SHE EFFED UP, SHE TRUSTED THEM: What the Hell Was Susie Wiles Thinking?
December 17, 2025
BREAKING: The Daily Caller News Foundation is reporting an exclusive that “Jasmine Crockett Once Rented Car With Convicted Robber — It Didn’t End Well”
“Democratic Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett co-rented a car in 2006 with a previously convicted robber whose car crash caused her to be sued for damages at the start of her law career, records obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation show.”
I suppose I’m not surprised, perhaps only at the depths of crazy from which this woman springs…
WHY? VANITY FAIR’S HIT PIECE WAS ENTIRELY PREDICTABLE: White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles Felt ‘Blindsided’ by Vanity Fair Article.
“You have to give Vanity Fair credit: It figured out how to get Olivia Nuzzi out of the news cycle,” Jim Geraghty adds: Susie Wiles’s No-Drama Streak Comes to an End.
HEY, BIG SPENDER:
Brown University has offered $0 as a reward to catch the shooter.
You read that correctly.
$0
The FBI offered the $50,000.
Brown University…
$8 billion endowment
$3.17 million a year salary for president
$180 million in taxpayer dollars per year$0 for reward.
Unreal.
— C3 (@C_3C_3) December 17, 2025
Message sent and received.
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Greatly reduced expectations: Students read few ‘whole books’ or none at all.
“Twelfth-grade reading scores are at historic lows,” she writes. “College professors, even at elite schools, are increasingly reporting difficulties in getting students to engage with lengthy or complex texts.”
Andrew Polk, 26, who teaches 10th-grade English in suburban Ohio, tells the Times he was assigned many whole books and plays when he was in high school not that long ago. But he’s supposed to use McGraw-Hill’s StudySync, which centers on excerpts. He has time for a few longer works each year, such as Macbeth, Fahrenheit 451 and John Green’s Paper Towns, a young-adult mystery. Teenagers still feel “passion for a good story,” and “can and do rise to the occasion.”
Teaching excerpts can expose students to more diverse writers, writes Goldstein. Schools can avoid controversial passages, such as sex scenes. The passages students read resemble what they’ll see on standardized tests. And providing online excerpts can be cheaper than buying books.
But students don’t build reading stamina. They don’t have a chance to dive into a different time or place, see characters develop or get to the happy ending.
What shame. Some of my best and most enjoyable reading was books I didn’t want to read, but that teachers required.
WELCOME TO THE PARTY, PAL: Even Some Democrats Are Starting to Side-Eye Gavin Newsom’s Coastal Lefty Elitism.
NOW OUT: Born Lucky: A Dedicated Father, A Grateful Son, and My Journey with Autism. #CommissionEarned
ALSO FILED UNDER, “NO JEWS, NO NEWS.”:
More people were killed in the Sudan in the last three weeks than the whole war in Gaza. Have you heard a peep? Nope. Why? Because it doesn’t further the case of dismantling western civilization.
— Insurrection Barbie (@DefiyantlyFree) December 17, 2025
Exit question: “Has anyone heard from Tucker on this war — estimates on those killed go as high as 400,000. Tucker’s been as quiet about this as he’s been on the genocide of Nigerian Christians by Islamists.”
GROOMING, STRAIGHT UP: San Diego school district teaches young kids 28 sexual orientations, 9 gender identities. “Using a rationale rejected by the Supreme Court’s Mahmoud precedent against a suburban D.C. district’s no-exceptions LGBTQ curriculum, SDUSD claims it can expose children to such mature and disputed concepts because it’s ‘not trying to change the religious beliefs or ideologies of any person’ but rather ‘to change how we respond to the most vulnerable populations that we serve.'”
Stick to the three R’s and leave them kids alone.
THE CRITICAL DRINKER: Animal Farm — This Was Probably a Bad Idea.
UPDATE:
I understand the dynamics of declining interest in going to movie theaters due to streaming, home entertainment centers, etc.
But has anyone considered the possibility that the real issue why theaters are shutting down nationally is that no one in Hollywood outside of Tom Cruise… https://t.co/TjnNblfbm7
— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) December 13, 2025
HIGHER EDUCATION IN AMERICA: SUNY Plattsburgh approves furry club, joining campuses across nation.
RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE, IOWAHAWK STYLE:
I feel it would wrong to use the actions of a couple of bad apples tarnish the reputation of the entire Syndney October 7 Mass March to Gas The Jews community https://t.co/L4MhsKWxxx
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) December 17, 2025
CHRISTIAN TOTO: Avatar: Fire and Ash Won’t Save Mother Earth.
The new film is once again overstuffed with characters, subplots and visual marvels, to the point where it deadens our senses. The first 10 minutes have us staring at the screen, our mouths agape at what Cameron and co. cooked up for our pleasure.
Digital trickery feels routine at this point. Not when you’re witnessing an “Avatar” spectacle.
That sense of wonder doesn’t last. At some point, we need compelling characters and a story that demands our attention. What we get are two marvelous villains, a crush of character beats that alternately impress and underwhelm and little sense of storytelling momentum.
Where is this all going? To the big battle, of course, just like in the first two films. If that’s a spoiler … then you don’t recognize franchise storytelling on autopilot.
And then there’s the dialogue. Some characters offer glib takes on life and native culture, a sop to spirituality and eco-worship. Take it or leave it, but “Fire and Ash” has a point of view and boasts a consistent approach here.
Why should we take Hollywood’s eco-worship seriously, when we know they don’t? Wicked films leave big carbon footprint on yellow brick road. “Universal’s blockbuster Wizard of Oz prequels generate more emissions in UK than rival productions such as the new Knives Out film and Deadpool & Wolverine”
YES, THE SO-CALLED PALESTINE SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT FOMENTS VIOLENCE AGAINST JEWS, PART II: Columbia University student Khymani James publicly stated that “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and that others should be “grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” Although Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the umbrella anti-Israel campus group, initially issued an apology on his behalf, the group later rescinded that apology and explicitly endorsed “armed resistance,” while James himself disavowed any expression of regret.
READER FAVORITE: BAMBOO COOL Men’s Ultra ComfortSoft Underwear. #CommissionEarned
2028 PREVIEW: Rubio: I Won’t Run If Vance Enters 2028 Race.
“If J.D. Vance runs for president, he’s going to be our nominee, and I’ll be one of the first people to support him,” Rubio told author Chris Whipple in a “Vanity Fair” interview published Tuesday.
Rubio, 54, and Vance, 41, are widely viewed as leading GOP presidential candidates when Trump’s second term ends. Presidents are constitutionally limited to two terms under the 22nd Amendment.
Trump this year publicly praised Vance and Rubio and floated the idea of them running together on a future Republican ticket, without specifying who would lead.
“We have J.D., obviously — the vice president is great,” Trump said while traveling in Asia in October. “Marco’s great. I’m not sure if anybody would run against those two. I think if they formed a group, it would be unstoppable.”
Of course, intentions often change as the primaries come closer.
YES, THE SO-CALLED PALESTINE SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT FOMENTS VIOLENCE AGAINST JEWS: I say so-called, because the movement does not care at all about the welfare of Palestinians, it’s at base a hate-Israel movement. As for violence against Jews, in the wake of the massacre in Australia I have seen many denials that the movement endorses violence against Jews, but putting aside the incendiary rhetoric (“globalize the intifada” and whatnot) there is plenty of contrary evidence, such as:
SAD:
📰 SYDNEY: JEWISH-OWNED BAGEL SHOP CLOSES AFTER FEAR OF BEING MURDERED
Avner’s, a Jewish-owned bagel bakery in Sydney, has closed effective immediately following the Bondi chanukah massacre and escalating antisemitic threats.
The owners say police and security agencies warned… pic.twitter.com/W8kMXLZ6mE
— Mossad Commentary (@MOSSADil) December 16, 2025
“Police and security agencies warned the bakery had become a potential target, and that they were unable to guarentee their safety.”
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: In a Perfect World, Merrick Garland Would Be Living in GITMO. “There are so many people to despise from the Biden years that it’s probably best to just go with a Top 10 list. Number One on mine is Merrick Garland, who who turned the Department of Justice into Joe Biden’s personal goon squad. For four years, the chief law enforcement officer in the United States had zero respect for the law. Garland’s focus was getting revenge on Republicans for keeping him off of the Supreme Court. He had enormous power and the emotional maturity of a prepubescent boy whose parents didn’t like him.”
WHY ARE IVY LEAGUE CAMPUSES SUCH CESSPITS OF VIOLENCE? An MIT professor was fatally shot at his home and police launched a homicide investigation. “It’s difficult to grasp. It just seems like it keeps happening.”
WE NEED FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE:
This will go down as one of the most consequential articles in U.S.history.
And yes, it is super fucked up.
10 million views at the time I’m writing this.
May it help end the scourge of DEI forever.
And lead to a rapid cultural correction. https://t.co/JK2sv6zHl2
— InfantryDort (@infantrydort) December 17, 2025
ERIK DURNEIKA: The Myth of an American Retreat From the Indo-Pacific Debunked.
A Financial Times article alleges, based on anonymous sources, that the Japanese government feels abandoned by Washington amid an escalating row with Beijing. The same Financial Times published a now-debunked piece claiming that the Trump administration had blocked the Taiwanese president’s planned transit through the U.S.
None of these stories and talking points align with reality, though. The Trump administration isn’t turning away from the Indo-Pacific region and doesn’t plan to do so in the foreseeable future. In fact, quite the opposite is happening.
The NSS’s main priority is the Western Hemisphere, in line with the administration’s focus on protecting the homeland. Much of this focus is due to China’s and other adversaries’ expanding influence on America’s doorstep. China, for example, weaponizes migration and drug trafficking to the detriment of the U.S. and the rest of the free world.
At the same time, the Trump administration remains committed to the Western Pacific. The NSS covers a range of topics relating to the region, from China’s economic warfare and coercion to Taiwan, the South China Sea (SCS), the First Island Chain, and defense burden-sharing.
Contrary to attempts to paint the NSS as a dark, isolationist, “far-right” document, there is an emphasis on strengthening Indo-Pacific alliances and partnerships, including with Japan and India — another country Democrat elected officials claim President Trump has left behind.
A quibble or two aside, this is the best set of foreign policies and national defense priorities since Reagan.
BUCK ROGERS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING: Gil Gerard, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century Star, Dies at 82.
