The Morning Sixpack - November 27, 2025 [Thanksgiving Edition]

Musk’s Nashville tunnel stalls as unpaid contractors walk off, ACA subsidies divide the GOP, Trump officials dodge asylum questions, and ICE detains a DACA mom tied to the White House's Leavitt

First off, Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who celebrate. We do, but only for the family & food. Speaking of food, I was up late last night brining the turkey for the smoker.

Enjoy!

Now let’s get to the important stuff first! What’s in YOUR chicken noodle soup?

What’s Lurking Inside That Cozy Can of Campbell’s Chicken Soup

Campbell’s just learned that nothing ruins nostalgia faster than an executive allegedly trash-talking your signature soup.

The company moved fast this week—firing an executive who was reportedly caught on tape calling Campbell’s soups “highly processed,” made for “poor people,” and even claiming they used lab-grown and 3-D printed chicken. Campbell’s blasted the comments as “patently absurd,” but the whole episode pulled the lid off a long-simmering question: what’s actually in that can so many of us grew up with?

Inside, you’ll find the classics—chicken stock, egg noodles, carrots, celery, and chicken raised without antibiotics—alongside the modern pantry regulars: salt, MSG, cornstarch, and beta carotene. Dietitians say the biggest red flag isn’t mystery meat; it’s sodium. A single can of Homestyle Chicken Noodle can punch past 2,200 milligrams. As one expert put it, “You’re going to probably eat a whole can.”

That sodium load isn’t just a flavor boost. Researchers link ultraprocessed ingredients like MSG, “natural flavoring,” and soy protein isolate to diets that track with obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Campbell’s says consumers who want less salt can choose from low-sodium and unsalted versions, and it insists it’s “proud of the food we make and the high-quality ingredients we use.”

Still, experts warn that sodium-heavy, hyperpalatable foods are engineered to make us keep dipping the spoon. One researcher explained how salt “makes us over consume, that makes us gain weight and then that’s associated with a whole host of negative health consequences.” But if you want a can? Go ahead—just keep the rest of your day’s salt in check.

Source: WSJ

Editor: Campbell’s may not be printing its chicken on a 3-D bioplotter, but it is printing profits off our blood pressure. Maybe the real recipe is one part nostalgia, one part salt lick.

Republicans Can’t Decide Whether to Keep ACA Subsidies—or Torch the Whole Thing

Twenty-four million Americans are about to feel the squeeze as enhanced ACA subsidies expire, and Republicans still can’t agree whether to save them or bury them.

With the Dec. 15 deadline for 2026 enrollment fast approaching, GOP lawmakers are split between extending subsidies they’ve spent a decade denouncing or letting them lapse and hoping voters don’t blame them for the price spike. It’s a familiar GOP storyline: policy whiplash meets political self-preservation.

One camp wants to extend the enhanced subsidies for a couple of years, including the bipartisan group behind a bill from Reps. Don Bacon, Tom Suozzi, Josh Gottheimer, and Jeff Hurd. Their proposal keeps the boosted tax credits for families earning under $200,000, tapers them for those up to $300,000, and adds “ghost beneficiary” fraud guardrails. It even lengthens open enrollment to May 15, a nod to the sticker shock many buyers are about to experience. A similar Bacon-backed bill trims Medicare Advantage “upcoding” excess to help pay for the extension.

Another slice of the GOP wants only a one-year fix—like the bill from Rep. Jen Kiggans and her 14 Republican allies—aimed at insulating vulnerable incumbents. But across the Capitol, Sen. Bill Cassidy is pushing the opposite direction: let the enhanced subsidies die, then funnel that money into health savings accounts for people in high-deductible ACA plans. His pitch? HSAs put patients—not insurers—in the driver’s seat. His problem? HSAs don’t pay premiums, don’t help people who can’t afford deductibles, and don’t fix anything for patients with expensive chronic conditions.

Then comes Sen. Rick Scott, whose proposal goes well beyond Cassidy’s. His plan replaces ACA subsidies with “Trump Health Freedom Accounts,” letting states waive key ACA protections and greenlight ultra-skimp insurance—including plans that can exclude people with pre-existing conditions. The result could unravel entire state ACA marketplaces as healthy people peel off into cheaper, weaker plans, leaving sicker patients stranded in costlier ones.

Hovering above it all is Donald Trump—saying one thing, leaking another, then saying the opposite. A reported White House trial balloon suggested a two-year extension with new guardrails and incentives for high-deductible plans. But Trump quickly walked away from it, insisting he’d “rather not” extend subsidies at all, unless he can trade them for something bigger. A decade after the GOP swore it would repeal and replace the law, they’re still arguing over which lever to pull first.

Source: The Hill

Watching Republicans debate ACA subsidies is like watching someone bicker with a smoke alarm—furious it exists, terrified to yank the batteries, and still somehow surprised when the house fills with smoke.

Trump Officials Dodge Key Question: When Did the D.C. Gunman Get Asylum?

A veteran reporter has now flagged what Trump officials refuse to say out loud: exactly when the suspected D.C. gunman’s asylum was approved.

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro identified the suspect as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national living in Washington state. But when FBI Director Kash Patel was asked point-blank whether Lakanwal’s asylum was granted under Trump—as multiple outlets have reported—Patel sidestepped and pointed to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s remarks, which, as MS NOW’s David Rohde noted, never actually answered the question.

BREAKING: Afghan National Identified as Suspect in White House-Area Ambush of National Guard Troops

Lakanwal arrived in the U.S. in 2021 under a Biden-era program following the Afghanistan withdrawal. According to CNN and other outlets, he was granted asylum in April 2025—squarely during the Trump administration. As Rohde put it, “There is reporting… about this, the gunman receiving asylum during the Trump administration,” yet the administration won’t confirm what public records and reporting already show.

Rohde also highlighted the premeditation involved: Lakanwal allegedly drove across the entire country to carry out the attack. “It also shows how hard it is to find someone when they drive across the country and have weapons in a car,” he said, citing similar cases that highlight the limits of law-enforcement visibility when someone is determined and mobile.

Pressed again Thursday, Patel recited DHS’s timeline—that Lakanwal was paroled into the U.S. on Sept. 8, 2021; applied for asylum in 2024; and was approved in 2025—while shifting blame to the previous administration for “zero vetting.” When asked directly for the asylum timeline, he again pointed reporters back to DHS instead of acknowledging the political landmine: the approval happened on Trump’s watch.

Source: Raw Story

Editor: Amazing how fast officials discover the mute button when the facts land in their own backyard. Accountability shouldn’t require spelunking through evasions.

Woman With Ties to White House Press Secretary Held by ICE for Two Weeks With No Clear Explanation

A Massachusetts mother with family ties to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has spent two weeks in ICE custody after being pulled over on her way to pick up her son—and no one in the administration seems willing to explain why.

Bruna Ferreira, 33, was detained Nov. 12 in Revere, Massachusetts, without being told the reason, according to her attorney, Todd Pomerleau. What followed, he said, was an “unconstitutional merry-go-round” that bounced her from Massachusetts to New Hampshire to Vermont to Louisiana—all while her 11-year-old son wondered where his mother had gone after school. Ferreira shares custody with her former fiancé, Michael Leavitt, the press secretary’s brother, and has long maintained a cooperative co-parenting arrangement.

Pomerleau insists she shouldn’t have been detained at all: “She’s not dangerous. She’s not a flight risk. She’s not a criminal illegal alien.” Ferreira came to the U.S. from Brazil as a toddler, later enrolled in DACA, and was in the process of applying for a green card. DHS now claims she overstayed a tourist visa that required her to leave in 1999 and cites a “previous arrest for battery”—a charge her attorney strongly denies and for which no public record appears to exist. Local court searches found only two minor traffic violations from 2020.

“They’re claiming she has some type of criminal record we’ve seen nowhere,” Pomerleau said. “She would’ve been deported years ago if that was true.” Meanwhile, neither her ex-fiancé nor the White House press secretary has addressed the case. DHS has confirmed only that Ferreira is being held in Louisiana while the administration continues its broader effort to reshape immigration policy, including a tougher posture toward DACA recipients.

The agency underscored that point in a recent statement: people “who claim to be recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) are not automatically protected from deportations. DACA does not confer any form of legal status in this country.” In other words, Ferreira’s fate remains in bureaucratic limbo—with her son caught in the middle.

Source: AP News

Editor: Nothing says ‘family values’ like letting a mom vanish into ICE limbo while officials dodge the microphones. If this is the “orderly system” they keep promising, I’d hate to see the chaotic version.

After a Year of Promises, Trump Finally Reveals His Transition Donors—But Not the Amounts

One year after pledging transparency, President Trump finally released the names of donors behind his transition—just not the dollar figures that would actually tell the public who bought how much access.

The list includes 46 donors, featuring billionaires like Jeff Yass and Paul Singer, along with several who later landed administration jobs. The transition team said it raised just over $14 million and spent $13.7 million, but offered no breakdown of who gave what. Instead, spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez insisted Trump “is not bought by anyone,” dismissing concerns as baseless—an oddly defensive statement for a disclosure that reveals less than it claims.

Several donors were rewarded with powerful posts: Linda McMahon and Howard Lutnick, both transition co-chairs, are now the secretaries of education and commerce. Steve Witkoff, who donated, became Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East. Stanley Woodward Jr. now sits in the No. 3 spot at the Justice Department. And Dominick Gerace II was confirmed as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio. Those connections alone are enough to make watchdogs reach for the red flags.

What’s raising even more eyebrows is how Trump structured the transition in the first place. Late last year, the team refused to sign the standard GSA agreement that would have required donor transparency and capped contributions at $5,000—rules Trump complied with in 2016. Instead, the second Trump transition sidestepped limits entirely and likely accepted far larger checks. Susie Wiles, now chief of staff, said skipping the agreement was about “saving taxpayers’ money,” but watchdogs say the real savings were political: no limits, no scrutiny, no sunlight.

That lack of transparency is exactly what concerns groups like the Partnership for Public Service, whose new report says the Trump transition departed sharply from norms—starting late, outsourcing major duties to conservative think tanks, and creating a process ripe for conflicts of interest. The report urges Congress to mandate future transitions publicly reveal donor names and spending to prevent exactly this kind of ambiguity.

The nonprofit running the transition—Trump Vance 2025 Transition Inc.—must ultimately file a financial report with the IRS. While it won’t have to reveal donor identities, it must show money raised and spent. The Times has requested that filing and expects it in the coming days. For now, the public is left with a list of names, unanswered questions, and the unmistakable aroma of influence wafting through the West Wing.

Source: NY Times

Editor: A donor list without the dollars is like releasing a menu without the prices—you already know who’s picking up the check, you’re just being denied the receipt.

Deadbeat CEO gives us another reason to dislike Elon Musk

Nashville Tunnel Project Derails as Contractor Says Musk’s Boring Company “Ghosted” Them on Six-Figure Payments

Elon Musk’s Boring Company just hit a wall in Nashville—because the crew building its launch site walked off after allegedly being stiffed on nearly all their pay.

The “Music City Loop,” pitched as a privately funded tunnel connecting downtown Nashville to the airport, is now in serious jeopardy after Shane Trucking and Excavating pulled its workers off the job. Owner William Shane says The Boring Company has gone silent on invoices totaling six figures, paying only about 5% of what’s owed. Payment terms slipped from 15 days to 60, and now more than 120 days have passed since work began. As Shane put it, “We were really skeptical from the beginning, and then since then, things pretty much just went downhill.”

Shane’s team was building the launch pad for Prufrock, the company’s hyped, surface-porpoising tunnel boring machine. If the pad isn’t finished, Prufrock isn’t going anywhere—and neither is the Nashville project. Meanwhile, Shane says TBC tried to poach two of his welders for $45 an hour and then lied about it when confronted with screenshots, a move he says violates their contract. Safety concerns piled on, including OSHA complaints about crews being sent deep into unstable cuts shored up not with concrete, but with wooden 2x12s.

In response, Boring Company VP David Buss blamed “invoicing errors” and promised payments would be wired “tomorrow,” while claiming he wasn’t aware of any OSHA filings. But this isn’t unfamiliar territory: Musk-led ventures have a long history of letting small contractors twist in the wind while insisting the paperwork is just a little behind.

The bigger question remains whether The Boring Company’s Loop concept even works as meaningful transit. Las Vegas proved it can shuttle people in Teslas through tunnels, but it hasn’t demonstrated any efficiency advantages over existing systems—and the “autonomous pod” and Hyperloop promises are still vaporware. Seven years after Musk promised simulations showing the loop’s superiority, we’re still waiting.

Source: Electrek

Editor: If your revolutionary transit system can’t survive a basic invoice cycle or keep workers safe without lumberyard engineering, maybe it’s not the traffic solution—maybe it’s the traffic.