January 2, 2026

OPEN THREAD: How’s your new year going so far?

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: Babylon Bee Editor Thanks Snopes for Debunking This Believable Story About Tim Walz’s $8 Billion Grant.

Flashback to Trump’s first term, when a “fact checking” Website was obsessed with a — deliberately — satiric one: The Babylon Bee Satirizes the Absurdities of American Politics. Snopes Doesn’t Seem to Get the Joke.

Posted at 9:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

THREAD:

UPDATE (From Ed): This must be part of the “backlog:”  Why? CBS Evening News Pushes Young Adults Pondering Climate Doom Before Having Kids.

Do CBS newsreaders not understand that we can find videos of their past scare campaigns, such as this classic from 1982, when Dan Rather handed his broadcast over to colleague who exclaimed with a straight face, “If these scientists are correct, about 25% of Florida would be flooded along with low-lying areas all over the world.” While I know that Gov. DeSantis has a lot to worry about, I’m pretty sure that isn’t at the top of his concerns in 2026:

CBS has been doing climate doomsdaying for well over half a century, since the first “Earth Day” in 1970. When do they get to the end of the backlog?

Posted at 8:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

MOVIE THEATERS – THEY WERE FUN WHILE THEY LASTED: Netflix Reportedly Wants to Keep Movies in Theaters for Just 17 Days After It Buys Warner Bros.

In a report from Deadline on the Stranger Thing Season 5 finale, which made $25 million in theaters after it released at the same time theatrically as it did on Netflix, Hollywood was said to be worried about what the streamer considers to be “industry-standard windows” before movies are made available on its platform.

And then the bombshell:

Sources have told Deadline that Netflix have been proponents of a 17-day window which would steamroll the theatrical business, while circuits such as AMC believe the line needs to be held around 45 days.

It’s worth noting this isn’t confirmation that Netflix will settle on a 17-day window for Warner Bros. movies if and when its deal is approved. The theater companies may end up negotiating a lengthy window, perhaps somewhere between 45 days and the 17 days Netflix reportedly is a fan of. But what’s clear is that there will be a great deal of tension within Hollywood as this is all worked out, with Netflix’s priority — as you’d expect — bolstering streaming.

Earlier: The Year Hollywood Died.

Posted at 8:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

SOMEHOW I HAD MISSED THIS WHEN IT CAME OUT: How Police Let One of America’s Most Prolific Predators Get Away. The prosecutor who lost her job for pursuing a guy who was clearly being protected by the authorities is my former student, Kat Dahl. A very brave and determined woman who paid a serious professional price for trying to pursue justice.

Posted at 7:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

ZOHRAN MAMDANI CANNOT FAIL, HE CAN ONLY BE FAILED:

Posted at 6:43 pm by Ed Driscoll

HAPPY NEW YEAR: Oil and gas prices expected to stay significantly lower through 2026.

Oil and gasoline prices are expected to decline next year, according to a recent forecast from the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The EIA published its Short-Term Energy Outlook in November, which projected that the price of Brent crude oil will decline from $69 a barrel in 2025 to $55 a barrel next year. That would be well below the $81 per barrel that prevailed in 2024.

Gas prices are also projected to continue their decline into next year. Retail gas prices averaged $3.30 a gallon in 2024 and are at $3.10 a gallon this year, but are projected to decline further to $3 a gallon in 2026, according to the EIA’s report.

U.S. production of crude oil picked up this year and is expected to remain at the level in 2026, with the EIA finding the U.S. produced 13.2 million barrels per day in 2024. The agency projected crude oil production will be 13.6 million barrels per day in 2025 – the same as in 2026.

Only tangentially related, but the EV bubble continues deflating: Ram’s TRX Supertruck Is Back with SRT Badges and a 777-HP V-8

Posted at 3:52 pm by Stephen Green

TRUMP  IS MR DEREGULATOR: Rod Martin turns over his Substack column space for a day to Americans for Tax Reform founder and chief Grover Norquist, who provides a comprehensive cataloguing of the many ways President Donald Trump is draining the regulatory swamp in Washington, D.C.

Posted at 3:14 pm by Mark Tapscott

ROGER KIMBALL: The Somali Fraud Scandal is a Turning Point.

What made Shirley’s video the tipping point, the tocsin that finally shook the world awake? The legacy media has largely avoided covering the issue. Indeed, it has savaged reporters such as James O’Keefe who exposed elements of the fraud in 2020, and did the same to activist Christopher Rufo who has done so more recently.

But for reasons that are not entirely clear, those earlier exposés, while hard-hitting, failed to generate the near-universal outrage that Shirley’s matter-of-fact reporting has.

I say “near-universal” because there are dissenters. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, for example, pulled out the “white supremacist,” “racist” and “Islamophobic” cards in response to Shirley’s video. The accusations fell completely flat. Why? Egregious overuse. People are no longer frightened by those content-free, rhetorical boogeymen. Such accusations are merely epithets designed to end conversation, not acknowledge the truth.

Confronted with the fact that Somalis have systematically pilfered billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money in order to enrich themselves, bribe politicians and fund terrorist activities in Somalia, the public are outraged – and rightly. They see now how Democrats coddle illegal immigrants, lavish them with taxpayers’ money and then cultivate them as Democratic voters. And speaking of voters, did you know that Minnesota has same-day voter registration and that one registered voter can “vouch” for 8 others in his precinct who do not have ID?

Musk cut to the chase: “The Democrats are so upset about the situation because they’re losing – you know if we turn off this gigantic money magnet for illegal immigrants, then they will leave and they’ll lose voters.” Bingo. There are some 80,000-100,000 Somalis in Minneapolis alone. How is it that they live so well?

The canny chap who writes under the name Cynical Publius may well be correct that “in large swathes of humanity, there is no actual concept of ‘fraud,’ particularly fraud against the government.” Instead, there is a categorical imperative to get away with whatever you can “to help yourself and your tribe.” The problem is, notes Publius, that “introducing a fraud-based culture based on tribalism into America is like introducing some sort of lethal virus into a population that has no natural immunity. The virus will spread and grow, unchecked, because it is so alien to the host.”

The virus must be neutralized or it will destroy the host. . . . And as much of the “Somali community” as possible should be repatriated to where it belongs: Somalia. That is why God made Tom Homan.

Indeed.

UPDATE: From the comments: “If the Left truly cared about social programs helping people, then the Left should be the most upset about fraud. Every dollar going to fraud is a dollar not going to someone who legitimately needs help. The fact that the Left is always excusing fraud is telling.”

Posted at 3:06 pm by Glenn Reynolds