Job creation smashed expectations in December, as employers finished the hiring season strong, optimistic about the end of Bidenomics and the return of the Trump bump. Employers added 256,000 jobs last month, and the unemployment rate fell to 4.1%. So much for Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s weakening labor market.
It’s New Year in America again.
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Not only have America’s priorities shifted as a nation – as evidenced by President-elect Donald Trump winning the popular vote on a largely conservative populist set of priorities – but divisions are emerging between conservatives who consider themselves part of “MAGA” (Make America Great Again) and those who do not.
The 2024 election was a powerful nation-wide referendum on the decades-long failed globalist experiment, with voters strongly aligning with President Trump’s populist, America First platform.
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The Picower family is forcing shoddy electric appliances into every American home to assuage their guilty consciences.
As the single-largest beneficiaries of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, the Picowers have plenty to feel awkward about. One way they’re excising the guilt is by financing climate change lawsuits and leftwing judicial influence schemes that will strip Americans of conveniences they take for granted – say hot showers or efficient dishwashers.
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Following Congress’ certification of President-elect Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election on Jan. 6, all eyes now turn towards Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration and most importantly, to his first days in office and the work to be done in enacting his agenda.
The first president since Grover Cleveland to serve non-consecutive terms, Trump has a lot of unfinished business — completing the border wall, extending and expanding his tax cuts, restoring American energy dominance, using tariffs to bolster American production and so forth — but certainly cleaning up the national security apparatus that was weaponized against him before he was ever elected in 2016 has to be a top priority.
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Over at Instapundit, Mark Tapscott called my attention to an interview in our former paper of record that Times journo Nicholas Kristoff conducts with Elaine Pagels, the celebrated (by some) Princeton historian of religion.
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And there they go again.
News arrives as follows, this headline from The Hill but one on the subject:
Biden to award Liz Cheney and others with Presidential Citizens Medal
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The Global Engagement Center, an office housed within the State Department and aiming to thwart disinformation and misinformation, has been forced by Congress to close up shop. It’s no mystery why; the taxpayer-backed GEC violated its mandate to work only overseas and devolved into a partisan enabler of speech suppression in the United States.
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I have spent the past thirty-five years creating small, highly-personalized schools where students flourish. I have, if you will, bet my life on the value of these schools—microschools before they became a thing. Over the course of that time, I’ve seen hundreds of children who were anxious, depressed—sometimes even suicidal—become happy and well within weeks or months of switching from a large, impersonal public school to a small learning environment which offered a closely-connected community.
Based on that experience, for the past decade I’ve been looking at research showing the various ways in which small, high-touch learning environments may be more beneficial for student mental health than are large, impersonal public schools.
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We did it.
The greatest comeback in political history, President Donald Trump taking back the office he held four years ago, is historic and nothing short of remarkable. The message it sends is that “Make America Great Again,” the MAGA movement, is here to stay. Long gone are the days of the old GOP establishment, the controlled opposition that had no problem managing the decline of the nation along with the Democrats. Now, Americans are no longer the forgotten men and women. We are ascendant, and we must make sure that our party will continue this path for the foreseeable future.
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2024 proved to be the year of the reemergence of many once and unfairly pilloried public figures.
Elon Musk weathered nonstop attacks on his X social media platform. Furor escalated over his newfound 2024 Trump advocacy—even as he ended 2024 with his iconic Tesla brand still the best-selling car in six states and the most popular electric vehicle in the entire nation.
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For the past 40 years, American politicians have argued how wars in far-flung third-world countries are in the United States’ vital strategic interests. From Iraq to Kosovo, American leaders of both parties squandered trillions of dollars and thousands of lives chasing phantom threats around the world.
The rationale behind these interventions has often been based on outright fabrications cloaked by high-falutin’ language to the American public. Take President Bill Clinton’s 78-day bombing of a European capital — the first since World War II. Clinton sold the intervention as a way to prevent World War III: “We act to prevent a wider war, to defuse a powder keg at the heart of Europe, that has exploded twice before in this century with catastrophic results.”
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Just in time for Christmas, some infighting has broken out among Trump supporters. Muckraking online personality Laura Loomer began the fracas with criticism of Sriram Krishnan, who Trump has chosen to be an AI policy advisor. Loomer pointed out that Krishnan has said previously that he wants the quota of green cards available to his Indian coethnics to be expanded.
Elon Musk entered the fray and argued that in order for the country to remain competitive, it must import talent from overseas.
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For those of us in the news business, 2024 provided a steady stream of stories to cover—and rarely a dull moment. From the Republican primaries early in the year to the assassination attempts and political conventions this summer, our Daily Signal team stayed busy through Election Day and in the days that followed.
During his first term as president, Donald Trump provided a plethora of political and policy news for us to report. We expect the same will be true in 2025. But before we turn the page on this year, our team reflected on the winners and losers—compiling the following list (listed alphabetically).
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PBS, backed by your tax dollars, hosted the leader of a group that compares conservatives to the KKK, and she used the opportunity to demonize President-elect Donald Trump. Then PBS hosted one of her close allies who suggested that America failing to elect Vice President Kamala Harris emboldens misogyny.
The two segments make a rather eloquent case against continued public funding for PBS.
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President-elect Donald J. Trump promised that if elected he would govern in bold colors, not pale pastels. Our next president believes deeply in American Exceptionalism and is making it perfectly clear that the days of America taking a back seat to anyone are over.
Trump’s optimistic vision is for our great nation to lead once again as a beacon of freedom for centuries to come, and that we must be victorious in the great battle of ideals that is currently underway. There is simply no escaping it; the United States will continue to lead the world for good or Communist China will gladly take up the mantle and lead it for evil.
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In the weeks before the 2016 Trump Electoral College victory, Trump was polling between 35 and 40 percent.
He would average only about 41 percent approval over his tumultuous four-year tenure.
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It’s no secret that many of the tech giants operate as monopolies, and one of the worst offenders is Microsoft. The Federal Trade Commission recently launched an antitrust investigation against Bill Gates’s creation, alleging it works unfairly to stifle competition and control various sectors of the tech market. The FTC wants to inquire into how Microsoft offers its cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity products. The agency is particularly concerned with the tech giant’s bundling services that kneecap the competition.
There is some uncertainty about whether the FTC will continue the investigation under the new Trump administration. It was launched by current FTC chair Lina Khan, a notorious leftist rightfully distrusted by conservatives. But while many of her initiatives should be discarded by Andrew Ferguson, Trump’s pick to replace her, the Microsoft investigation is not one of them. It aligns with conservative priorities on correcting Big Tech malfeasance.
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Ask a leader how to get a job in Washington, D.C., and he’ll say, “Call A.J. Rice.” The author of The White Privilege Album and a commentator in his own right, whose writings are both intelligent and irreverent, Rice is also the founder of Publius PR. His connections are both a means to network and a network for the distribution of conservative ideas. Unlike the networks of old, with their gatekeepers and empty suits, a new network—a series of conservative networks—now exists. The network is a success, thanks to a proposition that is as foreign to liberals as it is natural to conservatives: entertainment matters. Entertainment is a necessity, as Rice knows, because it is not enough to be right or a person of the right. Entertainment is a form of education, as Rice proves, because the strength of an idea rests on the strength—the talent, the skill, the timing, the finesse—of the person who advances it.
Look at President Trump, who is the most famous entertainer among presidents since Ronald Reagan and the only other president besides Reagan with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Look at how Trump embodies Rice’s point about communication. Look, also, at how Trump’s advisers, who are the same people that Rice advises, entertain an audience. The sights—and the sites, from Coachella to Madison Square Garden to Van Andel Arena—have the air of a rock concert. The performances are not rallies but experiences, with the crowds as players, in which everyone takes part.
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Can Donald Trump reduce house prices?
A recent study by Redfin found that millions of Americans are skipping meals, selling belongings, and even delaying medical care to afford housing. Three in four Americans making less than $50,000—nearly half of Americans make less than $50,000—say they “regularly struggle” to keep a roof over their head.
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When U.S. officials are asked about China, the discussion usually defaults to Taiwan or tariffs. But another threat from Beijing has been growing for years, and it can be found much closer to home—in Latin America.
Case in point: the deep-sea megaport that just opened in Chancay, Peru.
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In today’s digital era, where social media platforms serve as the battlegrounds for ideas, information and cultural exchange, the conversation around banning TikTok must be approached with caution and a deep understanding of its implications.
With over 170 million American users, TikTok has transcended mere entertainment to become a vital tool for communication, creativity and, notably in the 2024 presidential election, political engagement. President-elect Donald Trump’s strategic embrace of this platform, known for its cultural influence among the younger demographic, was instrumental in clinching his win.
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War had already been waging in Europe for months when Pope Benedict issued a plea from Rome on Dec. 7, 1914 to leaders of Europe: declare a Christmas truce.
Benedict saw how badly peace was needed, even if it was only for a day. The First Battle of Ypres alone, fought from October 19 to November 22, had resulted in some 200,000 casualties (mostly German and French soldiers, but also thousands of English and Belgians). The First Battle of the Marne was even worse.
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In the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential victory, Big Tech companies became central hubs of the so-called “resistance” against him, firing up censorship and deplatforming campaigns, culminating in the then-former president’s banishment from Facebook and Twitter after the Jan. 6, 2021 riot.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Google founder Sergei Brin famously led thousands of employees in protest against Trump’s immigration policies. During the 2020 campaign, Big Tech platforms even censored discussions of the Hunter Biden laptop story in order to curry favor with his father and Trump’s opponent — former Vice President Joe Biden.
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Joe Biden, to the degree he was cognizant, has always reflected the Obama-era utopia dream of a borderless world, and thus millions of poor have illegally entered the United States. On numerous occasions, he offered clear warnings of what he would do if he ever had power over immigration policy.
Do we remember this 2020 Biden boast to let in millions and offer blanket amnesties?
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Democrats are stumbling all over each other to blame Biden for staying in the presidential race too long. Ha!
Axios reported that “Vice President Harris’ loss raised a feeling among Democrats that Biden’s refusal to leave the race until July cost the party dearly—even as they got caught up in a global anti-incumbency wave.”
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Tradition is the cumulative experience of thousands of human lives. It is the conclusions reached by countless ancestors who tested what it meant to live well. Unfortunately, we are losing many of our traditions and their accompanying wisdom, abandoning the practices by which we speak to the past, and the past speaks to us.
One way our ancestors lived well was by engaging in certain yearly celebrations surrounding Christmas and the holiday season. They bequeathed many of these delightful and meaningful celebrations to us—if we care to receive them.
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In 1906, a new carol appeared in “The English Hymnal,” an influential collection of British church music. With words by British poet Christina Rossetti, set to a tune by composer Gustav Holst, it became one of Britain’s most beloved Christmas songs. Now known as “In the Bleak Midwinter,” it was voted the “greatest carol of all time” in a 2008 BBC survey of choral experts.
“In the Bleak Midwinter” began life as a poem, which Rossetti simply titled “A Christmas Carol.” When the hymnal paired her words with music, the poem took on a new identity in song – a phenomenon documented by literature researcher Emily McConkey. But it also became embedded into popular culture in nonmusical forms. “A Christmas Carol,” or parts of it, has appeared on Christmas cards, ornaments, tea towels, mugs and other household items. It has inspired mystery novels and, more recently, became a recurring motif in the British television series “Peaky Blinders.”
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Tennessee’s State Funding Board approved a tax growth rate of 1.25 to 2.15 percent for the 2025-2026 fiscal year. However, this estimation did not consider that the Trump administration will assume control of the federal government in 2025, and Tennessee stands poised to reap significant economic benefits from the anticipated policy shifts. The state’s diverse economy — encompassing manufacturing, agriculture, and a burgeoning tech sector — is well-positioned to thrive under the incoming administration’s pro-freedom agenda.
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by Richard Truesdell and Keith Lehmann As was proven during the 2024 election cycle, we are well beyond the scope of mere bias in the legacy media. Given the shrinking audience influence coupled with massively declining income from severe loss of cable subscriptions and advertising revenue, American media outlets have chosen a different course: straight-up propaganda intended for consumption by a niche audience, half of which don’t know they’re being lied to and the other half not caring. Broadcasting has been replaced with “wish casting.” How else can we explain the completely lopsided coverage from the alphabet news outlets, which provided Kamala Harris with “78 percent positive coverage, while these same networks have pummeled former President Donald Trump with 85 percent negative coverage?” And it was even more biased on CNN and MSNBC. Major media outlets broadcast opinion-centric journalism that push narratives, ranging from “extinction-grade climate crisis” pronouncements to the “existential threat to democracy” dangers of a second Donald Trump presidency. There are no “two sides” reporting here; it is commentary passed off as “journalism” that wraps news stories around pre-packaged and carefully circulated talking points that favor the establishment bureaucracy and big-moneyed interests over American citizens. Simultaneously, Trump is a threat to democracy and will jail…
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by Jeffery Rendall We’ve all heard it: “You can’t make somethin’ out of nothin’.” Or so it would seem, though president elect Donald J. Trump appears destined to try if his plan to create new American cities out of currently mostly barren federal lands ever comes to fruition. You’ve probably heard Trump mention fashioning “Freedom Cities” before but might’ve figured he wasn’t serious about actually doing it especially considering such a massive undertaking as building whole new metropolises out of the wilderness or desert probably isn’t something most down-to-earth pragmatic folks envision doing on a regular basis. For those of us who’ve gone about overseeing the building of a new house realize it isn’t a task that can be done overnight. The old saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day” has real shades of truth to it. Yet, dreaming up “big” things and bringing the ideas to life is what Trump has done since a young age as a real estate developer. Trump seemingly took the attitude that nothing was impossible. I myself have seen a number of his buildings – and he’s designed golf courses (with huge Niagara Falls-like waterfalls), too. There just aren’t many limitations when it…
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President-elect Donald Trump is weighing in on Congress’ latest omnibus spending bill, making continuing appropriations through Sept. 30, 2025, that came in at a whopping more than 1,500 pages all but declaring war on Congressional Republicans, who he threatened with party primaries in 2026 if they pass the current bill.
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As transgender issues have risen in prominence, a patchwork of federalism has emerged, with red states taking a firm stand against the mutilation and chemical castration of young people and blue states declaring themselves “sanctuary states” for transgender youth.
States like Idaho, Florida, Alabama and North Dakota have taken a strong stand against the chemical castration or mutilation of minors, making it a felony to drug or operate on children under the age of eighteen for the purposes of changing their gender.
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Just weeks before President-elect Trump announced that Dr. Jay Bhattacharya would be his nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Bhattacharya and I were together at Stanford University for a bold, first-of-its-kind symposium on public health decision making during the COVID-19 crisis. The idea behind the symposium was to shatter the public health echo chamber and bring diverse perspectives together in respectful dialogue. Dr. Bhattacharya and I are close friends, but our backgrounds are quite different. He is firmly at home at Stanford, having gone there as an undergraduate, and then going on to get a medical degree and a Ph.D. there before joining the faculty as a Professor of Health Policy. I, on the other hand, am a blue-collar Midwesterner who enlisted the in U.S. Navy after high school. I carry no titles of academic distinction and was likely the only participant at the symposium without a medical degree or PhD.
Yet, I was invited by Stanford to moderate the symposium’s opening panel with seven leading public health authorities from top institutions across the world. What brought me into this unusual position was my expanding work to rebuild truth and trust in public health—a collaboration that began with former NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins and the Braver Angels organization, which is nation’s largest movement working to bridge the partisan divide.
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Never in U.S. history has a president-elect been welcomed as the real president before his January 20 inauguration. And never has the incumbent president so willingly surrendered his last two months in office and all but abdicated—to the relief of his nation and the rest of the world.
One reason so many are welcoming Trump’s return is the universally desperate hope that his election spelled an end to a collective madness at home and its ripples abroad during the last four years. And why not?
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Ohio state legislators are putting the finishing touches on bipartisan legislation to make healthcare more affordable and accessible. This week, state representatives and senators are working in conference to negotiate the final text of hospital price transparency legislation each chamber has passed versions of. They must pass this vital patient protection before the legislative session concludes at the end of the week, and Gov. DeWine must sign it into law.
Like many Ohioans, I learned about the importance of upfront hospital prices the hard way. After experiencing intense abdominal pain last year, my physician told me I needed umbilical hernia surgery — a four-hour outpatient procedure at a hospital in Barberton. The surgery was a success, and I wasn’t overly concerned about the cost because I have good insurance through my husband’s union job.
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More than 248 years ago, our Founding Fathers established our nation on the principle that government should be accountable to We the People.
Under the Biden-Harris administration, though, we have seen that principle erode as the government becomes increasingly unaccountable with wasteful spending and a growing bureaucracy.
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After the sudden overthrow of Syria’s brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad, there has been plenty of media commentary expressing optimism about the likely new Syrian government led by the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Although this group is a former al Qaeda offshoot, it claims to have reformed, intends to establish a moderate and tolerant government, and plans to hold elections.
The Biden administration appears ready to give a new HTS government the benefit of the doubt. Biden officials have said they will recognize and support a new government in Syria if it makes certain commitments to the U.S., including renouncing terrorism and destroying chemical weapons in the country. The Biden administration also is considering lifting U.S. terrorist designations from the HTS and its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani.
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Between the presidential election, foreign conflicts across the globe, and major pocketbook issues like inflation and healthcare prices, it is safe to say that Washington, D.C. and the rest of the country have a lot to keep up with these days. Unfortunately, that means that a horribly flawed piece of legislation that will impact how all Americans interact with the internet is making its way through Congress with little attention from anyone but political insiders.
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Barack Obama had long been rumored as the catalyst for the 2020 Biden nomination — and thereafter played the whispering puppeteer behind the subsequent lost Biden administration years.
As such he and his coterie proved the virtual architects of the Biden administration, one of the most unpopular and failed presidencies in American history.
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Confirming reports he planned to step down before Donald Trump’s inauguration next month, FBI Director Christopher Wray today announced he will retire at the official end of the Biden administration. Wray, appointed by then-President Trump in 2017, delivered the news during an all-hands-on-deck virtual meeting of more than 38,000 FBI employees.
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President-elect Donald Trump just announced his sweeping plan to slash the size of the federal government through a new government agency run by businessmen Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
The temporary agency, which Trump has named the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), will be tasked with slashing government bureaucracy, ending nonsensical regulations, and cutting wasteful expenditures, initiatives the American people appear all too happy to see put into action.
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All I want for Christmas is a DOGE!
While this isn’t a typical holiday request – more likely people would prefer a furry, friendly kind of animal who greets them at the door to a static, cold, unfeeling stack of program cancellation papers – this year, in 2024, The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is all the rage simply because the new non-government advisory board will bring something new and novel to the Washington swamp, an entity focused on cleaning up the gargantuan fiscal mess in the nation’s capital rather than bent on creating new complications.
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President Joe Biden is engaged in an end of presidency power play to keep Democrat control over the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) by pushing a renewal of current chair Lauren McFerran to another term. Senate Republicans should do everything in their power to stop this power play and allow newly elected President Donald Trump to name the next Chairperson. This means that they have to all show up to each lame duck Senate session to stop any funny business.
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by Julie Kelley Even as President-elect Donald Trump promised on Sunday to act “very quickly” on pardons for many of the protesters involved in the events of January 6, the Biden administration’s Justice Department is continuing to arrest and try people for actions that occurred almost four years ago while opposing motions to delay trials because of the need for “the prompt and efficient administration of justice.” If the defeat of Kamala Harris constituted at least a partial repudiation of the lawfare against Trump and his supporters, the message appears to be lost on top brass at the DOJ. Prosecutors are pushing ahead with what they consider the department’s crowning achievement: the so-called “Capitol Siege” investigation into the events of Jan. 6, 2021. In what Attorney General Merrick Garland describes as the biggest criminal investigation in Department of Justice history, more than 1,560 people have been charged for federal crimes never before used against political protesters, including under a post-Enron obstruction statute overturned by the Supreme Court in June. At least 1,000 of these defendants have been convicted – either at trial or by accepting plea offers – with some 650 defendants ordered to serve time in a federal prison. Sentences range…
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Deflated by the resounding November defeat, the left now believes it can magically rebound by destroying Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees.
Many of Trump’s picks are well outside the usual Washington, DC/New York political, media, and corporate nexus.
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Events over the past months have exposed a very stark divide between the globalist, collectivist, “woke” authorities of Europe and the Make America Great Again (MAGA) patriot movement here in the United States. To be frank, it is almost as if the snide, effete elitists who control the nations of the European continent want to rub our noses in their horror show.
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Most Americans once were mostly in agreement about what happened on December 7, 1941, 80 years ago this year. But not so much now, given either the neglect of America’s past in the schools or woke revisionism at odds with the truth.
The Pacific war that followed Pearl Harbor was not a result of America egging on the Japanese, not about starting a race war, and not about much other than a confident and cruel Japanese empire falsely assuming that its stronger American rival either would not or could not stop its transoceanic ambitions.
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Job creation in November bounced back, with 227,000 jobs created, after coming to a standstill in October.
This solid jobs report is due to one factor: President Trump’s reelection. The Republican victory has renewed confidence among Main Street job creators. The tough economic times of the Biden-Harris administration are ending, and the strong Trump economy is returning.
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Most Americans tend to think of private property simply as a home – the place where the family resides, stores their belongings, and finds shelter and safety from the elements. It’s where you live. It’s yours because you pay the mortgage and the taxes. Most people don’t give property ownership much more thought than that.
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In recent months, a disturbing revelation has emerged from the heart of our nation’s immigration system: Over 300,000 unaccompanied migrant children who crossed the U.S. border during the Biden-Harris administration are unaccounted for. An internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report dated Aug. 19, 2024, confirms this alarming statistic, highlighting a profound failure in our duty to protect the most vulnerable.
The DHS report reveals that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has lost track of at least 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children, with the whereabouts of up to 323,000 remaining unknown. Without a doubt, we cannot deny the fact that many of these children are now tools and victims of the human sex trafficking industry – a heinous trade that represents the worst of the worst. This staggering number raises urgent questions about the safety and well-being of these children. They are left to fend for themselves in a dangerous world without proper oversight.
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