Read it.

At the end of every year, as we make our way through the holidays, you’ll hear no shortage of complaints about the rampant hyper-consumerism at the heart of modern American society. And these complaints aren’t without merit. Flip on the TV or walk through any city’s commercial district before Christmas, and it’s easy to get the impression that the entire American concept of familial love rests on how much stuff we buy for each other.

…

But before condemning that as a “moral failure” of the American people, it’s important to understand that this is the sought-after result of our government’s policies.

…

Today, with full control over the supply and value of money, the United States government has settled on a policy that aims to bring about permanent price inflation. They do this by printing money and injecting it into the economy through the credit markets. Doing so transfers a lot of wealth to the political class and creates the recurring nightmarish cycle of economic booms and recessions. But it also has profound effects on the public’s behavior.

Because permanent price inflation punishes people for saving. Money loses its value over time, meaning—in a reversal of how it’s worked for almost all of human history—money saved today will not be able to purchase as much in the future.

Read it.

The world is full of people who think that they would spend your money better than you would.

OF COURSE it’s ‘irresponsible’; why should you have to be ‘responsible’ to somebody else for how you spend your own money?

OF COURSE it’s ‘selfish’; what’s that to you? He isn’t harming anybody, except the hand-wringers who worry about the Climate Change grift. He’s actually provided $450 million of employment to a lot of people for a number of years. A yacht doesn’t just fall from heaven–it’s built, by real people who have real families who are thereby being fed, clothed, and housed.

Bird flu mutations in the US’s first severe H5N1 case may boost the virus’s ability to infect humans (Quartz)

Genetic Sequences of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1) Viruses Identified in a Person in Louisiana (CDC)

We ‘have our head in the sand’: Health experts warn US isn’t reacting fast enough to threat of bird flu (CNN)  Well, then, I guess we’d better PANIC!

Bird flu virus shows mutations in first severe human case in US, CDC says (Reuters)

Tonight, We’re Gonna Party Like It’s 2019!

The Canal is off the table: Latin America closes ranks with Panama in face of Trump’s threats (El Pais)

Panama’s president calls Trump’s claims of Chinese interference “nonsense” (Axios)

‘That will never happen’: Locals react to Trump suggesting US retake Panama Canal (CNN)

Trump names Kevin Marino Cabrera U.S. ambassador to Panama (NBC News)

MAGA civil war breaks out over American “mediocrity” culture (Axios)

A MAGA ‘Civil War’ on X between Musk and the far right over H-1B visas (Washington Poop)

Uproar breaking out inside MAGA-world over H-1B visas and foreign workers (CNN)

Elon Musk responds to tech CEO who asked if foreign-born workers are really taking jobs away from Americans (Times of India)

What would it mean for the U.S. to end birthright citizenship? (NPR)

Inside the Trump team’s plans to try to end birthright citizenship (CNN)

Fact check: Would Trump’s immigration plan affect his own children? (WRAL NEWS)

Trump vs. the Constitution: The question of citizenship (Daily Kos)

‘It’s a scary time’: US universities urge international students to return to campus before Trump inauguration (CNN)

China’s 6th-Gen Fighter “White Emperor” Takes To Skies Ahead Of Trump’s Second Term

WORST OF 2024: The Trashing Trump Award

GOP Moves to Advance Voting Reforms Pushed by Trump

Trump wants federal workers back in the office. It may be a tall task. (Lisa Rein/Washington Post)

Trump Will “Un-California” US Energy Policy On Day One

After backing Trump, low-income voters hope he doesn’t slash their benefits (Tim Craig/Washington Post)

Corporate interests commit millions to celebrate Trump’s inauguration (Fredreka Schouten/CNN)  Oooooh, Corporate Interests!

CNN’s Sour Grapes! Whining About Corporations Funding the Trump Inaugural

These MAGA farmers could be ruined if Trump follows through with mass deportations (Camille Von Kaenel/Politico)

Americans are exhausted by political news. TV ratings and a new AP-NORC poll show they’re tuning out (Associated Press)

Congress has the power to block Trump from taking office, but lawmakers must act now (The Hill)

Trump has pressed for voting changes. GOP majorities in Congress will try to make that happen (Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press)

Expect a quieter Jan. 6 this time around – as long as Republicans avert a looming speakership crisis (Politico)

NBC Pearl Clutches Over Trump’s Christmas Foreign Policy Posts

House Speaker Fight May Delay Trump Win Certification

CNBC Survey: Investors Say Trump ‘Great’ for Economy

PBS News Hour Touts Its Partner PolitiFact Awarding Trump/Vance ‘Lie of the Year’

Trump ‘Border Czar’ Plans to Separate Families or Let Them Leave Together (Naomi LaChance/Rolling Stone)

Elon Musk Suggests Cognitive Testing For Elected Officials

Counting down the DOGE Days of Winter (Alexander B. Howard/CIVIC TEXTS)

Trump’s Immigration Shutdown Could Create a Dystopian Humanitarian Crisis (Lillian Perlmutter/Rolling Stone)

What if Trump Does Everything He’s Promised–and the People Don’t Care? (New Republic)

Trump could thrust low-key ambassador picks in spotlight as he eyes Greenland and Panama Canal takeovers (Ramsey Touchberry/Washington Examiner)

Most adults feel the need to limit political news consumption due to fatigue and information overload (AP-NORC)

Wasserman Schultz: Trump’s Takeover Threats ‘Preposterous’

What Was So Different This Time About Trump’s Election?

Playbook: How Schumer is prepping for Trump 2.0 (Eugene Daniels/Politico)

Former FBI and CIA head prods Senate to reject Patel, Gabbard (Kierra Frazier/Politico)

Washington Post Finds CNN’s Ratings Collapse Due to Trend Toward Softness on Trump!

How the Left Will Defend Its Censorship Regime Against Trump

‘Should MAGA stay home in 2026?’ Laura Loomer wages ‘racist’ war against ‘tech bros’ over Indian migrants (Justin Baragona/The Independent)

MAGA in Total Mayhem as Laura Loomer Goes to War With Elon Musk (Hafiz Rashid/New Republic)

CNN Reporter on Biden Legacy: ‘Guy Between Trump Terms’

Republicans Have Crashed a National Economy Before To Enable Power Grabs and Privatizations (Ruth Ben-Ghiat/Lucid)

The press is ignoring the real Liz Cheney scandal (Stephen Robinson/Public Notice)

The Work Visa Debate: Not All Immigration Is Bad, But Focus On Americans First

Elon Musk’s Critics Stripped of Verification Badge After Publicly Challenging Billionaire: ‘The Beginning Stages of Censorship’ (Charlie Nash/Mediaite)

Biden Admin Invoked ‘Indigenous Knowledge’ To Cut Alaska Drilling, But Some Tribal Leaders Are Ready For Trump

Biden Oblivious About Leaving Trump an Economy on the Precipice of Disaster

Who Got Duped? MAGA Activists Worry That Nativism And Tech Oligarchy May Not Go Hand In Hand (Josh Kovensky/Talking Points Memo)

Oops! Consumers finally realize that Trump could worsen inflation. (Catherine Rampell/Washington Post)

MAGA civil war breaks out over American “mediocrity” culture (Axios)

Forget Beijing – The House China committee is up against Trump and Elon Musk (Politico)

NPR and PBS Stations Brace for Funding Battle Under Trump (New York Times)

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy open rift with MAGA loyalists over skilled worker visas (Katherine Doyle/NBC News)

Window closing for Gaza hostage-ceasefire deal before Trump takes office (Barak Ravid/Axios)

Lawmakers can subpoena Fani Willis over Trump election case, judge rules (Associated Press)

The Deep State, The Media, And Academics Circle Their Wagons Against Kash Patel

Steve Bannon Joins War Against Elon Musk as MAGA Implodes (Hafiz Rashid/New Republic)

ZMan sees that things have loosened up.

Over the last thirty years America has been flooded with migrants from almost every nook and cranny of the globe. Most noticeable are those from South America because of their numbers. In the summer, every business park and suburban neighborhood is littered with Hispanics cutting the grass. The next most noticed group is the South Asians.

Despite their small numbers, relative to Hispanics, South Asians stand out because of their jarring alienness and their reason for being here. Employers import Indians to depress middle class wages and displace American tech workers. As a result, middle-class white people notice them and unlike Hispanics, who white people tend to admire for their work ethic, the Indians have a very negative reputation. Not even the most deluded immigration romantic likes South Asians.

This has come as a great shock to Elon Musk and his tech bros. For some reason he decided to use Christmas Day to announce that he wants Trump to fill your neighborhood with Indians so he can win something. This set off a multi-day firestorm over the topic of Indian immigration. The tech bros were poleaxed by the reaction, as they had no idea how much the average American dislikes Indians. So much so that even yelling “racism” has no impact.

Read it.

You know the ship is sinking when the rats start to leave.

Read it.

“Lies.” That response was a mantra for President Joe Biden, who denied ever meeting or knowing about his son’s foreign dealings. Despite the pronounced lack of interest by most media outlets in the alleged multimillion dollar influence-peddling scheme, the House and conservative groups have doggedly pursued the matter and found overwhelming evidence that the President has repeatedly lied about his interactions with foreign clients. Now, a new photo further contradicts the President, who recently pardoned his son for any crimes committed over a ten-year period.

UPDATE: Newly Released Photos Show Biden Meeting Hunter’s Partners

Read it.

“Christmas came early” for the Little Sisters of the Poor earlier this week when the Biden administration dropped its controversial contraceptive healthcare mandate, ostensibly ending the nuns’ 14-year battle over religious liberty with the federal government, the Catholic News Agency reported.

The Department of Health and Human Services on Monday announced its decision to leave in place Trump-era guidelines that allow employers to opt out of birth control coverage over religious or moral objections. The move let stand an existing rule that permits employers to cite “non-religious moral objections” to the Affordable Care Act’s requirement to cover contraception.

When Obama said, “If you like your coverage, you can keep your coverage.”, what made that a lie was the fact that, under Obamacare, it didn’t matter how much you liked your coverage — you were going to get the coverage that the government decided you ought to have, whether you could afford it or not.

Read it.

In one of the few times right-leaners weren’t outnumbered on CNN’s Thunderdome (aka CNN NewsNight), on Thursday night, Republican Congressman Mike Lawler (NY) (with back up from CNN commentators Scott Jennings and Coleman Hughes) spelled out the Biden family corruption scheme; only to have host Abby Phillip cut short their conversation with claims she’ll only talk about it if formal charges were brought (despite being reminded that Hunter Biden’s pardon covered the alleged time period).

As they were reacting to a recent tone-deaf and false complaint from President Biden that he supposedly didn’t have much money given how he’d worked in government his whole life, Hughes pointed out that the President had no legs to stand on given his family’s alleged antics.

“I think Biden should not talk about money at all. I think the Biden family’s got away with murder in the sense that – metaphorically, in the sense that they’ve really escaped a lot of close scrutiny over their foreign business deals. Hunter Biden, Jim Biden, et cetera,” he explained.

Far-left columnist Solomon Jones invoked some supreme whataboutism by trying to shift the focus to President-elect Trump. “I’m trying to figure out why we’re talking about corruption, when you’ve got a convicted felon … you’ve got a convicted felon that you’re sitting here defending who’s getting ready to be the president of the United States,” he whined.

Phillip stepped in to scold Hughes that such “speculative” conversations about Democrats would not be happening on her show.

The Foundry.

Victor Davis Hanson, historian, commentator, and Hoover Institution senior fellow, said Thursday on his podcast that he believes all of President Joe Biden’s family members will be next in line to receive pardons.

Since the president’s announcement Dec. 1 that he would pardon his son Hunter Biden of criminal charges,he has faced pushback after months of adamantly telling the press he would not do so.

On “The Victor Davis Hanson Show,” Hanson said he believes Biden has been pardoning people based on what benefits the family and what provokes public outrage.

“It works like this. He just said, ‘I’m going to pardon people, and I have two criteria for pardoning them. Whatever they can do for the Biden family or the larger friend and associate of the Biden consortium, I’ll do it,” Hanson said on his podcast.

“And whatever makes people angry, because I’m going to be a puny little Samson that’s going to pull down the temple when I go out. Give me as much chaos and nihilism as I can. Make it symbolic and the more egregious the pardon, the better.’”

“Wait till we get to the last 48 hours, Jack. I expect [daughter] Ashley Biden, I expect [brother] Jim Biden, all of them get pardons. They all get pardons,” Hanson said. “They know they’re going to get pardons, because if they don’t get pardons, when you write a check and you say ‘repayment, $250,000,’ somebody in an honest DOJ, if the statute of limitations is not over, is going to say, ‘Wait a minute, you transferred $250,000 to your brother? Did you pay gift tax on it? Did you pay income tax? Where did you get the money?’”

The New Neo.

… the 25th Amendment is crying out for revision. It clearly doesn’t work in its present form. Despite the amendment and despite Joe Biden’s obvious mental decline and inability to discharge the duties involved in being President of the United States, it hasn’t been invoked and that has allowed a nameless and faceless bunch of unelected aides to run the country.

Why? Because that’s the way the Democrats wanted it.

Well, somebody has to bell the cat.

Read it.

A U.S. appeals court has halted enforcement of an anti-money laundering law that requires corporate entities to disclose the identities of their real beneficial owners to the U.S. Treasury Department ahead of a deadline for most companies to do so.

The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late Thursday reinstated a nationwide injunction that had been issued earlier this month by a federal judge in Texas who had concluded the Corporate Transparency Act was unconstitutional.

The order marked a change of course for the court. On Monday, a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit at the urging of the U.S. Department of Justice put the injunction on hold while the government appealed the Texas judge’s decision.

Where in the Constitution does it say the Federal government can do that?

Read it.

During the recent Christmas season, Syrian culture-enrichers used the fall of Bashar al-Assad to make German cities particularly festive, especially at the Christmas markets.

Imagine how peaceful the world would be if the Religion of Peace didn’t exist.

The American Mind.

Under the best of circumstances, it is difficult for any intelligence service to collect, analyze, and produce actionable, predictive data for a nation’s leadership. This task is made considerably harder when lockstep adherence to a fringe political ideology is imposed upon the workforce tasked with carrying out this challenging mission. Unfortunately, this is the situation the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies of the U.S. Intelligence Community are in: to America’s detriment, their leadership enthusiastically imposed Diversity, Equity and Inclusion ideology upon their employees.

To underscore how deeply DEI has metastasized inside the host, in a recent enlightening and publicly available statement, the CIA’s Chief DEI officer said there are three criteria by which an intelligence officer can be promoted at America’s most important foreign intelligence service. Only one of them is related to mission impact. The others are a rather vague “corporate mindset”—and DEI.

Of the three, adherence to the cant of DEI is the most important; those who do not vocally and unreservedly support it are denied promotions and meaningful assignments. Like rallies held by authoritarian regimes, you do not want to be the first to stop clapping at the approved, serial pronouncements.

Read it.

A 28-year-old terrorist from Tulkarem in Samaria shouted “Allahu Akbar” and then stabbed and mortally wounded a woman near the nursing home where she lived on Kedoshi Hashoah Street in Herzliya on Friday morning.

Imagine how peaceful the world would be if the Religion of Peace didn’t exist.

Read it.

“The youngest political party in British politics has just overtaken the oldest political party in the world.”

That is the shocking, but true, statement issued by Nigel Farage (on X) as a digital counter on the Reform website showed its membership tally before lunchtime on Boxing Day ticking past the 131,680 figure declared by the Tories during their leadership election earlier this year.

Read it.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris sent greetings to those celebrating Kwanzaa, a holiday whose creator was a member of the Black nationalist movement of the 1960s and who served prison time after being convicted in the torturing of two women.

Read it.

Time to leave.

Read it.

Time to leave.

Read it.

It’s easy to grow desensitized to the threat of gender ideology in schools. It seems every day there is a fresh new outrage about kindergarteners getting indoctrinated into “trans joy” and school clinics offering transgender “medicine” for minors.

President-elect Donald Trump’s historic reelection victory represented a loud rebuke to the transgender movement—after all, one of his most effective ads slammed Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats’ presidential nominee, as being “for they/them,” while Trump is “for you.” But this noxious ideology still has a stranglehold in many institutions, backed up in some cases by official state policy.

In fact, no fewer than 16 U.S. states have curriculum standards that force teachers’ hands on the issue, according to an important new report from The Heritage Foundation.

CDC Data Reveals Why Everyone Around You Is Coughing (Gizmodo)

Whooping cough cases in the US are the highest they’ve been in a decade (CNN)

New Hampshire sees increase in number of whooping cough cases; trends back to pre-pandemic levels (WMUR Manchester)

‘Very concerning’: Whooping cough cases surge in Douglas County (KETV Omaha)

Whooping Cough Cases Hit Record High in 2024

CDC: Bird Flu Shows Mutations in First Severe Human Case in US

‘We are screwed’: Virologists warn about disease they say could become the next pandemic (Brad Reed/Raw Story)

New Yorkers should mask up as RSV cases spike, health officials say

New York Times, a Voice of the Crust.

In Albuquerque, the state’s largest city, homeless encampments clutter the sidewalks and the highway underpasses. In neighborhoods like the International District, people in drug-induced psychosis wander into busy streets and parking lots, oblivious to traffic. At one store in that neighborhood, there have been seven murders since 2020 and one shootout that injured a police officer.

Trump announces ambassador to Panama amid fight over canal (The Hill)

What’s the history of the Panama Canal, and why is Trump threatening to retake control of it? (CNN)

Trial of Trump Alleged Assassin Pushed Back

Companies Are Scrambling to Fund Trump’s Inauguration. He’s Keeping Track (Rolling Stone)

Playbook: Mr. Musk goes to Washington (Eli Okun/Politico)

“Sudden Spike” In US Marijuana Substitution For Alcohol Ahead Of Trump-Era

Trump Trolls Political Foes in Flurry of Christmas Posts

CNN Pushes Sour Grapes On Trump Win, But Republican Brad Todd Scores The Zinger

Trump Threatens to Take Over Canada, Panama Canal, Greenland in Christmas Day Message (Charisma Madarang/Rolling Stone)

What Was So Different This Time About Trump’s Election?

Trump Jokes About Canada Joining US: What Would It Take?

In Trump’s America, There’s Democracy Only When He Wins (Marc Elias/Democracy Docket)

SHOCKER!: PolitiFact Tags Trump for ‘Lie of the Year’ for Seventh Time

Trump’s first day frenzy: Everything he promised to do on “day one” (Axios)

Leaders in ‘uncommitted’ and ‘abandon Harris’ movements reflect on Trump’s victory and early moves (Jillian Frankel/NBC News)

What could Trump 2.0 mean for NYC public housing? Here’s what experts say.

Susan Quinn: They Still Don’t Get Trump

This is the saddest cartoon I have ever seen.

The Other McCain.

One should never try to “make sense” of Amanda Marcotte. Ever since she first burst upon the national consciousness in 2007 — as one of two feminists (the other being the execrable Melissa McEwan) hired to blog on behalf of Democratic presidential aspirant John Edwards — Marcotte has been an inspiration for mockery hereabouts, and it is still difficult for me to imagine that anyone actually takes her seriously.

Nevertheless, Dana Pico has undertaken to analyze one of Ms. Marcotte’s recent outbursts, concluding that her enthusiasm for transgender athletes is rooted in a secret fear of inferiority: “To Miss Marcotte, any differences [between men and women] at all are a mark of inferiority, and she just can’t let the facts get in her way.” Yes, exactly so.

Example: Conspiracy theory is the new normal: 2024 was the year QAnon went mainstream (Salon)

The AntiPlanner.

Light rail suffers the highest crime rates of any mode of transit and this is largely due to the honor system of fare payment. St. Louis Metro is addressing this by adding gates to its light-rail stations. Unlike most cities, St. Louis can do this because its light-rail system is entirely separated from streets and sidewalks.

Read it.

And no doubt Trump is to blame.

Read it.

In something of a stunning development, China appears to already be flying a stealthy, high-performance, flying-wing, sixth-generation crewed combat aircraft, imagery of which began to emerge today. At this early stage, we have very little idea about the precise identity of the new aircraft, but many elements of its design are very much in line with what we already knew about Chinese sixth-generation airpower aspirations.

Trump’s election sparks fight over judicial retirements, new judgeships (Washington Poop)

Who controls Greenland, and why does Trump want to buy it? (Washington Poop)

What’s really behind Trump’s Greenland obsession (MSNBC) As if anyone at MSNBC would have a clue.

Spending Fight Shows Limits of Trump Power to Change Fiscal Path (New York Times) It’s easy for the government to spend money, much less easy for it to cut spending.

Is Trump Looking For A Grand Bargain With China?

Elon Musk Takes Aim at Wikipedia (James Bickerton/Newsweek)

Trump Cabinet Picks’ Fate Unclear as GOP Prepares to Take Senate Power

How to have a Trumpy Christmas, and make the president-elect richer, too (Cat Zakrzewski/Washington Post)

Companies Donate to Trump Inaugural After Denouncing Jan. 6

The Big Companies Funding Trump’s Inauguration Despite Denouncing Jan. 6 (Wall Street Journal)

Trump Atop Worst Censorship of 2024: Election Interference and Beyond

Trump and his allies say the GOP is the party of free speech. Their actions say otherwise. (Ayman Mohyeldin/MSNBC)

Trump’s Immigration Agenda Could Face Challenges

The Atlantic, a Voice of the Crust.

New research suggests that the company makes the communities it operates in poorer—even taking into account its famous low prices.

SUGGESTS! THAT PROVES IT!

Two new research papers challenge that view. Using creative new methods, they find that the costs Walmart imposes in the form of not only lower earnings but also higher unemployment in the wider community outweigh the savings it provides for shoppers. On net, they conclude, Walmart makes the places it operates in poorer than they would be if it had never shown up at all. Sometimes consumer prices are an incomplete, even misleading, signal of economic well-being.

‘Creative new methods’. Uh-huh. Somebody needs to remind these ‘researchers’ that correlation doesn’t imply causation.

Read it.

No pressure, but….

Just sayin’.

Read it.

Scientists have discovered a remarkable way to destroy cancer cells. A study published last year found stimulating aminocyanine molecules with near-infrared light caused them to vibrate in sync, enough to break apart the membranes of cancer cells.

Aminocyanine molecules are already used in bioimaging as synthetic dyes. Commonly used in low doses to detect cancer, they stay stable in water and are very good at attaching themselves to the outside of cells.

The research team from Rice University, Texas A&M University, and the University of Texas, said their approach is a marked improvement over another kind of cancer-killing molecular machine previously developed, called Feringa-type motors, which could also break the structures of problematic cells.

“It is a whole new generation of molecular machines that we call molecular jackhammers,” said chemist James Tour from Rice University, when the results were published in December 2023.

“They are more than one million times faster in their mechanical motion than the former Feringa-type motors, and they can be activated with near-infrared light rather than visible light.”

Read it.

DARIÉN GAP, Panama—The grind of heavy machinery breaks the silence of the Darién jungle, where the Pan-American Highway ends at Yaviza, Panama.

Construction workers have cleared towering trees to make way for a steel and concrete bridge mighty enough to withstand flooding from the Chucunaque River.

…

The new project has worried some who fear that completing the road into the Darién Gap will be a win for China and a loss for the United States.

Michael Yon, a former war correspondent, has been covering mass migration through Panama for several years and has used social media to bring attention to the bridge’s construction and its implications.

China would benefit through an alternate trade route around the Panama Canal, which is essential to global trade. But for the United States, it could open the floodgates to migrants from South America, he told The Epoch Times.

Read it.

The bait was apparently too tantalizing to pass up. In the early morning darkness, an Amazon package vanished off the stoop of an ornate Greenwich Village townhouse. Whoever took it was likely unaware that a tracking device was placed inside. It showed that, in a matter of hours, the package took a long, pretzel-shaped route through the Holland Tunnel to Newark, New Jersey, then back through Manhattan, following the contours of the 2 train into the North Bronx.

Roughly 14 miles away in South Richmond Hill, Queens, a security camera captured the moment a hooded figure in a blue surgical mask swiped another Amazon box from the porch of a modest two-story home in South Richmond Hill. This time, a tracker showed the item making a circuitous journey down the commercial corridors of nearby Jamaica, Queens before landing blocks from where it was stolen.

Package theft has become a ubiquitous fact of life that — according to criminologist Ben Stickle, who studies the phenomenon — appears to be getting more organized, and more bold.

In Republican Plano, Texas, we don’t have this problem.

John Stossel.

The movie “The Matrix” gave us the “red pill” and the “blue pill.” The red wakes you up to reality; the blue keeps you indoctrinated.

Internet culture then invented a black pill. Those who take it think the world is doomed.

So, podcaster Michael Malice wrote the book “The White Pill,” calling it a “symbol of hope.”

Read it.,

Starting Monday night and into Tuesday, large demonstrations broke out in Christian areas of Damascus and other parts of Syria over the continued presence of foreign jihadists in the country.

The ruling Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has vowed to protect the sizeable non-Muslim communities of Syria (Christians, Alawites, and Druze) following the overthrow of the secular-leaning President Assad and his Baath government, but deep fears have remained that an Islamic state based on Sharia law will emerge.

Imagine how peaceful the world would be if the Religion of Peace didn’t exist.

Where are you going to find a pub that’s open on Christmas Day?

Read it.

Communities throughout the United States are debating the pros and cons of fluoridated water.

It’s a bit of a shock because the issue has been present in the underground of American political life for many decades. Community water fluoridation was an early example of using public services for the purpose of mass medicalization. The science was never there, however, and there is a growing awareness that the critics were always correct.

If you want fluoride, you can get your own, without mass dosing of the population without consent.

And apply it directly to your teeth, where it does some good, rather than ingest it into your whole body, where apparently it caues problems.

As Biden commutes death row sentences, how Trump plans to expand executions (BBC) The mind-readers of the Narrative Media are in fine form today.

Trump renews calls to buy Greenland from Denmark (PBS)

Trump is teasing US expansion into Panama, Greenland and Canada (CNN) And jerking their chains all the while.

Trump dreams of empire expansion (Axios) Or at least that’s what they’d have you believe. I doubt that anybody writing for Axios has a clue about Trump’s dreams.

Trump says ownership of Greenland ‘is an absolute necessity’ (NBC News)

Greenland Hits Back After Trump’s Dangerous, Asinine Threat (The New Republic) DANGEROUS! ASININE! Don’t hold it in, tell us how you really feel.

Trump’s FCC pick sends stern letter to Bob Iger, blasting ‘erosion in public trust’ (Brian Stelter/CNN)

Gaetz report renews debate about how he escaped federal charges (Politico)  Uh, they didn’t have any real proof? If they’d been able to gin something up, they’d have indicted him just like they did Trump.

Trump isn’t fooling anyone by saying Elon Musk’s “not going to be president” (Amanda Marcotte/Salon)  Amanda Marcotte can see through his sneaky little game.

Trump’s Pick to Lead Federal Housing Agency Has Opposed Efforts to Aid the Poor (ProPublica)  Not really, but that’s what they want people to believe.

At Trump’s inauguration, reports of a pay-to-pray (Jack Jenkins/RNS)  REPORTS! THAT PROVES IT!

The Men and Women Swirling Around Elon Musk (New York Times)

Elon Musk wants to ‘delete’ many Americans’ financial lifeline (Sharon McGowan/The Hill)

Biden Ramps Up Search for DEI Hires Ahead of Trump Administration

Read it.

The View’s Sunny Hostin is arguably one of the most racist personalities in the liberal media these days. She white people, particularly white women, are among her favorite hate objects. White women who marry black Republicans also get the brunt of her hatred. She does all this while also claiming it’s America writ-large who’s the truly racist ones.

From decrying Senator Tim Scott’s engagement to a white woman to lashing out at female athletes for being “white” and “pretty” to denying the existence of black Republicans, listed here are some of Hostin’s most racist moments of 2024.

Presenting in chronological order are nine of those moments and one deeply ironic revelation about Hostin’s family that came to light this year.

Really, black people would be lost if it weren’t for AWFULs to tell them when they’re being oppressed.

Read it.

Meet Latavion Lewis:

Read it.

“May Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace.”

Those words, from Disney’s new Snow White actress Rachel Zegler, came shortly after half of the country, roughly 77 million Americans, voted for Donald Trump.

Only a few weeks ago, Kamala Harris and her supporters were rallying the country to choose “love over hate.” Now, the “joy” is gone. Tis the season of the liberal hate-fest.

As Washington prepares for the inauguration, we are seeing a return to rage.

Read it.

Last week, we caught Joe Scarborough sounding like Bernie Sanders as he banged his desk in frustration, inveighing against “billionaires” and wondering how the Democrats could possibly have missed the “layup” of beating the Republicans in November’s election, given the disparity in income between those billionaires and working-class Americans.

On today’s Morning Joe, Scarborough made it clear that he has signed on to the project of rebuilding the Democrats. He brought in two critics of capitalism: Kurt Andersen and Daniel Chandler. The former wrote Evil Geniuses, a book condemning conservatives who want to reduce taxation and regulation. The latter has written Free and Equal, a book recommending that the Democrats embrace the philosophy of John Rawls–which at its core calls for the redistribution of income.

Scarborough claimed to be a “proud capitalist” and then came the “But.” He added “But I am a proud capitalist with guardrails that capitalism used to have. And I understand, people don’t want to talk about income redistribution. I’m not a big fan of income redistribution. I’m especially not a big fan when the income is being moved from middle class Americans to billionaires.”

So if the middle class flock to Amazon for their shopping, is that a “redistribution” of income to Jeff Bezos? Or is that the middle class finding the best price? Scarborough thinks just like the Democrats, that letting people keep more of what they have earned is the same as welfare programs taking money from those who have earned it and giving it to those who have not.

Read it.

One of the wonderful features of Christmas is how different cultures have different ways of celebrating the holiday. If you are Irish, for example, you might go to Midnight Mass or take a plunge for a Christmas Swim. Italians traditionally celebrate Christmas Eve with the insanely delicious Feast of the Seven Fishes (La Vigilia in Italian). Germans are generally recognized as the culture that first brought us advent calendars and the Tannenbaum or Christmas tree (thank you, Martin Luther), but they also brought Krampus Nacht for the naughty children.

If you are an American small government conservative, however, one Christmas tradition you always look forward to is the annual Festivus airing of grievances from Senator Rand Paul. Each year, Paul publishes a report of some of the worst examples of federal government waste … and calls out his colleagues on both sides of the aisle while doing so.

But Senator Paul may have outdone himself this year. For the first time ever, his Festivus list contains over $1 TRILLION in government waste.

Read it.

A new study found that Democratic voters are more likely than Republican voters to reduce the amount of time spent with family members over the holidays due to political disagreements.

That’s because Democrats are not only political but ideological, which most Republicans aren’t.

As reported by Breitbart, the survey from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), posted on December 13th, determined that “Democratic voters (23%) are nearly five times as likely as Republican voters (5%) to say they will be spending less time with certain family members because of their political views.”

In a statement following the results of the study, PRRI founder and President Robert Jones said that “it may be tense around the Hanukkah and Christmas table. It’s not just that we’re disagreeing about abortion or we’re disagreeing about taxes or even immigration… but we’re disagreeing about a fundamental worldview and about identity.”