PrairiePundit

 Newsmax: A New York Times opinion columnist and self-proclaimed "Never Trumper" conservative says it's time for President-elect Donald Trump's "perennial" critics "to drop the heavy moralizing and incessant doomsaying" concerning the next chief executive and his incoming administration. Bret Stephens, in a recent column , wrote that after nine years, he no longer considers himself a Never Trumper. He says that he and others like him never truly understood what made Trump popular and effective. "Who, and what, is Trump?" Stephens asked. "He's a man and the symbol of a movement. The man is crass but charismatic, ignorant but intuitive, dishonest but authentic. The movement is patriotic — and angry." Some of that anger, Stephens added, is "correctly directed at a self-satisfied elite that thinks it knows better but often doesn't." Also, Stephens said, Trump understood during the 2024 campaign that "ordinary...

 NY Times: Government offices in Iran are closed or operating at reduced hours. Schools and colleges have moved to online only. Highways and shopping malls have descended into darkness, and industrial plants have been denied power, bringing manufacturing to a near halt. Although Iran has one of the biggest supplies of natural gas and crude oil in the world, it is in a full-blown energy crisis that can be attributed to years of sanctions, mismanagement, aging infrastructure, wasteful consumption — and targeted attacks by Israel. “We are facing very dire imbalances in gas, electricity, energy, water, money and environment,” said President Masoud Pezeshkian in a live televised address to the nation this month. “All of them are at a level that could turn into a crisis.” While Iran has been struggling with issues with its infrastructure for years, the president warned that the problem had reached a critical point. For most of last week, the country was virtually shut down to save energy...

 Breitbart: President-elect Donald Trump threatened to retake the Panama Canal if Panama continued to “rip-off” the United States with “exorbitant” transit fees. In a post on Truth Social, Trump spoke about the Panama Canal and how it was viewed as a “vital national asset” to the U.S., and how the U.S. was the “number one user” of the Panama Canal. Trump added when former President Jimmy Carter “foolishly” gave the Panama Canal away, it wasn’t for “Panama to charge” the U.S., “its Navy, and corporations” doing business in the U.S. high prices. “The Panama Canal is considered a VITAL National Asset for the United States, due to its critical role to America’s Economy and National,” Trump wrote. “A secure Panama Canal is crucial for U.S. Commerce, and rapid deployment of the Navy, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and drastically cuts shipping times to U.S. ports.” “The United States is the Number One user of the Canal, with over 70 percent of all transits heading to, or from, U.S. ...

 Fox News: As drone sightings over New Jersey continue to raise questions, a new tool could bring answers about the source of these flying vehicles — if the government could get it off the ground. Earlier this year, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) began requiring all unmanned aircraft systems to be equipped with Remote ID technology, which makes every equipped drone uniquely identifiable to authorities, like a license plate on a car. The FAA announced that it would provide a database that could be accessed by local law enforcement, but nearly one year later, local authorities still can't get into it themselves. ... According to a report published in June by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the FAA has not yet provided a way for law enforcement agencies to use Remote ID technology to respond to a potential threat or investigate suspicious drone activity. A representative from New Jersey’s Belleville Police Department confirmed to Fox News Digital that its offi...

 Doug Ross: The partisan abuse of federal agencies by the Obama and Biden administrations has been exposed in a massive, 17,000-page report by the House Weaponization Committee. It outlines a widespread pattern of criminality that almost defies description. I used AI to illustrate the basic contours of how Obama and Biden weaponized the federal bureaucracy (click to zoom). Here are 20 of the most nefarious and diabolical activities revealed by the report. ... There is obviously much more at the link above.  It will take a massive effort by Trump and the Republican majority to set things right.  Censorship and weaponization of law enforcement head the list.  The Trump administration has a big task to clean it up.

 American Action News: Neither the White House nor the Pentagon seem to know how the official count for the number of U.S. troops in Syria has more than doubled. White House Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to explain Friday how there could be an 1,100 troop discrepancy in reported U.S. forces in Syria, instead pointing to the Pentagon. Similarly, Pentagon press secretary Pat Ryder said Thursday at a press conference he couldn’t speak for the Oval Office on whether or not they were aware of the true number of troops in the nation. “That is their purview,” Jean-Pierre told reporters Friday. “That is something that we have always been pretty consistent on.” Ryder said he had “recently learned” that the number had been 2,000 since “before the fall of Assad regime.” The original 900 figure counts the long-term personnel stationed in the country, while the additional 1,100 were described as “temporary rotational forces,” Ryder told the press Thursday. It remains unclear whet...

  The Federalist Wire: ... Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a bold challenge to the United States on Thursday, proposing a direct “duel” between the Kremlin’s new hypersonic ballistic missile and America’s defense systems. Speaking at his annual end-of-year press conference, Putin ridiculed Western skepticism over the capabilities of the Oreshnik missile. The weapon, which Russia claims can carry nuclear payloads, had faced doubts about its lethality following limited deployment in Ukraine. Putin suggested the United States choose a target to defend and test whether its military technology could stop the Oreshnik in action. “We’re ready for such an experiment,” he declared, asserting that Western defense systems “stand no chance.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed alarm over Putin’s challenge, calling it reckless. “Do you think he is a sane person?” Zelensky asked reporters during a news conference later that day. He described the idea of two superpowers engag...

 Newsmax: President-elect Donald Trump vowed to oblige Vladimir Putin to talk war and peace soon, saying ending the war was "one of the things I want to do and quickly." "President Putin said that he wants to meet with me as soon as possible," Trump told Turning Point Action's America Fest speech in Phoenix, Arizona, on Sunday in a speech that aired on Newsmax and the free Newsmax2 streaming platform. "So we have to wait for this. "But we have to end that war. That war is a horrible, horrible, the soldiers, the number of soldiers being killed." Trump repeated his claim Russia and Putin would have never invaded Ukraine if he were president, hailing his best-selling hat that declares "Trump was right about everything." "I saw it yesterday for the first time, and it's selling like hotcakes: It says, 'Trump was right about everything,'" Trump said. "And I don't want to brag, but we were right about just about...

 Federalist Wire: ... More than 100 migrants who rioted at the southern border in March—injuring guards in the process—have been released into the United States, thanks to the Biden administration’s lenient policies that prioritize political optics over public safety, The Post has learned. Of the 211 migrants who stormed through razor wire and charged the border wall in El Paso, Texas, 124 were set free by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This move follows a Biden-era directive to reserve detention space only for those deemed the most serious public safety, national security, or border security risks. For the soldiers injured during the chaos, the decision feels like a betrayal. A Texas National Guard source told The Post, “It goes a long way to show where our officials’ loyalties lie. We have soldiers who are still recovering from injuries to this day, and our officials have shielded their attackers from any consequence.” ... Trump should deport those who have engaged in...

 Red State: As Liberals Implode in Canada, Conservative Leader Decimates Them in Powerful Speech for the People ...   ... It looks like Canadian voters are going to support conservatives for a change. Trudeau has worn out his welcome as the leader of Canada.

 6abc.com: There is a major development in the ongoing drone saga in New Jersey. Several federal agencies had tried to put to it bed earlier this week by saying they found nothing out of the ordinary. However, the Federal Aviation Administration has now issued temporary flying restrictions (TFR) in multiple cities across New Jersey, including several locations in our area, due to "special security reasons." The TFR areas include parts within the city of Camden, Gloucester City, Winslow Township, Evesham, Hancock's Bridge in Lower Alloways Township in Salem County, Westampton, Burlington and Hamilton in Mercer County. Flying drones are also banned in Bridgewater, Cedar Grove, North Brunswick, Metuchen, Westampton, South Brunswick, Edison, Branchburg, Sewaren, Jersey City, Harrison, Elizabeth, Bayonne, Clifton and Kearny. ... These areas have all now been deemed "National Defense Airspace." Unmanned aircraft are no longer allowed in those areas from now through J...

 Daily Mail: All the warning signs Biden was 'senile from day one' of his presidency: Joe's catalogue of toe-curling gaffes ... The Biden Administration launched an extensive, deliberate and years-long cover-up in attempt to hide his ailing mental state, a new explosive investigation by The Wall Street Journal has exposed. The bombshell report revealed how Biden's team hired a vocal coach, put other officials into roles usually occupied by the president, scrapped meetings on his 'bad days', and kept him at arm's length from his own Cabinet members. But despite the efforts of 'eager beaver hand-holders', Biden's decline became increasingly obvious throughout time in office, with voters now branding him the worst president in almost 50 years. His term was riddled with years of embarrassing gaffes and verbal blunders, including introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as 'President Putin ' at the NATO summit in July. His histor...

 Fox News: Trump files amicus brief to 'immediately' stop Biden sale of border wall, says conduct is 'possibly criminal' Texas and Missouri are asking a district court to investigate whether the Biden administration has violated a court order President-elect Trump filed an amicus brief late Thursday in support of a legal effort by Texas and Missouri to "immediately" stop the Biden administration’s sale of border wall materials, saying the action is "possibly criminal." Texas and Missouri filed a motion earlier this week in a district court in the southern district of Texas to hold a status conference to determine if the government is in breach of the court’s permanent injunction from earlier this year. That injunction barred the Biden administration from using funds obligated for wall construction for anything other than that purpose. 'PATTERN OF DISREGARD': RED STATES SEEK COURT ACTION AGAINST BIDEN ADMIN'S ‘SHAMEFUL’ BORDER WALL DISPO...

 NY Post: President Biden was so mentally fatigued that he skipped out on a phone call from the chair of the powerful House Armed Services Committee ahead of the US’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to a report. Biden, the oldest president in US history, was incredibly hard to reach — even for lawmakers in his own party — as his aides attempted to keep Biden’s evident mental and physical decline under tight wraps, a bombshell report from the Wall Street Journal revealed . That inaccessibility proved to be immensely consequential for one of the administration’s biggest snafus that would mar the remainder of Biden’s presidency. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), chair of the House Armed Services Committee, had tried to contact the president in 2021 to share his concerns about the planned withdrawal from Afghanistan. Smith said he was worried about the administration’s optimistic comments about pulling out from Afghanistan — which, after working extensively on the issue, t...

 Victor Davis Hanson: In the weeks before the 2016 Trump Electoral College victory, Donald Trump was polling between 35 and 40 percent. He would average only about 41% approval over his tumultuous four-year tenure. No one knows what lies ahead over the next four years. But for now, Trump already polls well over 50% approval. His inauguration in a few weeks will likely not resemble Trump's 2016 ceremony. In the 2016-7 transition, Democratic-affiliated interests ran commercials urging electors to become "faithless," and thus illegally to 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 consisten...

 Headline USA: San Francisco Hires ‘Fat Positivity’ Expert for Health Department 'So the goal is not to fix any problems. Just to make people feel better about having them...' It has been a while since I was in San Francisco, but I don't recall meeting a lot of overweight people there.  It was the only city I have been to where hookers approached men on the street.

 Town Hall: Democrats have come up with the wild new conspiracy theory that Elon Musk is actually the co-president and calling the shots, as opposed to President-elect Donald Trump. This is all because he dared to use his platform of X to amplify his opposition and that of the American people to the over 1,500 page spending bill that had been released on Tuesday night and has since failed. CNN also discussed such a theory on Thursday, with Scott Jennings weighing in on multiple programs. "CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip" began with Phillip framing the spending bill fight in such a matter as one where "there is no solution in sight after Donald Trump and Elon Musk blew up a bipartisan spending bill." Although "Plan B" failed on Thursday night, it looks like Republicans have since come up with and are trying to figure out a "Plan C." There's also an interim spending bill being debated. Phillip also brought up how Democrats have been using th...

 NY Post: Mentally fatigued Biden skipped call from concerned pol before disastrous Afghanistan pullout: report ... Biden, the oldest president in US history, was incredibly hard to reach — even for lawmakers in his own party — as his aides attempted to keep Biden’s evident mental and physical decline under tight wraps, a bombshell report from the Wall Street Journal revealed . That inaccessibility proved to be immensely consequential for one of the administration’s biggest snafus that would mar the remainder of Biden’s presidency. ... The media is just now reporting on what should have been obvious about Biden's dementia. 

 Fox News: FBI should probe 'potential' Liz Cheney 'witness tampering' in Jan 6 matter, House Republicans say 'Numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney,' a new House subcommittee report concludes There are many questions about the Jan.6 committee.  It appears to be a group who were hostile to Trump and looking for a way to deny him the presidency. 

  Western Lensman @WesternLensman Subscribe @ScottJenningsKY torches Democrat narrative about Elon running the government and not Trump, while Joe Biden is AWOL: "If they're worried about people who aren't Donald Trump running the government or having influence, I wonder where they've been the last four years... ...when the current president, a Democrat, is AWOL and apparently not able to execute the duties of the office." 6:42 PM · Dec 19, 2024 · 496.1K Views Dementia Joe is clearly not in charge, but a few Democrats appear to be making decisions for him.