SPACE: James Webb Telescope Unveils A Dazzling Map Of The Early Universe.

THEY AREN’T SAYING IT’S ALIENS, BUT…: We didn’t find answers in 2025, but UFO researchers say the search continues.

MERRY CHRISTMAS — IT’S A VIP THURSDAY ESSAY ON TUESDAY: ESSAY: Trump’s Big, Beautiful Battleships Are… What, Exactly?

LONG PAST TIME: It’s time to treat Bill Clinton like Prince Andrew — and banish him from polite society. “The question must be asked, once again: Why is Bill Clinton still being treated not just by high society but by the Democratic Party as a respected statesman?”

HMM: Brown University police chief put on leave, Dept. of Education launches review of safety.

RESULTS:

so we now have a (partial) explanation as to how Panama allowed the US to seize a Panama-flagged tanker (Centuries).

From the brief explanation given by the Panama government in this story, it appears that Panama deleted the tanker from its registry after it loaded in Venezuela…

— Michelle Wiese Bockmann (@Michellewb_) December 23, 2025

UGH: Former Republican Senator Announces Grim Cancer Diagnosis. “There’s not a good time to tell your peeps you’re now marching to the beat of a faster drummer — but the season of Advent isn’t the worst. As a Christian, the weeks running up to Christmas are a time to orient our hearts toward the hope of what’s to come.”

BEFORE THE MONEY RUNS OUT AND HE CAN STILL ESCAPE WITH HIS SKIN: Trump Says It Would Be ‘Smart’ for Venezuela’s Maduro to Step Down.

GLENN RECOMMENDED THIS A COUPLE OF DECADES AGO: Avast, Me Hearties! Lawmakers Want Congress to Issue ‘Letters of Marque’ to Go After Cartel Drug Boats.

FASTER? PLEASE! Isaacman emphasizes accelerating NASA programs as he takes agency’s reins.

“We cannot achieve our objectives the way they’ve been done in recent years,” he said, citing the “absolutely impressive speeds” of China’s space activities. “We must do all we can to minimize the bureaucratic drag that can slow us down.”

That effort includes companies and international partners working with NASA, particularly on plans to return humans to the moon. “We will prepare for the inevitable return by working with our commercial and international partners to ensure they’re aligned with our programmatic objectives and acting with the urgency needed” to deliver Artemis elements, he said.

Isaacman highlighted an executive order signed by President Trump on Dec. 18 titled “Ensuring American Space Superiority,” which includes provisions calling for a human return to the lunar surface by 2028 and the establishment of initial elements of a permanent lunar outpost by 2030.

“In my view, it is one of the most significant commitments to America’s space program by any administration since the Kennedy era,” Isaacman said. He attended the signing ceremony in the Oval Office shortly after being sworn in.

The agency needs a good shakeup, and an entrepreneur/astronaut has the skills, experience, and cred to get it done.

WINNING: Parents Win, California Loses Over Secretive Transing of Kids: Court Ruling.

TURNAROUND: 3D Printing Sends Broken F-15 Back to Action Within Hours.

US Air Force and Marine Corps repair teams have joined forces to send a damaged F-15 back to flight status in just a few hours, far ahead of the original several-month timeline.

The 18th Maintenance Group (18 MXG) at Kadena Air Base in Japan reached out to Marine Aircraft Logistics Squadron 36 (MALS-36) to leverage its on-site additive manufacturing equipment in repairing a malfunctioning cooling duct.

Within 12 hours, the teams printed, delivered, and installed two prototypes that restored the duct to operational condition, beating engineers’ original four-month repair estimate.

By roughly 119-and-a-half days. Impressive.

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.

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.

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.'”

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

HEY, BIG SPENDER: Paramount’s new, hostile offer to Warner Bros. Discovery: Larry Ellison will personally guarantee $40 billion.

The Warner Bros. board of directors has rejected Paramount’s bid multiple times, opting instead to go with an offer from Netflix, which WBD says is more valuable. The board also said Paramount has misrepresented itself to WBD shareholders, calling into question the legitimacy of the deal’s “illusory” proposed financing.

To counteract that critique, Paramount said Oracle founder Larry Ellison – the father of Paramount CEO David Ellison – will guarantee all $40.4 billion of the equity he’s putting up to finance the $78 billion deal. That’s a big guarantee, putting Larry Ellison on the hook for about a sixth of his roughly $250 billion net worth if something falls through.

More: “Paramount offered $30 per share for WBD, including CNN and the rest of its cable channels. Netflix offered $27.75 per share for Warner Bros. and HBO. But Netflix and WBD argue that plans to spin off the cable assets will increase those stations’ overall value and will, in total, value the company more highly than Paramount’s deal.”

I find it very hard to believe that the package of limping cable channels that WBD is spinning off as Discovery Global will increase in value.

ICYMI: Russia’s Space Program Just Took Another Embarrassing Hit. “This is a bit like planning to buy a new car, but then looking at the expense and saying you’ll buy most of a new car. Instead, you’ll pull the engine out of your 1998 Accord — the engine that needs a full rebuild — and drop it under the hood of your ‘new’ car.”

THE CHIP WARS: Japan Halting Photoresist To China? “I haven’t been able to verify this yet, but according to China Observer, ‘Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry may have escalated export controls on November 20-21, adding 12 types of core semiconductor materials and related services to its ‘End User List,’ placing about 110 semiconductor-related entities from mainland China under heightened scrutiny. Mainland China is more than 60% reliant on imports for photoresist, with ArF/EUV almost entirely dependent on Japan and the Netherlands.’