Archive for 2025

December 29, 2025

YOU’VE BEEN ROBBED:

But the media doesn’t want you to know:

And here’s some perspective from Elon Musk: “My lower bound guess for how much fraud there is nationally is ~20% of the Federal budget, which would mean $1.5 trillion per year. Probably much higher.”

When Democrats in government import huge numbers of fraudsters and Democrats in the media refuse to report on the resulting fraud, you have to assume that Democrats in both institutions are in on it.

EDIT: I also assume that many Republicans are effectively Democrats. Although that’s less of an assumption than a proven fact.

Related (From Ed): Rushing to Ilhan Omar’s Defense, New York Times Hides Somali Fraud Scheme from Readers.

The New York Times recently dedicated more than 1,500 words to President Trump’s “Anti-Somali attacks” — but somehow failed to mention the staggering fraud operation allegedly being run by Minnesota’s Somali community, which precipitated the attacks from Trump.

The piece centers on Representative Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), who has “long been a target of racist insults by the president.”

And while Omar and the Somali community have undoubtedly faced inappropriate attacks from the president, it is journalistic malpractice that the Times fails to mention the elephant in the room: federal prosecutors said last week that the fraud scandal could end up costing taxpayers around $9 billion.

More than 90 people, the majority of whom belong to Minnesota’s Somali community, have been accused of defrauding public assistance programs.

Without mentioning the fraud as a major driving factor behind Trump’s criticisms and the immigration crackdown in the state, the Times allows Omar, who emigrated to the U.S. from Somalia when she was twelve, to reflect “on the latest cycle of dehumanizing personal attacks on her by the president.”

Evergreen:

Posted at 10:50 am by Stephen Green on Dec 29th, 2025

GOOD LORD: Migrant With Deportation Order Suspected in Paris Metro Mass Stabbing.

An illegal migrant from Africa who had a deportation order is suspected of stabbing three women on the Paris metro on Friday in what appears to be another example of the French immigration system failing to protect the public.

A Malian migrant was arrested on Friday evening after three women were attacked on the number 3 line of the Parisian metro system between 4:15 and 4:45 pm local time.

Thankfully, the lives of the three victims are not in danger as their wounds were superficial. However, the 25-year-old African should not have been in the country had authorities performed their duty, reports indicate.

According to Le Figaro, citing sources from within the Paris prosecutor’s office, the illegal from Mali was previously imprisoned last year for aggravated theft and sexual assault.

He was released in July and was issued with a OQTF deportation orders, yet nearly half a year later, has still not been removed from the country.

Of course.

Posted at 10:38 am by Stephen Green on Dec 29th, 2025

OLD AND BUSTED: “One Giant Leap for Mankind.”

The New Hotness?

Tweet continues, “Because America (and the West) spent subsequent generations engaged in a vast, consuming project of self-loathing, self-denigration and the redistribution of our national resources to the states and peoples of the undeveloped world.”

As the line when in The Right Stuff, “No bucks, no Buck Rogers.” That money is being spent very differently today:

Posted at 10:27 am by Ed Driscoll on Dec 29th, 2025

NEWSPAPERS, HAVING RENDERED THEMSELVES OBSOLETE BY NOT COVERING IMPORTANT, YOU KNOW, NEWS.

Posted at 10:10 am by Glenn Reynolds on Dec 29th, 2025

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS ENJOYING AN EXTENDED HOLIDAY VACATION: Britain Pushed Ahead With Green Power. Its Grid Can’t Handle It.

Britain’s grid hasn’t undergone a major upgrade since the 1960s, when the rising popularity of refrigerators and washing machines turbocharged demand for electricity. The country is now embarking on an expensive building boom, sparking outrage at unsightly transmission towers and the potential harm to bats, dormice and other local wildlife.

At stake is Britain’s ability to capitalize on the AI boom, and secure the jobs and investment that come with it, as well as to lower household electricity bills.

National Grid is investing the equivalent of about $40 billion to upgrade the U.K.’s power networks over the next five years in a project dubbed “The Great Grid Upgrade.”

Grid upgrades and associated costs add to what are already some of the world’s most expensive electricity bills. The average-size British household paid almost $1,500 for electricity last year, more than double the bill in 2008, government data show. That’s close to the $1,700 that American households pay each year for consuming three times as much electricity.

Outdated infrastructure has created massive distortions in the energy market. Wind farms off the coast of Scotland are far from customers in the populated south, and leaving them constantly on risks frying the grid. The U.K. paid power generators $2.3 billion in the year to March to not produce electricity, a bill that is set to rise in coming years.

The mind reels.

Posted at 9:36 am by Stephen Green on Dec 29th, 2025

THE RACE CARD IS NO LONGER VALID:

Posted at 9:08 am by Glenn Reynolds on Dec 29th, 2025

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Bells Are Jingling All the Wrong Way for Tim Walz. “One of the things I find most odd about Walz is that he constantly seeks the spotlight, even though that spotlight hasn’t been very friendly to him. Walz is one of those politicians who definitely doesn’t grow on the public when they get to know him more. The public outside of his home state, that is. I don’t know what’s in the water in Minnesota that makes him so popular there.”

Posted at 9:05 am by Stephen Green on Dec 29th, 2025

HEH.

Posted at 8:49 am by Glenn Reynolds on Dec 29th, 2025

GOOD AND HARD, TWIN CITIES: How It Started:

How It’s Going:

Posted at 8:35 am by Ed Driscoll on Dec 29th, 2025

BEFORE OR AFTER THE PART WHERE ANYTHING FREE IS WORTH LESS THAN YOU PAID FOR IT? Free day care for all: What could go wrong?

New York could lower costs by lowering education requirements for preschool teachers and child-care workers, she writes. Expanding visas for au pairs and nannies would help too, but seems politically unlikely.

Of course, New York City could get a lot more home-based day care centers, which parents prefer for young children, by “scrapping the city’s rent-stabilization regime,” Wolfe writes. Letting market forces work “would free up 28 percent of the total housing stock (and 44 percent of all rentals!).” But don’t hold your breath.

New Mexico’s free child care program launched on Nov. 1, reports Eryn Mathewson for CNN. “Nearly all families, regardless of income or immigration status” are eligible for free home-based or center-based care for children from six weeks old to 13. (I was a free babysitter for my newborn brother was I was 13.)

Sixty-three percent of new enrollees come from middle-class or more affluent families.

The program’s estimated cost is $600 million, and some worry it will not be sustainable.

Much more at the link.

Posted at 8:34 am by Stephen Green on Dec 29th, 2025

COMMUNISM SUCKS: She’d Never Seen That Much Food Before: A Hard Reality From a Farmers Market “I can’t explain to you what it feels like to come to a market and see such a variety of fruits, vegetables, meats, everything… Here you can buy whatever you need. People come here and buy what they’ll need for the whole week. The truth is, I don’t understand why my country, Cuba, goes through so much, when everywhere else in the world people have the right and can buy the basic necessities they need to live.”

Posted at 8:03 am by Stephen Green on Dec 29th, 2025

NOT THE BABYLON BEE, PART DEUX: A new view of two critical days that set the stage for the devastating Palisades fire.

An hour after midnight Jan. 1, as a small brush fire blazed across Topanga State Park, a California State Parks employee texted the Los Angeles Fire Department’s heavy equipment supervisor to find out if they were sending in bulldozers.

“Heck no that area is full of endangered plants,” Capt. Richard Diede replied at 9:52 a.m, five hours after LAFD declared the fire contained.

“I would be a real idiot to ever put a dozer in that area,” he wrote. “I’m so trained.”

That’s the perfect epitaph for the Pacific Palisades.

Posted at 7:45 am by Ed Driscoll on Dec 29th, 2025