THE COLLAPSE OF VENEZUELA’S CURRENT REGIME WOULD BE A NET GOOD: Third Tanker Targeted as U.S. Intensifies Oil Blockade on Venezuela.
December 23, 2025
IF YOU GUESSED ‘MOSQUE’ AWARD YOURSELF ONE POINT: Historic Minneapolis Bar Closes, and Guess What It’ll Be Converted Into Now.
WHY, YES, I DO IN FACT RUN ON: Ruby, Power, and Pain.
AN AMERICAN GUIDE TO BRITISH CHRISTMAS: Christmas in Britain: An American’s Guide. From Father Christmas and Christmas Crackers to Boxing Day and the King’s Speech.
LABEL MAY NOT REFLECT ACTUAL CONTENTS: Western Governments Call Them Refugees — Their Travel Habits Say Otherwise.
GO AHEAD EUROPE; SHOOT YOUR ECONOMY IN THE HEAD AGAIN: How Europe’s new carbon tax on imported goods will change global trade – and our shopping habits.
Apparently, they don’t think it’s dead enough yet.
YOU’RE NOT AN LLM. DON’T BEHAVE LIKE ONE: Hallucinations.
December 22, 2025
SALENA ZITO:
What can bear hunting in rural Pennsylvania teach us about American politics? Michael chats with @ZitoSalena about her immersive reporting from a bear camp — a place where Democrats, Republicans, and Independents come together without arguing politics.
Listen at the link below ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/nipsXKE1Ff— Michael Smerconish (@smerconish) December 22, 2025
MY NEW YORK POST COLUMN: DEI hollowed out a generation — and sapped America’s promise.
OPEN THREAD: Monday, Monday.
SNOWFALLS ARE NOW JUST A THING OF THE PAST: Rate of glacier disappearance expected to peak by mid-2050s, scientists say. The number of glaciers disappearing worldwide is expected to sharply increase.
—ABC News, December 15th.
But why would anyone in New York City care, since it’s been flooded for 10 years?
Fourteen years ago, on June 12, 2008, ABC’s Earth 2100 offered a special on the then-far off year of 2015. Correspondent Bob Woodruff revealed that the program “puts participants in the future and asks them to report back about what it is like to live in this future world. The first stop is the year 2015.”
The special featured one of ABC’s experts warning that in 2015 the sea level would rise quickly. An on-screen graphic showed New York City being engulfed by water. (Spoiler alert: That didn’t happen.)
—“Just How WRONG Were ABC and NBC’s Climate Predictions? (Hint: NYC Not Underwater),” NewsBusters, June 4th, 2022.
WHICH BLUMENTHAL IS DUMBER AND MORE DISHONEST? RICHARD, OR SIDNEY? It’s a tough call, but the Senator with the fake Vietnam record is making a strong play here:
@SenBlumenthal sent a 3 page letter (gave to @nytimes )addressed to me (why did he send it to the NYTimes and not me?) w/ 6 questions about a dinner I attended in Oct at the WH as the wife of someone who works there as Deputy Asst to the President and Envoy to Belarus …they are…
— Greta Van Susteren (@greta) December 22, 2025
THE ROAD TO LAUNCH SUCCESS IS PAVED WITH LAUNCH FAILURES: Japanese H3 rocket fails during launch of navigation satellite.
MATT DAMON SETS SAIL IN EPIC FIRST TRAILER FOR CHRISTOPHER NOLAN’S THE ODYSSEY:
The first footage of The Odyssey has come ashore.
On Monday, Dec. 22, Universal Pictures released a teaser trailer for director Christopher Nolan‘s action epic, adapted from Homer’s ancient Greek poem of the same name.
A synopsis for The Odyssey describes it as “a mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new IMAX® film technology.” The new trailer shows Matt Damon as the title character Odysseus and brief glimpses at his life during the Trojan War (including the iconic Trojan Horse) and his years-long journey back to his homeland.
The trailer is the first look audiences outside of movie theaters have gotten at The Odyssey, Nolan’s first movie since his 2023 drama Oppenheimer won several Oscars, since Universal first announced the movie was in development in December 2024. The film is notably being shot with all-new IMAX cameras and will be the first feature length film ever to shoot entirely with IMAX film cameras.
Nolan has certainly banked plenty of good will over the years, the trailer looks intriguing, and I can’t wait to read the reviews. The Odyssey looks to be the big movie of 2026. But just typing that sentence at the end of 2025 is a reminder of how badly the industry has stumbled, after reading “George MF Washington’s” Substack titled “Making Movies in a Low Trust Environment,” and its lengthy roster of decent, good, and great movies Hollywood churned out seemingly came out once a week throughout 1993.
CHRISTIAN TOTO: Jimmy Kimmel to Face Ultimate Free Speech Test in UK. Far-left host tapped to address Great Britain, but will he finally speak truth to power?
No. Next question?
Kimmel teased the comments will address “fascism,” and it’s clear it’ll be an extension of his nightly rants against President Trump.
Channel 4 elaborated on the speech to air on Christmas Day.
“Donald Trump’s return to the White House and wide-ranging impact on the world has been the story of 2025, and it would be hard to think of a better person to address it than Jimmy Kimmel, who has found himself on the frontline of America’s battle over free speech,” the spokesperson said.
If you’re afraid of fascism, look no further than Mother England. Here is the indispensable City Journal detailing the horrors coming out of the U.K. in recent years.
According to police records analyzed by the London Times, over 12,000 Britons per year are arrested for speech-related offenses—an average of 30 per day and nearly a fourfold increase over the 2016 figure. Recent cases have reportedly included arrests for derogatory comments about migrants, displays of the national flag that others found offensive, and even silent prayer near abortion clinics. Since 2014, police can record comments merely perceived as offensive as so-called “non-crime hate incidents,” which remain on the offending party’s record even if no charges are filed.
Exit quote: “If Kimmel is set to discuss ‘fascism’ and fails to mention this sorry state of affairs, his free speech hypocrisy may be viewable from outer space.”
Oh, it will be.
Over to you, Jimmy!
MILE MARKERS ON THE ROAD TO DETROIT: Once-thriving shopping mall in ailing Democrat-run* city is eerily empty on last Sunday before Christmas.
The [San Francisco Centre, formerly known as the Westfield Mall], which was valued at $1.2 billion about a decade ago, was foreclosed on in November.
It was sold to lenders, including JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank, for $133 million.
The banks have hired real estate brokerage CBRE to find a new buyer for the mall – and the firm’s executive vice president, Kyle Kovac, told CBS News that the sale signals a new era for the property.
He told the outlet: ‘Amid renewed civic leadership, three consecutive years of positive population growth and surging demand from artificial intelligence and technology firms, San Francisco Centre & Emporium is uniquely positioned to anchor the next chapter in downtown San Francisco’s recovery.’
But others are less convinced that the mall’s much-needed comeback is tangible.
Local Neil Wotherspoon, who told CBS in November that he visits the mall about once a week to order from the Panda Express in its basement – one of the only businesses still open – said he does not think the establishment’s future is bright.
‘I think these will be the last people to put the lights out,’ he said. ‘I think you’ll end up with the only people who will come here will be like me to enjoy the food. Just for the Panda, that’s right.’
Others noted how unsettling shopping in the massive mall has become since it transformed into a ghost town.
San Francisco’s top mall is essentially empty for Christmas because the city has failed to end vagrancy and make people feel safe downtown: pic.twitter.com/gajZX6w33Q
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) December 22, 2025
* You spelled “Democrat monopoly city” wrong; San Francisco’s last Republican mayor left office at the beginning of 1964.
Related:
Yeah, monopolies are terrible. Remind me, which party has controlled San Francisco for decades? https://t.co/pCARv0rD8t
— Mike LaChance (@MikeLaChance33) December 22, 2025
And considering that Schwarzenegger was the very definition of a RINO, which party has controlled Sacramento for decades?
I can assure you it is. As I’ve been reporting. California is absolutely in excess of 60 billion right now and believed to be more than 100 billion. https://t.co/xdElAyzcij
— Adam Housley (@adamhousley) December 20, 2025
ENDORSED:
It really should
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2025
In her leaked email to her colleagues, Alfonsi accused CBS News and Weiss of engaging in “corporate censorship” and of “betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism.” Reporters at CBS News are threatening to quit over the Weiss decision, CNN’s Brian Stelter reported (it’s unlikely that anyone will actually quit due to the fast-shrinking job market for television reporters).
Weiss, who was appointed CBS News editor in chief in October, said in a statement Monday that the story “did not advance the ball” on what has already been reported about CECOT. “We need to be able to get the principals on the record and on camera,” she said.
There’s precedent warranting additional legwork on Alfonsi’s segments. Alfonsi was the lead correspondent on a debunked story in 2021 that DeSantis gave preferential treatment to the supermarket chain Publix to distribute coronavirus vaccines because the company donated $100,000 to DeSantis’s campaign.
“How is that not pay-to-play?” Alfonsi asked DeSantis when she confronted him after one of the governor’s press conferences.
Alfonsi’s producer for that story, Oriana Zill de Granados, also produced the “Inside CECOT” report.
Several Florida officials, including Democrats, blasted the 60 Minutes report, saying that DeSantis’s office was not involved in awarding contracts to Publix.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D., Fla.), who oversaw Florida’s emergency management division in 2021 and is known for tangling with the GOP, said that the division recommended Publix for the contract because other pharmacies were not equipped to distribute vaccines.
“No one from the Governor’s office suggested Publix. It’s just absolute malarkey,” he said.
But think of the long tradition of excellence at CBS News!
LOL at people upset "Network of Dan Rather" now sullied…. https://t.co/OrqLbIvHmb
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) December 22, 2025
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:
Candace Owens Horrified To Learn Christmas Was Started By Birth Of A Jew https://t.co/ZfqY74fgWA pic.twitter.com/pyeanGIWO2
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) December 22, 2025
HEY, BIG SPENDER: Paramount’s new, hostile offer to Warner Bros. Discovery: Larry Ellison will personally guarantee $40 billion.
The Warner Bros. board of directors has rejected Paramount’s bid multiple times, opting instead to go with an offer from Netflix, which WBD says is more valuable. The board also said Paramount has misrepresented itself to WBD shareholders, calling into question the legitimacy of the deal’s “illusory” proposed financing.
To counteract that critique, Paramount said Oracle founder Larry Ellison – the father of Paramount CEO David Ellison – will guarantee all $40.4 billion of the equity he’s putting up to finance the $78 billion deal. That’s a big guarantee, putting Larry Ellison on the hook for about a sixth of his roughly $250 billion net worth if something falls through.
More: “Paramount offered $30 per share for WBD, including CNN and the rest of its cable channels. Netflix offered $27.75 per share for Warner Bros. and HBO. But Netflix and WBD argue that plans to spin off the cable assets will increase those stations’ overall value and will, in total, value the company more highly than Paramount’s deal.”
I find it very hard to believe that the package of limping cable channels that WBD is spinning off as Discovery Global will increase in value.
ICYMI: Russia’s Space Program Just Took Another Embarrassing Hit. “This is a bit like planning to buy a new car, but then looking at the expense and saying you’ll buy most of a new car. Instead, you’ll pull the engine out of your 1998 Accord — the engine that needs a full rebuild — and drop it under the hood of your ‘new’ car.”
IF GUN CONTROL IS SUCH AN OBVIOUSLY GOOD IDEA, WHY DO ITS SUPPORTERS HAVE TO LIE ALL THE TIME? There’s No Limit to the Size of the Straw Men Anti-Gunners Will Create to Justify Limiting Individual Gun Rights.
