Month: December 2025

11.6 Million Voted in California’s Prop 50 Special Election

Pensito Editors

11.6 Million Voters

LAist.com: Voters notoriously do not show up for off-year elections in the same numbers, as say, a presidential election. But given how consequential Prop. 50 was, there was a lot of curiosity about how many voters would participate. The answer? About 11.6 million people — a turnout of 50% statewide. It’s not as high as California’s last special election in 2021 on whether to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom — turnout then was 58.4%. But it’s a solid showing for California, especially for an off-year special election. In fact, it’s on par with California’s 2022 midterm elections, which saw 50.8% turnout.

Our Fascist Idiocracy: Shhh. The President, 79, Is Sleeping

The world is safest when he's asleep

Jon Ponder

New York Times: President Trump appeared to be fighting sleep on Tuesday during a cabinet meeting at the White House, closing his eyes and at times seeming to nod off, after he criticized media coverage about him facing the realities of aging in office.

Over the course of two hours and 18 minutes, the president, who is 79, sometimes appeared to struggle to keep his eyes open as cabinet officials went around the room describing their work and heaping praise on him.

Independent: Trump was brutally mocked as “Dozy Don” by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in October after he appeared to drift off at an event discussing the threat his administration said is posed by Antifa activists, in revenge for the president’s regular jibes against “Sleepy Joe” throughout his presidency.

Unilad: [The] White House has strenuously denied any accusation that Trump fell asleep during the televised meeting and pointed to his engagement with the topic – without explaining why his eyes appeared to be closed, while his head rested against the back of his chair.

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Same Old Low

Buck Banks

“There is a temptation is to describe what happened yesterday as somehow a ‘new low.’ Our somnolent, gibbering, incoherent, deeply corrupt President, surrounded by his fawning toadies, unleashed a torrent of dehumanizing racist bile, disinformation, and threats. … But it’s not a new low. It’s the same old low. A scene we’ve seen repeated so often there is a kind of numbness to it. Outrage did not ensue.”

— Charlie Sykes

Our Fascist Idiocracy: Kristi Noem Thanks Trump for Preventing Hurricanes This Year

He must have gotten a bigger Sharpie!

Jon Ponder

Independent: Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has bizarrely thanked Donald Trump for “keeping the hurricanes away.”

Speaking during the final cabinet meeting of the year on Tuesday (2 December), Noem expressed her gratitude to the US president, “Sir, you made it through hurricane season without a hurricane… even you kept the hurricanes away. We appreciate that.”

No hurricanes made landfall in the United States during the Atlantic hurricane season, for the first time since 2015.

But, last month, Hurricane Melissa became one of the most powerful on record, killing at least 106 people across the Caribbean.”

People: As the president appeared to be frequently closing his eyes, his secretaries showered him with compliments on everything from his sacrifices for the American people to his apparent influence on the weather.

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