Archive for 2025

December 3, 2025

HUGE WIN FOR FANS OF GAS-GUZZLERS AS TRUMP KILLS OFF HATED BIDEN-ERA RULE:

President Donald Trump is trying to tear up America’s fuel-economy roadmap — again.

On Wednesday, Trump said he’s rolling back the Biden administration’s mileage standards, pitching it as a way to make cars cheaper.

But critics say it’ll do the opposite, leaving drivers to burn more gas and spend more cash.

Trump’s move unwinds the federal CAFE rules — the fuel-economy standards that require automakers to build cars that travel farther on less fuel.

Those rules are the reason hybrids exist at scale. Automakers developed them to meet rising efficiency targets long before EVs took off.

Gavin Newsom hardest hit: Senate votes to block California’s rule banning the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. The resolution will now head to the White House, where President Donald Trump is expected to sign it.

Posted at 8:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Dec 3rd, 2025

IN NEW YORK, SCRAPPY LOCAL NEWSPAPER STRUGGLES FOR SURVIVAL:

Given that the Times has to keep its leftist subscriber base as coddled as possible, these gaping news gaps just keep happening there. As Byron York wrote on September 24th of 2008, “Today is a red-letter day for the New York Times. For the first time, the paper has reported in its news section that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright once uttered the phrase ‘God damn America.’” Flashforward to the middle of 2021:

Scott Bessent reminds Andrew Sorkin, about another minor story the Gray Lady memory holed from 2020 until the summer of 2024:

…”I actually don’t read the New York Times anymore,” Bessent tells Sorkin. “Occasionally people send me articles and there’s just this fever swamp. You had what was one of the greatest scandals of all time… Joe Biden’s diminished capacity and the cover-up. Where was the New York Times?”

To be fair, we know where the New York Times was:

Just think of the Times’ staffers as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense.

(Classical reference in headline.)

Posted at 6:49 pm by Ed Driscoll on Dec 3rd, 2025

THERE DOES NEED TO BE ACCOUNTABILITY. SO FAR THERE HAS BEEN NONE.

Posted at 6:47 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Dec 3rd, 2025

THREAD:

Posted at 6:34 pm by Stephen Green on Dec 3rd, 2025

GREAT MOMENTS IN REPUBLICAN FAILURE THEATER:

 

Posted at 6:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Dec 3rd, 2025

MILE MARKERS ON THE ROAD TO DETROIT: With Shake Shack’s exit, SF’s most troubled mall is down to one restaurant.

One of the last remaining strongholds of San Francisco Centre near Union Square is closing its doors for good.

Shake Shack, the burger joint located in the basement food court at 845 Market St., is closing permanently on Dec. 18, according to a Nov. 25 WARN filing to state labor officials.

The closure eliminates 26 jobs and leaves just one remaining restaurant — Panda Express — inside what was once San Francisco’s biggest and most lucrative mall. San Francisco Centre has been hemorrhaging tenants since the summer, which saw the departure of at least six food vendors.

According to the notice, the closure was prompted by the sale of the building and the new owner’s requirement that all tenants vacate the premises. All 26 employees impacted by the closure have been offered continued employment with no break in service, the same title, and the same rate of pay at nearby Shake Shack locations, the notice stated.

Shake Shack’s exit comes on the heels of a rough few years for the beleaguered, 1.5 million-square-foot mall, which has seen a steady decline in foot traffic post-pandemic with the departures of anchor tenants Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom. It is currently at 9% occupancy.

Oh, and speaking of Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom in San Francisco Centre: Truth behind death spiral in state’s most famous mall after Nordstrom & Bloomingdale’s closures.

Some famous and notable locations, like the San Francisco Centre in California, have been in turmoil for some time now.

At least 93% of the San Francisco Centre is now vacant, according to Trepp real estate data obtained by The Wall Street Journal.

It’s a nine-level complex that’s losing millions of dollars every year due to struggles with rampant shoplifting, drug use, and homelessness in the surrounding area.

TRAGIC DOWNFALL

These factors have lead many top retailers to leave, with the pandemic dealing a fatal blow after being closed off and on for seven months.

Some, like Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s held on for longer, but eventually left in the past two years.

The two department store giants held at least 40% of the mall’s space, with slightly smaller tenants like Zara and John Varvatos leaving after.

It was even reported recently that, during one weekday afternoon, security guards, clerks, and janitorial staff outnumbered shoppers.

Gooder and harder, San Fran.

Posted at 5:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Dec 3rd, 2025

DOG BITES MAN: Democrats reject idea of constitutional amendment mandating balanced budgets.

In light of the nation’s $38 trillion national debt, U.S. House lawmakers met Wednesday to discuss ways to structure a constitutional amendment mandating that Congress pass deficit-neutral budgets.

The House Judiciary subcommittee, however, produced no concrete plan and lawmakers mainly engaged in partisan blame games, even as multiple witnesses there to testify outlined possible solutions.

The U.S. has spent more money than it takes in for decades, resulting in skyrocketing deficits each year. In fiscal year 2025, the federal deficit – the gap between spending and revenue – amounted to roughly $1.8 trillion, the Congressional Budget Office estimated.

“The debt ceiling is a joke…a political football,” David Walker, chair of the Federal Fiscal Sustainability Foundation, told lawmakers. “The only thing that can bind current and future congresses and presidents is a constitutional amendment.”

Republicans, who mostly support such an amendment, say the debt and deficit problem is caused by excessive spending, and that the solution is enforced spending restraint.

Exactly.

Posted at 4:52 pm by Stephen Green on Dec 3rd, 2025

OH, THAT GREAT REPLACEMENT THEORY: Or, how to make James Carville’s 40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation a reality.

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Dec 3rd, 2025

CUE THE WORLD’S SMALLEST VIOLIN: Tim Walz is crumbling, along with his 2028 hopes.

The past year has not been kind to Walz. Kamala Harris’s recent book, “107 Days,” makes clear she was thoroughly disappointed by Walz’s performance as running mate. She describes watching him in the vice-presidential debate on TV and saying, “You’re not there to make friends with the guy who is attacking your running mate.”

After the debate, when Walz tells Harris that he wishes he had done better, she reassures him — but fumes in the book that she thought, in choosing Walz, she was getting an experienced politician who’d know what he was getting into. In the acknowledgments, full of effusive praise for her campaign staff, Harris writes simply, “To Tim Walz, thank you for joining me on this journey.”

Walz’s approval rating in Minnesota as governor is evenly split, as of September. But keep in mind, this is a heavily Democratic state. The gubernatorial primary isn’t until June. If you’re a Minnesota Democrat, do you really want to roll the dice on a not-so-popular guy going for a rarely pursued third term? Republicans are likely to nominate Lisa Demuth, the state’s House speaker, who’s already hitting Walz because he “let fraud run wild.”

Of all the schadenfreude in this report, my favorite part is that Walz actually had — has? — 2028 hopes.

Posted at 3:50 pm by Stephen Green on Dec 3rd, 2025

THE NEW SPACE RACE:

Posted at 3:34 pm by Stephen Green on Dec 3rd, 2025

YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION: Everywhere you look every day there seems to be a new political scandal and if only half of them are based on fact, then the country is in deep trouble.

Writing in the American Spectator, Republican strategist and former U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Donald Devine argues the scandal-ridden political scene reflects the more general relativization of ethics.

Along with the corruption has come the parallel explosion of the unaccountable super-regulatory federal bureaucracy and political uniparty that knows nothing about limited government, as the Founders understood the term:

“The real solution today is to go back to the Founders and limit what the national government does. Government today basically influences every major business and social act. As long as this is so, there will be deals and favoritism and power.

“The only solution is the Founders’ one, for the government to do less, which will result in better decentralized government decisions and their greater moral consistency. One might start with the Constitution’s Article 1, Section 8.”

Leader Thune, Speaker Johnson, are you listening?

Posted at 3:30 pm by Mark Tapscott on Dec 3rd, 2025

HMM:

I haven’t noticed GPT showing any bias — but it wouldn’t for what I use it for. I keep GPT in what I call “sandbox mode,” where it helps me edit longer pieces for structure and flow, but never for content.

For facts and news, I haven’t found anything better than Grok. On the other hand, Grokipedia is riddled with obvious factual errors. As always, caveat emptor and double-check every LLM’s work.

Posted at 3:03 pm by Stephen Green on Dec 3rd, 2025
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