INCENTIVES: Noem offers $3,000, free flight for migrants who sign up to leave.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem raised her incentives on Monday for illegal migrants who volunteer to return home before the end of the year as part of a program to lower deportation costs for taxpayers.

Noem had a new offer of $3,000 stipend and free flight home if they sign up to self-deport through the CBP Home app by the end of the year. That’s up from a previous offer of $1,000.

She said 1.9 million illegal aliens have voluntarily self-deported, including tens of thousands who used the CBP Home program since January.

“During the Christmas Season, the U.S. taxpayer is so generously TRIPLING the incentive to leave voluntarily for those in this country illegally – offering a $3,000 exit bonus, but just until the end of the year,” Noem said. “Illegal aliens should take advantage of this gift and self-deport because if they don’t, we will find them, we will arrest them, and they will never return.”

Self-deportation is less expensive than average cost to arrest, detain, and remove an illegal alien.

Offer expires soon…

“MINNEAPOLIS POLICE CHIEF HAS IT WRONG” IS A START THAT COULD GO MOST ANYWHERE: This Minneapolis Police Chief Has It Wrong When He Uses the Nativity Story To Push Back Against ICE Raids.

READER FAVORITE: Airmoto Tire Inflator Portable Air Compressor. #CommissionEarned

VDH: Hegseth Did What Biden Called ‘Impossible.’

We were told during the Biden administration that the recruitment for the Air Force, the Army, the Navy, and even in one case, I think one year, the Marines, was off some 40,000 to 50,000 recruits. And the Pentagon’s reaction under Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was, as we heard this echoed by a lot of the four-star admirals and generals, well, people are out of shape. They’re in gangs. They take drugs. They are wanted by private enterprise.

We have to compete with all of the excuses other than the real cause. The real cause was, as Pete Hegseth said when he came in, that people felt that the military was not emphasizing combat, battlefield efficacy. It was turning into a social justice “program.”

The subtext of Pete Hegseth’s point was that there was a particular demographic, white males from rural and often southern locales. They had died at twice their numbers in the demographic in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they weren’t joining.

Some of them were not joining because of the 8,500, maybe 8,000-8,500, that had natural immunity from prior COVID-19 infections. And yet, they did not want this experimental mRNA vaccine, and they were drummed out en masse. The majority of those fit this demographic.

The others felt that under the DEI obsessions with race and sexual orientation and gender, that people would be recruited, retained, promoted on criteria other than battlefield efficacy. So, they just stayed away from what they felt was a hostile environment. Didn’t help when then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley and Lloyd Austin told the nation before Congress that they were going to invest white supremacy following the death of George Floyd.

That’s over with. There is a record number of Army recruits. The military has met all of its recruiting. That is equivalent to the dramatic revolution on the southern border. Nobody thought we could close the border. We did. Nobody thought we could get recruitment back. Pete Hegseth did.

To be fair, usually when people say something is impossible, it’s because they don’t want to do it. Or worse, they don’t want anyone else doing it, either.

FROM THE THE LAW IS AN ASS DEPT: Judge rules against UCLA prof suspended for refusing lenient grading for black students.

HMM: Is This the Rosetta Stone That Explains Epstein’s Vast Wealth and Intelligence Ties? “Benz believes Epstein went out on his own after leaving Bear Stearns and ran all of his intelligence deals through BCCI. Those intelligence ties are believed to explain why, when Epstein was busted for his underage human trafficking sex slavery ring, then-Florida U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta is alleged to have said that he gave Epstein a sweetheart plea deal because ‘he belonged to intelligence.'”

THE ENEMY WITHIN: Adversaries shifting focus to western universities, ex-intel official warns: ‘The frontline has moved.’

PROGRESS: How the Trump Administration Is Taming the Administrative State.

CHRISTMAS IN A CCP JAIL: That’s the prospect for thousands of Chinese Christians, thanks to a massive wave of arrests, according to The Washington Stand’s Sam McCarthy.

MARK JUDGE: Make America Zen Again.

PRIVACY, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG: Italy antitrust agency fines Apple $116 million over privacy feature; Apple announces appeal.

Italy’s antitrust authority fined Apple 98.6 million euros ($116 million) on Monday after determining that operating one of its privacy features restricted App Store competition. Apple said it would appeal the sanction.

Apple abused its dominant position with its App Tracking Transparency, ATT, policy, which forces apps to obtain permission before collecting data to target users with personalized ads, the antitrust authority said in a statement.

The company rolled out ATT starting in April 2021 as part of an update to the operating system powering the iPhone and iPad. While the feature was designed to tighten up privacy, it faced criticism from Big Tech rivals that it would make it harder for smaller apps to survive without charging consumers.

The authority didn’t criticize the policy per se, but the fact that the Apple system requires third-party app makers to ask users for consent twice in order to comply with Europe’s strict privacy rules.

Am I reading this correctly? Did Italy just squeeze Apple for $116 million for complying with EU privacy rules?

Creative beak-wetting is what Europe does now instead of tech innovation.

DON SURBER: When CBS silenced Andy Rooney. Twice.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, AMERICA!

my official statement to the american people is “you’re welcome” 🫡🇺🇸 https://t.co/M5Kiage1zG

— kaitlin (@thefactualprep) December 23, 2025

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: The Epstein Stuff Probably Won’t Make Bill Clinton’s Teflon Get Sticky. “Sadly, I’ve been around long enough to know that pinning anything on Bill or Hillary Clinton has about the same odds as hitting Powerball on consecutive weeks. These people are professional breakers and skirters of the law; they have been easily getting away with whatever they want for all of those same years that we have been crossing our fingers and hoping for their downfall.”

CHANGE: FCC Set to Ban New Foreign-Made Drones.

The action, expected to be announced Monday by the Federal Communications Commission at an afternoon press conference, would target new drone models and components produced overseas, sources told Newsmax Middle East correspondent Zachary Anders.

The ban would include DJI, the popular Chinese manufacturer that dominates the consumer camera-drone market.

Importantly, the policy would not be retroactive. Anders reported that the action “does not affect drones or drone components that are currently sold in the United States,” meaning existing products already on store shelves or in consumers’ hands would not be covered by the new prohibition.

Instead, the change would work through the FCC’s authorization process.

Prepare from some growing pains while supply chains adjust.

IF YOU’D PREDICTED THIS A FEW YEARS AGO, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN CALLED A BIGOTED FANTASY: Massachusetts Mayor Can’t Understand English, Needs Translator In Court: Mayor Brian DePena immigrated to the United States in the 1980s.

MY NEW YORK POST COLUMN: DEI hollowed out a generation — and sapped America’s promise.

CUBA: Is Trump About to Do What No Other President Could?

HATE: In Deleted Social Media Posts, Michigan Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed Repeatedly Drew Equivalence Between 9/11 and the US Response: The far-left Senate hopeful also claimed the ‘greatest threat’ to US security was ‘”homegrown” and “radicalized” White men.’

AT AMAZON, Shop the Holiday Gift Store. #CommissionEarned

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION RENAISSANCE: Why Southern States Are Outperforming Others in Education.

Much of this success has rightly been credited to a handful of commonsense reforms: early literacy laws that require the use of phonics, the tightening of retention and promotion policies, universal literacy screeners in early grades, and rigorous curricula. But another factor may be these states’ strict disciplinary policies. The states seeing the greatest gains academically are also the ones doing the most to bring order and stability to their schools.

A teacher can use the best curriculum, and states can make schools use the best instructional methods, but if classrooms are chaotic, then students will not learn. The presence of a misbehaving peer causes other students to act out, dilutes instruction, and drives down achievement for other students.

Despite this, blue and red states frame discipline differently. Alabama’s regulatory codes, for example, open with a statement that “students be allowed to learn in a safe classroom setting where order and discipline are maintained,” and that “every child in Alabama” is entitled to “the right to learn in a non-disruptive environment.” Boundaries and order are treated as inherent goods.

Many blue states, however, view school discipline as a necessary evil, to be limited as much as possible.

Read the whole thing.

SHOWING THE WAY: Japan Ready to Restart World’s Largest Nuclear Reactor 15 Years After Fukushima Disaster.

THE WALLS ARE CLOSING IN: Trump approval rating rebounds as new poll shows him hitting three-month high.

RAYMOND IBRAHIM: How the Islamic Blitzkrieg Shattered Christendom.

As I never tire of reminding people, I always learn a lot from Ray’s video podcasts.

MIRANDA DEVINE: Trump’s ‘Loud’ Speech Rightly Counted Off All the Ways His Admin Delivered.