Michael Smith

[Yashar Ali 🐘 @yashar]

If you say that something is fake, a false flag, a setup, a hoax, a psyop, or staged before you have gathered any evidence and had a chance to analyze it, you’re radicalized, and that radicalization is impacting your ability to assess reality.

[Bridget Phetasy @BridgetPhetasy]

Trump’s energy in this press conference is very

[Michael Warburton @For_Film_Fans]

In 2006 a high school English teacher asked students to write to a famous author & ask for advice.

KURT VONNEGUT (who left us 19yrs ago today) was the only one to respond.

His reply was a doozy.

[Amy Swearer @AmySwearer]

To recap, from the standpoint of local time:

Shot down early on Good Friday. Rescued Easter Sunday morning.

If it were a movie plot, we'd roll our eyes at it for being too on the nose but here we are in real life...

[The Real Mike Rowe @mikeroweworks]

If you haven’t heard, and even if you have, Jimmy Kimmel said this about Markwayne Mullin, former Senator from Oklahoma, and our newest Secretary of Homeland Security:
“We have a plumber now protecting us from terrorism.”

Apparently, there has been some backlash. Plumbers were offended, obviously, as were parents of plumbers, spouses of plumbers, children of plumbers, and millions of people who have had a plumber show up when they needed one. Comedians were also offended, (the funny ones, anyway,) along with a surprising number of terrorists - especially those with access to hot and cold running water. However, in spite of the ensuing kerfuffle, @jimmykimmel doubled down.

“I’m not upset that the head of Homeland Security was a plumber,” he said, “I’m upset that he isn’t still a plumber." He further elucidated by adding, "I wouldn't put a plumber in charge of Homeland Security for the same reason I wouldn't call a five-star general to pull a rat out of my toilet, OK? We all have our areas of expertise.”

Being offended is always a choice, and I don’t choose to be offended by a joke, even one that comes at the expense of the skilled tradespeople my foundation tries to elevate. But I am a tad butt hurt by the suggestion that skilled workers should never evolve into something new, and that competence is somehow limited to one vocation. Obviously, expertise and skill are important. If I need a new kidney, I’d prefer a doctor do the surgery, not a late-night talk show host. But if the doctor in question used to host a talk show, why would I hold that against him?

Ten years ago, during one of the presidential debates, @MarcoRubio answered a workforce-related question by arguing that America needed to get shop class back into high schools. He concluded by saying, “What our country needs are more welders and fewer philosophers.” A lot of people on this page commented that Rubio and I were singing from the same hymnal, but in fact, we weren’t. At least not entirely. Because I don’t think the current shortage of welders has anything to do with an overabundance of philosophers. In fact, I think it’s a mistake to promote one vocation at the expense of the other. What we really need in this country, are more welders who can talk intelligently about Aristotle, and more philosophers who can run an even bead. More Generals, in other words, who can fix their own toilets, and more plumbers who can hold a powerful government job.

This is what Mullin did. He was a private citizen who mastered an essential skill and then turned that skill into a multi-million-dollar company that employed a lot of people and served a lot of customers. That gave him the freedom to do other things with his life, including a career in public service which got him into Congress, where he’s spent the last eleven years doing whatever Congressmen do. Now, he has a very consequential position in the Cabinet of the current administration.

Is that not the embodiment of the American Dream? I get that Jimmy Kimmel might have a problem with Mullin’s politics, but what possible objection could he have about the trajectory of his career, or his desire to do more than one thing with his life?

The only sensible thing to do in the wake of a moment this tone deaf, is remind America that the skills gap is wide, and getting wider. The shortage of skilled tradespeople is now headline news and closing it is nothing less than a matter of national security. This year, my foundation has set aside $10 million dollars to help train the next generation of plumbers, and lots of other essential workers. I'm talking about hundreds of thousands of AI-proof, six figure jobs that don't require a four-year degree, waiting to be filled. The money is currently available to anyone who wants to master a useful skill at https://t.co/uolhGspFtN. Apply today.

As for those of you genuinely offended by Kimmel's comments, consider expressing your disappointment with a modest donation to mikeroweWORKS. Our work ethic scholarship is making a real difference, and your money will be well spent, I promise. The donate button is big and red and hard to miss, at https://t.co/uolhGspFtN

I’d love to chat but I’ve gotta pull a rat out of my toilet…

[Yogi @Houseofyogi]

Unrealized gains tax for Gen-Z:

You buy a Pokémon card for $50.

Someone offers you $500 for it. You say no. You love that card. You're keeping it.

The government says: "Cool, but that card is worth $500 now. You owe us $100 in taxes."
You: "…I didn't sell it."

Government: "Don't care. Pay up."

You don't have $100 lying around. So you're forced to sell the card you love just to pay a tax on money you never received.

Next month? That card drops back to $50.

Your card is gone. Your money is gone. And the government shrugs.

That's a wealth tax on unrealized gains. They don't pay you back the tax...

Now picture this.

Your mom calls you crying. She has to sell the house she raised you in. Not because she can't afford it. She's lived there 30 years. It's paid off.

But some website says it's worth more now and the government says she owes $15,000 she doesn't have.

So she sells your childhood home. The kitchen where she made you breakfast. The doorframe where she marked your height every birthday.

Gone.

To pay a tax on money that was never real.

Now picture the opposite.

Your dad put everything into his small business. For 20 years he built it from nothing. One year the business is "valued" at $2 million on paper. He owes a massive tax bill. He empties his savings. Sells his truck. Borrows money. Pays it.

Next year the market crashes. His business is worth $200,000.

He lost everything to pay a tax on a number that doesn't exist anymore.

Does the government give him his money back?
No.

Does the government give him his truck back?
No.

Does the government care?
No.

They sold this idea as "taxing billionaires." But billionaires have armies of lawyers, offshore accounts, and trusts. They'll be fine.

You know who won't be fine? Your mom. Your dad. Your neighbor with a small business. The farmer down the road who's had the same land for four generations and now has to sell it because dirt got expensive.

You're not taxing wealth. You're taxing people for owning things.

It's like getting a parking ticket for a car you might drive somewhere someday.

They want you to own nothing and be happy. To fund the fraud, waste and abuse of the welfare state they created.

There is enough money. More tax isn't needed. It's all a lie. But you've been gaslit into believing this is a rich vs poor debate.

I hope you understand what's at stake.

[Tony Seruga @TonySeruga]

Every Christmas Eve, I think about George Bailey.

He dreamed of escaping Bedford Falls—of shaking off the dust of a small town, building skyscrapers, exploring the world. Instead, he stayed. He ran the Building & Loan his father left behind. He sacrificed his college money, his honeymoon savings, his chance to see the world, over and over, because people needed him.

By the time the crisis hits, George feels like a failure. His life looks like one long series of missed opportunities, thwarted ambitions, and quiet resentments. He stands on the bridge, convinced the world would be better without him.

Then Clarence shows him the truth: a Bedford Falls without George Bailey is a darker, meaner, hollowed-out place. The people he quietly helped, the small acts of integrity he performed without recognition, the risks he took to protect others—those weren’t detours. They were the substance of his life.

The film’s deepest insight isn’t just that “no man is a failure who has friends.” It’s that real impact is almost always invisible in the moment. The lives you steady, the small kindnesses you extend, the responsibilities you shoulder when no one else will—these things ripple outward in ways you may never see.

A strong sense of purpose doesn’t erase pain; it transforms it. It doesn’t merely explain why hard things happened. It asks: What are you now responsible for because they happened?

Faith, at its best, does the same. It doesn’t promise that everything was “meant to be” in order to make suffering palatable. It invites you to look at what has been entrusted to you in light of what you’ve endured.

George’s story reminds us that meaning is rarely found in the grand escape, but in the faithful presence. The dreams we surrender don’t always vanish—they often become the raw material for something more enduring than we imagined.

If you’re carrying the weight of roads not taken, of dreams deferred, of a life that feels smaller than you once hoped—watch It’s a Wonderful Life again tonight. Not as nostalgia, but as revelation.

You may not see the full difference you’ve made yet.

But it’s there.

And it matters more than you know.

Merry Christmas, friends.

🎄🇨🇽🎅🦌☃️⛪️✝️❤️

[Ben Dreyfuss @bendreyfuss]

America invented “cool” and the least cool thing you can do is cry about bullshit that doesn’t matter which is all anyone does anymore because of the internet so America feels totally broken because everyone is a loser now who sounds like a dime store hysterical European.

[Ben Dreyfuss @bendreyfuss]

For a long time in Europe, if your daddy was a shoemaker then you had to be a shoemaker and your kid had to be a shoemaker, but then George Washington kicked King George in the cock and invented a little thing called liberty.

[Vivek Ramaswamy @VivekGRamaswamy]

American identity isn’t a scalar quality that varies based on your ancestry. It’s binary: either you’re an American, or you’re not. You are an American if you believe in the rule of law, in freedom of conscience & freedom of expression, in colorblind meritocracy, in the U.S. Constitution, in the American dream, and if you are a citizen who swears exclusive allegiance to our nation. That’s the truth & it’s why I wrote this piece.

[Ben Dreyfuss @bendreyfuss]

Kids nowadays love to laugh about “67,” an inscrutable random joke that makes no sense and is objectively less humorous than what my friends and I found funny in elementary school: drawing penises on the faces of the kids who fell asleep first during a sleepover.

[Cracker Barrel @CrackerBarrel]

You probably don't want us anywhere near a remodel

[Colin Wright @SwipeWright]

Was the more than 20-fold rise in trans identities since 2010 the result of people finally feeling free to express their authentic selves? Or was it a social contagion?

Five years ago, I and others were canceled for suggesting the latter. New evidence shows we were right.

Read my latest for the Wall Street Journal ⬇️
🔗https://t.co/RkMiKqxCo0

[Emily Zanotti 🦝 @emzanotti]

*Gestures broadly* do it, how much worse could it really be.

[AG @AGHamilton29]

“Simplistic genocide claims fuel propaganda”

Just incredible. Frame it.

[Austen Allred @Austen]

“We dropped the whole ‘no kings’ theme of the protest so as to not upset the monarchy” is so unbelievably funny

[Bjorn Lomborg @BjornLomborg]

Bangladesh climate 1970-2021:

Top: No trend in hurricanes over half century

Bottom: Strong decline in death risk

What matters are early warning systems, shelters, information, etc.

Disaster risk reduction, not CO₂ cuts, is what saves lives

[Antonio García Martínez (agm.eth) @antoniogm]

It's amazing that to end the war, all Hamas had to do was the one thing the Israelis were yelling all along: release the hostages.

[Brianna Wu @BriannaWu]

Notice every single goddamn Democrat that’s been screaming about a ceasefire that doesn’t congratulate our president for accomplishing one.

Because it was never about moral opposition to violence, but rather a sick fantasy of annihilating the only Jewish state.