Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) on Dec. 22 for allegedly misleading sportgoers into believing they were watching a competition between players of one gender.
“The NCAA is intentionally and knowingly jeopardizing the safety and wellbeing of women by deceptively changing women’s competitions into co-ed competitions,” Paxton said in a statement on Sunday. “When people watch a women’s volleyball game, for example, they expect to see women playing against other women—not biological males pretending to be something they are not. Radical ‘gender theory’ has no place in college sports.”
Paxton argued in the lawsuit that the NCAA’s practice of allowing biological men who identify as women to play in women’s sports violates the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, which protects consumers from scams.
In response to The Epoch Times’ request for comment, an NCAA spokesperson said though the association doesn’t comment on pending litigation, it will “continue to promote Title IX, make unprecedented investments in women’s sports and ensure fair competition in all NCAA championships.”
“Most consumers know that a ‘woman’ means an adult human female,” Paxton said, a definition that has been commonly understood “throughout human history,” he noted.
By allowing men to compete in women’s college sports, the NCAA is robbing women of their earned positions and lying to consumers about the competitive nature of the sporting event, he said.
“When female athletes are forced to compete against men in women’s sports, they are deprived of titles, records, medals, scholarships, and opportunities to win; opportunities to participate in a fair and safe environment; and the ancillary benefits that sports participation provides,” he said in the lawsuit. “Consumers do not purchase goods and services associated with women’s sporting events to watch men steal medals and records from female programs.”
In March, former college swimmer Riley Gaines and other female college athletes filed a lawsuit against the NCAA for allowing men identifying as women to compete in women’s sports.
In October, 26 college regents in Georgia called on the NCAA to ban men identifying as transgender athletes from women’s college sports.
In its “Transgender Student-Athlete Participation Policy,” updated in May 2024, the NCAA said it aligned with the student-athlete Olympic Movement, which allows for “transgender student-athlete participation for each sport to be determined by the policy for the national governing body of that sport.”
If there’s no national governing body for the sport, NCAA policy guidelines default to the International Olympic Committee’s policy criteria and the 2010 NCAA policy, in addition to a requirement that such athletes “meet the sport standard for documented testosterone levels” before competing.
On Dec. 20, the Department of Education withdrew its 2023 proposed rule that would have prohibited schools from banning male athletes who identify as women from participating in women’s sports.
Citing the complexity of the public comments and legal battles, the department said it chose “not to regulate on this issue at this time.”
Aldgra Fredly and Caden Pearson contributed to this report.
Merry Christmas… Here’s The Average Credit Card Debt In Every US State
This map, via Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao, visualizes the average credit card debt held by households in each U.S. state and ranks the states where residents pay off the debt the fastest and slowest.
Data is sourced from Bankrate (2024) who also used average monthly household income to calculate how long it takes to pay off balances.
ℹ️ Assumptions made for this analysis: 5% of monthly household income is used for card payments. Also, no new debt is accrued in this time period.
How Long it Takes to Pay off Credit Card Balances in Each State
Households in Alaska and Washington D.C. are carrying more than $7,000 in credit card debt, the highest across the country. However, with average annual household incomes of $109,000 and $149,000, residents in both states can pay off their debt in about 14–20 months.
In fact, glancing through the numbers below reveals a pattern.
*Assuming no new debt is accrued. **Federal district.
Richer state households—Connecticut, California, Washington—have higher costs of living and are carrying higher credit card balances. But they also manage to pay them off quickly with their larger incomes.
On the other hand, households in poorer states have below-average debt but it take closer to two years for them to pay it off.
This highlights the unequal debt burden across America. While the people living on the coasts have higher costs, they’re compensated by their incomes. However the South’s lower costs are not as evenly compensated.
And of course, compound interest is not a game played in favor of the borrower. Carrying the debt for longer periods of time accrues additional interest. Bankrate’s analysis points out that when making only minimum payments, it would take more than 17 years to pay it off the national average debt: $6,140.
In case that seems like a ludicrous amount of time, here’s a good reminder that most credit card interest compounds daily and not monthly.
President-elect Donald Trump said Sunday he would aim to designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations and will launch an anti-drug advertising campaign inside the United States.
“I will immediately designate the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations,” Trump said in Arizona at a Turning Point conference, reiterating a campaign promise to make the declaration.
While in office in 2019, Trump had planned to make the designation and ultimately did not make the move after a request from then-Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who said he wanted cooperation with the U.S. government on dealing with drug cartels.
Trump’s election platform has stated when he returns to the White House, he will direct the Department of Defense to use “special forces, cyber warfare, and other covert and overt actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations.”
Trump on Sunday also previewed a new advertising initiative designed to provide information about the effects of drug use.
“We’re going to advertise how bad drugs are for you,” Trump said in Arizona at a Turning Point conference, referring to the ad campaign. “They ruin your look, they ruin your face, they ruin your skin, they ruin your teeth.”
While he did not provide more details about the campaign, it appears to be the first time Trump has made reference to the plan.
In the 1970s and 1980s, anti-drug ad blitzes were launched across the United States, culminating in former first lady Nancy Reagan’s “just say no” campaign that was designed to prevent younger Americans from doing drugs. Public schools also featured the Drug Abuse Resistance Education, also known as D.A.R.E, that sought to provide information on illegal drugs and controlled substances, as well as prevent gang membership and violent behavior.
Over the past several years, hundreds of thousands of Americans have died of overdoses of the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl, which is easy to do due to its potency—just 2 milligrams can be fatal. The drug, which is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, is often trafficked across the U.S.–Mexico border by drug cartels based in Mexico.
Trump’s 2024 campaign has heavily leaned into messaging around stopping the fentanyl epidemic as well as illegal immigration into the United States. Since winning the election last month, the president-elect has said he will also start operations for mass deportations and would declare a nationwide emergency over the matter.
The incoming Trump administration’s border czar, Tom Homan, a former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and other Trump officials have said that they will prioritize targeting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes or are deemed a threat to U.S. national security for deportation.
They have also pledged to deport anyone residing in the country illegally, although Trump has indicated he would consider allowing illegal immigrants who have been in the United States since childhood to remain under certain conditions.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimates that 11 million illegal immigrants were living in the United States as of 2022, the latest statistics that are available. While campaigning in the 2024 contest, Trump talked about creating the “largest deportation effort in the history of our country” and called for using the National Guard and domestic police forces in the effort.
Millions of U.S. companies might be busy over the holidays forking over their data to the Treasury Department, thanks to a last-minute ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
The Fifth Circuit on Monday overturned a lower court’s injunction against a constitutionally dubious law that requires the country’s estimated 32.6 million active companies to submit their private ownership information to a central database ran by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN.
The ruling means that all companies formed prior to 2024 must file a report with Treasury by next Wednesday, Jan. 1. Companies formed this year are required to file within 90 days of their formation.
“Enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) has been reinstated along with its impending January 1, 2025 filing deadline,” the financial firm Brown Advisory said in a Tuesday press release. “These reports provide basic legal information about the company itself, the entity’s owners, and the individuals that create or register the entity.”
Forbes predicated there’s still a long legal battle ahead.
“Additionally, a potential new administration may take steps to limit the CTA administratively, adding another layer of uncertainty for businesses,” Forbes reported.
The cost of compliance with the law is estimated to be some $22.7 billion the first year and $5.6 billion per year thereafter.
The U.S. government and liberal activists have argued for decades that a central beneficial ownership registry is required to curtail money laundering. Critics have pointed out how the central registry would pose privacy risks and impose another layer of regulation on private businesses. Moreover, criminals wouldn’t voluntarily submit their personal information for such a registry.
There are six plaintiffs suing over the law, including two that don’t do business outside their respective states. Another plaintiff was the Libertarian Party of Mississippi, which is a non-profit political entity, but would have still had to register under the Corporate Transparency Act.
Roughly 5 million new companies are formed in the U.S. each year.
Owners Of Russian Ship Ursa Major Declare Sinking An “Act Of Terrorism”
The Russian cargo ship that sank on Tuesday in the Mediterranean Sea following a mysterious explosion in its engine room was described as an “act of terrorism,” according to the vessel’s owner.
Reuters cites the Russian news agency RIA, which reported on Christmas Day that Oboronlogistika, the ship’s owner and a subsidiary of the Russian Defense Ministry’s military construction operations, stated that the cargo ship, named Ursa Major, had been targeted in “a terrorist act.”
On Monday, Ukraine’s main intelligence directorate reported the cargo vessel was “sent by Russia to retrieve its weapons and equipment from Syria, broke down off the coast of Portugal due to a malfunction in the fuel pipe of its main engine.”
Russian cargo ship Ursa Major has sunk in the Mediterranean after suffering a catastrophic engine room explosion, according to Spanish authorities. 14 crew have been rescued, while two are still missing, according to Spanish media. pic.twitter.com/KbZTq1DuRs
The ship tracking website Marine Traffic shows Ursa Major’s last location was drifting on the high seas near Portugal before sinking on Tuesday.
Neither RIA nor Russian authorities have provided additional color about the claimed terrorist attack on the cargo vessel or who they suspect is responsible.
We asked earlier this week: “The big question for the Ursa Major is whether any US Navy submarines with special forces units lurk beneath.”
If the terrorist attack claim is confirmed, the fear is that the battlefield in Eastern Europe is broadening outside the region.
Nearly three years into the Russia-Ukraine war and marking the second Christmas, Free Press’ Jay Solomon recently asked: “Is World War III Already Here?”
Christmas is, above all else, a time for putting aside the petty grievances and differences that separate us from one another and finding meaning in something greater than ourselves.
Some of the best works of literature and cinema about the season examine this spirit of selflessness, which can seem antithetical to “America First” values when cast in a particular light. But at its core, the spirit of Christmas is quintessentially the same as that which brought millions of people to the polls in November to re-elect Donald Trump.
Attempting to catalog all of the thousands of Christmas movies, of course, would be an impossible feat, but below is a list of nine (plus honorable mentions) that resonate particularly well with the MAGA message.
While the list leaves a lot open to interpretation as to what constitutes a “Christmas” movie or a “MAGA” movie, the one prerequisite was that the themes of both had to be prevalent enough to be immediately recognizable.
Thus, Rambo: First Blood may have included a scene with Christmas decorations in it, but it did not make the cut—even though it might be considered a MAGA classic—because the movie itself does not directly involve the holiday. And although the BB gun subplot in A Christmas Story may have promoted Second Amendment rights for some, that was not an explicit message so much as it was a sign of the times.
We will kick things off with the low-hanging fruit—the only Christmas classic (to date) known to include a cameo from future two-time President Donald Trump himself.
The sequel to one of the most beloved modern Christmas classics is now one of the most beloved MAGA classics due to Trump’s cameo appearance. Much of the film revolves around the iconic Plaza Hotel, which Trump owned at the time but went on to sell in 1995. (Maybe he found out that the desk clerk also moonlighted as a transvestite.)
Another memorable scene takes place at the Wollman Rink, a public ice-skating ring with strong ties to the former Manhattan real-estate magnate. And as an added bonus, the movie features an early appearance from MAGA-friendly comedian Rob Schneider as the bellhop.
Unfortunately, some of its other actors, including Macaulay Culkin and Daniel Stern, have attempted in recent years to use the movie’s renewed relevance as a platform for petty political attacks, and any royalties from it benefit them as well.
Honorable mention: While stylistically very different and not specifically centered around Trump himself, MAGA fans might also consider watching A Lion in Winter, the star-studded 1968 Oscar-winner about an aging ruler who—like Trump—has three sons and must decide who is best fit to carry on his dynasty.
The 1985 box-office smash came at the very peak of the Ronald Reagan era, just two years before the famous Berlin speech that saw Reagan urging Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” and four years before the official fall of the Soviet Union. It was the last of the Rocky films to be directed by Trump-backer Sylvester Stallone (who fittingly described the Republican leader as a “Dickensian” character) until 2006’s Rocky Balboa.
While the Cold War-jingoism resonated with Republicans during the Reagan era, Stallone’s climactic victory speech also underscores the ideas of mutual respect and healthy dialogue as a means to peace.
“In here, there were two guys killing each other, but I guess that’s better than 20 million,” Rocky Balboa says after his defeat of Ivan Drago. “I guess what I’m trying to say, is that if I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!”
He then wishes his son a Merry Christmas, as the fight took place on Christmas Day. Although the holiday does not figure prominently into the plot, it is one of several action movies whose inclusion of Christmas elements has sparked debate.
However, because the Soviet Union was typically hostile toward religion and did not formally recognize Christmas as a holiday, Balboa’s sacrifice in forgoing the holiday season for the greater good of his country may have been an important reminder that many of those in uniform may not have had the luxury of returning home for the holidays.
Honorable mention:The aforementioned Rambo: First Blood has holiday decorations, but the ever-controversial Die Hard, set during the Christmas season, is the best known of all the Christmas “action” movies that have audiences divided, featuring rogue cop John McClane (portrayed by Bruce Willis—another rare Hollywood Republican) taking on a network of terrorists in New York City.
Ref star Denis Leary unfortunately made the decision in a 2016 gag appearance with late-night host James Corden to attack Trump by rewriting the words to his 1990s gag song “A**hole” for that year’s campaign against Hillary Clinton. It was a hamfisted attempt at comedy then, and it has aged particularly poorly given Trump’s resonance with the American voting public—many of them the same blue-collar types whom Leary tried to appeal to with his updated Archie Bunker schtick.
Leary’s 1994 holiday hit The Ref also aged poorly for its other star, Kevin Spacey, but those able to suspend their disbelief can appreciate the fantastic comedic timing that Spacey and co-star Judy Davis have as a bickering couple on the verge of divorce. There may be one or two obligatory Republican “digs” slipped into the script, but those only accentuate the absurdity of an affluent and insufferable New England family that loves to virtue-signal but finds itself utterly out of touch with anything beyond their own selfish needs and desires—until the outside world forces its way into their lives.
Leary, as a cat-burglar caught in the middle of a hostage situation gone awry, is the perfect foil for the limousine liberals, presaging the “Tea Party” movement that would arrive 10 years later.
Honorable mention:While the only reference to American politics in 2003’s Love Actually may be the scene with Billy Bob Thornton as a Bill Clinton/George W. Bush hybrid of an uncouth, self-serving American president, the movie’s other plots have become well known for their anachronisms—including toxic, anti-MeToo workplaces, trans/LGBT humor and fat shaming, plus a kid gatehopping past airport security and not getting shot. For those who don’t know the holiday classic by heart, consider pouring everyone a cup of spiked eggnog and turning it into a fun drinking game every time something happens that you could never get away with 20 years later.
Like other selections on the list, the star of this early Coen Brothers movie, Tim Robbins, is an outspoken leftist in real life, which can make it difficult to identify with the character. Yet, it also serves as a reminder than many of the classically liberal values once embraced by the Left have now been embraced and appropriated by MAGA-style populism.
It involves a corporation (with the great Paul Newman as a member of its board of directors) that selects Robbins’s character as its top executive in hopes of tanking the stock to permit a corporate buyout. But Robbins generates an idea that is both deceptively simple and wildly appealing, leading the plot to backfire.
The movie is set over Christmas, with its climax occurring on New Year’s Eve, and has some yuletide thematic elements at the end appearing to echo stories like A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life.
Honorable mention:Others have pointed out in the past that when the full set of facts is taken into consideration, the true hero of It’s a Wonderful Lifeis Henry Potter, a stockholder in the Bailey Building and Loan company who is forced to pay the price for its bad business decisions. Like Trump, Potter falls the victim to a socialist plot that uses propaganda and lawfare to slander him into submission. Although the movie ends with George Bailey having prevailed, there are hints that a world where Potter never existed would be far worse than one where Bailey never existed.
Why it counts: Globalist elites’ excesses/depravity
Stanley Kubrick’s final movie, based on Austrian author Arthur Schnitzler’s 1926 novella “Dream Story,” changes the events from a Mardi Gras celebration to a Christmas one, adding more to the surreal quality of the cinematography.
The 1999 Tom Cruise film has secured a unique place in pop culture, even inspiring a recent AI tribute by the Dor Brothers that featured world leaders attending a similar masked ball.
Kurbrick also drew much of the film’s aesthetic from accounts of a real-life 1972 black-tie ball hosted by Baroness Marie-Hélène de Rothschild that was heavy on Satanic symbolism.
Theories about members of the globalist elite engaging in such bizarre behavior, often connected to Satanic undertones and sex-cults, have continued to snowball in recent years, ranging from the secret cover-up of Jeffrey Epstein’s client list to the rumors of the Clinton–Podesta Pizzagate conspiracy, to the accounts of cocaine-fueled orgies involving members of Congress and the annual Davos conference hosted by the World Economic Forum.
Honorable mention:Rod Serling’s 1964 made-for-TV adaptation of A Christmas Carol, titled Carol for Another Christmas was a star-studded propaganda piece commissioned by the United Nations to persuade Americans that the UN did not have a communist agenda in the aftermath of the JFK assassination. It resurfaced in 2012 after Turner Classic Movies began re-airing it. But hindsight makes the propaganda all the more obvious and blatant, perhaps exposing just how left-wing globalist groups like the UN have used Hollywood to undermine American interests.
Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam directed this 1985 dystopian tale (released just weeks after Rambo IV) about a cog in the system who, shortly before Christmas, discovers a serious mistake caused by a literal bug in the machinery. The discovery sends him into a Kafkaesque spiral of tension-escalating plot twists. While trying to break free from the system, he is himself detained and tortured, with the ending leaving it ambiguous as to whether freedom in this society is truly attainable.
Honorable mention:The Nativity Story, a 2006 retelling of the birth of Jesus tells the familiar tale with an emphasis on the Magi (not to be confused with MAGA), the three wise men who arrived on Jan. 6—known to Christians as the celebration of the Epiphany. King Herrod of Judea sought help from the visiting Oriental trio in locating the Jewish messiah, whom he feared would supplant him as ruler. Although the king resorted to drastic measures—demanding the slaughter of innocent babies, much like the modern Left’s abortion agenda—the Magi refused to cooperate, making them the original J6 political dissidents.
The 2002 third installment in the comedic series that coined the term “Bye Felicia” finds friends Craig (portrayed by red-pilled rapper Ice Cube) and Day-Day forced to get jobs as security guards after a thief dressed as Santa steals all their Christmas presents. The movie also features a turn from Terry Crews (another red-pilled actor, best known for his turn as President Camacho in the modern cult classic Idiocracy) as a newly-released inmate who picked up homosexual tendencies while incarcerated.
Honorable mention:Jim Varney’s redneck hero Ernest P. Worrell returns to his most famous role in 1988’s Ernest Saves Christmas, in which the hero becomes Santa Claus after the original Santa leaves his magic bag in the back of Ernest’s cab in Orlando.
Made during the peak of the COVID-19 hysteria, this 2021 movie, with an ensemble cast led by Keira Knightley, begins as the typical “home for the holidays” comedy set at a British country estate. However, it later takes a genre-bending turn that is as jarring and drastic as the arrival of the pandemic was in March 2020. It is one of the few on this list that may have spoilers, so viewers who don’t mind dampening the holiday spirit (definitely not one to watch with the kids) should watch it for themselves.
Honorable mention: The Stephen Spielberg-produced Gremlins, written by future Harry Potter director Chris Columbus, remarkably is considered a kid-friendly movie—or, at least, it was when it first came out in 1984. However, it too blends heartwarming and nostalgic family comedy with significantly darker elements after a specimen of Chinese origin, the mogwai, makes its way to small-town America. A scientist (biology teacher Mr. Hanson) then ignores the rules for containing it, leading to a catastrophic epidemic that seem a lot like the gain-of-function research advocated by ex-COVID czar Anthony Fauci.
With the exception of The Nativity Story, none of the films listed connect with the religious component of the Christmas holiday. That has much to do with its commercialization and sanitization by Hollywood and others to make it more inclusive and profitable.
I, for one, take no issue with the idea of everyone sharing in a seasonal yuletide spirit regardless of belief (this year, Christmas happens to coincide with the start of the relatively minor Jewish holiday of Hannukah), but ultimately there is only one thing that “Christmas is all about,” and nobody articulates that as well as Linus in this 1965 animated classic, which has prevailed over all the efforts by the Left to memory-hole it.
Honorable mention: Aliens envious of Earth’s culture, travel there to kidnap two children, along with Santa Claus, but later decide that it is unreconcilable with their own culture in 1964’s Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, made for an estimated budget of around $200,000. They attempt to sabotage Santa’s toymaking industry and to replace Santa with one of their own kind, but the plan fails, much as the Left’s so-called Great Replacement strategy via open borders cannot conquer the Western cultures they are seeking to supplant with their reverse-colonization scheme.
The trial of Daniel Penny split many observers into two camps—one passionately for and the other fiercely against the defendant, who restrained Jordan Neely in a chokehold on a New York subway in May 2023 and Neely died.
The first camp brands Penny, who was acquitted of the charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, a brave hero who was protecting others from Neely. They say Penny is a victim of overreach by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
The second camp calls Penny a killer with no regard for the value of a poor, ill, homeless man’s life.
Representative of the view showing disdain for Penny were public comments made by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), whose district includes part of Queens. Before the trial began, she called him a “murderer,” and after the verdict, she criticized him again, saying Penny “does not have remorse about taking another person’s life.”
Defense lawyers, who unsuccessfully moved for a mistrial, complained to Judge Maxwell Wiley about the “circus-like” atmosphere fostered by loud, angry, sometimes menacing protesters on the street outside the courthouse.
Protesters had made threats against their client and against jurors if they didn’t vote to convict, defense lawyer Thomas Kenniff told the judge.
The trial began in late October and ended with Penny’s acquittal on Dec. 9. Despite the acquittal, the case raises questions about the challenge of holding a fair and impartial trial in an age of 24/7 social media saturation.
David Dorfman, a professor of law at Pace University in New York City, said he believes the “toxic social media environment” and the politicization of the justice system made it difficult to have a fair trial, in a case that the government never should have brought in the first place.
Divine Pryor, executive director of the Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions, said he doesn’t think the 24/7 coverage of the Penny case or the street protests exerted undue influence on the course of the trial or the outcome.
“There are always non-evidentiary pressures that emerge during any high-profile trial that come from arenas outside the judicial process, and they are usually shaped and guided by the media,” he said. His organization, a New York-based nonprofit, advocates for criminal justice reform.
“Unfortunately, I was not surprised by the verdict, and I did not expect a conviction on any of the charges, because he was immediately portrayed as a ‘war hero’ who was, once again, protecting the community,” Pryor said in an email to The Epoch Times.
“He was able to make bail and obtain legal counsel, and he won the hearts of the public. The fact that he was a middle-class, white male—well, what’s understood needs no explanation,” he said.
Pryor said he views the Penny case as similar in some ways to the Bernhard Goetz case in the ‘80s. Goetz shot and injured four young black men who he believed were trying to rob him on a subway in December 1984. In that case, public perceptions of crime, and the races of the people involved, may have shaped perceptions even before the case went to trial, Pryor suggested. The jury ultimately convicted Goetz of carrying an unlicensed firearm but acquitted him of attempted murder.
As a defense lawyer, Kenniff saw it differently. He sees non-evidentiary pressures as a negative influence not just in this trial, but in a politicized justice system more generally.
“There were certainly efforts to malign our client and poison the jury pool against him. I think Steven Raiser and I were successful in beating back against much of that, but I can’t say it didn’t impact things,” Kenniff said in an email to The Epoch Times.
Intimidation of jurors from activists and protesters demanding a certain outcome presents a “real risk,” he said.
“We saw attempts at that in this trial, where witnesses admitted they were afraid to testify favorably towards Mr. Penny out of fear of retribution. However, the jury refused to be swayed by any of that, and for that we’re grateful,” Kenniff stated.
Harvey Kushner, chair of the criminal justice department at Long Island University, said the social media-driven pressures that moved Penny’s defense lawyers to argue for a mistrial may be all the more severe in years to come.
“If you look at the Penny case, you can’t compare it to other times, because the media have changed so dramatically,” Kushner said.
“This was all over the media, people were not only viewing it but interacting with it on Facebook, TikTok, and X. The way they process it is different today.”
In making its case to the jury, the defense evoked a situation that some or all of the twelve men and women could identify with, having rode the subway themselves and having found themselves in vulnerable situations where no police officers were on hand to respond in the event of an immediate physical threat.
The incident that defense lawyers Steven Raiser and Thomas Kenniff and lead prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran, debated in a lower Manhattan courtroom began on May 1, 2023, when an uptown F train pulled into the Second Avenue station.
Before the doors closed, Neely entered the train and immediately began acting in a manner that frightened and alarmed passengers, according to several who took the stand during the trial.
Neely, who had a record of 42 arrests and an outstanding warrant for his arrest on an assault charge at the time, threw his jacket onto the ground and began shouting that he was hungry, homeless, and did not care whether he went back to prison on Rikers Island.
That was when Penny, who had been listening to music on his earbuds, asked a stranger to hold the earbuds, and then got up, moved behind Neely, and applied a chokehold he had learned during his time in the U.S. Marines.
Direct and cross-examination dwelled extensively on the amount of time that Penny restrained Neely and on the physical and physiological factors that caused Neely’s death a short time later.
Nonetheless, witness after witness reiterated the sheer terror that Neely’s conduct caused them.
Though called to the stand as government witnesses, these men and women of diverse professional, personal, and ethnic backgrounds gave a version of events that could only buttress the defense position that passengers on the F train had a reasonable and immediate fear for their physical safety.
Lori Sitro, a research director at an agency in the city, described feeling particularly vulnerable because she had her small boy with her on the train. Under direct examination from a prosecutor, Sitro said that Neely’s threats were explicit, and frightening.
“He was shouting in people’s faces, ‘I don’t have water, I don’t have food, I don’t have a home, I want to hurt people, I want to go to Rikers, I want to go to prison.’ And he was getting increasingly belligerent,” Sitro recalled.
From the witness stand, Sitro performed a brief pantomime of lunges that she said Neely made toward passengers on the train. His conduct made her so fearful for the safety of her son, that she moved a stroller in front of him as an impromptu shield.
Another passenger, a teenaged student named Yvette Rosario, recalled feeling such terror that she thought she would pass out, and burying her face in the chest of a friend who stood next to her.
Dan Couvreur, the founder of a financial startup, said the incident far surpassed tense, unpleasant things he had witnessed on the subway before. “The anger, the aggressiveness, and that tone set it above these other situations that I’ve seen,” he said.
Yet another witness, Alethea Gittings, who was on her way to a dentist’s appointment when the trouble started, attributed a highly explicit threat to Neely. “If I remember correctly, he said ‘I don’t give a damn, I’ll kill a [expletive], I’m ready to die,’” she testified.
Gittings further testified not only to thanking Penny for his actions, but to agreeing, without any pressure on Penny’s part, to speak to police about what had happened.
The defense made much of the accounts of these men and women, who suddenly found themselves in a tense and terrifying situation and in need of someone to come to their aid.
Syrian Christians Protest Presence Of Foreign Jihadists After Christmas Display Burned
Starting Monday night and into Tuesday, large demonstrations broke out in Christian areas of Damascus and other parts of Syria over the continued presence of foreign jihadists in the country.
The ruling Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has vowed to protect the sizeable non-Muslim communities of Syria (Christians, Alawites, and Druze) following the overthrow of the secular-leaning President Assad and his Baath government, but deep fears have remained that an Islamic state based on Sharia law will emerge.
HTS Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is currently trying to appease Western and external backers by saying all the ‘right things’ in public—but Christians in particular are deeply fearful given that since the jihadist takeover of the country there have been several acts of anti-Christian vandalism and attacks.
Under the prior Assad government, Christians and others had a high degree of religious freedom. Churches would sound bells on special holidays, Christmas lights and decorations would be prominent in December, and special festivals would often take over entire streets and neighborhoods in celebration.
The pre-war Christian population was commonly estimated to be ten to twelve percent of the population, but since 2011 many have fled. Christians have also been killed or kidnapped over the years by Western and Gulf-backed militants, including priests and two bishops who were Christian leaders in Aleppo.
The Christian community of Latakia put up their traditional Christmas tree in the “American” quarter.
They hesitated for some time, fearing a backlash from HTS. But decided not to assume that it would be frowned on. This is the tree and celebration. pic.twitter.com/nMDT2EiDo9
While Jolani is trying to send positive signals to the US government and others over the future of Syria’s Christians, Church leaders and the people are not waiting around.
On Tuesday night Christian districts in and around Damascus as well parts of Hama countryside erupted in protest after the day prior armed men set fire to a large Christmas display in the Christian town of Suqaylabiyah, in Hama governate.
Below is a scene from one of the largest Christian areas of central Damascus Tuesday night:
We reject fighters from Chechnya or any other foreign fighters.
As Christians and Muslims, we stand united as one people.
This is the message the protesters are trying to deliver to the people of Damascus:
Raise your cross; the raising of the cross is salvation.
“We demand the rights of Christians,” the protesters chanted, many carrying crosses. Other slogans demanded a future role in the country for all Syrians, and that churches and the religious freedom of everyone must be protected.
A regional source has described the initial Christmas tree burning which outraged Syria’s Christians as follows:
Video footage that circulated on social media on 23 December showed a large Christmas tree burning in Hama’s Suqaylabiyah – a Christian neighborhood. The tree was set ablaze on Monday by foreign militants under HTS’s command. Some reports said the militants were from Chechnya, while others said they were Uzbeki fighters.
HTS deployed a military official to the scene of the burning to condemn the incident and vow punishment for those responsible.
“Protests led by Syrian Christians also took place in Sahnaya, Jaramana, Hama, and other areas of the country,” the same outlet reported.
Church leaders remain on edge given that foreign militants control broad swathes of the countryside and are able to attack non-Muslims with impunity. HTS has also at times conducted acts of “intimidation” – for example by entering church services in Damascus while openly brandishing rifles.
Christians are telling HTS that if they are serious about governing, they must immediately kick the foreign jihadists out of the country. The black flags of ISIS have also been spotted in various parts of the country, and are sometimes even sported by HTS members themselves.
The foreign jihadists entered the country in the first place during the prior 13 years of war, often crossing into Syria from NATO-member Turkey and with the tacit support of the Western and Gulf anti-Assad alliance.
* * *
For more on the history of Christians in Syria and persecution at the hands of fanatical militant groups during the past decade of war, see Syria Crucified…
This is a great book by @BradRHoff and Zachary Wingerd about the experiences of Syrian Christians during the war. I Highly recommend, and it’s especially worth reading now with this HTS/AQ offensive on Aleppo. pic.twitter.com/49Wco335qW
This Christmas, the dinner table will offer more than turkey and pudding. Expect curious relatives to test your crypto savvy and ask how to join the bull market. Are you ready for the spotlight?
This festive season, your “orange pill” credentials are on trial. Will you dazzle with eloquent arguments on decentralization and monetary sovereignty or crumble like a stale mince pie and just stammer, “Number go up!” under the holiday spotlight?
Fear not — here are some tips to steer your family and friends through the crypto conversation.
Remember: You’re not a crypto guru and can’t predict the future
One of the first things you must do is make sure they know that any action taken “is their responsibility.”
Inexperienced investors might mistake you for a crypto guru, but let’s be honest — that’s probably not the case. Chris Burniske, partner at venture capital firm Placeholder and former blockchain products lead at ARK Invest, put it:
“No one knows anything for sure about markets. The only people you know for sure are lying, are those who say they ‘know for sure.’”
When crypto markets roar in a full-blown bull run, everyone feels like the next Warren Buffett. Stay humble — admit you don’t have all the answers. Remind them not to follow your footsteps blindly like a herd of sheep. Caution is key, even in the frenzy.
Give them context on where we are in the bull market
As Bitcoin dominates headlines, everyday investors with little experience often succumb to FOMO — the fear of missing out — and rush in without fully understanding the risks.
Retail investors are often desperate to get in fast, driven by the overwhelming hype where everybody seems to be becoming rich with crypto.
Successful crypto traders counter their human instincts — they buy when crypto attention is low and sell when euphoria sweeps the market. Retail investors, on the other hand, often follow the herd, driven by emotion rather than strategy.
Burniske said the “painful reality” is that rising cryptocurrency prices inevitably draw attention, which fuels further buying. The feedback loop, which he nicknamed the “attention cycle,” accelerates when prices become extraordinary.
“The later we are in that attention cycle, the worse the entry.”
Burniske advises, “Give them context on where we are currently in the cycle.” He believes the market has been in a bull run for two years and may now enter its final stages.
So, what should you do when their “appetite for crypto exposure remains insatiable,” even if it’s possibly the wrong time to enter?
Burniske believes they should enter with an equal proportion to Bitcoin, Ether and Solana with a ratio of 50%/25%/25%. Burniske said that if they get trapped if the market turns into a bear market, at least “they’re holding quality.”
If they’re tempted to dive into altcoins or memecoins chasing get-rich-quick schemes, Burniske recommends advising them to allocate no more than 10% of their total investment while reminding them that it’s “at their own risk.”
Timing the crypto exit is the real challenge
Stepping into the crypto markets is easy. Many retail investors dive in with excitement, quickly seeing gains as the bull market drives prices upward. But remember, what goes up must come down.
The conditions for the crypto markets have rarely been more favorable, particularly in terms of crypto regulation and institutional adoption.
The rise of the Bitcoin ETF market capitalization. Source: CoinGlass
Given these transformative changes, some believe the historical four-year Bitcoin cycle will be replaced with a supercycle, where assets trend ever upward.
But don’t bank on it. Burniske warns that this could lead retail investors to miss the opportunity to take profits at the market peak.
“‘Supercycle’ is without fail a collective delusion.”
Burniske acknowledges that “ETFs and potential sovereign buying ‘could’ mean we don’t have as brutal a bear in the future for BTC.” However, he cautions, “Anything that goes 100x quickly is prone to at least an 80-90% crash at some point, structurally — too many people sitting on profit.”
Bitcoin’s price performance peaks and lows from prior cycles. Source: Caleb & Brown
Burniske said that it’s hard for people to grasp how sharply a cryptocurrency can decline. However, given you’ve probably roundtripped your own bags in at least one previous cycle, you can warn them of the problem. “Since you’ve lived it, you know, and now you can teach them.”
Nothing is certain except death and taxes
Armed with the knowledge you’ve given them about what to buy and when to sell, there are still further common mistakes investors can make, according to Burniske.
When investors sell during a bull market, they may watch the coin continue to soar, as no one can predict when the peak has been reached. Burniske advises teaching new investors to resist FOMO and avoid reinvesting profits in an attempt to chase further gains. This is “generally a horrible idea.”
This practice is risky because if the market suddenly collapses, investors could owe more taxes on realized gains than the value of the assets left after the crash.
To avoid falling into this FOMO trap, he recommends placing the gains out of the crypto market for 12–18 months in traditional accounts, which can provide some interest (crypto stablecoins have additional risks). This reserved money will be used to pay tax liabilities.
Once taxes are settled, the cycle can begin anew. Burniske recommends “sniffing around again” in crypto markets when sentiment turns to apathy, typically around 12 months after the peak.
Wall Street cheat sheet: the psychology of a market cycle. Source: ResearchGate
As an experienced crypto investor, it’s crucial to help guide new investors to avoid repeating the same mistakes in the next bull market. Encourage them to get interested in crypto when the attention cycle is low — or non-existent. If done right, they’ll be well-positioned to educate other newcomers who might jump in during the next wave of hype.
“Theoretically, Yes”: Goldman Says US LNG Can Replace Russian LNG Imports To EU
Samantha Dart, co-head of global commodities research at Goldman, published a note to clients outlining five key questions and answers about the US-EU liquefied natural gas trade. This comes just days after President-elect Donald Trump threatened the EU with a barrage of tariffs unless Brussels ramped up purchases of American LNG.
For context, last Friday, Trump wrote on Truth Social:
“I told the European Union that they must make up their tremendous deficit with the United States by the large-scale purchase of our oil and gas. Otherwise, it is TARIFFS all the way!!!”
Dart told clients that the US is already Europe’s largest LNG supplier and a key source of supply growth. She said replacing Russian LNG with US LNG imports could raise shipping costs and European prices to incentivize re-routing cargoes.
She said such a shift would have minimal impact on US LNG export revenues, as total export capacity remains fixed, adding exporters with long-term contracts with proposed US LNG projects would benefit. However, Europe’s decarbonization strategy may limit the willingness of European companies to make long-term NatGas commitments with US exporters.
Dart laid out key questions and answers about the US-EU LNG trade that help clients understand that US LNG Gulf exports can “theoretically” replace Russian NatGas flowing into the EU.
1. How much US LNG is exported to Europe?
US LNG exports averaged 91 mt over the past year (Dec23-Nov24), of which 47 mt or 51% were delivered to Europe. US LNG exports to Europe have grown significantly in levels and as a share of total US LNG exports since the European energy crisis in 2022, peaking in 2023 (Exhibit 1).
2. Are US LNG volumes sold in the spot market or are they contracted?
The vast majority of US LNG sales are under contract. That said, US contracts typically have flexible destination ports, in that the buyer is not obligated to deliver to a particular location. This allows buyers of US LNG to re-sell or re-direct cargoes to higher-paying destinations. This was evident during the European energy crisis, when European gas prices increased sharply relative to the rest of the world. Even as total US LNG exports grew, this worked as an effective incentive for US LNG deliveries to non-European destinations to contract by 41%, while European deliveries increased by 197%[1], as seen in Exhibit 1.
3. What portion of European LNG imports come from the US?
The US has become the single largest source of LNG to Europe, averaging 46% of imports into the region over the past 12 months (Exhibit 2). Most European LNG imports are sourced from Atlantic Basin suppliers to minimize shipping costs. Importantly, the US is also the primary source of likely European LNG import growth, based on long-term LNG contracts signed by European buyers since the start of the Ukraine war. US volumes contracted by European buyers in the period add to just under 16 mtpa, which is more than with any other single supplier globally (Exhibit 3).
4. Can US LNG replace Russian LNG imports into the EU?
Theoretically, yes. US LNG deliveries to non-EU countries are currently approximately 18 mtpa above the levels observed during the peak of the European energy crisis, suggesting there is enough flexibility in the market to replace Russia’s current 17 mtpa of LNG exports to the region. However, such a reallocation of flows might offer little benefit, if any, to Europe or the US. Less optimal routes for LNG deliveries (for example, longer routes for Russian cargoes) would likely lead to higher freight costs. In addition, European import costs might go up in order to motivate the re-route of US cargoes that would have otherwise opted to deliver elsewhere.
Total US LNG exports would also not increase as a result of this reallocation, given that US LNG export capacity would not be impacted in the process.
5. How could Europe support growing US LNG exports?
Additional long-term contracting by European buyers with proposed US LNG projects would be the most impactful measure the EU could take to support higher future US LNG exports, as this would increase the likelihood such contracted liquefaction projects reach a final investment decision (FID). As of now, the forward curve for European gas prices suggests new long-term US LNG export contracts are in the money through at least 2027 (Exhibit 4). That said, Europe’s decarbonization goals might limit European companies’ appetite for long-term commitments to grow natural gas use. In fact, when we look across all long-term LNG contracts signed since the start of the Ukraine war, European companies are far behind Portfolio player companies and Asia importers (Exhibit 5).
It appears that Goldman believes Trump’s ‘America First’ policy of replacing Russian LNG to Europe with American LNG is “theoretically” possible.
