December 22, 2025

THE CHIP WARS: Japan Halting Photoresist To China? “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.’

Posted at 3:48 pm by Stephen Green

NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN: ‘Kill Switch?’ Bari Bombshell Explodes on 60 Minutes:

Did Bari Weiss give the White House a “kill switch” on honest reports from CBS News? Or did she yank the chain back on one of its most biased platforms to remind everyone that times have changed?

One can imagine which narrative the Protection Racket Media will flog.

Weiss issued a last-minute order to yank a 60 Minutes exposé on Donald Trump’s decision to partner with El Salvador on deporting criminal illegals, citing the need for more reporting and better balance. All of the usual suspects have been losing their minds ever since:

CBS News pulled a segment on Trump administration deportations of Venezuelan immigrants to an El Salvador prison from “60 Minutes,” causing staffers and media onlookers to question whether the decision was politically motivated. …

Driving the news: “60 Minutes” announced on social media around 4:30pm ET Sunday that it was dropping the segment, called “Inside CECOT,” from that evening’s broadcast lineup, but said that it would air at a later date.

  • Sharyn Alfonsi, the segment’s correspondent, alleged in an email to colleagues that she learned Saturday that new CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss had “spiked our story” after Trump officials refused to be interviewed, per multiple reports.
  • “Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” Alfonsi wrote, per a copy of the email that journalist Liam Scott shared on X.

I’ve watched 60 Minutes and CBS News’ practical application of “standards and practices” for decades. This is not the flex that Alfonsi thinks it is. Twenty-one years ago, CBS News and 60 Minutes II ran a prime-time hit piece on George W. Bush based on fabricated documents in an attempt to influence a presidential election. “Rathergate” only cost CBS some embarrassment and retractions, and perhaps a momentary blip in sponsor support. Almost exactly twenty years later, they botched a re-edit of their softball interview with Kamala Harris so badly that the manipulation was once again easily exposed by critics and commentators. That escapade cost Paramount $16 million to settle in a lawsuit Trump filed, who most definitely preferred direct action more than Bush did at the time.

Alfonsi’s past performance is helping her case, either:

Brian Stelter has thoughts:

I can remember when 60 Minutes suffered the ultimate blow to its credibility, a moment that has never once bothered Stelter:

UPDATE:

Posted at 2:55 pm by Ed Driscoll

SPACE: Japan’s H3 suffers second-stage anomaly, QZS-5 satellite lost.

The H3 rocket lifted off at 8:51 p.m. Eastern Dec. 22 (0151 UTC, Dec. 23) from Tanegashima Space Center carrying the Michibiki 5 (Quasi-Zenith Satellite System 5 (QZS-5)) satellite. The liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen first stage performed nominally, but issues with the second stage meant the satellite was not inserted into its intended geosynchronous transfer orbit.

A Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) press release later stated that the second stage engine’s second ignition failed to start normally and shut down prematurely. As a result QZS-5 could not be put into the planned orbit and the launch failed.

A post-launch press conference revealed that the first second stage engine cutoff occurred 27 seconds later than planned, while the second ignition was delayed by 15 seconds and terminated almost immediately after startup. Telemetry showed that hydrogen tank pressure in the second stage began falling during the first-stage burn, a behavior now under investigation.

That’s two failures in seven H3 launches, but the rocket only came into service about three years ago and reliability tends to increase over time.

Posted at 2:46 pm by Stephen Green

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES:

Posted at 1:57 pm by Stephen Green

2026 PREVIEW (SORT OF): Beware Of Central Economic Forecasts For 2026.

This is a central scenario that includes a lot of “dispersion,” and not just domestically. Internationally, the U.S. significantly outperforms other major economies. Hampered by structural rigidities, the eurozone and the United Kingdom remain trapped in a low-growth, low-investment equilibrium. With China’s efforts to upgrade its growth model progressing slowly, the U.S. will serve by far as the global economy’s primary engine—a concentration that creates its own set of risks.

As for the “fat tail” scenarios, their probabilities are roughly equal, offering reasons for both hope and anxiety. On the right-hand side, one finds a tantalizing vision of an economy that doesn’t merely grow but accelerates, while also expanding future capacity. In this scenario, faster-than-anticipated AI adoption, combined with robotics, is translated into tangible, economy-wide productivity gains, enabling the U.S. to pull further ahead of other major economies.

If this “productivity promise” materializes rapidly enough, the U.S. could experience a non-inflationary boom. Because the supply side expands rapidly enough to meet rising demand, inflation remains in check. This is a Goldilocks scenario on steroids: a technology-driven expansion that expands corporate margins and increases tax revenues, potentially alleviating fiscal pressures and enabling the Fed to cut rates more aggressively.

But equally probable is the downside scenario: not a standard recession born of exhausted demand, but a surge in volatility, stemming from financial instability, policy error, election-year politics, and geoeconomic developments.

Translation: Predictions are hard, especially about the future.

Posted at 1:44 pm by Stephen Green

GEORGE MF WASHINGTON: Making Movies in a Low Trust Environment. “Washington” compares and contrasts 1993’s top movies with today’s choices being proffered by DEI-infected Hollywood and compares the results to a once dominant sports team now constantly having losing seasons. “Don’t we become hyper-critical of even the smallest mistakes, mistakes of the kind we might forgive a competent team that is otherwise playing well? Worse, don’t we sometimes start to expect that our team will lose even before a single minute of game time has been played?”

And that is exactly what has happened to Hollywood over the last 20 years. The studios have performed the task of entertaining us so poorly, so regularly, that audiences feel burned. They no longer trust that the movies they pay to see will be any good, and they have begun to give up… even in the case of big blockbuster titles based on popular franchises, characters or IP of the kind audiences would have flocked to see in the 80’s and 90’s when Hollywood was releasing movies in a high trust environment.

We can debate what has changed. Some think it’s the high cost of movie tickets and popcorn combined with the inconvenience of theater-going when compared to streaming from the couch. And I know many in my right-leaning audience will blame Progressive politics, the powerful urge of Hollywood stars and directors to lecture us as if we are bad people to be taught a lesson rather than friends who deserve to be entertained… what the Critical Drinker calls “The Message.” And while that has clearly been a part of the problem, Hollywood’s woes are about much more than just politics.

The problem is that Hollywood has forgotten what movies are supposed to be about. The industry which once released “Mrs. Doubtfire”, “Schindler’s List” and “The Pelican Brief” in the same month has forgotten that movies must first entertain. They have forgotten that audiences want to see all kinds of movies, not just movies about Superheroes. They have forgotten that movies shouldn’t look like a corporate product created in a lab for the sole purpose of raising the stock price of the studio’s corporate parent. And perhaps most importantly, they have forgotten that movies need not focus obsessively on the goal of bending the arc of history towards justice… and certainly not at the expense of telling a great story.

The Critical Drinker and his cadre recently looked back on the tenth anniversary of The Force Awakens, the first Star Wars movie made under the Disney brand name. In his blockbuster “Lost Generation” article, Jacob Savage wrote, “In retrospect, 2014 was the hinge, the year DEI became institutionalized across American life.” Not coincidentally, The Force Awakens was released the following year.

In contrast to George Lucas’ constant writing and rewriting of his Star Wars concepts in the mid-1970s, as the Drinker et al note, the lack of worldbuilding by Disney as they were setting up shop on a new run of Star Wars movies was shocking. Apparently Kathleen Kennedy believed that printing up loads of “The Force is Female” t-shirts would suffice instead.

To borrow from what I wrote last week, Hollywood’s decline, a decade of DEI-driven slop coupled with the shocking murder of Rob Reiner, is a textbook example of Hemingway’s description for how one goes bankrupt: Gradually, then suddenly.

Speaking of which, one way or another, Warner Brothers being on the chopping block could likely accelerate the end of the moviegoing experience as well: Larry Ellison guarantees $40.4 billion in Paramount’s hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery.

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

BRING BACK THE DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY: Time to ‘Spin Off’ the Navy.

Created by the National Security Act of 1947 the DoD was tasked with unifying and consolidating the management of the large armed forces establishment that emerged at the end of World War II. The act principally combined the Department of War (Army) with the Department of the Navy (Navy and Marine Corps) – two separate entities that had been constitutionally established and operated separately with different missions since the inception of our nation. The act also created a new military department, the Air Force, in recognition of the evolution and impact of air power over the previous decade. The Air Force itself was in fact a “spinoff” of sorts from the Army where it had begun as the Army Air Corps. Over the past 80 years the Department of Defense has effectively, but arguably not very efficiently, created the most lethal and advanced military in the world. However, over the past decade or so it has also been showing signs that its current structure is not producing a force that can sustain those characteristics in the face of adversaries with greater agility and deeper industrial capacity.

An alarming case in point is the DoN. Having been absorbed into the vast DoD structure, and subject to resource trade-offs of the overall defense enterprise, the DoN has lost its independence, and with it, its character and performance over the last several decades. This decline was not sudden, and it did not occur without noble efforts to resist the ill-effects of the Pentagon bureaucracy and the ever-growing attempts to centralize power in the office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). Admiral Hyman Rickover, for example, demonstrated that through sheer will, brilliance, and obstinance that a nuclear submarine program could be built without high-level corporate meddling from DoD. In the 1980s Secretary of the Navy John Lehman performed a similar feat, overcoming resistance from Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, along with all the other DoD entities conspiring for a piece of the Navy’s financial pie, in his quest to construct a 600 ship navy. That navy, as is often the case with changing administration priorities, was quickly dismantled in the years following Lehman’s departure. The decline accelerated when the Cold War ended and naïve leaders believed that end of the Soviet Union would produce something aspirational, yet elusive, for ourselves and our allies called a “peace dividend.” Our adversaries, both large and small, had different ideas and they have seized upon our retreat from maritime dominance to assert their own.

Yes, the Navy requires its own Department again — and maybe “Nuke the Pentagon” while we’re at it.

Posted at 12:42 pm by Stephen Green

OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND: Jimmy Kimmel to say ‘fascism has had a great year’ in Channel 4 Christmas message.

US chat show host Jimmy Kimmel will say 2025 has been “a really great year for fascism”, when he delivers this year’s Alternative Christmas Message on Channel 4.

The presenter’s ABC talk show was briefly taken off air in September after comments he made about the shooting of Charlie Kirk.

The host’s suspension led to a debate in the US about freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Kimmel was reinstated a week after his removal.

The full quote from his address will say: “From a fascism perspective, this has been a really great year.”

The Daily Mail is of course suitably outraged: Jimmy Kimmel’s Christmas message to British public sparks outrage: ‘He should’ve stayed fired.’

Viewers in Britain and America alike hit out at the comedian for his anticipated anti-Trump rant and expected omission of censorship issues plaguing Sir Keir Starmer‘s government.

‘He’s going to whine about free speech and fascism,’ said GB News presenter Alex Armstrong on X.

‘He won’t be referring to our govt, will he? It’ll all be Trump. [Channel Four] deeply out of touch as usual.’

Commentator Paul Thacker also pointed to the recent arrest of comedian Graham Linehan for making anti-trans jokes as evidence of the ‘double standard’ in choosing Kimmel for the alternative message.

‘The British establishment chose Jimmy Kimmel to speak out against fascism and in favor of free speech. This is the same government that only recently arrested comedian Graham Linehan,’ Thacker wrote.

Worst. Hitler. Ever: Kimmel will be broadcasting in England, of all places, railing against fascism, with absolutely no repercussions from the Trump administration afterwards. And apparently, with no clue whatsoever about England arresting people for their tweets and Whatsapp posts.

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

RESET EXPECTATIONS: CNBC anchor who blasted Trump’s ‘insane’ tariffs is now shocked by ‘very, very low’ inflation.

Liesman has been among the most vocal critics of Trump’s tariff strategy (3). Back in March, he warned bluntly: “I’m going to say this at the risk of my job. What President Trump is doing is insane,” adding that “there’s no bounds around President Trump.”

But on Thursday, as he dug deeper into the latest report, even the month-over-month figures looked encouraging.

“I have not looked at the internals — I’ll look at them now — but it suggests that the internals are good as well,” he said. “Let’s see. … Seasonally adjusted index for all items, less food and energy, rose 0.2% over the two months. So correct my math here … but 0.2 divided by two is 0.1. So therefore that’s a very, very low monthly rate.”

Liesman wasn’t alone in his reaction.

Exit quote: “I think the president will take this as good news. The investors will think that interest rates will get cut more, so it was positive news — there’s no other way to spin it.”

Posted at 11:40 am by Stephen Green

ABOUT THAT UNIVERSITY RESEARCH ‘OVERHEAD:’ Billions of federal tax dollars go to universities for scientific research every year, but did you know every buck for research comes with another chunk of funds to cover “overhead costs.” You know, overhead like “designing museum exhibits, conducting middle school lab demonstrations, or developing podcasts, in the name of having a ‘broader impact’ beyond scientific discovery.” And don’t forget DEI! Such non-research activities are used to justify expanding administrative staffs.

Open the Books’ latest report examines how this process has worked over the years at the universities of Illinois, Virginia, Michigan, North Carolina, plus Rutgers.

Posted at 11:26 am by Mark Tapscott