Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

Just recently, the Bondi DOJ filed an amicus brief in support of the Second Amendment in the Supreme Court case Wolford v. Lopez.

But, gun owners are still rightfully furious with the Department of Justice and the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, for defending federal gun registration.

So while GOA wholeheartedly supports the DOJ’s filing in Wolford, that pro-gun brief stands in stark contrast to another anti-gun brief filed just days ago, in GOA’s case against the National Firearms Act, Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF.

Today, @TheJusticeDept took decisive action to protect the Second Amendment by filing a brief in the Supreme Court challenging a Hawaii state law that effectively bans public carry. As our brief states, “Hawaii’s law plainly violates the Second Amendment.”

It’s not just Hawaii…

— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) November 24, 2025

And this…

In the past week @AGPamBondi & @TheJusticeDept have:

– Supported national gun registration
– Demonized machineguns
– Called guns “weapons of war”
– Expanded government power over 2A
– Said SBRs are for criminals

Filing this brief is great—these other actions are unacceptable. https://t.co/0TxdxIWVDD

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) November 24, 2025

For those unfamiliar, Gun Owners of America filed a lawsuit against the ATF after the signing of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” on July 4th.

The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” zeroed out the tax on many items regulated by the National Firearms Act, including Silencers, AOWs, and short-barreled firearms.

But the NFA’s registration requirements remain. That’s because the ATF previously needed to keep records of who paid the NFA tax for any given firearm. Now that a $0 tax is not a tax at all, we’re arguing that the registration requirements for these items should be thrown out as unconstitutional and unnecessary. After all, can the federal government really throw you in jail for not paying a $0 tax on a firearm? 

Unfortunately, Pam Bondi’s Justice Department has decided to oppose us in our fight against one of the worst acts of gun control in American history. 

To make matters worse, the DOJ did so by using the same language as anti-gun groups like Everytown and Brady and at one point, even referring to these types of firearms as “weapons of war” a phrase exclusively used by anti-gun politicians. 

Channeling @bradybuzz and @Everytown hysteria,@AGPamBondi argues that short-barreled rifles and shotguns are “weapons of war.”

You know… precisely the sort of weapons the Framers intended the Second Amendment to protect. https://t.co/MNxLglG0ZX pic.twitter.com/cFNW833YJb

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) November 21, 2025

The brief from Bondi’s DOJ in our suit is indistinguishable from any brief filed by the Biden Department of Justice under Merrick Garland. 

And the most egregious part? They don’t have to do this.

In Washington, DC, US Attorney Jeanine Pirro has decided not to enforce DC’s ban on “high-capacity magazines,” arguing that “it is the United States’s position that [DC’s magazine ban] is unconstitutional.”

This DOJ spokesman is WRONG. Congress & the NFA cannot override the Constitution & Second Amendment. @USAttyPirro is refusing to enforce D.C.’s unconstitutional magazine ban & rifle/shotgun carry ban. @theJusticeDept should do the same with the NFA. https://t.co/utT3Ja7KrQ pic.twitter.com/DoQ0OekoQT

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) November 22, 2025

And back when Texas sued the first Trump Administration after Congress reduced the Obamacare penalty to $0, the DOJ also declined to defend the law—instead joining Texas’ side in court.

Why couldn’t Pam Bondi’s DOJ decide not to defend the National Firearms Act? She could—and that’s why gun owners are so upset. Pam Bondi and the DOJ made the conscious decision to defend federal gun registration.

When Pam Bondi was selected as Attorney General, Gun Owners of America sounded the alarm. We warned that she was responsible for pushing gun control in Florida, and there was a chance that she would not take a hard stand for the Second Amendment. 

As it stands, we were correct. 

This isn’t new either. Since Pam Bondi was made Attorney General, the Department of Justice has been fighting against GOA, preventing us from securing judgments in our cases against Biden administration policy, which would, in turn, keep gun owners safe from future infringements. 

Instead, the Department of Justice has attempted to moot our cases, arguing that there’s no basis for thinking that ATF will return to their past behavior.

🤥@TheJusticeDept told the court today:

“I don’t think there is ANY BASIS for believing that the conduct @GunOwners are challenging is going to occur, and certainly not in the foreseeable future.”

Do you trust @ATFHQ won’t infringe on our 2nd Amendment again in the future? https://t.co/0hX1Kt4JHB pic.twitter.com/j80Z5c8A0H

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) October 27, 2025

And while the DOJ has certainly worked towards some pro-gun policy, these moves by the DOJ against the Second Amendment and against gun owners fly in the face of what President Trump promised to gun owners during his campaign, and in his pro-gun executive order. 

Gun Owners of America is asking our members to call the White House. Please urge President Trump to force Pam Bondi and the Justice Department to stop fighting GOA and instead to work with us to overturn gun control and restore the Second Amendment. 

In the past five years the institutional discussions surrounding climate change have shifted noticeably from “net zero” goals (zero net carbon emissions from target countries) to a more mercenary debate over carbon taxation.  The question on everyone’s mind is this:  Who gets the most access to those delicious climate funds?

Who gets access to the cash is less important than who gets to manage the cash, but we’ll get to that issue in a moment.

The recent COP30 event held last week in Brazil was largely focused on wealth redistribution with a lesser emphasis on carbon reductions.  Climate “financing” is the name of the game, and COP30 was largely a squabble over which countries will get the most access to the various carbon taxes and donations collected by global intermediaries.  In fact, the conference was largely considered a failure.  From The Guardian:

“The sticking point was fossil fuels. As science has told us for well over a century, the carbon dioxide that burning them produces is heating up the planet, now to dangerous levels.  But in more than 30 years of annual climate meetings, the need for that to halt has been mentioned only once…”

“…Meanwhile, developing countries desperately wanted to move forward on securing the money that would help them cope with the already disastrous impacts of extreme weather.  By the early hours of Saturday, some delegates were ready to walk out and force a collapse. “It was on the edge for us,” said Ed Miliband, the UK energy minister. “I was prepared to walk away.””

The meaninglessness of the climate apparatus becomes evident at these kinds of events; flush with thousands of bureaucrats who serve no purpose, clamoring for money that is essentially stolen in the name of a crisis that doesn’t exist. 

At COP30, developing countries secured a tripling to $120bn of annual finance to help them adapt to the impacts of extreme weather, but that sum will not be delivered in full until 2035.

Developing nations have already garnered billions in climate financing.  India, for example, receives around $30 billion annually in climate funding which is meant to help third-world countries reduce their reliance on oil and coal while developing “green tech.”  The dramatic inefficiency of green energy aside, it’s unlikely that much of this financing is actually going into improving carbon emissions in India or anywhere else. 

The biggest beneficiaries are NGOs and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) working closely with the World Bank.  These organizations collect the carbon funds and then redistribute that money according to their own guidelines.  Carbon taxes also represent a fresh revenues source for various governments in the first-world, with some of this money being transferred to intermediaries in the name of “Climate Reparations.”   

The woke vernacular of the climate agenda is no coincidence.  Calls for reparation, equity and “climate justice” reveal the globalist/socialist roots of the global warming scam.  Environmental groups were quick to promote wealth redistribution in the name of imaginary climate crimes and “colonialism”.  COP30 partially adopted this language by supporting the Belém Package – An agreement to integrate “equity” into climate financing decisions. 

“There can be no true climate justice without reparatory justice,” say climate activist groups in a letter sent to COP30. 

“The climate crisis did not arise recently — it is a continuation of centuries of greenhouse emissions, extraction, dispossession, and racial violence,” the letter said, urging COP30 to address historical injustices and the need for reparations as part of any negotiation on climate.

The melding of woke activism and climate hysteria is part of a larger progressive cultism that, until recently, has been infecting global politics like a plague.  There are obviously millions of true believers when it comes to global warming doom, just as there were millions of people that embraced the pandemic hysteria of covid.  However, the main thrust of climate governance is still mostly about cold hard cash.  

There is, of course, no science that supports the claim of a causation relationship between man-made carbon emissions and global warming.  As we have noted many times in the past, climate scientists rely on a tiny 140 year window of temperature data to defend their claims.  If we look at a much larger window of hundreds of millions of years, the temperatures today are actually some of the coldest ever recorded.  

Furthermore, when comparing atmospheric carbon content data over the same timeline, it is undeniable that carbon emissions have no relation to planetary temps.  They simply do not match up.

Climate scientists dishonestly ignore this data in preference of a 140 year model; a meaningless timeline which offers no insight into why the Earth warms or cools and when it might do so in the future.  They insist on the assumption that carbon “pollution” created by human industry is the cause of current warming and then adjust their models to support this assumption.  It’s not science, it’s the opposite, but there’s a lot of money to be made by perpetuating the lie.   

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

The current generation “Z”—those now roughly between 13 and 28 years old—is becoming our 21st-century version of the “Lost Generation.” Members of Gen Z are often nicknamed “Zoomers,” a term used to describe young adults who came of age in the era of smartphones, social media, and rapid cultural upheaval.

Males in their teens and twenties are prolonging their adolescence—rarely marrying, not buying a home, not having children, and often not working full-time.

The negative stereotype of a Zoomer is a shiftless man who plays too many video games. He is too coddled by parents and too afraid to strike out on his own.

Zoomers rarely date, supposedly out of fear that they would have to grow up, take charge, and head a household.

Yet the opposite, sympathetic generalization of Gen Z seems more accurate.

All through K-12, young men, particularly white males, have been demonized for their “toxic masculinity” that draws accusations of sexism, racism, and homophobia.

In college, the majority of students are female. In contrast, white males—9-10 percent of admittees in recent years at elite schools like Stanford and the Ivy League—are of no interest to college admission officers.

So they are tagged not as unique individuals but as superfluous losers of the “wrong” race, gender, or sexual orientation.

Gen Z men saw themselves scapegoated by professors and society for the sins of past generations—and on the wrong side of the preposterous reductionist binary of oppressors and the oppressed.

Traditional pathways to adulthood—affordable homes, upwardly mobile and secure jobs, and safe and secure city and suburban living—had mostly vanished amid overregulation, overtaxation, and underpolicing.

Orthodox and loud student advocacies on campus—climate change, DEI, the Palestinians—had little to do with getting a job, raising a family, or buying a house.

During the Biden years, white males mostly stopped enlisting in the military in their accustomed overrepresented numbers.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, they had died in frontline combat units at twice their percentages for the demographic. No matter—prior Pentagon DEI commissars still slandered them as suspects likely to form racist cabals.

Gen Z males seemed bewildered by women and sex—and often withdrew from dating.

Never has popular culture so promoted sexually provocative fashions, semi-nudity, and freewheeling lifestyles, and careers of supposedly empowered single women.

And never had the rules of dating and sexuality become more retrograde Victorian.

Casual consensual sex was flashed as cool everywhere on social media. And when it naturally proved in the real world to be selfish, callous, and empty, males were almost always exclusively blamed as if they were not proper Edwardian gentlemen.

Soon, young men feared sexual hookups and promiscuity as avenues to post facto and one-sided charges of harassment—or worse.

For the half of Generation Z who went to college, tuition had soared, rising faster than the rate of inflation. Administrators were often more numerous than faculty. Obsessive fixations with race determined everything from dorm selections to graduation ceremonies.

Zoomers were mired in enormous student debt.

Yet they soon learned that their gut social science and “studies” degrees proved nearly worthless. Employers saw such certificates as neither proof of traditional knowledge nor of any needed specialized skill set.

Unemployed or half-employed Zoomers then ended up with unsustainable five-figure student loans and the insidious interest on them. Their affluent, left-wing, tenured profs, who had once demonized them as oppressors, could have cared less about their dismal fates.

Add it all up, and Zoomers puzzled their parents. And they found scant guidance from the campus.

Instead, they sought needed spiritual inspiration from a Jordan Peterson, entertainment and pragmatic advice from a Joe Rogan—but sometimes toxic venting from a demagogic, anti-Semitic Nick Fuentes.

What would shock the lost generation back into the mainstream, barring a war, depression, or natural catastrophe?

One, an end to DEI hectoring and blame-gaming, and a return to class rather than race determining “privilege.”

Two, some sanity in the war between the sexes. When women represent nearly 60 percent of undergraduates, why does gender still assure an advantage in admissions and hiring?

Three, the federal government needs to stop funding $1.7 trillion in student debt, often for worthless degrees, and wasting away one’s prime twenties and thirties.

Let universities pledge their endowments to guarantee their own loans. They should graduate students in four years. And they must slash the parasitical class of toxic administrative busybodies who cannot teach but can hector and bully.

Four, society needs to stop granting status on the basis of increasingly meaningless letters and titles after a name.

Skilled tradesmen like electricians and mechanics are noble professionals. And their status and compensation should reflect their value to society—far more so than a bachelor’s degree in a studies major or years vaporized in off-and-on college.

Finally, incentivize building homes, rather than overregulating and zoning them into unaffordability.

If the lost Gen Z is not found soon, the result for everyone will not be pretty.

Leftist Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota should be investigating the claims of a sprawling welfare-fraud network tied to the state’s Somali community – schemes that reportedly funneled taxpayer dollars overseas, including at least one terrorist group. Instead, her office’s social media team attempted, one day before Thanksgiving, to launch a propaganda campaign on affordability on X that backfired spectacularly, culminating in a humiliating Community Note that exposed her sheer cluelessness. 

Klobuchar’s X post attempted to blame the entire power bill crisis on President Trump, with a graphic showing a parabolic line rising to the right that would alarm anyone.

“Under President Trump, electricity prices are surging — up 11%! — leaving millions behind on their utility bills, with past-due balances at an all-time high,” Klobuchar wrote on X, adding, “American families deserve better.”

The Community Note read, “Joe Biden was President from January 20, 2021 – January 20, 2025. Also, this chart is not representing the cost of electricity. It is showing the average past-due balances of Americans, which soared since 2022 under Joe Biden’s presidency.”

However, many X users quickly called out her malarkey. One user, who writes for Townhall, doctored the chart to show the power bill crisis’s blame actually lies with former President Biden rather than President Trump.

You really thought you were doing something here, didn’t you? pic.twitter.com/oxKyb6U0wA

— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) November 26, 2025

Kyle Bass, founder and chief investment officer of Hayman Capital Management, pointed out that the entire post mirrors the same blunder the Democratic Party made with grocery prices propaganda earlier this year on X – what an epic screw up that was.

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

— 🇺🇸 Kyle Bass 🇹🇼 (@Jkylebass) November 26, 2025

X users respond:

Really thought you had something here, huh?

— Tony Kinnett (@TheTonus) November 26, 2025

You just showed that bills soared with Biden. You are welcome

— Daniel Lacalle (@dlacalle_IA) November 27, 2025

Who the heck was president from 2022 to 2024?

Because that person obviously did a lot of damage

— Pro America Politics (@Pro__Trading) November 27, 2025

LMAO Klobuchar shows America how big of a failure Biden was

— Cash Loren (@Cashloren) November 27, 2025

For those keeping track: pic.twitter.com/tEAkCtC0LW

— Mark Johnsen (@markjohnsen) November 27, 2025

Perhaps the Democratic Party should keep hiring DEI strategists from woke universities that teach more about Marxist gender ideology than actual statistics or basic chart reading. 

Authored by John Dunn via InfoWorld.com,

OpenAI has suffered a significant data breach after hackers broke into the systems of its analytics partner Mixpanel and successfully stole customer profile information for its API portal, the companies have said in coordinated statements.

According to a post by Mixpanel CEO Jen Taylor, the incident took place on November 8 when the company “detected a smishing campaign and promptly executed our incident response processes.”

Smishing is a form of phishing-by-SMS against targeted employees, popular with hackers because text messages bypass normal enterprise controls. This gave the attackers access to Mixpanel’s system, allowing them to steal a range of metadata relating to platform.openai.com account profiles:

• Name provided to OpenAI on the API account 

• Email address associated with the API account

• Approximate location based on API user browser (city, state, country)

• Operating system and browser used to access the API account

• Referring websites

• Organization or User IDs associated with the API account

“We proactively communicated with all impacted customers. If you have not heard from us directly, you were not impacted,” said Taylor.

According to a separate OpenAI post, Mixpanel shared the affected customer dataset with it on November 25. After review, OpenAI had terminated its use of Mixpanel, it said, implying that this might be permanent.

The incident affects some customers with platform.openai.com accounts, but not users of ChatGPT or other OpenAI products, OpenAI said.

“We are in the process of notifying impacted organizations, admins, and users directly. While we have found no evidence of any effect on systems or data outside Mixpanel’s environment, we continue to monitor closely for any signs of misuse,” OpenAI said.

“This was not a breach of OpenAI’s systems. No chat, API requests, API usage data, passwords, credentials, API keys, payment details, or government IDs were compromised or exposed.”

How should customers react?

There are three levels of concern here: which OpenAI API customers are affected, how attackers might use stolen data if they are, and the possibility, however hypothetical, that more valuable data such as API keys or account credentials could be at risk.

On the first issue, as noted above, both companies have said they have contacted customers caught up in the breach without specifying how many users are affected. OpenAI has set up an email address customers can use if they have further questions: mixpanelincident@openai.com. Mixpanel has set up an equivalent contact address: support@mixpanel.com⁠.

Nevertheless, if decades of data breaches have taught the world anything it’s that companies don’t always know the full extent of a data breach even when they say they do. For that reason, it would be wise for OpenAI customers who have not been contacted to conduct the same security review as those that have.

OpenAI said that customers should be on their guard for phishing attacks targeting breached email addresses and to check that messages that appear to be sent from OpenAI’s domain are genuine. They should also turn on multi-factor authentication (MFA).

If phishing sounds generic, in the context of an API connection the dangers are more specific and include more nuanced fake alerts for things like billing, quota messages, and suspicious logins.

According to OpenAI, there is no need for customers to rotate or reset account credentials or API keys, which attackers could use to steal data or consume services. Despite this, cautious developers are likely to ignore this and rotate and reset credentials because this removes the risk. 

Several organizations involved in API and AI security have offered more detailed breakdowns of recommendations in the light of the OpenAI-Mixpanel incident, including Ox Security, and Dev Community.

Downstream attack surface

OpenAI uses external analytics platforms such as Mixpanel to track how customers interact with models through the API. This includes which models a customer selects plus basic metadata such as location and email ID listed above. It does not track the user ‘payload’, that is chatbot queries and responses being sent to the model from a browser, which are encrypted.  

The latest incident underlines that the security of the primary platform is only one part of the risk: secondary platforms and partners are a backdoor that can expose even careful organizations, as some Salesforce customers have seen with data breaches at its partner Salesloft.

The attack surface exposed by AI platforms is bigger than it looks, a security and governance challenge enterprises should assess before jumping in with both feet.

As Americans celebrate Thanksgiving Day, the Russians and Ukrainians keep growing further apart regarding their respective positions on Trump’s peace plan. Trump’s tentative Thursday deadline to get the deal signed has come and gone.

This trend of division over the plan even among the Western allies is being aided in no small part by the hawkish statements of some European leaders, as well as NATO Secretary-Mark Rutte, the latter to who has just made clear that Russia has no veto over Kyiv’s bid to join NATO.

His words this week appear aimed at rebuffing the US deal, or at least giving the Ukrainians a better negotiating position. “Russia has neither a vote nor a veto over who can be a member of NATO,” Rutte said in an interview with El País and German outlet RND.

NATO’s founding Washington Treaty “allows any country in the Euro-Atlantic area to join,” he added, also as quoted in Politico.

The US-led proposal has a key condition placed on Kyiv, namely that “it will not accept Ukraine at any moment in the future.” However, the leaked European counter-proposal deletes this point, instead leaving future NATO accession wide open.

The European draft states that Ukraine’s potential NATO membership “depends on the consensus of NATO members, which does not exist.”

Strangely some Western leaders keep talking about the possibility of accession, dangling it in front of the Ukrainians, and yet Washington and others behind closed doors know that it would never happen, as it would mean certain direct war with Russia…

Zelensky’s former press secretary Iuliia Mendel:

“Uncompromising stance on NATO membership means we are knowingly sacrificing tens or hundreds of thousands of lives right now for a theoretical promise of security sometime in the distant future… a promise that may never… https://t.co/OGRakSFTcP

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) November 26, 2025

On giving up land, the European document says that any discussions on territorial exchanges would start from the current Line of Contact. Freezing the front lines is something President Zelensky has wanted to do all along. Moscow has seen in this a way of allowing Ukrainian forces to regroup and rearm. 

Zelensky is already not happy with the US version of the peace plan, as Ukraine would surrender the areas of Donbas it still controls, and the front lines would be frozen in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – where Russian forces also holds territory. Meanwhile President Putin has just reiterated his view that the Zelensky government is illegitimate, thus bringing into question whether it can legally sign a final deal. Needless to say, this presents yet another major barrier.

Authored by Mary Prenon via The Epoch Times,

With Amazon and Walmart gearing up for the coming holiday season, competing on delivery speed and massive deals, small store owners may be fighting an uphill battle. Yet many of them are confident this stretch could make—not break—them.

A Nov. 11 report from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) shows that its small business optimism index dipped to 98.2 in October, down by 0.6 points from September, while remaining above its long-term average. The organization’s chief economist, Bill Dunkelberg, attributed the slight decline in optimism to lower sales, reduced profits, and ongoing labor shortages.

Although the index remains above its 52-year average of 98—which Holly Wade, NFIB’s executive director of research, described in a podcast as “an OK space” for small businesses to be in—she said declining profits are a challenge worth watching.

Meanwhile, online marketing platform Constant Contact’s survey of nearly 2,000 small business owners shows that 77 percent of owners remain confident they’ll reach their revenue targets, despite challenges from inflation, tariffs, the government shutdown, and competition from larger retailers and online commerce.

Small business owners said that 10 percent to 50 percent of their annual sales stem from holiday purchases, according to the report.

An Uphill Battle

On the big retailer side, Amazon and Walmart are ramping up for the holiday season. Each held an early-season sales event—Amazon Prime Big Deal Days 2025 and Walmart Deals Event 2025—in October to attract early-bird gift shoppers.

Both companies also announced schedules for their big holiday sales, with Amazon’s spanning from Nov. 20 through Dec. 1—covering Black Friday week and Cyber Monday with deep discounts across categories—and Walmart’s having already kicked off on Nov. 14 and extending through Dec. 1 in two major waves.

With online sales hitting a record 22.7 percent of total U.S. retail sales in 2024—and the share growing every year except one since the Commerce Department began tracking the metric in 2000, according to a Digital Commerce 360 analysis—fast delivery has become a key battleground for major retailers, particularly Amazon and Walmart.

Walmart executives said during the company’s April 9 investment community meeting that the company is leveraging its far-reaching store network, along with its digital capabilities, to accelerate fast delivery.

CEO Doug McMillon, who is set to retire in early 2026, stated that the company’s same-day delivery program currently reaches 93 percent of U.S. households. John Furner, CEO of Walmart U.S., meanwhile, said the company will “soon be able to” deliver to 95 percent of U.S. households in less than three hours.

Amazon said in February that its same-day delivery program covered 140 U.S. metro areas. In June, the company announced plans to extend the service to 4,000 smaller cities, towns, and rural communities by year’s end.

Meghan Cruz, vice president of advocacy and engagement at the National Retail Federation, told The Epoch Times that the holiday shopping season is one of the most crucial times of the year for small businesses.

“These retailers operate on very thin margins, and this holiday season may make or break it for some small businesses that have been dealing with rising costs due to trade uncertainty,” Cruz said.

Mark Mathews, NRF’s chief economist and executive director of research, said in the report that although tariffs have put pressure on consumer prices, “retailers have tried to hold the line on prices given the uncertainty about trade policies.” He added that the economy has shown “surprising resilience.”

For some small retailers, still-elevated inflation could be a challenge as they try to keep customers happy while supporting their bottom line.

“Profit margins for smaller retailers might have to be lower, and if tariffs increase, they have a choice whether or not to pass that along to the customer,” Van Carlson, founder and CEO at Idaho-based risk assessment firm SRA 831(b) Admin, told The Epoch Times. “However, competition still exists, and they might not have the option to increase prices.

“I think this year they’ll be cautious and less likely to make big money decisions,” Carlson said.

Michael Cramer, Andy LaPointe, and Roberta Perry, small retail store owners in three different states, acknowledged their disadvantage against the two retail giants but expressed confidence in their sales this holiday season.

Offer What Amazon Can’t

For the past 26 years, Cramer has owned Adagio Teas, offering both loose and bagged teas in an assortment of flavors and varieties, as well as iced tea, teaware, tea cookies, scented candles, and gift sets. Based in Illinois, he also operates two brick-and-mortar stores located in Naperville and Skokie, and sells products online.

“I know I can’t compete with Amazon on prices, so the question centers on what I can offer that Amazon can’t,” he told The Epoch Times. “We narrow down the best selections out there, and we rely on personalization. We understand what our customers are looking for and we’re able to meet those needs.”

As a small retailer with roots in the local community, Cramer said people always know where to find him—unlike faceless online-only retailers.

“People tend to be more stressed out during the holidays and often wonder if their packages will arrive on time and in good shape,” he noted.

He relies on emails and social media to get the word out about holiday sales and special promotions. Some of Adagio Tea’s bestselling gifts include pre-boxed sampler sets offering a selection of four different teas. Prices range from $14 to $19.

“These are very affordable, but the way they’re packaged makes them look much more expensive,” he said.

The main thing for small retailers, Cramer noted, is to focus on showing customers how they’re different and what they can offer to personalize the shopper’s experience.

Andy LaPointe, owner of Travis Bay Farms in Michigan. Courtesy of Travis Bay Farms

LaPointe owns two retail locations for Traverse Bay Farms in Michigan, offering locally produced fruit juices, fruit-based dietary supplements, fruit salsa, dried fruit, barbecue sauces, preserves, and even cookbooks.

His Bellaire store opened in 2001, and his Elk Rapids outlet opened in 2011. Over the years, the business has won close to 40 national food awards.

“Our stores are unique—you can’t get this on Amazon or in ‘big box’ stores,” LaPointe told The Epoch Times. “We use as many local ingredients as we can for our products, and I think that’s something our customers really appreciate.”

Set on the banks of Lake Michigan, both locations are year-round tourist destinations. Nearby Traverse City is also known as the “Cherry Capital of the World.” The area is the largest producer of tart cherries in the United States and home to the National Cherry Festival as well as other cherry-themed events.

‘Experience Beats Convenience’

LaPointe often features salsa and jam tastings, as well as other product samplings, at both stores. While he does sell online, LaPointe noted that he has a loyal in-store customer following.

Part of his holiday sales strategy is transforming his stores into “mini holiday destinations,” complete with a train display, music, and product samples.  “Experience beats convenience,” he said. “When shoppers feel the connection, they don’t just buy, they belong.”

LaPointe’s “secret weapon” is the company’s “two-bowl strategy.”  Each store has two bowls by the checkout counters, with one offering an instant in-store discount and the other a coupon for a future date. The coupons can be used both in-house and online, and give customers a reason to return. “This simple experience bridges the offline-to-online gap and creates what I call holiday loyalty momentum,” he said.

Roberta Perry, owner of ScrubzBody Skin Care at her Long Island, New York store. Courtesy of ScrubzBody Skin Care

Perry, who has owned ScrubzBody Skin Care in Farmingdale, New York, for almost 20 years, also emphasizes experience.

The Long Island shop carries homemade scrubs, along with body lotions, oils, eye creams, shampoos, conditioners, and other related products. While Perry also sells products online, her core customers look forward to shopping in the store, especially during the holiday season.

“We’ve done the same thing for years—our ‘buy-one-get-one-free’ sale on the Friday before Thanksgiving,” she told The Epoch Times. “Our customers go wild, and it starts our holiday season off with a bang.”

Many of her customers order online and pick up at the store, while others choose to visit in person for the experience.

Occasionally, the store will feature special events and themed parties. “People work hard for their money, and we want to give them the experience, not just the products,” Perry said.

Perry is reluctant to compete with every other retailer on Black Friday, so this year, Nov. 21 will be the firm’s big sale day. Because it’s the week before Thanksgiving, Perry said people are less stressed, and there is no competition with Black Friday.

On Cyber Monday, the company offers free shipping, and by early December, most of Perry’s regular customers have already finished their holiday shopping.

“It’s just mind-blowing what this sale has turned into over the years,” Perry said. “We make enough money to cover us for months like January, when sales are really slow.”

Local Relationship Key

Tami Cannizzaro, chief marketing officer at Thryv, a small business software firm, deals with more than 100,000 small business owners throughout the country. The company’s main focus is to help small retailers get found online and turn leads into customers.

“It’s really important for small retailers to leverage that local relationship with their customers,” she told The Epoch Times. “National retailers cannot compete with that, especially when there’s an element of personal service.”

Cannizzaro suggests incorporating events such as small business shopping days along with other local retailers or “residents only” shopping days.

“This will make hyper-local people feel special and will also create an experience for them,” she said. Many of her clients have adopted special events such as “Wine Around Wednesdays,” where shops will offer wine and cheese while customers browse.

For the holidays, Cannizzaro recommends involving the local high school by inviting student singing groups that will bring in parents and friends. Inviting local artists or musicians is another way of creating an experience that customers won’t find online or in larger retail outlets.

“While the objective is to bring people into the store, retailers can’t ignore their online presence,” Cannizzaro said. “They need to make sure their website is optimized so that they can be found easily, and also ensure that all of their information is up-to-date.”

Best Deals Often Found in Stores

According to a recent survey involving more than 1,000 U.S. consumers, only 22 percent responded that they plan to shop exclusively in-store this holiday season, while more than 65 percent intend to shop both online and in-store.

“These hybrid trends could give smaller retailers an advantage, especially if they offer a flexible shopping experience,” Michael Podolsky, CEO and founder, told The Epoch Times.

Despite the high number of proposed online shoppers, the survey also discovered that more than 44 percent of shoppers admitted they have often found the best holiday shopping deals in stores.

“This is good news for brick-and-mortar retailers,” Podolsky added. “They can attract value-conscious customers through unique promotions, loyalty programs, and targeted discounts.”

The left’s addiction to reflexively blaming conservatives was on full display this week as New Yorker writer Jane Mayer used the ambush shooting of two National Guard members near the White House on Wednesday to criticize the troops’ presence rather than condemn the alleged attacker, 29-year-old Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal.

Mayer took to X within an hour of the broad daylight attack, while the wounded servicemen were still in critical condition, claiming the essential deployment “unnecessary.”

“This is so tragic, so unnecessary, these poor guardsmen should never have been deployed,” the anti-Trump journalist wrote. “I live in DC and watched as they had virtually nothing to do but pick up trash. It was for political show and at what a cost.”

This is so tragic, so unnecessary, these poor guardsmen should never have been deployed. I live in DC and watched as they had virtually nothing to do but pick up trash. It was for political show and at what a cost. https://t.co/ABkOHNHAvG

— Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) November 26, 2025

Mayer’s tweet drew instant fury from the White House, including Rapid Response X account branding the New Yorker writer a “sick, disgusting ghoul,” while affirming that the National Guard had “saved countless lives.” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung was even more fire and brimstone, writing, “Jane, respectfully, shut the fuck up for trying to politicize this tragedy. They were protecting DC and trying to make the nation’s capital safer.”

Jane, respectfully, shut the fuck up for trying to politicize this tragedy.

They were protecting DC and trying to make the nation’s capital safer.

People like you who engage in ghoulish behavior lose all credibility. Not like you had any to begin with. https://t.co/DzVX7Adg96

— Steven Cheung (@StevenCheung47) November 27, 2025

The National Guard’s presence was part of a necessary federal effort initiated when President Donald Trump ordered their deployment, along with other federal agents, starting August 11, after declaring a “crime emergency” to restore public safety. The intervention was demonstrably effective, according to D.C. police data. Combined violent crime dropped by 49% (from 180 to 92 incidents) in the 19 days following the deployment, compared to the same period the previous year.

However, the focus quickly shifted from Mayer to a deeper, more alarming national security failure.

Lakanwal was a former “partner force member” who worked with U.S. government entities, including the CIA. Federal sources characterized the calculated act against American personnel as a deliberate “ambush attack.”

Former CIA Director John Ratcliffe confirmed Lakanwal arrived in the U.S. just a month after then-President Joe Biden’s disastrous 2021 Afghanistan evacuation under “Operation Allies Welcome,” specifically because of his prior CIA affiliation.

“In the wake of the disastrous Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden administration justified bringing the alleged shooter to the United States in September 2021 due to his prior work with the U.S. government, including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar, which ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation,” Ratcliffe told Fox News.

“The individual—and so many others—should have never been allowed to come here,” Ratcliffe added. “Our citizens and service members deserve far better than to endure the ongoing fallout from the Biden administration’s catastrophic failures.”

Shortly after the attack, Trump vowed the responsible “animal” would “pay a very steep price.”

“The animal that shot the two National Guardsmen, with both being critically wounded, and now in two separate hospitals, is also severely wounded, but regardless, will pay a very steep price,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “God bless our Great National Guard, and all of our Military and Law Enforcement. These are truly Great People. I, as President of the United States, and everyone associated with the Office of the Presidency, am with you!”

Via The Cradle

A drone attack targeted a major natural gas field in Iraqi Kurdistan on Thursday, causing injuries to workers and major power cuts across the region.

“A drone struck a key gas storage facility at the field, causing extensive damage, and a fire is still burning,” a worker told Reuters in the aftermath of the attack.

All gas supplies to power stations in the Kurdistan region were halted following the attack on the Khor Mor gas field, causing widespread power outages, including in Erbil.

Firefighting teams were still working to contain the blaze that injured several workers. A field engineer speaking with Reuters estimated the damage to the main liquid-gas storage depot would take several days to repair.

The Khor Mor field is operated by the Pearl Consortium, which includes UAE-based Dana Gas and its affiliate Crescent Petroleum.

The Iraqi central government’s Security Media Cell said the field was hit in a “treacherous terrorist” attack and vowed to pursue those responsible. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

A separate drone targeted the field on Sunday but was shot down by Iraqi Kurdish security forces before it struck. The Kurdistan Region’s Deputy Prime Minister, Qubad Talabani, blamed the attack on “outlaw groups” and urged partners from the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat the Islamic State (ISIS) to provide the Kurdistan Region with “defense systems against such terrorist attacks.”

Aziz Ahmad, deputy chief of staff to the Kurdistan Region’s prime minister, claimed that “terrorists on the federal government’s payroll” were responsible for the drone strike, in an apparent reference to Shia armed groups known as the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU).

⚡️BREAKING

A drone has just struck the Khor Mor oil and gas field in Iraq

It is largely operated by companies from the United Arab Emirates pic.twitter.com/eU5ABDJIko

— Iran Observer (@IranObserver0) November 26, 2025

The PMU is part of the Iraqi resistance that fired drones and missiles at Israel in response to the genocide in Gaza that began in October 2023.

On November 4, a massive explosion at the PMU headquarters south of Baghdad killed one person amid reports of Israel preparing a new front with the country to target Iran-backed resistance groups.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

This year there have been more news articles than ever about “how to survive Thanksgiving”.  If you have not noticed this, I will provide some examples for you in this article.  Personally, the idea that Thanksgiving is an ordeal that must be endured is deeply offensive to me.  If eating a feast while surrounded by people that love you is too much of a burden, please stay home.  Thanksgiving is a day when we our not supposed to be focused on ourselves.  Instead, it is a day when we are supposed to give thanks.  In fact, according to the original Thanksgiving declaration that George Washington issued in 1789, there is someone in particular that we are supposed to give thanks to on this day.  But in our “me-centered” society, that has been completely forgotten.

I love Thanksgiving.  When I was a child, we would stop for one day to eat some turkey and give thanks for our blessings.  But today the Thanksgiving holiday has become an entire season.  The weekend before Thanksgiving is a travel weekend, many take the entire week off, and the weekend after Thanksgiving is the time when people travel home.

I kind of like that.  The more time that we can take to spend with the people that love us the better.

But many media outlets seem to think that spending time with family and friends is a problem.  For example, here is one article about Thanksgiving that discusses “the stresses that a family get-together can create”…

Thanksgiving is an interesting holiday. Some celebrate it as an American tradition. Others look at it as simply an excuse to get together with family to watch some football. And still others just enjoy getting an extra day off from work or try to ignore it altogether. But however you regard it, there are often two areas in which many of us can use help: preparing the traditional Thanksgiving meal and dealing with the stresses that a family get-together can create — especially these days, when conversations around the dinner table may be even more fraught than usual.

Yes, human relationships are complicated.

But that doesn’t mean that we should just isolate ourselves.

A big part of life is learning how to love imperfect people.

Because if you can’t love imperfect people, you aren’t going to love anyone, because nobody is perfect.

Many of the articles about “how to survive Thanksgiving” are focused on how to deal with family members.  The following comes from an article entitled “How to Survive Thanksgiving with a Crazy Family”…

Every Thanksgiving, millions of Americans prepare for what just might be the most family time they’ve had in a while. For some this is great. It is a reunion full of hugs and catching up. For most, it’s a politically charged, possibly drunken, exchange of fighting words, news stories, and my favorite, family drama. While my family is, admittedly, crazy, we normally shy away from such emotionally charged topics. But there is always an instigator in each family who enjoys sparring with family, watching the flames come up from the ground and engulf their family until it’s time to eat so much they enter a comatose state, lie on the couch, and forget the pain they’ve inflicted.

Many of these articles suggest that we should just avoid talking about anything important during Thanksgiving.

Really?

What are we supposed to do?

Talk about the weather for three hours?

Political talk at Thanksgiving is something that mainstream news outlets seem to particularly dislike.  I found an ABC News article entitled “How to survive political talk at Thanksgiving dinner” to be particularly amusing…

It’s Thanksgiving, you’re enjoying your favorite foods at the dinner table, when a family member brings up who they voted for in the 2024 presidential election.

Arguments ensue.

The food doesn’t taste as good.

And now everyone’s a politician.

People have political opinions.

And that is okay.

If we can’t learn how to peacefully interact with those that we disagree with, we are going to be in big trouble.

If we had a society that actually valued the marketplace of ideas, we would relish the opportunity to chat with those that hold opposing views.

But instead we are trained to cringe at the thought of having to do that.  Here is an excerpt from a Vogue article entitled “How to Survive Politics-Talk at Thanksgiving (Without Losing Your Mind)”…

Thanksgiving is almost upon us, and given that we’re fresh off one of the most contentious and politically charged seasons of our time, it’s probably not realistic to expect a holiday to be totally free of drama.

If you’re one of the lucky few whose family is united around political issues, treasure those peaceful conversations at the Thanksgiving table; for the rest of us, it can be challenging to know how best to talk to loved ones (or, to be real, tolerated-out-of-necessity ones) about anything substantive. Besides, for many of us, these issues aren’t “just politics;” they directly affect the way we live our lives and the safety and happiness of our families and friends.

If you disagree with me, that is okay.

And if I disagree with you, that is okay too.

Today, many people are actually completely cutting themselves off from their families due to political differences.

That is so wrong, but it is happening on a widespread basis.

Recently, Oprah Winfrey committed an entire podcast to people that have chosen to go “no contact” with their relatives…

When is it OK to go “no contact” with a family member? And what even is “no contact,” really?

Oprah Winfrey explored these questions on “The Oprah Podcast,” in an episode released Tuesday, Nov. 25, ahead of Thanksgiving. In the episode, audience members opened up about cutting off all contact with close relatives − even their parents.

“I know this is a tender, hot-button topic,” Winfrey said in the episode. “My hope is that we can open up the heart space and really listen. I’m not on anybody’s side. I just want to hear what everyone has to say.”

A USA Today article about that podcast explained precisely what it means to go “no contact” with someone…

“No contact” is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: You cut off all communication with someone. This means no meet-ups, no phone calls, no texting and no interaction on social media. If you happen to run into each other, you either avoid them or keep the interactions short and emotionally neutral.

I know so many children that no longer have contact with their parents, and I know so many parents that no longer have contact with their children.

It is a nationwide epidemic, and it is a great tragedy.

But this is what our society has become.

We have been trained to hate anyone that disagrees with us, and that even includes our own family members.

One of these days so many people are going to look back and wish that they could have done things differently.

If you find yourself wishing that you had done things differently, this Thanksgiving is a great opportunity to change direction.

In 1789, President George Washington issued the very first Thanksgiving proclamation.

He designated the 26th day of November to be a day when Americans were to humble themselves and give thanks to God for the blessings that He had bestowed upon our young nation…

By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor– and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be– That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks–for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation–for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war–for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed–for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted–for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions– to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually–to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed–to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord–To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us–and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

The vast majority of the population has totally forgotten what Thanksgiving is supposed to be all about.

But it is not too late to reverse course.

I would encourage everyone to humble themselves and give thanks at some point over the next few days.

You will be amazed at how your perspective changes once you have done that.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.