December 24, 2025

MAKING IT EASIER THAN EVER TO KEEP THAT NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION: U.S. regulators approve Wegovy pill for weight loss. “The Wegovy pills are expected to be available within weeks, company officials said. Availability of oral pills to treat obesity could expand the booming market for obesity treatments by broadening access and reducing costs, experts said.”

Posted at 2:48 pm by Stephen Green

UNEXPECTEDLY! US economy unexpectedly surges 4.3% in third quarter — its strongest growth in two years.

The US economy grew at an unexpectedly strong pace of 4.3% in the third quarter — the highest rate in two years — according to a government report released Tuesday.

Vigorous consumer spending on services such as health care and products like recreational vehicles fueled the surge in the gross domestic product, which is comprised of the value of all goods and services produced across the economy, for the July through September quarter.

The inflation-adjusted annual rate of 4.3% marked an uptick from 3.8% growth the previous quarter and beat analyst expectations of 3.2% growth, according to economists polled by The Wall Street Journal.

President Trump took a victory lap in the wake of the report, crediting his tariff policy for the strong growth.

He wasn’t the only one, as this administration continues to repair the damage caused by the Biden Politburo’s myriad crises by design:

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

SO MUCH FOR A NIGHT AT THE MOVIES:

Avatar: Fire and Ash is another box office disappointment for Disney, which had hoped the film would provide a short-term boost. The previous sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, opened to more than $134 million domestically in 2022 and went on to earn nearly $685 million in the U.S., while Fire and Ash debuted with just $89 million. Adjusted for inflation, the decline is even more pronounced, signaling a sharp drop in audience interest and raising doubts about the franchise’s once-reliable box office pull. I stopped caring about the franchise after the original film.

To be fair, audiences don’t help. We get tired of endless sequels and remakes and see them as a sign of Hollywood laziness, yet we aren’t exactly rushing to theaters for new IPs anymore. The problem is that, between ticket and snack costs, a night out at the theater is far more expensive than it used to be. Given the high cost of a night at the theater, people are more than willing to wait for movies to become available on streaming services or DVD. This is where Hollywood is cannibalizing its own box office profits.

These days, movies hit streaming so quickly that audiences don’t think the wait is too much to bear for a film they want to see. When I was a kid, it felt like movies wouldn’t be available on home video for at least six months after they left theaters, giving us far more incentive to go to the theater to see the movies we wanted. Hollywood hasn’t figured out how to make moviegoing relevant again, and if it doesn’t, theaters will be a thing of the past.

In a way, they already are, sadly:

Related: The Strange Case of Avatar and Its Missing Cultural Footprint.

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

THE HILL IS GONNA BE THE HILL, AND KINZINGER IS GONNA KINZINGER:

But wait, there’s more…:

He’s probably binging the final season of “Stranger Things” right now.

Posted at 1:24 pm by Stephen Green

THE REAL WAR ON CHRISTMAS:

In Germany, Christmas markets this year are festooned with concrete barriers and police armed with automatic rifles.

The famous Christmas market in Salzburg, Austria, now includes 33 surveillance cameras and 24-hour security guards.

It’s the same story in France. Authorities in Paris have canceled the city’s New Year’s Eve party. Parisians will not be celebrating on the Champs- Élysées this year.

“Unfortunately, in France, there is such a turn toward savagery that everything becomes a pretext for violence,” said Bruno Retailleau, the head of France’s center-right Republican party.

There have been numerous ill-conceived or foiled attacks at Christmas markets—from Bavaria, in southeastern Germany, to Leipzig, in the east-central part of the country, to Lublin, Poland.

Last December a Christmas market attack in Magdeburg, Germany, left six dead; five were killed in the 2018 Christmas market attack in Strasbourg, France. This year the global terrorist group ISIS urged its followers to re-create those attacks across the West. The September 18 edition of its newsletter Al-Naba urged Muslims to target “Christians and Jews” and “kill by all means.”

Those orders, it seems, were followed in Australia earlier this month, when two gunmen killed 15, including children, at a ceremony to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah on Bondi Beach. Authorities say the alleged gunmen, Sajid Akram and Naveed Akram, were inspired by ISIS.

Far left Politico Europe’s response is to blame the victims of the attacks, and, err, last time I checked, the man who is colloquially known as “the reason for the season:”

Related: It’s come to this:

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Newsom Loses More CA Business and Wants to Take Away the Farm. “I did not know that Newsom and his toadies in Sacramento were going after farms as a means of reparations. That is what they are contemplating legislating is so blatantly an unconstitutional land grab that the Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, is now involved.”

Posted at 1:15 pm by Stephen Green

MAKE AMERICA ROADTRIP AGAIN: Gas prices fall to four-year lows as millions embark on holiday road trips.

The average price of unleaded gasoline in the U.S. has been below $3 a gallon for most of the month — the lowest level since 2021, according to AAA. The association said it’s shaping up to be the cheapest December for drivers filling up their tanks going back to the pandemic year of 2020.

Fuel prices are down about 7% from a month ago, AAA data shows, and have tumbled roughly 43% from mid-2022 highs near $5 a gallon that followed runaway inflation in the wake of the pandemic.

The latest slide in prices comes as AAA forecasts a record of more than 122 million Americans will travel at least 50 miles from home in the 13 days between Dec. 20 and Jan. 1. AAA found nearly nine of 10 people on the move during the period — or close to 110 million — are expected to travel by car.

Travel is way up over 2021, and prices are down. Gotta love it.

Posted at 12:44 pm by Stephen Green

CUE THE MELTDOWNS: Bari Weiss Dropping the Hammer With Big Changes After 60 Minutes Story Fiasco.

CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss created a firestorm when she recently pulled a 60 Minutes piece about illegal aliens and CECOT, the prison in El Salvador.

Weiss made it clear in a memo to staff this week that she expected more from them in that story and what they put out to the public. One of the main things that she thought was missing in the piece was a new comment from the Trump administration.

* * * * * * * *

According to Axios, the Trump administration provided three on-the-record statements from the White House, State Department, and Department of Homeland Security. There was even a more than 300-word statement from DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.  None of that was included in the final story. While the story was pulled here in the U.S., it ran on an app in Canada, so people were able to pick it up and see what was in it.

The left’s freakout over Weiss, and her desire to reign in what they view as their exclusive institution have been quite instructive to watch:

But then, it currently is the left’s version of what Fleet Street calls “the silly season:”

UPDATE:

 

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Jimmy Kimmel to Face Ultimate Free Speech Test in U.K.

Jimmy Kimmel has failed one free speech test after another.

And, to be fair, he isn’t alone in La La Land.

Most Hollywood dwellers stood down rather than call out the serial speech attacks over the past decade. Consider:

The Twitter Files
Scary Poppins and her “disinformation” crusade
Cancel Culture
Woke thought police
Sensitivity Readers
Biden’s censorship regime
And so much more.

For every Rob Schneider, Bill Maher or John Cleese, there are hundreds of artists who stood down when it mattered most.

And, sadly, Kimmel’s nightly monologues missed all of the above. Night after night. Week after week. Year after year.

Why, it might just be on purpose.

Much more at the link.

Posted at 11:57 am by Stephen Green

“RELEASE IT ALL,” THEY TOLD ME. “BUT NOT THAT,” THEY SAID:

Posted at 10:55 am by Stephen Green

WITH RUTHLESS EFFICIENCY: How Trump broke California’s grip on the auto market.

The Golden State’s power to shape the national car market is in tatters thanks to Trump 2.0. Where it took federal officials nearly 18 months in Trump’s first term to revoke the state’s nation-leading electric vehicle sales mandate, they accomplished it in less than five months this time around — and California has yet to come up with a way to counter it.

The result is a stark reversal from Trump’s first term, when California repeatedly slowed or blunted federal rollbacks — and often outmaneuvered a White House mired in internal dysfunction. Now, he is running roughshod over one of the signature policy priorities of this heavily Democratic state.

The infighting, sloppy rulemaking and a lack of clear policy goals that marked Trump’s first administration have been replaced by an aggressively overhauled government workforce stocked with MAGA loyalists and an eagerness to test the bounds of executive authority. Backed by more-seasoned agency staff, congressional Republicans in lockstep with Trump’s agenda and a playbook in the form of Project 2025 — the conservative Heritage Foundation’s comprehensive policy blueprint — Trump 2.0 has looked like a completely different animal.

It’s been a head-spinning 2025, and I can’t wait to see what this White House does in 2026.

Posted at 10:40 am by Stephen Green