The Morning Sixpack - December 5, 2025
Anti-woke infomercial star claims YouTube “discrimination,” a Sombrero for Noem birthday sparks backlash, Texas maps get a SCOTUS assist, Patel faces FBI turmoil, and Netflix’s mega-deal
ACIP Buckles as RFK Jr.’s Panel Weakens Hepatitis B Birth Shot Guidance
A decades-old public health win just got tossed into the political blender.
In a move that’s already setting off alarms across the medical community, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s hand-selected vaccine panel voted to scrap the universal recommendation that all newborns receive a hepatitis B shot at birth. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices now says parents should decide—alongside a provider—whether to give the birth dose if the mother tests negative for the virus.
Eight members voted yes and three voted no, but the dissent carried the kind of weight you don’t ignore. As Dr. Joseph Hibbeln warned, “This has a great potential to cause harm, and I hope that the committee accepts the responsibility when this harm is caused.” The committee’s new guidance would delay vaccination until at least two months old for babies who skip the birth dose.
Doctors who’ve spent their careers watching hepatitis B fade from the pediatric landscape are openly frustrated. Dr. Cody Meissner didn’t mince words, arguing that pediatricians should stick with the current protocol: administer the shot within 24 hours of birth, before hospital discharge. To him, “To follow any other course is not in the interest of infants.” He added that more children will be injured and infections will inevitably rise.
And the data backs him up. The CDC’s existing recommendation—still awaiting formal reversal by the agency’s acting director—has cut childhood hepatitis B infections by 99% over three decades, preventing more than 6 million infections and nearly 1 million hospitalizations. Experts warn that undoing this success story isn’t just unwise; it’s an invitation for the virus to make an entirely preventable comeback.
Source: CNBC
Editor: If you’re going to dismantle one of the most effective vaccination policies ever created, you’d better bring data—not vibes. Turning a 30-year public health triumph into a choose-your-own-adventure is how you get exactly the ending no one wants.
Trump White House Puts Netflix–WBD Mega-Deal Under a Harsh Spotlight
When a $72 billion media marriage hits Washington, you can bet politics wants a seat at the head table.
The Trump administration is signaling “heavy skepticism” toward Netflix’s proposed $72 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery’s film studio and HBO Max—an enormous swing that would reshape the streaming landscape overnight. A senior White House official made the administration’s posture crystal clear, and it’s not exactly a warm embrace.
Adding intrigue: Paramount Skydance, led by David Ellison—whose family is notably friendly with Trumpworld—has been aggressively bidding to buy all of WBD itself. Ellison even trekked to D.C. this week to lobby lawmakers and administration officials, making sure Netflix felt the political heat. This is what happens when corporate ambition meets Beltway ego.
Paramount’s argument? Netflix would become too powerful. In a letter to WBD’s lawyers, the company warned the sale would likely “never close” thanks to regulatory roadblocks here and abroad. As they put it, “Acquiring Warner’s streaming and studio assets ‘will entrench and extend Netflix’s global dominance in a manner not allowed by domestic or foreign competition laws.’” Translation: Netflix would go from giant to colossus, and everyone else would be playing for scraps.
Meanwhile, Netflix is charging ahead with confidence, announcing Friday that it intends to buy Warner’s studio and HBO Max outright. But the Trump administration’s cold stare could become a real problem. Deals this size don’t glide—they grind, especially when politics decides to climb into the cockpit.
Whether this deal becomes a landmark merger or a very expensive pipe dream will hinge on who wins the influence battle: Silicon Valley’s streaming titan or an Ellison-backed rival with friends in high places.
Source: mydailygrind.news
Editor: Every time a massive corporate deal crosses Pennsylvania Avenue, suddenly everyone pretends to care about “competition law.” Amazing how righteous the market becomes when someone else’s empire is about to get bigger than yours.
GOP Senators Keep Pete Hegseth at Arm’s Length as Pentagon Turmoil Deepens
Republicans are clearly tired of Hegseth’s controversies—but no one wants to poke the Trump bear.
Pete Hegseth’s tenure atop the newly renamed Department of War has become a rolling storm cloud over Capitol Hill, and GOP senators are doing verbal gymnastics to avoid saying what they really think. They’re frustrated, they’re exhausted, and they’re not rushing to defend him—but they’re also not about to cross President Trump, who muscled Hegseth through a bruising confirmation back in January.
Sen. Thom Tillis, whose vote sealed that confirmation, sounded downright baffled by Hegseth’s recent missteps. He pointed to the secretary’s reckless decision to share sensitive operational information in a Signal chat that—because of course—accidentally included a journalist. As Tillis put it, “You just got to own it if you share classified information outside of classified channels… Just accept it.” But Hegseth hasn’t exactly been owning much lately.
Then came the Caribbean strike fiasco. Hegseth dismissed early reporting about a follow-up missile strike on two survivors of a destroyed vessel as “fake news”—only for the White House to confirm the strike the next day. Tillis called it “bush league,” reminding Hegseth that precision is kind of the whole point when you’re running the Pentagon. Sen. Joni Ernst described his tenure as “bumpy,” which is Capitol Hill code for: this isn’t going well.
Some Republicans want the full story. Sen. Rand Paul demanded Hegseth testify under oath about the orders behind the follow-up strike, bluntly insisting the American public see the video of the survivors being bombed. Democrats, led by Sen. Chuck Schumer, echoed that demand: release the tapes or explain what’s being hidden.
Behind the scenes, GOP senators admit there’s “a lot of frustration” with Hegseth—from the Signal debacle to halting Ukraine aid without Trump’s full blessing to his swaggering rebrand of the Pentagon as the Department of War. Still, they note military recruitment is up and that Trump remains firmly in his corner. And as Senate leaders keep repeating, Hegseth “serves at the pleasure of the president.” Translation: they’re not firing him unless Trump does first.
What is clear is that the controversies are piling up, and Hegseth’s credibility is eroding with every contradiction and cleanup briefing. Even the Pentagon’s inspector general is now flagging his actions as potentially dangerous to U.S. troops. Senators may not say it outright, but their silence speaks loudly.
Source: The Hill
Editor: Republicans pretending this is all fine while inching away from Hegseth like he’s a sparking electrical box tells you everything. Loyalty to Trump is one thing; babysitting a Cabinet secretary who keeps generating headline-level chaos is another.
Supreme Court Hands Texas GOP a Win—and a Blueprint for Future Gerrymanders
The Court just blessed Texas’ turbocharged partisan map and, in the process, taught every state how to get away with an illegal gerrymander.
A sharply divided Supreme Court stepped in Thursday to keep Texas’ new congressional map—engineered at President Trump’s urging and designed to hand Republicans five more House seats—fully in place for next year’s elections. That move freezes a lower-court ruling that found the map likely discriminates against Black and Latino voters, and it effectively lets Texas run 2026 elections under districts that may be unconstitutional. The majority said lawmakers were clumsily partisan, not racially discriminatory—an eyebrow-raiser in its own right.
Justice Elena Kagan, in a blistering dissent, warned that “many Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race.” She noted that the Court’s intervention rewards Texas for passing its new map late, knowing full well litigation would be ongoing—exactly the kind of maneuver the Court now appears willing to indulge.
Thursday’s ruling wasn’t just a win for Texas Republicans; it was a masterclass in how to game the Purcell principle, the doctrine that supposedly prevents courts from tinkering with election rules too close to voting. Justice Samuel Alito argued the Court’s hands were tied because the election is “too near”—never mind that it’s 11 months away and Texas could move its March primary. That’s a breathtaking stretch of Purcell, which stems from a 2006 case decided just weeks before an election. Now, apparently, nearly a year qualifies as the “eve.”
The Court has pulled this maneuver before—upholding GOP maps in Alabama and Louisiana far from actual voting—but this time the logic has been stripped to the studs. As Kagan put it, Texas “chose” to redraw its map in August, leaving challengers and the courts scrambling, and the Court is now rewarding the delay. She warned that this interpretation of Purcell “gives every State the opportunity to hold an unlawful election.” All they have to do is run out the clock.
Texas Republicans, unsurprisingly, are celebrating. Attorney General Ken Paxton declared the ruling a defense of the state’s “fundamental right” to ensure representation by Republicans and even dubbed the plan “the Big Beautiful Map.” Gov. Greg Abbott chimed in: “We won! Texas is officially—and legally—more red.” Meanwhile, Democrats blasted the maps as racially rigged and accused the Court of handing Trump exactly what he wanted.
Make no mistake—this map wasn’t subtle. It wiped out five coalition districts, trimmed minority-majority districts from 16 to 14, and drew new “majority” districts for Hispanic and Black voters that are so razor-thin they could easily flip under higher turnout from white voters. Even the district court judges who reviewed the evidence—one appointed by Trump, one by Obama—concluded the plan diluted minority voting power. Trump-appointed Judge Jeffrey Brown wrote that it was “much more than just politics,” while Reagan-appointed Judge Jerry Smith responded by calling that conclusion worthy of a “Nobel Prize for Fiction.”
And all of this unfolds as red states (and blue states eager to retaliate) accelerate their map-making arms race. With the Supreme Court blessing this timing trick, state legislatures now have a simple playbook: pass your gerrymander late enough, cry Purcell, and lock it in for the cycle.
Source: AP News, Talking Points Memo
Editor: The Court keeps insisting it’s powerless—yet somehow always powerful enough to cement whatever map Republicans rush through at the last minute. Amazing Typical how “the eve of an election” keeps expanding to fit whatever timeline the majority needs.
Kristi Noem’s Birthday Sombrero Blows Up Into a Cultural and Political Firestorm
The woman leading the nation’s largest mass deportation of Hispanics decided to celebrate her birthday in a Mexican restaurant—what could possibly go wrong?
Kristi Noem rang in her 54th birthday at Santo Tequila in Watertown, South Dakota, where staff placed a bright pink-and-yellow sombrero on her head and sang “Happy Birthday” in Spanish. Under normal circumstances, it would’ve been a harmless, slightly cheesy celebration. But Noem isn’t a normal customer—she’s the DHS secretary responsible for President Trump’s sweeping ICE raids and the biggest Hispanic deportation campaign in U.S. history. Cue the internet meltdown.
The restaurant—caught in the political crossfire—immediately took heat. The Daily Mail learned Santo Tequila received a wave of angry calls, most from Hispanic customers furious the establishment served Noem at all. One Redditor summed up the mood bluntly: “If it’s a true Mexican restaurant, f* them for sitting her and her family.” Others questioned why she wasn’t asked to leave, arguing that businesses should refuse service to those enforcing the crackdown on migrants.
Some of the online reaction veered into dark comedy, with commenters joking about spit in the food or quipping that Noem deported the staff after the song. The irony was the throughline—Noem smiling under a sombrero while leading nationwide raids targeting the very communities whose culture she was gleefully borrowing for the night. A Facebook user asked the obvious: “Can ya see the irony in this?”
Santo Tequila’s staff, meanwhile, insists they were just doing their jobs. The manager told the Daily Mail they had no idea who she was; they simply gave her the same treatment any birthday guest receives—hat, song, sparkler dessert, the works. But the fallout was immediate. “The day that Kristi came in I received a lot of phone calls… There was a lot of hate,” he said. Still, he stressed the restaurant’s ethos: everyone is welcome, politics aside.
Noem hasn’t addressed the uproar, and DHS wouldn’t touch it either. But the whole episode underscores a simple truth: optics matter. And if you’re running the most aggressive deportation regime in modern history, maybe skip the sombrero.
Source: Daily Mail
Editor: Nothing says “I totally understand the communities I’m uprooting” like plopping on a party-store sombrero and grinning for the cameras. You couldn’t script the irony any tighter if you tried.
Kash Patel Accused of Turning FBI Resources Into a Chauffeur Service for His Girlfriend — and Her Friends
The FBI director is now battling allegations that he diverted elite SWAT agents to drive his girlfriend’s allegedly drunk friend home after a night out. Yes, this is where we are.
Kash Patel’s leadership of the FBI is under fresh scrutiny after multiple sources told MS NOW that he ordered agents assigned to protect his girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins, to escort one of her inebriated friends home—on more than one occasion. Agents reportedly objected, noting the task had nothing to do with Wilkins’ protection, but Patel allegedly berated the detail leader until they complied. The bureau publicly denies the incidents ever happened, but the story has spread through FBI circles like wildfire.
Wilkins, 27, has her own dedicated FBI security detail made up of elite SWAT operators—a level of personal protection no FBI director has ever extended to a girlfriend. Former agents were already stunned by Patel diverting tactical teams from their mission to shuttle Wilkins around Nashville. But when they learned agents were also being told to handle her friends, disbelief turned to outrage. As one retired agent put it, “directing these highly trained professionals to babysit his girlfriend’s friend is outrageous, and demonstrative of Kash Patel’s complete lack of judgment and integrity.”
These allegations emerge alongside a damning internal report prepared for congressional committees that portrays Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino as volatile, overwhelmed and leaving the bureau “rudderless.” Patel is described as insecure, prone to tantrums and visibly rattled under scrutiny. One Trump-supporting agent even said Patel “lacks the requisite experience” to serve as FBI director—a brutal assessment from inside his own ranks.
The report also recounts Patel’s behavior after the assassination of activist Charlie Kirk, including a profanity-laced tirade at the Salt Lake City field office and an insistence on having agents fetch him a perfectly sized raid jacket—complete with borrowed shoulder patches—before stepping off his FBI jet for cameras. Patel says that story is “100% false,” but stacked against the mounting complaints, it’s not exactly an outlier.
Meanwhile, President Trump is reportedly weighing whether to remove Patel after a series of embarrassing episodes, including the FBI jet “date night” to see Wilkins perform in Pennsylvania. Patel insists he’s simply living a normal life within the rules, saying, “I’m entitled to a personal life… I am a steward of the taxpayer dollars.” The comparison many former agents draw instead is to William Sessions—the only FBI director ever fired for abusing government perks.
But even Sessions didn’t send federal tactical teams to tuck in the pop star’s friends.
Source: MS NOW
Editor: It’s amazing how quickly “serve and protect” turns into “pick up my girlfriend’s friends from girls’ night.” Hard to project strength from the Hoover Building when your SWAT teams are basically running errands.
BONUS
ShamWow Pitchman–Turned–Candidate Says YouTube Suppression Is Like “Back of the Bus” Discrimination
Vince Shlomi is running for Congress—and comparing his YouTube analytics to Jim Crow.
Vince Shlomi, the infomercial icon behind “ShamWow” and “Slap Chop,” has entered the political arena with all the subtlety of a late-night sales pitch. Now running for Congress in Texas’ 31st District, Shlomi told Newsmax that YouTube’s alleged suppression of his anti-woke parody video is not just unfair but “illegal” discrimination—equating low view counts to being forced to the “back of the bus.” He also tossed in a bizarre analogy about Jewish people being handed ham sandwiches. When your campaign rhetoric sounds like a rejected Cards Against Humanity card, you may need to recalibrate.
Shlomi insists the platform is hiding his “Woke Busters” video—a Ghostbusters-style sketch in which he sprays slime on a transgender person. The video has under 35,000 views on YouTube, but, he claims, “millions” on other platforms. His conclusion: bigotry, not the content, is to blame. “The big tech company…suppresses the video, hides the video,” he said. “That’s kind of like discrimination! Like putting you in the back of the bus.” No word yet on whether Rosa Parks would endorse that comparison.
His campaign origin story is equally unorthodox. Shlomi says two events inspired his run: the assassination of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk and what he views as YouTube’s attempt to silence him. He even timed the release of the “Woke Busters” video for Kirk’s birthday—though YouTube shows it posted two days later. Regardless, the candidate is leaning hard into culture-war grievance as his political platform.
Shlomi also attacked incumbent Rep. John Carter—newly endorsed by Donald Trump—claiming Carter failed to stop illegal immigration. If he were in charge, Shlomi bragged, he’d be at the border daily handing undocumented migrants ShamWows and Slap Chops and telling them to “go home.” Nothing says serious policymaking like repurposing infomercial props as immigration strategy.
And then there’s his legislative vision: “The Thoughtism Bill.” Under it, discrimination based on political views becomes “thoughtism”—a term Shlomi invented—and crimes motivated by it would be elevated to hate crimes. Asked if he had any other policy priorities, he offered just one: “Maybe get some free [water] filters for our constituents.” Bold stuff.
If this is the future of celebrity politics, buckle up—our democracy may need more than a ShamWow to clean it up.
Source: Raw Story
Editor: Comparing YouTube’s algorithm to segregation isn’t just tone-deaf—it’s a masterclass in failing upward. If your entire platform is built on a parody video and a towel commercial, maybe rethink the congressional bid before you start drafting hate-crime statutes around your own feelings.