"It's the most wonderful time of the year -- and I don't mean Christmas.

"It's the time when Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) releases its annual 'Congressional Pig Book Summary,' exposing some of the most outrageous, ridiculous and in many cases unconstitutional spending one can imagine. I guarantee you won't be able to imagine most of it. Why should you, when it's not their money they are spending and borrowing, which has driven the debt to unprecedented and dangerous levels?

"According to CAGW, the number of earmarks, which is spending that avoids going through the normal appropriations process, 'totaled 140,826, costing $484 billion.' Republicans used to be against earmarks before they became for them. After an 11-year moratorium, Republicans re-joined Democrats at the trough."

Read the entire article here.

"In the final weeks of Joe Biden's presidency, FBI agents tied to Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith's investigation memorialized anew their belief that President Donald Trump broke the law in contesting the 2020 election and secretly arranged to preserve their evidence until 2030 in memos that raise alarm they could revive their prosecution after Trump leaves office.

"The FBI memos and emails closing out the controversial Arctic Frost investigation -- obtained by Just the News -- show the bureau chose not to relinquish the evidence it gathered after Smith went to court to dismiss charges against Trump, even though that is the normal practice for agents. Instead, they created a preservation order keeping the evidence in FBI custody for two years after Trump's second term ends, claiming it was necessary to do so because of ongoing litigation, the memos show.

"FBI emails and memos obtained by Just the News dating back to early 2025 show how the FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors who had been working on the criminal prosecutions aimed at Trump and his allies worked to close the 2020 election-related case against the incoming president, while also seemingly leaving open the door for the criminal case to be revived once Trump leaves office and a Democrat again holds the reins at the Justice Department."

Read the entire article here.

"The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) presents itself as an innocuous Muslim civil rights group -- a reputation it reinforces with litigation and claims of anti-Muslim bigotry. But the group finds itself under increasing scrutiny for alleged connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot, Hamas. Last November, Texas Governor Greg Abbott designated CAIR a terrorist organization. The following month, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis followed suit, citing CAIR's being listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in a major terrorism financing case.

"But as other states move to sideline CAIR, California is embracing this alleged terror front. CAIR-CA, the organization's largest statewide affiliate, is flush with taxpayer cash. In the last five years, the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) has rubberstamped at least $41 million in funding to the group. The vast majority of that money, it turns out, comes from the federal government. These federal dollars are flowing into CAIR-CA's coffers even after it was the target of a recent Department of Justice investigation."

Read the entire article here.

"At the University of Michigan's 2026 commencement exercises, history professor Derek Peterson stood before graduating seniors and their families and, as chair of the Faculty Senate, used his five minutes at the commencement microphone to praise pro-Palestinian campus activists for opening 'our hearts to the injustice and inhumanity of Israel's war in Gaza.' The line drew applause. It also drew, according to Inside Higher Ed, nearly 500 angry emails, twenty threatening calls, a public apology from university president Domenico Grasso, calls from Republican regent candidates to discipline him, and a counter-letter from more than 1,100 affiliates demanding the president apologize for apologizing. A graduation ceremony -- a moment meant to belong to students and families -- became, within hours, another front in the campus culture wars.

"I have no interest in adjudicating Peterson's views on the war, his critics' views, the regents' threats, or the president's clumsy attempt to thread the needle. The deeper problem sits one level up and it is this very simple idea: It is the recurring, almost compulsive instinct among faculty to treat every microphone, every syllabus, and every graduation stage as a venue for personal political witness and the bewildered surprise when the rest of the world responds."

Read the entire article here.

"Some Gen Zers -- ages 14 to 29 -- are ditching social media in pursuit of better mental health, Axios' Rebecca Falconer reports.

"It's part of a wider digital detox movement away from screens and toward analog options. Research suggests that social media use is waning -- and that more people are embracing app-blocking products and 'dumbphones' that lack social media apps."

Read the entire article here.

"Regulators no longer have to worry that Spirit Airlines might upset the air-travel market by merging with the wrong competitor.

"The now-defunct airline made poor business decisions and had to cope with tough circumstances.

"But if its demise were an Agatha Christie mystery, the fingerprints of Joe Biden's antitrust officials would be all over the crime scene.

"These zealots fought a proposed deal between JetBlue and Spirit, and congratulated themselves on a 2024 court victory that doomed Spirit to likely oblivion."

Read the entire article here.

"No one ever quite knows the nature of the aftermath of any war in the Middle East.

"The current effort to disarm and neuter the Iranian theocracy is no exception.

"But contrary to European and American left-wing consensus, the ripples of the Iran war are already remaking the postwar world as we knew it..."

Read the entire article here.

"California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is facing a series of political and policy challenges that critics argue amount to a string of late-stage setbacks for his administration that could damage his potential 2028 presidential run.

Conservatives recently secured enough support to place a voter ID initiative on the fall ballot in California, which was an outcome that would have been unlikely in the state just a few years ago.

A yes vote on the ballot measure would 'require voters to present a government-issued ID for in-person voting or provide the last four digits of a government-issued ID designated during voter registration for mail-in voting,' according to Ballotpedia."

Read the entire article here.

"Many people are familiar with the 'blue state exodus' over the past several years, but are they aware of the blue city business exodus?

"It might be one of the biggest economic stories in modern US history, and Democrats are trying to keep it as quiet as possible. There is a blood letting going on in blue cities; a financial disaster in the making. And, like most financial disasters, it will probably be ignored until the house of cards comes crashing down completely."

Read the entire article here.

"If you need more proof of how deranging our times have become just consider this. The number of times the word 'staged' was used in the hours after the White House Correspondents Association dinner shooting last Saturday.

"This isn't only a problem for social media companies. It is a problem for our democracy. And it is one we need to tackle.

"While hundreds of journalists were sheltering in place on Saturday evening, and the entire chain of command of the United States was being raced out of the room in DC, social media platforms were having a field-day.

"Analysis shows that in the hours after Saturday's attack the term 'staged' (as in that the latest attempt on the life of President Trump was 'staged') appeared in more than 300,000 posts on X (formerly Twitter). Other platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube were filled with the same claims. Many of these claims were unnaturally boosted. Some by foreign accounts."

Read the entire article here.