December 10, 2025 ❧ Trump's pardons: Where are they now, chicken rescuer jailed, another ceasefire collapses, octopi have nine minds?  

Plus: Sean Duffy can suck on these pajamas, FBI compiling a list of American extremists, Alligator Alcatraz is torturing inmates, and Texas Techs clamps down on race, gender and sex in class

Thank you for being a paid subscriber to the Current Affairs News Briefing! Your subscription makes it possible for us to send you the most important stories you aren’t hearing elsewhere, with our trademark wit and whimsy. Now, the news. 

HERE & ABROAD

❧ DEEP DIVE: Trump’s pardons — Where are they now? ❧

Last week President Donald Trump shocked Democrats and Republicans alike when he pardoned the ex-President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, a bonafide narco trafficker of the exact variety Trump has assailed both rhetorically and, in the Caribbean, lethally. The pardon seemed to invert logic: how could Trump pardon someone guilty of the crimes he is, right now, accusing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of committing as he drums up support for escalating military action in his country?

Yet, I would argue, the easiest way to discern what Trump is thinking may be to look at his pardons. Many of the President's other actions are contradictory—and his words, well, those are scarcely true—but his pardons reveal a consistent pattern: Trump likes people who like him, enrich him, and commit the same crimes he does. Cross those lines and you’re out of luck. The President, vested with the world-shaping power of his office, wants to build a country that culturally, financially and legally rewards spray-tanned brown-nosing, skeeviness, and financial fraud. It’s the Trumpian hegemonic ideal. 

The list of people who have been pardoned or had their sentences commuted by Trump reveals exactly the kind of person MAGA Nation wants to elevate, and it’s rife with financial con men, crypto scammers, corrupt politicians, drug dealers, tax evaders, and every one of the 1,500 or so insurrectionists who were convicted for crimes related to January 6. Some of them have restarted lucrative careers; some have wound up back in court rooms. Here’s where a few of Trump’s pardons are now:

Art from Current Affairs Magazine Vol. 5, Issue 2

Ross Ulbricht is a celebrity guest speaker: Ulbricht founded the dark web crypto market Silk Road in 2011. He received a life sentence for the market’s role in facilitating criminal transactions, through which he made millions off of illicit drug sales. (Ulbricht was also accused of soliciting six murders-for-hire, though none of them were successful and the charges were later dropped.) He is a darling of the crypto community, who saw Silk Road as a crypto proof of concept; they intensely lobbied for his freedom. Trump pardoned him on his second day in office, and he has since begun giving talks around the country and raised $31 million in crypto donations. 

Andrew Taake is a registered sex offender: Taake was arrested for involvement in January 6 after he bragged on the dating app Bumble about his participation in the insurrection. After spending three years behind bars, he was released as part of Trump’s blanket pardon for insurrectionists—only to be re-arrested for an outstanding warrant he had in Texas for soliciting a minor on the dating website Plenty of Fish. He pleaded guilty to the solicitation in September. 

A Ponzi guy has run another Ponzi scheme: Eliyahu “Eli” Weinstein lost $230 million of investors’ money and was sentenced to 24 years in prison in 2014. Trump commuted his sentence before leaving office in 2021, and Weinstein wasted no time getting back to his old business. He adopted an alias, Mike Konig, and according to Asbury Park Press offered “lucrative opportunities to invest in deals involving COVID-19 masks, scarce baby formula and first-aid kits supposedly bound for war-torn Ukraine, authorities said.” That venture, of course, also turned out to be another Ponzi scheme. Last month, he was convicted again and sentenced to 37 years in prison.

Art from Current Affairs Magazine Vol. 5, Issue 2

David Gentile is $15.5 million richer: In May of 2025, private equity executive David Gentile was sentenced to seven years in prison after he was found guilty of attempting to defraud investors of $1.6 billion by lying about the success of his funds and what he was doing with investors’ money. Trump commuted his sentence last month, and Gentile no longer has to pay restitution. He is among the many financial scammers Trump has pardoned, leaving victims without $1 billion dollars in restitution. 

George Santos is sitting on the toilet again: You probably already know Santos, but it’s always nice to check-in on the bullshitter of all bullshitters. So flagrant is the former New York representative in lying and financial fraud, Santos won the inaugural Briefy Award from Current Affairs for Greatest Innovator In Political Corruption. Trump commuted his sentence in October, and since then Santos has been a surprise guest at an “RFK insider’s” Veterans Day party (along with fellow fraudster Anna Delvey!); told New York magazine he can finally “sit” on the toilet again; complained to Tucker Carlson that prison is full of liberals; and said he is fleeing New York after Zohran Mamdani’s election. How much of it is true, we’ll never know for sure. (Just like his claims to have been a star volleyball player at a college he never attended; that his mother, who lived in Brazil at the time, died in 9/11; and the time he told investors that he produced a Broadway Spiderman musical.) No matter the truth, it’s a safe guess Santos will keep turning himself into news.

❧ In Other News ❧

❧ ALLIGATOR ALCATRAZ IS TORTURING INMATES. A new report by Amnesty International accuses two Florida migrant detention centers—Alligator Alcatraz, officially called The Everglades Detention Facility, and Krome North Service Processing Center—of “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” and human right violations that reach the level of torture. A September 2025 investigation found overcrowding, toilets overflowing into sleep areas, limited access to showers, exposure to insects, constant bright lighting, poor quality food and water, medical neglect and arbitrary solitary confinement. The report says some detainees are punished by being forced into an outdoor “box”: a 2x2 foot “cage-like structure” where all four limbs are restrained on the ground for hours, with minimal access to water. “These findings confirm a deliberate system built to punish, dehumanize, and hide the suffering of people in detention,” said Ana Piquer, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for the Americas on its website. “Immigration enforcement cannot operate outside the rule of law or exempt itself from human rights standards.”

Art from Current Affairs Magazine Vol. 5, Issue 2

❧ WOMAN WHO RESCUED CHICKEN FROM SLAUGHTER HOUSE JAILED. Twenty-three-year-old animal rescuer Zoe Rosenberg was sentenced this week to 90 days in jail for saving four sick chickens from Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse, according to a press release by Direct Action Everywhere. Rosenberg was undertaking an open rescue, which National Geographic describes as “animal rights activists brazenly take animals from factory farm operations.” Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse has a history of illegal animal abuse, with chickens collapsing and deprived of easy access to food and water. Sonoma County, however, has refused to hold Petaluma accountable. Instead, it will send Rosenberg to jail for stealing Petaluma chickens worth about $24. Rosenberg named the four birds she carried out of the slaughterhouse Poppy, Ivy, Aster, and Azalea. They now live safely at a sanctuary.

“I am filled with remorse for every animal I have failed to save. To the little baby chick who is currently writhing in pain on the floor of a Perdue factory farm, the young rooster being violently slammed into a Perdue transport crate, and the terrified hen about to enter Perdue's scalding tank while fully conscious, I am sorry.” 

- Zoe Rosenberg, at her sentencing hearing

One of the chickens Rosenberg rescued. Photo via Direct Action Everywhere.

❧ SUCK ON THESE PAJAMAS, SEAN DUFFY. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy is taking a page from the Pete Hegseth book of federal management. In the face of multiple crises—in Duffy’s case, the lack of air traffic controllers, plus major flight disruptions during the government shutdown—focus on what people wear. Before the Thanksgiving travel rush, Duffy entreated the public to start dressing up for the airport. This, he thinks, is how we will bring back the golden age of travel: by switching out our sweatpants for a crisp pair of khakis,not by lowering fares or making the airport less of a hellscape. Americans have responded by wearing more pajamas to the airport, which has so far shown little impact on the number of  meltdowns at the gate. 

CURRENT-EST AFFAIRS

What’s new in the magazine this week?

Washington’s Gallery of Puppets

Trump didn't win his much coveted Nobel Peace Prize this year, but he might as well have. The award went to Venezuelan activist María Corina Machado, who is currently pushing the U.S. agenda in South America and has been for years. “The [Nobel] committee was wise to specify that she promotes democratic rights for Venezuela, because Machado has not shown the same concern outside her own country,” Andrew Ancheta writes. “She has also cultivated the support of El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele (whose second term is not exactly, shall we say, constitutional) and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, who is currently in prison for… trying to overturn his country’s democratic elections.” In his piece, Ancheta argues that Machado is a prime example of a puppet leader, and D.C. has a gallery of them.

❧ In More News ❧

❧ FBI MAKING A LIST OF AMERICAN EXTREMISTS. Ken Klippenstein reported that the FBI is compiling a list of people who express “‘opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology,’ as well as ‘anti-Americanism,’ ‘anti-capitalism,’ and ‘anti-Christianity.’” According to a leaked memo, the government will consider those on the list as possibly engaged in domestic terrorism. Bondi is planning to set up a tip line where people can rat out such anti-MAGA behavior, as well as offer cash rewards.  “Where NSPM-7 was a declaration of war on just about anyone who isn’t MAGA, this is the war plan for how the government will wage it on a tactical level,” Klippenstein wrote. 

Current Affairs interviewed Klippenstein about NSPM-7, also known as National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, in October. Read the conversation here.

Art from Current Affairs Magazine Vol. 5, Issue 2

❧ ANOTHER TRUMP CEASEFIRE FALLS APART IN THAILAND AND CAMBODIA. Trump likes to claim he has ended eight wars. One of them, Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, clearly has not ended, and another, a Trump-brokered ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia, has already collapsed. After signing a truce in October, the two countries resumed firing this week, each accusing the other of breaking the deal. Their dispute stems from a colonial-era border drawn by the French in 1907, which Thailand has long argued mistakenly placed Thai territory under Cambodian control.

Art from Current Affairs Magazine Vol. 5, Issue 2

❧ PROFESSORS NEED APPROVAL TO TEACH RACE, GENDER, AND SEX AT TEXAS TECH. Rightwing culture crusaders notched a win this week in the Texas Tech University system, which instituted dramatic and stifling oversight of instructors who teach about race, gender, and sexual orientation. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that professors are now required to submit any course material covering gender identity or sexual orientation to the state’s Board of Regents for review, and what they can teach has been limited by a policy of vague prohibitions. Third rails include: that idea that a single race is “inherently superior,” activism related to race or sex, and the ideas that “a person can be inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive; and [that] a person should “bear responsibility or guilt for actions of others of the same race or sex.” What’s more, “faculty are only allowed to recognize the male and female sexes in their courses.”

ANIMAL FACT OF THE WEEK

Octopi have nine minds!

What is the saying, two heads are better than one? How about eight? That’s not quite the case for octopuses, but they do have a leg (or arm) up in the brain department. Each of their eight arms has a cluster of nerves that functions like an independent mind. The arms have their own decision making capacity, processing and responding to the environment without needing to run things past the main brain. 

"Octopus" by damn_unique is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Writing and research by Emily Carmichael. Editing and additional material by Emily Topping and Nathan J. Robinson. Header graphic by Cali Traina Blume. This news briefing is a product of Current Affairs Magazine. Subscribe to our gorgeous and informative print edition here, and our delightful podcast here.

Current Affairs is an independent leftist media organization supported entirely by its readers and listeners. We offer a beautiful bimonthly print and digital magazine, a weekly podcast, and a regular news briefing service. We are registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with EIN 83-1675720. Your gift is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Donations may be made through our website, via wire transfer, or by sending us a check. Email help@currentaffairs.org with any questions.