ever since they bought Sun Microsystems in 2010, because Sun Microsystems bought MySQL AB, which owned MySQL, in 2008. I heard at the time that the primary reason Oracle bought Sun was to get JAVA, which Sun Microsystems also owned. They didn't care about MySQL but it came with the package.
In any case, when Oracle took over MySQL, some developers of the latter forked MySQL and called their new version MariaDB. If you're still using MySQL, you might want to switch to MariaDB. It's supposed to be faster and more up-to-date, too. I believe WordPress, for example, can use either one and many WordPress installations now default to using MariaDB.
So is this Ground News bit just a one-off shoutout, or are y'all doin ad reads now?