A Day with the Continental Army's Secret Weapon, 1776
43 minutes ago
Wednesday, December 31, 2025
The Thailand-Cambodia conflict
Thailand frees 18 Cambodian soldiers under new Trump-brokered ceasefire deal
Oh shoot, there goes my vacation plans! I'll call this no lose.
Mali and Burkina Faso announce reciprocal travel ban on US citizens
https://nypost.com/2025/12/31/world-news/mali-and-burkina-faso-announce-reciprocal-travel-ban-on-us/
Minnesota fraud is green lighted by institutional madness
Minnesota day care scandal sparks concern over election policy that allows a voter to ‘vouch’ for others: ‘Made for fraud’
Anti white trans murderer
Trans school shooter Audrey Hale wrote twisted pros-and-cons list before deadly rampage: ‘White people I hate’
The transgender Covenant School shooter wrote a list of the “advantages” and “disadvantages” of attacking another Nashville school she attended — but ultimately backed out because the student body was mostly black, according to twisted journal entries released by the FBI this week.
Audrey Hale, who killed six people at the Christian elementary school in 2023, was considering carrying out the carnage at I.T. Creswell Middle School, according to an entry penned sometime in 2021, but was concerned she would “influence rasist [sic] white shooters.”
“[Predominantly] black school (black people I love),” Hale wrote as the first among the “disadvantages” of attacking the middle school, which she attended between fifth and eighth grades and listed as her “1st choice” for her planned massacre.
What racism really looks like at Harvard
Harvard professor torches Ivy League school over woke anti-white, anti-male culture in blistering essay
A professor who spent 40 years teaching at Harvard University torched the Ivy League institution over its “exclusion of white males” in a searing essay announcing his retirement.
In the piece titled “Why I’m Leaving Harvard,” history professor James Hankins said his decision to retire “was not a sudden one” and was made back in 2021 after two volatile years on campus, marked by the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and George Floyd riots — the latter of which he said dramatically changed the school’s graduate admissions process.
“In reviewing graduate student applicants in the fall of 2020 I came across an outstanding prospect who was a perfect fit for our program. In past years this candidate would have risen immediately to the top of the applicant pool,” he wrote.
Harvard
“In 2021, however, I was told informally by a member of the admissions committee that ‘that’ (meaning admitting a white male) was ‘not happening this year,’” he said in the essay published in Compact Magazine.
The professor said in another instance, a white male student he described as “literally the best” at Harvard, who won the prize for the graduating senior with the best overall academic record, was also rejected from all of the school’s graduate programs to which he applied.
“He too was a white male,” Hankins wrote.
“I called around to friends at several universities to find out why on earth he had been rejected.
“Everywhere it was the same story: Graduate admissions committees around the country had been following the same unspoken protocol as ours.
“The one exception I found to the general exclusion of white males had begun life as a female,” he continued.
Hankins’ last lecture at the storied institution was two weeks ago, after he honored a four-year retirement contract he signed in 2021 that finally expired.
A Harvard spokesperson confirmed to Fox News that, as Hankins noted in his piece, graduate admissions are faculty-led and localized at the department level.
The Democrat Party mafia
Top Attorney For Special Counsel Jack Smith Previously Spiked Clinton Foundation Investigation
Safety is of no concern but votes are!
Gavin Newsom's CA Tries to Keep Illegals on the Road, Sean Duffy Immediately Punts Him Back to Reality
https://redstate.com/rusty-weiss/2025/12/31/gavin-newsom-tries-to-keep-illegals-on-the-road-a-little-longer-sean-duffy-immediately-cuts-him-off-n2197630#google_vignette| 7:45 AM on December 31, 2025
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy hammered California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) on Tuesday, accusing him of lying about a supposed extension for revoking thousands of commercial driver's licenses (CDLs) issued to non-citizens.
Duffy has long been trying to crack down on the practice of issuing CDLs to truckers who, at times, struggle to understand English or read basic road signs. As common sense would dictate, having such drivers on the road is a dangerous (and sometimes deadly) proposition.
The Secretary's fiery retort follows a report that the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) was granting a 60-day extension to approximately 17,000 non-domiciled CDL holders. That would push the revocation deadline from January 5, 2026, to March 6, 2026.
The DMV cited a need for additional time to reissue corrected licenses to eligible drivers and referenced a pending class-action lawsuit filed by advocacy groups.
But lo, Duffy chimed in on social media, suggesting the Golden State can't simply extend deadlines without approval from his department.
"Gavin Newsom is lying," he wrote on X. "The deadline to revoke illegally issued, unvetted foreign trucker licenses is still January 5. California does NOT have an 'extension' to keep breaking the law and putting Americans at risk on the roads."
Wait, you mean to tell me that you can't just simply make up new rules out of thin air? Who knew? Maybe the Brylcreem seeping into Gavin's dome is finally starting to clog up his cognitive abilities.
To be fair, the report only cites the action as being attempted by the folks at the DMV; it does not indicate Newsom is behind the extension.
The dispute stems from a 2025 Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) audit that found systemic errors in California's non-domiciled CDL program. Those included licenses with expiration dates extending beyond drivers' lawful U.S. presence or work authorizations.
Just last month, Duffy yanked an astonishing 17,000 illegal truckers' licenses in Newsom's state.
"After weeks of claiming they did nothing wrong, Gavin Newsom and California have been caught red-handed. Now that we’ve exposed their lies, 17,000 illegally issued trucking licenses are being revoked,” he said at the time. “This is just the tip of the iceberg. My team will continue to force California to prove they have removed every illegal immigrant from behind the wheel of semitrucks and school buses.”
17,000 is an awful lot of illegal drivers on the road, especially when you consider the devastating impact just one can inflict on the American people.
Consider the case of Harjinder Singh, a 28-year-old illegal from India, who drives home the point that issuing licenses to criminal aliens is a bad idea. Singh obtained CDLs in Washington and California despite failing his knowledge test 10 times. He also failed to pass an English proficiency assessment.
Singh is alleged to have caused a fatal crash on the Florida Turnpike by making an illegal U-turn with his semi-truck, killing three people in a minivan. He was arrested on three counts of vehicular homicide and manslaughter.
False refugee study used by Dems to justify open borders — and massive spending
False refugee study used by Dems to justify open borders — and massive spending
Tuesday, December 30, 2025
Why Did The EU Slide Into Complete Irrelevance?
Why Did The EU Slide Into Complete Irrelevance?
Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,
Hint: It’s structural. Trump has nothing to do with it...
Eurointelligence discussed the EU’s Slide Towards Irrelevance
The EU has zero chance to emerge as a geopolitical power like the US or China. Strategic autonomy was only a slogan. It came with no strategy, and most importantly, with no financial commitments. The way EU countries are currently raising military spending, through debt mostly, and without common procurement, will reinforce their dependency on the US and US-dominated financial markets. At no point did the EU have an agreed end-game strategy for Ukraine – something that goes beyond wishful thinking.
But the EU has a few, sadly neglected, assets. It has a customs union, a single market and a single currency. They don’t win wars, but they matter. If the EU had not fallen behind the US in productivity growth, and if it had not given up on 21st technologies, the EU would be a formidable soft power. The threat of being banned from the world’s largest single market would have been a real choke-hold. The purpose of frugal fiscal policies is not to pay homage to a protestant work ethic, but to give financial headroom to act during emergencies.
If you accept, as everybody seems to do, that treaty change is impossible, an intelligent soft power strategy is the only thing that is left. But that would have meant a lowering of ambitions: no Green deal; no anti-tech legislation; the completion of the banking union with the goal to end the bank-sovereign nexus. In particular, it would have meant more integration.The balance between widening and deepening is way off.
For the talking heads that roam our airways and social media, it is cooler to talk about foreign policy. But for the EU it would be better if its leadership took an interest in the work of standard committees. They should not invite Zelensky to their European Council meetings, but the three economics Nobel Laureates, to give a presentation of the importance of technology to economic growth. The creeping death of the single market is the real existential crisis of the EU. It is not Trump.
If the EU wants to acquire hard power, that would have to be preceded by political reforms: treaty change to establish the EU as a federal union, with tax raising and debt issuing powers, money to fund an army, and a politically accountable military command structure. You don’t acquire hard power with people sitting around tables.
The EU’s tragedy is that it abandoned the necessary to seek the impossible.
Treaty Change Impossible
Yes, I do accept that a treaty change is impossible unless and until some currency crisis forces that outcome.
I have been writing about this for years.
The EU is governed by nannycrats with impossible goals and no way to act on them.
The Green Deal is now dead. Trump demand 5 percent military spending when budget constraints are such that 2 percent will be a struggle.
The US strives to innovate. The EU strives to regulate. It wants to regulate AI without knowing what AI is even about.
EC fines X €120 million under the Digital Services Act
Please note that on December 4, the EC fines X €120 million under the Digital Services Act
Deceptive design of X’s ‘blue checkmark’
X’s use of the ‘blue checkmark’ for ‘verified accounts’ deceives users. This violates the DSA obligation for online platforms to prohibit deceptive design practices on their services. On X, anyone can pay to obtain the ‘verified’ status without the company meaningfully verifying who is behind the account, making it difficult for users to judge the authenticity of accounts and content they engage with. This deception exposes users to scams, including impersonation frauds, as well as other forms of manipulation
by malicious actors. While the DSA does not mandate user verification, it clearly prohibits online platforms from falsely claiming that users have been verified, when no such verification took place.
Lack of transparency of X’s ads repository
X’s advertisement repository fails to meet the transparency and accessibility requirements of the DSA. Accessible and searchable ad repositories are critical for researchers and civil society to detect scams, hybrid threat campaigns, coordinated information operations and fake advertisements.
X incorporates design features and access barriers, such as excessive delays in processing, which undermine the purpose of ad repositories. X’s ads repository also lacks critical information, such as the content and topic of the advertisement, as well as the legal entity paying for it. This hinders researchers and the public to independently scrutinise any potential risks in onlin
Nannycrat Nonsense
Seriously, doesn’t the EU have anything better to do than worry about blue checkmarks on X?
Unfortunately, this kind of nannycrat nonsense is all that the EU can do.
Q: Why?
A: Because, with few exceptions, it takes unanimous or nearly unanimous agreement to do anything.
So the EU launches commissions and studies again and again and again because commissions and studies are the only thing that can be approved.
By treaty, France has veto power over anything agricultural (every nation actually, but France and Italy are at the forefront). Global trade summits fail every year because of single-nation veto power. It useless to even invite the EU because the outcome is known from the beginning.
Germany and other Northern European countries have veto power over budget rules. That won’t change until German banks blow sky high, if then.
In the rare case the EU ever does anything, it’s usually wrong. Green energy, carbon border taxes, and the ridiculous digital services act are good examples.
Spotlight AI
The competition on AI is massive. Globally it’s the US vs China. But within the US there are four key players.
OpenAI: OpenAI developed ChatGPT and the GPT models. It is a leader in conversational AI and foundational models.
Anthropic: Anthropic is an AI safety and research company. It develops the “Claude” family of large language models. It is known for its constitutional AI framework.
xAI: xAI is Elon Musk’s AI venture. It developed the Grok chatbot, with integration with Tesla and robotics.
Perplexity AI: Perplexity AI operates an AI-powered search engine. It uses large language models and real-time web search to provide cited answers.
AI Q&A
Q: Where is the EU?
A: The EU is not in the ballpark. It’s not even close to the ballpark.
Instead, EU nannycrats are in a sand playbox 2,000 miles away trying to regulate the damn thing.
France’s big concern is not AI but to protect the family farm.
Protecting Family Farms in France:
- Combating Unfair Competition: Farmers protest against free-trade deals (like Mercosur) that they argue flood the market with cheaper products, undermining French standards and viability.
- Rural Livelihoods: Supporting family farms is seen as vital for food security, rural jobs, and maintaining the French countryside’s character.
- Economic Support: France relies on EU subsidies, but farmers demand fairer distribution, with new rules pushing for eco-friendly practices while trying to prevent large farms from monopolizing funds.
- Legal Protections: Laws aim to shield farmers from “abusive” lawsuits by new residents over noise (like roosters) or smells, preserving traditional agricultural practices.
Mercosur Deal Update
Hooray! I am pleased to report that political agreement on Mercosur was reached in December 2024 after 25+ years of talks.
However, ratification hinges on member states.
Yet, on December 19, Politico reported EU delays Mercosur signing as 25-year curse drags on
An eleventh-hour turnaround from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni upended a self-imposed objective of signing the agreement with the Mercosur countries on Dec. 20 — pushing the decision to mid-January instead, POLITICO first reported.
The delay shows that after two decades of negotiations and countless turn-arounds, the EU-Mercosur pact, designed to create one of the world’s largest free-trade areas between the EU, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina, continues to be a political minefield in Europe.
“Mercosur plays a central role in our trade agreements,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on her way into the leaders summit on Thursday morning, adding it was “of enormous importance we get the green light.”
Yet Meloni derailed the carefully laid plan.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said the Italian leader promised him on a call Thursday that she would support the deal as soon as she secured the backing of Italy’s farmers. Despite heaping pressure on Europeans in recent days, Lula ended up accepting the delay, the diplomats said.
Meloni’s pushback meant there was not enough backing from EU countries for von der Leyen to fly to Brazil this weekend to sign the deal as planned — despite the huge political capital invested on each side in trying to finalize it by the end before Christmas.
Even if Rome and Paris come around, the agreement’s troubles are far from over: The deal must still pass through the European Parliament, where opposition is mounting across the political spectrum.
“It seems certain that it [the Mercosur deal] will be signed in mid-January,” a senior German official told reporters.
The mid-January date is important, the official stressed, to get the agreement ratified before the Parliament has a chance to vote on a resolution to send the deal to the Court of Justice of the EU — which would risk freezing its ratification for up to two years.
Dealing With the EU
Mercosur is the perfect example of what it’s like dealing with the EU. Any country can damn near block any deal for any reason, or no reason at all.
I repeat my congratulations to the UK for escaping this madness. Of course, the UK has not made the best of Brexit, but that is the fault of UK politicians, not the Brexit vote itself.
Regulation and roadblocks are all the EU knows how to do. That’s why Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Tesla, Nvdia, and all the key AI players outside of China are in the US. The EU would regulate them to death before they ever got going.
To repeat: The US strives to innovate. The EU strives to regulate. Deals take 25 years. Knowing that, one would have to be crazy to want back in.
Good news for taxpayers
IRS CEO Says 94% Of Middle-Class Taxpayers Will See Tax Relief Next Year
Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The CEO of the IRS said during an interview on Dec. 23 that 94 percent of middle-class Americans will see some form of tax relief next year.
Sunken Russian Ship Allegedly Carried Nuclear Submarine Reactors Destined For North Korea
Sunken Russian Ship Allegedly Carried Nuclear Submarine Reactors Destined For North Korea
The maritime industry publication The Maritime Executive, citing a new report from the Spanish outlet La Verdad, reported that the Russian cargo ship that sank last year off Spain's southeastern Mediterranean coast was transporting undeclared components for two VM-4SG nuclear submarine reactors, allegedly with a port call planned in North Korea.
In December 2024, the Russian cargo ship Ursa Major sank under highly suspicious circumstances in waters between Spain and Algeria following reported engine room explosions. The ship's owners characterized the incident as "an act of terrorism."
Spanish authorities determined that blue-tarped objects on Ursa Major's stern were likely unfueled naval nuclear reactor casings, each weighing roughly 65 tons. Investigators identified them as components of VM-4SG reactors, Soviet-designed naval nuclear reactors developed to power Russia's nuclear ballistic-missile submarine fleet during the late Cold War and still in limited service today.
Here's the report:
The circumstances of the vessel's sudden sinking were suspicious, prompting the maritime captaincy to begin questioning the crew. Ursa Major's master, Capt. Igor Vladimirovich Anisimov, initially told investigators the cargo consisted of more than 100 empty containers, two giant crawler cranes on deck, and two large components for a Russian icebreaker project, referring to the tarped objects near the stern. All cargo was reportedly bound for Vladivostok.
The two so-called "icebreaker components" were shipped as deck cargo and were visible to spotting aircraft during the ship's earlier transit. Based on aerial surveillance, each object measured approximately 20 to 25 feet square, including crating, dunnage, and tarping.
Spanish authorities estimated their weight at roughly 65 tonnes each, indicating unusually high density. La Verdad reported that after the captain was pressed on the matter, he asked for time to think before telling investigators the items were merely "manhole covers."
Documents reviewed by La Verdad show Spanish investigators ultimately identified the cargo as casings for nuclear submarine reactors, specifically two Soviet-era VM-4SG reactors.
As for the destination, Spanish authorities speculated the reactor components may have been intended for North Korea's nuclear submarine program, which recently unveiled its first ballistic-missile submarine. Multiple analysts have suggested the new North Korean vessel likely benefited from Russian technical assistance for reactor design and could potentially incorporate a fully built Russian reactor. Russia is believed to owe North Korea a strategic debt following Pyongyang's large-scale transfers of artillery shells and munitions that helped Russian forces stabilize and regain ground in eastern Ukraine.
The cause of Ursa Major's sinking appears to have been kinetic. The shipowner told media there were three explosions and a 20-inch hole in the shell plating, while the captain confirmed the hole's ragged edges were bent inward. This damage profile is consistent with an external explosion impacting the hull.
This report surfaced days after North Korea released new images of what it claims is its first nuclear-powered submarine, a platform framed as a direct challenge to American naval dominance in the region.
If the report that Ursa Major's sinking was kinetic is accurate, the unresolved question is who executed the strike and under what operational authority.
Citizen Journalist Descends On Ohio, Immediately Finds 'First Signs Of Potentially Massive Somali Fraud'
Citizen Journalist Descends On Ohio, Immediately Finds 'First Signs Of Potentially Massive Somali Fraud'
The "Nick Shirley Effect" has begun, with Muckraker founder Anthony Rubin on the ground in Columbus, Ohio, home to the second-largest Somali community in the U.S., investigating daycare centers. This development comes less than a day after Ohio attorney Mehek Cooke said federal investigators are examining allegations that elements within Ohio's Somali community defrauded millions of dollars from the state's Medicaid system.
"The first Somali-affiliated daycare facility that we knocked on after landing in Columbus, Ohio, today did not answer," Rubin wrote on X, alongside a video showing the daycare center, Great Minds Learning Academy.
Rubin continued, "A neighbor across the street told us, 'I've never seen anybody come out of the building or go into the building.'"
Why would they do this unless there was a payoff?
Shocking unearthed footage shows parents pretending to drop kids off at a Minnesota day care center
What BS! Minnesota was doing quite well before these folks arrived. Let's take the risk!
State Senator: Minnesota Would Not ‘Survive, Nor Thrive’ Without Somali Community
Lies, damned lies and Democrat statistics
False refugee study used by Dems to justify open borders — and massive spending
Even as massive fraud schemes are uncovered in Minnesota, orchestrated primarily by Somali refugees, Democrats are circling the wagons.
Refugees and asylum seekers provide a substantial net benefit to the United States, they claim, generating more wealth than they take from the government.
But that talking point is based on a federal study that was rejected in 2017 by the first Trump administration as methodologically unsound and preposterous in its conclusions. The study was resurrected and expanded by the Biden administration in 2024.
Today, 73% of Somali households have at least one member enrolled in Medicaid, and 89% of Somali families with children participate in at least one welfare program
These realities stand in stark contrast to the glowing conclusions of the Biden report, which claims refugees and asylees add a net $8.25 billion annually to federal coffers.
Lots of exclusions
How does this report somehow find that refugees, a population with demonstrably higher welfare usage, outperform the average American fiscally?
First, by omitting major government spending programs.
It excludes refugee usage of state-level General Assistance, a limited cash welfare program that is available in about half of states. It left out the cost of English language learning programs and translation services. Other federal social programs were also ignored, such as subsidies for Obamacare insurance premiums.
Of the welfare programs included, the study recognizes that usage by refugees and asylees is significantly higher than usage by the US population.
Food stamp (SNAP) participation, for example, stands at 15.5% nationwide but rises to 21.4% among refugees.
Medicaid and CHIP enrollment shows a similar pattern: 17.2% of Americans participate, compared with 23.6% of refugees or 26.5% when US-born children of refugees are included.
Disparities are even more pronounced in other programs. Usage of Supplemental Security Income (SSI), the cash welfare program for the elderly and disabled, is nearly three times higher among refugees and asylees than among the general population (7.3% versus 2.6%).
Housing assistance participation more than doubles, rising from 3.3% nationally to 7.5% for refugees. Child Tax Credit usage likewise doubles, increasing from 6.2% to 12.9%.
Includes Social Security
Given the high welfare usage of this group, how did they not only manage a positive net fiscal contribution, but a fiscal impact that outperforms the average American?
Most significantly, the report counts Social Security as welfare, and that program is used more by non-refugee Americans — because they have longer work histories than refugees.
The study treats a monthly Social Security check for retirees as if it were a welfare check, SNAP benefits or Medicaid.
In the theoretical world of this study, a retiree who worked and paid taxes for 40 years and is now living solely off Social Security is a net fiscal drain on the government, while a working-age refugee receiving SNAP benefits with a modest taxable income would be counted as a net contributor.
Why is all this important?
Because the report is used to justify increasing the number of refugees and asylum seekers allowed into the US, falsely claiming it doesn’t cost us a thing.
The study even says: “Understanding this [financial] impact is important to decision-makers at all levels of government. Federal, state, and local spending is a consideration when, for example, establishing the annual ceiling on refugee admissions.”
Unsurprisingly, the study has taken a front row in the refugee resettlement contractors’ lobbying efforts. It has been cited positively by the Congressional Budget Office, a Washington Post op-ed, the Wilson Center and other organizations.
If left unchallenged, the report will continue to encourage an ever-growing mountain of non-existent cash. It should be rejected.
Don Barnett is a board member at the Center for Immigration Studies.
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