Illinois passes assisted death law...

 

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. Fox News/Getty.

Illinois has passed an assisted suicide law, which will allow terminal patients to end their lives with medical assistance. Fox News. The law is known as the Medical Aid in Dying law or "Deb's law" after Deb Robertson, a woman with a rare illness that lobbied for the law. Proponents say that the law will assist terminal patients that would otherwise suffer, though religious groups object to assisting suicide. Others fear the law will be used to coerce the poor or disabled into choosing death in order for the state to save money. Doctors and other health care providers are not required to assist those that wish to use the law if they object to it on moral grounds, but are required to refer patients to a doctor that will, which is another major objection to the law. 

My Comment:

This is an example of where I have completely changed my mind on an issue. For most of my life I thought that these kind of assisted suicide programs were a good thing. After all, anyone who has seen someone at the end of their life has had the thought, why even draw this out? At some point enough is enough and it's a good thing to end suffering. 

Part of me still believes that is true. I do think we tend to care more about the length of life instead of the quality of life and there is a point where we just need to let things go. And the religious objections to these laws fall on deaf ears in my case. Christianity generally feels death is always something that should be objected to and fought, even when it makes little practical sense to do so, like with a medically hopeless case, abortion of someone that would have zero quality of life or even executing a mass murderer. 

So how did change my mind on this issue? One word. Canada. Canada passed a law in 2016 called the Medical Assistance in Dying law (MAiD). That one law has totally changed how I thought about this issue and now I think it's an abomination, just because how it was implemented there and just how absurdly many people are dying under the program. An absurd 5.1% of all deaths in Canada occurred under the MAiD program, showing that the law there isn't just used sparingly and under extreme circumstances. Indeed, Canada had even passed a law saying you could use MAiD just if you were mentally ill and had no terminal illness. 

And there is a real chance that these laws will indeed be used to pressure people to end their lives. Why? Money. End of life care is incredibly expensive and in Canada's publicly funded system, MAiD has saved them millions of dollars. There are many documented cases of Canadians being pushed into ending their lives for monetary reasons, with coverage being denied but MAiD being covered. And it has also happened in the 11 other states (and Washington DC) that have these programs. 

I have little doubt that this will be the case in Illinois as well. It's not a well run state and it has a large population of vulnerable people that could be coerced into choosing Deb's Law to end their live so the state or an insurance company can save money. That is, quite frankly, horrific. Nobody should be pressured into something like this, it should be their own choice and their own choice alone. And that's why I changed my mind, because I saw what is happening in Canada and now it's going to be happening in Illinois as well... 

President Trump is growing frustrated with Ukraine and Europe.

 

Trump during an interview with Politico's Dasha Burns. Politico.

President Trump has expressed frustration with Ukraine and Europe due to a log-jam of diplomacy concerning the Russia-Ukraine war. Politico. Trump said that Zelensky hadn't even read the most recent peace plan and decried Europe's leadership as talkers that don't produce. Trump also said that he believes Russia has the upper hand in the war. European governments are angry that Trump wants an end to the war and a normalization of relations with Russia. They are also probably angry at criticism Trump leveled at their immigration programs, which put the NATO alliance at risk. 

My Comment:

It really blows my mind whenever I read a mainstream news source talking about the Russia Ukraine war. They don't seem to understand even the most basic facts of the war, that Russia is fighting and winning an attritional war where the conquest of territory is not the main objective. The anonymous diplomat quoted in the article saying that Ukraine was not losing was the most laughable thing I have read in a long time. It's just totally detached from reality and if that's really want Europe believes then they are dangerously delusional. 

I share Trump's frustration here. Right now Ukraine is not in a position to demand much of anything, let alone Europe. Indeed, they are in the process of losing three major battles and their manpower and equipment levels are critical. The initial offer that was put on the table is something they should have absolutely jumped on as their bargaining position is never going to be better than it is now. 

But, as I predicted, it appears that Zelensky and Europe are the stumbling blocks for an end to the Ukraine war. Zelensky is absolutely refusing to budge on giving up on territory captured by Russia. From what I understand it's not even the lands in Donbas that Russia hasn't captured, but the territory they have captured that is the sticking issue. It's bizarre, Ukraine is in no position to take back the territory in Donbas, let alone Crimea, but they also refuse to acknowledge that fact. 

I do think that Trump's attempt to pivot to the Western Hemisphere and have better relations with Russia is a wise move and he is generally correct about Europe. I have said for a very long time that Europe has destroyed itself with immigration. America has done a lot of harm to themselves as well, but until very recently, we had mostly stuck to Mexican and Central/South American immigrants, who usually integrate after a generation or two and do end up contributing. Europe has brought in millions of Muslims from Africa and the Middle East, along with a large number of people from the Indian subcontinent. Very few of those folks will ever integrate with Europe, let alone contribute and I really believe that the whole thing is going to end with a massive war/holocaust. It just seems inevitable at this point. Europe just doesn't have a future. 

These out of touch leaders are a major reason why. Like I said with the diplomat quoted above, they are high on their own supply. If they really believe that they are winning the war with Russia, and that immigration is the solution to the European problem, then they truly are lost. 

Of course there are going to be people reading this saying "but wait, Russia is the bad guy" and to that I would say, they aren't any worse than the average European government now. That's not even a defense of Russia, they are bad on things like free speech, elections and gun rights. But what European country can you not say that about now? The UK where they let rapists and murders run amok but throw you in prison for a meme? Germany, which is censoring the entire internet? Don't even get me started on France. The main difference in my eye isn't ethics or morality, all of them are bad. It's the fact that at least Russia has a future. They haven't imported millions of people and in 100 years Russia will still be Russia. I honestly don't see Europe being Europe 10 years down the line, either it will change and survive or it won't, but the status quo is not going to last... 

As for the war in Ukraine, I do think there is still a chance for peace. Supposedly Zelensky is thinking about holding an election, which might be an "out" for Ukraine. Zelensky will of course lose the election, but it's a way of him saving face. I just don't think it will happen in the next month or so. Zelensky is too stubborn and Europe is just insane and that's a bad combination. If/when Zelensky is out of the picture then we might see some moves towards peace. But until then, I think the diplomatic stalemate will continue. 

RAM prices skyrocket as producers switch to supplying AI datacenters.

 

A computer shop in China. Reuters.

AI is causing a crisis in consumer RAM prices as AI demand is sucking up a huge amount of production. Reuters. The price spike is affecting all kinds of memory, but DRAM is the most effected. The shortage could cause major problems, not only for consumer electronics, but for AI data centers themselves. Inventory of chips has been greatly reduced and there are fears that the higher prices could cause the AI bubble to pop. The prices of many consumer electronics will jump as well, with lower end smartphones, PC's and video game consoles bearing the brunt of the costs. 

The crisis has caused one of the big three memory producers, Micron, to abandon their consumer division to focus on AI sales. 

My Comment:

Outside of the tech world this story has been largely ignored. But folks who are going to try and buy a new PC or video game console are likely to see a major sticker shock in a month or two. This is a major crisis and it has echoes of the GPU crisis when crypto mining became a huge thing. That bubble eventually burst but it was a very bad time to be a PC gamer. It looks like we are going to see something similar here, but the fallout could be far beyond just gaming this time around. In short, if you are on the fence about buying/building a new PC, video game console, or lower spec smartphone, you should absolutely have done it a month ago, and failing that, you should do it now. 

AI is, of course, causing the bulk of this issue. Chip companies know that they can make more profit off of the data centers that are going up than they can from PC gamers and other consumers so they are logically making the choice to do so. These data centers are used for the various LLM's like ChatGPT and Grok and they require advanced chips. So it's no surprise that these companies are focusing on that. 

It's very bad news especially for video games and the people that buy and produce them. It sounds like Xbox is going to increase prices for their consoles and if you were thinking about building a PC, expect to pay $200 or $300 for RAM alone. GPU prices are stable but the costs of SSD hard drives are getting more expensive as well. In short, it's a terrible time to try and build a PC or buy a console. 

It's also a bad time for companies to release new consoles as well. I know the Steam Machine is supposedly coming out next year and there is a good chance that might not be in the cards anymore depending on how Valve planned things. If they got a large stockpile of DRAM sitting around awaiting the launch they could be able to put it out at a fair price. But if they didn't they are going to have to price the thing as much as a full PC costs pre-spike, which means it's almost certain to fail. And that's just one example, a lot of tech companies are going to face difficult decisions as this crisis continues. 

For me personally, I should not be affected too greatly. My gaming PC is future proof for at least a couple of years, I already have 32 gigs of RAM, which should last through the crisis as production is supposed to increase in 2027. I also just bought a new laptop to replace my dying gaming laptop. It's not high end or anything but it's crazy to think that the 16 gigs of ram it has is now worth more than half of what I paid for it. My phone is new this year as well, so at the very least, I should be able to weather this storm, assuming none of my components burn out or some other disaster befalls me. 

I do wonder how long this AI craze is going to last. I use LLM's myself, as Grok came free with my blue check subscription. It's certainly a useful tool. It's great at collecting information and bouncing ideas off of it, but I still don't really understand how anyone is supposed to make money off of it. I do think that sooner or later the AI bubble is going to burst, all bubbles do, when the hype doesn't quite match the results. But until that happens anything involving tech is probably going to be very expensive. 

Treasury Department, Congressional Oversite Committee, open up investigation of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz due to Somali welfare fraud scandal.

 

Governor Tim Walz. New York Post/Reuters. 

The Treasury Department and the Congressional Oversite Committee have opened up investigations of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz due to the Somali welfare fraud scandal that cost taxpayers of the state up to $1 billion. New York Post. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said that Tim Walz was informed about the fraud but went after whistleblowers instead. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that his investigators would be looking at how money was sent to the al-Shabaab terror group in Somali via the Minnesota welfare fraud. The scandal had been bubbling under the surface for months, but new accusations have propelled the story nationally. A whistleblower account on X said that Walz was directly responsible for the fraud and did nothing to prevent the scandal despite being informed of it by his employees. 

Tim Walz is 100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota. We let Tim Walz know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud but no, we got the opposite response. Tim Walz systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression,… https://t.co/cEtbnuKmgn

— Minnesota Staff Fraud Reporting Commentary (@Minnesota_DHS) November 30, 2025

My Comment:

I wrote an in depth post about this scandal last week.  Read that if you are unfamiliar with the details of the case. The summary is that Somali immigrants in Minnesota were syphoning off hundreds of millions of dollars in welfare and social program frauds. Much of that money ended up in Somalia, feeding both sides of the civil war there, but more importantly, it was fed to the Somali terror group al-Shabaab. It's an absolutely massive scandal. 

Tim Walz is also deeply involved in the case. There are allegations against Walz that he knew about the fraud but did nothing to prevent it. Indeed, it's possible that he retaliated against people that warned about the massive red flags they were seeing in the welfare business. He could even face criminal charges if evidence is found that he covered up the fraud. That seems very unlikely but 

To be fair, I don't think Tim Walz was involved in the fraud itself. And it's for the same reason I never even considered the words of Vance Bolter, the assassin that shot two Minnesota State Senators. Tim Walz just simply not smart enough to run a fraud scheme or hire an assassin. He is not a smart guy and seems like a very good example of someone unqualified making it far in politics. 

The real question is if there was a coverup. There are allegations that Tim Walz did indeed know about the fraud and could have prevented it. This isn't proven yet, but it does seem likely. The fraud was not that well hidden and there are people online that work in Minnesota that have made the accusation that Walz was informed and even took retaliation against whistleblowers. If those accusations are proven, then I don't see how Walz has a political career. 

His greatest defense here is, again, his incompetence. I really don't have a high opinion of Walz and his management, his addition to the Kamala Harris campaign was an absolute joke, and only Walz would say in a debate "I'm friends with School Shooters!". Of course, incompetence at this scale might save him from criminal charges (if he isn't guilty of the whistleblower retaliation) but I don't think it will save his career at this point. 

Indeed, this represents a rare opportunity for Republicans in the state. Walz is somehow still running for Governor and if he does run, he faces a very good chance of losing if this scandal has legs. Absolutely nobody is happy with Walz and his performance right now, though many of his Democrat voters will still "vote blue no matter who". Minnesota is a blue state, but it is moving in the purple direction and a huge motivating scandal like this could move independents into the Republican column and keep some Democratic voters home. 

Given this, I am guessing that the National Democratic Party and the State Democratic Farmer Labor party will drop Tim Walz like a hot potato. The Democrats in general are many things, most of them bad, but I can't imagine them making such a mistake as keeping Walz in the race. He's absolutely toxic now and was an embarrassment during the 2024 Presidential race. I don't know if they will be willing to force him to resign in disgrace, but I also can't imagine that they won't force him out of the race. If they do I am fully predicting that the GOP picks up the Minnesota Governor. I doubt they would keep it for more than a term, just like Virginia, without a motivating issue like the Somali scandal, they will probably lose it after one term. 

Regardless of what happens in Minnesota, I can't imagine that Walz will ever have a career after this on the national stage. There was some chatter that he was going to run as a Minnesota Senator, and position that seemed likely that he would win. He could have even run as a long shot Presidential candidate. But there is zero chance of any of that happening. Indeed, I can't even see him on the new talking head path at this point, Democrats are going to want to wash their hands of Walz completely... 

The saber rattling against Venezuela continues as Trump closes air space and demands President Maduro resigns.

 

President Nicholas Maduro of Venezuela. New York Post/AFP/Getty.

The saber rattling against Venezuela continues as Trump closes air space and demands President Maduro resigns. New York Post. President Trump and Nicholas Maduro held a high stakes call. At issue is Maduro's alleged support of drug smuggling and narco-terror groups that are smuggling drugs into the United States. Maduro had demanded that he would be allowed to remain in control of the military before free elections and that he be pardoned for any potential crimes. Trump refused and said that Maduro would be given safe passage out of Venezuela. Talks broke down at that point with Trump closing Venezuelan air space in response. Trump has also threatened strikes against the drug gangs in Venezuela. 

My Comment:

Venezuela kind of popped up out of nowhere. I know Venezuela got a lot of blame for the drug smuggling issue and the Tren De Aragua issues we have had in the United States, but given the multiple other foreign policy issues that have cropped up, they were low priority. 

First of all, I have to say that a full scale Iraq War style invasion is pretty much impossible at this point. We don't have anywhere near the troops in the region to even attempt it, and there is zero desire for anyone in the United States, outside of the crustiest of neocons, for that to happen. There has been a troop buildup but it's mostly naval assets. 

There is a small chance of some kind of military conflict, but it would come in the form of airstrikes, not an invasion. I am guessing that drug smuggler bases or ports could be attacked, given that would be the casus belli of the conflict. A direct attack against Maduro itself could be in the cards too, but that would be more difficult. 

However, I don't think military action, beyond the naval stuff we have seen already, is really in the cards. President Maduro seemed rather open to leaving power and the fact that he was asking for amnesty and agreeing to elections, probably indicates he is fairly desperate for a deal. And, from what I understand, members of his regime are attempting to save their own necks as well as their Presidents. I would not be surprised if this does have a diplomatic resolution. Neither side seems so steadfast in their positions here that a deal can't be made, and given that Trump was downplaying the air space closure today, I am guessing more talks are going to be held. 

Indeed, this seems like a classic Trump maneuver. Though Trump has been called many things, the one thing you can't deny is that he's a diplomat at heart. He wants to be the guy to end conflicts, not start them, so even if things do degrade into military action, expect them to always leave an out for Maduro. It reminds me of the conflict with Iran, where Trump was working for a peace deal even as he bombed Iranian nuclear strikes. The last thing he wants is a real conflict. 

The timing for this is not great though. Trump was widely praised by his base for, finally, refocusing on domestic issues after the Washington DC attack on National Guardsmen. In response Trump finally took some real action on immigration, something that his base was demanding for a long time. 

What I can tell you is that nobody in his base is very excited by the fact that the focus seemed to last less than a holiday weekend, and he's right back onto foreign policy. Indeed, I'm rather annoyed myself. The Washington attack was something Trump should have hammered down on given how preventable the attack was and how much of a winner the issue is for Republicans. Venezuela though? Nobody really cares about that. It's not even an urgent situation, compared to something like the Russia Ukraine war. Sure drugs are a problem, but domestically, things need to be handled. 

Regardless, like I said, I fully expect a diplomatic solution. Maduro seems to get that the gig is up and is looking for an exit and the only question is the how and when. I am guessing that airstrikes will be avoided and that Maduro will step down and leave the country for a place like Russia.