In my day-to-day life, I do my best to avoid angering large groups of people. Sometimes, though, this needs to be done. In those rare cases, there must be an overwhelmingly compelling reason for doing so. No such reason exists when it comes to the U.S. acquiring Greenland, peacefully or otherwise. President Trump’s latest push to acquire the world’s largest island has caused a storm on both sides of the aisle and the Atlantic. Whatever one’s stance is on the administration’s economic policies, the case that the president has made for acquiring Greenland just doesn’t add up. The Economic Case With a population of about 57,000 people, Greenland is tiny. To put this in perspective, Texas A&M University, as of fall 2025, is educating 81,354 students. They’re not the only college campus with more people than Greenland: The University of Central Florida, the University of Michigan, Ohio State University, the University of Florida, Arizona State University, and plenty more college campuses across the country all boast more students than Greenland has people. The latest figures we have on Greenland’s economy put its GDP at about $3.3 billion. That’s not a typo; it really is in “billions.” With a B, not the T for trillions that we in the US are so accustomed to seeing. The last time the U.S. GDP was below a trillion dollars was in 1969. Last September, Forbes calculated President Trump’s net worth to be $7.3 billion. In other words, President Trump’s personal net worth is more than double that of the entire island of Greenland. Even more troubling is the economic makeup of Greenland. Its economy “depends largely upon the fishing industry as well as Danish subsidies,” with the fishing industry comprising 23 percent of its economy and the Danish government providing another 20 percent of its economy through subsidies. If we were to acquire Greenland, would American taxpayers be willing to take on that obligation? The economic argument for acquiring Greenland is nonexistent. National Security However, the president has frequently pointed to another argument for why we “need” Greenland: national security. With its location, it sits in a near-perfect position for the U.S. to intercept any type of long-range missile or attack coming from, for example, Russia and China. From this standpoint, there exists a clear and present need for the U.S. to have the ability to place critical defense equipment on the island in order to keep America safe from attack. Interestingly enough, this year marks the 75th anniversary of the 1951 Defense of Greenland Agreement between the United States and Denmark. This agreement was just reaffirmed in 2004 and expanded upon in 2023. The treaty, which is still in effect today and has been reaffirmed since, gives us incredibly broad latitude to establish, operate, and expand military bases on the island for purposes of national defense. The agreement allows American military personnel unrestricted freedom of movement throughout all of Greenland’s territory, including the waters surrounding the island. It permits the construction of new defense installations if NATO agrees that such steps are necessary. And, importantly, we can do all of this without paying rent to Denmark (or Greenland) for the land that our military bases occupy. Mikkel Runge Olesen, a senior research fellow at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen, put it best by saying, “This agreement is very generous, it’s very open… The U.S. would be able to achieve almost any security goal that you can imagine under that agreement.” At present, the U.S. operates Pituffik Space Base, formerly known as Thule Air Base, located in northern Greenland and perfectly positioned to monitor potential Russian or Chinese missile threats coming over the Arctic. We can already expand that, including adding radar installations, building new facilities, and stationing more troops, if we want to under the existing treaty without owning the island. Acquiring the island for national defense purposes would be like acquiring a 24-hour fitness center that already charges you no membership dues in case you want to walk on the treadmill at 2:00 in the morning. You can already do that. Why acquire the gym, taking on all the immense responsibilities that come with that, when you can already use the gym for free whenever you want? Mineral Rights? But perhaps this is more about rights to minerals, particularly the crucial rare-earth minerals, which will prove essential toward maintaining national security in the future. Here, too, the argument fails the sniff test. Consider the fact that most of Greenland’s rare-earth minerals are located north of the Arctic Circle. As such, they are buried not just underground, but under a polar ice sheet that is one mile thick. Then, we need to realize that because they are north of the Arctic Circle, the location is one that is plunged into the dark of night for most of the year. Finally, it must be pointed out that because there are so few people on the island, its infrastructure is almost nonexistent. According to a 2022 report from the Wilson Center, there are 96 miles of roads in all of Greenland, 56 of which are paved. No two communities in Greenland are connected by a road, and the only two stoplights on the entire island are located in the capital. Even pouring concrete and asphalt can be difficult because of the harsh weather, and that’s in the southern part of the island, where most people live and where it is warmer. In the northern part, the challenge becomes borderline impossible. Indeed, as Malte Humpert, the founder and senior fellow at the Arctic Institute, said, “The idea of turning Greenland into America’s rare-earth factory is science fiction. It’s just completely bonkers… You might as well mine on the moon. In some respects, it’s worse than the moon.” The simple fact is that Greenland’s minerals exist there now because it is far too expensive to extract them from the earth. If it weren’t, private companies would be doing so already, and Greenland’s economy would reflect this. That it does not is evidence that the costs are just too great to make mining worthwhile. It would be far easier and more cost-effective to increase our efforts at mining these minerals domestically, which the president has already started exploring and is expected to continue doing in 2026. Who Actually Wants This? Finally, as the United States gets ready to celebrate its 250th birthday, we must reflect on our founding and why our forefathers fought for independence from Britain. Our very own Declaration of Independence should serve as a lodestar: the legitimacy of any government exercising dominion is contingent upon the “consent of the governed.” Greenland is not merely some piece of land — it is home to 57,000 people, each of which have thoughts, feelings, and values. They have established their own government that lets them determine their own policies and how to handle collective concerns. Last year, Verian polled Greenlanders on whether they wished to become part of the United States. Eighty-five percent said no, with only 6 percent saying “yes.” Their poll went further and asked, “Do you want Greenland to be independent?” Fifty-six percent said they do. In other words, Greenlanders don’t really want to be Danish, but it’s very clear that they do not want to be American, either. When Americans were polled on whether to acquire Greenland, the results were similarly clear. A Reuters/Ipsos poll finds that just 17 percent of Americans approve of acquiring Greenland. Quinnipiac University finds that 86 percent of Americans oppose acquiring Greenland through military means. The case for acquiring Greenland fails on every metric that should matter to a free society. The economics do not work. The security benefits are already there and have been for 75 years. The minerals remain inaccessible under a mile of ice and for good reason. Finally, neither Americans nor Greenlanders actually want this. Our nation was founded on the principle that a legitimate government requires the consent of the governed. Americans in 1776 were not attempting to “go viral” or “start trending” with this phrase. It was the animating idea that distinguished the American experiment from the empires that preceded it. It motivated “a bunch of farmers” to take on the most powerful military in the world in a fight for independence… and win. As we look to celebrate our semiquincentennial, that principle still matters and is worth preserving. READ MORE from David Hebert: Washington’s Reverse Midas Touch The New H-1B Tax: An Exercise in Crony Capitalism Tariffs Have Created the Monster We Feared Image licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Davos gathering used to be a long litany of lamentations. The apostles of climate doom would arrive in their private jets, dine well, do those things they do when their wives aren’t traveling with them, mount the Davos altar, and deliver their apocalyptic prophecies of the type: “The end of the world is near. Ask ‘Pachamama’ for forgiveness, pay more taxes, sell your diesel car, buy an electric scooter, and believe in the gospel of Al Gore.” One after another, they performed the same ritual. Businessmen agreed in agreement while conducting deals behind the scenes, politicians gave their most dramatic performances, and heads of international organizations sold their influence for a hefty price in the tea rooms. To the outside world, in front of the media, it was all the tedious repetition of the Woke Catechism and the Gospel of the End Times. Now things are different. And it sounds better. Everyone grabs a mountain of popcorn to watch Javier Milei speak, who, whenever he gets the chance to address the world’s leaders, makes them sink into their chairs wishing they could become invisible. Then there’s Trump, who didn’t even wait to arrive in Davos to start throwing punches, having spent days mocking the corrupt EU political class and suggesting that NATO without the United States is like a Caribbean beach without bikini-clad women. Macron, Von der Leyen, Merz, and the rest of the European bureaucrats are completely clueless. Milei, on the other hand, seems to have a clear understanding of where we are in 2026: “America will be the beacon that reignites the West.” Trump, however, believes Merz is actually updating his policies. “Here in Europe, we’ve seen the fate the radical left tried to impose on the United States,” he remarked in his criticism of windmills. “It’s not the current chancellor’s [Merz’s] fault. He is fixing the problem. He will do a great job, but look at what they did before he arrived.” My favorite moment of Trump’s speech came when he once again exposed the great lie of the EU. He claimed that there are cities that are no longer even recognizable, following Brussels’ disastrous immigration policies and suicidal economic strategy. “I love Europe, and I want it to succeed, but it’s not on the right track,” he declared. I understand that any European bureaucrat who has made a fortune selling hair-growth politics in Brussels might feel offended, but I doubt there is one capable of refuting him. I am writing this from Europe. From Spain. Let me give you an example of how things work here: the Socialist government of Spain, in line with the EU, has been waging open war on cars and road travel for seven years. They have raised taxes, banned combustion-engine cars — 98 percent of all vehicles in Spain — from many cities, increased revenue from fines, and completely neglected highway and road maintenance. Meanwhile, they have spent enormous sums promoting train travel, subsidizing it, creating special passes and discounts, and repeatedly selling it as the sustainable mode of transportation that will save the planet. As a result, Spanish high-speed rail passengers have increased by 77 percent in five years, train frequencies have soared, and the government leaves travelers with no other choice. However, although investment in construction and maintenance has increased, it is lower per kilometer than in past years, because there are now 800 more kilometers of track than 10 years ago, with much greater wear and tear, not to mention that inflation has risen 26 percent since then, driving up the cost of repairs and materials. The Socialist idea of emptying Spanish roads and filling trains has resulted in an endless string of delays, incidents, and complaints on social media, detailing alarming train behavior — shaking, sudden braking, and more mishaps. And this colossal disaster was crowned by last Sunday’s accident, when a high-speed train derailed and collided with another, leaving more than 40 dead and over 150 injured — the worst tragedy in the history of Spanish high-speed rail. Train drivers had been requesting maintenance on that line since summer. The Sánchez government must have been very busy saving the world from CO2 emissions. When I hear European leaders in Davos babbling nonsense about sustainable economics, climate change, green transport, and other leftist fetishes, I no longer laugh. Now I see the misery in the countryside and in agriculture, the dangerous number of potholes on highways that were perfect just a decade ago, and the faces of the innocents who die, are injured, or suffer due to the chaos of Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist trains — which, before this globalist idiot arrived, were a national pride and something Spaniards could boast about to the world. The EU no longer exists. The farce has been exposed. And the longer Brussels’ leaders — who have been living off Europeans for years — take to understand this, the worse it will be. That’s all Trump came to tell them in Davos. But European leaders remain as bewildered as when you ask Grok to put a bikini on a photo of a girl in a bikini.

by John Binder, Breitbart: Mexico’s consulates across the United States are running a shadow campaign to bend American elections in favor of Mexican interests, #1 New York Times bestselling investigative journalist and Breitbart News Senior Contributor Peter Schweizer writes in his new book, The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon. TRUTH […]

from TheSaltyCracker: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

by Mauricio Metri, Strategic Culture: Three serious events dominated the international news at the turn of the year. First, in the early hours of December 29, 2025, the Ukrainian government attacked with 91 drones on the residence of President Vladimir Putin in the Novgorod region, according to the Russian defense minister. The national defense system […]

from SGT Report: This is NOT medical advice but friends, not only do you NOT need to radiate your body and lose your hair after a cancer diagnosis, you need not get cancer in the first place! In this discussion with 50 year “terminal” cancer survivor Rick Hill we tell you how to beat cancer […]

from Revolver News: Well, it turns out Don Lemon isn’t as useless as we all thought. He actually did the American people a service by painstakingly documenting his own FACE Act violations during a live stream. If you’ve been living under a rock and have no idea what we’re talking about, here’s what went down. […]

  Today Hawaiian Pidgin is a marker of local identity. Spoken by thousands of people across the Hawaiian Islands as a first or second language, it is, like many pidgins and creoles, a product of colonialism. It originated in the 19th century on the sugarcane plantations of Hawai‘i, where American plantation owners employed workers from Japan, China, Korea, the Philippines, and Portugal, and sometimes African Americans from the United States. Hawaiian Pidgin, which despite its name is now considered a separate Creole language, emerged to bridge the communication gap between these workers and the plantation owners.   What Do We Mean by Hawaii? Kaua‘i (Garden Isle), photograph by Karsten Winegeart. Source: Unsplash   In Hawaiian, Hawaii is known as Hawai‘i. The term probably derives from Hawaiki, the original home of the Polynesians before they dispersed throughout Polynesia. New Zealand anthropologist Anne Salmond believes that Hawaiki (or Havai‘i in Tahitian) was the ancient name for Raʻiātea (or Raiatea), the home of the Māori people who eventually settled in Aotearoa/New Zealand.   The state of Hawaii is an archipelago of eight large volcanic islands in the central Pacific Ocean, plus several smaller islands, atolls, and islets. They are, from east to west, Hawai‘i (also known as the Big Island), Maui (Valley Isle), Kaho‘olawe (Target Isle), Lāna‘I (Pineapple Isle), Moloka‘i (Friendly Isle), O‘ahu (Gathering Place), Kaua‘i (Garden Isle), and Ni‘ihau (Forbidden Isle). On January 20, 1778, Captain James Cook (1728-1779) landed in Waimea Bay, on Kaua‘i Island, and named the archipelago the “Sandwich Isles” after his patron, the sixth Earl of Sandwich.   Captain James Cook, painting by John Webber, 1782. Source National Portrait Gallery   Cook was the first European to land on Kaua‘i Island and the first European to “discover” the Hawaiian Islands (Mokupuni Hawaiʻi, in Hawaiian). He returned to the islands a year later, disembarking at Kealakekua Bay, known in Hawaiian as “the Path of the God.” Christina Thompson, author of Sea People, describes it in these terms: “Kealakekua Bay lies on the west, or leeward, side of the Big Island of Hawai‘i, in the rain shadow cast by the great volcano Mauna Loa. It is a smallish bay about a mile wide, open to the southwest, with a bit of flat land at either end and a great wall of cliffs along the middle, where in ancient times the bodies of Hawaiian chiefs were hidden in secret caves.” It was at Kealakekua Bay that Cook initially greeted as a royal figure, was beaten on the head and then stabbed to death on February 14, 1779.   Waipi’o Valley, Big Island, Hawaii, photograph by Martin Zangerl. Source: Unsplash   For more than a thousand years before the arrival of European explorers, Polynesians existed, to quote Thompson again, “in splendid isolation from the rest of the world.” Cook’s arrival changed all that. Cook introduced the West to the Hawaiian Islands and vice versa, but another important figure emerged at this time who would change the history of the islands forever. His name was Kamehameha I (ca. 1758-1819), the founder of the Kamehameha Dynasty. Wise enough to embrace and understand the power of European weapons, by 1810 he had managed to unite Hawaii under his leadership, with governors and high chiefs administering each island.   In 1792, Captain George Vancouver (1757-1798), a British naval officer and explorer, was the first to introduce livestock to the islands. By the early 19th century, explorers and traders were regularly visiting the islands and putting down roots.   Queen Emma of Hawaii, wife of King Kamehameha IV, and her entourage, photograph by Alexander Gardner, 1865. Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art   In 1820, settlers and explorers were followed by a wave of missionaries, first Protestant missionaries from New England and then Roman Catholic missionaries from Europe. The Great Māhele marked a pivotal moment in the history of land titles and the beginning of private ownership in the Hawaiian Islands. Prior to the arrival of Europeans and Americans, the concept of private property was virtually non-existent in the Hawaiian Islands. The land was divided into specific territories or divisions, with boundaries marked by geographical features such as rivers, gullies, or mountains. Each area was supervised by an ali’i and farmed and tended to by the kanaka, commoners who leased the land but did not own it.   In 1848, the king essentially abolished the feudal system. After the Great Māhele (“great land division”), large sugar and coffee plantations were established throughout the Hawaiian Islands. It was in this context of trade and cultural exchange that the Hawaiian Pidgin was born.   Where and When Pineapple Fields in Hawaii, 1945. Source: The National WWII Museum   The birth of Hawaiian Pidgin is directly linked to the vast fruit and sugar plantations that sprang up across Hawai‘i after the Great Māhele of 1848. In 1835 William Hooper arrived on the island of Kaua’i from Boston and established the first plantation. He left four years later. He was, however, the first in a long line of American businessmen to buy land in the Hawaiian Islands.   Soon plantation owners were actively recruiting Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Filipino workers, as well as Portuguese, Puerto Rican, African American, and Native Hawaiian laborers. According to Alan Takeo Moriyama, professor of International Relations at Yokohama National University, 26 government-sponsored ships brought some 29,000 Japanese to Hawaii between 1885 and 1895. By the mid-1920s, Japanese made up the largest non-Hawaiian population in the islands.   Vesper Bells at Mii Temple, by Utagawa Hiroshige, 1832. Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art   It was around this time that Japanese workers began to organize with other workers to demand better working conditions, better wages, and an end to management abuse and the overcrowded barracks where they were forced to sleep in at night, after working from dawn to dusk. As we read in a Library of Congress article, living and working conditions on the cane plantations were “ … rigidly stratified by national origin, with Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino laborers paid at different rates for the same work, while all positions of authority were reserved for European Americans.”   Japanese workers on sugarcane plantations in Hawaii, 1900. Source: The National WWII Museum   This multicultural and multiethnic workforce forever changed the social and linguistic landscape of Hawai‘i. As Japanese immigrants put down deep roots, building their temples on plantations, and celebrating their traditional festivals, their language evolved too. During what is now known as the “Hawai‘i’s plantation days,” Hawaiian Pidgin emerged to facilitate communication between workers who sometimes spoke completely different languages.   Pidgin or Creole? Native Hawaiian man holding a poi pounder over a pounding board, 1940s. Source: The National WWII Museum   As the name suggests, Hawaiian Pidgin is often referred to as a pidgin. However, it is a creole, a fully-fledged language currently spoken natively by around 600,000 people in Hawaii and used extensively in advertising and literature. A pidgin is a simplified language with a limited vocabulary and grammar that evolves to help two groups communicate when they do not share a common language. A creole is a pidgin that has not become obsolete, that has stabilized and developed, and that is now constantly enriched by a new generation of speakers who now consider it their mother tongue.   This transition from pidgin to creole occurred with Hawaiian Pidgin—also known as Hawai‘i Creole English (HCE)—between the 19th and 20th centuries. As English is the main lexifier of Hawaiian Pidgin, most of its vocabulary comes from English.   Great Wisdom Sutra (Daihannya-kyō) from the Chūsonji Temple Sutra Collection (Chūsonji-kyō), 1175. Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art   However, it also includes loanwords from Japanese, such as obake (“ghost”), Portuguese, and Tagalog, the Austronesian language spoken by the Tagalog people in the Philippines. When Hawaiian Pidgin developed in the 19th century, Native Hawaiians were still suffering from the devastating effects of smallpox, influenza, whooping cough, and measles, to which they had no immunity. Despite this, Hawaiian terms such as lanai (“verandah”) or akamai (“clever”) survive in Hawaiian pidgin today, alongside Spanish words brought to Hawaii by Spanish-speaking Puerto Rican settlers and workers.   Sentence structures borrow heavily from English, but with important differences that mimic the grammatical structures of the Hawaiian language. For example, the verb “to be” (e.g. the copula) is omitted in interrogative and affirmative sentences, so “Are you happy?” would become “You happy?” and “The dog is cute” would become “The dog cute.”   Smallpox killed more than 5,000 Native Hawaiians in the 1850s. Source: National Museum of Australia   The past tense is indicated by the use of wen (from the English went) before the infinitive form of the verb, while go, gon, and gona, from the English “going to,” are usually used to refer to future events. The word ste (from the English stay) is placed immediately before the verb to indicate an action or event that is still in progress, and neva (from the English “never”) is used to express a negative past tense.   Minor variations distinguish the Hawaiian Pidgin spoken in different areas across the islands, but these are not significant enough to be called dialects. Hawaiian Pidgin has its own sound system, which differs from American and British English, particularly with regard to vowels. Like other European languages, it has what are called “pure” vowels, or monophthongs. Merriam-Webster defines a pure vowel as a “Vowel sound that throughout its duration has a single constant articulatory position.”   Haleakalā, Maui, Hawaii, photograph by Jeff King. Source: Unsplash   For example, Haleakalā, the active shield volcano on East Maui, whose name translates to “House of the Sun,” is pronounced Hah-leh-ah-kah-lah. In other words, “pure” vowels are vowels that are pronounced without any change in sound. Long vowels are usually not pronounced in Hawaiian Pidgin. Also, unlike most accents of American English, the intonation pattern in Hawaiian Pidgin tends to fall, reaching a lower pitch in the last syllable of the word.   The pronunciation of Puʻuoina Heiau, an important fishing heiau (temple or religious site) in Kona on the south shore of Honokōhau Bay, is a perfect example of this: pronounced Poo-oo-OH-ee-nah HAY-ow, the intonation drops dramatically on the last syllable. It is also worth remembering that Hawaiian Pidgin has its own spelling system.   Status Now Honolulu, Hawaii, photograph by Alisa Matthews. Source: Unsplash   For decades, and especially in formal settings, Hawaiian Pidgin has been denigrated as a “broken” and crude, inferior form of English, as is the case with many other creole languages. Research in the early 2000s showed that such prejudices had a particularly strong impact on children. In kindergarten, for example, many children were observed speaking Hawaiian Pidgin freely and without any sort of moral constraints. As they grew up, in schools and colleges, they tended to switch to Standard English, influenced by the common misconception that speaking Hawaiian Pidgin in social or work settings was rude and inappropriate.   In 2015, the US Census Bureau recognized Hawaiian Pidgin as a language in its own right, adding it to the list of official languages in the US state of Hawai‘i. This was a much-needed step in the decolonization process and helped to dispel the myth that creoles were inferior and less sophisticated languages than European or Indigenous languages.   Hawaiian flag quilt today at the Honolulu Museum of Art, late 19th to early 20th century. Source: Wikimedia Commons   Today, Hawaiian Pidgin is used in literature, cinema, television commercials, and theater productions. American writer Lois-Ann Yamanaka and Filipino-American poet and novelist R. Zamora Linmark frequently use Hawaiian Pidgin in their works.   Originally limited to sugarcane plantations and the tragic history of plantation abuse, Hawaiian Pidgin began to be used throughout the islands in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Borrowing words and grammatical structures from such diverse languages as Japanese, Portuguese, English, and Korean, it is symbolic of Hawai‘i’s history as a melting pot, a society that has thrived thanks to the physical and cultural contributions of people from all over the world.

Megyn Kelly on the Significance and Nuances of What Timothy Busfield Alleged Victims' Said on Tape