President-elect Donald Trump promised on Friday that the Republican Party will “use its best efforts” to end Daylight Saving Time as most Americans favor putting a stop to changing the clocks twice a year. Daylight Saving Time, the time nearly every state recognizes for eight months out of the year, has been in effect nationwide since 1966 when the Uniform Time Act was passed. Today, only two states — Arizona and Hawaii — don’t recognize DST. Legislation eliminating DST passed by Congress and signed into law by the president would likely mandate that every state go back to recognizing Standard Time throughout the entire year. “The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. The incoming Trump administration first signaled that ending DST was on the table earlier this month when the idea was floated by Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a new agency led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. “Looks like the people want to abolish the annoying time changes!” Musk posted on X last month. Ramaswamy responded to Musk’s post, writing, “It’s inefficient & easy to change.” CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE While a majority of Americans are in favor of ending the twice-per-year time change, there is disagreement on whether the country should recognize DST or Standard Time. In 2022, the Senate unanimously passed a measure to make DST permanent. Trump said in 2019 that making DST permanent was “O.K.” with him. That move, however, wasn’t popular with many people who want to keep the clocks in Standard Time, which is the time usually recognized from November until March. Many doctors and scientists say that Standard Time is better for people’s health because it is more aligned with the body’s internal clock and sleep cycle. The Sunshine Protection Act, Sen. Marco Rubio’s bill to keep DST permanent that was passed by the Senate in 2022, was never taken up by the House. Rubio reintroduced the bill in 2023, but it remains stuck in committee.

Labeling President-elect Donald Trump, and MAGA nation by extension, white supremacists is so 2016. Trump’s November 5 victory found him increasing his share of minority voters. Bigly. One small Texas town with 97% Hispanic voters, flipped for Trump. The president-elect also named several talented people of color to key positions, including Kash Patel (FBI) and Harmeet Dhillon (Assistant AG). And few leaders flex their pro-Israel muscles quite like Trump. Worst white supremacist ever. Tell that to entertainment scribes and select filmmakers. They’re still bookmarking pages from the 2016 playbook. Toward that end, they’re weaponizing the new, fact-based thriller “The Order” to slam all things MAGA as racist. “The Order.” IMDB. Amazon MGM Studios. The film stars Jude Law as an FBI agent tracking down a hate group known as The Order, led by the charismatic Bob Mathews (Nicholas Hoult). The real group carried out serial crimes in the 1980s, including the slaying of Denver-based radio talker Alan Berg (played by Marc Maron in the film). Deadline.com shared the film’s screenplay on its site, saying the film had “modern relevance.” Wink-wink. As they researched, [Zach] Baylin and producer Bryan Haas saw the parallels to the current rise of white nationalism around the world and in the U.S., developing the screenplay with that front of mind. Kurzel said he got the script three months before the January 6, 2021 attack at the U.S. Capitol. Subtle. The Hollywood Reporter made a direct connection between the film’s subject matter and Trump. Indeed, the film — hitting theaters roughly a month after the U.S. presidential election — feels particularly of the moment, arriving at a time of increased debate surrounding the espousing of racist views on social media and the support that former President Donald Trump receives from neo-Nazis and hate groups. The film’s producer, Stuart Ford, leaned into the Trump factor in press interviews. Journalists were all too eager to regurgitate the talking points sans challenge. Ford said that “There is no doubt” that “The Order” fits into the Trumpian Zeitgeist. “Unfortunately, the relevance of the film speaks for itself,” he noted. Law, Hoult, and Baylin joined “Morning Joe” on MSNBC to promote the Oscar-season release. We’ll assume the film’s publicist didn’t bend the ear of any Fox News host. Araya Doheny/Getty Images for SAG-AFTRA Foundation Law said the film “has a resonance to today,” without elaborating. Host Joe Scarborough egged the cast members and Baylin, hoping to snag some anti-Trump sound bites but the artists didn’t bite. Film critics had far less restraint. The far-Left Rolling Stone ended its review of “The Order” with this overwrought prose. “In 10 years, we’ll have members in the Senate,” one racist figurehead says [in the film]. He was only off by a few decades. Variety’s Trump Derangement Critic in chief, Owen Gleiberman, let his MAGA rage fester unchecked. “The Order,” while scrupulously true to the events of 1983 and 1984, presents itself as a cautionary allegory of what’s happening today: the entwined rise of MAGA and Christian nationalism and the racist dog whistles (and, at times, racist sirens) of Donald Trump’s campaign to take over America. He might want to follow director Rob Reiner’s lead and check himself into a “facility.” Entertainment Weekly brought up the modern-day “connections,” too, particularly in its final sentences. But the film is also a chilling slice of historical memory in the ways it studies one of the earliest iterations of the version of white nationalism currently insinuating itself into American politics — and its haunting understanding of the insidious creep of such beliefs. Suffice it to say the author isn’t referring to far-Left college students chasing Jews off campus or pro-Hamas rallies happening nationwide. Left unmentioned? Hostage posters torn down by shrieking Palestinian sympathizers. And we may never see a film where three Ivy League school presidents fail to properly condemn anti-Semitism on Capitol Hill, shaming themselves and their institutions in the process. Maybe Angel Studios will make that movie some day. “The Order.” Photo by Michelle Faye. IMDB. Amazon MGM Studios. The biggest irony? “The Order” doesn’t stop the story cold to deliver lectures on the evils of white supremacy. Nor does it insert Trumpian parallels into the script beyond a fleeting reference to “storming the capitol.” It’s a well-crafted thriller with a powerhouse turn from Law. The nuts and bolts of the story are stripped from actual events. End of story, at least technically. It’s like a 1970s movie made in 2024, with woke kept off screen. Yet the film wraps with a text coda suggesting the January 6 rioters were inspired by “The Turner Diaries,” a hateful text that influenced “The Order’s” real-world monsters. The film’s Australian director, Justin Kurzel, claims he saw a Jan. 6 protester holding that book, as if Trump supporters made sure to bring such a text along for some light reading. Others have made that connection without tangible proof. Plus, the Jan. 6 protests were racially diverse like many Trump rallies over the past few years. That’s no excuse for the rioters who fought police and shamed the nation with their violence. Their impetus was based on a mistrust of the election results, not neo-Nazi cosplaying. * * * CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE * * * Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of HollywoodInToto.com. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at HollywoodInToto.com. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Kansas City Chiefs star Patrick Mahomes called out the NFL over his team’s upcoming three-game stretch over the Christmas holiday. Speaking to members of the press, the Super Bowl-winning QB admitted he’s worried about the wear and tear on his body after the league scheduled three games over an 11-day period, starting with a road trip on Sunday, December 15 against the Cleveland Browns. “It’s not a good feeling,” Mahomes said, per The Associated Press. “You never want to play this amount of games in this short of time.” “It’s not great for your body,” he added. “But at the end of the day it’s your job, your profession, you have to come to work and do it.” Patrick Mahomes: Three games in 11 days “not a good feeling.” https://t.co/goHdk2447r — ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) December 11, 2024 “All you can do is focus on the game,” Mahomes continued. “The practice you have that day. I try to prepare my body all year long for this stretch. That’s tailoring my workouts, tailoring how you practice and prepare, and the coaches do a great job of taking care of us on the practice field. We practice as hard as anybody, but they know how to dial it back when needed.” After the Browns game, the Chiefs play against the Texans in a home game on December 21, and then on Christmas Day, they travel to Pennsylvania to play against the Pittsburgh Steelers, with a stretch of 4 days between the games, compared to the usual 6 or 7 days to recover. CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE The Chiefs aren’t the only team with the crazy, three games over an 11-day schedule ending on Christmas Day — the Baltimore Ravens, the Steelers, and Houston Texans will also have to endure the short turnaround. Chiefs head coach Andy Reid said he’s taking a measured approach to getting his team ready for the 11-day stretch, the AP noted. “It’s a unique situation. You just have to manage it,” Reid said. “It is what it is. You make the best of it. The main thing is you get guys ready for the game. Give them a chance to get ready for the game. They’re going to do whatever you present to them. You try to help them out with that. Right now we have a normal week right here. We have to take care of business here.” The Christmas Day games are part of Netflix’s doubleheader as the streaming platform dives into live sporting events. The games will be star-studded, with the queen of Christmas, Mariah Carey, kicking things off on December 25 for the Chiefs vs Steelers game. Carey will deliver a taped performance of her all-time number one hit holiday song “All I Want For Christmas Is You” during a game opening performance, TMZ reported. Beyonce will perform songs for the halftime game in Houston from her country album “Cowboy Carter,” when the Texans host the Ravens later that day, CBS Morning noted. Related: ‘He Challenged Us To Make Us Better’: Patrick Mahomes Credits God For Super Bowl Win

A State Department apparatus that was created to counter violent terrorists abroad, but instead allegedly worked to suppress Americans’ speech, is “substantially likely” to disband on December 23, the department said in a court filing. In February, The Daily Wire sued the State Department along with The Federalist and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over the Global Engagement Center’s relationship with anti-“misinformation” outfits like NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index (GDI). The suit alleges that those outfits were focused on suppressing American conservative media, and the Global Engagement Center’s support of these groups violated the First Amendment. On Monday, the State Department filed a “notice of case development” to “inform the Court of an upcoming development that is substantially likely to occur on December 23, 2024—termination of the Global Engagement Center.” The Center was created in 2016 to create propaganda “directed at foreign audiences abroad in order to counter the messaging and diminish the influence of international terrorist organizations and other violent extremists abroad.” But after the controversy around Russia in the 2016 election, it became concerned with targeting “disinformation” on social media platforms. That was evident in the Twitter Files—internal communications about the government’s efforts to pressure the social media platform that were released after Elon Musk bought the company. The department said the Obama-era law creating the Global Engagement Center had a sunset date of eight years from its creation, and that “Congress has not extended the termination of the GEC thus far, and it is Defendants’ understanding that reauthorization is unlikely to occur.” It said the State Department has sent Congress a plan to “realign the Center’s staff and funding to other Department offices and bureaus for foreign information manipulation and interference activities in the event that the termination is not extended.” “Defendants are conferring with Plaintiffs about the implications of these developments for this litigation,” it said. Neither the State Department nor the Global Engagement Center are allowed to operate on Americans. But a Global Engagement Center platform called Disinfo Cloud promoted products designed to suppress so-called disinformation, and the center even opened up an office in Silicon Valley to allegedly gain influence over American tech firms that control what Americans hear about. The State Department admitted in the lawsuit to funding the Global Disinformation Index and NewsGuard through a middleman, Park Capital Investment Group. The Global Engagement Center ran a “Disinformation Cloud” that retweeted social media posts from GDI and NewsGuard and advertised that “NewsGuard launched a new tool, Responsible Advertising for News Segments (RANS), to help advertising companies avoid websites known to host or produce mis/disinformation.” The Global Engagement Center refused to provide information about the activities even to Congress, forcing the House Small Business Committee to subpoena it. NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index were paid after Disinfo Cloud ran contests for companies developing technology to identify “misinformation.” The State Department said the contests “were aimed at countering disinformation and propaganda overseas.” But “Defendants admit that Disinfo Cloud users included some members of academia, the private sector, and tech vendors, including some located within the United States,” it conceded in lawsuit filings. NewsGuard has a partnership with the teachers union and aims to train American schoolchildren to only trust certain news sources.  The Global Disinformation Index put American media outlets on a “Dynamic Exclusion List” that was distributed to advertisers. The group named mainstream publications like the New York Post, Reason Magazine, The Daily Wire, and the Federalist as “risky.” “Defendants deny the allegation that GDI and NewsGuard are ‘government-funded and government-promoted censorship enterprises,’ and that Defendants have an ‘unlawful censorship scheme,'” the State Department’s lawyers wrote. The Twitter Files revealed that an FBI agent, Elvis Chan, repeatedly pressed Twitter to take down posts that it thought violated Twitter’s “terms of service,” despite that not being a government concern. Chan was deposed by Congress, and even he was bewildered by the activities of the Global Engagement Center. Chan said he spoke regularly with Sam Stewart of the Global Engagement Center, and that the center would present software from vendors that social media companies could use. But Chan had concern that “The State Department is primarily a foreign-focus agency… they do not have the same type of legal training that I do specifically about First Amendment protections.” The Daily Wire’s lawsuit was filed in federal court in Texas. The State Department tried to have it moved to a Washington, D.C., jury, but the judge denied the motion.

One of the astonishing things about the news industry is that many stories with an outsized national impact turn out to have been completely falsified upon further review. One of its incentive structures is often “firstist with the mostist”; in other words, get to the story fast and report it incredibly quickly. But then, the reporting ends up being false. In retrospect, this does significant damage. This is true in regard to reporting about COVID or Black Lives Matter. One of the signal examples of this is now being exposed for all the world to see. 18 years ago, in 2006, the Duke lacrosse rape case incited a wide variety of movements that would come into full flower over the course of the subsequent 10 years, particularly during the Obama era. The Duke lacrosse case was an inciting incident for Black Lives Matter and for the #MeToo movement. In this case, a stripper accused a series of rich white lacrosse players at Duke University of having sexually assaulted her. It became one of the biggest cases in American criminal justice history, specifically because of its ripple effects. Crystal Mangum, the stripper at the center of that case, has admitted she lied back in 2006. Until now, she has never publicly admitted she fabricated the rape allegation. Three men, David Evans, Collin Finnerty, and Reade Seligmann, were arrested and put on trial before the case was dismissed. Mangum’s original allegation was that she had been performing at a team party off campus in March of 2006, had been sexually assaulted, and raped by a series of white Duke lacrosse players. She was, indeed, at this party, but, apparently, she engaged in none of her “career activity,” shall we say, because she was high on drugs or intoxicated with alcohol. She ended up leaving early, and then these accusations were filed. WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show There were many holes in her story. First, there is no DNA on her. Second, she could not identify any of the Duke lacrosse players, except for one, who ended up not having even been there. Yet, the problems with her allegations did not stop everyone — including the elite media and those on university campuses — from jumping to conclusions. Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong said in 2006, “I am not going to allow Durham’s view in the mind of the world to be a bunch of lacrosse players from Duke raping a black girl in Durham.” Nifong obviously had other political motivations, possibly to run for a higher office at some point. In a March 2006 interview with CBS News, he stated, “The circumstances of the rape indicated a deep racial motivation for some of the things that were done. It makes a crime that is by its nature one of the most offensive and invasive even more so.” According to Nifong, this wasn’t just a rape. It was, in fact, a racist rape. The former Duke University president, Richard Brodhead, took immediate action against the team following only the allegations. He accepted the resignation of the men’s lacrosse coach, canceled the remainder of their season, and suspended the accused three players from school after they were indicted for rape, according to The New York Post. This was “despite having asked the public not to prejudge the criminal case.” David Evans, one of the players, stridently denied the allegations, saying, “I am absolutely innocent of all the charges that have been brought against me today, that Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty are innocent of all the charges that were brought against them. These allegations are lies.” Eventually, the case was dismissed. DURHAM, NC – MAY 15, 2006: Duke lacrosse player David Evans (C), 23-years-old, proclaims his innocence. (Photo by Sara D. Davis/Getty Images) Yet that did not stop The New York Times from running around 100 pieces about the Duke lacrosse allegations. A tremendous number of Duke faculty actually paid for an ad that was put in the Duke Chronicle devoted to this particular case. Numerous departments and professors at the university signed onto this paid advertisement. What did the statement say? We are listening to our students. We’re also listening to the Durham community, to Duke staff, and to each other. Regardless of the results of the police investigation, what is apparent everyday now is the anger and fear of many students who know themselves to be objects of racism and sexism; who see illuminated in this moment’s extraordinary spotlight what they live with everyday. They know that it isn’t just Duke, it isn’t everybody, and it isn’t just individuals making this disaster. But it is a disaster nonetheless. These students are shouting and whispering about what happened to this young woman and to themselves. The ad then provided anonymous student statements about the issue. The seedbed for the Black Lives Matter movement here is obvious. And it turns out all of this was based on lies. It was all lies — beginning to end. Eventually, the North Carolina attorney general, Roy Cooper, announced that the charges had, in fact, been dropped. (Cooper would go on to become the governor of North Carolina.) He announced: Our attorneys and SBI agents have interviewed numerous people who were at the party, DNA and other experts, the Durham County district attorney, Durham police officers, defense attorneys, and the accusing witness on several occasions. We have reviewed statements given over the year, photographs, records, and other evidence. The result of our review and investigation shows clearly that there is insufficient evidence to proceed on any of the charges. Today, we are filing notices of dismissal for all charges against Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans. The result is that these cases are over, and no more criminal proceedings will occur. Nifong ended up being disbarred for making false statements and hiding evidence from the defense. The president of Duke University later came out and offered an apology. But here’s the issue: What was the fallout from this case? Was the fallout a lesson learned about people making false allegations? Of course not. Was the fallout about the rush to judgment by the media deeply desperate for a race case that they could magnify? Of course not; there have been dozens since. The actual fallout in terms of policy was that in 2011, the Obama administration changed Title IX regulations so that you basically could not defend yourself against sexual harassment or sexual assault allegation on campus. CNN reports that the administration, …outlined guidelines for schools on how to handle sexual assault allegations in a memo referred to as a ‘dear colleague’ letter. The letter reminded schools of their legal obligation to address sexual violence amid concerns that schools were not taking the issue seriously enough, and called on schools to step up investigations of reports. It also provided guidelines for investigations and hearings. And it gave the accused no due process. It made it so that a person did not actually have a right to face down someone who was accusing them. That was the actual legal implication drawn from the false allegations of the Duke lacrosse case. This repeated itself later with similar allegations that were made about the University of Virginia frat members in 2014 accused by Rolling Stone of engaging in a gang rape, which turned out to be completely false as well. But that didn’t stop the momentum of the #MeToo movement. False allegations are, unfortunately, the lifeblood of movements that require gas when there is no gas in the tank. Yesterday, Mangum, the accuser in the Duke lacrosse case — who is serving time for murder right now — finally admitted (nearly 20 years later) that her accusations were all made up. She said in an interview:  I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn’t. And that was wrong. And I betrayed the trust of a lot of other people who believed in me and made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God. And that was wrong. And I hope that they can forgive me. It was false, and everyone knew it was false at the time. Yet it led to another string of these sorts of cases ranging from: the University of Virginia false rape allegations; the false allegations regarding Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri, which led to riots in 2014; the case of George Floyd, which is in fact a false case; and the Daniel Penny case. It stretches forward because the media need these opportunities. They spin up these opportunities. They rely on these opportunities in order to “have the discussion.” They’re constantly looking for a news hook to have discussions on the issues that they find most interesting regardless of whether the underlying data is there or not. The media are perfectly willing to jump into certain conversations. However, there are other conversations that the media are absolutely not willing to broach. Was there a widespread investigation into false rape allegations, which was the actual story with regard to the Duke lacrosse case? Absolutely not. Was there a full-scale media blitz on the question of rape hoaxes, which is what happened in Duke lacrosse? Absolutely not. The way the mainstream media work, their way of deciding whether something is a national story or not, is not based on the truth or falsity of the statements or the good or bad action of the people in question. They have a preset narrative, and then they look for a hook for that narrative. That is how spinning up a movement out of nothing becomes possible. And it is how polarizing the American body politic occurs. For four decades, the national media have pursued a preset narrative agenda. Then, they look for a news hook for that agenda that allows them to spin it up into a national story. That is why Americans are sick and tired of the national legacy media. * * * CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against a New York abortionist, accusing her of unlawfully mailing abortion drugs to a woman in Texas. Those abortion drugs landed the mother in the emergency room after causing her to hemorrhage, the filing says — and they ended the life of her unborn child. Paxton is asking the court to fine the abortionist $100,000 for each violation of the law, including practicing without a license, and mailing abortion drugs. “In this case, an out-of-state doctor violated the law and caused serious harm to this patient,” Paxton said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “This doctor prescribed abortion-inducing drugs—unauthorized, over telemedicine—causing her patient to end up in the hospital with serious complications.” “In Texas, we treasure the health and lives of mothers and babies, and this is why out-of-state doctors may not illegally and dangerously prescribe abortion-inducing drugs to Texas residents,” he added. The lawsuit targets abortionist Margaret Daley Carpenter, who is not a licensed Texas physician and is not authorized to practice telemedicine in Texas, where abortions of unborn babies are prohibited under almost all circumstances, except if the life or health of the mother is at risk. The law also prohibits physicians or medical suppliers from sending abortion drugs into the state. “Dr. Margaret Daley Carpenter (Carpenter) of New York violates Texas law by providing abortion-inducing drugs to Texans through telehealth,” the filing states. “Carpenter is not a licensed Texas physician, nor is she authorized to practice telemedicine in the State of Texas. The Court should enjoin Carpenter from continuing to operate outside the bounds of the law and impose civil penalties for her violation of Texas law.” CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE Carpenter is the co-medical director and founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine (ACT), an organization promoting abortion drugs. Her biography notes that she has been aborting babies both surgically and medically since 1999. “About mid-May 2024, a 20-year-old female resident of Collin County, Texas became pregnant,” the filing states. “The mother of the unborn child did not communicate her pregnancy to the biological father of the unborn child. The mother did not have any life threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from the pregnancy that placed her at risk of death or any serious risk of substantial impairment.” “The mother proceeded to utilize telemedicine or telehealth services and received, through Carpenter, two abortion-inducing drugs or prescriptions,” the complaint continues. “The first was a box for the drug mifepristone, 200 mg, followed by the ‘#1’ and the directions to take 1 tablet by mouth and to ‘take this medication first.’ The second was a pill bottle of misoprostol 200 mcg with directions to take 4 tablets (i.e., 800 mcg.) after the mifepristone.” The FDA’s approved mifepristone doses are 200 mg of mifepristone by mouth, then 800 mcg taken in the cheek pouch 24 to 48 hours after that, and follow up with a health care provider about seven to 14 days later. The mother asked her child’s father to take her to the hospital because of severe bleeding on July 16, 2024, the suit says. The father only learned that she had been pregnant at the hospital: “After the mother was seen by health care professionals at a hospital in Collin County, Texas, the biological father of the unborn child was told that the mother of the unborn child was experiencing a hemorrhage or severe bleeding as she ‘had been’ nine weeks pregnant before losing the child.” He concluded that the child’s mother had purposefully hid her pregnancy from him, “and he further suspected that the biological mother had in fact done something to contribute to the miscarriage or abortion of the unborn child.” He discovered the abortion drugs when they returned home. “Carpenter’s conduct violates the Texas Health and Safety Code’s prohibition on prescribing abortion-inducing drugs via telemedicine,” the complaint states. “Carpenter’s knowing and continuing violations of Texas law places women and unborn children in Texas at risk. Carpenter sees Texas patients via telehealth and prescribes them abortion inducing medication.” New York previously passed legislation that is intended to provide legal protection for doctors to send abortion pills out of state. So this new lawsuit is the first attempt at challenging the state laws against one another. SBSA Pro-Life America’s director of legal affairs, Katie Daniel, celebrated the lawsuit in a statement that condemned New York’s law, urging other pro-life leaders to follow Paxton’s example. “For the mail-order abortion industry that sells high-risk drugs without any in-person doctor visit, life is cheap and ‘DIY’ abortion highly profitable,” she argued. “Thanks to extreme blue-state politicians who shield them, abortionists in states like New York openly violate the protective laws of pro-life states, killing unborn children and sending women to the emergency room in dire condition – all while sitting comfortably thousands of miles away.”

A little more than five weeks before he begins his second term in the White House, President-elect Donald Trump joined calls for more answers regarding what are being described as “car-sized” drones that have put Americans on edge. “Mystery Drone sightings all over the Country,” Trump said in a post to Truth Social on Friday. “Can this really be happening without our government’s knowledge. I don’t think so! Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down!!! DJT.” Images of suspected drones have flooded social media over the past several days as sightings have been reported in the night skies over New Jersey and elsewhere, including near military sites and President-elect Donald Trump’s golf club in Bedminster. Federal authorities insist they have no evidence of a threat to the public or national security. In fact, the FBI and Homeland Security Department said “electronic detection” have failed to corroborate any of the sightings. “To the contrary, upon review of available imagery, it appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft, operating lawfully,” the two U.S. agencies emphasized in a joint statement released on Thursday. One U.S. congressman said “qualified sources” told him drones were coming from an Iranian “mothership” off the East Coast, but the Pentagon claimed to have no proof of a foreign link and denied the sightings were of U.S. military drones. CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE Still, lawmakers and others contended they do not believe the Department of Defense has been completely forthcoming. Yet more have flatly disagreed with assertions that the suspects drones do not pose a safety risk. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, who has said the White House is urging Congress to “pass important legislation that will extend and expand existing counter-drone authorities,” appeared exasperated on Friday. ?JUST IN: Biden Not Ready to Order Drone Takedowns John Kirby says White House doesn’t “know enough” about the drones to make a decision on whether to take them down. “We know people are afraid of it. We know people have concerns. We have those same concerns.” pic.twitter.com/pRtgOjdDqm — UAP James (@UAPJames) December 13, 2024 “We can’t corroborate every single sighting,” Kirby told Fox News. “Some of them we have. Not all of them. And we’re working hard to do that. We know people are afraid of it. We know people have concerns. We have those same concerns.” Some have questioned why the United States has not shot down one of the suspected drones for study. Kirby dismissed the idea as being premature and dangerous when pressed by anchor Martha MacCallum. “We don’t have enough conclusions to take that kind of a policy action,” Kirby said. “But let’s just assume for a minute that we did, you’re not going to want to shoot something down where it can hit somebody’s house or hurt somebody.”

Economist Paul Krugman has retired as a columnist for the New York Times, a former newspaper. Krugman published his final column Monday, and headlined it, “I will not be retiring from the New York Times,” in order to continue his unbroken record of being wrong about every single thing. Krugman began his column in January 2000 and won the 2008 Nobel Prize in economics for his discovery that money doesn’t really talk, that’s just a metaphor. He says he’s now going to cash in his investments in Kodak and Pets.com so he can afford to devote all his time to his tinfoil farm, where he grows the hats that help him communicate with the invisible spirits who see the economic future before it happens. In his final offering, Krugman reminisced about his most important columns, including his famous 2008 masterpiece, “Why the Good Times will Never End,” along with some older columns like “The Government Can Borrow as Much as It Wants As Long as the Moon is in the Seventh House and Jupiter Aligns with Mars,” and some recent ones, like “Don’t Blink or You’ll Miss the Transitory Inflation,” and “What’s Everyone Complaining About? My Intel Stock is Poised to Go Through the Roof.” After Krugman announced his retirement from the opinion page — which is sometimes fondly called by nicknames like Knucklehead Row or Fathead City or what a bunch of stupid a-holes — the Big Brains of the page honored Krugman with a retirement party. A wild time was had by all as Charles Blow showed off his intellectual prowess by buttoning his shirt correctly while David Brooks and Thomas Friedman competed to see which of them would be first to figure out how to turn his Super Mario hat so that the brim faced forward. As the bubbly flowed and the anti-depressants were passed around, the gang grew nostalgic talking about their own famous columns, like that insightful Charles Blow favorite, “White People Are Meanies,” and David Brooks’ book on the importance of character, called, “How to Dump Your Wife for a Younger Woman,” not to mention Thomas Friedman’s thoughtful essay for last month’s Sunday Magazine, “Basheer al-Assad, a Leader with Staying Power.” Meanwhile, Ross Douthat threatened to ruin the festivities by continually grabbing the arms of passersby and screaming, “Look at me! I’m a sane, rational man! I am not supposed to be here! Please send help!” WATCH: The Andrew Klavan Show The task of finding a replacement for Krugman now falls to the Times editorial board, which includes such journalistic powerhouses as the Mango Tango crayon from the jumbo size Crayola Box, a wax replica of the miraculously preserved corpse of Vladimir Lenin and that guy who walks up and down 47th Street screaming at his mother in her home in the sky. The question before them is: how to create a column that can match the level of Paul Krugman’s wit and wisdom without it becoming a series of meaningless characters that only resemble words until you look at them closely.  One idea is to brighten up the opinion page with a typical Times Relationship column that will give readers helpful advice on where to find the best porn, how to arrange a throuple with your soon-to-be-former friends, and how you can spice up your marriage by refusing to sleep with your spouse. Another idea is a column called “Poor Little Dirtbag,” in which every week a Times writer explains why we should feel compassion for a different terrorist, pervert, murderer or Times editorialist while forgetting all about the suffering of his victim or subscriber. And finally, the board discussed a possible column by Times Editor-in-Chief Blithering Prevarication the Third called, “Why I Hate Donald Trump So So Much,” in which every single day Mr. Third gives yet another reason why he hates Donald Trump so, so much. But that idea was rejected after the editors decided it would be indistinguishable from the current opinion page. In a statement to Times readers, the editorial board wrote, “We hope all our devoted subscribers will take a moment off from playing Wordle, and say a fond farewell to Mr. Krugman. His departure will leave a dark empty hole where his column used to be, so probably you won’t notice any difference.” * * * This excerpt is taken from the opening satirical monologue of “The Andrew Klavan Show.” Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. He is the bestselling author of the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fourth installment, “A WOMAN UNDERGROUND,” is now available. Follow him on X: @andrewklavan The views expressed in this satirical article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

A woman in Florida was charged by police this week for allegedly threatening her health insurance company after they denied a claim. The Lakeland Police Department was contacted by the FBI on Tuesday about the threat that 42-year-old Briana Boston allegedly made to BlueCross BlueShield after they denied a recent claim. WFLA reported that at the end of the recorded phone call, Boston could allegedly be heard saying: “Delay, Deny, Depose. You people are next.” “Delay, Deny, Depose,” were the same words that an assassin allegedly wrote on the shell casings of the three 9mm bullets that were used to murder UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week. The arrest affidavit noted the words have quickly come to be widely recognized as a threat “directed against insurance companies.” “She’s been in this world long enough that she certainly should know better that you can’t make threats like that in the current environment that we live in and think that we’re not going to follow up and put you in jail,” said Lakeland Police Chief Sam Taylor. CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE When law enforcement questioned her at her home, she allegedly admitting to making the statement and said that “healthcare companies played games and deserved karma from the world because they are evil.” She admitted to using the phrase “because it’s what is in the news right now,” but claimed she was not a danger because she did not own firearms. “She readily admitted that, ‘Yeah that’s exactly what I said but I didn’t mean anything by it,’” said Taylor. “Well, you don’t get to pull that back after you say it.” She was charged with threats to conduct a mass shooting or an act of terrorism. The judge in the case set bond to $100,000, citing “the status of our country at this point.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is reportedly planning to donate to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, joining other major tech figures who have already done so. “President Trump will lead our country into the age of A.I., and I am eager to support his efforts to ensure America stays ahead,” Altman said in a written statement to The New York Times. The Washington Post reported that Google CEO Sundar Pichai has met with Trump. The Daily Mail said that Google co-founder Sergey Brin has also met with Trump. The Times added that Apple CEO Tim Cook was scheduled to meet tonight with Trump at Mar-a-Lago for a private dinner. Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg — whose company owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and more — has already given a $1 million donation to the inaugural fund. Amazon.com is also planning to donate $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. The donation is being prepared by Jeff Bezos, the company’s founder who now serves as Amazon’s executive chairman. CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE Zuckerberg already met Trump for a private dinner and Bezos is expected to travel to Mar-a-Lago for a private dinner. The donations from the world’s top tech leaders pale in comparison to the more than a quarter of a billion dollars that Elon Musk donated to boost Trump during the presidential election over Vice President Kamala Harris. Musk, who owns X and serves as CEO at Tesla and SpaceX, donated a staggering $277 million to backing Trump, making him the largest political donor during the 2024 elections.