Biden gives life in prison to 37 of 40 federal death row inmates so Trump can’t have them executed (Associated Press)

Trump demands return of Panama Canal if rates aren’t cut (Axios)

Trump threatens to try to take back the Panama Canal. Panama’s president balks at the suggestion (Associated Press)

Panama’s Leader Takes Up Feud With Trump Over Canal Control (Bloomberg)

Why Big Tech is funding Trump’s inauguration (Miranda Nazzaro/The Hill)

Refugees Are Bracing for Trump to Cut the Resettlement Program Again (New York Times)

Trump Threatens To Take Back Panama Canal As He Declares “Golden Age Of America Is Upon Us”

GOP congressman says it feels like Elon Musk is ‘our prime minister’ (Alexandra Marquez/NBC News)

Trump suggests he wants to buy Greenland (Rebecca Falconer/Axios)  Trump has ALWAYS wanted to buy Greenland. Doesn’t mean it will happen.

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

Biden Commutes 37 Death Sentences Ahead of Trump’s Plan to Resume Federal Executions (Aishvarya Kavi/New York Times)

Trump’s big Mike Johnson decision (Rachael Bade/Politico)

Biden commutes most federal death row sentences to life in prison before Trump takes office (Sam Fossum/CNN)

Musk Derangement Syndrome

Trump bristles at Musk’s rocketing profile as Democrats play on the president-elect’s vanity (Stephen Collinson/CNN)

By stepping on rakes, Trump ruins his own ‘honeymoon’ phase (Steve Benen/MSNBC)

Greenland is not for sale, its leader says in response to Trump (Reuters)  Oh, I think Trump could make him an offer he would be reluctant to refuse.

Supercharged Monroe Doctrine: First Panama Canal, Now Trump Revives Greenland Purchase Talk For US Security 

Trump’s lawsuit against Ann Selzer is textbook authoritarianism (Lisa Needham/Public Notice)

Trump Transition Live Updates: Ethics Panel Draft Report Accuses Gaetz of ‘Regularly’ Paying for Sex and Using Drugs (New York Times)

Trump addresses Elon Musk’s growing political influence: ‘He’s not going to be president’ (Peter Nicholas/NBC News)

Trump Organization Accused of Tax Evasion in Panama: What We Know (Sean O’Driscoll/Newsweek)  ACCUSED! THAT PROVES IT!

NY Times ‘Never Trumper’ Stephens: Let’s Stop It

Panama Pres. Balks at Trump Threat to Take Back Panama Canal

JD Vance appears to defend Germany’s far-right AfD party  APPEARS! THAT PROVES IT!

Democrats shouldn’t try to find ‘common ground’ with Trump (Jennifer Rubin/Washington Post)  Jennifer Rubin loses her shit.

Biden commutes most federal death sentences before Trump takes office (Washington Post)

Donald Trump, American Imperialist (Daniel W. Drezner/Drezner’s World)  If only….

Biden Clears Out Most of Federal Death Row Before Trump Can Kill Them (Naomi LaChance/Rolling Stone)  Democrats: Party of Criminals.

WashPost PANICS: ABC News Settling with Trump Will Spur Media to ‘Self-Censor’  If only….

The Trumpian Attitude at the Heart of the Gaetz Report (David Firestone/New York Times)  More like the Bidenian attitude.

US Editor of UK Guardian Fundraises Off Pledge to Never ‘Capitulate’ to Evil Trump

A Pro-Trump Group’s Risky Bet on Infrequent Voters Seems to Have Paid Off (Nick Corasaniti/New York Times)

‘Back To South Africa’: Democrats Call For Biden To Deport Elon Musk

Elon Musk Is a Paid Subscriber to Shockingly Racist Pro-Apartheid South African X Account (Isaac Schorr/Mediaite)  And if you believe that one, they’ll tell you another one.

Trump’s MAGA merchandise business operations are unacceptably opaque (Zeeshan Aleem/MSNBC)

Get ready for turf battles among Trump’s many foreign envoys (Nahal Toosi/Politico)

Trump’s TikTok Passion Raises Battle Stakes

Read it.

Climate anger can lead to action—or curdle into despair: Researchers find out why

by Samantha Stanley, Iain Walker, Teaghan Hogg and Zoe Leviston, The Conversation

Read it.

Racism is the intentional mistreatment of someone on the basis of their race – at least in the normal world. But in academia, racism is anything producing disparities, according to Professor Ibram Kendi.

What follows is a long list of people, places, actions, and other things declared racist this year by higher ed, though a few came from K-12.

If something needs “anti-racist” action or “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” it follows it must be racist, or else it would not need correction.

Read it.

Last week the United States imposed rare sanctions on Pakistan while condemning its nuclear-armed long-range ballistic-missile program. This despite Islamabad long being an uneasy ally of Washington.

The fresh sanctions on the missile sector were imposed under an executive order that “targets proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery,” according to the State Department’s Matthew Miller. The measures specifically punish Pakistan’s National Development Complex and three defense firms.

In follow up this week, the Biden administration is warning that Pakistan is on the verge of achieving a long-range ballistic missile which is capable of striking the US mainland.

Read it.

A Fraternal Order of Police chapter expressed “outrage” at President Joe Biden’ death row commutation of a cop killer on Monday, with the fallen officer’s widow calling it “distressing.”

FOP Capital City Lodge #9, which represents Columbus, Ohio, called the reprieve given to convicted cop killer Daryl Lawrence an “inexcusable affront to the memory” of Officer Bryan Hurst, shot and killed in the line of duty by Lawrence in 2005.

Biden’s commutation of Lawrence was one of 37 that Biden handed out to federal death row inmates on Monday, including at least five child killers and several mass murderers.

UPDATE: Fla. Sheriff: Biden’s ‘Woke Ideology’ Behind Commutations

Read it.

Mexico either refuses to or is utterly incapable of getting their drug cartel problem under control as they ravage innocent people. So instead, they’ve chose to shift blame to the United States and target American gun rights in a pair of lawsuits in American courts. In a segment on Sunday’s 60 Minutes, CBS News chose to cheer on Mexico’s effort as they willing pushed foreign propaganda in an effort to tear down Americans’ Second Amendment rights.

“There`s been a lot of talk about stopping the flow of illegal immigration and drugs from Mexico. But few people are talking about another crisis at the border — guns. Specifically, American guns,” chided correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi.

She parroted Mexican talking points that blamed American gun rights for cartel violence, not Mexico’s refusal to crackdown and their rampant corruption. She even suggested that Mexico’s actions against the U.S. could “fix” the “problems” with America’s gun rights:

Read it.

Whenever the first Trump administration made noises about defunding public media (in its 2017 and 2018 budget proposals, for instance), including National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the congressionally founded tax-funded entity ostensibly in charge, would respond by emphasizing how PBS benefits kids.

But must PBS’s educational support for children also include transgender and gender-identity propaganda?

PBS has run plenty of stories on its evening broadcast encouraging transgender treatments and surgery and standing for “transgender rights,” not only for adults but even impressionable minors who are not ready to make such irrevocable decisions about their body.

The controversial Trevor Project, which bills itself as “the leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention nonprofit organization for LGBTQ+ young people” and aggressively pushes so-called “gender-affirming” surgeries (like “cross-sex hormones, castration, and breast removal”) onto kids, has not only figured heavily in PBS coverage, which regularly promotes its slanted surveys on so-called suicidal ideation among LGBTQ youth. Trevor’s presence has also seeped into its coverage aimed at children themselves.

Read it.

In 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB-1322, the Oil Refiner Price Disclosure Act, into law. The legislation was hailed as a major step toward transparency, requiring refiners in California to report detailed monthly data on their gasoline profit margins. Specifically, refiners must disclose:

The cost of crude oil purchased

The wholesale price of gasoline sold

The gross and net profits earned per gallon of refined gasoline

Supporters, including consumer advocacy groups like Consumer Watchdog, argued that SB-1322 would expose “excessive profits” earned by refiners and hold them accountable amid California’s notoriously high gasoline prices. In fact, as captured in this recent TikTok video from Matt Randolph, Gavin Newsom continues to claim that oil companies are fleecing California consumers.

However, a little over two years after signing the bill into law, the data tells a different story.

Far from uncovering windfall profits, the disclosures reveal razor-thin — and often negative — margins for refiners in the state.

Man charged with murder after woman set on fire on F train in Brooklyn (Gothamist)

Man Faces Murder Charges in NYC Subway Burning Death (NewsMax)

Man Suspected in Burning of Woman on Subway Previously Deported (NewsMax)

Migrant Accused Of Setting Woman On Fire In NYC Subway Car Is Here Illegally, ICE Confirms

Thank you, Joe Biden.

Read it.

Three days before Christmas, the nation is horrified to learn details of the murder by fire of a woman on the New York city subway. The one legacy media newscast that bothered to report this story omitted significant details regarding the suspect’s immigration status.

Nothing to see here–move along, move along….

Read it.

Seven Chinese nationals were arrested recently for illegally entering Guam around the time of a recent U.S. missile interception test on Dec. 10 and 11, according to Guam authorities.

The Guam Customs and Quarantine Agency said at least four of the seven were found “in the vicinity of a military installation” and that the investigation is ongoing.

The Chinese nationals had arrived on a boat from Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, according to authorities.

Read it.

Washington Week with The Atlantic’s year-in-review episode Friday contained a fleeting reference to a bombshell Wall Street Journal story about how the White House and Democrats actively hid President Joe Biden’s descent into decrepitude, including several public stumbles, shaking hands with the air, and taking the “short stairss” up Air Force One.

The supposedly vigilant media acceded to Democratic wishes and showed astonishingly little curiosity about Biden’s decline, even issuing defenses of Biden’s acuity in the face of Republican observations, defenses that look simply pathetic in retrospect, like the New York Times story lamenting so-called Republican “cheap fakes.”

Such defenses also appeared on tax-funded PBS including a notorious exchange from the September 1, 2023 edition of the network’s political roundtable, Washington Week with The Atlantic, after a disastrous Biden press conference spurred by a damning special counsel report from Robert Hur.

Read it.

Washington State’s unofficial state motto has long been “Al-ki” which means either “bye and bye” or “by and by” in Chinook. The former meaning now seems official as Gov. Jay Inslee pushes for a “wealth tax.” Wealthy citizens are already saying bye to the state in anticipation of what one Democratic billionaire recently called a “boneheaded” move.

The problem is that rich people can move. Unlike fixed assets like a mansion, they can take their wealth and taxes to other states without such laws.

Time to leave.

Read it.

Are you a parent wanting to know what exactly the local school is teaching your child? Looking for official documentation of those lessons or the policies that motivated them? Better have millions of dollars in the piggy bank because that’s what these taxpayer funded institutions are demanding parents pay for access to public records through FOIA request.

The impetus for the sudden interest from parents in school activities is obvious. Attempts by educators to indoctrinate children with covid propaganda, including lessons on “anti-vaxxers” and even giving children vaccines without parental consent led to a wave of parental participation in how their local schools operate.

Multiple state supreme courts have blocked parental lawsuits and set a precedent giving schools immunity from litigation, specifically concerning health related policies. The only other option for citizens with children was to force their way into school board meetings and watch every move of the people involved.

FOIA requests have become frequent because schools refused to offer lesson transparency. In other words, school officials and teachers unions assert that they are not required to tell parents what their children are being taught, so the only way to know is to press the issue through access to public records.

Moral: Don’t send your kids to a government school.

Read it.

Researchers discovered that the mRNA modification m6A triggers rapid degradation, regulating protein production. This breakthrough could inform drug development to manage protein-related diseases.

Messenger ribonucleic acids (mRNA) are like the architects of our bodies. They carry precise blueprints for building proteins, which are read and assembled by their cellular partners, the ribosomes. Proteins are essential for our survival, as they regulate cell division, bolster the immune system, and make our cells resilient against external threats.

Just like in real-world construction, some cellular blueprints require extra instructions—such as when a protein needs to be produced rapidly or when corrections are needed for a flawed design. In our bodies, this role is fulfilled by RNA modifications. These small chemical changes function like detailed annotations, offering additional guidance to specific parts of the mRNA for optimal protein production.

Read it.

President-elect Donald Trump seems poised to revive the Monroe Doctrine, signaling a renewed focus that the US will continue Western Hemisphere domination for decades and will no longer tolerate any other competition in controlling strategic maritime chokepoints or natural resources in the region.

On Saturday evening, Trump vented on Truth Social how “President Jimmy Carter foolishly gave away” the Panama Canal for one dollar. He explained, “It was solely for Panama to manage, not China or anyone else.”

The core issue is that China now controls two of the five ports adjacent to the canal: Balboa on the Pacific and Cristobal on the Caribbean. While the US spent three decades engaged in nation-building activities across the Middle East, China transformed Panama into a geographic and commercial hub, strategically positioning itself for political, economic, and military advancement.

The Antiplanner.

In order to qualify for tax-deductible donations, non-profits must persuade the Internal Revenue Service that they are a charitable organization. Such organizations, says the IRS, are “organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, educational, or other specified purposes.”

But there are two kinds of non-profits. First are private non-profits that get most of their funding from private donors. These are charitable organizations because the donors expect no compensation, dividends, or other rewards other than a tax deduction and the good feelings they get from helping to promote causes they consider to be worthwhile.

Second are public non-profits that get most or all of their funding from government grants. These are anything but charitable because few if anyone put up their own money to fund these non-profits, the staff members are often paid far more than the average American white collar worker, and while the work they do may seem altruistic it is often at a much greater cost than the same work could be done by private industry.

Public non-profits are so different from private non-profits that they hardly deserve to use the same name. But certain groups have a habit of taking the name of a good idea and applying it to a bad idea to give that idea extra credibility.

Trump says he might demand Panama hand over canal (Reuters) Since it was ours in full sovereignty until it was handed over by The Peanut, that would be a step in the right direction.

Trump Gets Lump of Coal From Republicans as Shut Down Looms (Daily Beast)

Elon Tries to Kill “President Musk” Allegations After Total Disaster (The New Republic)

From Illegal Immigration to ‘No Tax on Tips,’ Youngkin Models States Working with Trump on America First Policies

How The Left Will Defend Its Censorship Regime Against Trump

Fmr. WaPo Editor: Trump ‘Salivating’ to Prosecute Journalists

Trump: Panama will lose control of Canal if it continues to ‘rip-off’ US (Sophia Vento/The Hill)

How Trump and Musk set off the shutdown crisis – but got little in return (Washington Post)

Republicans averted a shutdown, yet showed boundaries of Trump’s power (Dan Balz/Washington Post)

Trump signals plans to use all levers of power against the media (Washington Post)

MAGA’s Orban-esque Plan to Control What Universities Teach (Francis Wilkinson/Bloomberg)

Rev. Al Sharpton Plans MLK Rally Opposite Trump Inaugural

MSNBC’s Weekend Despair Over Media Rolling Over for ‘Tyrant’ Trump

Donald Trump’s transition team seeks to pull US out of WHO ‘on day one’ (Financial Times)

Trump suggests Panama Canal be returned to US control (Tara Suter/The Hill)

ZMan:

This was always part of the “invisible man” strategy. Progressive love creating an invisible man to do the dirty work so they can pretend to be observers, commenting upon the natural flow of history. “Some people say you are a polarizing figure” always turns up in whenever a normal person agrees to talk to a crazy from regime media.

Musk buying Twitter has had the unintended effect of buggering up the mechanism these people used to manufacture their invisible men. Not only can they no longer game the algo to artificially get their stuff trending, but many of the crazies also have either quit the game or shuffled off to Bluesky, which has become an isolate echo chamber. They have made themselves in a tree falling in a forest with no one around to heard it fall. Who says there is never any good news?

Read it.

Reading the history of science and technology, one is struck by how important two branches of physics are: electricity and magnetism, and thermodynamics. The former is mostly how we conveniently pipe energy around. The latter is …. how we get the energy in the first place, as well as making most of chemistry possible. Even humble inventions such as the small electric motor had enormous implications in how things get done. Before the invention of small electric motors, for example, machine shops or printing presses were powered directly by thermodynamics and mechanical connections: usually leather belts driven off a line shaft. Other sorts of mechanical connections were also used: wire rope systems (elevators still use them which is kind of an odd anachronism) or hydraulics. Now we pipe electricity around and electric motors turn the power into motion. Must have seemed like magic at the time; it is pretty cool when you stop to think about it. Burn something in one place, pipe the energy via thin bits of metal into little motors which do useful work right where you need it. Much better than strapping leather belts to the output shaft of a steam engine, with dudes shoveling coal into it in another room.

Thermodynamics is how we get power from heat. It is also how we design chemical reactions to make useful substances. I could imagine a modern world without modern chemistry (there would be fewer people without the Haber-Bosch process); even without electricity (certainly without computards: life was more fun without them), but not without thermodynamics and heat engines. Human standards of living are essentially proportional to the amount of heat converted into power which humans can use to do useful work. Without heat engines and the science which drove their creation and perfection, we’re back to Renaissance or Roman times where virtually everything is moved and built with muscle. It is now possible to get electricity directly from the sun and we’ve had wind and water mills for millennia. There are exotic ways of extracting electricity directly from heat: magnetohydrodynamics for example: still thermodynamic ultimately. Most accessible human power comes from thermodynamics. We live in a thermodynamic age: without it, we go back to subsistence farming and chattel slavery.

 

Read it.

Democratic National Committee finance member, Lindy Li, told “Piers Morgan Uncensored” on Wednesday that leaving the Democrat Party was like leaving a cult.

Li told Morgan that after she expressed criticism of how Vice President Kamala Harris presidential campaign was spending donor money, among which roughly $2 billion was garnered throughout the duration of the 2024 election, she was ostracized.

“It’s my duty of care to ask, ‘What the hell happened with that money? Why did we spend it? Why did we spend millions of dollars on five-star hotels for campaign staffers? Why did we spend $500,000 essentially bribing Al Sharpton moments before he interviewed Kamala?’ These are legitimate questions, but no, in the cult, you can’t ask questions.”

Read it.

On Friday’s PBS airing of Amanpour & Co., host Christiane Amanpour introduced “the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Paul Krugman, who’s written his last column for The New York Times, after 25 years of sharp and often indispensable takes on major issues that shape America and the world.”

Stop laughing, please.

NewsBusters has compiled decades of research proving Krugman’s knee-jerk partisanship is the opposite of sharp, and his conventional wisdom opinions far from indispensable. And he continues to claim Bidenomics has been vindicated. None of this penetrated the liberal PBS bubble, which didn’t offer the economist a single challenging question.

Daily Signal.

Over the past four years, President Joe Biden conducted an experiment: What happens if you open the U.S. border to nearly all who seek entry?

He released millions of illegal aliens at the border, paroled over a million more using programs Congress never authorized, and allowed at least 2 million more to evade the Border Patrol.

That resulted in the fastest illegal influx in U.S. history. The foreign-born population now exceeds the previous high from the 1890s—over 15%.

Nature.

A naturally occurring compound involved in digestion lengthens lifespan in flies and makes old mice more youthful.

Read it.

Earlier this week, T-Mobile announced that you can now register to beta test Starlink connectivity on your mobile phone, with actual testing expected to begin early next year – roughly two years after the initial announcement.

Back in 2022, T-Mobile and SpaceX announced a partnership to allow T-Mobile customers to utilize Starlink satellites – in an effort to eliminate deadzones for customers. This required SpaceX to design new direct-to-cell satellites, but according to T-Mobile, there are now more than 300 of them in orbit.

In the press release, T-Mobile announced that these new Starlink satellites will cover more than 500,000 square miles of land that aren’t currently served by cell towers. SpaceX will also continue to launch more of these direct-to-cell satellites over time, though a timeline wasn’t provided for when there’ll be a non-beta rollout.

During the beta, you’ll be able to send text messages – with voice and data support coming later.

Speed the day….

New York Times.

For nearly 250 years, the Encyclopaedia Britannica was a bookshelf-busting series of gilt-lettered tomes, often purchased to show that its owners cared about knowledge.

It was the sort of physical media expected to die in the internet era, and indeed, the encyclopedia’s publisher announced that it was ending the print edition in 2012. Skeptics wondered how Britannica the company could survive in the age of Wikipedia.

The answer was to adapt to the times.

Britannica Group, as the company is now known, runs websites, including Britannica.com and the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, and sells educational software to schools and libraries. It also sells artificial intelligence agent software that underpins applications like customer service chatbots and data retrieval.

Britannica has figured out not only how to survive, but also how to do well financially. Jorge Cauz, its chief executive, said in an interview that the publisher enjoyed pro forma profit margins of about 45 percent.

Read it.

Hidden above the stone vaults of Notre-Dame de Paris, the 13th-century timber structure that once supported the cathedral’s steep lead roof was so extensive it was known as “the forest”. When the cathedral caught fire in 2019, the flames spread quickly through the lattice of oak beams, each one hewn from an individual tree by medieval carpenters. Around two-thirds of the roof was destroyed in the blaze.

By March 2024, the entire roof frame—la charpente in French—had been identically reconstructed by a small army of 21st-century carpenters trained in the traditional technique of working freshly harvested “green wood” by hand with an axe. (This time, however, the frame is protected against fire risks by an automatic misting system, thicker roof battens and fire-resistant trusses separating the spire from the nave and choir on either side of it.)

After generations of mechanisation, this ancient skill had almost disappeared in France when an association called Charpentiers Sans Frontières (Carpenters Without Borders) began promoting its revival in 1992. The movement’s workshops now attract volunteers from around the world. Among their members are father and son Rémy and Loïc Desmonts, whose specialist family business in Normandy shared the winning bid to restore Notre-Dame’s charpente with Ateliers Perrault, a large carpentry company near Angers with a track record of restoring historic monuments.

Read it.

This is the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing under construction over the 101 just outside Los Angeles, California. When it’s finished in a few years, it will be the largest wildlife crossing (*of its kind) on the planet. The bridge is 210 feet (64 meters) long and 174 feet (53 meters) wide, roughly the same breadth as the ten-lane superhighway it crosses. Needless to say, a crossing like this isn’t cheap. The project is estimated to cost about $92 million dollars; it’s a major infrastructure project on par with similar investments in highway work. And it’s not the only example. The Federal Highway Administration recently set aside $350 million federal dollar to fund projects like this. The reasons we’re willing to invest so much into wildlife crossings aren’t as obvious as you might think, and there are some really interesting technical challenges when you’re designing infrastructure for animals. I’m Grady, and this is Practical Engineering.

Roads fundamentally change the environments they cross through. And while on its face, it might seem that it’s always a disaster for wildlife, there are actually some winners amongst the losers. For vultures, crows, coyotes, raccoons, insects, and other decomposers, roads provide a buffet for nature’s scavengers. And they sometimes make for pretty good housing too, at least if you’re a swallow or a bat. In fact, cliff swallows are now so famous for nesting on the underside of highway overpasses that they’re often referred to as bridge swallows. The sides of highways have clear zones kept free from trees and similar obstacles for vehicle safety, but the lack of shade allows tender greens to thrive, creating a salad bar for species from monarch butterfly caterpillars to white-tailed deer.

Of course, especially in the case of deer, this can attract animals into spending time eating dinner in danger. And the truth is that roads mostly range from a mild inconvenience to totally catastrophic for wildlife. In the battle between the two, wildlife usually loses, and in more ways than just getting squished. The ecological impacts of roads extend beyond the guardrails. Habitat loss and fragmentation, noise pollution, runoff, and of course, injecting humans into otherwise wild places are all elements of the environmental challenges caused by roads. It’s actually a pretty complicated subject, and there are even road ecologists whose entire careers are dedicated to the problem. And it’s not just wildlife that’s affected.

Read it.

Everyone knows National “Public” Radio hates half the public, the half that voted for Donald Trump. On Wednesday’s terribly named All Things Considered, an eight-minute story on NPR promoted “Sequeerity,” an LGBT security force in Minneapolis protecting their own from the allegedly violent hatred of the Trump-loving right-wing extremists.

The reporter was their “domestic extremism” reporter Odette Yousef, who doesn’t report on any LGBT extremism — they don’t acknowledge that exists. that can’t be identified. The sympathetic headline was “Neighbors protecting neighbors: Worried marginalized communities prep for Trump term.”

Read it.

After a week of predictable drama, President Joe Biden signed a government funding bill on Saturday, averting yet another government shutdown because of our government’s terminal addiction to spending money we don’t have.

As we noted earlier, the package limps the government along to March 14, when this is Trump’s problem, and includes $100 billion in disaster aid and a one-year farm bill. It notably did not include a debt limit extension demanded by Trump.

After passing through the house on the third try, the funding bill passed overnight in the Senate on Saturday by a vote of 85-11, while the House vote was 366-34.

How the U.S. Lost Control of Bird Flu, Setting the Stage for Another Pandemic (‘Scientific’ American)

California declared an emergency. How serious is bird flu? (Associated Press)

California backyard chicken owners worried for flock’s safety amid avian flu (KDRA Sacramento)

How America lost control of the bird flu, setting the stage for another pandemic (Missouri Independent)

Read it.

Combining phototherapy with chemotherapy may provide a more powerful approach to combat aggressive tumors effectively.

Patients with late-stage cancer often have to endure multiple rounds of different types of treatment, which can cause unwanted side effects and may not always help.

In hopes of expanding the treatment options for those patients, MIT researchers have designed tiny particles that can be implanted at a tumor site, where they deliver two types of therapy: heat and chemotherapy.

This approach could avoid the side effects that often occur when chemotherapy is given intravenously, and the synergistic effect of the two therapies may extend the patient’s lifespan longer than giving one treatment at a time. In a study of mice, the researchers showed that this therapy completely eliminated tumors in most of the animals and significantly prolonged their survival.

Read it.

The Super Hornet, assigned to aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), was flying over the Red Sea when guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg (CG-64) fired upon it, according to the CENTCOM statement.

“Both pilots were safely recovered. Initial assessments indicate that one of the crew members sustained minor injuries,” reads a statement from CENTCOM.

“This incident was not the result of hostile fire, and a full investigation is underway.”

A Navy official told USNI News the incident occurred around 3 a.m. local time on Sunday or about 7 p.m. East Coast time on Saturday. The Super Hornet was assigned to Carrier Air Wing One, and embarked aboard Truman, an official told USNI News. While the CENTCOM statement didn’t specify the squadron, the only two-seat F/A-18F squadron embarked aboard Truman are the “Red Rippers” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 11 from Naval Air Station Oceana, Va.

Your tax dollars at work.

Elon Musk Suddenly Realizes He Has No Clue How to Govern (The New Republic) Mind-readers! What would the Narrative Media be without them?

The Government Is Shutting Down Because Elon Musk Has Factories in China (The American Prospect) Democrats always ascribe to Republicans the motives that Democrats would have, since Republicans obviously, obviously, can’t be acting on principle.

The limits of the MAGA-verse (Axios)  MAGA is the New Nigger.

‘The world’s richest man right now holding the country hostage’: Erin Burnett on Musk blowing up bipartisan debt deal (CNN)

Florida Officials Say Federal Government Has “Stonewalled” State Investigation Into Would-Be Trump Assassin

Biden Administration Weighs Putting Up Roadblocks to Trump’s Deportation Campaign (New York Times)  God forbid a legally elected President should be able to implement the policies for which he was elected. (Ever notice how Democrats do everything they can to avoid actual democracy?)

Elon Musk endorses far-right Alternative for Germany party in upcoming election (Lora Kolodny/CNBC)  For CNBC, there is no right but the ‘far-right’.

Elon Musk Applauds the German Neo-Nazi Party (Alex Nguyen/Mother Jones)  To Mother Jones, anybody to the right of Bernie Sanders is a ‘Neo-Nazi’.

Musk helped kill a congressional spending bill. But much of what he spread was misinformation (Melissa Goldin/Associated Press)  Unlike, say, the misinformation spread by Biden’s minions.

Elon Musk Boosting German Fascists, What Could Possibly Go Wrong (Gary Legum/Wonkette)

PBS Anchor Geoff Bennett Quotes WashPost: Elon Has Too Much Power, It’s ‘Oligarchy’!  In Deep State-Speak, ‘oligarch’ means ‘rich person we don’t like’.

Outrage as Elon Musk claims ‘only AfD can save Germany’ (Kate Connolly/The Guardian)

CNN’s Friday Night Fusillade vs Musk Over Shutdown That Didn’t Happen

He’s anti-democracy and pro-Trump: the obscure ‘dark enlightenment’ blogger influencing the next US administration (Jason Wilson/The Guardian)  It’s Curtis Yarvin (Mencius Moldbug) about to be canceled. The Guardian (late to the party, as usual) is apparently unaware that Yarvin is a monarchist.

Trump’s ‘stunningly unqualified’ diplomatic team shapes up at breakneck speed (Robert Tait/The Guardian)

In Latest Threat To German Democracy, Dangerous Fascist Elon Musk Tweets Six Words About AfD

CBS In Springfield, Ohio for ‘Victims’ of Trump’s Mass Deportation

Read it.

This finding suggests that extreme calving events such as the recent 2017 Larsen C iceberg, A68, are statistically unexceptional and that extreme calving events are not necessarily a consequence of climate change.

Read it.

Geez, she sure sounds like a white supremacist.

Read it.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched its second hypersonic missile attack on Israel in just days, striking the Tel Aviv area early Saturday morning. The attack marked a rare instance where a hypersonic weapon overwhelmed Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, underscoring the challenges posed by these new ultra-fast missiles.

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

Read it.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) hasn’t just outlived its usefulness. One of its member states has been wearing out its welcome since the fall of the Soviet Union. Turkey was considered a secular nation when it sought entry into NATO after World War II. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Turkey has been attempting to resurrect its Islamic fundamentalist, Ottoman roots. Sadly, we the people of the United States are obligated to protect and defend it.

Exactly 30 years ago, in 1994, while speaking to young fundamentalist Muslims in Antwerp, Belgium, a Turkish Sheikh named Nazim Al-Kibrisi al-Haqqani took to the stage in a stadium filled to capacity, with close to 20,000 people present. After putting the phrase, “Allahu Akbar” to a repetitive musical chant, he exhorted the crowd to join him. He even referred to the audience as a “flood of people (being) a small sign of the glorious rise of Islam”.

There, in the front row, stood a smiling, young Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, who is currently the President of Turkey. In his speech, Kibrisi bemoaned the failures of his generation over the previous 70 years to preserve Islam. He insisted the young crowd which filled the stadium would restore the glory of Islam. This was a clear reference to the defeat of the Turkish Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, in 1922. It was also a personal reference. Kibrisi was born that year. Even the stadium was built between 1921 – 1923.

Read it.

Well, that’s what happens when you start admitting based on qualifications rather than skin color.

Read it.

A parental rights group published a report showing that the Department of Education has spent enormous sums to promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Parents Defending Education works to “reclaim our schools from activists imposing harmful agendas.”

It published its report on Dec. 12 demonstrating that, since 2021, the Department of Education has spent $1,002,522,304.81 to promote DEI at “universities, school districts, and nonprofits.”

That sum includes $489,883,797.81 for “DEI Hiring,” $343,337,286 for “DEI Programming,” and $169,301,221 for “Based Mental health/Social Emotional Learning.”

Read it.

President Joe Biden’s Department of Education reached an agreement with the University of California system to settle civil rights complaints that alleged widespread discrimination against Jewish students. To do so, the university system agreed to develop voluntary campus “climate surveys” and take other underwhelming measures.

In the agreement, released Friday, university leaders made no admission of wrongdoing. Instead, they agreed to “provide training” to campus police officers and “employees responsible for investigating complaints and other reports of discrimination.” They also agreed to “create a plan to work with respective campuses to develop climate surveys” meant to evaluate “the extent to which students are subjected to or witness discrimination, including harassment, based on actual or perceived race, color, and/or national origin.”

The settlement comes in the wake of shocking scenes that played out at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the spring. Anti-Semitic radicals at the school physically prevented Jews from accessing portions of campus if they didn’t denounce their religious beliefs.

Read it.

A dark money fund backed by Hollywood elites is the lead benefactor of Climate Defiance, the environmentalist group known for blocking highways and disrupting high-profile events in Washington, D.C., and across the country, according to the fund’s annual filings.

The California-based Climate Emergency Fund stated in its most recent annual report that it provided seed funding for Climate Defiance in 2023 and is “incredibly proud” to remain its lead funder. It is unclear how much money the Climate Emergency Fund donated—its tax forms reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon do not show direct contributions to Climate Defiance.

The fund’s filings, however, show that it wired $357,500 to the Oil and Gas Action Network, which trains climate protesters and manages a network of 30 climate disruption groups. The Oil and Gas Action Network in turn sent $296,000 to Climate Defiance Action, the 501(c)(4) that conducts the bulk of the Climate Defiance’s operations. Both the Oil and Gas Action Network and Climate Defiance solicit donations through the Action Network, an open platform previously employed by the Democratic National Committee and other progressive groups for fundraising.

That $296,000 grant represents more than half of the $542,056 that Climate Defiance Action pulled in last year via contributions and grants. A representative for the Climate Emergency Fund declined to comment, telling the Free Beacon that the fund “won’t have a comment on its financials or the activists it supports.”

You know, as they do.

Read it.

God forbid you should go through life with a fatty liver.

BBC, a Voice of the Crust.

A French court has sentenced seven men and a woman to prison for their roles in a hate campaign that led to the October 2020 murder of schoolteacher Samuel Paty in a Paris suburb.

The sentences handed down range from three to 16 years.

The attack took place following social media posts that falsely claiming Paty had shown his students obscene pictures of the Prophet Muhammad during a lesson on free speech.

Chechen-born radicalised Muslim Abdoullakh Anzorov murdered Samuel Paty, a history and geography teacher, at a secondary school in the Parisian suburb of Conflans-Saint-Honorine.

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

Washington Poop.

The original plan negotiated between House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and Democrats in both chambers ran more than 1,500 pages, while the legislation the House approved on Friday was just over 100 pages and dropped some policies unrelated to government spending.

Still too many, but it appears as if the incipient Trump admin is starting to do its job.

Read it. And watch the video.

Last week, several Russian first-person view (FPV) drones struck a U.S.-made M1A1 Abrams tank in the Kursk region, but the crew was able to survive. The vehicle’s commander lauded the American armor for saving their lives, but also highlighted some major vulnerabilities it has on today’s drone-drenched battlefield. In particular he offered important insights on how Ukraine is adapting its M1s to survive — lessons that could prove very valuable for the U.S. Army in future conflicts.

…

“Well, we got a luxurious shooting practice (around 100 rounds fired by each gunner) and some good overall knowledge about the tank,” he explained. “But the American instructors AND military were completely unaware of the modern battlefield threats. And still are unaware (I communicate with some of the American tankers and try to share information with them).”

Will Our People fix it? Don’t hold your breath….

‘Co-president’ Elon Musk? Trump ally tests influence in spending fight (Washington Poop)

24 hours that exposed a schism between Trump and Johnson and sent the government hurtling toward a shutdown (CNN) HURTLING!

Fact Check: Trump’s birthright citizenship ban will not affect his children (Reuters) FACT CHECK!

What is US birthright citizenship and can Trump end it? (Reuters)

Tom Homan Doesn’t Think Birthright Citizenship Is Enshrined in Constitution (Newsweek)

Trump girds for battle with Democrats, Supreme Court over birthright citizenship (The Hill)

Elon Musk Is Already Scamming Washington (The New Republic)

Elon Musk is the ultimate chaos agent (The Guardian)

Hillary Clinton says Republicans are taking orders from ‘world’s richest man’ to shut down government (Fox News)  Well, whom would you rather take orders from? The world’s richest man, or the world’s crookedest woman?

Trump threatens primary against Texas conservative Chip Roy (The Hill) Just a reminder that TRUMP IS NOT A ‘CONSERVATIVE’. TRUMP IS A BUSINESSMAN. [Explaining the Beef Between Donald Trump and Chip Roy (The Foundry)] “Cross him and he’ll send you back to Kansas, whether you came from there or not.” — Doonesbury

Shutdown threatens ‘chaos’ for Trump’s transition and inauguration (Politico)

‘President Elon Musk!’ MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell And Dem Dan Goldman Taunt Trump Over Musk Taking Lead (Tommy Christopher/Mediaite)

PARTISAN PUSH: All But 2 Democrats Vote Against Trump-Endorsed Government Funding Bill, Despite Debt Ceiling Increase

John Bolton Warns Republicans To Take Trump’s New Threat Against Cheney Seriously (S.V. Date/HuffPost)

Does California’s Bird Flu Emergency Portend The Next Trump-Era Outbreak?  TIME TO PANIC! ORANGE MAN BAD!

Trump team affirms he’s leader of GOP amid ‘President Musk’ barbs (Miranda Nazzaro/The Hill)

WATCH: Whoopi Goldberg Suggests Musk and Vance Want to Assassinate Trump, Blames Cat in Apology 

‘Effectively Dead’: Fani Willis’s Case Against Trump Is Toast After Appeals Court Ruling, Lawyers Say

Transcript: Chris Murphy’s Ominous New Warning About Trump Nails It (New Republic)

‘President-elect Musk’: Elon’s influence on display in government spending fight (USA Today)

Musk floods X with spending bill misinformation (The Hill)

Republicans Cut Child Cancer Research From Funding Bill After Musk’s Meddling (Rolling Stone)  OH NOES!

A MAGA power play roils Senate GOP campaign groups (Politico)

PBS: Amanpour Laments Media’s ‘Kiss-the-Ring Progression to Mar-a-Lago’

The GOP Is Treating Musk Like He’s in Charge (Charles Sykes/The Atlantic)

Alaska governor asks Trump to roll back restrictions on oil and gas drilling (Becky Bohrer/Associated Press)  OH NOES!

Shocker! PolitiFact Tags Trump For ‘Lie of the Year’ For the 7th Time

How the Left Will Defend Its Censorship Regime Against Trump

Elon Musk is becoming a one-man rogue state – it’s time we reined him in (Alexander Hurst/The Guardian)

Trump is not immune in NY case, and he’s big mad about it (Liz Dye/Public Notice)

The View Quickly Walks Back Suggestion Elon Musk & JD Vance Are Plotting To Kill Trump

NY Democrat: ‘Elon Musk has Donald Trump in a vise’ (Joanne Haner/The Hill)

Trump Wins–and the Censorship Begins (American Greatness)

Major Trump donors who complained of immigrant ‘invasion’ used Mexican workers illegally, sources allege (The Guardian)

Backlash builds as Elon Musk endorses Germany’s far right (Nette Nöstlinger/Politico)  To Politico, there is no right but the ‘far-right’.

Trump says any shutdown ‘is a Biden problem to solve’ (Andrew Howard/Politico)  They’ll have to wake up him up first.

Leaders of federal managers reject Trump’s plans to politicize workforce (Joe Davidson/Washington Post)  They don’t want anything to interfere with the way it’s already politicized.

Musk Shows Trump That He’s the New Chaos in Town (Josh Marshall/Talking Points Memo)

Where do Musk and Trump stand after that spectacle? (Politico)

‘Co-president’ Elon Musk? Trump ally tests influence in spending fight (Washington Post)

Elon Killed the Budget Deal. Cancer Research for Kids Was Collateral Damage. (Sam Stein/The Bulwark)  The Kristol Krew are now fully turned Left.

On Morning Joe, Michael Tomasky Blames ‘Right-Wing Media’ For Trump Popularity

GOP lawmakers urge Trump to replace all US attorneys (Kadia Goba/Semafor) Yes.

Judges increasingly alarmed as Trump’s Jan. 6 clemency decision nears (Kyle Cheney/Politico)

Dozens of House Republicans Defy Trump in Test of His Grip on G.O.P. (Michael D. Shear/New York Times)  GRIP!

Elon Musk backs Germany’s far-right AfD (Anne-Sylvaine Chassany/Financial Times) For the Financial Times, there is no right but the ‘far-right’.

Why Republicans will probably be blamed for a shutdown (Aaron Blake/Washington Post)  Hint: The Narrative Media will guarantee it.

Dozens of Republicans broke with Trump. Are primary challenges next? (Politico)  Bet your bippy.

Musk Expresses Support for Far-Right Party in Germany’s Election (New York Times)  For the New York Times, there is no right but the ‘far-right’.

Trump was poised to inherit a strong economy. Then things got rocky and he added to the uncertainty (Josh Boak/Associated Press)  And if you believe that one, they’ll tell you another one.

As Musk forces a shutdown, the Trump presidency is already collapsing into chaos (Dana Milbank/Washington Post)  He hopes, he hopes,  he hopes….

I’ve faced Trump’s crusade to punish his enemies. Congress can still stop him. (Rep. Eric Swalwell/MSNBC)  How’s Fang Fang?

Trump Moves to Replace Officials Whom New Presidents Traditionally Leave Alone (Charlie Savage/New York Times)  Unless the President is a Democrat, in which case it’s perfectly alright to replace them.

Trumpism’s healthcare fracture-lines (permalink) (Pluralistic)

‘It Will Be a More Robust Check on Trump Than the G.O.P. Congress’: Three Legal Experts on Trump 2.0 (New York Times)

Caroline Glick interviews Lee Smith on Trump and Netanyahu and the lawfare against them