Happy New Year. Everyone needs a break from the news. I am sticking with you. I don't always agree, but it is better for my brain to listen to what you have to say. Stay true to your convictions about real journalism. Give my regards to Walter.
I am a boomer (August, 1957) and therefore a persistent object of contemporary cultural opprobrium, which I enjoy more than later generations likely imagine. As were all children of my generation, I was free range; I wasn’t coddled, driven to school, nor desired at home before sundown. I jumped off the roof with an umbrella in first grade. In second grade, I burned down our garden shed (containing a lawn mower and gasoline cans) when I ignited the lithium in my chemistry set and couldn’t put it out with the garden hose. My brother and I would hitch rides on freight trains in fourth grade to visit neighboring towns and return home in time for dinner. I played with liquid mercury in 5th grade, when even kids could get their hands on it (and sodium) despite the toxicity. I used a slide rule. Proper English and cursive handwriting wasn’t optional. When NASA produced Tang (a powdered citrus drink for astronauts), it was magic, like Fizzies, which few of your readers have ever heard of.
My paternal grandfather barnstormed with Charles Lindbergh and flew the Spirit of St. Louis in the 1957 Jimmy Stewart movie as technical director. He taught me to fly in a de Havilland Gipsy Moth during 6th grade, My father commanded an Air Force Test squadron associated with the Corona Project before and after his tour in Vietnam, and I commanded a Marine Corps Harrier squadron, was the Operations Officer for the transfer of the Panama Canal in 1999, and now serve as VP of the largest privately-owned oil company in the U.S.
I frequently interview later generations (yours and subsequent) for positions in our company. I start every interview with a request for a three paragraph essay on any subject they desire with just a pen and paper. I sit there and watch. More than half cannot accomplish this with proper spelling, syntax, or punctuation. Some wish to believe the I am to blame, inasmuch as grammar is somehow racist. Fascinating.
For my technical personnel, I ask them to calculate the volumes of pipes of specified dimensions without a computer (or how they would go about doing so), among other rather basic competencies that are fundamental to our industry. Everything that I have described was high school knowledge in my generation.
This insight is parallel to my view of crypto currencies. Those of your generation (and junior), as much as I love you, are not ready for the lights to go out. They can go out FAR more readily than those normalized to the convenience of predictable grasp.
I don’t wish to impugn the dignity of others, but I don’t think that my generation’s critics know as much as they imagine. I understand Ohm’s law because I had industrial arts in high school that included “electric shop,” “foundry,” “welding,” “offset printing,” and “auto.” I took all those classes, as young people were expected to do in my generation (girls had “Home Economics.” Today, I have to help my “kid” neighbors to open their electric garage doors when there is a power outage (and then how to reconnect afterward).
I could go on for many more paragraphs and most will never reach this summary—who can blame them? Boomers are an excellent object of opprobrium, as were my strict (and intentionally un-protective) forefathers who wished for our lives to be better than their’s (Monkees: Another Pleasant Valley Sunday).
Liberty is about personal responsibility. When liberty is closely circumscribed, humans become less responsible. Human nature is predictable out to three decimal places. It is immutable, something that socialists refuse to internalize. Explaining humans to other humans is rather tiresome because self-awareness is a minority report.
I grew up attending Roman Catholic schools somewhat after that. We still had an hour of penmanship daily, and we attended Mass Mon., Wed., and Friday. Homework every night. We had to choose and read a library book each week, then write and present to the class a book report. And all of that was just for starters. After grade three it became far more serious.
My grandsons attend a Catholic grammar school in Salt Lake City. "Social emotional learning" is as important as the 3 Rs (maybe more). Grade inflation is obvious to a boomer grandpa. Their Diversity Committee celebrated the first trans Congressperson 2 years ago.
Liberation theology (Francis and Leo) and woke Catholicism drive the bus.
Better than our local public schools, but by how much...
From long experience of Catholic schools, I would not consider that description to be authentic Catholicism, John. It sounds much like leftwing Neo-Marxist WOKE-ism. But you seem to realize that. Catholic in name only.
Many centre or conservative Catholics do not consider either Francis or Leo to have been or to be true Popes. They think of them as Deep State infiltrators to the Vatican. Another institution poisoned.
Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez, OP, is the father of "Liberation Theology". His "theological" views are Marxist. They have dominated Latin/South American Catholic clerical practice for a half century. Francis and his protege, Tuco Fernandez have captured the Catholic hierarchy. Gutiérrez was a Peruvian, and Leo spent decades there. He holds Peruvian citizenship and has been clearly under Gutiérrez's sway . Sadly, even Notre Dame University had welcomed Gutiérrez before his death.
Recall Leo's brief interview last fall when questioned about Illinois Senator Dick Durbin being offered a lifetime achievement award by the Diocese of Chicago. Leo claimed that he didn't know enough about it to comment, and immediately moved the conversation from Durbin's decades long abortion advocacy away from his pro-choice votes. He said we must look at the totality of Durbin's record (i.e. illegal migration support), that capital punishment matters, failing to call Durbin out. Being a Chicago native, Leo has known Durbin as part of the Chicago political ties with the Diocese for decades. Who is Leo fooling? Durbin subsequently declined the award.
Leo's handling of this controversy tells every Catholic who he is.
You sound as if you know Catholicism well, John. I though that you might perhaps have a Polish Catholic background.
When Benedict shockingly resigned, I believed he was pushed out. Perhaps under threat.
Some years ago I listened to the series of interviews with Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, which -- if I had not already smelled Marxism in the Vatican -- confirmed my suspicions. Of course Archbishop Vigano was then excommunicated for daring to speak the truth. This reiterated for me that there was indeed a fox in the henhouse. I think that Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez was one of the enablers of this.
Abortion advocacy and living the Catholic faith do not go together. Amazes me that the Marxist-Catholics weep for the illegal immigrants of all natures, but not for the babies slain by their own mothers in the womb. I'm afraid I cannot take them seriously. And if American capitalism is so bad, why are they all wanting to head across the border to the U.S.?
Recall FRATELLI TUTTI in October, 2020, strategically released right before the U.S. presidential election. Pages upon pages about the charitableness of accepting unlimited migration, with lip service to abortion. Our parish actually had a womens group that studied this POS.
Have you read, "Dilexi Te" from Leo? Just more of the same.
Cardinals Robert Sarah and Gerhard Muller are among our best hopes to push back against satan's sway over those at the highest levels of our Church. But they are "old and in the way".
I believe some parishes in America and the Church in Africa (imperfect as all human endeavors are) will keep the true faith alive during this time of attack.
My employees largely print their names as a signature. They are wonderful people, but our educational system have other priorities, primarily programming leftist, decadent “morality.”
Boomer here. Older than you. My Dad learned to fly in the 1950s from Ed Prosperi who flew the mail route from St. Louis to Chicago with Lindbergh. The little airport was on the South side of Chicago. My Dad was a great pilot and when he retired he started a flying club for boys called "Junior Astronauts". He had bad PTSD from WWII from captaining a sub chaser at the age of 22. Flying relaxed him. He was a pioneer in Special Education. "Children should be custom made, not mass produced" was his motto. He taught them to grow and bale hay on the school's 40 acres. They learned to build go-carts and a small outboard motor boat. I walked to the bus stop and after school played in the woods until dark. I learned how to shoot a gun, catch perch, ride a horse. My Dad taught me math when I helped him build a miniature hip roofed barn for 3 horses. He regaled me with history as I helped hand him tools. I worked in Hollywood as a talent agent and ran off and started my own business. Boomers are a mixed bag. I went to a conservative college for undergrad and was one of only 10 Seniors who wore a black armband at graduation to protest the Vietnam War. They made us take them off. Now my same conservative classmates are love me I'm a liberal types who adore Obama and Hilary. The people in charge of Congress are not Boomers. They are of that weird Silent Generation who are not aptly named. I wish they would shut up and go away. It was Ted Kennedy and not a boomer who came up with the stupid 1965 immigration policy of letting low wage workers in to undermine our own working class. And Jane Fonda was born in 1937. She turned from activism for the masses to be the workout queen or from "we" to "me". But, yes, the boomers began screwing up big time when the Clintons took the helm. Good bye manufacturing national capitalist America and Hello International capitalism. And, yes, it's time for us to move aside. But not before you young whippersnappers learn grammar and read more books. Now get off your butts and go play in the woods.
Your story of the interview essay struck a chord (mine would be how Obama was the most disappointing President in history—60 votes in the Senate and that’s all he did?) My dad was a professor of math education. For most of this century he had to spend half a semester teaching would-be math teachers arithmetic. I didn’t believe him at first, so he showed me student worksheets with wrong answers on tough problems like 32-17= and 11x12=
No they are not. The teacher's union sets the curricula these days. It was in the 90s they decided handwriting, cursive, or fair-hand was no longer needed. These are also the same people who told us we won't have a calculator in our hand all day.
I agree with you, Michael, that teachers' unions are the vehicles through which these destructive changes were implemented. It was based on politics, rather than understanding or consideration of educational needs.
That being said, the general and growing social contagion of Neo-Marxist ideology throughout Western society post-1945 is what influenced the teachers' unions in this manner. These unions became the tool used at the grassroots level.
I still recall my first Physics 101 test, fall semester 1973, at Boston U. Remember those blue cover answer booklets that required you to answer the problems using both English language and physics/math? None of that multiple choice crap that is much easier to game. There I sat, child 3 of 6 of a father who never saw junior year of high school, using my slide rule for calculations. And I hear it, "click, click, click", and realize that the rich kids were cruising along with their calculators. I was the last to turn in my booklet, but I aced the test.
Is there a way to "get back to where we once belonged"?
I try to not rub it in. I feel like someone who escaped Plato's Cave and can't really judge those still watching the shadow show. Our free-range generation were handed the tools to make choices. Freedom isn't just another word for nothing left to lose. It's the difference between the life you're given and the life you choose.
I have a bold prediction for 2026: it will be just like 2025, only stupider.
Also, Matt, can you get me tickets to the July 4 MMA fight on the White House lawn? It's time for America to settle its differences the old-fashioned way: inside the octagon! Vance v Newsom for the title of Boy Emperor.
Was thinking the same today when I saw an article about how the race for 2028 is heating up, with Newsom, Cruz, JD, Harris. It can only get worse. I'd like to try and be more optimistic, but good god how can the leaders of the dem party think they can win the WH back with Newsom or Harris. Like a the broken record that I am, without the loss of an honest nonpartisan news media this would never be possible. The Dems cannot win if voters are told the truth, so that is where the struggle will be, how to get the truth out and counter the constant propaganda from the legacy news media. The information battle will be ramping up exponentially, with increasing assistance from AI
Unfortunately, the AI gremlins are mostly leftwing. I test their replies every so often, and these robotic creatures are very saucy. They come at you with a super dose of self-righteousness, just like the Democrats themselves.
I asked a question regarding a state government political decision and got what I perceived to be a biased answer. One paragraph led with "In truth, while that reasoning made headlines, this move reflected a deeper ideological battle ..." Another sentence ended with "things the state prefers to monopolize."
Would love to see her in the WH as the prez. Don't relish the primary and the ugly fighting, as I also like JD and Rubio, but Tulsi running would make it harder for the Dems, what with all of their complaining about misogyny being the reason Harris and Hilldog lost
If it's any consolation, we've smacked down hard any early frontrunners over the last decade or so of elections. Who could have forseen Bernie? Or Trump? Remember Harris was the early frontrunner in '20, and never even made it to the primaries.
She was never going to run. Ever. She got a lot of shit that she didn't deserve when she was in the WH. That was wishful thinking by Democrats because she was the only one that most people liked. I used to like her myself when she was first lady. But afterwards, when she had money and a real estate portfolio the rest of us could only dream of, she became a world class whiner. I wish she'd just go away.
She got a lot of shit she didn't deserve well before the WH. Her Senior Thesis from Princeton was embarrassing. Dr Jill's PhD dissertation was also embarrassing, but the U of Delaware isn't Princeton.
I’m pretty pleased with all major political developments in 2025. The prior cabbage head and its shenanigans were way past the due date.
If you’d like a fun 2025 month-by-month breakdown of all of administration 47 victories (+ all the meltdown’s by those opposed) have a read of last two days of Coffee & Covid. Jeff Childers brings all the receipts and it tastes much better than rotten kimchi.
Now, if we can only get an on-record vote from every member of Congress in 2026 to repeal/eliminate the 53-year old silent, Senate filibuster. Make Reading the New York City Phone Book Great Again.
I agree. Seems that Matt and his subscribers are so wired cynical they cannot really calculate real political progress under Trump. They are the professional critics of everything. Just ask them to propose any administration... any country... past or present... as the model they brand as good. They cannot. Not in their DNA. It is a collective personality flaw. Like liberals pursuing never to be perfection, this tribe pursues a constant narrative of everything being crappy.
Let’s not get too carried away with political progress under Trump. There’s been plenty of bad with the good.
>For all the no-new-wars-started, he dropped bunker-busters in Iran. Because apparently Bibi hadn’t had a recent enough handjob?
>Shut down CIA front USAID, but now CIA is illegally droning Venezuela.
>If you have sizable assets in the market, you’re sitting pretty. If you don’t, sorry Charlie, the world needs ditch-diggers and losers too.
>Took care of tax cuts for rich people, and fucked those on Medicaid and those counting on Obamacare subsidies.
>Tariffs squared what had been unfair trade practices without setting inflation on fire.
> Free speech is definitely better off than it would have been under Harris.
It’s a seriously mixed bag.
A lot of squandered opportunities. And even MTG and Boebert hate his guts now.
And when he loses the House, which seems likely despite absolutely no coherent message from Democrats? If that happens, he’s not just a very lame duck, but one who will be impeached at least once, perhaps multiple times.
And Jesus Fucking Christ, why must the man insist on pissing everywhere he can like a new dog in the neighborhood?
He’s quickly running out of time to get shit done.
I pretty much agree, though I'd like to point out that those tax cuts also benefited the working class. Other than that, Trump has greased the skids for the wealthy like all his predecessors did. Pontificating on a "New Golden Age," and babbling about how the US economy is "the envy of the world" rings hollow for people struggling to pay their bills, while realizing that neither they, nor their children, will ever be able to afford a house.
It's only been a year. One f*cking year to fix all the crap that has taken decades to make. Thanks for confirming my initial point. Oh, and ask yourself what would the alternative look like today to help you get my point.
Take it easy on the caffeine, Frank. And piss off with your "thanks for proving my point." I made observations. Feel free to refute them. Did rich people not get a tax cut? Did those on Medicaid not get fucked? Is the ownership class not thriving at the expense of the working class?
Did you even read my whole comment? Nah, just started spewing when I said something critical about Trump.
1) If MAGA fails, the United States will be the nation of the anti-Christ. Think about it. The USA has greatest military power on earth and if it is placed in the hands of the haters of Jews and Christians, how do think we end up?
2) There are elements in American society that aren't just messed up. They are devoted to being evil. If MAGA fails, the end is near.
3) Call me crazy, call me Ishmael. If you cannot perceive the mystical implications of the evil path some would have us walk, you most likely cannot be helped.
Too bad so many think the Jews are unfairly running stuff. In reality, allying with and listening to the Jews is the best way to derail the evil of Islam. They get it.
We may not have the greatest military power on earth.
China has more naval ships than we do and their ships are much newer. Their nuclear arsenal is probably kept up to date too.
They have 20X the ship building capacity that we have.
Their bridge building is symbolic of their surpassing us. We haven't built a single substantial suspension bridge since the Verrazano in 1965 (our longest suspension bridge). China has since built 13 suspension bridges longer than the Verrazano with another 13 under construction.
I'm glad we are trying to restore some of industries. Finally.
When manufacturing went from the West to China, I thought it was one of the worst decisions that could have been made. The West lost the jobs, and at the same time helped to build the prosperity and military of a Communist nation.
Bad idea. They can turn around and use it all against us.
Some say DJT started a 'Trade War' but we have been in a trade war for 40yrs with the help of Corp. USA and the selling out of the blue collar workers. The parts I buy for my small business have magically turned from made in China to 'Made in the U.S.A.' with only a slight increase in price that I happily eat half of. A service only economy is unsustainable and we have to 'make stuff', again. I'm very optimistic for 2026 and can't wait for working class people working overtime, and for tips, see their tax return double from last year. A hundred more citizen journos with cell phone cameras will be icing on the cake.
It all started in schools, when the 2nd generation hippies took over the academy - business, journalism, education, art, history, even law and medicine.
"China experiences significant structural disasters, often linked to rapid development, poor quality control, illegal construction, and geological instability, leading to collapses of buildings, bridges, and dams, such as the 2022 Changsha building collapse (shoddy work) and recent bridge failures due to landslides or design flaws, with major past events like the 1975 Banqiao Dam failure also causing massive loss of life, highlighting systemic issues."
We're all assuming we can still build bridges and battleships.
Fundamentals have gone out the window in so many of our industries.
I'm in construction and design and I've witnessed the decline in fundamentals.
For example, very few house framers know what a plumber's box is anymore or know how to make a basic bird's mouth cut on a rafter that will meet code. Very basic stuff.
It's symbolic of so many of the trades and design professionals.
That we are too lazy to teach and too lazy to learn.
A visiting relative from the west coast told me this Xmas that driver ed is no longer taught in Portland. He said this after I asked him if he's been witnessing people not staying in their turning lane and intruding in others' turning lanes. He said yes.
I'm in the NYC outer burbs and I've been noticing something that didn't happen years ago- that when I make a right turn at an intersection, cars coming the other way, making the reverse of what I'm doing, clip into my turning lane. I would hit them head on if I don't brake, yet it's my lane. Bizarre.
It's as if whole mental maps and structures are dissolving. Or were never established in the first place.
There have been times these past twenty years or so I have suspected we are going backwards in the evolutionary sense. I would like to be proven wrong, actually.
Quite a few of my friends and old college buddies are in defense and/or defense contracting and they've been saying if we ever go to war with China it won't go well for us.
It's also my family background- my dad was a guidance system engineer who designed software for the gyroscopes in missiles and rockets. He worked on the Cruise, Patriot, Tomahawk missiles and the Space Shuttle.
Maybe it depends on what kind of war and who is in charge of pressing the buttons? I have zero faith we'd win a conventional war against China. The vaporizing kind of war is one I don't want to think about.
This is fantasy. First you are not even playing on the right field.
Day one everybody vaporizes everyone else's *satellites* and comms and we all go back to the stone age there.
Ukraine war has shown how hard it now is to project power. Aircraft carriers are likely headed the way of tanks, too easy to take out entirely. Like a javelin on a shoulder now ends a tank very easily, only one hypersonic has to get thru to end a carrier.
Loss of force projction means our ability to protect Taiwan is zero. But China likely doesnt have it enough together to try. Trump waa right to end the gravy train for them, it has hurt them internally politically.
You are a damned fool. The ONLY thing that will save human civilization is Trump fai,ing utterly and damnatio memoriae enacted on his entire movement and all his works. Donald John Trump IS the Antichrist. He is pure distilled evil and so is everyone who doesn’t detest him.
You are sadly mistaken. Mr. Trump regularly states the the Lord is above us all. The anti-Christ is the enemy of Yeshua. You can learn this by reading the New Testament in nearly any translation. You might want to check GotQuestions.org and ask them. I bet they can help. If they can't help, check out OneForIsrael or JewsforJesus. Any of these folks can help you understand your genuine identity before the Creator and how the Creator has defined our future. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Relevant to Matt's thesis about the weird world we live in, and his observation that we're a few hours in, and no super-weird shit has yet occurred . . .
. . . one year ago today, we had some dude run over people on the streets of New Orleans, and another guy blow up a Cybertruck in front of Trump Tower in Vegas.
And the stories that emerged that day made NO SENSE whatsoever . . . and both incidents long ago faded into the morass of twitter wars, real wars, cold wars, imaginary wars, and endless wars.
Eliminating the draft ended the antiwar movement and silenced its leaders. Endless war was normalized and remains the norm.
You cannot appreciate how lopsided wealth is currently distributed unless you were a sentient being in the 60s, when the wealth curve was at its flattest.
Computer technology was benevolent, or at least was thought to be, until the Snowden/NSA revelations.
The 9/11 event, whether staged, managed, or (less likely) totally organic, was utilized to steal the 21st Century from its rightful beneficiaries in Generation X and the Millennials, by the ghouls and ghosts of the 20th.
There is a lot of truth to your comment, but I don't believe in "rightful" beneficiaries. Try earning it. I'd certainly agree that times are unnerving. People have forgotten how to take the risk of thinking for themselves.
Median income in the United States peaked in the late 1970s.
Each generation has a duty to both the generation before and after it.
"Ye are not your own...ye were paid for with a price."
Your life's work can only be rational, not to mention just, if you honor those obligations to those who went before and those coming after.
The 21st Century should have been the fruition of the best ideas of the 20th, but it was turned into a contraction by some really profoundly evil people and ideas.
The contraction was both economic and spiritual.
Oh, and by the way, the Republicans destroyed public education and the labor movement during the last quarter of the 20th Century.
The Republicans didn't destroy anything on their own.
Republicans should have refused to fund the Department of Education, and declined to participate in the off-shoring of our industries. Lazy, incompetent teachers, and their dumb union leaders helped destroy public education. Greedy union leaders -- and workers, to some extent -- helped destroy the labor movement, along with idiot politicians who allowed foreign, oftentimes illegal laborers to replace Americans. This is a bipartisan mess, and the sooner we all recognize that, the better.
As a 17 year UAW member, and former president of a small local union, we could go on into volumes concerning the labor movement. Suffice it to say that the Reagan Republicans were, in the main, responsible for the policies that busted unions, collapsed the industrial sector, and lowered wages.
Fun fact: Reagan actually liberalized immigration to benefit scab employers, a concept foreign to today's ICE protesters.
Alot of the history of the last 50 or so years has been Democrats perfecting bad Republican ideas, like Clinton signing NAFTA and legalizing Wall Street casino style trading on his last day in office.
Greed undid unions as surely as it undid medicine. Greed is working hard to destroy capitalism and it is non-partisan. Good turns to bad on the dime of self-regulation.
I was a toll collector on the NJ Turnpike from 1973-79. A guy in our town was union president of the local UAW. We had two assembly plants in Elizabeth and Rahway back then, Ford and GMC. The union boss let lots of locals get assembly line union jobs at both plants. These young men took advantage of this generosity, drinking and drugging on the job and could care less about the quality of their products. Fit and finish mattered not. These kids used to come through my toll booth at 2 am after their swing shift, already high and drunk. Datsun (Nissan), Honda and Toyota imported well-built and reliable cars, and both plants closed not soon after.
Workers must be accountable for their labor and the benefits they receive. My dad (a high school dropout) was a union shop steward when I was in high school. He called out both management and those losers he had to advocate for (not all of his men). I learned what a man is from him.
I look around and see plenty of rightful beneficiaries squandering their inheritance.
Both national parties have lived way beyond their useful lifespan.
Given our debt, tax cuts make no rational sense to me. On the other hand, I,m not seeing American workers doing a good day's work, not even to mention burning any midnight oil.
Pouring good money after bad on brainless addictive spending makes no more sense to me than tax cuts.
Trump is going to start the draft again this year. If you have sons and don’t want them to die for Netanyahu and billionaires, make sure their passports are current and that they know people in Canada.
Matt, this is first thing I have read/heard from you in a while (and I read and listen a lot) that reminds me why I pay for your Racket. If more thoughtfulness means less frequency, that’s a trade I’ll take. As hard as it is to take it seriously, I am convinced that what you mean to be about is serious and important work. Thank you.
You are on to something regarding frequency. I subscribe for the writing. I enjoy America This Week but certainly don't mind missing it when I have something else to do. The stories and books are the best part imo.
I think it¡s more an issue of how he's planning to pay for it. My guess was he bet that state Democrats wouldn’t let him fail but Hochul is up for election and seems disinclined to save his bacon despite her late and reluctant endorsement.
I don't hate him but I certainly don,t endorse his ridiculous politics.
Free childcare & rent freezing has to be paid in some way. Mamdani hasn’t stated how. But in past, he has called for defunding the cops. Has he walked that back? If not, will the $ come from reduced policing expenses?
One of the current idiotic thingies coming from the left is the narrative that "my grandfather fought the fascists in Europe. He WAS Antifa!" --- No, Dear. In your grandfather's day, Antifa were radical & violent communists. In 1942, your grandfather would have been horrified to be compared to Antifa. Today, Antifa are radical, violent anarchists. Your grandfather would still be horrified to be compared to them.
Bolder prediction for 2026: The European Union will begin to or completely unravel and all 26 members will return to their former nation states with their currencies. The peasants across the continent will rise up with their pitchforks and expose Brussels for the totalitarian sham it has become.
I had to travel to Europe a fair amount in a prior job. Can’t even imagine fucking with 3-4 different currencies in my wallet. Can they have independence and keep the Euro?
Not sure but didn't the EU start as a solution to that? The problem is that it exploded beyond its original limited mission. Bureaucrats are like cockroaches - they breed a lot quicker than they die.
Why on earth would you be paying with paper money -- do you do that at home? I spent 11 days in GB last year and there wasn't anything I couldn't pay for -- from a hotel room at Brooklands to a Mr Whippy ice cream from a vintage van -- with a credit card that did the currency conversion automatically, and cheaper than the kiosk at Heathrow.
The consequence of American nudges is anti-American sentiment. That matters because of Europe's turn towards Islam. Europe,s willingness to throw out baby Jesus with the bathwater left a vacuum that Islam is enthusiastically filling.
It’s going to a fucking amazing 2026, Matt!!! Me, my husband and about 50 of our MAGA/Gay Redneck Bear buddies are going to wreak havoc on Palm Springs for White Party week! Thank you for fantastic reading in 2025, you’re a national treasure, Matt!! Happy New Year!!!
I am grateful for your work, Matt. I appreciate your investigative work on subjects most journalists ignore or are told to ignore (or maybe they don't have the chops to do the work these days?). I depend on independent reporting and yours is a staple. Keep doing what you do best and I'll continue to $upport you. Happy New Year to you and all your readers - this community is one of the best, and I look forward to more stimulating conversations in this year's comment section.
Happy New Year. Everyone needs a break from the news. I am sticking with you. I don't always agree, but it is better for my brain to listen to what you have to say. Stay true to your convictions about real journalism. Give my regards to Walter.
Staying away from the news is good, but staying away from following "news" may be better.
We need to MAKE news.
We can just DO things, and we need to.
The Boomers skipped over Gen X and went right to propping up the Millennials like AOC and Mamdani.
Probably because they know we're too hard core to go along with globalist communism.
What Julie said. 👍🏻👏🏻
Happy New Year Matt! Keep on rocking the truth.
Happy New Year, Matt!
I am a boomer (August, 1957) and therefore a persistent object of contemporary cultural opprobrium, which I enjoy more than later generations likely imagine. As were all children of my generation, I was free range; I wasn’t coddled, driven to school, nor desired at home before sundown. I jumped off the roof with an umbrella in first grade. In second grade, I burned down our garden shed (containing a lawn mower and gasoline cans) when I ignited the lithium in my chemistry set and couldn’t put it out with the garden hose. My brother and I would hitch rides on freight trains in fourth grade to visit neighboring towns and return home in time for dinner. I played with liquid mercury in 5th grade, when even kids could get their hands on it (and sodium) despite the toxicity. I used a slide rule. Proper English and cursive handwriting wasn’t optional. When NASA produced Tang (a powdered citrus drink for astronauts), it was magic, like Fizzies, which few of your readers have ever heard of.
My paternal grandfather barnstormed with Charles Lindbergh and flew the Spirit of St. Louis in the 1957 Jimmy Stewart movie as technical director. He taught me to fly in a de Havilland Gipsy Moth during 6th grade, My father commanded an Air Force Test squadron associated with the Corona Project before and after his tour in Vietnam, and I commanded a Marine Corps Harrier squadron, was the Operations Officer for the transfer of the Panama Canal in 1999, and now serve as VP of the largest privately-owned oil company in the U.S.
I frequently interview later generations (yours and subsequent) for positions in our company. I start every interview with a request for a three paragraph essay on any subject they desire with just a pen and paper. I sit there and watch. More than half cannot accomplish this with proper spelling, syntax, or punctuation. Some wish to believe the I am to blame, inasmuch as grammar is somehow racist. Fascinating.
For my technical personnel, I ask them to calculate the volumes of pipes of specified dimensions without a computer (or how they would go about doing so), among other rather basic competencies that are fundamental to our industry. Everything that I have described was high school knowledge in my generation.
This insight is parallel to my view of crypto currencies. Those of your generation (and junior), as much as I love you, are not ready for the lights to go out. They can go out FAR more readily than those normalized to the convenience of predictable grasp.
I don’t wish to impugn the dignity of others, but I don’t think that my generation’s critics know as much as they imagine. I understand Ohm’s law because I had industrial arts in high school that included “electric shop,” “foundry,” “welding,” “offset printing,” and “auto.” I took all those classes, as young people were expected to do in my generation (girls had “Home Economics.” Today, I have to help my “kid” neighbors to open their electric garage doors when there is a power outage (and then how to reconnect afterward).
I could go on for many more paragraphs and most will never reach this summary—who can blame them? Boomers are an excellent object of opprobrium, as were my strict (and intentionally un-protective) forefathers who wished for our lives to be better than their’s (Monkees: Another Pleasant Valley Sunday).
Liberty is about personal responsibility. When liberty is closely circumscribed, humans become less responsible. Human nature is predictable out to three decimal places. It is immutable, something that socialists refuse to internalize. Explaining humans to other humans is rather tiresome because self-awareness is a minority report.
Semper Fi,
Cow
My three favorite things are eating my family and not using commas.
I own a t-shirt reading “Grammar: the difference between knowing your shit and knowing you’re shit”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc
hahaha…that totally worked on me. its like an optical illusion.🙂
I grew up attending Roman Catholic schools somewhat after that. We still had an hour of penmanship daily, and we attended Mass Mon., Wed., and Friday. Homework every night. We had to choose and read a library book each week, then write and present to the class a book report. And all of that was just for starters. After grade three it became far more serious.
I hear you, David.
My grandsons attend a Catholic grammar school in Salt Lake City. "Social emotional learning" is as important as the 3 Rs (maybe more). Grade inflation is obvious to a boomer grandpa. Their Diversity Committee celebrated the first trans Congressperson 2 years ago.
Liberation theology (Francis and Leo) and woke Catholicism drive the bus.
Better than our local public schools, but by how much...
From long experience of Catholic schools, I would not consider that description to be authentic Catholicism, John. It sounds much like leftwing Neo-Marxist WOKE-ism. But you seem to realize that. Catholic in name only.
Many centre or conservative Catholics do not consider either Francis or Leo to have been or to be true Popes. They think of them as Deep State infiltrators to the Vatican. Another institution poisoned.
I lost Francis many years ago.
Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez, OP, is the father of "Liberation Theology". His "theological" views are Marxist. They have dominated Latin/South American Catholic clerical practice for a half century. Francis and his protege, Tuco Fernandez have captured the Catholic hierarchy. Gutiérrez was a Peruvian, and Leo spent decades there. He holds Peruvian citizenship and has been clearly under Gutiérrez's sway . Sadly, even Notre Dame University had welcomed Gutiérrez before his death.
Recall Leo's brief interview last fall when questioned about Illinois Senator Dick Durbin being offered a lifetime achievement award by the Diocese of Chicago. Leo claimed that he didn't know enough about it to comment, and immediately moved the conversation from Durbin's decades long abortion advocacy away from his pro-choice votes. He said we must look at the totality of Durbin's record (i.e. illegal migration support), that capital punishment matters, failing to call Durbin out. Being a Chicago native, Leo has known Durbin as part of the Chicago political ties with the Diocese for decades. Who is Leo fooling? Durbin subsequently declined the award.
Leo's handling of this controversy tells every Catholic who he is.
After his first speech, I was quite certain that Leo was not authentic. Francis and his camp would have seen to a Marxist successor.
You sound as if you know Catholicism well, John. I though that you might perhaps have a Polish Catholic background.
When Benedict shockingly resigned, I believed he was pushed out. Perhaps under threat.
Some years ago I listened to the series of interviews with Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, which -- if I had not already smelled Marxism in the Vatican -- confirmed my suspicions. Of course Archbishop Vigano was then excommunicated for daring to speak the truth. This reiterated for me that there was indeed a fox in the henhouse. I think that Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez was one of the enablers of this.
Abortion advocacy and living the Catholic faith do not go together. Amazes me that the Marxist-Catholics weep for the illegal immigrants of all natures, but not for the babies slain by their own mothers in the womb. I'm afraid I cannot take them seriously. And if American capitalism is so bad, why are they all wanting to head across the border to the U.S.?
Recall FRATELLI TUTTI in October, 2020, strategically released right before the U.S. presidential election. Pages upon pages about the charitableness of accepting unlimited migration, with lip service to abortion. Our parish actually had a womens group that studied this POS.
Have you read, "Dilexi Te" from Leo? Just more of the same.
Cardinals Robert Sarah and Gerhard Muller are among our best hopes to push back against satan's sway over those at the highest levels of our Church. But they are "old and in the way".
I believe some parishes in America and the Church in Africa (imperfect as all human endeavors are) will keep the true faith alive during this time of attack.
My employees largely print their names as a signature. They are wonderful people, but our educational system have other priorities, primarily programming leftist, decadent “morality.”
Boomer here. Older than you. My Dad learned to fly in the 1950s from Ed Prosperi who flew the mail route from St. Louis to Chicago with Lindbergh. The little airport was on the South side of Chicago. My Dad was a great pilot and when he retired he started a flying club for boys called "Junior Astronauts". He had bad PTSD from WWII from captaining a sub chaser at the age of 22. Flying relaxed him. He was a pioneer in Special Education. "Children should be custom made, not mass produced" was his motto. He taught them to grow and bale hay on the school's 40 acres. They learned to build go-carts and a small outboard motor boat. I walked to the bus stop and after school played in the woods until dark. I learned how to shoot a gun, catch perch, ride a horse. My Dad taught me math when I helped him build a miniature hip roofed barn for 3 horses. He regaled me with history as I helped hand him tools. I worked in Hollywood as a talent agent and ran off and started my own business. Boomers are a mixed bag. I went to a conservative college for undergrad and was one of only 10 Seniors who wore a black armband at graduation to protest the Vietnam War. They made us take them off. Now my same conservative classmates are love me I'm a liberal types who adore Obama and Hilary. The people in charge of Congress are not Boomers. They are of that weird Silent Generation who are not aptly named. I wish they would shut up and go away. It was Ted Kennedy and not a boomer who came up with the stupid 1965 immigration policy of letting low wage workers in to undermine our own working class. And Jane Fonda was born in 1937. She turned from activism for the masses to be the workout queen or from "we" to "me". But, yes, the boomers began screwing up big time when the Clintons took the helm. Good bye manufacturing national capitalist America and Hello International capitalism. And, yes, it's time for us to move aside. But not before you young whippersnappers learn grammar and read more books. Now get off your butts and go play in the woods.
Yes, illegal immigration is wrong but can you imagine the fear manual labor holds for the younger generations?
Tang still rules.
Your story of the interview essay struck a chord (mine would be how Obama was the most disappointing President in history—60 votes in the Senate and that’s all he did?) My dad was a professor of math education. For most of this century he had to spend half a semester teaching would-be math teachers arithmetic. I didn’t believe him at first, so he showed me student worksheets with wrong answers on tough problems like 32-17= and 11x12=
Cursive handwriting! Are children at school taught that anymore? Can they sign their names?
No they are not. The teacher's union sets the curricula these days. It was in the 90s they decided handwriting, cursive, or fair-hand was no longer needed. These are also the same people who told us we won't have a calculator in our hand all day.
It is time to abolish public sector unions.
I agree with you, Michael, that teachers' unions are the vehicles through which these destructive changes were implemented. It was based on politics, rather than understanding or consideration of educational needs.
That being said, the general and growing social contagion of Neo-Marxist ideology throughout Western society post-1945 is what influenced the teachers' unions in this manner. These unions became the tool used at the grassroots level.
No they cannot
I wish I could tell you how much I loved your comment. A toast to the old school 🥂
Boomer here who took home ec and had a lesson on the slide rule (tho never had to apply it to anything useful).
I still recall my first Physics 101 test, fall semester 1973, at Boston U. Remember those blue cover answer booklets that required you to answer the problems using both English language and physics/math? None of that multiple choice crap that is much easier to game. There I sat, child 3 of 6 of a father who never saw junior year of high school, using my slide rule for calculations. And I hear it, "click, click, click", and realize that the rich kids were cruising along with their calculators. I was the last to turn in my booklet, but I aced the test.
Is there a way to "get back to where we once belonged"?
In your own family is the only way back I can come up with. And homeschool if you can.
Huzzah from a fellow boomer!
Very well said.
I try to not rub it in. I feel like someone who escaped Plato's Cave and can't really judge those still watching the shadow show. Our free-range generation were handed the tools to make choices. Freedom isn't just another word for nothing left to lose. It's the difference between the life you're given and the life you choose.
"Old Man Yells at Clouds"
I am so grateful for Matt, Walter, and the entire Racket team. Thank you for telling the truth. Happy new year to you all.
Second. G_d bless you boys for speaking your honest mind and doing the journalism that journalists refuse to do!
Plus: you two get your butts back to work. You can rest when you’re dead..
I have a bold prediction for 2026: it will be just like 2025, only stupider.
Also, Matt, can you get me tickets to the July 4 MMA fight on the White House lawn? It's time for America to settle its differences the old-fashioned way: inside the octagon! Vance v Newsom for the title of Boy Emperor.
IDIOCRACY 2026—DON'T FIGHT THE FUTURE!
Oh, please not Newsom. He is a Justin Troodo twin, and that dark regime still has Canada gagging.
Was thinking the same today when I saw an article about how the race for 2028 is heating up, with Newsom, Cruz, JD, Harris. It can only get worse. I'd like to try and be more optimistic, but good god how can the leaders of the dem party think they can win the WH back with Newsom or Harris. Like a the broken record that I am, without the loss of an honest nonpartisan news media this would never be possible. The Dems cannot win if voters are told the truth, so that is where the struggle will be, how to get the truth out and counter the constant propaganda from the legacy news media. The information battle will be ramping up exponentially, with increasing assistance from AI
Unfortunately, the AI gremlins are mostly leftwing. I test their replies every so often, and these robotic creatures are very saucy. They come at you with a super dose of self-righteousness, just like the Democrats themselves.
Garbage in, garbage out.
Scary, isn't it?
It is, Norma.
Try Alter AI and let us know what you think. https://alter.systems/
It's supposed to avoid censorship. Read more here:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-182791894
I'm test-driving it.
Agreed, but try AlterAI, as recommended by the brilliant Steve Kirsch.
AND the great Dr. Malone
Thanks, Fred. Will give it a try.
I asked a question regarding a state government political decision and got what I perceived to be a biased answer. One paragraph led with "In truth, while that reasoning made headlines, this move reflected a deeper ideological battle ..." Another sentence ended with "things the state prefers to monopolize."
Garbage in, garbage out as they say. And since leftist control most AI development that's what we get.
I throw my hat in the race for Tulsi Gabbard. She has the coolest head and speaks truth - not rhetoric.
Would love to see her in the WH as the prez. Don't relish the primary and the ugly fighting, as I also like JD and Rubio, but Tulsi running would make it harder for the Dems, what with all of their complaining about misogyny being the reason Harris and Hilldog lost
If it's any consolation, we've smacked down hard any early frontrunners over the last decade or so of elections. Who could have forseen Bernie? Or Trump? Remember Harris was the early frontrunner in '20, and never even made it to the primaries.
What....no Michele Obama in the running? Quel dommage 😁.
She was never going to run. Ever. She got a lot of shit that she didn't deserve when she was in the WH. That was wishful thinking by Democrats because she was the only one that most people liked. I used to like her myself when she was first lady. But afterwards, when she had money and a real estate portfolio the rest of us could only dream of, she became a world class whiner. I wish she'd just go away.
I have always wished that both she and her husband would just go away.
She got a lot of shit she didn't deserve well before the WH. Her Senior Thesis from Princeton was embarrassing. Dr Jill's PhD dissertation was also embarrassing, but the U of Delaware isn't Princeton.
The poor dear is exhausted fighting so long against the racist, misogynistic patriarchy.
She'll be expecting a sainthood next, I would imagine....
They didn't even HAVE primaries in 2020.
That's a socialist Nazi regime.
As Reagan taught America, you have to have good hair to be leader of the free world.
Tell that to Ike.
😂
I’m pretty pleased with all major political developments in 2025. The prior cabbage head and its shenanigans were way past the due date.
If you’d like a fun 2025 month-by-month breakdown of all of administration 47 victories (+ all the meltdown’s by those opposed) have a read of last two days of Coffee & Covid. Jeff Childers brings all the receipts and it tastes much better than rotten kimchi.
Now, if we can only get an on-record vote from every member of Congress in 2026 to repeal/eliminate the 53-year old silent, Senate filibuster. Make Reading the New York City Phone Book Great Again.
I agree. Seems that Matt and his subscribers are so wired cynical they cannot really calculate real political progress under Trump. They are the professional critics of everything. Just ask them to propose any administration... any country... past or present... as the model they brand as good. They cannot. Not in their DNA. It is a collective personality flaw. Like liberals pursuing never to be perfection, this tribe pursues a constant narrative of everything being crappy.
Let’s not get too carried away with political progress under Trump. There’s been plenty of bad with the good.
>For all the no-new-wars-started, he dropped bunker-busters in Iran. Because apparently Bibi hadn’t had a recent enough handjob?
>Shut down CIA front USAID, but now CIA is illegally droning Venezuela.
>If you have sizable assets in the market, you’re sitting pretty. If you don’t, sorry Charlie, the world needs ditch-diggers and losers too.
>Took care of tax cuts for rich people, and fucked those on Medicaid and those counting on Obamacare subsidies.
>Tariffs squared what had been unfair trade practices without setting inflation on fire.
> Free speech is definitely better off than it would have been under Harris.
It’s a seriously mixed bag.
A lot of squandered opportunities. And even MTG and Boebert hate his guts now.
And when he loses the House, which seems likely despite absolutely no coherent message from Democrats? If that happens, he’s not just a very lame duck, but one who will be impeached at least once, perhaps multiple times.
And Jesus Fucking Christ, why must the man insist on pissing everywhere he can like a new dog in the neighborhood?
He’s quickly running out of time to get shit done.
I pretty much agree, though I'd like to point out that those tax cuts also benefited the working class. Other than that, Trump has greased the skids for the wealthy like all his predecessors did. Pontificating on a "New Golden Age," and babbling about how the US economy is "the envy of the world" rings hollow for people struggling to pay their bills, while realizing that neither they, nor their children, will ever be able to afford a house.
Well you don't get them on board by threatening to tax them more than everyone else or drive their businesses out of... NYC and Seattle, do you?
For reference see: Mamdani, San Francisco, LA, Portland, Seattle, Boston.
You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. He is what he is.
Yes but you're not going to swing a silk purse at an approaching zombie, are you?
Better off using the rough, heavy and thick pigskin bag to thwart the zombies chasing you.
Yup
It's only been a year. One f*cking year to fix all the crap that has taken decades to make. Thanks for confirming my initial point. Oh, and ask yourself what would the alternative look like today to help you get my point.
Take it easy on the caffeine, Frank. And piss off with your "thanks for proving my point." I made observations. Feel free to refute them. Did rich people not get a tax cut? Did those on Medicaid not get fucked? Is the ownership class not thriving at the expense of the working class?
Did you even read my whole comment? Nah, just started spewing when I said something critical about Trump.
Wow!! Reading your essay was a total waste of everything. Do you hate yourself?
Thanks for reading, and thanks for your concern about me. I’m just fine with myself.
I hope you’re not projecting…
"Just ask them to propose any administration... any country... past or present... as the model they brand as good."
I'll bite. The James K. Polk administration 1845 - 1849. But only because They Might Be Giants wrote a song about it.
Yes Jeff did the best job of recapping 2025.
Will like any comment with a Coffee & Covid reference!
I literally save my AM coffee wake up each morning to read Jeff.
My fear is that they might start making out..
🤮🤮
You mean Matt and Walter? Shit.
I think he means Vance and Newsom. Though I think Dr. Freud might have some reaction to his comment.
Lol. Me just being stupid
Now, there's a thought. An MMA face-off between Vance and Newsom. A person would almost stay awake to watch that event!
My money is on the hillbilly
Wait are you saying that women can't fight in the ring with a grown man??? Are you a bigot?!?
Harris is just as strong as Newscum. Let HER go in and show the world how tough and equal in physical strength women are.
Or get a jacked up transgender wearing lipstick to do it. Make it I N C L U S I V E
hahahha
I haven't forgotten about the proposed Elon / Zuck cage match.
And. I. Am. Still. Waiting...
If Zuckerberg wins, the 50% of
Americans who hate Musk will be happy. And if Musk wins, the 100% of Americans who hate Zuck will be happy.
Our ticket to national unity: seeing Zuckerberg bloodied and humiliated.
If we could figure out a way for both to loose, then everybody’s happy!
That's gonna be a short fight
I'm still waiting for Musk and Zuckerberg to duke it out.
Happy New Year, CleverP.
Also, I might know some people around here for your tix, though I don't think they've heard the tagline.
Thanks! See u on the WH lawn 😛
And for future bouts, the ballroom? Why let it sit unused between state dinners and rich-kid school proms?
Here's my 2026 wet blanket.
1) If MAGA fails, the United States will be the nation of the anti-Christ. Think about it. The USA has greatest military power on earth and if it is placed in the hands of the haters of Jews and Christians, how do think we end up?
2) There are elements in American society that aren't just messed up. They are devoted to being evil. If MAGA fails, the end is near.
3) Call me crazy, call me Ishmael. If you cannot perceive the mystical implications of the evil path some would have us walk, you most likely cannot be helped.
Too bad so many think the Jews are unfairly running stuff. In reality, allying with and listening to the Jews is the best way to derail the evil of Islam. They get it.
Well put.
Shit. I wish the Jews were running stuff. Maybe stuff would get done
Careful—the implication is that the Christians in charge suck.
Hmmm, maybe.
With the exception of maybe the Charlie Chaplin mustachioed looking sociopath, the Judeo-Christian combo has worked swimmingly up to this point. 🤷♂️
Even that glitch turned out rather well in the grand scheme of history
Right. Those 6 million Jews and 20 million Russians just took one for the team, amiright?
Don't all those who lie in rotting piles after major conflicts "take one for the team"?
Nobody said it was a GOOD thing they all died or suffered.
Maybe go take a Pamprin.
Eat a Snickers.
We're here now, standing atop a pile of human misery.
We don't get to choose who's in the pile really as we're born on top of it.
I'm fairly certain I read "even that glitch turned out rather well in the grand scheme of history," which doesn't sound like a condemnation.
Maybe you should grind up and snort your Pamprin.
Those 20 million Russians were killed by their own people. Yes, they took one for Stalin's team. Ever hear of the great famine?
You ever hear of the Battle of Stalingrad?
We may not have the greatest military power on earth.
China has more naval ships than we do and their ships are much newer. Their nuclear arsenal is probably kept up to date too.
They have 20X the ship building capacity that we have.
Their bridge building is symbolic of their surpassing us. We haven't built a single substantial suspension bridge since the Verrazano in 1965 (our longest suspension bridge). China has since built 13 suspension bridges longer than the Verrazano with another 13 under construction.
I'm glad we are trying to restore some of industries. Finally.
When manufacturing went from the West to China, I thought it was one of the worst decisions that could have been made. The West lost the jobs, and at the same time helped to build the prosperity and military of a Communist nation.
Bad idea. They can turn around and use it all against us.
Some say DJT started a 'Trade War' but we have been in a trade war for 40yrs with the help of Corp. USA and the selling out of the blue collar workers. The parts I buy for my small business have magically turned from made in China to 'Made in the U.S.A.' with only a slight increase in price that I happily eat half of. A service only economy is unsustainable and we have to 'make stuff', again. I'm very optimistic for 2026 and can't wait for working class people working overtime, and for tips, see their tax return double from last year. A hundred more citizen journos with cell phone cameras will be icing on the cake.
Happy New Year and Happy 250th U.S.A. !!!
Your optimism is contagious!
Yes, the Chinese strategy is victory by trade war.
A service economy is the empty husk of a nation.
I sense our MBA schools crank out useful stooges for the globalists who've become extremely wealthy off our trade deficits.
There was a very talented British economist Wynne Godley who finished his career here at Bard College.
Google "Sectoral Balances" and you'll read about his theories.
He believed trade deficits are paid for by a combination of private sector and public sector deficits.
The MBA schools don't teach this.
It all started in schools, when the 2nd generation hippies took over the academy - business, journalism, education, art, history, even law and medicine.
We can thank Bill Clinton for that
Democrats' presents, at best, are beautifully-wrapped empty boxes.
Just yesterday watched a video of a suspension bridge under construction in China collapse. Infrastructure built by bribed bureaucrats sucks.
This goes on to a lesser degree in Quebec too.
China has had structural disasters, however.
"China experiences significant structural disasters, often linked to rapid development, poor quality control, illegal construction, and geological instability, leading to collapses of buildings, bridges, and dams, such as the 2022 Changsha building collapse (shoddy work) and recent bridge failures due to landslides or design flaws, with major past events like the 1975 Banqiao Dam failure also causing massive loss of life, highlighting systemic issues."
We're all assuming we can still build bridges and battleships.
Fundamentals have gone out the window in so many of our industries.
I'm in construction and design and I've witnessed the decline in fundamentals.
For example, very few house framers know what a plumber's box is anymore or know how to make a basic bird's mouth cut on a rafter that will meet code. Very basic stuff.
It's symbolic of so many of the trades and design professionals.
I suspect this is how civilizations ultimately fail when the wrong attitudes take hold ....bit by bit.
I suspect laziness is part of the problem.
That we are too lazy to teach and too lazy to learn.
A visiting relative from the west coast told me this Xmas that driver ed is no longer taught in Portland. He said this after I asked him if he's been witnessing people not staying in their turning lane and intruding in others' turning lanes. He said yes.
I'm in the NYC outer burbs and I've been noticing something that didn't happen years ago- that when I make a right turn at an intersection, cars coming the other way, making the reverse of what I'm doing, clip into my turning lane. I would hit them head on if I don't brake, yet it's my lane. Bizarre.
It's as if whole mental maps and structures are dissolving. Or were never established in the first place.
There have been times these past twenty years or so I have suspected we are going backwards in the evolutionary sense. I would like to be proven wrong, actually.
Yes. China is not lazy. Their failures are not like our failures.
Failures of enthusiasm can be an acceptable part of risk. Failures of will mark degeneration.
Bureaucratic corruption, whether more or less, is endemic to human nature.
in certain places in USA you cant even get permits to build a fuckin house in under 12 months. we are an idiocracy.
Chinas ships are made of cardboard…
perhaps i’m wrong but i expect our tech is more sophisticated and will vaporize all the china ships day one of any conflict.
i note that revelation suggests china will invade somewhere and be vaporized but i’m not certain.
Quite a few of my friends and old college buddies are in defense and/or defense contracting and they've been saying if we ever go to war with China it won't go well for us.
It's also my family background- my dad was a guidance system engineer who designed software for the gyroscopes in missiles and rockets. He worked on the Cruise, Patriot, Tomahawk missiles and the Space Shuttle.
Maybe it depends on what kind of war and who is in charge of pressing the buttons? I have zero faith we'd win a conventional war against China. The vaporizing kind of war is one I don't want to think about.
This is fantasy. First you are not even playing on the right field.
Day one everybody vaporizes everyone else's *satellites* and comms and we all go back to the stone age there.
Ukraine war has shown how hard it now is to project power. Aircraft carriers are likely headed the way of tanks, too easy to take out entirely. Like a javelin on a shoulder now ends a tank very easily, only one hypersonic has to get thru to end a carrier.
Loss of force projction means our ability to protect Taiwan is zero. But China likely doesnt have it enough together to try. Trump waa right to end the gravy train for them, it has hurt them internally politically.
I have no idea if you’re right or wrong, but can you cite sources for any of these claims?
You are a damned fool. The ONLY thing that will save human civilization is Trump fai,ing utterly and damnatio memoriae enacted on his entire movement and all his works. Donald John Trump IS the Antichrist. He is pure distilled evil and so is everyone who doesn’t detest him.
You are sadly mistaken. Mr. Trump regularly states the the Lord is above us all. The anti-Christ is the enemy of Yeshua. You can learn this by reading the New Testament in nearly any translation. You might want to check GotQuestions.org and ask them. I bet they can help. If they can't help, check out OneForIsrael or JewsforJesus. Any of these folks can help you understand your genuine identity before the Creator and how the Creator has defined our future. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
And you believe he biggest liar on Earth. You pathetic little man.
Relevant to Matt's thesis about the weird world we live in, and his observation that we're a few hours in, and no super-weird shit has yet occurred . . .
. . . one year ago today, we had some dude run over people on the streets of New Orleans, and another guy blow up a Cybertruck in front of Trump Tower in Vegas.
And the stories that emerged that day made NO SENSE whatsoever . . . and both incidents long ago faded into the morass of twitter wars, real wars, cold wars, imaginary wars, and endless wars.
May '26 not completely rhyme with '25.
Yesterday we started a war with Venezuela. This post aged very poorly.
Hey, we got 3 days.
Happy new year. Thank you for being a real one and making me feel less crazy on a weekly basis!
Eliminating the draft ended the antiwar movement and silenced its leaders. Endless war was normalized and remains the norm.
You cannot appreciate how lopsided wealth is currently distributed unless you were a sentient being in the 60s, when the wealth curve was at its flattest.
Computer technology was benevolent, or at least was thought to be, until the Snowden/NSA revelations.
The 9/11 event, whether staged, managed, or (less likely) totally organic, was utilized to steal the 21st Century from its rightful beneficiaries in Generation X and the Millennials, by the ghouls and ghosts of the 20th.
There is a lot of truth to your comment, but I don't believe in "rightful" beneficiaries. Try earning it. I'd certainly agree that times are unnerving. People have forgotten how to take the risk of thinking for themselves.
Median income in the United States peaked in the late 1970s.
Each generation has a duty to both the generation before and after it.
"Ye are not your own...ye were paid for with a price."
Your life's work can only be rational, not to mention just, if you honor those obligations to those who went before and those coming after.
The 21st Century should have been the fruition of the best ideas of the 20th, but it was turned into a contraction by some really profoundly evil people and ideas.
The contraction was both economic and spiritual.
Oh, and by the way, the Republicans destroyed public education and the labor movement during the last quarter of the 20th Century.
The Republicans didn't destroy anything on their own.
Republicans should have refused to fund the Department of Education, and declined to participate in the off-shoring of our industries. Lazy, incompetent teachers, and their dumb union leaders helped destroy public education. Greedy union leaders -- and workers, to some extent -- helped destroy the labor movement, along with idiot politicians who allowed foreign, oftentimes illegal laborers to replace Americans. This is a bipartisan mess, and the sooner we all recognize that, the better.
As a 17 year UAW member, and former president of a small local union, we could go on into volumes concerning the labor movement. Suffice it to say that the Reagan Republicans were, in the main, responsible for the policies that busted unions, collapsed the industrial sector, and lowered wages.
Fun fact: Reagan actually liberalized immigration to benefit scab employers, a concept foreign to today's ICE protesters.
Alot of the history of the last 50 or so years has been Democrats perfecting bad Republican ideas, like Clinton signing NAFTA and legalizing Wall Street casino style trading on his last day in office.
"Sure, Jan."
Ignore actual history and blame it all on Reagan & the Republicans.
Greed undid unions as surely as it undid medicine. Greed is working hard to destroy capitalism and it is non-partisan. Good turns to bad on the dime of self-regulation.
I was a toll collector on the NJ Turnpike from 1973-79. A guy in our town was union president of the local UAW. We had two assembly plants in Elizabeth and Rahway back then, Ford and GMC. The union boss let lots of locals get assembly line union jobs at both plants. These young men took advantage of this generosity, drinking and drugging on the job and could care less about the quality of their products. Fit and finish mattered not. These kids used to come through my toll booth at 2 am after their swing shift, already high and drunk. Datsun (Nissan), Honda and Toyota imported well-built and reliable cars, and both plants closed not soon after.
Workers must be accountable for their labor and the benefits they receive. My dad (a high school dropout) was a union shop steward when I was in high school. He called out both management and those losers he had to advocate for (not all of his men). I learned what a man is from him.
Couldn't agree more.
I look around and see plenty of rightful beneficiaries squandering their inheritance.
Both national parties have lived way beyond their useful lifespan.
Given our debt, tax cuts make no rational sense to me. On the other hand, I,m not seeing American workers doing a good day's work, not even to mention burning any midnight oil.
Pouring good money after bad on brainless addictive spending makes no more sense to me than tax cuts.
"The 9/11 event, whether staged, managed, or (less likely) totally organic, was utilized to steal the 21st Century . . ."
At its start, It was heralded as the American century, so we were told. I can think of other words like deconstruction of all that came before.
Right, like PNAC...
Sure…..
Trump is going to start the draft again this year. If you have sons and don’t want them to die for Netanyahu and billionaires, make sure their passports are current and that they know people in Canada.
Matt, this is first thing I have read/heard from you in a while (and I read and listen a lot) that reminds me why I pay for your Racket. If more thoughtfulness means less frequency, that’s a trade I’ll take. As hard as it is to take it seriously, I am convinced that what you mean to be about is serious and important work. Thank you.
You are on to something regarding frequency. I subscribe for the writing. I enjoy America This Week but certainly don't mind missing it when I have something else to do. The stories and books are the best part imo.
From the excerpts of Mamdani’s speech I’ve read, New Yorkers are going to get what they asked for-good and hard.
Here’s an original idea: why don’t we wait until he governs, then state our opinions about it?
I wish him success. I have family and friends in NYC. Like I wish Trump success. I also have family and friends elsewhere in America.
The hate out of the gate for Mamdani is as bad as all the bullshit from TDS sufferers last year at this time.
Don't want hate? Don't project hate. Mamdani hates Jews. His father hates Jews. It's normal for people to be suspicious of asshole morons.
I think it¡s more an issue of how he's planning to pay for it. My guess was he bet that state Democrats wouldn’t let him fail but Hochul is up for election and seems disinclined to save his bacon despite her late and reluctant endorsement.
I don't hate him but I certainly don,t endorse his ridiculous politics.
Free childcare & rent freezing has to be paid in some way. Mamdani hasn’t stated how. But in past, he has called for defunding the cops. Has he walked that back? If not, will the $ come from reduced policing expenses?
They already are. Look at that bigot’s appointees and his salary increases. Congrats nyc, you screwed yourself harder than normal.
Natural consequences and all that…
One of the current idiotic thingies coming from the left is the narrative that "my grandfather fought the fascists in Europe. He WAS Antifa!" --- No, Dear. In your grandfather's day, Antifa were radical & violent communists. In 1942, your grandfather would have been horrified to be compared to Antifa. Today, Antifa are radical, violent anarchists. Your grandfather would still be horrified to be compared to them.
Pls keep on keeping on
Bolder prediction for 2026: The European Union will begin to or completely unravel and all 26 members will return to their former nation states with their currencies. The peasants across the continent will rise up with their pitchforks and expose Brussels for the totalitarian sham it has become.
Not gonna happen. There's still too much bread and too many circuses. It's Idiocracy or bust now
I had to travel to Europe a fair amount in a prior job. Can’t even imagine fucking with 3-4 different currencies in my wallet. Can they have independence and keep the Euro?
Not sure but didn't the EU start as a solution to that? The problem is that it exploded beyond its original limited mission. Bureaucrats are like cockroaches - they breed a lot quicker than they die.
Why on earth would you be paying with paper money -- do you do that at home? I spent 11 days in GB last year and there wasn't anything I couldn't pay for -- from a hotel room at Brooklands to a Mr Whippy ice cream from a vintage van -- with a credit card that did the currency conversion automatically, and cheaper than the kiosk at Heathrow.
use cash to fight back authoritarianism. they want you to make every transaction a digital one.
That would be a logical reaction, therefore it won't happen. Agree with Mr. Koenig.
With a nudge from President Trump, VP Vance and Elon Musk, the EU’s days are numbered. Mark my words, Steven & Rick.
The consequence of American nudges is anti-American sentiment. That matters because of Europe's turn towards Islam. Europe,s willingness to throw out baby Jesus with the bathwater left a vacuum that Islam is enthusiastically filling.
From your typing fingertips to God’s ears. Completely in character, this here Gen Xer isn’t quite so sanguine.
And the Soviet Union will spring up…
It’s going to a fucking amazing 2026, Matt!!! Me, my husband and about 50 of our MAGA/Gay Redneck Bear buddies are going to wreak havoc on Palm Springs for White Party week! Thank you for fantastic reading in 2025, you’re a national treasure, Matt!! Happy New Year!!!
I am grateful for your work, Matt. I appreciate your investigative work on subjects most journalists ignore or are told to ignore (or maybe they don't have the chops to do the work these days?). I depend on independent reporting and yours is a staple. Keep doing what you do best and I'll continue to $upport you. Happy New Year to you and all your readers - this community is one of the best, and I look forward to more stimulating conversations in this year's comment section.