New Year’s Thought

 

The following is from a friend from MilVet with his preface on the writing. “This was written by a friend of mine, very profound and at the same time a pronouncement of unshakable faith.”

I found it as profound as did he and felt it would be worth our reflection on this New Year’s Eve. 

I will confess, it is pathetically easy to sit in judgment over humanity. The evidence is weighed, and there's no contest. What light does exist in the world is so easily overwhelmed by the darkness, it appears on only to be a fine candle point in the midst of a vast, inky blackness that stretches toward infinity in every direction.

But in that courtroom of the soul, there is a voice. Quiet. Still. Small. Meek. "And yet, I love them."

This, friends, is the miracle of the stable in Bethlehem. It is, quite frankly, the most profound act of love in human existence.

God, looking across the entire span of human endeavor and history, saw it all. The awfulness. Hatred. Cruelty, on scales vast and infinitesimal. He saw all of the pain and suffering that we have and will inflict on each other. He saw how humanity would reject not just him and his message, but the very spirit that underlies it — love.

He saw that which was utterly unworthy of redemption, that which was so contemptible as to warrant not the first notice of his divine grace.

And yet, he came. "I love them, and I will save them."

This is the miracle of Christmas. God, the one being who would have the most reason to judge us and condemn us to what we all deserve, said no. With a tear, he sent us the most precious thing he could in an effort to redeem us and make us better.

The realization is humbling, moving. Earth shattering. "For God so loved the world..." And once again I am standing in the still of the cathedral of my heart, and the song of the angels rings loud and clear again,  bursting forth in the darkness like a new sun in the sky.

This is the miracle that makes me plug in the lights every night, and holds back the tide of darkness that 15 years of observation has created. There are times when the song of the angels is dimmed, briefly overwhelmed, but when the dark tide rolls back, the candle is still burning, just as brightly as ever.

This is the miracle of Christmas. This is the magic of the season.  God didn't give up on us, and he never will.

The Good Year of 2025

One of the most serious problems America and the world faces in the 21st century is an epistemic crisis where truth tellers cynically refuse to share the good news of humanity.

American  Thinker 

Every year, New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof ends the year providing a useful and compelling summary of good news from the past year to counteract the general journalistic theme of bad news dominating the headlines. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kristof refused to offer that annual summary this year. His reactionary political ethic regarding the President of the United States prevented this work. In his own words: "I’ve done these “best year ever” columns annually, irritating Eeyores. But now I just can’t. The year 2025 was a setback for humanity -- and unfortunately, the United States is a reason for the retreat.” Here is the work Kristof is unwilling to do regarding the good news of 2025.

Kristof notes without great detail that the more than 100,000 Americans being killed by illegal drugs is in decline. Since 2020, half a million Americans have been killed by an array of drugs delivered into the United States at the behest of a variety of anti-American actors from China to Mexican drug cartels and yes, to Venezuela. Louisiana is one of many state surveillance systems showing a dramatic 30% decline in deaths resulting in tens of thousands of lives being saved in the past two years.

Illegal border crossings declined dramatically in 2025. Roughly 60,000 encounters took place at the border with U.S. border agents this fall. This is a 28% decline from the previous record low in 2012 of more than 80,000 encounters. For seven months, border agents have not released captured illegal migrants into the U.S. This frees up our border enforcement to pursue the drugs coming in to kill Americans: 54,947 pounds of drugs seized nationwide -- a 33% increase from October; Fentanyl seizures: 1,543 pounds -- a 59% increase from October and the highest monthly total since last October; Methamphetamine seizures: 21,935 pounds -- a 118% increase from October; Cocaine seizures: 8,240 pounds -- a 40% increase from October.

2025 is on pace to be the largest decline in the US murder rate in U.S. history. This is accompanied by broad declines in violent crime. Hundreds of American lives are being saved by better and more effective law enforcement -- including urban areas of America. Many U.S. cities like D.C. and Los Angeles recorded declines of 20 to 30 percent. Albuquerque, ranks in the Top 10 nationally for per-capita murder rate, but experienced a 32.3 percent decrease. It is truly malignant to refuse to acknowledge this good news. Mass killings have also declined to their lowest level in 20 years.

One of the most dangerous rhetorical agendas of global killing anchored in Gaza by the genocidaires of Hamas was disrupted. More than one hundred Jews captured on October 27, 2023 in Israel were returned to their loving relatives and families in 2025. The peace deal brought to an end the active genocidal activities of Hamas which killed hundreds of Israelis along with civilian inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. There are still dead bodies to be returned but one of the most intransigent conflicts in the world was substantially solved by U.S.-led negotiations. Public awareness and concern about anti-Semitism is growing in the U.S. and worldwide. This is one of at least six major peace deals brokered in the past year. Deals in Congo and Cambodia reduced violence and killing worldwide through diplomacy. The U.S. created a de facto peace deal between Iran and Israel after destroying one of the most dangerous nuclear weapons programs in the world in Iran. Iran has promised for decades to erase Israel from the map of the world by way of its military genocidal ambition. Despite Kristof’s concerns, in 150 nations death rates from non-communicable causes such as cancer and heart disease have declined dramatically in the past decade.

Many other wrongfully detained Americans were returned to the U.S. in 2025. Afghanistan (Taliban): Ryan Corbett and William McKenty (January 2025); additional releases later, including Amir Amiry (September 2025). Russia: Marc Fogel (American teacher, February 2025); Ksenia Karelina (ballet dancer, April 2025). Belarus: Multiple, including Anastasia Nuhfer (January 2025) and Youras Ziankovich (April 2025); at least two by February. Venezuela: Six in February 2025; an additional 10 (citizens and permanent residents) in a July 2025 swap involving El Salvador. More than 20 Americans wrongfully detained worldwide were returned to the U.S. through diplomacy.

The U.S. economy is showing strong growth -- 4.3% for the third quarter GDP of 2025. This is on top of second quarter growth of 3.8%. First quarter GDP growth coming out of 2024 was -.6%. These two recent quarters indicate economic recovery from declining rates in 2024. Consumer spending rose from 2.5% in the second quarter to 3.5% in the third quarter -- an important underlying signal of economic strength. The poverty rate for the U.S. reported in September 2025 showed a .4% decline in poverty. The Atlanta Fed Wage Growth Tracker and Employment Cost Index show wage and salary growth around 4.% year-over-year in recent months. This means wages are growing faster than inflation. The most recent Thanksgiving meal was the most inexpensive in more than 40 years. The global translation of data like this is that fewer than 5% of the world’s population is expected to live in extreme poverty by 2030 -- an incredible human achievement in the midst of massive population increases worldwide.

One of the most serious problems America and the world faces in the 21st century is an epistemic crisis where truth tellers cynically refuse to share the good news of humanity. This ideological anger that creates reactionaries like Nicholas Kristof, who renege on their journalistic principles in order to covet ideological goals, destroying the cycle of goodwill that lifts humanity from suffering to enlightened relief. America is not the cause of a new wave of human suffering, it is, in fact, as it has been for decades, a profound source of human improvement. Hopefully, the good news will still reach the New York Times. Without clear empirical documentation of idealistic results, the next generation cannot learn how to further this cycle of virtue improving the national and international condition.

How Trump Can End the Ukraine War by Distancing from Zelensky and the EU

The EU is pushing for more war to try to prop up its economy, but Putin’s gains cannot be pushed back short of going nuclear (literally).

American  Thinker 

The Pentagon decision to inform Europe that the U.S. may withdraw from NATO if Europe does not take over NATO by 2027 reflects a more fundamental decision by President Trump than merely that, as a practical matter, Russia has won the Ukraine war—a war Europe wants to continue on the wishful thinking that a war-footing economy will forestall the debt-ridden EU’s almost inevitable economic decline.

The grim reality is that the U.S. and the EU would have to engage in a nuclear war to dislodge Russia from the extensive territory in eastern Ukraine and Crimea that Russia already holds. Given time, Putin will almost certainly claim the remaining territory in the Donbas region of Ukraine that he insists is essential to achieve before realizing peace with Kyiv.

As I have argued previously, simply by withdrawing from the conflict, Trump can force an endgame to the war. Corruption-plagued Zelensky’s insistence that Ukraine must preserve sovereignty by refusing to concede Donbas to Putin has made clear to President Trump the economic reality of the war. Without U.S. munitions, financing, and military assistance, Zelensky’s plan for the EU to spend another $1 billion monthly to acquire military hardware elsewhere will be another futile waste in an already failed effort to dislodge Russia from Ukraine.

That Trump did not include the EU in formulating his 28-point peace plan made clear that Trump views the Europeans, not Russia, as the barrier to peace. Trump appears to have reached a turning point in October, when he rejected the plan advanced by General Keith Kellogg, U.S. Special Envoy on Ukraine, to supply Ukraine with long-range, nuclear weapons-capable Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range sufficient to strike deep into Russia.

Obviously, Trump realized that increasing Ukraine’s military ability to bring the war to Russia was a strategy that would escalate the far-from-being-a-proxy-war between NATO and Russia into a direct war between the United States and NATO, on the one hand, and Russia, on the other. The best efforts of U.S. Special Envoy Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, during a prolonged meeting with Putin in December failed to convince Putin to end the war by having the Russian military stand down in place. Having won significant battlefield gains in Donbas during September and October, Putin appears confident his military forces will be able to take the approximately 20 percent of the industrial-rich Donbas region still under Ukrainian control in the coming weeks.

The EU decision to scuttle Trump’s peace plan delivers an opening to fundamentally restructure the relationship between Europe and the United States that has existed since the end of World War II. Utilizing Vice President J.D. Vance as his point man, Trump can spark disagreements that turn the majority of EU nations against Germany and France, along with their legions of unelected bureaucrats in Brussels and Luxembourg, who see the strange marriage of neo-Marxism, cultural Maoism, and radical Islam as the doorway to their long-imagined globalist dystopia. By opening its borders to an invasion of Muslim “immigrants,” the EU has set in motion a revolutionary force determined to impose upon the continent a version of Sharia law that has nothing whatsoever in common with what the EU likes to call “democracy.”

David Horowitz, in his 2006 book, Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left, was among the first to argue that Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1972 radical Islamic revolution in Iran had achieved a fusion between radical jihadist Islam and neo-Marxism that would ultimately typify Democrat party’s affinity for anti-American and anti-Israeli groups like Hamas. The greatest danger to Western Europe is not that Putin will invade Finland or Poland, but that radical Islamic anti-Christian immigrants will undermine the Western Civilization principles that have spurred the rise of Europe since the dawn of the Enlightenment.

 Islam may already have achieved the population ratio in Western Europe to mobilize university-indoctrinated woke radical leftists to support demands for separate Sharia law-based states in various EU countries. Such a movement would supplant the 1950s fear that the Soviet Union would invade and occupy Western Europe.

Such a dynamic would further make NATO obsolete, with the irony that Russia has largely avoided the EU’s coming Islamic revolution by limiting Islamic immigration into the Russian Federation’s non-Islamic states. By combating Chechnyan Islamic terrorism by encouraging religious reformation within the Muslim-dominated states in the Federation, Russia has largely forestalled the Sharia separatists’ demands for independence.

The “America First” National Security Strategy document that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth released on December 6, at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum, provided context for understanding President Trump’s change of course to distance the U.S. from NATO and the EU’s enthusiasm to continue funding Ukraine’s war with Russia. On page 25, the Hegseth report noted that continental Europe has been losing share of global GDP—down from 25 percent in 1990 to 14 percent today, “partly owing to national and transnational regulations that undermine creativity and industriousness.” Indirectly, the report attributed the loss of GDP share to the radicalization of Islamic immigration that the continent has experienced since 1990:

But this economic decline is eclipsed by the very real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure. The larger issues facing Europe include the EU’s and other transnational bodies’ activities 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.

The report stressed that, should such trends continue, Europe will be “unrecognizable in 20 years or less. As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.”

As the Atlantic Council reported, on November 10, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) exposed an alleged $110 million corruption scheme at the state-owned nuclear company Energoatom. Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andrii Yermak, the country’s lead negotiator in talks with the U.S., was implicated in the scandal. He resigned as anti-corruption officials searched his residence.

With U.S. support evaporating, on December 12, Zelensky met in London with the leaders of Great Britain, France, and Germany to form a “coalition of the willing” to continue the war against Russia and fill the void left by Washington’s withdrawal of support. By announcing at the conclusion of the meeting that he would not concede territory to Russia, Zelensky effectively killed President Trump’s 28-point peace plan.

With NATO refusing to face the reality that Russia has won the war in Ukraine, and with the EU incapable of creating policies that benefit the EU middle class by expelling an increasingly problematic population of Islamic immigrants who are unwilling to assimilate, an economic rapprochement between Trump and Putin might further fracture an already tottering EU and NATO. As Europe distances itself from the Trump White House, Trump might consider pursuing a country-specific policy toward Europe. For instance, he could impose 50% or 100% tariffs on the EU to retaliate against the European Commission for trying to finance a debt-plagued EU by fining X and Elon Musk €120 million for alleged speech offenses and for failing to meet transparency obligations under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA).

Podcast thread for Dec 31

 

(I'll keep this short, as I need to rest).

Thank you for letting me talk on here for another crazy year. I definitely needed more support this year then before.

Here's to a calmer 2026.

Republicans Are Slowly 'Learing' How to Fight the Democrats

Townhall 

The new revelations about the massive Somali fraud in Minneapolis, and apparently in a bunch of other places around the country, are not in fact new. There have been prosecutions and even some stories, including in the regime media, about it in the past. What’s new is the attention, and it is a direct resultof Andrew Breitbart, as are most good things in the conservative movement in the last 15 years. Nick Shirley, like a young man with an iPhone, decided to do what the regime media wouldn’t do and look up online the location of some of these fraudulent daycare centers, then show up.  It’s not the revelation that these empty office buildings are fronts for fraud; it’s the demonstration on video by an independent journalist who uses social media to make the point so powerfully that it can’t be denied. This is the kind of thing Andrew pioneered; he would have been proud.

One of the most indelible images is a sign outside one of these fake establishments, reading “Learing Center.” It is impossible that the Democrats didn’t know about this. They certainly did. And the truth that the Republicans are 'learing' is the indisputable fact that the Democrat party is a criminal organization.

But, of course, the Democrats will deny it. They’re going to look at this footage and decide the problem isn’t that a bunch of their Third World constituents have decided to bring the family values of their garbage homeland to the United States and blend them with the Democrat Party’s tradition of pillaging benefits to buy votes. No, the problem they have is Shirley noticing a massive rip-off involving more money than the GDP of Somalia. But then again, I probably have more than the GDP of Somalia in my wallet.

What’s happening, thanks to Shirley and others who have dug into and are discovering the same kind of graft all around the country, both Somali-derived and otherwise, is that Republicans are 'learing' a harsh truth. The Democratic Party has always been a criminal organization. But the criminality part, the part about directing and a never-ending flow of tax money to its constituents, whether through welfare fraud or just regular welfare, or USAID grants, or Green New Deal payoffs, or whatever, is just one component. It’s not all traditional corruption. Some of it is just cartoonish evil. There are some Democrats who aren’t taking any money personally. They pay for their own Chardonnay and SSRIs. These are often sexually dissatisfied wine women with the pinched faces of sour apple dolls, and they receive something less tangible from their Democrat masters. What they get is the giddy pleasure of bossing around other people, exercising their misguided class envy by inflicting revenge upon normal, happy people. Their payoff is that they get to direct their own psychodrama on a national stage, whether by banning guns, or trying to limit our speech, or forcing us to use mushy paper tubes instead of regular plastic straws. They are generally powerless, because no one would trust them with power normally, but Democrats lend it to them in return for their votes and their energy. These are the ridiculous people screaming at the No Kings rallies, boomer dummies whose activism fills that space that should’ve been populated with faith, family, and The Flag.

So, what are we going to do about it as Republicans? Well, this is a golden opportunity, which means there’s a huge chance the Republicans will totally squander it. There is about a 100 percent chance that between the time this is written and the time you read it, some spineless Republican legislator is going to get up in front of a microphone and Norm MacDonald it by explaining how the real tragedy here would be if people started thinking less of Somali culture. Of course, that’s not a problem, because it’s literally impossible to think less of it. Somalia is a terrible place, one where Americans came to help them and they responded by murdering said Americans. If the people attempting to escape that hellhole wanted to come to America to become Americans and make America better, that would’ve been one thing. But they don’t, and the Democrats don’t expect them to. They want to come to America and remain Somalis and make Minneapolis Mogadishu West – something that I found amusing when I made it part of my new novel Panama Red and is now less amusing as it becomes evident that it’s not a joke at all. If you think I’m overreacting, take a look at the glorious old Minnesota flag and compare it to the new banner that mincing fraud-tolerater and Democrat manhood icon, Tim Walz, replaced it with. It’s a Somali flag. They’re not even trying to hide it.

Now, do all these white bread, Minnesota Nice Democrats really love the Somali interlopers? They pretend to. Jacob Frey, the ridiculous mayor of Mogadishu West, was famously caught on film trying to force some Somali grub down his throat. His expression made him look like he was getting a digital prostate exam, which would probably have been preferable. And Peggy Flanagan, the current lieutenant governor and Democratic Senate candidate, recently decided to come out in a hijab to express how she is going to show solidarity with her new masters. I can fully imagine that her next stop was a handmaid rally where she wore a red robe, instead of a blue one, to demonstrate the oppression of the evil Nordic–derived residents of the stolen land that is Minnesota.

This is an opportunity for the Republicans, and they had better not blow it. There must be merciless investigations. There must be prosecutions, including of Tim Waltz and others, if they appear criminally liable for tolerating, or even aiding and abetting, this looting of the public purse. We need to be careful here – we are foreclosed both by God’s prohibition on bearing false witness and the utilitarian consideration that the last thing we want to do is not be able to get a conviction should we criminally charge someone. But if we do criminally charge them, having found probable cause to do so, that may make it break through the regime media and the Democrat denials. There are some Democrats who aren’t completely psychotic, and they will oppose public corruption. Sure, a huge number will excuse it, or even argue that it’s a good thing, but there’s something about Nick Shipley‘s video of empty offices that get millions of dollars a year that can even raise doubts in loyal Democrat voters.

That’s why this is a golden opportunity for the GOP. You’ve got to be either getting paid off yourself or completely nuts to accept corruption. There are a few Democrats who are neither, but there are a lot of independents who are neither, and this is a winning issue. It’s also highly effective. The Democrat machine runs on government money. This is why they screamed so hard when we turned off the USAID spigot. And that’s why it’s going to be so effective as we tighten the controls on money going to illegal aliens. Almost everything they do can be traced back to siphoning off government money. That’s where the Republicans need to focus.

We need to starve the Democrat machine of cash. We need to demonstrate their perfidy with targeted prosecutions of real crimes. And we need 100 guys like Nick Shirley out there with their iPhones, finding the truth that the Democrats and the regime media have hidden, just like Andrew Breitbart wanted.

Republicans, surprise us. Don’t screw this up.

Exclusive: The Babylon Bee Has Obtained A Copy Of Trump‘s New Year’s Resolutions

Babylon Bee🐝 

Andrea Hanks

It's the end of December, which means people all over the world are making their lists of New Year's resolutions for 2026 — and President Donald Trump is no different.

Through high-level contacts, The Babylon Bee has obtained the following copy of Trump's resolutions for the coming year:

---

• Build a wall around New York City: To keep the riffraff from escaping into the U.S.

• Put his face on all U.S. currency: Nobody remembers people like Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, or Ben Franklin anyway.

• Reconnect with Macaulay Culkin: Make sure he knows where to find the bathroom.

• Broker peace with all the losers and haters: A truce only Trump can negotiate.

• Break ground on the White House Monster Truck Arena: Fulfilling a promise he made to JD Vance.

• Apply crippling economic pressure on McDonald's until they bring the McRib back year-round: Sky-high tariffs on every extra value meals until they cave.

• Abandon strategy of hiring hot female attorneys and instead hire even hotter female attorneys: It'll definitely work this time.

• Bomb the Norwegian Nobel Committee for refusing to award him the Peace Prize: That'll show ‘em.

• To achieve world peace so Earth will be unified against the impending alien invasion: The galactic army from Zorlox IX won't stand a chance when Trump is elected President of Earth.

• Prepare an astonishingly spiteful obituary for that 4th-rate loser Dick Van Dyke: He never said nice things about Trump, even once.

• Forget the list — change nothing: President Trump is already perfect.

---

If you thought 2025 was a year of winning, you haven't seen anything yet. What other resolutions should President Trump have for 2026? Post your suggestions in the comments.

🎭 𝐖𝟑𝐏 𝓓𝓐𝓘𝓛𝓨 𝓗𝓾𝓶𝓸𝓻, 𝓜𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓬, 𝓐𝓻𝓽, 𝓞𝓟𝓔𝓝 𝓣𝓗𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓓

 

Welcome to 

The 𝐖𝟑𝐏 𝓓𝓐𝓘𝓛𝓨 𝓗𝓾𝓶𝓸𝓻, 𝓜𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓬, 𝓐𝓻𝓽, 𝓞𝓟𝓔𝓝 𝓣𝓗𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓓 

Here’s a place to share cartoons, jokes, music, art, nature, 

man-made wonders, and whatever else you can think of. 

No politics or divisive posts on this thread. 

This feature will appear every day at 1pm mountain time. 

Let’s Leave Trump Impressions Behind With 2025

Happy New Year. RIP Trump impressions.

The Federalist

This is going to be painful for a lot of people to hear, but it’s imperative: Trump impersonations are low-tier comedy. The lowest tier.

A most welcome gift of the new year will be if not a single Trump impression is ever performed, ever again.

Generally speaking, impersonations are rarely funny. Or at least, they’re rarely funny for more than a brief moment of surprise when a person is able to perfectly capture something readily associated with a certain individual, like a celebrity’s unique tic or demeanor. The problem is that the person who performs an impression almost always keeps going for far longer than that brief moment. They go on, and on, and on.

As the captive audience, you’re faced with a dilemma — either keep laughing politely, which ensures the performance will continue, or don’t and hope it ends. Both scenarios are uncomfortable, and it’s the impersonator who put you in the unfortunate position of having to choose.

Think of all the prominent Trump renditions: Alec Baldwin’s, Jimmy Fallon’s, James Austin Johnson’s, Meryl Streep’s, the ones done by countless stand-up comedians. Not a single one of them is memorable or remarkably humorous. To the contrary, they’re all maddeningly the same. They put on a wig, adopt a sour pout and don their faces in copper-tone powder. They speak with a gruff accent and say things like “bigly,” a word made up by Democrats who couldn’t decipher that what Trump was always saying was “big league.” They purse their lips, excessively utilize superlatives and mimic the well-worn hand gestures.

Zzz…

There was perhaps a short period of time in 2011, when Trump was pretending to run for president back then, that impressions of the future president were novel and maybe even a little funny. But we are now nearly 15 years past and the originality has faded just a bit.

There is the occasional exception. Comedian Matt Friend does a wildly funny Trump impersonation, but the key isn’t the mimicry itself — as it is for virtually everyone else who does one — but the original concepts, scenarios and monologues Friend writes to accompany it. In one stand-up bit, Friend imagines an alternative Oval Office meeting between Trump and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, wherein Trump assumes Mamdani is the cousin of the king of Saudi Arabia, who “Trump” says is, “like, a lighter brown; he’s a little bit of a lighter brown, I would say — just a lighter shade of a brown.”

The joke is not the impression for the sake of it. It’s the hyperbolic fantasy of Trump making a tacky comment in a formal setting that includes important world leaders. That takes effort. A widely copied impersonation doesn’t.

Happy New Year. RIP Trump impressions.