Giuseppe Arcimboldo Four elements – Water 1566
Rogan Vance
“The moment I started getting red pilled on the whole vax thing…..”
“A lot of people I know were really really sick after getting the second Covid shot”
JD Vance & Elon Musk both sustained Covid Vax injuries – include RFK Jnr and it’s so so over for the Vaccine Manufacturers… pic.twitter.com/6oxZfq6kG1
— Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) December 24, 2024
Dems
Former Clinton adviser and Former California State Senator warns that the Democrat party is on the verge of collapse:
Gloria Romero: "I believe that in history we are seeing a major inflection point, the complete collapsing of the Democratic Party. This party refuse this to… pic.twitter.com/mlCiiGzJSJ— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) December 24, 2024
Nvidia
Jensen Huang: Elon did in 19 days what others take a year to achieve. It's unbelievable. Superhuman.
NVIDIA's CEO reflects on Elon Musk and the xAI team building the world's fastest supercomputer in just 19 days.
“Building a massive factory, liquid-cooled, energized, permitted,… pic.twitter.com/KA9w5VE7lb
— ELON CLIPS (@ElonClipsX) December 25, 2024
O’Leary
BREAKING: Kevin O'Leary is headed to Mar-a-Lago to discuss Canada's annexation!
"At least half of Canadians are interested. I'm gonna go to Mar-a-Lago and convince Trump myself."pic.twitter.com/I9chps5PdT
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) December 26, 2024
There's 41 million Canadians sitting on the world's largest amounts of all resources, including the most important, energy and water. Canadians over the holidays have been talking about this. They want to hear more. What this could be is the beginning of an economic union. Think… pic.twitter.com/yp5PuLgxZJ
— Kevin O'Leary aka Mr. Wonderful (@kevinolearytv) December 26, 2024
It’s Chris Wray who broke neutrality and politicized the FBI director role by turning against Trump. It would be crazy if he stayed on.
• Musk Backs Idea That Trump ‘Should Be Able To Fire’ Any Official (RT)
Elon Musk believes US President-elect Donald Trump should be able to make any personnel changes in the executive branch of the government that he deems necessary, according to a post he made on X on Thursday. Musk’s statement came in response to an idea voiced by Utah Senator Mike Lee, who wrote in an earlier post that “the president of the United States should be able to fire any person employed in the Executive Branch… at any time for any reason,” with the exception of the vice president. Musk seconded the notion, responding “Absolutely.” The executive branch consists of the president, his or her cabinet, as well as various executive departments, independent agencies, and other boards. Lee was commenting on Trump’s plans to make several personnel changes in the government upon returning to the White House that some view as unconventional.
Following his victory in the November election, Trump started naming nominees for senior positions within his administration. However, according to the Washington Times, at least two of the positions are not scheduled to be vacated for several years, including the position of FBI director, currently occupied by Christopher Wray, and IRS commissioner, held by Danny Werfel. According to the New York Times, under Congress rules officials in these and several other posts have fixed terms and do not traditionally change as part of a transition when a new president comes in. Ousting and replacing the heads of these agencies is considered a breach of tradition. However, experts note that the president has the legal power to so. “Historically, there was more of a political constraint on removing someone before their term was over unless there was some bad behavior. The political handbrake is eroding, and it may be no longer functioning,” David Lewis, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University who studies presidential nominations, told the Washington Times.
Trump repeatedly vowed throughout his presidential campaign to completely remake the US government. He pitched Musk and fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy to co-head the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a body that will be tasked with reducing government waste and streamlining the federal bureaucracy. Ramaswamy recently unveiled a plan to slash the federal workforce by 75%. Trump’s pick for the next FBI director is his former adviser Kash Patel, an ultra-loyalist who slammed the agency as a “government gangster,” accusing it in his most recent book of being behind the “deep state corruption” in the US. Billy Long, a former Republican congressman from Missouri, was pitched by Trump as the next head of the Internal Revenue Service. Long previously co-sponsored bills to abolish the federal tax authority and replace the federal income tax system with a national sales tax.
Tesla doesn’t just optimize the -new- product, but also the production process. Seems obvious, but isn’t.
• The Musk-Led Manufacturing Revolution Nobody Is Talking About (ZH)
When most analysts discuss Tesla, they focus on new vehicles or the electric vehicle company’s advancements in autonomy. Yet, according to Launch i/o CEO Jeff Lutz, one of the most significant—and under-discussed—developments at Tesla is happening not in its design studios or on the road, but in its factories. Lutz, a former executive at Google and Motorola, argues that Tesla’s true innovation isn’t just the electric vehicles or robots it’s building, but how those products are being made. The company’s first-principles approach to manufacturing is a radical departure from the industry norm, focusing not just on cheap labor or existing models, but on rethinking the entire production process.
Tesla is creating factories that are the product—designing, testing, and perfecting every element just as they do with their cars. This focus on manufacturing efficiency, Lutz believes, will lead to a dramatic reduction in production costs, potentially bringing them closer to zero. And this shift in how products are built—rather than merely assembled—could set a new standard for the entire manufacturing world.
FARZAD MESBAHI: It’s no wonder that innovation has been lacking so much it’s because we’ve brute forced essentially manufacturing by leveraging globalization because we had that $2 an hour rate in China or Mexico wherever else like we’re not like well we have to just get really good at building stuff to be competitive I was like nah just let him do it like we’ll get get our margins just let them do it.
JEFF LUTZ: The most under-discussed thing in the analyst world about Tesla is not the new vehicles coming, nor the growing discussions about autonomy, but rather Tesla’s next product: their new way of manufacturing. It’s a big deal, a huge step in how products are made today, and I don’t think many investment firms have the right research people actually looking into what this impact is and what it’s going to enable. It’s going to enable the variable cost to build products to shrink further and further, approaching zero.
This is the step function needed for cost reduction to achieve further scale, and I don’t think enough people are talking about it. It’s going to be how the Cybertruck is made, how Optimus will be made. Tesla versions its factories like they version their product. They spend time perfecting it and have design reviews of their factory designs just as they do with their products. They have specs and performance attributes they are trying to meet. This is very different from what happens at other companies at the executive level.
FARZAD MESBAHI: This is such a profound statement because a lot of the stories that I hear are related to, like, say Tesla capitalizing on making manufacturing the product—really just honing in so much on the factory that it becomes the product, the you know, and where we throw around 2 million cars per year, five million cars per year per factory, tens of millions of bots per year sooner than people think. The usual narrative is crazy, pie-in-the-sky; they can’t do that, look at Ford, look at BYD, they can only do so much.
But what we’re missing here is that we’ve had decades of just sitting on our asses, leveraging cheaper labor versus going out of our way to really push the boundaries of engineering and manufacturing. And now that we have a company that’s willing to do that because the leader is viewing that as a first principles approach to manufacturing, right? Instead of like, okay, cheap labor is good, but why aren’t we pushing manufacturing and engineering as much as we can to make this as efficient and as productive as possible?
Of course they’re extremely talented, they’re doing something very unique, but it’s also on the backs of 30-40 years of, I’m going to call it laziness. Like, you’re just taking the easy way out, and I get it, more profits, you’re taking care of shareholders—I get it—but you’re not really pushing the boundaries of manufacturing. I think what this leads to is, if companies and leaders truly take this to heart, we’re going to see an explosion in manufacturing across the board. It’s not just going to be a Tesla thing; I think we’re going to see it all over the place.
JEFF LUTZ: I’m advising companies on this now, you’re going to see massive localization of manufacturing. People think costs just instantly go up when you do that. They do unmitigated, but if you’re a company like Tesla and you’re thinking about it the way they do, they’re actually focused on localizing and making costs go down. Think of it, how many auto factories are expanding in Germany? Just answer that question.
“Trump’s posts on Christmas Day were intentionally provocative, designed to push Americans to think bigger and to create an environment for deal-making..”
• Trump Defines A ‘New Geography’ For American Security (JTN)
Making Canada the 51st state. Retaking control of the Panama Canal. Buying Greenland. Donald Trump made a series of Christmas pronouncements that legacy media dismissed as classic bravado unworthy of serious consideration, but those who advise the President-elect say there is a more calculating intent behind his recent social media flurry. America’s soon-to-be-47th president is laying the groundwork, they say, for a new strategic map designed to guarantee the security of America and western democracies in an era in which an aggressive China is imposing influence far outside its traditional Pacific region. “I think Trump is looking at the world from a new geography standpoint and asking how do we increase the zone of countries that are truly committed to freedom, and how do we make sure, how do we provide a very deep security belt around the United States,” former Trump State Department policy adviser Kiron Skinner told the John Solomon Reports podcast in an interview slated to be aired Friday.
In that mission, Trump is trying to educate the public with his provocative statements about the need to look at the world in a new light as American influence in Latin America, Africa, Europe and Asia has waned under the Biden administration, experts said. The Cold War paradigm that dominated more than a half century is no longer operative. A nuclear North Korea, an aspiring nuclear power in radically Islamist Iran and a Beijing communist government that craftily placed its contractors on the entries and exits of one of the world’s most important shipping passages requires a jarring change to strategic thinking, something the State Department has lacked for years, experts said.
“People forget that this issue has been a key one for President Trump. He has talked about the Panama Canal throughout the campaign, and he repeatedly and correctly noted that this remarkable geostrategic asset was frittered away gratis under Jimmy Carter,” Seb Gorka, who will soon join the National Security Council as Trump’s counterterrorism chief, told Just the News. “The fact that the port facilities at both ends of the canal would fall under the control of entities tied to China was never part of original agreement with Panama,” Gorka added. “The President has been clear that America’s economic might and full pallet of tariffs tools may be used to guarantee that the canal is operated in ways that comport with the economic and national interests of the United States.”
Trump’s posts on Christmas Day were intentionally provocative, designed to push Americans to think bigger and to create an environment for deal-making when he comes president, retired Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer said. “He always goes in from a position that gets people’s attention. And then once people kind of flail around … people settle down and they start having a realistic, adult discussion,” Shaffer told Newsmax on Thursday Calling unpopular Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “governor,” suggesting Canada would become America’s 51st state and proclaiming America will buy Greenland from Denmark set the stage for making realistic security gains in the near future, one of Trump’s former advisers predicted.
“These are strategic areas that the United States needs to have dominant influence over,” former Deputy National Security Adviser Victoria Coates told the Just the News, No Noise television show on Thursday night. “Start with the Panama Canal. That was President Reagan originally. That was the hallmark of his 1976 primary campaign. It’s ours. We paid for it, and that is all true. It was President Carter who subsequently just unilaterally gave it back to Panama.” “We pay exorbitant fees. Meanwhile, Panama has gone into agreements with China for special economic zones on either side of the canal. That’s intolerable. All that has to change,” she added.
“As for Canada, which should be a great partner to the United States, hopefully they’ll be under new leadership next month, and … we could really dominate the world energy market.” She predicted Trump’s comments on Greenland might soon expand the U.S. military relations there to an energy and resource collaboration like what America struck in Saudi Arabia with the company Aramco. “Think about Aramco, for example, in Saudi Arabia, how successful that was of a partnership between Saudi and the United States,” she said The “am” in Aramco stands for America, that you can develop resources that way and keep China out. “There are lots of reasons that the former and now President-elect should be talking about these places. These are all direct interests for national security for America, and thank heaven he’s doing it,” she added.
“..he offered $1 billion to Wikipedia if it renames itself ‘Dickipedia’ for at least a year..”
• ‘Stop Donating To Wokepedia’ – Musk (RT)
Elon Musk has urged internet users to stop supporting Wikipedia over what he sees as disproportionate spending on promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. In a series of posts this week, the billionaire owner of Tesla, Space X and X vented his frustration over the online encyclopedia’s financial report, which showed that it spent more than $50 million of its total $177 million – or almost one-third of its 2023-2024 budget – on such goals as ‘Equity’ and ‘Safety and Inclusion’. More than 90% of the platform’s funding comes from donations. Commenting on the report on Tuesday, Musk wrote on X: “Stop donating to Wokepedia until they restore balance to their editing authority.” On Thursday, Musk suggested that Wikipedia “sucks” for spending $50 million on DEI.
DEI, a collection of business practices designed to promote workforce diversity, has faced criticism from conservatives who argue it enforces reverse discrimination against white people and undermines merit-based systems. In recent months, several major corporations, including Boeing, Ford Motor Company, Nissan and Walmart, have scaled back their DEI initiatives.Wikipedia claims it is taking steps to address barriers to free knowledge caused by racial inequality, while also striving to close the gender gap and ensure equal representation of knowledge and people on the platform. It has also sought to “defend our people and projects against disinformation and harmful government regulation” and other “external threats.” Musk has had a long-running beef with the encyclopedia, which he has called “broken.”
In October, he argued that Wikipedia is overtly promoting a narrative labeling US President-elect Donald Trump – whom Musk endorsed – as a “fascist,” claiming that the website is “controlled by far-left activists.”The same month, he offered $1 billion to Wikipedia if it renames itself ‘Dickipedia’ for at least a year, while accusing it of bias. Last year, Larry Sanger, Wikipedia’s co-founder, alleged that the platform is being used by US intelligence community as an instrument of “control” and to further the agenda of the left-liberal establishment. Wikipedia, however, insists that it adheres to a set of core principles, including providing information from a neutral point of view and in a verifiable and balanced manner.
Not the first time.
• Musk Issues Bankruptcy Warning (RT)
The US government will “go de facto bankrupt” unless it reins in its rising debt, Elon Musk has warned. The billionaire is set to co-lead a new department tasked with curbing spending under President-elect Donald Trump. Musk was reacting to a post by Kalshi, a financial service that allows users to bet on future events and which makes a prediction on how likely these events are to happen. It hailed the fact that the market estimated at 36% the chance of annual federal spending being cut by at least $250 billion under Trump. Kalshi flagged the future Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which Musk is set to co-chair with fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, as the entity that would help slash expenditure.
The US gross federal debt surpassed the $36 trillion benchmark in November, a development that Musk called “terrifying” at the time. Last week, he leveraged his social media influence to weigh in on a debate in the US Congress over a stop-gap spending bill. Musk urged his more than 200 million followers on X who are American citizens to contact their representatives on Capitol Hill and express opposition to a proposed spending bill that he said “should not pass.”
The 1,500-page measure ultimately didn’t proceed, but neither did an alternative proposed by Trump and backed by Musk, which put the US government on the verge of a new shutdown. A compromise 118-page short-term solution was passed after the Friday midnight deadline and was signed into law by President Joe Biden on Saturday. “President Trump will return to DC and to the White House, and we will have Republican control of the Senate and the House,” Speaker Mike Johnson commented on the outcome. “Things are going to be very different around here. This was a necessary step to bridge the gap.”
Not a chance:
“Ukraine’s admission into NATO would be unacceptable “whether it’s in one year or ten years.”
• Putin Reveals Biden Offered To Postpone Ukraine’s NATO Entry (ZH)
Russian President Vladimir Putin fielded questions from journalists Thursday at the conclusion of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council meeting held outside St. Petersburg. The Russian-led EEU economic bloc includes member states Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Among the more interesting moments was when Putin revealed what President Biden previously offered him in order to avert the Ukraine conflict, regarding the question of Kiev’s NATO membership. The comments came in the context of a question over Trump’s reported peace plan and the idea of freezing the front lines. Putin described that such a plan is nothing new, and added the following per state media translation:
“I know that the current President Biden spoke about this, it’s no secret, back in 2021. He proposed exactly this to me – to delay Ukraine’s admission into NATO by 10-15 years, because [Kiev] is not ready yet,” Putin said, referring to the midsummer meeting he had with the US leader in Switzerland. He stressed that no matter the timeline, Ukraine’s admission into NATO would be unacceptable “whether it’s in one year or ten years.” “We, too, are striving to end the conflict,” Putin added, but stressed that this should happen by achieving all of Moscow’s military and political objectives, according to RT. Toward this end, Putin during the Q&A proposed Slovakia as a ‘neutral’ potential host country for future peace talks:
Russia is ready to use Slovakia as a venue for negotiations, as the country maintains a neutral position, says Putin.
– So much for neutral Switzerland pic.twitter.com/MuZS58H9aZ
— Russian Market (@runews) December 26, 2024
Last week Putin met with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in Moscow. Fico, who survived an assassination attempt on May 15 of this year, has been blasted by European leaders as cozying up to Putin. But Fico in response has proclaimed that Putin has been “wrongly demonized” by the West. He also characterized the Moscow visit as about defending Slovakia’s sovereignty and energy security. Fico described in the meeting’s aftermath Russia is willing to continue supplying gas to Slovakia, but that Ukraine’s refusal to renew a key gas transit deal with Moscow makes getting the supplies “practically impossible”.
Putin on Thursday reiterated that Russia is willing to sell gas to anyone… Hungary too looks also bear the brunt of the negative consequences resulting from gas transit cutoff through Ukraine. Oil Price explains of both Slovakia and Hungary, “Slovakia has a long-term gas supply contract with Gazprom. The expiry of the transit deal with Naftogaz would interfere with that contract’s terms, which probably led to the visit to Moscow. Landlocked Slovakia and neighbor Hungary have few gas supply options that can compare on price with Russian pipeline gas.” As for Putin’s fresh comments rejecting even the possibility of future Ukraine membership in NATO, this means that in any future dealings with Trump, the Kremlin is certain to press this point hard.
$100 billion later…
• Western Europeans Losing Faith In Ukraine (RT)
Public support for backing Ukraine “until it wins” the conflict with Russia has fallen dramatically in seven Western European nations, a YouGov poll has found. In four of these, more people now support a peaceful resolution even if it means forcing Kiev to accept territorial losses. The poll was conducted earlier in December in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Denmark and the UK, and published by The Guardian on Thursday. In Sweden, Denmark, and the UK, 50%, 40%, and 36% of respondents, respectively, said that they would favor supporting “Ukraine until Russia withdraws, even if this means the war lasts longer,” down around 10% in all three countries since February. Meanwhile, 24%, 34%, and 32%, respectively, said that they would “encourage a negotiated end to the fighting, even if Russia still has control of some parts of Ukraine,” figures that are up by a corresponding amount.
In Germany, Spain, France, and Italy, however, support for a Ukrainian victory has tanked, and peace talks are the most favored outcome in all four. Some 28% of Germans want Ukraine to keep fighting, while 45% support a negotiated settlement. Less than a quarter of respondents in Spain, France, and Italy want to prolong the conflict. The gap in public opinion is most stark in Italy, where 55% of respondents support peace talks, and only 15% want to continue arming Kiev. The governments of France and Germany have collapsed between February and December, while Britain’s former prime minister, Rishi Sunak, was ousted in a landslide defeat for his Conservative Party in July. Despite reports suggesting that Vladimir Zelensky wants to end the conflict this year, the Ukrainian leader has publicly rebuffed calls to negotiate, and insists on what he calls a “just peace.”
His conditions for this peace are the return of four former Ukrainian regions that joined Russia in 2022, and an invitation to join the NATO bloc – conditions that Moscow deems unacceptable. Russia maintains that any settlement must begin with Ukraine ceasing military operations and acknowledging the “territorial reality” that it will never regain control of the Russian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, as well as Crimea. In addition, the Kremlin insists that the goals of its military operation – which include Ukrainian neutrality, demilitarization, and denazification – will be achieved. US President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly promised that he will end the conflict within “24 hours” of taking office, without explaining how he plans to achieve this.
However, he has said that he intends to speak to both Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and hinted that Ukraine should prepare for a reduction in US military aid. Trump has also suggested that Kiev should abandon its territorial claims, as “there is not a single building in good condition left” in some of the battle-scarred cities under Russian control. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday that Moscow is open to any deal that respects the national interests of Russia and the “legitimate interests of other countries.” However, he added that he has not seen any “serious, concrete proposals” from the West.
“Berlin did not just turn against Russia – it forgot what made it successful in the first place..”
• Germany Is Doomed Because Of This Grave Mistake (Romanenko)
For decades, Germany was the envy of the world: a shining example of how a war-torn nation could rise from the ashes to become Europe’s economic powerhouse. This success was no accident. Germany’s prosperity rested on three key pillars: access to cheap Russian energy, unfettered free trade with the United States and other Western allies, and minimal military spending thanks to American security guarantees during the Cold War. These factors allowed Germany to build an unparalleled industrial economy, maintain a generous welfare state, and dominate global markets.
But Germany’s decision to sever ties with Russia following the Ukraine escalation threatens to dismantle this carefully constructed foundation. By aligning itself entirely with the US-led NATO strategy against Moscow, Germany has unwittingly sealed its economic fate. The consequences are already visible, and the worst is yet to come. Germany is doomed because of this grave mistake. The German economy has always been a giant built on energy-intensive industries like chemicals, automobiles, and heavy manufacturing. These industries relied on one key advantage: affordable Russian natural gas. For decades, Berlin fostered a close energy relationship with Moscow, importing vast quantities of cheap gas through pipelines like Nord Stream. This mutually beneficial arrangement kept Germany’s factories humming and its export economy highly competitive.
That relationship is over. In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Germany abandoned Russian energy almost overnight, shutting down Nord Stream and scrambling for alternatives. The result? Soaring energy prices and a manufacturing crisis that is crippling German industry. Without cheap energy, the very sectors that made Germany an industrial giant – automotive, steel, and chemicals – are no longer globally competitive. To make matters worse, Germany’s ideological commitment to a rapid green energy transition has only exacerbated the problem. While renewable energy has its merits, it is nowhere near ready to replace the reliable baseload energy that Russian gas provided. Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear energy – a reliable and carbon-free power source – further undermines its energy security. The result is an economy that is buckling under the weight of its own short-sighted policies.
“..blackouts will be just a bad memory..”
• Milei Unveils Ambitious Plan To Make Argentina Global Nuclear Energy Player (ZH)
In a bold move to transform Argentina into a global energy powerhouse, President Javier Milei introduced the “Argentine Nuclear Plan” on Friday, with the goal of harnessing nuclear energy as a core component of the nation’s future. The plan outlines the construction of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), compact nuclear units designed to provide power to commercial sectors and other large-scale operations. “After years of stagnation, nuclear energy is making a powerful comeback, and we are determined to lead, not follow,” Milei declared confidently, emphasizing the country’s abundant natural resources, skilled workforce, and Patagonia’s cold climate, which he described as ideal for housing energy-intensive technologies like AI.
“Nuclear energy is the only source that is sufficiently efficient, abundant and rapidly scalable to cope with the development of our civilization,” he added. The project will have the backing of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), with IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi joining Milei and his key advisor, Demian Reidel, during the plan’s official launch. Reidel stressed that the increasing demand for energy, particularly from AI advancements, makes nuclear power crucial to Argentina’s energy strategy, jpost.com reports. The first phase of the plan will focus on the construction of a Small Modular Reactor (SMR) at the Atucha Nuclear Power Plant. The reactor is expected to help meet rising energy demands and alleviate power shortages throughout Argentina.
Reidel emphasized the significant contribution of Argentine nuclear engineers to the initiative. “We will do so with 100% Argentine technology, developed by our nuclear engineers, who are recognized among the best in the world,” he stated, according to Rosario3. He added that the plan “will give us energy sovereignty, will allow us to export this technology to the world,” and assured that “blackouts will be just a bad memory,” according to La Nación. In the second phase of the initiative, Argentina aims to capitalize on its untapped uranium reserves to meet domestic needs and establish itself as a leading exporter of nuclear fuel. The government envisions positioning Argentina as a global leader in the peaceful use of atomic energy, while also advancing its aspirations to become an international hub for AI innovation.
Currently, Argentina operates three nuclear power facilities—Atucha I, Atucha II, and Embalse—which together supply around 9% of the nation’s electricity consumption, according to government data from July 2023. The announcement comes as Argentina has officially emerged from a severe recession, a milestone that marks a major success for Milei and his bold economic reforms. According to data from Argentina’s statistics agency, GDP grew 3.9% in the July-to-September quarter compared to the previous three months. This growth was driven by robust performances in agriculture, mining, and consumer spending, signaling a recovery in key sectors of the economy, the Financial Post reports.
On Monday, Milei eliminated a 30% “inclusive” surcharge tax on foreign currency debit and credit card purchases imposed by the previous socialist government. The now-repealed “Tax for an Inclusive and Solidary Argentina,” or “PAIS” for short, was a temporary surcharge introduced by former socialist President Alberto Fernández. He enacted it in December 2019 during the early days of his administration. “I have more good news, and that is that the lowering of taxes will continue, as is our irrevocable commitment, to return the surplus in the form of relief to the taxpayer, because less taxes is more competitiveness,” the president said in a statement announcing the move.
“If it’s time for you to go, leave willingly, as you would to accomplish anything that can be done with grace and honor.” — Marcus Aurelius
• A Christmas Prayer (James Howard Kunstler)
The longest and coldest night of the year is upon us with its portents of endings, the death of things, of people like ourselves, and also bodies of thought, movements of culture and politics. And for all the cold and darkness, you feel the stirrings of things waiting to be born. Christmas is the lovely distraction for a brief spell, and after that, the difficult labor of the nation commences for-real in the long night of the year. This moment in the cold and dark is also the climax of the Great Pretending. You knew it would come to this for “Joe Biden,” that he would be found-out. That in the waning days of his woebegone term in office, the people around him in the White House would betray him with the truth: that he was mentally unfit for the job from even before the get-go, from those drear days in the fall campaign of 2020 when he hid himself at home in Delaware while the FBI covered-up the massive bribery-and-treason story concealed in Hunter’s laptop.
And that for four years since then those people around “Joe Biden” have pretended to the world that he was doing his job, that he was okay, when he was absolutely not okay, as they well knew. It was only one big lie among the thousands of lies put over by the conspiracy between that gang in the White House and the perfidious organs of the news, especially The New York Times. If you want to see how stupendously dishonest the employees of that newspaper are, read this “roundtable” column of several Times pundits attempting to chew over the state of their patron, the Democratic party. Forgive me for quoting myself in the comment I posted there a half hour ago:
You’re all quite remarkably clueless and dishonest. Your party is in ruins because your policies are intolerable and often insane: censorship, war, gender lunacy, flooding the country with illegal immigrants – no, not “undocumented” in your parlance, as if it was just some clerical error. And you: Democratic Party aligned journalists are even worse than the politicians, because you’re supposed to make an effort to determine the truth, and you deliberately gaslight the public instead. Shame on you and the Democratic Party. It’s that simple. It’s hard to know for sure, but it looks an awful lot as though these journalists — in fact, the whole elite intelligentsia across America — are gaslighting themselves, still pretending that they didn’t know what went on, a coup against their own country. Everything they have been saying and publishing is the opposite of reality. And now it is about to all spill out because other people are about to take over the levers of power.
For instance: can the CDC and other agencies of public health continue to lie about disastrous Covid-19 vaccines, about the deaths and disabilities they have caused in millions of people? Under “Joe Biden,” there was no other way for the likes of Rochelle Walensky and Mandy Cohen except to lie. And get this: women were chosen to front for the CDC because you’re not supposed to believe that “Mommy” would lie to you, especially in matters of life and death. There was no other way because the crime was so great and they were all in it so deep — not just Rochelle and Mandy but the hundreds of high-ranking bureaucrats in CDC, FDA, and NIH who went along with all this. Of course, it’s hard to know whether the Covid-19 affair was just a venal and insane project by Anthony Fauci and his colleagues to play “hero” while making a ton of money. . . or whether it was actually a deliberate effort by the Intel Blob to queer the 2020 election by forcing a change in the voting procedure that would allow for wholesale fraud, in the service of cancelling Donald Trump. Possibly, it was a mash-up of both.
The truth about all this, and a lot more, is going to come out, whether or not Bobby Kennedy, Kash Patel, and other nominees get confirmed in their jobs, because there are many other figures just as capable behind them who would be nominated and eventually confirmed to run these departments. Those New York Times journalists are gaslighting themselves further if they think that blocking a few nominations is going to save their reputations. This populist revolution is bigger than that. It’s about overturning a paradigm of lies.
We really don’t know if our country is too far gone. The wreckage accomplished under the fakery of “Joe Biden” is prodigious. The financial quandaries alone are enough to sink the Republic in penury, and it will be hard to dodge the truth about that, too, because individual citizens and households know when they are hurting. When they hurt enough, they move to action, visibly, loudly, and you will not miss it. This ought to be a sobering Christmas then. This is the pause at the end of things when we might consider how important it is to tell ourselves the truth. Chew on that with the sugarplums of the season while we wait for that something that is busy being born.
“..it’s not about the environment, it’s about Joe Biden’s and the elitist eco-left making sure their friends get paid..”
• Preservationists Say Wind Energy Is Harming America’s Historic Sites (JTN)
The Bureau of Land Management earlier this month approved a 241-turbine wind farm near Twin Falls, Idaho, about a two-hour drive from Boise. From the time it was announced, the project was met with opposition from ranchers, environmentalists and Native American tribes. This managed to get the developers to shrink the size of the project down by approximately half its proposed size. Another group of opponents in the fight against the project were historical preservations, a growing voice in the increasing opposition to the buildout of renewable energy across the U.S. The Lava Ridge Wind Project will be constructed near the Minidoka National Historic Site, where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II. Friends of Mindoka, a nonprofit group that seeks to preserve and educate the public about the history of the site, was among the opponents of Lava Ridge.
The group explains on its website that the remoteness of the concentration camp helps visitors experience the sense of isolation felt by those who were incarcerated there by Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, signed on February 19, 1942. The wind project, they argue, will minimize “the trauma, loss, and humiliation suffered by American citizens based solely on racial discrimination.” Larry Behrens, communications director for Power the Future, a nonprofit energy advocacy group, told Just the News that the environmental left will fight against any impact on historic sites when it involves oil and gas, but they typically look the other way when it comes to renewable energy projects.
“It’s funny how when it’s a new oil well or gas pipeline the eco-left is quick to cry crocodile tears over claims from select local residents or perceived historic significance. However, when these concerns are legitimate, but there’s billions in green dollars to burn, the green agenda can’t ignore the red lights fast enough. This all proves it’s not about the environment, it’s about Joe Biden’s and the elitist eco-left making sure their friends get paid,” Behrens said. The impacts of renewable energy development on historic sites is a nationwide issue. In September, the Preservation Society of Newport County and Southeast Lighthouse Foundation filed a lawsuit against Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Revolution Wind, LLC, the owner of a wind project under construction 15 miles off the coast of Rhode Island. The project proposes 96 turbines nearly 900-feet tall. The project is part of a trio of offshore wind projects that will place over 200 turbines between Rhode Island and Martha’s Vineyard.
The lawsuit argued that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) failed to properly consider the project’s impact on National Historic Landmarks and other historic properties. “Among other errors, BOEM has reviewed each project separately, effectively minimizing Revolution Wind’s projected harms. BOEM compounded this error by not taking a hard look at cumulative impacts and finding appropriate ways to lessen the harm of those impacts, even though the combined visual impacts of South Fork, Revolution Wind, and Sunrise Wind will harm the context and setting of some of the nation’s most valued NHLs,” the lawsuit stated.
According to the lawsuit, Rhode Island’s coastline is home to multiple historic and cultural resources, including Newport and Block Island. For the past century, the State of Rhode Island and local governments worked to protect and maintain the historic character of the area, which millions of people come to see each year. “Newport is inseparable from the Atlantic Ocean and its uninterrupted views. Known as ‘The City-By-The-Sea’ and for its ‘spectacular assemblages of architecture,’ Newport’s beauty and connections to the sea have inspired not only writers and other artists, but also property owners whose families have treasured their houses and history for hundreds of years…The Preservation Society owns historic properties, operated as museums, within the Bellevue Avenue Historic District, one of the most recognized NHL districts in the country,” the lawsuit explained.
“The change is welcomed by an electorate exhausted by past presidential stumbling, wandering, incoherence, mind freezes, and angry, “get-off-my-grass” aged fragility..”
• What Was So Different This Time About Trump’s Election? (VDH)
In the weeks before the 2016 Trump Electoral College victory, Trump was polling between 35 and 40 percent. He would average only about 41 percent approval over his tumultuous four-year tenure. No one knows what lies ahead over the next four years. But for now, Trump already polls at well over 50 percent approval. Trump’s inauguration in a few weeks likely will not resemble his 2016 ceremony. In the 2016-7 transition, Democratic-affiliated interests ran commercials urging electors to become “faithless” and thus illegally reject their states’ popular votes and instead elect the loser, Hillary Clinton. Massive demonstrations met Trump on Inauguration Day. In less than four months after assuming the presidency, Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed to investigate the hoax of Russian collusion. That wasted 22-month, $40 million investigation found no collusion but did derail the first two Trump years.
What followed the collusion ruse was a consistent effort to undermine the Trump presidency—two subsequent impeachments, the laptop “disinformation” hoax, the COVID-19 nationwide lockdown, and news suppression of any mention of the Chinese lab origin of the virus or questioning the closing of schools. In the Trump administration’s last summer of 2020, 120 days of riot, arson, looting, assault, and murder followed, with the denouement of the January 6 turmoil. In contrast, during the 2024-2025 transition, Trump has all but assumed the presidency. Over 100 foreign leaders have elbowed each other to be invited to Mar-a-Lago or to phone in their congratulations to the newly elected Trump. Remember that in 2016 the left screamed “Logan Act” if a Trump transition appointee even talked with foreign officials. So why is newly elected Trump a veritable cultural hero in 2024 in a fashion unimaginable eight years ago when the media had rendered him a near demon?
One, Trump is now seen as a welcome relief. A departing and unpopular Joe Biden will leave with about a 36 percent approval rating. The prior Biden years are now seen as abnormal, if not disastrous. The left’s cultural revolution championed fringe policies never quite seen before: destroying the border, welcoming in 12 million illegal aliens, nihilist critical race and legal theories, institutionalizing a third sex, and mandating woke/DEI quotas and indoctrination sessions. Yet Biden had inherited from Trump a secure border, an economy rebounding after the COVID quarantines, 1.23 percent inflation, no wars abroad, and cheap energy. Four years later, the outgoing Biden administration is widely unpopular. Almost every one of its policies polls below 50 percent. In response, Trump promises not just to restore his first-term success but to expand it.
Two, Trump personally remains transparent, upbeat, and energetic—eager to meet with anyone, anytime, anywhere, to talk about anything. His energy offers a sharp contrast with the era of the non-compos-mentis Biden. The change is welcomed by an electorate exhausted by past presidential stumbling, wandering, incoherence, mind freezes, and angry, “get-off-my-grass” aged fragility. Three, Trump is grudgingly admired, now even by some of his enemies who once sought but failed to destroy him. He endured two impeachments, five civil and criminal court indictments, incessant lawfare, a 95% negative media, attempts to remove him from states’ ballots, and two assassination attempts. Yet all these unprecedented hostile efforts to end Trump may only have made him stronger—and more empathetic when seen as a target of increasingly fanatical enemies.
Four, Trump has expanded his MAGA base and permanently branded it as an ecumenical movement that welcomes shared class interests rather than fixates on the tired old tribal racial and ethnic chauvinism. Trump also brought in disaffected Democrats, independents, and minorities in a way the Democrats could not with the evaporating and bitter Never Trump dead-enders. Trump’s veritable campaign menagerie of RFK, Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, Dana White, and Kid Rock made it impossible for the left to demonize MAGA Republicans as right-wing aristocrats, warmongers, or laissez-faire capitalists. Fifth, the endorsements of the Biden-Harris legacy media, calcified Hollywood endorsers, blowhard university faculties, and tech barons proved overrated. It was trumped by more popular and dynamic internet influencers, podcasters, bloggers, and maverick entrepreneurs.
Sixth and finally, Trump himself proved more experienced and reflective than in 2016. His team too was more disciplined and street smart, led by savvy chief of staff Susan Wiles. 2024 saw truly pivotal moments of Trump as everyman—posing for a mug shot after being railroaded by a weaponized lawfare indictment, serving McDonald’s drive-through customers, riding in a garbage truck cab, and raising his fist and yelling “fight, fight, fight”—after having his head near blown off by a would-be assassin. Add all of these once unimaginables up, and the people trusted more—and liked better—the Trump reboot than grouchy Joe Biden or inane, inauthentic Kamala Harris and their shared extremist agendas.
“..there are so many flags around this report we’re not even sure where to begin … luckily, Hemingway did the work for us..”
• Mollie Hemingway Takes House Ethics Report on Matt Gaetz APART (Twitchy)
As Twitchy readers know, the House Ethics Committee magically decided to release their Matt Gaetz report … the day before Christmas Eve. Yes, the very report even Biden’s own corrupt and weaponized DOJ decided not to act on. Hey, think what you want about Gaetz and whether or not this report is true and his actions unethical (it is certainly not our place to defend or condemn him), but the way this has been done is shady AF. Mollie Hemingway was front and center taking the entire mess apart:
INSANE: House Report On Matt Gaetz Relies On Witnesses Even The Corrupt DOJ Found Completely Lacked Any Credibility Whatsoever https://t.co/KEYb2yBgVU
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) December 23, 2024
Read that again. “… completely lacked any credibility whatsoever.” BIDEN’S DOJ which would obviously be looking for any reason to go after Gaetz did not believe the evidence was credible. C’mon. She probably feels that way because from what we can tell she WAS the only reporter to look into the details of the Gaetz allegations.
Sometimes I feel like I was the only reporter to look into the details of the Gaetz allegations. That's how I learned the accuser is in prison for making the same false sex-with-minors accusation against someone else. https://t.co/0oqOfDlBQb
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) December 23, 2024
Color us SHOCKED. And ultimately, that’s the point. Whether or not you like a person should not impact or influence their innocence or guilt. Even if you dislike Gaetz, the fact they released this report the day before Christmas Eve, a report Biden’s own corrupt DOJ obviously considered a nothing-burger, tells us all this was sneaky, dirty, and likely all-too-personal. To Hemingway’s point, it’s INSANE that they’d take seriously any sort of testimony from a witness who is currently in prison for making the same false sex-with-minors accusations against someone else. While we’re certainly not experts, this definitely sounds like a red flag. In fact, there are so many flags around this report we’re not even sure where to begin … luckily, Hemingway did the work for us. Sadly, we’ve been seeing this in the ‘elitist’ class for decades.
Will it survive in 2025?
• CNN Loses Chunks of Viewership as Ratings Dive Into Death Spiral (Sp.)
CNN, just like a bunch of other liberal news networks, has been hemorrhaging viewership at lightning speed since Donald Trump’s electoral victory in November. The Cable News Network (CNN) has seen overall prime-time viewership plummet by 45% scooping up only 394,000 total viewers since November 5, according to Nielsen Media Research. When it comes to the prime 25-to-54 age demographic, CNN suffered a 52% decline, with just an average audience of 77,000 having tuned in after Trump’s win. Overall, CNN witnessed its worst-ever performance among viewers in this key demographic. Audiences feel that CNN “didn’t meet the mark” when covering Trump during the campaign, The Washington Post cited one journalist as saying.
Trump’s campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt had repeatedly criticized the “hostile environment” the network offered to the Republican contender. CNN is also reportedly heading for major layoffs as part of an overhaul by its corporate parent Warner Bros. Discovery, which is up to its eyeballs in debt after its Warner Brothers and Discovery merger deal in 2022. By the end of the third quarter of 2023, WBD’s gross debt stood at $45.3 billion, according to Forbes. MSNBC’s ratings have also collapsed post-election, with the audience down 46% compared with the first 10 months of 2024, according to Nielsen.
Of anything in my life, I would say kids by far make me the happiest.
Elon Musk pic.twitter.com/DVLmy9t1VR
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) December 26, 2024
Cars
Anthony Schmidt is a 16 year old boy on the autism spectrum who takes photos of miniature cars and makes them look life-sized
📹 anthony_ryan_schmidt_
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