"Why did Marc Andreessen -- inventor inventor of the first internet web browser, and perhaps the prime venture capitalist in Silicon Valley today -- switch from his longstanding support of the Democratic Party and back President-elect Donald Trump this year?

"Because, in his view, the Democrats who claim to be the great scourge of 'disinformation' are threatening to embed disinformation in the bedrock of society. At least that's my interpretation of Andreessen's comments in a wide-ranging interview with The Free Press cofounder Bari Weiss.

"'My concern is that the censorship and political control of AI is a thousand times more dangerous than censorship and political control of social media -- maybe a million times more dangerous,' Andreessen, a prime innovator of artificial intelligence, told Weiss. 'The thing with AI is, I think AI is going to be the control layer for everything in the future -- how the health care system works, how the education system works, how the government works. So that if AI is woke, biased, censored, politically controlled, you are in a hyper-Orwellian, China-style, social credit system nightmare.'"

Read the entire article here.

"Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's attempt to cement the Biden-Harris administration's labor agenda deep into President-elect Trump's second term suffered a notable defeat Wednesday afternoon after two ex-Democratic senators helped tank a controversial labor nominee. ...

"Sinema and Machin's decision to vote with Republican senators to block McFerran's renomination could be the duo's last break from their former Democratic colleagues as they are both set to retire later this month following their decisions to not seek reelection."

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"Congress's annual defense spending bill includes $500 million in funding for joint military projects with Israel, including a reversal of the Biden-Harris administration's decision to cease production of a missile interceptor used to defend the Jewish state from Iranian attacks, sources briefed on the matter told the Washington Free Beacon.

"The GOP-controlled House is scheduled to vote this week on the fiscal year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), an $895 billion spending bill that is a must-pass for Congress before it breaks for the holidays. The legislation funds the American military and virtually all defense priorities across the globe.

"Included in the bill is $500 million for U.S.-Israel missile defense cooperation, which has emerged as a top priority for GOP lawmakers as the Jewish state continues to battle Iran-backed forces along its border. With the outgoing administration delaying some American arms shipments to Israel, Congress is working to ensure that joint defense projects are safeguarded into the next year when President-elect Donald Trump takes office."

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"The 118th Congress is on track to be the least productive legislative session in recent history as the split chambers have failed to pass very few bills that were signed into law.

"Lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced nearly 19,000 bills since convening on Jan. 3, 2023. Yet, only 137 have become public laws, according to data gathered by the National Archives and reviewed by the Washington Examiner. That is less than a 1% success rate and the total is the lowest since at least 1951, which is the earliest year documented in the Library of Congress's digital archives.

"To be sure, lawmakers still have two weeks to pass legislation that could bump themselves above the low margin -- especially as both chambers have a lengthy to-do list of legislation that must be passed before they expire at the end of the year. The last lame duck in 2022 saw a surge of action, with 148 pieces of legislation being passed and signed into law between the time lawmakers returned on Nov. 14, 2022, and before the next Congress convened in January 2023."

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"California was warned that its fast-food minimum wage hike would result in job losses and rising prices. That reality has now come to pass, as even California must abide by the most basic laws of economics.

"According to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report Thursday, California lost 6,166 fast-food jobs since the fast-food minimum wage hike from $16 to $20 an hour went into effect in April. As a whole, the country had an overall fast-food employment growth of 1.6%. According to the Employment Policies Institute, California's decline in fast-food employment is steeper than the decline in overall statewide private employment.

"The reality is California's fast-food job losses started before the minimum wage law came into effect, with Pizza Hut laying off 1,200 delivery drivers as companies began crunching numbers on the newly increased cost of doing business in the evermore expensive California. In June, Rubio's Coastal Grill announced it would be closing 48 locations in California due to the 'current business climate' in California."

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"The electorate voted overwhelmingly in support of taking the federal government in a new direction last month, but thanks to the undemocratic power of government unions, the new administration will be limited in its ability to deliver more efficient services for citizens.

"In a last-second move designed to thwart the will of the voters, Social Security Administration Commissioner Martin O'Malley, an appointee of President Joe Biden, signed a deal with the American Federation of Government Employees this week guaranteeing that the entitiy's 42,000 SSA employee members will not have to come into the office when President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in.

"Trump administration volunteers Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy previously pledged to make the federal government produce better services for taxpayers through their new 'Department of Government Efficiency' initiative. Last month, the pair said, 'Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome.'

"The new collective bargaining agreement signed in collusion between the Biden administration and the AFGE would thwart that effort, at least for those SSA employees covered by the contract. But the AFGE is the largest federal government union and it is pushing other Biden administration officials to sign similar agreements with their respective bargaining units."

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"Who are the biggest suckers in America?

"Democrats.

"They took the president at his 'word as a Biden' and now they're left with egg on their face and a party in ruins.

"Joe Biden's all-encompassing, precisely 11-year retrospective pardon of his wayward 54-year-old son, Hunter, unprecedented in its scope, just fanned the flames of their discontent.

"Now even risk-averse Gavin Newsom knows he's safe riding with the pack when he publicly denounces Joe Biden for repeatedly lying that he would never pardon his son."

Read the entire article here.

"By a margin of just 737 votes out of 340,078 cast, Alaska voters chose to keep their ranked choice voting system this year. This was the lone victory for a movement that saw losses in eight other states despite heavily outspending opponents. The empty promises of the ranked choice voting movement are being exposed, its costs are mounting, and voters are wisely choosing to reject this fundamentally undemocratic premise.

"Advocates of ranked choice voting claim the system makes it easier for more centrist candidates with broader support to win over more 'extreme' candidates who they claim benefit from low-turnout primaries. Ranked choice voting advocates, who happen to be almost entirely composed of Democrats, also claim that ranked choice voting discourages negative campaigning since candidates are forced to appeal to a wider spectrum of voters.

"There is no empirical evidence any of this is true."

Read the entire article here.

"If you've never heard the word 'impoundment' before, you will -- often -- next year. And for good reason. Because this battle will determine whether government spending can ever be brought under control.

"Last year, President-elect Donald Trump said that 'For 200 years under our system of government, it was undisputed that the president had the constitutional power to stop unnecessary spending through what is known as 'impoundment.'

"Since he's been elected, he's given every indication that he intends to reclaim this power. Indeed, the success of his 'Department of Government Efficiency' run by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy depends heavily on Trump being able to spend less than Congress appropriates.

"This, of course, has the left freaking out. The grumblers say that Trump's refusing to spend money Congress has authorized would be 'umprecedented' and 'a devastating power grab' that would 'flip the power of the purse' and give Trump 'authoritarian control' over the government.

"There are just two big problems with these assertions. The first is that presidential impoundment dates back to the very beginnings of the nation. The second is that letting presidents impound funds appears to have been an effective tool for keeping federal spending under control."

Read the entire article here.

"Joe Biden began his presidency with a series of lies about his son Hunter's business dealings: the laptop was Russian disinformation, the family didn't get China money and the future president never consorted with influence-seeking associates.

And he is ending his tenure in the White House with a stunning broken pledge.

After months of the White House and Joe Biden personally insisting there would be no pardon, the 46th president granted clemency Sunday night to his son that erased his federal gun and tax convictions.

The bookends to a major political scandal left Republicans who investigated tens of millions of dollars in foreign payments to the first family crying anew about a dual system of justice."

Read the entire article here.