“Experience keeps a dear school, yet Fools will learn in no other.” — Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1743
We all know why Hollywood makes crappy sequels: The first film in the series made money. Which is why Hollywood squeezed out the likes of Superbabies: Baby Genius 2, Highlander 2: The Quickening and The Concorde… Airport ’79 onto the innocent, unsuspecting heads of American movie-goers. But Hollywood, bless their blackened, cocaine-engorged, money-hungry hearts, knows enough not to make a sequel to a film that everyone hated the first time.
Remember when the whole banking system almost crashed when Bill Clinton’s sub-prime mortgage disaster caught up to us in 2008?
It turned out that loaning hundreds of thousands to people with shoddy credit history wasn’t sustainable, and you’d think we would have learned that lesson.
Yahoo Finance reports that starting in 2026, our two lending giants are once more relaxing their lending standards below a credit score of 620.
Fannie Mae eliminated its minimum credit score requirement on Nov. 15, 2025, as noted in an update to its Selling Guide.
‘Previously we used a minimum credit score to determine whether a borrower was eligible for a credit risk assessment,’ the government-sponsored enterprise said in a statement. Fannie Mae added that the update would ensure risk analysis is ‘agnostic of third-party credit scores.’
That’s like saying you want to make your highway safety decisions apart from highway death statistics.
The GSE also said that risk decisions would be based on ‘a broad set of factors, such as borrower reserves, debt levels, property characteristics, and loan purpose.’
In other words, risk will now be assessed by the need for high level executives to hit loan bonus targets.
Since Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae provide capital to the mortgage industry for more than half the mortgages in the U.S., the credit bureaus are also moving away from a traditional credit requirement.
We’ve seen this movie before, and the first time it hit screens, in 2008, it almost destroyed the western banking system and brought on the worst recession since The Great Depression.
I didn’t like that movie the first time, and I certainly have no desire to sit through it a second time.
For some reason, Vladimir Putin seems to think he can force NATO to back down from supporting Ukraine against his illegal war of territorial aggression by launching various provocations. Here’s a roundup of recent NATO country responses to Russia.
First up: Cappy Army on NATO beefing up it’s defensive line against Russia:
“NATO is racing to build a multi-billion dollar 2,000 mile long defensive line that stretches across the entire European continent.”
“There are several names for the new fortification depending on the section you’re standing at. In the Baltics, it’s officially known as the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line, which is a 500 mile long network of bunkers and fortified border zones.”
“The Eastern Flank Deterrence Line is not mainly physical barriers, because the distance is far too great. Instead, it’s a network of computer sensors to fill these physical gaps. It’s not designed to completely defeat a potential Russian conventional advance. It’s made to slow down and channel the enemy’s forces into these predetermined kill zones.”
“The Army and NATO’s focusing their efforts at the places deemed most vulnerable in the Baltics. Here they’re deploying a layered modular barrier system that runs 30 miles deep.” First they hit sensors lines, then get a dose of HIMARS and artillery, then drone swarms in the air and on the ground. “Estimates are these methods will have to kill or wound 70% of the attacking force to be successful.”
The length of the entire defensive line is roughly the length of the U.S.-Mexico border.
“It’s designed this way to cover large sections of land that may not already have trenches pre-plotted artillery and mortar kill zone are linked to a network of sensors and then anything that makes it past that runs into rows of landmines, then physical obstacles, including anti-vehicle ditches and rows of concrete dragons teeth. These are strategically placed at the high-speed avenues of approach that lead directly to the Baltic state capitals.”
“The second line of defensive positions in the network is over 600 bunkers of distributed firing positions, trenches, and roadblocks. Infantry and anti-tank javelin teams fight from here.”
“The European Deterrence Initiative in the United States requested $2.9 billion from America in 2025 to deter Russia. Poland’s portion of the defensive line will cost over $50 billion with much of that funding coming from the EU. And the Baltics and Finland are spending a combined billions of dollars more as well.”
“Similar to the Cold War doctrine, [Baltic forces are] a kind of tripwire force here. Troops stationed here jokingly refer to themselves as tactical speed bumps.” The idea is to buy time until reinforcements arrive.”
“In Estonia, there’s only 127 miles from the border with Russia to the capital city.”
“The defining issue along the defensive wall is manpower. The shortage of manpower is what has shaped all of the decisions for how this fortification is being built. The Estonian army has roughly 6,000 active soldiers with a NATO force of 2,000 UK and French troops also deployed here. And if we look across the whole Baltics, we see that there’s roughly 29,000 active duty soldiers total here. This does not fully take into account reserve forces or air power advantages, but it outlines the basic tactical problem.”
In Poland the defensive line continues under the name Eastern Shield. “This runs from the Kalinigrad enclave down along Belarus and towards Slovakia, which is another 500 miles.”
“Poland’s Eastern Shield has an entirely different strategy than the Baltics. They expect to absorb the first hit and then fight a long, protracted war on their own soil if they have to. The shield here does not have the benefit of being built around geographic obstacles like in the Baltics. This is why you see full-length anti-tank ditches and multi-mile long trench systems laid out in depth.”
“The scale of the project is gigantic, with 8,000 combat engineers working to lay 10,000 concrete dragon’s teeth and over 800 miles of layered anti- vehicle barriers backed up by massive amounts of artillery. Terrain denial is the focus on this stretch.”
“Manpower and mass is less of a problem on this section of the front, because in Poland there’s 280,000 well-trained and equipped active forces with an additional 10,000 American soldiers already stationed there before reinforcements arrive.”
“The defining piece of this part of the puzzle is the anti-air assets, with 48 Patriot air defense launchers provide a protective umbrella for forces massing here.”
“The logistics backbone is being built here. Poland would be the transit region into the Baltics and much of the large stockpile of fuel and ammo are positioned here because they have the space.”
NATO has a more difficult problem defending Poland than the Warsaw Pact did when Moscow called the shots. “Today’s NATO and EU is an alliance of sovereign states that must coordinate instead of obey. This makes rapid unified action more difficult.”
“The US Army themselves acknowledge Russia has the advantage in manpower and equipment on this front, and that Russia can choose the time and place of the attack.” I sincerely doubt Russia has the equipment or manpower advantage now that Vlad’s Big Adventure has run through Soviet-era tank stockpiles and slaughtered Russian manpower to gain tiny slivers of Ukrainian territory.
A history of static defenses snipped and Cold War defensive realities snipped.
NATO General Chris Donahue: “The massive momentum problem that Russia poses to us, we’ve developed the capability to make sure that we can stop that mass and momentum problem.”
In their panic over Ukraine slowly destroy both their Black Sea fleet and their shadow fleet, Russia has managed to piss Turkey off:
“After Russian forces increased their activity and provocations over [the Black Sea] and NATO country’s airspace, Turkey was the first to act and shot down Russian surveillance drones without warning.”
“As more accidents followed, the Russians are now at risk of facing the Turkish wrath, getting all their trade cut off outright without any strikes needed.”
A Russian drone with transponder equipment was found on the ground in a Romanian forest. “With a wingspan of roughly 2 meters, Romanian authorities assessed that the device had been used to monitor NATO facilities or track military aid deliveries to Ukraine.”
“Three separate Russian drones violated Turkish airspace, pushing the country closer to decisive action. The first incident occurred when a Russian drone entered Turkish airspace from the Black Sea. Turkish air defense reacted swiftly and F-16 fighter jets intercepted the target, ultimately shooting it down with an M9X sidewinder missile.”
“The second incident was even more alarming when a Russian Orlan reconnaissance drone crashed near the city of Izmit just 50 kilometers from Istanbul.”
“The third case involved debris from a Russian Merlin reconnaissance drone discovered in western Turkey. The Merlin can remain airborne for up to 10 hours flying at altitudes of up to 5 kilometers and carrying advanced opto-electronic sensors. Its presence again pointed to sustained intelligence gathering activity rather than an isolated malfunction.”
“If Ankara were to sight repeated Russian drone incursions as a security threat, it could even restrict civilian Russian shipping through the Bosphorus in retaliation. The consequences would be severe as such a move would devastate Russia’s Black Sea trade and challenged the 1936 Montreux Convention, guaranteeing free passage for merchant vessels.”
“Russian drone operations continue, Ankara appears willing not only to shut down the sky over the Black Sea, but also to potentially escalate further and close the boss for us, making it clear that spying on NATO members in the region will carry real and costly consequences.”
“Russia’s shadow fleet is coming under mounting pressure in the Baltic, as interceptions increase and European states move more aggressively against sanctioned vessels. However, now Russia is responding by placing Wagner mercenaries on board these ships, bringing one of its most violent forces directly into Nato-monitored waters.”
“The European Union has just released a new sanctions package targeting forty-one additional shadow fleet vessels, bringing the total to more than six hundred ships now barred from European-linked ports, insurance, and services. These ships are losing access to harbors, maintenance, and technical certification, which forces Moscow to rely on improvised routes that squeeze through increasingly narrow corridors.”
“Beyond oil, these vessels also move sensitive cargo linked to Russia’s war effort, which makes each interception far more consequential than a financial loss alone, and as enforcement tightens, the risk shifts from paperwork violations to direct seizure.”
This shift became visible when Swedish authorities detained the Russian cargo vessel Adler after it entered Swedish waters with unresolved documentation issues. The ship’s owner is sanctioned for transporting materials linked to Russia’s weapons production, and when Adler suffered engine trouble in Swedish waters, the crew could not produce clean documentation. Swedish authorities boarded immediately, as the detention came amid growing reports that Russia has begun placing Wagner mercenaries on board shadow fleet vessels, raising the stakes for any inspection or boarding operation, and signaling that European states are no longer intimidated by the possibility of armed Russians on these vessels.”
“According to Danish maritime pilots, once Wagner personnel are on board, they often restrict access to the bridge and interfere with communication between captains and port authorities, and push for routing that avoids areas where inspections are common.”
“For Moscow, Wagner functions as a last-line enforcement tool. Their role is to ensure that vessels keep moving even when legal and operational risks become unacceptable by normal commercial standards. Crews bullied, beaten, or threatened by the mercenaries may even quietly signal nearby NATO ships for help, or attempt to sabotage equipment to force an emergency stop in Western waters, with the Adler’s crew possibly sabotaging the engine before they reached a Russian port, and Wagners would come on board. On top of that, owners of leased ships may object to hosting armed Russian soldiers, whose presence massively increases legal liability and operational danger.”
The case of Adler matters because it highlights how the shadow fleet is being used not only for oil, but for moving weapons and military-linked cargo. Western officials assess that a substantial portion of Russia’s imported ammunition components, explosives precursors, and sanctioned industrial equipment now arrives by sea, precisely because land routes and air transport are more exposed to interception. If vessels like Adler are increasingly detained or disrupted, Russia does not just lose revenue but risks bottlenecks in the supply chains that feed its weapons production.”
NATO hasn’t been backing down in the face of repeated Russian provocations. Putin is playing an increasingly weak hand badly.
Something from the “old news is so exciting” file, but this BBC piece from 2010 in which then Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond interviews racing driver Stirling Moss about his crash on the track in 1962, and subsequent recovery from his serious brain injury, and how his crash and recovery compares to Hammond’s own in a jet-powered car, is quite fascinating.
A few interesting takeaways:
Moss was in a coma for a month, and one side of his body was paralyzed for some six months.
When he recovered, he tried racing on a track again, but decided to retire because all the split-second decisions he had previously made instantaneously he had to consciously think about.
Hammond’s own crash in 2006 was at 288mph, and even though he pulled the parachute release, it failed to deploy. He was in a medically-induced coma for two weeks.
Hammond did an interview in December just three months after the accident, and appeared on Top Gear in January some four months after, both times proclaiming himself completely recovered, but later Hammond looked back on those segments and said he clearly wasn’t fully recovered. Indeed, he said each year he would look back at the last, and realize that full recovery was a continuing process.
Both men said they reacted to what they thought were their impending deaths not with fear, but just wondering what would come next.
Bonus the First: Road To Success interviews Top Gear producer Jim Wiseman, who also produced the Hammond-Moss interview:
Bonus the Second: Road To Success interviews Top Gear writer Richard Porter:
70% of what Top Gear would become was already sketched out on pieces of paper Jeremy Clarkson brought to the initial meeting with Wilman (an old mate from school) to relaunch Top Gear.
They hated the show’s initial Sunday night BBC2 time-slot (which, weirdly, they had to scare off another car show from using), but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
Because nobody in BBC management was interested in cars, they were allowed essentially free reign to run the show how they wanted, and to experiment to see what worked and what didn’t.
They ended up doing things just because they were interested in them, not because they thought anyone else would be, but this eclectic approach ended up unlocking different audience segments that fueled their global growth.
They note that the trial-and-error approach was a huge key to their success, and that if they had aimed for global success from the first, they never would have achieved it.
One key was that voiceovers should undercut or counterpoint what was going on on-screen, such as “which went well” rather than “James has broken down again.”
They realized early on that failure was a lot more interesting than success. There was a road trip with cheap cars where all three had broken down, and their old school director asked if they should just stop shooting, but Clarkson went “No, keep shooting. This is what it’s about now.”
Clarkson’s background was in British tabloid journalism, so he likes to craft his segments ahead of time. By contrast, Hammond is a master of on-the-spot riffing and improvisation.
Amazon only did Clarkson’s Farm (and Hammond’s Workshop) as a way to lure them back into doing two more seasons of The Grand Tour. When they heard Clarkson wanted to make the show about farming, they were terrified it was going to be boring. Clarkson said “I don’t blame them.” But it turned out brilliantly because all of the figures in the show were such natural characters that they worked better than any casting call could.
I hope everyone had a great Christmas! GDP says that some of the economy is already booming, Minnesota Somali fraud is even greater than we thought, Nigerian jihadis get dirtnapped, California drives yet more businesses out, another Democrat pedophile busted, Trump cleared in Epstein scandal by NYT, some cursed gun images, and some leftover Christmas cheer.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Is the Trump Boom here? “US Economy Grows By Big 4.3% In Third Quarter.” I can hardly wait for this booming economy to catch up with me…
“Minnesota Somalia Community Fraud Likely to Exceed $9 Billion.
According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson, 14 Medicaid services currently under audit and deemed “high risk” have cost the state $18 billion since 2018. “I don’t make these generalizations in a hasty way,” he said. “When I say significant amount, I’m talking on the order of half or more. But we’ll see. When I look at the claims data and the providers, I see more red flags than I see legitimate providers.”
Thompson said during a press conference announcing new indictments that entire companies were created not to provide medical services but to pocket federal funds for international travel, luxury vehicles and lavish lifestyles. “The magnitude cannot be overstated,” Thompson said. “What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes. It’s staggering, industrial-scale fraud.”
Thompson then outlined an industry of “fraud tourism” where some outsiders -specifically two from Philadelphia- even travelled to the state to participate in the financial windfalls. The scheme was “easy money,” he said.
Why, it’s almost as if the Democrats running the state didn’t try to stop the fraud…
Nigerian foreign minister, Yusuf Tuggar, has told broadcaster ChannelsTV that he was on the phone with the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and that Nigeria “provided” the intelligence.
“We spoke twice. We spoke for 19 minutes before the strike and then we spoke again for another five minutes before it went on,” Tuggar said.
He added that they spoke “extensively” and that President Bola Tinubu gave “the go-ahead” to launch the strikes.
Tuggar did not rule out further strikes, describing them as an “ongoing process” that would also involve other countries.
In an interview with the BBC, Tuggar insisted the strikes had “nothing to do with a particular religion”. He said the operation did not have “anything to do with Christmas, it could be any other day – it is to do with attacking terrorists who have been killing Nigerians”.
Of course, the Islamic State has everything to do with religion, but it’s smart to say “We’re not killing Muslims, we’re killing terrorists.”
The BBC has more information on the strikes, saying they hit not Boko Haram, but “a smaller group [known] locally as Lakurawa” that “sought to establish a base in north-western Sokoto state.” DoD images released suggest the use of Tomahawk cruise missiles, but I haven’t seen any confirmation of the weapons used in the strikes.
Harsh but fair: “Democrats are letting criminal illegal immigrants kill people.”
Democrats are allowing people to be murdered by illegal immigrants so they can brag that they are not cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
This is the reality of the most recent case in Fairfax County, Virginia. There, El Salvadoran national Marvin Morales Ortez had been jailed and charged with multiple crimes after “maliciously wounding” someone who was living in the same home with him. When the alleged victim did not show up to testify, Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano’s office dropped the charges, and a judge ordered Ortez to be released. He was then arrested after allegedly murdering the same person he had injured, not even a day after being released.
ICE had put a detainer request on Ortez, given that he was an illegal immigrant, but Fairfax County refused to honor it and hand him over to be deported. Now, someone is dead. And this is not the first time there has been an issue with Ortez; Descano dropped murder charges against him from a 2019 killing where he had, according to Descano’s own office, confessed to participating in the murder. He has been charged with at least seven crimes in Fairfax County over the past five years, but Descano has dropped charges against him multiple times.
And, sure enough, he is also an alleged member of MS-13.
There are some questions to be asked here. For one, how can you be unable to prosecute an alleged MS-13 member after bringing charges against him multiple times? Descano’s office has constantly claimed noncooperation by the alleged victims, as if that is an insurmountable obstacle. But, more importantly, why not just hand him over to ICE, send him back to El Salvador, and never play this cat-and-mouse game where you arrest him for crimes and drop the charges the moment the case is more difficult than a slam dunk?
This guy could have been deported at any time, and yet he was allowed to stay free in Fairfax County through dropped charges and ignored ICE detainers. The Democrats who run Fairfax County are so obsessed with supporting illegal immigration that they allowed an alleged murderer to stay in the country, constantly released him from jail, and watched him allegedly commit another murder in the process.
This is the mindset of Democrats across the country in all sanctuary states, cities, and jurisdictions. They care more about protecting the concept of illegal immigration than they do about the lives of the people who are being victimized by illegal immigrants.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has posted a woman’s privacy complaint form. So if any of you woman see a man pretending to be a woman using your restrooms, now you know where to report them.
California state officials received an emphatic legal rebuke over public school policies that required school officials to withhold from parents the gender identity or “social transition” expressions of minor students.
U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez ruled yesterday in a summary judgment decision that California’s parental exclusion policies are unconstitutional and issued a class-wide permanent injunction in the case of Mirabelli v. Olson.
The injunction permanently blocks California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the state’s Department of Education from forcing teachers to lie to parents about their children being socially transitioned with new names and pronouns.
I hope every parent who had their child “transitioned” sues the asses off the groomers.
Speaking of crazy trannies: “Transgender felon who blinded Seattle woman was arrested and released 8 times this year.”
Because the People’s Republic of California wasn’t doing enough to destroy business in their state, they’re passing on more business-destroying taxes.
We may never run out of signs that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) is an utterly incompetent executive who belongs nowhere near power. The latest is that he has not repaid a federal pandemic unemployment loan, effectively creating a new California tax on jobs.
During the 2020 pandemic, the Trump administration provided loans to states to help address unemployment as businesses were shut down. California received a loan of $20 billion and, more than five years later, has not paid it back. In fact, California is one of only two states that have not repaid their loans. And California failed to do this despite the Biden administration giving all states the ability to repay loans with federal stimulus money.
This means the cost is now passed on to California employers. Every employer in California will be required to pay an additional $42 per employee in payroll taxes to help the state pay back the loan. That will increase by $21 every year until the loan is paid back (which is not projected to happen until the 2030s). It does not matter if the employee is part-time or full-time. It does not matter if the employer is a big business or a small, family-run store. Everyone will be taxed for each person they employ.
That means, in effect, Newsom and California Democrats have allowed a new tax on employing people to take effect while having the highest unemployment rate of any state in the country. California, with onerous regulations and taxes, already makes job growth difficult; in 2024, 96.5% of new jobs created were government jobs. This will only make it even more difficult, all because Newsom and California Democrats want to recklessly spend money without making sure everything is paid for.
ity poor Cuba — one of the wealthier nations in the Latin America before the Communists got hold of it, and now at risk of “collapse” due to President Donald Trump’s seizures of sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers.
If you liked the pressure Trump’s blockade put on the Maduro regime, you’re gonna love the second-order effects it could have on Cuba.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that “Venezuelan oil exports are at risk thanks to a partial blockade targeting sanctioned tankers — the kind that carry about 70% of the country’s crude.” The story continued, “Were Venezuela’s oil shipments to stop, or sharply decline, the Cubans know it would be devastating.”
Cuban exile and energy expert Jorge Piñón told the Journal, “It would be the collapse of the Cuban economy, no question about it.”
Communist Cuba has relied on foreign benefactors to stay afloat, pretty much since Fidel Castro and his butcher boys like Che Guevara seized power more than 60 years ago. In recent years, the regime — ruled since 2018 by Communist party chief Miguel Díaz-Canel — relies on the largess of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro for cheap oil the country can’t afford to buy at market price.
Yes, even at today’s low prices. I’d also pause here a moment longer and ask you to ponder that under the Communists, Cuba is so poor that Maduro’s Venezuela — where they already ate all the zoo animals — is its economic lifeline.
Venezuela is in such dire straits that oil shipments to Cuba already declined by two-thirds, from 100,000 barrels a day to 30,000. That was before we started pulling over their tankers and checking for license and registration.
My PJ Media colleague Sarah Anderson reported Saturday that U.S. forces just “seized another oil tanker that was last docked in Venezuela.” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem posted on X, “This morning [the U.S. Coast Guard] in coordination with the [Department of War] executed a lightning strike operation to seize the Motor Tanker Centuries, which is suspected of carrying oil subject to U.S. sanctions. The iron fist of America’s joint military and federal law enforcement rules the waves.”
With the Motor Tanker Centuries tanker went another small fraction of $150-$435 million or so in hard currency imports (estimates seriously vary!) the Maduro regime requires each week to do little things like pay the troops who keep it in power.
And Díaz-Canel’s lifeline got that much shorter.
It would be ironic of all that military buildup people think is for Venezuela actually liberated Cuba…
How does this happen in an American city with nearly 90,000 residents?
Welcome to Lawrence, Massachusetts…
Mayor [Brian] DaPena was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He came to the United States, according to his website, in the early ’80s.
More than 40 years later, he still struggles with English, showing no interest in assimilating to American culture or language.
“REPORT: ‘Ghost jobs’ with no intent to hire make up 22% of online job postings.” I think that estimate is too low. I think it’s probably more like 40-50%.
If a Democrat ever tries to lecture you about decency and morality, just drop this name on them: Randy Sprinkle.
Yes, that’s a real name. It’s actually the name of a Democrat operative who was just arrested by the FBI and charged with distributing child porn. Randon “Randy” Alexander Sprinkle, 30, it turns out, was recently the finance chairman of the Virginia Democrat Party; he once served as a leader in the Young Democrats of Virginia, and worked in 2025 as the campaign treasurer for Richmond City Council Vice President Katherine Jordan.
And, now, Mr. Sprinkle is in big trouble with the law. It seems that he was an avid user of an app called “Jack’d,” which markets itself as “the premier social app for gay, bi, trans, and queer people” and boasts of having more than 15 million members. Whilst using Jack’d (under the name “Randy,” by the way), Sprinkle unknowingly made contact with an undercover FBI agent working out of the Manassas, Virginia, FBI field office; the agent is referred to as “OCE” in the 9-page affidavit against Sprinkle that was filed Friday.
Here’s the exchange Sprinkle initiated on the app:
Randy: “Hey how’s it going”
OCE: “What’s up man”
Randy: “Just horny af you, telegram”
OCE: “Let’s go Randy, what’s your Tele”
Randy: “hmudmv9, got a face pic btw”
Once the conversation was brought over to Telegram, Sprinkle advised the agent of his twisted, perverted interests: “Mostly into Yng, rape, incest you.” Sprinkle later sent the agent a video of a young boy being sexually abused by a grown man.
You know it must have physically pained them to admit this: “NY Times Finds ‘No Evidence’ Implicating Trump in Epstein’s Sex Trafficking.”
To justify their efforts, reporters Nicholas Confessore and Julie Tate drowned exonerating details in a sea of innuendo, for example: “Over the years, Mr. Epstein or his partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, introduced at least six women who have accused them of grooming or abuse to Mr. Trump, according to interviews, court testimony and other records. One was a minor at the time. None have accused Mr. Trump himself of inappropriate behavior.” (Italics added)
Almost all of the specific allegations of bonding between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein date back to the 1990s before Trump’s marriage to Melania in 2005. The reporters pretend to be shocked that during this period Trump enjoyed the kind of lifestyle rich men have enjoyed since the beginning of recorded time.
Lots of American Presidents have claimed they’re against censorship here and abroad, but both the Obama and Biden administrations carried out vindictive censorship campaigns against their ideological enemies. (Remember the rodeo clown? Remember the debanking campaign against conservative media?) However, President Trump and his entire administration are fighting Eurocratic censorship against American free speech with more than words.
The Trump administration has slapped visa bans on former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton and four other ‘anti-disinformation’ activists, accusing them of coercing American social media companies to censor viewpoints they dislike.
The move signals a zero-tolerance policy toward extraterritorial censorship, especially after the EU’s recent assaults on Elon Musk’s X.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio laid it out clearly: “For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose. The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship.”
Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Sarah B. Rogers stated “These sanctions are visa-related. We aren’t invoking severe Magnitsky-style financial measures, but our message is clear: if you spend your career fomenting censorship of American speech, you’re unwelcome on American soil.”
The list includes Thierry Breton, who notoriously threatened Elon Musk over hosting a 2024 interview with Donald Trump on X. Others barred are Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), who worked with Democrats like Amy Klobuchar to “kiII Musk’s Twitter”; Joan Donovan, founder of The Critical Internet Studies Institute; Kate Starbird, co-founder of the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public; and Jim Davey, co-founder of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
Others mentioned as sanctioned in Rogers tweets include Clare Melford, leader of the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon, leaders anti-right censorship outfit HateAid.
The EU’s infamous Digital Services Act would never pass constitutional muster in the United States, given act’s blatant viewpoint discrimination and prior restraint. The Euroelite seem desperate both to shove social justice down the throats of resistant voters, as well as to continue importing unassimilated Muslim illegal aliens, either for cheap labor or to ensure that left wing parties never lose elections. The DSA was designed as a weapon to stifle any opposing viewpoints.
There’s not a whole lot the United States can do when Eurocrats censor their own people for #WrongThink, but the Trump47 team sure as hell aren’t taking illegal European attempts to censor the free speech of Americans lying down.
Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) released a report Tuesday detailing $1.6 trillion in government waste, in keeping with his annual “Festivus” tradition of airing grievances against wasteful federal spending.
A whopping $1.2 trillion of that wasteful spending is interest payments on the ballooning national debt, according to the report, which contains numerous examples of government programs Paul considers to be useless and fiscally irresponsible.
“Last Festivus, we clamored over the national debt reaching over an astronomical $36 trillion. Shockingly, in one short year, the career politicians and bureaucrats in Washington have managed to reach nearly $40 trillion in debt, without so much as a second thought. When asked who’s to blame for our crushing level of debt, the answer is ‘Everyone.’ This year, Congress voted to raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, the most we ever have,” Paul’s report reads.
“Congress keeps shoveling money toward pet projects and special interests while hardworking Americans pay the price through inflation and crushing interest rates – even after President Trump took action to end most foreign aid programs.”
Festivus origins snipped, because everyone’s familiar, or they can click that first link.
Paul’s report cites numerous examples of bizarre experiments and training programs the U.S. taxpayer is funding. For instance, the National Institutes of Health spent $5 million to give dogs cocaine.
I bet Hunter Biden would have carried out that research on a “cost plus” basis.
Similarly, NIH spent $13.8 million on beagle experiments pioneered by former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci.
The Department of Health and Human Services is spotlighted several times in Paul’s “Festivus” report. HHS spent $1.5 million to combat drug use in “latinx” communities through influencer marketing campaigns and $1.9 million on a mobile phone intervention meant to help reduce obesity among latino families in the Los Angeles area. Another L.A.-focused HHS program was a $936,000 marketing campaign towards certain LGBT subcultures to inform them about STD testing and treatment.
HHS had another drug-oriented project in New York City, where the agency spent $2.1 million to collect saliva and conduct surveys at EDM clubs and festivals. Additionally, HHS gave $3.3 million to Northwestern University to create “scientific neighborhoods,” hire “safe space ambassadors” and form committees with the purpose of dismantling “systemic racism.”
No discussion of budget pork be complete without covering the social justice graft.
A major HHS expense that previously drew scrutiny was the $22.6 billion it spent on welfare and other expenses for illegal immigrants during the Biden administration. Likewise, Paul’s report mentions the $7.5 billion of congressional funds allocated for the Biden administration’s EV charger network, which only built 68 charging stations nationwide.
The National Science Foundation is also highlighted in the report for its spending on questionable research. NSF and other agencies spent $14 million to have monkeys play a video game inspired by the Price is Right game show. Moreover, the NSF spent $2.4 million on programs that promote bugs as food for human consumption.
Skipping over the DoD’s dolphin training program, which people adjacent to it have told me is very effective.
Two of the largest expenses Paul’s report features are nearly $200 billion of Covid-19 relief funds for schools and $187 billion the Federal Reserve paid to banks for interest on funds the banks maintain at the Fed.
Flu manchu is the fraudcow insiders continue to milk.
For all the Trump47 Administration’s manifest successes, it has not enjoyed overwhelming success cutting the budget. DOGE was a great start, but then they shut it down. For the survival of America, DOGE needs to be the beginning of Trump47’s budget cutting efforts, not the totality of them.
European Union leaders agreed on Friday to provide a massive interest-free loan to Ukraine to meet its military and economic needs for the next two years.
The 27-nation bloc’s heads of state had planned to use some of the 210 billion euros ($246 billion) worth of Russian assets that are frozen in Europe, mostly in Belgium. But despite working through the night into Friday morning, they failed to convince Belgium that the country would be protected from any Russian retaliation if it backed the “reparations loan” plan.
They settled on an alternative: borrowing $106 billion on capital markets.
After almost four years of war, the International Monetary Fund estimates that Ukraine will need 137 billion euros ($161 billion) in 2026 and 2027.
Snip.
The European Council said it would use Article 20 of the Treaty of Europe to allow the EU to shoulder debt for a zero-interest loan to Ukraine.
It’s a simpler and possibly safer solution compared to the reparations loans. It is also akin to how the EU took on 750 billion euro in debt in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic for a gigantic economic recovery fund. Large borrowing has become a hallmark of the administration of von der Leyen.
Not all countries agreed to the loan package. Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic refused to take on debt for Ukraine, but a deal was reached in which they did not block the loan package and were promised protection from any financial fallout.
Paul Warburg thinks that this loan will actually let Ukraine survive 5-7 years. This follows up his video on how Ukraine is winning the war of attrition, comparing Russia’s situation to Germany in World War I and the Soviet Union’s defeat in Afghanistan.
Russia’s economy was already showing visible cracks before Ukraine started hitting its oil exporting infrastructure, and the EU’s latest loan may well allow Ukraine to continue fighting until Russia’s economy collapses from the strain of continuing its illegal war of territorial aggression.
The United States carried out “large-scale strikes” against Islamic State (ISIS) targets across Syria in response to a deadly terrorist attack on American soldiers in the country.
On Friday night, over 70 terrorist targets were hit using fighter jets, helicopters, and artillery as part of the “Operation Haw[k]eye Strike,” the U.S. Military confirmed. “U.S. Central Command said the strikes hit more than 70 targets across central Syria, adding that Jordanian fighter jets supported the operation,” Reuters reported. “One U.S. official said the strikes were carried out by U.S. F-15 and A-10 jets, along with Apache helicopters and HIMARS rocket systems.”
No F-35s or B-2s. Evidently 40- or 50-year old U.S. miltech is quite sufficient to eliminate remnants of the failed caliphate.
70 is not a small number of targets, and that number reminds the world that the United States military is in a different weight class than everyone else.
The overnight strikes were in retaliation for last week’s ISIS terror attack that killed three Americans, including two soldiers, in the city of Palmyra, central Syria.
Tonight, U.S. and Jordanian forces struck 70+ ISIS targets in Syria with 100+ precision munitions. Peace through strength. pic.twitter.com/XWWvfqBBFT
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) December 20, 2025
Ahead of the strike, in a Truth Social post, President Donald Trump promised a “very serious retaliation” against “ISIS thugs in Syria” for the terrorist attack on American personnel, saying: “All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned — YOU WILL BE HIT HARDER THAN YOU HAVE EVER BEEN HIT BEFORE IF YOU, IN ANY WAY, ATTACK OR THREATEN THE U.S.A.”
On Friday night, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth confirmed that the U.S. Military was conducting massive strikes “to eliminate ISIS fighters, infrastructure, and weapons sites.” It was “in direct response to the attack on U.S. forces that occurred on December 13th in Palmyra, Syria,” he wrote on X.
According to the War Secretary, the U.S. was not starting a war in the region, but exacting retribution for the act of terror against its soldiers. “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” he declared.
It’s hard to imagine Obama, Biden, or even the Bushes or Reagan using the “declaration of vengeance” rhetoric, the precise sort of Old Testament language guaranteed to send the chattering classes to their fainting couches. After all, why commit acts of vengeance when you can flood the Middle East with money routed through dodgy NGOs in futile efforts to convince the jihadist organizations to make friends with us?
Don’t be deceived by all the “Trump hates war” rhetoric. You know what Trump hates worse than war? Americans dead at the hands of Islamic terrorists.
Like I said, I usually don’t pay attention to the left-leaning MSM for anything, but is it just me, or is the usual wailing and rending of garments anytime a Republican president authorizes military action either muted or entirely absent here? The attacks seem to have invoked none of the usual histrionic outrage.
My working theory is that everyone who could trot out the usual liberal talking points is already on Christmas vacation and won’t be able to perform their usual regurgitation until January. If they’re not there to spew out press releases, then for all intents and purposes they cease to exist. It seems like if airstrike falls in the forest when they’re on vacation, it doesn’t make a sound.
That vaunted American foreign policy establishment has been wrong about the Middle East most of the time. Between the Abraham Accords and obliterating Iran’s nuclear program, it seems Donald Trump has racked up more successes in the region than they ever did.
Maybe it’s time to ignore crooked NGOs and foreign policy fossils who toil away in places with [Anything] Institute for Peace at the top of their resumes.
It’s time to treat the traditional foreign policy establishment as damage and route around it.
I haven’t been able to verify this yet, but according to China Observer, “Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry may have escalated export controls on November 20-21, adding 12 types of core semiconductor materials and related services to its “End User List,” placing about 110 semiconductor-related entities from mainland China under heightened scrutiny. Mainland China is more than 60% reliant on imports for photoresist, with ArF/EUV almost entirely dependent on Japan and the Netherlands.”
Every time you pattern a semiconductor wafer via a lithography stepper, you first have to deposit photoresist across the entire surface of the wafer. Once you’ve done that, the lithography pattern projected on the wafer hardens, letting some areas get stripped away during etch to create the interconnect patterns for other processes to fill with circuits for the chips. Getting proper photoresist uniformity across the entire wafer has some technical challenges, but it’s something like ten orders of magnitude less complex than EUV lithography. But getting the formula for EUV photoresist exactly right, and then manufacturing it ultrapure in quantity? Yeah, that’s not exactly something you can do in a high school chemistry lab.
“The Japanese have directly pulled out of the entire photoresist business in China. 90% of the photo resist we use is imported, with 60% coming from four Japanese companies. Without them, we can’t operate in the high-end sectors. With Japan’s withdrawal of supplies, domestic semiconductor factories are in chaos. Production capacity is declining and yield rates are crashing. Once production lines stop, they lose millions of yen a day.”
“The entire semiconductor industry is suffering massive losses.”
“A blogger in one video pointed out that few people know that in China’s semiconductor industry, the true bottleneck isn’t the photolithography machine, but a small bottle of liquid costing 50,000 RMB: photoresist.”
Section on China having a hissy fit over Japan’s prime minister Sanae Takaichi stating that Japan would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion (touched on in this LinkSwarm) skipped.
“Japan [quietly] and decisively retaliated. According to a report by Chinese media outlet East Money, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry may have escalated export controls on November 20th to 21st, adding 12 types of core semiconductor materials and related services to its end user list, placing about 110 semiconductor related entities from mainland China under heightened scrutiny.”
“Among the most notable measures are those affecting photoresist and photolithography machine after-sales services regarding photoresist.”
“Four Japanese companies (JSR Corporation, Shin-Etsu Chemical Company, Tokyo Ohka Kogyo Co., Ltd. and Fujifilm) have suspended deliveries of ArF [Argon-Fluoride laser] immersion and EUV photoresist to mainland Chinese customers while high-end KrF [Krypton-Fluoride laser] products have been significantly delayed.”
“Mainland China is more than 60% reliant on imports for photo resist, with ArF UV almost entirely dependent on Japan and the Netherlands.”
“Canon and Nikon have informed their Chinese customers that, starting in November, the supply of certain DUV photography machine parts and on-site maintenance services will depend on export licensing conditions. Currently, China has over 1,200 DUV photography machines, 90% of which depend on Canon and Nikon for after sales service.”
” After Canon and Nikon further restrict services, China’s stock of spare parts for photography machines will only last about 3 to 6 months, with photoresist being one of the most critical components.” Well, consumable supply rather than component.
“Industry insiders say this means that many Japanese-made photography machines currently in operation will face a supply shortage in the short term and could become scrap metal in the long term.” This is an overstatement, as there’s usually a healthy demand for such machines on the secondary market, either to replace a old machine, or to cannibalize for parts, for research fabs, or for someone trying to put together a trailing-edge fab on the cheap.
“Unlike the open ban on 23 types of equipment in 2023, Japan is now adopting a gray customs clearance strategy where rather than announcing an outright embargo. It is using case-by-case approvals, indefinite delays in issuing licenses and cutting off parts and technical support, effectively a supply cut off.”
The U.S. has also applied pressure on Japan to implement restrictions.
“Photoresist is far more complex than it seems.”
“First, the shelf life of high-end photo resist is extremely short, often only 6 months or even less. This means it’s impossible to stockpile and if supply is cut off, production lines will immediately shut down.”
“Second, the extreme purity requirements. The formula for photoresist contains dozens of chemical substances with each proportion error not exceeding 1 millionth. The metal impurity limit is as low as 0.001 parts per million, like 1 microgram per kilogram. To put this into perspective, imagine eight Olympic swimming pools full of water. If even a single drop of impurity is mixed in, it must be identified and removed.”
“This isn’t just a challenge in terms of the formula. It’s a critical test for the entire chemical purification, filtration, transport, and storage process.”
“Third, the ecological [I think they mean ecosystem -LP] barrier. Why are Japanese companies so dominant in the photoresist market? Because over the past 30 years, they have developed their expertise alongside semiconductor giants like TSMC, Intel, and Samsung. Producing photoresist isn’t enough. It must be tested on photography machines worth billions of dollars. The verification cycle takes 2 to 5 years with a high failure rate. Without top semiconductor foundaries to conduct these trial and error processes, your photoresist will never make it out of the laboratory.”
“Japan’s dominance in the photoresist market dates back to the 1970s when the country’s economy surged. The government and businesses jointly invested heavily in the semiconductor industry, focusing partially on materials.”
“In addition to the high technical barriers and lengthy R&D cycles which take years and require immense investment, Japan holds an overwhelming patent monopoly, 70% of related patents globally. It’s virtually impossible to bypass this barrier.”
“Major global chemical companies like the US’s DuPont and Germany’s BASF have less than 10% of the photoresist market share. South Korea has tried but still depends on imports for high-end products. Japanese companies are not only technologically advanced, but their strong industrial chain cooperation in photography machines and silicon wafer production makes it nearly impossible for external competitors to enter.”
“According to a 2024 Nikki survey, Japan holds the number one market share in three out of five semiconductor material categories, with photoresist being one of them.”
China has tried to develop their photoresist, but when they try them out in fabs, their yield rate crashes. Even if China can steal the right formula, they can’t steal all the intermediary steps necessary to produce the formula.
“This issue involves a country’s mastery and accumulation of basic materials and processes, which cannot be solved simply by hiring people to steal technology.”
“Japan’s precision manufacturing processes are beyond the reach of China.”
For the sake of brevity, I’m skipping over an extensive list of other areas of semiconductor technology where China is heavily dependent on Japan.
A whole lot of people freaked out over China’s near-monopoly on rare earth minerals, but China is a lot more dependent on the west for a whole lot of things much higher on the technological food chain.
