LANGUAGE: ‘Slop’ crowned Merriam-Webster word of the year, defining era of AI-generated content.

Merriam-Webster said that the word slop originated in the 1700s to mean “soft mud” before the meaning evolved to “food waste” in the 1800s and, eventually, “rubbish” and “a product of little or no value” in colloquial terminology.

“The flood of slop in 2025 included absurd videos, off-kilter advertising images, cheesy propaganda, fake news that looks pretty real, junky AI-written books, ‘workslop’ reports that waste coworkers’ time… and lots of talking cats,” Merriam-Webster said in their announcement. “People found it annoying, and people ate it up.”

I liked the talking cats.

ITS ORIGIN AND PURPOSE, STILL A TOTAL MYSTERY:

They actually did the "motive unknown" meme. https://t.co/i1Mtva6gLl

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) December 16, 2025

RESHORE PHARMACEUTICALS: Atorvastatin recall may affect hundreds of thousands of patients – and reflects FDA’s troubles inspecting medicines manufactured overseas.

THIS CALLS FOR TRIALS, AND MAYBE HANGINGS:

Holy shit…

The FBI admittedly never had probable cause to raid Mar-a-Lago, but the Biden DOJ essentially told the FBI to create/find some probable cause.

Meaning the Biden White House and Garland weaponized the DOJ/FBI to go after Trump.

Not a surprise, but now confirmed. pic.twitter.com/ueCaTFAw65

— Clandestine (@WarClandestine) December 16, 2025

ROGER KIMBALL: America’s free-speech war on the EU.

I think Musk is correct: “The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries, so that governments can better represent their people.”

The EU is desperately attempting to preserve its undemocratic prerogatives by clamping down on free speech and extending its regime of censorship. Meanwhile, the White House just released its 2025 National Security Strategy report. Europe’s economic performance and military posture are dismal. But that is the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Economic decline, the report says, is

eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure. The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence. Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less.

All of which means that the odds favor Elon Musk. The question is not whether the EU will collapse but when. My book has good odds that it happens before the end of Trump’s second term.

Faster please, because the striped trousers crowd in Belgium are getting far too big for their britches:

Utterly insane but it would make it beyond debate that the EU is a rapacious repressive statist technocracy.

— Perry de Havilland 🇬🇧🇺🇦🇨🇿 (@cthulhupotamus) December 15, 2025

PROBABLY MORE THAN ONE, BUT YEAH: Authorities May Be Covering up a Key Detail About the Brown University Shooting. “Social media has been flooded with reports that the gunman yelled ‘Allahu Akbar.’ That’s not a minor detail.”

Related:

I'm no police investigator but this guy's body shape looks absolutely nothing like the poor schmuck they picked up the other day. Shocking that they even arrested that guy. https://t.co/Y6k0alob6u

— Fusilli Spock (@awstar11) December 15, 2025

THIS IS THE SITUATION THROUGHOUT THE WEST:

Because they have to compete with the poorest people on earth for jobs and the richest people on earth for housing.

That's why… pic.twitter.com/90krz8kX6t

— Financelot (@FinanceLancelot) December 15, 2025

“EXPEDIENCY” REMAINS HER WORD OF THE DAY: Wait, Nancy Pelosi Just Said WHAT? “What’s it mean when an impeachment-happy former House Speaker suddenly announces that impeachment is off the table?”

I’M NOT WORRIED, BECAUSE THERE’S NO PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION THIS YEAR: Mexico confirms first case of so called ‘super flu’ variant.

THEY CERTAINLY DON’T WANT THEM TO: The Left thinks poor kids can’t learn.

“Progressives” seem hostile to the idea that schools can teach low-income students, writes Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic. Once moderate Democrats like Barack Obama backed reforms they hoped would improve achievement and provide upward mobility. Now, critics from the left “tend to dismiss any plan to close the achievement gap between rich and poor students.” They “support public schools as community centers and providers of child care and secure middle-class jobs,” but not as places to educate children.

Mississippi implemented “a set of educational reforms including teacher training, testing, retention (i.e., whether kids move forward or are held back), and a mostly phonics-based reading instruction,” and moved from 49th in the nation to the top 20 in a 10-year-period, Chait writes. “Adjusted for race and income, Mississippi now does a far better job of teaching literacy than do many northern states seen as leaders in public education.”

But left-wing critics of education reform aren’t cheering.

How will they keep them ignorant, dependent, and voting Democrat if they’re educated and upwardly mobile?

I MEAN, HE’S NOT WRONG:

Do you want to know why Republicans always lose, even when we're winning?

"We're better than that."

Democrats never think "We're better than that." They think "What can we do to win?"

And then they win, taking advantage of our self-defeating, love of Marquess of Queensberry…

— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) December 16, 2025

GREAT MOMENTS IN LAW ENFORCEMENT: Bondi Beach hero helped disarm terrorist before police mistakenly shot him: report.

A man who rushed in to help disarm one of the terrorists who fired at a crowd celebrating Hanukkah in Australia’s famous Bondi Beach was mistakenly shot by police and tackled by bystanders, according to a new report.

The heroic civilian, who was only described as a Middle Eastern refugee living with his Australian wife and kids, was in Bondi Beach when Naveed Akram, 24, and his father Sajid, 50, allegedly opened fire at a crowd of Jewish revelers.

At least 15 people were killed in the attack and dozens others injured.

Harrowing video shows the moment the good Samaritan runs up the bridge where the gunmen were firing from after one of them was hit by police returning fire, the Daily Mail reported.

The man quickly sneaks up on the downed shooter and begins kicking his rifle out of reach before the gunman can grab it.

The quick-thinking civilian then begins to raise his hands and back away from the scene, but gunfire continues to ring out as he shouts, “Don’t shoot.”

The man was shot during the chaotic scene that followed, with video showing members of the public running in and attacking him as they mistook the hero for one of the assailants.

The injured man was pinned to the ground by the mob, with police running in to break up the scene and secure the area.

As Iowahawk notes:

it's a perfect Category 5 storm of public official ineptitude https://t.co/crBeqmrzNG

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) December 16, 2025

Especially when coupled with: Police ‘Froze’ As Terrorists Massacred Jews on Bondi Beach, Eyewitness Accounts and Videos Suggest. “New South Wales police commissioner Mal Lanyon said police did ‘a fantastic job.’”

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Texas Charges TV Makers With Consumer Surveillance.

“When families buy a television, they don’t expect it to spy on them. They don’t expect their viewing habits packaged and auctioned to advertisers.”

That allegation, taken directly from Texas’ lawsuit against Hisense, sits at the center of Attorney General Ken Paxton’s legal action against five major television manufacturers accused of secretly monitoring consumers inside their homes.

Paxton has sued Sony, Samsung, LG, Hisense, and TCL Technology Group Corporation, alleging the companies unlawfully collected and sold consumer viewing data from Texans through Automated Content Recognition technology, known as ACR.

I hate this stuff.

SAD:

Most people don’t truly understand how difficult it is for conservative students on campuses like Brown (and Cornell). It takes great inner strength to stand up to the social and social media pressures to conform, and those pressures come not only from other students, but from…

— William A. Jacobson (@wajacobson) December 15, 2025

THERE SHE GOES AGAIN: JK Rowling Strikes Again, Rips LGBT Crowd After Rapist Targets Girls in Mixed Gender Changing Rooms.

READER FAVORITE: Apple AirPods Pro 3 Wireless Earbuds, Active Noise Cancellation. #CommissionEarned

GREAT PACIFIC WAR PREVIEW: Ukraine Hits Russian Sub in First Underwater Drone Attack.

The strike carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) with its “Sub Sea Baby” drones hit the submarine in the port of Novorossiysk where Russia has rebased many naval vessels to put them out of reach of Ukrainian strikes.

Footage published by the SBU showed a powerful explosion erupting from the water at a pier near where a submarine and other vessels were docked. Reuters confirmed the location of the video using the port’s layout and piers.

Alexander Kamyshin, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, wrote on X that it was the first time in history that an underwater drone had neutralized a submarine.

I don’t know which will be the first nation to destroy or disable an enemy sub at sea, rather than at port, but it will happen.

I MEAN, IT’S NOT LIKE THEY WERE GOING TO LAY OFF ANY DEI BUREAUCRATS: MIT blames new endowment tax for decision to close multiple libraries. I mean, priorities.

I QUESTION THE TIMING:

It can now be said! https://t.co/IMBRuwSKD6

— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) December 16, 2025

OOF: The Long Knives Come Out for Candace Owens.

STAY STRONG FOR THE HOLIDAYS: Toniiq NAD+ Supplement 1500mg. #CommissionEarned

CRUSH THESE LEFTIES: University of Southern Maine pro-life group faced with harassment, including veiled threat referencing Kirk assassination.

WHEN FRAUD IS A FEATURE, NOT A BUG: Issues & Insights (I&I) points to a former investigator in the Minnesota Attorney General’s office as highlighting the underlying truth about how Democrats in the Land of 10,000 Lakes view defrauding public benefit programs.

“We’re not just talking about Democrats ripping off government programs for their personal benefit – examples of which are legion – but the opportunities for fraud built into the programs they create,” I&I notes.

“Take the federal food stamp program, which now goes by the euphemism SNAP and is riddled with fraud. Instead of trying to protect taxpayers, Democrats are actively thwarting a Trump administration effort to eliminate it.

“Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said that ‘We asked for all the states for the first time to turn over their data to the federal government to let the USDA partner with them to root out this fraud, to make sure that those who really need food stamps are getting them, but also to ensure that the American taxpayer is protected.'”

Can you guess how many Democrat-controlled states refused to comply?

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: More than 60% of security clearance data was ‘not reliable,’ GAO reveals as it urges intel changes.

A newly released U.S. Government Accountability Office report highlights problems with the reliability of data used to oversee the federal government’s personnel security clearance process, raising concerns about oversight of how quickly and effectively clearances are granted.

The report last week found that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence lacks accurate and complete clearance data from dozens of federal agencies, limiting its ability to monitor performance and identify problems in the vetting of employees who must access classified information for their positions.

According to the GAO, over 60% of the clearance data it reviewed was “not reliable” across eight reporting requirements and seven agencies.

Good lord.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Let’s Globalize the End of the Leftist Fetish for Murderers. “Evidence abounds that the Democrats are delighted to be in bed with criminals, both of the domestic and illegal alien variety. They’re practically writing campaign ads for Republican candidates. During the last couple of elections, I wanted the Republicans to hammer the Dems on illegal immigration. The economy was easy pickings, too, but I was as close to being a single-issue voter as I ever had been. Now I want them to shout, ‘DEMOCRATS LOVE MURDERERS AND RAPISTS!’ from the hilltops.”