Politics

The real problem with US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson attending the Grammys wasn’t that it revealed her true colors as a liberal, but that it showed the slow and steady erosion of the court’s institutional reserve. Senator Marsha Blackburn, the Tennessee Republican, demanded that Chief Justice John Roberts launch an investigation into Jackson alleging she breached ethics rules by appearing at the anti-ICE event. “Americans deserve a Supreme Court that is impartial and above political influence,” Blackburn gravely pronounced. “When a Justice participates in such a highly politicized event, it raises ethical questions. We need an investigation into Justice Jackson’s ability to remain impartial.” Yes, the crowd at

It is not just in Washington that the Epstein files continue to dominate. In Westminster, the political reverberations of the Department of Justice’s investigation are threatening to bring down the British government. At the center of the drama is Peter Mandelson: a former Tony Blair aide who served, until recently, as Our Man in DC. Keir Starmer, the Labour Prime Minister, named him British ambassador to America last year, reasoning that the oleaginous uber-networker could be the nation’s “Trump-whisperer.” But the DoJ’s initial email dump in September exposed the closeness of his relationship with Epstein, with whom he shared a love of power and money. It was revealed that Mandelson

There used to be a political designation in the South of “Yellow Dog Democrats,” meaning voters who’d vote for a yellow dog if the Democrats put them up for election. But in Texas, the yellow dogs have been Republican for a generation. Texas last had a Democratic senator in 1993, and last occupied the Governor’s Mansion in 1995, when Ann Richards gave way to George W. Bush.   Nevertheless, the dogs are barking this year. Senator John Cornyn is up for re-election, and the primary contest has been chippier than usual. On the Democratic side, former football player Colin Allred dropped out of the race in December, hoping for a return to Congress, leaving the nomination

Mayor Zohran Mamdani made a hospital visit to comfort the victim of a knife attack on a police officer, who was forced to fire his weapon to defend himself. Of course, the bed Mamdani visited was that of the schizophrenic man, Jabez Chakraborty, who charged at police and was shot as a result. It almost goes without saying that New York’s new mayor did not check in on the officer. Face and voice full of strained emotion, Mamdani said after the visit: “No family should have to endure this kind of pain,” referring to the family of the knife-wielder. He made no remarks about the strains on families of police

How might the ayatollahs know an American strike force is coming? Advanced radar technology, perhaps, or a mole somewhere in the Pentagon. Or they could just look at Polymarket. There is currently around $125 million wagered in the largest market predicting when the US will next strike Iran. Given the current odds, traders reckon an attack will take place in the second half of this month. If Nicolás Maduro had checked Polymarket on the night of January 2, he would have seen his odds of losing power spike from around one in ten to 66 percent, hours before Delta Force arrived. One trader has racked up $150,000 in profits in