Read it.

“Electrification would require sweeping changes to the nation’s power grids. Under the scenario visualized above, total electricity demand in the United States would roughly double by 2050, even as overall energy use went down.” ….  “To meet that demand, electric utilities would need to add staggering amounts of new emissions-free power while making sure that all those newly electrified cars, homes and factories don’t strain the system and cause blackouts. “

Read it.

The National Park Service withdrew a proposal Monday to take down a statue of William Penn at a Philadelphia historical site as part of a renovation that touched off a torrent of criticism over the legacy of the man who founded the province of Pennsylvania.

HotAir.

Lloyd Austin was in the hospital for days; apparently, nobody knew. He was in intensive care and is still hospitalized. He was unable to perform his duties for much of that time, suggesting he was drugged or unconscious.

His Deputy, who apparently was “ready” to serve in his stead, was on vacation out of the country. She didn’t know that Austin was out of commission.

The White House didn’t know. The National Security Council didn’t know. Apparently, only Austin’s direct staff knew.

…

But leave all that aside for the moment. I fully expect the fallout from this fiasco to be epic, but let’s keep our eye on the ball for a moment.

The Secretary of Defense can disappear, and nobody notices.

During several wars, a crisis in the Red Sea, American troops and assets abroad getting attacked, the Secretary of Defense could disappear for a week, and nobody noticed.

Read it.

“Government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together,” Rep. Barney Frank, whose prostitute aide ran a male brothel from his Capitol Hill home, once observed.

The former congressman claimed that he had no idea his boyfriend was running a male brothel and most people don’t know the government had racked up $34 trillion in debt.

Sometimes the things we do together are really the things being done to us.

Back in 2020, the national debt was at $26 trillion and that amounted to $80,885 for each of us. Now, after three years of the “adults” being “back in charge”, our share of the debt is $100,000 each. Or $100,696, if you want to be exact, and $257,275 per household.

In the four years since 2019, a whopping $12 trillion was added to the national debt.

Read it.

We constantly hear the justification, [it (whatever it is)] will free up [something else] for other, more important duties. For example, the LCS will free up Burkes for more important duties. Or, the Constellation will free up Burkes for more important duties. That sounds fine on paper but, in reality, it’s just buzzword garbage. What are these other ‘more important duties’? I’m looking around and I don’t see Burkes conducting other ‘more important duties’, do you?

We have 86 Burkes/Ticos. Are they really all tied up on unimportant duties and need freeing up? Are there really ‘more important duties’ that are going unattended because Burkes are being wasted on less important duties? Most of our Burkes sit pier side most of the year. Are we really short of Burkes for ‘more important duties’?

Many use this justification to promote smaller carriers; if we had smaller carriers we could free up the supercarriers for ‘more important duties’. Again, what are these ‘more important duties’ that our carriers are currently foregoing in favor of less important duties? Remember, we have 11 carriers and most of the time only one or two are deployed. Do we really lack sufficient carriers for ‘more important duties’?

Read it.

The expensive electric vehicle that Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm used during her ill-fated summer road trip is no longer eligible for federal tax credits thanks to a new rule that pulls subsidies for cars made with certain Chinese components.

As of Jan. 1, American buyers will no longer receive a $7,500 Biden administration tax credit when they purchase a Cadillac Lyriq, General Motors confirmed. At issue are Treasury Department battery sourcing rules, which forbid tax credits from going to electric vehicles that contain battery components from China and other foreign nations of concern. Those rules went into effect Monday.

The development comes as a blow to Granholm, who toured the country in a Cadillac Lyriq during her infamous June electric vehicle road trip, which was aimed at encouraging Americans to purchase electric vehicles. At one point, the pricey Cadillac—which can cost upwards of $60,000—developed a “hardware issue” that made it difficult to charge.

Read it.

Scientists in a new paper detected spike protein in the bloodstream of people with long COVID two months after infection and COVID-19 vaccination, suggesting that spike protein may persist in the body much longer than previously predicted and does not remain at the injection site.

Read it.

We can quantify the US Navy’s cost disadvantage because Japan and South Korea are US allies that build destroyers similar to ours. They have the same radars, many of the same weapons, etc. Japan and South Korea can construct their Maya class and Sejong class destroyers for almost half the cost of a US Arleigh Burke-class ship. The construction time is also significantly shorter. And the Burke-class ships are the ones we build the most efficiently! Performance for other classes is likely much worse because of poor design choices, etc.

The US could double our fleet on the same shipbuilding budget! But are we building optimal designs? And is the US government well suited to replicate the Asian shipbuilding model?

Read it.

The number of African migrants settling in the United States has surged in recent months given the relative ease of crossing the southern border, the New York Times reported Friday.

“Getting into the United States is certain compared to European countries, and so I came,” Sekuba Keita, a 30-year-old Guinean migrant, told the Times.

Keita’s journey from Guinea took him first to Turkey and then to several Latin American countries before he reached the United States.

Read it.

“The public should be made aware of this,” Elon Musk commented on X, referencing a post by former Texas Representative Mayra Flores, which showed a video of what might be the biggest migrant caravan approaching the US southern border in the past year.

Flores said, “The largest migrant caravan of 2023 known as the ‘poverty exodus,’ has recently departed from Southern Mexico, comprising approximately 15,000 individuals from 24 countries en route to the US border.”

“Yet Democrats are focused on cooking pictures I posted that reminded me of my upbringing. I can’t with so much pettiness,” she noted.”

Read it.

Over 100 anti-Israel protesters shut down the California Assembly on Wednesday during its first legislative session of the year, as lawmakers face a massive $68 billion deficit and crises from rising homelessness and crime.

“We all knew something was up” when hundreds of people filed into the galleries with face coverings, said GOP assemblyman Joe Patterson. The protesters flooded the balconies overlooking the assembly chamber early Wednesday afternoon ahead of the call to order and most refused to stand for the prayer or the Pledge of Allegiance.

As Speaker pro tempore Jim Wood (D.) launched into the business of the day, the protesters began singing “ceasefire now,” drowning out the legislators as they tried to speak. Wood rebuked them as “disruptive,” but was ultimately forced to call a recess. After a short break, Wood wrapped business in the chamber and dismissed the lawmakers for the day. A spokesman for the California capitol police put the number of protesters at 150, and said they did not obtain a permit to demonstrate on capitol grounds.

Compare the treatment of these ‘insurrectionists’ with those of Jan. 6.

Read it.

In a fiery exchange last month, CNN anchorwoman Abby Phillip told GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy that there was “no evidence” to support his claim that federal agents abetted protesters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Ramaswamy shot back that the FBI conspicuously has never denied that law enforcement agents were on duty in the crowd. He argued that federal officials repeatedly “lied” to the American people, not only about that investigation but one that has gotten much less attention: the alleged failed plot in 2020 to kidnap and kill Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat.

“It was entrapment,” Ramaswamy told CNN’s Phillip. “FBI agents putting them up to a kidnapping plot that we were told was true but wasn’t.”

Read it.

An analysis of Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) data indicates that the COVID-19 vaccines are “significantly” more deadly than the flu vaccine, according to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

The review was conducted by the senator’s staff and involved a certain level of assumption given that no publicly available data exist regarding how many flu vaccine doses were administered in the United States over the past 10 years.

Using the number of distributed doses to generate that figure, they found that the number of deaths per million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines (25.5) far exceeded those estimated for the flu vaccine (0.46).

Read it.

The Biden administration carved out paid administrative leave to encourage federal bureaucrats and other employees—seen as a loyal Democrat constituency—to volunteer as poll workers.

The administration also requires federal agencies to grant four hours of leave for voting to employees, according to records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

NBC News.

The Biden administration on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to allow federal Border Patrol agents to cut through or move razor wire Texas installed on the U.S.-Mexico border as part of a contentious effort by the state to prevent illegal border crossings.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in a court filing that Border Patrol agents have authority under federal law to access private land at the border and that Texas has no basis to thwart them from carrying out their duties. The Biden administration says the wire prevents agents from reaching migrants who have already crossed over the border into the U.S.
The case arose when the administration of Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott, a Republican, installed the razor wire near the Rio Grande river at Eagle Pass, Texas, as part of an operation to address illegal immigration that has brought the state into conflict with the Biden administration.
When Border Patrol agents cut through some of the razor wire, Texas sued, claiming the agents had trespassed and damaged state property.

UPDATE: The Utter Insanity Of Joe Biden’s Open Border

Read it.

A report the Department of Defense commissioned to study extremism in the United States military found that there is little evidence it’s a disproportionate problem among service members, findings that throw cold water on Biden administration officials’ claims of significant radicalism within the military.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin commissioned the report, which the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) released last month, in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot after it was reported that a number of participants had military records. The institute conducted its research from June 2021 through June 2022.

“IDA’s review found no evidence that the number of violent extremists in the military is disproportionate to the number of violent extremists in the United States as a whole,” the institute wrote in the report’s executive summary, “although there is some indication that the rate of participation by former service members is slightly higher and may be growing. IDA also found no evidence of violent extremist behavior by DOD civilians.”

Read it.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) predicts the agency’s case backlog will peak at 400,000 in 2024. So, a report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which said VA resources have been used to process claims for medical care of illegal immigrants since 2020, is causing backlash from several legislators and veterans’ agencies.

Read it.

As a record number of migrants invade the U.S., wreaking pain on New York City and other communities, one group is winning big time: the public advocacy lawyers. Their business is to constantly sue to win more so-called rights for migrants. Rights to shelter, rights to meals, rights to health care, even the right to vote in local elections.

Who pays the bills on both sides of these lawsuits? You do. Taxpayer money largely funds these legal combatants, which include the Coalition for the Homeless, The Legal Aid Society, and Vera Institute of Justice.

You’re paying to be legally coerced into providing more for migrants, even at the cost of cutting vital city services—kind of like hiring your own assassin. It’s absurd, but it’s about to get worse.

Read it.

Former Pentagon official Michael Maloof is predicting that Congress and the Pentagon are in for a “tumultuous” start of 2024, as the ongoing standoff over Biden’s billions more in Ukraine defense aid highlights the reality that there’s “no stomach” any longer to fund Ukraine.

The ex-senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense issued the words in a fresh interview with Russian media, wherein he also emphasized that the only way out for Kiev is through negotiations based on the current dire realities of the battlefield, which has seen setback after setback for Ukraine forces.

Read it.

The Biden administration brags about the number of jobs being created, but given our rather slack economy it is reasonable to wonder what kind of jobs they are. At the Wall Street Journal, Allysia Finley has a sobering answer:

Drill into the nation’s 3.7% unemployment rate, and you’ll find a growing welfare-industrial complex beneath the seemingly strong labor market. Government, social assistance and healthcare account for 56% of the 2.8 million net new jobs over the past year, and for nearly all gains in blue states such as New York and Illinois.

Read it.

When Bobby Kennedy talked about writing this book a couple of years ago, I asked him, why?

Mindful of how the truth about everything Covid (and much else) was being memory-holed, he said he wanted to create an accurate historical record of what happened, for the future.

I thought that was a good answer.

Read it.

Branch Covidians to the rescue! Follow the Science!

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The history of the CIA since its founding is intimately wrapped up in Operation Mockingbird, a concerted campaign continuously developed since the 1940s to control U.S. and global media, reporting (and “reporters”), and academia. Together with MI5/MI6 in the UK, this “Mighty Wurlitzer” has been used to shape a narrative—a series of carefully promoted U.S. Government lies—which have dominated the worldview of literally all Western nation citizens.

As Mattias explains in this lecture, the continuing advancement of these propaganda capabilities has been considered necessary to prop up, “legitimize,” and provide cover for a wide range of nefarious, self-serving actions on the part of a very small group of hereditary “Elites” who have sought to control the peoples, governments, and economies of the world—at the expense of the interests of humanity at large.

Read it.

Woke Democrats have caused an absurd amount of problems for law-abiding residents in Portland, including a surge in violent crime, out-of-control open-air drug markets, and widespread homelessness. Parts of the metro area have been transformed into a third-world-like state because of disastrous progressive policies. Now, the combination of failed policies has sparked what appears to be a public health crisis.

A highly contagious bacteria called “shigella” is spreading across Portland. This bacteria is common in countries found in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia regions.

Read it.

“Undocumented” is Woke-Speak for “illegal”.

Read it.

Nobody in their right mind wants to be obliged to send their kid off to war in Eastern Europe if Romania and Moldova start bombing each other. Yet NATO membership requires just that.

And courtesy of the best congress money can buy, now power to withdraw from NATO has been removed from the U.S. president and enshrined in the well-greased palms of our legislators. More specifically, on December 16 congress approved a bill barring the president from unilaterally exiting NATO without legislative approval. This is a disaster. It’s aimed at Trump and one of the few decent things he might do if elected president, namely ditch that trouble-making albatross, NATO. Naturally president Joe Biden did not delay signing the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes this new NATO provision; so we’re stuck with it.

Read it.

But I’m sure they’re trying as hard as they can….

Read it.

Hospitals in places across the United States have reimplemented mask mandates because of what officials say is an uptick in COVID-19 and other respiratory infections.

“Officials” are what’s wrong with the world.

Read it.

Democracy? What’s that? Nothing that Democrats need bother about, surely!

“That whenever a government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it….”  — Declaration of Independence

Economic sanctions are not the magic wand that the bloviators in Washington seem to think.

Read it.

Successful public health campaigns and medical advances have enabled the United States to conquer a range of disfiguring and damaging diseases. Polio, which paralyzed thousands of Americans annually, was wiped out by widespread vaccinations. In 1999 the nation’s last hospital for lepers closed its doors in Louisiana. A global campaign eradicated smallpox, while lethal tuberculosis, the “consumption” that stalked characters in decades of literature, seemed beaten by antibiotics. Measles outbreaks still occur from time to time, but they are small, local, and easily contained.

Recently, however, some of these forgotten but still formidable infectious diseases have begun to reappear in the U.S. For two years running, polio has been detected in some New York water samples, and this fall, leprosy re-emerged in Florida, where cases of malaria have also been recorded.

Health officials say they are not sure why these and other infectious diseases are resurfacing. One distinct possibility, which officials are loath to discuss, is that the millions of migrants who have crossed into the country in recent years could be bringing the scourges with them, since many are from countries where such rare diseases persist and vaccination programs are not robust.

Read it.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has threatened Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that it will sue the state if it implements legislation allowing police to remove people from the country who are suspected of crossing the border illegally.

Read it.

The real minimum wage is always zero… Restaurant workers in California are about to find that out the hard way.

Read it.

With 60% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, most U.S. households could use a raise. But an arbitrary, one-size-fits-all increase in the minimum wage imposed by lawmakers in Washington would only exacerbate the struggles of these households.

According to a new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, proposed legislation to increase the federal minimum wage to $17 per hour by 2029, a jump of 134%, would reduce employment and increase prices, interest rates, and federal deficits.

Any one of these consequences of the so-called Raise the Wage Act of 2023 would be bad news; all four together would add insult to injury for struggling workers and families.

Read it.

Households that are headed by illegal immigrants and have U.S.-born children are more likely to use welfare than are homes led by U.S.-born individuals, according to a recent report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).

My, what a surprise….

Read it.

Had the Biden administration prioritized southern border security, significant efforts to resolve the crisis would likely have been completed by now instead of peddling blatant lies and half-truths to deflect the blame for their disastrous open border policies that have flooded the nation with millions of illegals (and individuals on the FBI’s terror watch list) ahead the 2024 presidential election cycle.

A large chunk of corporate progressive media outlets have been spoonfed propaganda from the White House this year to distract Americans with southern border misinformation.

The clearest misinformation campaign from the White House was in May, when Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorka declared: “I want to be very clear, our borders are not open.”

Read it.

As fighting rages in the Middle East and Europe and China looms as a threat, America’s dwindling arsenal of high-end munitions emerges as an alarming crisis. The United States, once a fortress of military might, now faces the prospect of a munitions deficit in an era brimming with uncertainties. This desperate situation demands the development of a national critical munitions stockpile.

Read it.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams issued an executive order Wednesday mandating that charter bus companies transporting migrants must provide a 32-hour notice before reaching the city.

Read it.

Some of the 11,000 migrants waiting in Mexico to enter the United States know they do not qualify for asylum, but they have received messages from past migrant crossers that it will not matter.

Read it.

The market for used EVs is plummeting. What will car rental companies do with the used ones? Problems started in China but have spread to Europe and the US.

Read it.

This is elementary economics: If you raise the price of something, people buy less of it. If you raise the price of labor, businesses employ fewer laborers. Somehow politicians (especially proglodyte politicians) seem to think they can get around reality just by writing a law.

Mark Kalinowski, a restaurant-industry analyst, wrote in a note this week that he expected “more harm to come” in various ways as fast-food chains “take action in an attempt to blunt the impact of higher labor costs.”

Chains such as Chipotle and McDonald’s said they planned to pass the costs of higher wages in California to customers by raising menu prices.

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The 17 were processed by law enforcement agents after crossing into the United States, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). There has been an increasing trend in the number of known terrorists found to be entering the U.S. southern border beyond ports of entry, with a record 169 individuals detected in Financial Year 2023.

A record number of individuals of interest on the watch list have also been attempting entry at U.S. ports of entry on either the northern or southern border, with 564 individuals detected at ports in FY 2023.

And how many DIDN’T they catch?

Read it.

California has so much going for it that it should have been indestructible. But it turns out there is nothing that liberalism can’t destroy. People–that is, taxpayers–are fleeing California in droves, and the state is experiencing a budget crisis. Conversely, illegal aliens who cross the southern border undetected generally head for California, where they know they can expect a warm welcome.

And it is about to get warmer. California is now opening its Medicaid system to all, “papers or no papers.”

Read it.

Authorities are investigating a Christmas Day swatting attempt at Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s residence in Rome, Georgia, but the Republican congresswoman says enough isn’t being done to catch the offenders. A swatting call is a dangerous prank in which the perpetrator reports a severe crime to police to lure swat teams to the victim’s home in a forceful law enforcement response.

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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Mexico City on Wednesday to discuss a new agreement with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) to control the surge of migrants flooding the southern border.

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and White House Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall will join Blinken in discussions with AMLO about “unprecedented irregular migration in the Western Hemisphere,” a US Department of State press release read.

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Another day, another tanker attack in the Red Sea, and Yemen’s Houthis are positively boasting about it as the Biden White House continues attempts to cobble together its much touted multi-national naval coalition, which is clearly taking some time getting off the ground.

“The naval forces of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a targeting operation against the commercial ship, ‘MSC UNITED’ with appropriate naval missiles,” according to a Houthi statement.

Read it.

The invasion proceeds, with the active support of Mexico.,

Democrats aren’t doing a damned thing about it.

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Williams said that the officers sent to his home left with Christmas cookies and spiced nuts to take home for the holidays.

“Our home was swatted this afternoon,” Williams wrote. “Thanks to the Deputies and Troopers who contacted me before arriving. They left with homemade cookies and spiced nuts! Merry Christmas everyone!”

…

Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., was also swatted on the holiday, police confirmed to The Messenger on Monday.

“I was just swatted. This is like the 8th time. On Christmas with my family here, ” Greene wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “My local police are the GREATEST and shouldn’t have to deal with this. I appreciate them so much and my family and I are in joyous spirits celebrating the birth of our savior Jesus Christ!”

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On a recent episode of the All-In Podcast, hosts David Sacks, Jason Calacanis, Chamath Palihapitiya, and David Friedberg discussed the weaponization of federal agencies by the Biden administration against Elon Musk.

“They’ve now weaponized multiple federal agencies to go after Elon on these cases that seem transparently trumped up,” Sacks said.

Musk, an outspoken critic of President Biden, has seen an increasing number of banana republic-style weaponization tactics by the administration against his companies, from Tesla to SpaceX, this year.

Read it.

Thousands of migrants arrived Sunday in the southern Mexican town Alvaro Obregon to spend the Christmas Eve in a public square without shelter before making their way north to cross the country and reach the border with the United States.

The invasion continues, and Democrats continue sitting on their hands.