Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) on Dec. 22 for allegedly misleading sportgoers into believing they were watching a competition between players of one gender.
“The NCAA is intentionally and knowingly jeopardizing the safety and wellbeing of women by deceptively changing women’s competitions into co-ed competitions,” Paxton said in a statement on Sunday. “When people watch a women’s volleyball game, for example, they expect to see women playing against other women—not biological males pretending to be something they are not. Radical ‘gender theory’ has no place in college sports.”
Paxton argued in the lawsuit that the NCAA’s practice of allowing biological men who identify as women to play in women’s sports violates the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, which protects consumers from scams.
In response to The Epoch Times’ request for comment, an NCAA spokesperson said though the association doesn’t comment on pending litigation, it will “continue to promote Title IX, make unprecedented investments in women’s sports and ensure fair competition in all NCAA championships.”
“Most consumers know that a ‘woman’ means an adult human female,” Paxton said, a definition that has been commonly understood “throughout human history,” he noted.
By allowing men to compete in women’s college sports, the NCAA is robbing women of their earned positions and lying to consumers about the competitive nature of the sporting event, he said.
“When female athletes are forced to compete against men in women’s sports, they are deprived of titles, records, medals, scholarships, and opportunities to win; opportunities to participate in a fair and safe environment; and the ancillary benefits that sports participation provides,” he said in the lawsuit. “Consumers do not purchase goods and services associated with women’s sporting events to watch men steal medals and records from female programs.”
In March, former college swimmer Riley Gaines and other female college athletes filed a lawsuit against the NCAA for allowing men identifying as women to compete in women’s sports.
In October, 26 college regents in Georgia called on the NCAA to ban men identifying as transgender athletes from women’s college sports.
In its “Transgender Student-Athlete Participation Policy,” updated in May 2024, the NCAA said it aligned with the student-athlete Olympic Movement, which allows for “transgender student-athlete participation for each sport to be determined by the policy for the national governing body of that sport.”
If there’s no national governing body for the sport, NCAA policy guidelines default to the International Olympic Committee’s policy criteria and the 2010 NCAA policy, in addition to a requirement that such athletes “meet the sport standard for documented testosterone levels” before competing.
On Dec. 20, the Department of Education withdrew its 2023 proposed rule that would have prohibited schools from banning male athletes who identify as women from participating in women’s sports.
Citing the complexity of the public comments and legal battles, the department said it chose “not to regulate on this issue at this time.”
Aldgra Fredly and Caden Pearson contributed to this report.
Merry Christmas… Here’s The Average Credit Card Debt In Every US State
This map, via Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao, visualizes the average credit card debt held by households in each U.S. state and ranks the states where residents pay off the debt the fastest and slowest.
Data is sourced from Bankrate (2024) who also used average monthly household income to calculate how long it takes to pay off balances.
ℹ️ Assumptions made for this analysis: 5% of monthly household income is used for card payments. Also, no new debt is accrued in this time period.
How Long it Takes to Pay off Credit Card Balances in Each State
Households in Alaska and Washington D.C. are carrying more than $7,000 in credit card debt, the highest across the country. However, with average annual household incomes of $109,000 and $149,000, residents in both states can pay off their debt in about 14–20 months.
In fact, glancing through the numbers below reveals a pattern.
*Assuming no new debt is accrued. **Federal district.
Richer state households—Connecticut, California, Washington—have higher costs of living and are carrying higher credit card balances. But they also manage to pay them off quickly with their larger incomes.
On the other hand, households in poorer states have below-average debt but it take closer to two years for them to pay it off.
This highlights the unequal debt burden across America. While the people living on the coasts have higher costs, they’re compensated by their incomes. However the South’s lower costs are not as evenly compensated.
And of course, compound interest is not a game played in favor of the borrower. Carrying the debt for longer periods of time accrues additional interest. Bankrate’s analysis points out that when making only minimum payments, it would take more than 17 years to pay it off the national average debt: $6,140.
In case that seems like a ludicrous amount of time, here’s a good reminder that most credit card interest compounds daily and not monthly.
President-elect Donald Trump said Sunday he would aim to designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations and will launch an anti-drug advertising campaign inside the United States.
“I will immediately designate the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations,” Trump said in Arizona at a Turning Point conference, reiterating a campaign promise to make the declaration.
While in office in 2019, Trump had planned to make the designation and ultimately did not make the move after a request from then-Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who said he wanted cooperation with the U.S. government on dealing with drug cartels.
Trump’s election platform has stated when he returns to the White House, he will direct the Department of Defense to use “special forces, cyber warfare, and other covert and overt actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations.”
Trump on Sunday also previewed a new advertising initiative designed to provide information about the effects of drug use.
“We’re going to advertise how bad drugs are for you,” Trump said in Arizona at a Turning Point conference, referring to the ad campaign. “They ruin your look, they ruin your face, they ruin your skin, they ruin your teeth.”
While he did not provide more details about the campaign, it appears to be the first time Trump has made reference to the plan.
In the 1970s and 1980s, anti-drug ad blitzes were launched across the United States, culminating in former first lady Nancy Reagan’s “just say no” campaign that was designed to prevent younger Americans from doing drugs. Public schools also featured the Drug Abuse Resistance Education, also known as D.A.R.E, that sought to provide information on illegal drugs and controlled substances, as well as prevent gang membership and violent behavior.
Over the past several years, hundreds of thousands of Americans have died of overdoses of the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl, which is easy to do due to its potency—just 2 milligrams can be fatal. The drug, which is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, is often trafficked across the U.S.–Mexico border by drug cartels based in Mexico.
Trump’s 2024 campaign has heavily leaned into messaging around stopping the fentanyl epidemic as well as illegal immigration into the United States. Since winning the election last month, the president-elect has said he will also start operations for mass deportations and would declare a nationwide emergency over the matter.
The incoming Trump administration’s border czar, Tom Homan, a former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and other Trump officials have said that they will prioritize targeting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes or are deemed a threat to U.S. national security for deportation.
They have also pledged to deport anyone residing in the country illegally, although Trump has indicated he would consider allowing illegal immigrants who have been in the United States since childhood to remain under certain conditions.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimates that 11 million illegal immigrants were living in the United States as of 2022, the latest statistics that are available. While campaigning in the 2024 contest, Trump talked about creating the “largest deportation effort in the history of our country” and called for using the National Guard and domestic police forces in the effort.
Millions of U.S. companies might be busy over the holidays forking over their data to the Treasury Department, thanks to a last-minute ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
The Fifth Circuit on Monday overturned a lower court’s injunction against a constitutionally dubious law that requires the country’s estimated 32.6 million active companies to submit their private ownership information to a central database ran by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN.
The ruling means that all companies formed prior to 2024 must file a report with Treasury by next Wednesday, Jan. 1. Companies formed this year are required to file within 90 days of their formation.
“Enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) has been reinstated along with its impending January 1, 2025 filing deadline,” the financial firm Brown Advisory said in a Tuesday press release. “These reports provide basic legal information about the company itself, the entity’s owners, and the individuals that create or register the entity.”
Forbes predicated there’s still a long legal battle ahead.
“Additionally, a potential new administration may take steps to limit the CTA administratively, adding another layer of uncertainty for businesses,” Forbes reported.
The cost of compliance with the law is estimated to be some $22.7 billion the first year and $5.6 billion per year thereafter.
The U.S. government and liberal activists have argued for decades that a central beneficial ownership registry is required to curtail money laundering. Critics have pointed out how the central registry would pose privacy risks and impose another layer of regulation on private businesses. Moreover, criminals wouldn’t voluntarily submit their personal information for such a registry.
There are six plaintiffs suing over the law, including two that don’t do business outside their respective states. Another plaintiff was the Libertarian Party of Mississippi, which is a non-profit political entity, but would have still had to register under the Corporate Transparency Act.
Roughly 5 million new companies are formed in the U.S. each year.
“Sudden Spike” In US Marijuana Substitution For Alcohol Ahead Of Trump-Era
The number of Americans turning to marijuana as a substitute for alcohol, cigarettes, and painkillers has surged in recent years, according to a new survey by Bloomberg Intelligence.
Amir Islam of Bloomberg Intelligence highlighted a “sudden spike” in the substitution of marijuana for alcohol, with the latest survey showing 44% of respondents making the switch, up from 33% in 2022.
“This is in contrast to less marijuana substitution for cigarettes (30% vs. 39%) and pain killers (30% vs. 35%). The results may prompt additional interest in cannabis from alcoholic beverage producers,” Islam noted.
He further noted that major consumer companies, including Altria, Constellation Brands, British American Tobacco, and Imperial Brands, are expanding into the cannabis industry through joint ventures or acquiring stakes in Canadian cannabis producers, positioning for eventual US expansion when federal laws ease.
Looking ahead, President-elect Donald Trump may follow through on the Biden administration’s proposed removal of marijuana from the list of Schedule I controlled substances, reclassifying it as a Schedule III drug, a category that acknowledges the drug has lower misuse potential and is often used for medical benefits.
David Culver, the senior vice president of public affairs of the US Cannabis Council lobbying group, told NPR News last month that he’s very optimistic that Trump will approach cannabis in a similar way to Biden.
“We didn’t see a lot of activity from President Trump, if any at all, on cannabis reform” in his first term, Culver said, adding, “But I think this time is going to be different.”
In markets, some of the top marijuana ETFs, including AdvisorShares Pure US Cannabis ETF (MSOS), Amplify Alternative Harvest ETF (MJ), AdvisorShares Pure Cannabis ETF (YOLO), and Amplify US Alternative Harvest ETF (MJUS), have been battered since the marijuana stock bubble unraveled in early 2021. None of these ETFs have yet to bottom.
As I have previously stated, I believe it is time to end needless arrests and incarcerations of adults for small amounts of marijuana for personal use. We must also implement smart regulations, while providing access for adults, to safe, tested product. As a Floridian, I will be voting YES on Amendment 3 this November. As President, we will continue to focus on research to unlock the medical uses of marijuana to a Schedule 3 drug, and work with Congress to pass common sense laws, including safe banking for state authorized companies, and supporting states rights to pass marijuana laws, like in Florida, that work so well for their citizens.
Keep in mind that with individuals like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who will have prominent roles in the incoming administration and have been pro-legalization advocates, a significant shift in national policy may be just ahead in Trump’s second term.
Former Mossad agents revealed new details of Israel’s pager and walkie-talkie terror attacks carried out against members of Hezbollah in interviews with the CBS News program 60 Minutes this week..
According to a former Israeli intelligence agent known as Michael, Hezbollah bought more than 16,000 of the exploding devices. When Mossad chief David Barnea gave the green light for the attack in September, the pagers and walkie-talkies were detonated on subsequent days.
Some 42 people were killed, including two children, while about 4,000 were injured. Many lost their hands and eyes or had their stomachs ripped open by the explosions. Michael said the walkie-talkie batteries, which included explosive devices, were made in Israel at a Mossad facility.
Mossad then set up shell companies to infiltrate the supply chain and sell the devices to Hezbollah. The walkie-talkies were designed to go into armored tactical vests used in battle.
“We create a pretend world. We are a global production company: We write the screenplay, we’re the directors, we’re the producers, we’re the main actors,” Michael said. “And the world is our stage.”
Another former Mossad agent, Gabriel, told 60 Minutes that the spy agency began developing booby-trapped pagers in 2022. They wanted a device that Hezbollah members would carry with them at all times, not just in battle.
Gabriel said Mossad had learned that the Lebanese resistance movement was buying pagers from a company in Taiwan called Gold Apollo. Mossad set up shell companies, including one in Hungary, to produce the explosive pagers and market them under a licensing agreement with Gold Apollo.
The pagers had no intelligence capabilities and could not be used to track Hezbollah members or gather information about them, Gabriel said. They could only be detonated to kill or maim anyone holding them.
Hezbollah members, both in the military and civilian wings, used pagers instead of cell phones to communicate to avoid being surveilled by Israel. “This is a very stupid device by nature. This is the reason they’re using it. There’s almost no way how to tap it,” Gabriel said.
Mossad paid for fake ads on YouTube, promoting them as dustproof, waterproof, and with a long battery life. They also posted fake online testimonials for the pagers.
“It became the best product in the beeper area in the world,” Gabriel said. “When they are buying from us, they have zero clue that they are buying from the Mossad. We make like the ‘Truman Show,’ everything is controlled by us behind the scenes,” Gabriel claimed.
Israel’s Mossad learned Hezbollah was buying pagers from a company in Taiwan, and in 2022 started its pager plot. Sunday, a retired Mossad agent, key to the operation, explains how they made pagers explode. pic.twitter.com/MwbgQXg5nM
A Mossad shell company also hired the Gold Apollo saleswoman Hezbollah was already working with. She offered Hezbollah the first batch of pagers as an upgrade, free of charge. By the time of the terror attack in September 2024, around 5,000 Hezbollah members were carrying the pagers.
At 3:30 pm on September 17, Mossad detonated the pagers. The walkie-talkies were detonated the following day. “Mayhem ensued as explosions went off. Hospitals filled up with the wounded. Limbs and fingers were torn off. People were left bloodied, blinded, and even with holes in their stomachs,” CBS wrote.
Following the pager and walkie-talkie terror attacks, the Israeli Air Force unleashed a major bombing campaign in Lebanon. The bombing killed over 500 people on just the first day.
🇮🇱🇱🇧 Mossad agent on the the pager attack against Hezbollah:
“We create shell companies on top of shell companies and there is no way to trace it back to Israel. We create a pretend world.” pic.twitter.com/OymhOFsLLh
Owners Of Russian Ship Ursa Major Declare Sinking An “Act Of Terrorism”
The Russian cargo ship that sank on Tuesday in the Mediterranean Sea following a mysterious explosion in its engine room was described as an “act of terrorism,” according to the vessel’s owner.
Reuters cites the Russian news agency RIA, which reported on Christmas Day that Oboronlogistika, the ship’s owner and a subsidiary of the Russian Defense Ministry’s military construction operations, stated that the cargo ship, named Ursa Major, had been targeted in “a terrorist act.”
On Monday, Ukraine’s main intelligence directorate reported the cargo vessel was “sent by Russia to retrieve its weapons and equipment from Syria, broke down off the coast of Portugal due to a malfunction in the fuel pipe of its main engine.”
Russian cargo ship Ursa Major has sunk in the Mediterranean after suffering a catastrophic engine room explosion, according to Spanish authorities. 14 crew have been rescued, while two are still missing, according to Spanish media. pic.twitter.com/KbZTq1DuRs
The ship tracking website Marine Traffic shows Ursa Major’s last location was drifting on the high seas near Portugal before sinking on Tuesday.
Neither RIA nor Russian authorities have provided additional color about the claimed terrorist attack on the cargo vessel or who they suspect is responsible.
We asked earlier this week: “The big question for the Ursa Major is whether any US Navy submarines with special forces units lurk beneath.”
If the terrorist attack claim is confirmed, the fear is that the battlefield in Eastern Europe is broadening outside the region.
Nearly three years into the Russia-Ukraine war and marking the second Christmas, Free Press’ Jay Solomon recently asked: “Is World War III Already Here?”
Christmas is, above all else, a time for putting aside the petty grievances and differences that separate us from one another and finding meaning in something greater than ourselves.
Some of the best works of literature and cinema about the season examine this spirit of selflessness, which can seem antithetical to “America First” values when cast in a particular light. But at its core, the spirit of Christmas is quintessentially the same as that which brought millions of people to the polls in November to re-elect Donald Trump.
Attempting to catalog all of the thousands of Christmas movies, of course, would be an impossible feat, but below is a list of nine (plus honorable mentions) that resonate particularly well with the MAGA message.
While the list leaves a lot open to interpretation as to what constitutes a “Christmas” movie or a “MAGA” movie, the one prerequisite was that the themes of both had to be prevalent enough to be immediately recognizable.
Thus, Rambo: First Blood may have included a scene with Christmas decorations in it, but it did not make the cut—even though it might be considered a MAGA classic—because the movie itself does not directly involve the holiday. And although the BB gun subplot in A Christmas Story may have promoted Second Amendment rights for some, that was not an explicit message so much as it was a sign of the times.
We will kick things off with the low-hanging fruit—the only Christmas classic (to date) known to include a cameo from future two-time President Donald Trump himself.
The sequel to one of the most beloved modern Christmas classics is now one of the most beloved MAGA classics due to Trump’s cameo appearance. Much of the film revolves around the iconic Plaza Hotel, which Trump owned at the time but went on to sell in 1995. (Maybe he found out that the desk clerk also moonlighted as a transvestite.)
Another memorable scene takes place at the Wollman Rink, a public ice-skating ring with strong ties to the former Manhattan real-estate magnate. And as an added bonus, the movie features an early appearance from MAGA-friendly comedian Rob Schneider as the bellhop.
Unfortunately, some of its other actors, including Macaulay Culkin and Daniel Stern, have attempted in recent years to use the movie’s renewed relevance as a platform for petty political attacks, and any royalties from it benefit them as well.
Honorable mention: While stylistically very different and not specifically centered around Trump himself, MAGA fans might also consider watching A Lion in Winter, the star-studded 1968 Oscar-winner about an aging ruler who—like Trump—has three sons and must decide who is best fit to carry on his dynasty.
The 1985 box-office smash came at the very peak of the Ronald Reagan era, just two years before the famous Berlin speech that saw Reagan urging Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” and four years before the official fall of the Soviet Union. It was the last of the Rocky films to be directed by Trump-backer Sylvester Stallone (who fittingly described the Republican leader as a “Dickensian” character) until 2006’s Rocky Balboa.
While the Cold War-jingoism resonated with Republicans during the Reagan era, Stallone’s climactic victory speech also underscores the ideas of mutual respect and healthy dialogue as a means to peace.
“In here, there were two guys killing each other, but I guess that’s better than 20 million,” Rocky Balboa says after his defeat of Ivan Drago. “I guess what I’m trying to say, is that if I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!”
He then wishes his son a Merry Christmas, as the fight took place on Christmas Day. Although the holiday does not figure prominently into the plot, it is one of several action movies whose inclusion of Christmas elements has sparked debate.
However, because the Soviet Union was typically hostile toward religion and did not formally recognize Christmas as a holiday, Balboa’s sacrifice in forgoing the holiday season for the greater good of his country may have been an important reminder that many of those in uniform may not have had the luxury of returning home for the holidays.
Honorable mention:The aforementioned Rambo: First Blood has holiday decorations, but the ever-controversial Die Hard, set during the Christmas season, is the best known of all the Christmas “action” movies that have audiences divided, featuring rogue cop John McClane (portrayed by Bruce Willis—another rare Hollywood Republican) taking on a network of terrorists in New York City.
Ref star Denis Leary unfortunately made the decision in a 2016 gag appearance with late-night host James Corden to attack Trump by rewriting the words to his 1990s gag song “A**hole” for that year’s campaign against Hillary Clinton. It was a hamfisted attempt at comedy then, and it has aged particularly poorly given Trump’s resonance with the American voting public—many of them the same blue-collar types whom Leary tried to appeal to with his updated Archie Bunker schtick.
Leary’s 1994 holiday hit The Ref also aged poorly for its other star, Kevin Spacey, but those able to suspend their disbelief can appreciate the fantastic comedic timing that Spacey and co-star Judy Davis have as a bickering couple on the verge of divorce. There may be one or two obligatory Republican “digs” slipped into the script, but those only accentuate the absurdity of an affluent and insufferable New England family that loves to virtue-signal but finds itself utterly out of touch with anything beyond their own selfish needs and desires—until the outside world forces its way into their lives.
Leary, as a cat-burglar caught in the middle of a hostage situation gone awry, is the perfect foil for the limousine liberals, presaging the “Tea Party” movement that would arrive 10 years later.
Honorable mention:While the only reference to American politics in 2003’s Love Actually may be the scene with Billy Bob Thornton as a Bill Clinton/George W. Bush hybrid of an uncouth, self-serving American president, the movie’s other plots have become well known for their anachronisms—including toxic, anti-MeToo workplaces, trans/LGBT humor and fat shaming, plus a kid gatehopping past airport security and not getting shot. For those who don’t know the holiday classic by heart, consider pouring everyone a cup of spiked eggnog and turning it into a fun drinking game every time something happens that you could never get away with 20 years later.
Like other selections on the list, the star of this early Coen Brothers movie, Tim Robbins, is an outspoken leftist in real life, which can make it difficult to identify with the character. Yet, it also serves as a reminder than many of the classically liberal values once embraced by the Left have now been embraced and appropriated by MAGA-style populism.
It involves a corporation (with the great Paul Newman as a member of its board of directors) that selects Robbins’s character as its top executive in hopes of tanking the stock to permit a corporate buyout. But Robbins generates an idea that is both deceptively simple and wildly appealing, leading the plot to backfire.
The movie is set over Christmas, with its climax occurring on New Year’s Eve, and has some yuletide thematic elements at the end appearing to echo stories like A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life.
Honorable mention:Others have pointed out in the past that when the full set of facts is taken into consideration, the true hero of It’s a Wonderful Lifeis Henry Potter, a stockholder in the Bailey Building and Loan company who is forced to pay the price for its bad business decisions. Like Trump, Potter falls the victim to a socialist plot that uses propaganda and lawfare to slander him into submission. Although the movie ends with George Bailey having prevailed, there are hints that a world where Potter never existed would be far worse than one where Bailey never existed.
Why it counts: Globalist elites’ excesses/depravity
Stanley Kubrick’s final movie, based on Austrian author Arthur Schnitzler’s 1926 novella “Dream Story,” changes the events from a Mardi Gras celebration to a Christmas one, adding more to the surreal quality of the cinematography.
The 1999 Tom Cruise film has secured a unique place in pop culture, even inspiring a recent AI tribute by the Dor Brothers that featured world leaders attending a similar masked ball.
Kurbrick also drew much of the film’s aesthetic from accounts of a real-life 1972 black-tie ball hosted by Baroness Marie-Hélène de Rothschild that was heavy on Satanic symbolism.
Theories about members of the globalist elite engaging in such bizarre behavior, often connected to Satanic undertones and sex-cults, have continued to snowball in recent years, ranging from the secret cover-up of Jeffrey Epstein’s client list to the rumors of the Clinton–Podesta Pizzagate conspiracy, to the accounts of cocaine-fueled orgies involving members of Congress and the annual Davos conference hosted by the World Economic Forum.
Honorable mention:Rod Serling’s 1964 made-for-TV adaptation of A Christmas Carol, titled Carol for Another Christmas was a star-studded propaganda piece commissioned by the United Nations to persuade Americans that the UN did not have a communist agenda in the aftermath of the JFK assassination. It resurfaced in 2012 after Turner Classic Movies began re-airing it. But hindsight makes the propaganda all the more obvious and blatant, perhaps exposing just how left-wing globalist groups like the UN have used Hollywood to undermine American interests.
Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam directed this 1985 dystopian tale (released just weeks after Rambo IV) about a cog in the system who, shortly before Christmas, discovers a serious mistake caused by a literal bug in the machinery. The discovery sends him into a Kafkaesque spiral of tension-escalating plot twists. While trying to break free from the system, he is himself detained and tortured, with the ending leaving it ambiguous as to whether freedom in this society is truly attainable.
Honorable mention:The Nativity Story, a 2006 retelling of the birth of Jesus tells the familiar tale with an emphasis on the Magi (not to be confused with MAGA), the three wise men who arrived on Jan. 6—known to Christians as the celebration of the Epiphany. King Herrod of Judea sought help from the visiting Oriental trio in locating the Jewish messiah, whom he feared would supplant him as ruler. Although the king resorted to drastic measures—demanding the slaughter of innocent babies, much like the modern Left’s abortion agenda—the Magi refused to cooperate, making them the original J6 political dissidents.
The 2002 third installment in the comedic series that coined the term “Bye Felicia” finds friends Craig (portrayed by red-pilled rapper Ice Cube) and Day-Day forced to get jobs as security guards after a thief dressed as Santa steals all their Christmas presents. The movie also features a turn from Terry Crews (another red-pilled actor, best known for his turn as President Camacho in the modern cult classic Idiocracy) as a newly-released inmate who picked up homosexual tendencies while incarcerated.
Honorable mention:Jim Varney’s redneck hero Ernest P. Worrell returns to his most famous role in 1988’s Ernest Saves Christmas, in which the hero becomes Santa Claus after the original Santa leaves his magic bag in the back of Ernest’s cab in Orlando.
Made during the peak of the COVID-19 hysteria, this 2021 movie, with an ensemble cast led by Keira Knightley, begins as the typical “home for the holidays” comedy set at a British country estate. However, it later takes a genre-bending turn that is as jarring and drastic as the arrival of the pandemic was in March 2020. It is one of the few on this list that may have spoilers, so viewers who don’t mind dampening the holiday spirit (definitely not one to watch with the kids) should watch it for themselves.
Honorable mention: The Stephen Spielberg-produced Gremlins, written by future Harry Potter director Chris Columbus, remarkably is considered a kid-friendly movie—or, at least, it was when it first came out in 1984. However, it too blends heartwarming and nostalgic family comedy with significantly darker elements after a specimen of Chinese origin, the mogwai, makes its way to small-town America. A scientist (biology teacher Mr. Hanson) then ignores the rules for containing it, leading to a catastrophic epidemic that seem a lot like the gain-of-function research advocated by ex-COVID czar Anthony Fauci.
With the exception of The Nativity Story, none of the films listed connect with the religious component of the Christmas holiday. That has much to do with its commercialization and sanitization by Hollywood and others to make it more inclusive and profitable.
I, for one, take no issue with the idea of everyone sharing in a seasonal yuletide spirit regardless of belief (this year, Christmas happens to coincide with the start of the relatively minor Jewish holiday of Hannukah), but ultimately there is only one thing that “Christmas is all about,” and nobody articulates that as well as Linus in this 1965 animated classic, which has prevailed over all the efforts by the Left to memory-hole it.
Honorable mention: Aliens envious of Earth’s culture, travel there to kidnap two children, along with Santa Claus, but later decide that it is unreconcilable with their own culture in 1964’s Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, made for an estimated budget of around $200,000. They attempt to sabotage Santa’s toymaking industry and to replace Santa with one of their own kind, but the plan fails, much as the Left’s so-called Great Replacement strategy via open borders cannot conquer the Western cultures they are seeking to supplant with their reverse-colonization scheme.
The trial of Daniel Penny split many observers into two camps—one passionately for and the other fiercely against the defendant, who restrained Jordan Neely in a chokehold on a New York subway in May 2023 and Neely died.
The first camp brands Penny, who was acquitted of the charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, a brave hero who was protecting others from Neely. They say Penny is a victim of overreach by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
The second camp calls Penny a killer with no regard for the value of a poor, ill, homeless man’s life.
Representative of the view showing disdain for Penny were public comments made by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), whose district includes part of Queens. Before the trial began, she called him a “murderer,” and after the verdict, she criticized him again, saying Penny “does not have remorse about taking another person’s life.”
Defense lawyers, who unsuccessfully moved for a mistrial, complained to Judge Maxwell Wiley about the “circus-like” atmosphere fostered by loud, angry, sometimes menacing protesters on the street outside the courthouse.
Protesters had made threats against their client and against jurors if they didn’t vote to convict, defense lawyer Thomas Kenniff told the judge.
The trial began in late October and ended with Penny’s acquittal on Dec. 9. Despite the acquittal, the case raises questions about the challenge of holding a fair and impartial trial in an age of 24/7 social media saturation.
David Dorfman, a professor of law at Pace University in New York City, said he believes the “toxic social media environment” and the politicization of the justice system made it difficult to have a fair trial, in a case that the government never should have brought in the first place.
Divine Pryor, executive director of the Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions, said he doesn’t think the 24/7 coverage of the Penny case or the street protests exerted undue influence on the course of the trial or the outcome.
“There are always non-evidentiary pressures that emerge during any high-profile trial that come from arenas outside the judicial process, and they are usually shaped and guided by the media,” he said. His organization, a New York-based nonprofit, advocates for criminal justice reform.
“Unfortunately, I was not surprised by the verdict, and I did not expect a conviction on any of the charges, because he was immediately portrayed as a ‘war hero’ who was, once again, protecting the community,” Pryor said in an email to The Epoch Times.
“He was able to make bail and obtain legal counsel, and he won the hearts of the public. The fact that he was a middle-class, white male—well, what’s understood needs no explanation,” he said.
Pryor said he views the Penny case as similar in some ways to the Bernhard Goetz case in the ‘80s. Goetz shot and injured four young black men who he believed were trying to rob him on a subway in December 1984. In that case, public perceptions of crime, and the races of the people involved, may have shaped perceptions even before the case went to trial, Pryor suggested. The jury ultimately convicted Goetz of carrying an unlicensed firearm but acquitted him of attempted murder.
As a defense lawyer, Kenniff saw it differently. He sees non-evidentiary pressures as a negative influence not just in this trial, but in a politicized justice system more generally.
“There were certainly efforts to malign our client and poison the jury pool against him. I think Steven Raiser and I were successful in beating back against much of that, but I can’t say it didn’t impact things,” Kenniff said in an email to The Epoch Times.
Intimidation of jurors from activists and protesters demanding a certain outcome presents a “real risk,” he said.
“We saw attempts at that in this trial, where witnesses admitted they were afraid to testify favorably towards Mr. Penny out of fear of retribution. However, the jury refused to be swayed by any of that, and for that we’re grateful,” Kenniff stated.
Harvey Kushner, chair of the criminal justice department at Long Island University, said the social media-driven pressures that moved Penny’s defense lawyers to argue for a mistrial may be all the more severe in years to come.
“If you look at the Penny case, you can’t compare it to other times, because the media have changed so dramatically,” Kushner said.
“This was all over the media, people were not only viewing it but interacting with it on Facebook, TikTok, and X. The way they process it is different today.”
In making its case to the jury, the defense evoked a situation that some or all of the twelve men and women could identify with, having rode the subway themselves and having found themselves in vulnerable situations where no police officers were on hand to respond in the event of an immediate physical threat.
The incident that defense lawyers Steven Raiser and Thomas Kenniff and lead prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran, debated in a lower Manhattan courtroom began on May 1, 2023, when an uptown F train pulled into the Second Avenue station.
Before the doors closed, Neely entered the train and immediately began acting in a manner that frightened and alarmed passengers, according to several who took the stand during the trial.
Neely, who had a record of 42 arrests and an outstanding warrant for his arrest on an assault charge at the time, threw his jacket onto the ground and began shouting that he was hungry, homeless, and did not care whether he went back to prison on Rikers Island.
That was when Penny, who had been listening to music on his earbuds, asked a stranger to hold the earbuds, and then got up, moved behind Neely, and applied a chokehold he had learned during his time in the U.S. Marines.
Direct and cross-examination dwelled extensively on the amount of time that Penny restrained Neely and on the physical and physiological factors that caused Neely’s death a short time later.
Nonetheless, witness after witness reiterated the sheer terror that Neely’s conduct caused them.
Though called to the stand as government witnesses, these men and women of diverse professional, personal, and ethnic backgrounds gave a version of events that could only buttress the defense position that passengers on the F train had a reasonable and immediate fear for their physical safety.
Lori Sitro, a research director at an agency in the city, described feeling particularly vulnerable because she had her small boy with her on the train. Under direct examination from a prosecutor, Sitro said that Neely’s threats were explicit, and frightening.
“He was shouting in people’s faces, ‘I don’t have water, I don’t have food, I don’t have a home, I want to hurt people, I want to go to Rikers, I want to go to prison.’ And he was getting increasingly belligerent,” Sitro recalled.
From the witness stand, Sitro performed a brief pantomime of lunges that she said Neely made toward passengers on the train. His conduct made her so fearful for the safety of her son, that she moved a stroller in front of him as an impromptu shield.
Another passenger, a teenaged student named Yvette Rosario, recalled feeling such terror that she thought she would pass out, and burying her face in the chest of a friend who stood next to her.
Dan Couvreur, the founder of a financial startup, said the incident far surpassed tense, unpleasant things he had witnessed on the subway before. “The anger, the aggressiveness, and that tone set it above these other situations that I’ve seen,” he said.
Yet another witness, Alethea Gittings, who was on her way to a dentist’s appointment when the trouble started, attributed a highly explicit threat to Neely. “If I remember correctly, he said ‘I don’t give a damn, I’ll kill a [expletive], I’m ready to die,’” she testified.
Gittings further testified not only to thanking Penny for his actions, but to agreeing, without any pressure on Penny’s part, to speak to police about what had happened.
The defense made much of the accounts of these men and women, who suddenly found themselves in a tense and terrifying situation and in need of someone to come to their aid.
The Musk-Led Manufacturing Revolution Nobody Is Talking About
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.
.@thejefflutz to @farzyness: Tesla is Revolutionizing Manufacturing—And Few Are Talking About It
“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… pic.twitter.com/a5a60vBxJR
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.
