Politics

When the earthquake is big, the porcelain rattles far and wide. And that’s exactly what’s happening now… in Cuba, Colombia, Mexico and even Greenland. The plates are rattling after the Trump Administration’s swift, successful mission to capture Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who was allegedly a major figure in the country’s international drug trafficking. Both husband and wife now face criminal charges in the US. Who else is rattled? Well, the Democratic Party for one, but they are shaking with anger. They say that the raid was illegal and that they should have been consulted before any military action.

For years, Joe Biden’s handlers did their best to hide the fact from us that their boss was a senile, cancer-ridden mummy. This isn’t the case with Donald Trump, an equally aged President. We know everything, within reason, about Trump’s every bodily function. As a New Year’s gift to us, the Wall Street Journal called Trump to ask him about his health. Somewhat to the surprise of the reporters, Trump picked up the phone and gave them a full report. The President doesn’t sleep. He often bothers aides with calls at 2 a.m. According to the Journal, “aside from golf, Trump doesn’t get regular exercise, and he is known to consume a diet heavy on salty and fatty foods, such as hamburgers and french fries.

It used to be said that you could walk from the west of Ireland to Nantucket on the backs of the cod, so thick was the Atlantic with the fish. But as readers of a certain age will remember, by the last decade of the last century, it was looking doubtful that the cod population would see this century out to the end. By 1992, the cod population was one 100th of its historic level.   We knew that the way we were fishing was, in that unappealing but apt vogue-word, unsustainable. The fishermen themselves knew that it was unsustainable – that they were destroying the very resource on which their livelihoods and futures depended; that they were, in effect, sawing off the branch they were sitting on. And yet, for years, the overfishing... just sort of happened.

On December 15, the White House was the setting for its own romantic holiday movie, though it didn’t involve amnesia or a big-city career gal moving to a small town to reconnect with her high-school boyfriend who’s now a lumberjack and handyman. Instead, President Trump “let the cat out of the bag” by announcing that his son, Donald Trump Jr., was engaged to a woman named Bettina Anderson. "I'm not usually at a loss for words, because I'm usually doing the ranting and raving really well," said the 47-year-old Don Jr. "I want to thank Bettina for that one word: 'Yes.'" It was, he said, a "big win for the end of the year". Bigly. Who is this new branch on the Trump family tree? Articles widely describe Anderson as a “Florida socialite.

I hate to be the bearer of good news, but the US economy is doing quite well. A delayed government report shows that third-quarter GDP grew at 4.3 percent, hardly a record, but still healthy, the highest growth rate in two years. Last week’s inflation report showed a lower-than-expected number, and wage growth is exceeding inflation. Consumer spending is up, and, yes, the stock market is booming. Happy days are here again. The sky above is clear again. Many accounts on my X feed, which are either run by Democratic partisans or Iranian trolls or both, say that food-pantry lines are reaching record numbers this holiday season, and that poverty and homelessness are increasing even as the rich get richer. “Trump lies,” they said. Yes, and the sun is hot. What’s the point?

Fresh off her appearance at the United Nations, where she spoke eloquently about the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, pop star Nicki Minaj made a surprise appearance at this weekend’s Turning Point USA convention in Phoenix, leaving no doubt about where her politics lie. Of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, she said, “This administration is full of people with heart and soul, and they make me proud of them. I love both of them. They're both powerful men. Smart, strong, all of that. But both of them have a very uncanny ability to be someone that you relate to.” The Turning Point conference, the first one since Charlie Kirk’s assassination, made enough news that you could call it “Talking Point.” Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson sniped at each other.

Each Supreme Court term typically includes at least one explosive case that inflames political passions and captures the public imagination. When the court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, or when it greatly broadened presidential immunity, as it did last year in Trump v. the United States, or when it ruled against race-based college admissions in 2023, it reaffirmed its centrality and reminded voters that it mattered. As it happens, very few Americans can name the chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (surveys show it is consistently under 16 percent), but most know instinctively the high court’s opinions deeply impact governance, politics and culture.

When I was a boy, Friday nights were time for a new episode of The Rockford Files, a show about a hapless ex con PI, played by James Garner, who lived on a boat in a California marina. Fifty years later, Friday nights are for a different kind of files: the Epstein Files. Usually, government saves Friday evenings for the kinds of things it doesn’t want the news to cover, and the Friday before Christmas is generally a good place to hide. But in the age of the instantaneous news cycle in a world without a Santa Claus, they’re not going to get their holiday wish. This week’s episode of The Epstein Files involved several intersecting, ongoing plotlines with a common theme. The Democrats are constantly trying to swing and smack the Donald Trump piñata.