THANKSGIVING 2025

 

ONE OF THE BEST THINGS YOU'LL READ TODAY:

A 16-year-old Latina girl named Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski submitted her application to MIT.

On paper, her achievements should have been undeniable.

At age 14, she'd built a fully functional single-engine airplane in her garage by herself. She taught herself to fly it. She documented the entire construction process on YouTube.

She was one of only 23 women among 300 students selected as a US Physics Team semifinalist.

She was a first-generation Cuban-American from Chicago Public Schools. Not the typical pipeline to elite universities. She knew the rules: be twice as good to get half as far.

She was twice as good. The plane she built proved it.

MIT waitlisted her anyway.

It was crushing. She'd dreamed of MIT since childhood. To be told "maybe, but not yet" felt like having her entire identity questioned.

But two MIT professors—Allen Haggerty and Earll Murman—saw Sabrina's airplane construction video.

"Our mouths were hanging open," Haggerty later said. "Her potential is off the charts."

They fought for her. They showed the admissions office what they were about to miss.

MIT reconsidered. Sabrina got in.

But she never forgot that waitlist.

Years later, she told reporters: "At some level, I'm glad...because if I had a safety school, I don't know if I could have pushed myself off the wait list."

She felt she had something to prove.

And prove it she did in ways that exceeded everyone's wildest expectations.

Sabrina became the first woman to win MIT's prestigious Physics Orloff Scholarship.

She graduated in just three years—while still a teenager—with a perfect 5.00 GPA, the highest possible score at MIT.

She was the first woman to graduate at the top of MIT Physics in two decades.

Her first academic paper was accepted by the Journal of High-Energy Physics within 24 hours of submission—almost unheard of in academic publishing, where peer review typically takes months.

By graduation, NASA had offered her a job. Jeff Bezos personally offered her a position at Blue Origin.

She turned them all down. "I want to understand how the universe works," she explained simply, "not make billionaires richer."

Instead, Sabrina enrolled at Harvard for her PhD in theoretical physics, studying under renowned physicist Andrew Strominger.

Her research focused on some of the most complex questions in science: quantum gravity, black holes, spacetime, and celestial holography—the mind-bending concept that information at the edges of the universe might encode the entire cosmos.

At age 25, her work was cited by Stephen Hawking in one of his final papers before his death.

Stephen Hawking—one of the greatest physicists who ever lived—cited HER research.

But Sabrina's journey wasn't just about personal brilliance.

It was about navigating a field systematically designed to exclude people like her.

The statistics tell the story:

Hispanics earn only 8% of STEM degrees despite being nearly 20% of the US population

Women earn just 28-35% of STEM degrees

The first woman to earn a PhD in physics did so in 1929—less than a century ago

Sabrina knew these barriers intimately. Being one of only 23 women among 300 Physics Team semifinalists showed her exactly how underrepresented women and minorities were.

It changed her.

She began advocating for women and girls in STEM. She worked on documentaries encouraging young women and minorities to pursue science. She became involved with Michelle Obama's Let Girls Learn initiative, earning an invitation to the White House.

She promoted STEM education in Cuba and Russia, receiving recognition from the Annenberg Foundation and the US Embassy in Moscow.

But being a role model came with crushing pressure—the burden placed on women of color in science who are scrutinized under multiple prejudicial lenses.

She was expected to be perfect. To represent everyone who looked like her. To never stumble. To be both groundbreaking physicist AND spokesperson.

She handled it by focusing intensely on her work. She didn't own a smartphone. She avoided social media. She updated only her website, PhysicsGirl, with academic accomplishments. When journalists called her "the next Einstein," she pushed back.

On her website's "Media Fact-Check Sheet," she wrote: "I am just a grad student. I have so much to learn. I do not deserve the attention."

That humility, combined with extraordinary talent, made her story even more powerful.

After earning her PhD from Harvard—with another perfect GPA—Sabrina completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton's Center for Theoretical Science.

She joined the faculty at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada, one of the world's leading centers for theoretical physics research.

She founded and now leads the Celestial Holography Initiative, directing researchers tackling one of physics' biggest unsolved puzzles: uniting our understanding of spacetime with quantum theory.

She works in the same intellectual tradition as Einstein, Hawking, and Strominger—exploring questions most people can't even comprehend, let alone answer.

And she does it while carrying the weight of representation.

Every paper she publishes, every talk she gives, every student she mentors opens the door wider for the next Latina girl, the next first-generation immigrant, the next kid from public schools who dreams of understanding the universe.

Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski's story isn't just about genius—though she is undeniably, extraordinarily brilliant.

It's about what happens when institutions almost overlook someone because they don't fit the expected mold.

It's about proving yourself when you shouldn't have to.

It's about succeeding brilliantly in spaces that weren't designed for you.

MIT waitlisted her because they couldn't see past their own assumptions about what a physics genius looks like.

She made them reconsider with undeniable proof.

Then she exceeded every expectation—and then some.

She built a plane before she could legally drive.

She earned perfect GPAs at the world's most demanding universities.

She was cited by Stephen Hawking.

She rejected NASA and billionaires to pursue pure research into the fundamental nature of reality.

And now she's working to explain how the entire universe works—while ensuring the next generation of physicists includes more faces that look like hers.

Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski proved something profound:

Brilliance doesn't wait for permission.

Talent can't be waitlisted forever.

And sometimes the people institutions almost reject become the ones who define the field.

She didn't just get into MIT.

She showed them—and the entire world—what they almost missed.

 

TRUMP'S VENDETTA GETS THROWN OUT OF COURT

 

It's not just Trump's incompetency and corruption that played out here, this embarrassing failure belongs to Pam Bondi, Trump's consigliere. She owns this as well.

Judge Tosses Criminal Charges Against James Comey and Letitia James 

A federal judge threw out the criminal charges against James Comey, the former F.B.I. director, and Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, on Monday after finding that the prosecutor President Trump handpicked to bring the cases had been illegally appointed. The ruling deals a heavy blow to a pair of high-profile prosecutions sought by President Trump, who has pushed the Justice Department to pursue his political enemies.

Meidas Touch:

🚨 “This is stunning — and dangerous: The Trump administration’s much-hyped 28-point “peace plan” for Ukraine — the one Trump claimed Zelensky had days to accept or the U.S. would pull support — turns out not to be a U.S. plan at all. According to new reporting from PBS NewsHour’s Nick Schifrin, senators were just briefed that the document actually originated from Russia.

Sen. Mike Rounds confirmed that the plan was delivered to Trump envoy Steve Witkoff by someone believed to be representing Russia. Sen. Angus King says the document is “essentially the wish list of the Russians.”

Meanwhile, Trump endorsed it. His spokesperson publicly touted it. Allies condemned it. And Ukraine was told to treat it as an American proposal.

This isn’t a “leak.”

This is a foreign influence crisis reaching directly into U.S. national security decision-making.

How did a Russian-drafted ultimatum to Ukraine end up being pushed by Trump’s team as American policy?

And why is Rubio now denying involvement after Axios reported he helped craft it?”

"I was only following orders," is illegal.

 

The family is out shopping and doing errands, so I have a moment.

The Mother Ship is upset because some Democrats have said that the military is not obligated to follow ILLEGAL orders. Apparently the Mother Ship sailors and captain believe soldiers, etc., SHOULD obey illegal orders.

In a post on his "Truth" Social, Trump suggested that the Democrats who said soldiers are not required to follow ILLEGAL orders should be tried as traitors and hanged.

Here is the law:

Unlawful Orders

This Article is intended to explain unlawful orders in the Military.

A Servicemember can face adverse action for violating a lawful order; doing so is a violation of Article 92 of the UCMJ, and sometimes Article 90 of the UCMJ and Article 91 of the UCMJ.  Often, Servicemembers wonder what are lawful orders and what are unlawful orders.  Article 92 provides the following guidance regarding unlawful orders:

"Lawfulness. A general order or regulation is lawful unless it is contrary to the Constitution, the laws of the United States, or lawful superior orders or for some other reason is beyond the authority of the official issuing it."

Article 92 also references subparagraph 16.c of the UCMJ, which states the following:

"Inference of lawfulness. An order requiring the performance of a military duty or act may be inferred to be lawful, and it is disobeyed at the peril of the subordinate. This inference does not apply to a patently illegal order, such as one that directs the commission of a crime. The lawfulness of an order is a question of law to be determined by the military judge. [NOTE, the lawfulness of an order can also be decided by a Commander at an Article 15, a General Officer during the GOMOR process, or by a Separation Board/Board of Inquiry]

Authority of issuing officer [or NCO] . The commissioned officer [or NCO] issuing the order must have authority to give such an order. Authorization may be based on law, regulation, custom of the Service, or applicable order to direct, coordinate, or control the duties, activities, health, welfare, morale, or discipline of the accused.

Relationship to military duty. The order must relate to military duty, which includes all activities reasonably necessary to accomplish a military mission, or safeguard or promote the morale, discipline, and usefulness of members of a command and directly connected with the maintenance of good order in the Service. The order may not, without such a valid military purpose, interfere with private rights or personal affairs. However, the dictates of a person’s conscience, religion, or personal philosophy cannot justify or excuse the disobedience of an otherwise lawful order. Disobedience of an order which has for its sole object the attainment of some private end, or which is given for the sole purpose of increasing the penalty for an offense which it is expected the accused may commit, is not punishable under this article.

Relationship to statutory or constitutional rights. The order must not conflict with the statutory or constitutional rights of the person receiving the order.