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Authored by Vijay Jayaraj via American Greatness,

The quietude of looking out the kitchen window on a December morning at a meadow dusted in snow is magical. A deer pauses at the edge of the wood, breath steaming in the cold air, grazing on whatever bits of green poke through the snow. It is a scene replicated on greeting cards and stamped on cookie tins.

Part of the magic behind that tableau—from the roast in the oven to the cranberries on a plate, from the pine and hardwoods standing tall outside to the browsing fauna—is a phenomenon the establishment media ignore: CO2-driven, NASA-acknowledged greening of Earth.

Satellite data from the last four decades confirm a significant increase in vegetation over as much as half the globe. During this period, atmospheric CO2 increased from about 350 parts per million (ppm) to more than 400 ppm, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels.

It is a gift arriving right on cue to meet a continuous increase in population and demand for food. This basic sustenance allows for all other human endeavors—developments in artificial intelligence, medicine, and more. It is difficult to write computer code on an empty stomach.

Behind this gift of plenty is a process fundamental to all life, starting with plants: Photosynthesis is a mechanism by which plants use CO2, water, and sunlight to make sugars for food. When atmospheric CO2 rises—whether from the emissions of human activity or any other source—plants grow faster. A side benefit is that they use water more efficiently, making them more resilient to arid conditions and extending their geographic range.

The degree to which plants respond to more CO2 varies, but it is always positive. An increase in CO2 to 800 parts per million (ppm) or so—more than double the current atmospheric concentration—increases yields by 10% to 100%.

In greenhouse farming, carbon dioxide levels are elevated to 1,000 ppm or so to increase the yields of tomatoes and cucumbers by 20% to 40%. Plants, such as corn, sugarcane, and millets, also benefit from higher atmospheric CO2, whose positive effect on them is even more evident in the presence of drought.

For many, a cold Christmas morning is warmed by coffee, especially festive offerings like peppermint mocha and gingerbread latte. Well, the good news is that even coffee plants are boosted by the rise of CO2. Studies in Latin America found that elevated carbon dioxide boosted coffee plant photosynthesis and increased yields by 12% to 14%.

People forget that the Little Ice Age—lasting from about 1300 to 1850—brought crop failures and famine to large sections of Europe and Asia. Rivers froze, and growing seasons shrank. Many communities struggled during periods of cold-induced scarcity.

The 20th century delivered the opposite: the longer growing seasons of a modestly warmer climate paired with higher levels of CO2. This is hardly the making of a catastrophe that some would have us believe. In fact, a 2025 analysis projected changes in global average yields across all crops to be neutral or positive up to 5 degrees Celsius of warming into the future.

Only the Climate Grinches would oppose such a bounty of greening from modern warmth and CO2 concentrations. These are the characters who have dominated headlines in popular media and policy roundtables in Brussels and Washington. They steal not only the joy of experiencing this natural abundance by spreading false fears but also the prosperity and sovereignty of nations.

Climate Grinches look at a greening planet and see disaster. When NASA announces that Earth has added vegetation equivalent to two American continents, they warn that this cannot last, that benefits are temporary, and that doom still awaits. When farmers report bumper harvests enabled by longer growing seasons and CO2 fertilization, the Climate Grinches insist that gains are outweighed by unspecified future horrors.

So, this Christmas season, when you gather with your family, look at the spread before you with new eyes. Reject the guilt that climate orthodoxy seeks to place on our shoulders.

Modern lifestyles are not destroying the planet. We are basking in a vibrant ecosystem that supports more greenery, more people, and more human potential than at any other time in history.

President Trump's gunboat diplomacy against Venezuela's autocratic leader, Nicolás Maduro, has moved full steam ahead. U.S. forces have seized two sanctioned "dark fleet" oil tankers, with the latest interception carried out during an early Saturday morning operation by the U.S. Coast Guard off the coast of Venezuela.

The first seizure occurred earlier this month, involving the VLCC Skipper, and sent shockwaves through the Caribbean region. At the time, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Skipper was en route to a U.S. port and that the United States intended to seize the oil.

However, with the second tanker now seized and its name yet to be released, Skipper had faded from the news cycle until now.

Research firm TankerTrackers provided an update on Saturday evening, indicating Skipper's location is about 1 day from Galveston, Texas.

"An update on SKIPPER (9304667): We are tracking her movements by satellite imagery (just to confirm the AIS data) and can see that she is about a day away from reaching GOLA (Galveston Offshore Lightering Area) where she will have to transfer her 1.85 million barrels cargo onto three smaller tankers in order to feed oil refineries in ports such as Houston," TankerTrackers wrote on X.

An update on SKIPPER (9304667): We are tracking her movements by satellite imagery (just to confirm the AIS data) and can see that she is about a day away from reaching GOLA (Galveston Offshore Lightering Area) where she will have to transfer her 1.85 million barrels cargo onto… pic.twitter.com/i4p5qOwSUP

— TankerTrackers.com, Inc. (@TankerTrackers) December 20, 2025

GOLA is a designated offshore zone in the Gulf of America, located several miles off the coast of Galveston, Texas, where large crude oil tankers, such as the Skipper, conduct ship-to-ship oil transfers known as lightering.

Given Leavitt's comments about the U.S. seizing Skipper's crude, we suspect the ship-to-ship oil transfer will take place at GOLA. In fact, when the tanker was just north of Saint Lucia in the eastern Caribbean Sea, we provided readers with a list of possible port calls in the Gulf of America.

We suspect yesterday's seizure of the sanctioned tanker will soon follow a similar path.

Trump's gunboat diplomacy is only ramping up. There will be more dark fleet oil tankers commandeered by U.S. forces, whose foreign policy objective is to accelerate regime instability in Caracas and materially weaken Cuba.  

In 2021 the establishment media was electrified by a discovery involving the ancient remains of a woman found over a century ago near a village in East Sussex in Britain.  The reason leftist journalists were so hyped?  A supposedly comprehensive study by "experts" in facial reconstruction had determined that the nearly 2000 year old skeleton belonged to a Sub-Saharan African person.

The remains became known as the "Beachy Head Woman" and images of her reconstructed black face circulating internationally.  This was proof, somehow, that progressives had always been right to support third world immigration.

The new data arrived conveniently in time to support a far-left campaign to defend the ideas of multiculturalism.  Part of this narrative asserts that Caucasian regions of the world have never actually been Caucasian and that western culture doesn't really exist.  In fact, white Europeans have no claim to any lands anywhere, they have no home, and African/Asian migrants have "always" freely traveled throughout Europe.

The political left was enthralled, taking to social media and reposting the discovery millions of times over to "own the fascists".  The BBC even paid to have a plaque constructed on the site where the bones were discovered proudly proclaiming that this is where the first Briton of "African origin" had been found.

School lessons were immediately developed in the UK, teaching students about the multicultural history of Britain.  This was scientific confirmation to back up the avalanche of European entertainment content depicting Sub-Saharan Africans as integral to the history of the continent, roaming the lands as tribesman or enjoying the finery of royal court.   

Leftists argue that their version of history justifies the expansion of open mass immigration, because "things have always been this way" and white people today who want to protect their histories and cultures from erasure are merely ignorant of the past.  

The problem is, Beachy Head Woman is not African or black.  Recently confirmed DNA evidence shows she was white with blonde hair and blue eyes.  She was not a migrant, but born in ancient Britain.

The narrative began to break down in 2023 when genetic studies indicated she might have come from Cyprus (a part of the Roman Empire) and was not of African origin.  More advanced DNA analysis, released this week, destroyed the claims of migration and also embarrassed the "experts" involved in the facial reconstruction of the skull.

The new study, led by researchers at London’s Natural History Museum, working in collaboration with University College London, used advanced ancient DNA sequencing that was not available a decade ago. By extracting a much larger quantity of high-quality DNA, they were able to place her ancestry within a broader Roman-era genetic framework. 

The results show that her DNA is most similar to that of individuals from rural southern Britain during the Roman period and to modern populations from England. There are no traces of recent sub-Saharan African or Mediterranean ancestry. Isotope analysis of her teeth and bones indicates that her early years were spent on the south coast of Britain, and her mobility patterns were similar to those of other local individuals from the same period.

It's a perfect example of the growing problem of ideology mixing with science and poisoning the well of human knowledge.  The rules of scientific investigation require an objective mindset, letting the evidence show whatever the evidence shows.  However, with the invasion of woke cultism into every facet of academia, the goal of science is now to fulfill the demands of the multicultural narrative.

Luckily, the takeover of academia is not total and the truth still slips through the cracks on occasion.  

Woke "science" approaches investigation by developing a desired conclusion first, and then manipulating the evidence to support that conclusion.  In other words, science is nothing more than another propaganda tool.  This is why wokeness can no longer be allowed to spread into western academics or into STEM fields; it's not just destructive to political discourse and social stability, it is also a cancer eating away at the pillars of human knowledge.  

If these people are allowed to continue their conquest of science, modern human civilization will crumble.

The battle over artificial intelligence policy is moving from Washington hearing rooms to the campaign trail, where two rival political efforts are preparing to spend at least $150 million to shape the outcome of federal and state elections.

The clash pits industry-backed advocates for rapid AI development against a bipartisan group of former lawmakers calling for stronger regulation and tighter export controls. The scale of the planned spending exceeds the roughly $100 million deployed by crypto-aligned political groups during the 2024 election cycle, Punchbowl News reports.

Unlike the crypto push, however, the emerging AI fight features two organized camps preparing to go head-to-head: pro-industry “AI boomers” and regulation-minded “AI doomers,” each seeking to influence lawmakers and voters ahead of the 2026 midterms.

BOOMERS: AI To The Moon Under One National Framework

On the pro-AI side is Leading the Future, a group of industry-backed super PACs seeded with money from technology leaders and venture capital interests. The effort has received early backing from OpenAI President Greg Brockman, venture capital firm a16z, and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and is preparing to spend up to $100 million.

Josh Vlasto, who is co-leading the group’s political strategy, said the goal is to elect candidates supportive of a national, federal-led approach to AI regulation.

"You will see a broad consensus in Congress to have the federal government lead on creating a national, pro-AI, pro-America regulatory framework," Vlasto said.

That approach reflects industry concerns that a patchwork of state-level AI laws could hinder U.S. competitiveness, particularly in the race with China. While Vlasto said his group supports the idea of a federal AI standard, he indicated that policy specifics would be handled by a related advocacy organization.

Leading the Future is expected to support candidates who favor federal preemption of state AI regulations. Vlasto, who also served as a spokesperson for Fairshake - the crypto-aligned super PAC that backed more than 50 candidates in 2024 - declined to set a limit on how many races the AI-focused group might enter.

The group has already signaled its willingness to play offense, announcing plans to spend against New York State Assemblymember Alex Bores, a Democrat who has supported state-level AI regulation and is running for Congress.

Vlasto said the organization is designed to move quickly as policy debates evolve and has leaned heavily into digital advertising, though it has also purchased television spots.

“This is a highly dynamic moment in this policy debate,” he said. “We are built… to use our resources and bring the AI sector together to advocate for this agenda.”

In short, AI Boomers want:

1. Federal preemption of state AI laws: one national AI framework, not 50 state regimes. States like New York or California passing their own AI rules are seen as a threat to innovation.

2. Light-touch federal regulation: Support a “federal standard,” but generally oppose detailed, prescriptive rules. Policy specifics are often deferred to industry-friendly agencies or advisory bodies.

3. Speed over precaution: The belief is that slowing deployment risks losing the global AI race, especially to China. Safety, bias, and misuse concerns are viewed as manageable after deployment.

4. Industry-driven governance: AI companies should have a major role in shaping the rules that govern them. Regulatory capture is not how they describe it; they frame it as “technical expertise.”

DOOMERS: Control AI before it reshapes society

On the opposing side, former Reps. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) and Brad Carson (D-Okla.) are launching two separate super PACs aimed at boosting candidates who favor stronger AI regulation and export controls.

Together, the PACs aim to raise $50 million for the 2026 cycle - roughly half the amount promised by Leading the Future, but enough, organizers say, to compete with tech industry spending.

“Most people are anxious about AI. They’re not opposed to it, they’re anxious,” Carson said, arguing that public concern about the pace of AI development is being underestimated.

Carson criticized what he described as tech companies’ “accelerationist YOLO agenda” and said his PACs would disclose their donors in the coming months.

The groups plan to support candidates for the House and Senate and are also considering investments in state legislative races and gubernatorial contests. Carson said spending decisions will be made across television, digital platforms, and other media as appropriate, with endorsements coming from both political parties.

Two policy issues are central to the effort: AI regulation and export controls on advanced AI chips bound for China.

Carson said the PACs will support candidates “who favor strong export controls,” and he reiterated opposition to President Trump’s decision to allow Nvidia to sell advanced AI chips to China. Carson, who serves as president of Americans for Responsible Innovation, has argued that export restrictions are critical to national security.

The PACs will also back candidates who believe government has a role in regulating AI, including allowing states to act in the absence of a federal framework.

Doomer priorities:

1. Meaningful regulation, not just federal symbolism: They want enforceable rules on: Model deployment. Safety testing, Transparency, Accountability for harm. 

2. State authority as a backstop - not a takeover: States should be allowed to regulate AI if Congress fails to act.

   • This mirrors how states regulate: Consumer protection, Data privacy, Product safety, State involvement is seen as a pressure mechanism, not the ideal endpoint.

3. Export controls and national security: They strongly support restricting advanced AI chips to China. They view unfettered exports as a strategic and military risk.

4. Public trust as a strategic asset: Their argument is that if voters lose confidence in AI, politicians will overcorrect. Early guardrails are framed as pro-innovation, not anti-innovation.

Competing visions for AI’s future

While Carson and Stewart reject the label “anti-AI,” they argue that guardrails are necessary to maintain public trust in the technology.

“Big tech has lost the confidence of the American people,” Carson said. “And if the American people don’t believe in [AI], you’re going to see politicians turn against it in a very severe way.”

Authored by Larry Johnson via Sonar21.com.

Sy Hersh's latest Substack article on the prospects a successful outcome of the US attempt to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine is important because it reveals the pathetic incompetence of the CIA. It appears that Sy reported what senior Trump officials told him about the on going negotiations with the Russians and Ukrainians, and that those officials were sharing their understanding of the capabilities of Russia and Ukraine based on intelligence reports and intelligence analysis provided principally by CIA analysts.

Here are some of the more egregious claims by these officials:

Both nations are on the verge of economic and military collapse…

Putin is facing economic, political, military, and public pressure...

Putin is facing increasing political, economic, and military opposition in Moscow—mortgage rates are soaring and the Russian military is in serious disarray—has realized that he must end the war…

Ongoing warfare is not going to change the balance of forces. Putin is under pressure to end the war from his military and from a public staggered by its continuing costs, and inflation is at 8.4 percent…

Some of the most senior Russian generals, while still loyal to Putin, urgently want the depleted Russian Army to get out.

Putin is staying afloat by borrowing money from Russian banks that are not permitted to lend to the population.

Rather than debunk each of these claims, I will focus on the last two.

Regarding the claim that Russian banks “are not permitted to lend to the population.” Wrong! Russian banks are fully allowed—and actively do—make loans to Russian citizens . According to Russia's Central Bank and news reports from Reuters , Bloomberg , and The Moscow Times , there are no prohibitions on domestic lending to Russian individuals under current regulations (as of December 2025). Consumer lending (unsecured loans, mortgages, car loans, credit cards) is a major part of the Russian banking sector, with retail loan portfolios growing continuously because Russian wages have increased more than the rate of inflation — 20% — and are greater than the high interest rates. How could the Trump intelligence community get such an easy fact to verify so wrong?

Then there is the assertion that the Russian army is “depleted.” Russia's active-duty military personnel strength as of December 2025 is approximately 1.32 million. This figure comes from the 2025 Global Firepower Index (reviewed January 2025) and cross-verified sources like Statista , which cites ~1.32 million active troops (part of a total force of ~3.57 million including reserves and paramilitary). My sources in Russia put the number at greater than 1.5 million. In February 2022, according to IISS Military Balance 2022 and Global Firepower , Russia's active-duty military forces were 900,000.

In terms of Russia's ground forces, they have grown from 300,000 in February 2022 to 623,000 in just the Ukrainian theater, according to Ukraine's General Syrsky. Total Russian ground forces now exceed 1 million men. Does that sound like depletion to you?

So why does the CIA persist in peddling provably false information. I blame former CIA Director John Brennan. John Brennan, as CIA Director (2013–2017), initiated a major reorganization in March 2015 that integrated analysts (from the Directorate of Analysis) and operations officers (from the Directorate of Operations) into hybrid mission centers.

This “modernization plan” aimed to break down traditional silos — ie, previously analysts and operations officers worked in separate units — by creating 10 new mission centers (focused on regions/threats like counterterrorism and cyber), where analysts, operators, digital experts, and support staff would work side-by-side under unified leadership. Brennan announced the overhaul on March 6, 2015 , with implementation beginning shortly after (eg, assistant directors named April 30, 2015). The ostensible goal was better integration for modern threats like cyber warfare, modeled partly on the existing Counterterrorism Center, but the actual effect subordinated independent analysis to the covert programs directed and managed by the operations officers.

When I started working as an analyst in the fall of 1986, the Directorate of Intelligence occupied the north wing of the CIA headquarters and the Directorate of Operations occupied the south wing… We were in our respective silos. I was the Honduras analyst when the war in Central America was a top priority for the Reagan administration. Funding the Contras and fighting the Sandinista was a major covert action program of the Director of Operations… The Central American Task Force (CATF) to be precise. The case officers in the CATF had every incentive to make the program look like it was being successful.

I vividly recall a briefing that I, along with the Nicaragua branch military analyst, gave to members of Congress on March 12, 1988 about a developing situation on the border of Honduras and Nicaragua. We were accompanied by the Chief of military operations for the CATF. We had intelligence that the Sandinistas were prepared to launch military operations against Contra forces in the Las Vegas salient of southern Honduras. During the course of that briefing we received news from headquarters that the Sandinistas had allegedly overrun a Contra base and were killing the CIA-backed Contras. What a disaster!

As we filed out of that briefing got into the van to take us back to headquarters, the CATF military chief began berating me and the military analyst for the Nicaraguan branch as having contributed to this alleged disaster for the Contras because our analysis did not enthusiastically support the CATF covert program. When I arrived back at headquarters and had a chance to look at the actual intelligence, I discovered that we had been told a lie. Instead of the Sandinistas swarming a Contra camp like Mexican troops attacking the Alamo, the intel report simply stated that a Contra patrol had skirmished with a Sandinista patrol 15 km south of the Contra base. The point of telling this anecdote is to illustrate the kind of pressure that we as analysts faced from the operations side of the house to spin a narrative that portrayed the Contra's in the best possible light while downplaying the competence of the Sandinista forces.

I think a similar phenomena has been at play since the start of Russia's Special Military Operation in February 2022. I believe that the analysts responsible for reporting on the Ukrainians and Russians are fully embedded in a Mission Center , something akin to the CATF, and that analysts face daily pressures from operations officers to paint the Ukrainians as victors and the Russians as losers who are on the verge of economic and political collapse.

It is simple human nature… If you want to get promoted, don't tell the truth, just go along with the program.

I also have learned that the primary source material the analysts are using is generated by the Ukrainians, who are working in concert with CIA officers deployed in Ukraine. I believe that the combination of peer pressure from operations officers to support a covert mission and a steady supply of tainted information from biased Ukrainian sources explains why the US officials who spoke to Sy Hersh are painting such a false and distorted picture of the war in Ukraine and are describing the Russians as incompetent, depleted and on the verge of crumbling. Garbage in, garbage out .

If the CIA has any hope of being able to provide something approaching objective, truthful analysis, the Mission Centers created by Brennan must be dismantled. There was a press report last February that current CIA director Ratcliffe was reviewing whether to reverse Brennan's changes due to perceived negative impacts on human intelligence (HUMINT) and core missions. Let me assure you that the negative impacts are real, not perceived.

So far, Ratcliffe has not acted to reverse Brennan. Maybe the defeat of Ukraine by Russia will finally convince Ratcliffe to take action to rescue analysts from the clutches of the operations officers.