Matt gaetz

“The one thing that binds each and every one of us is not necessarily love... it’s pain,” Hunter Biden said in his interview yesterday with independent journalist Andrew Callaghan. Well, that’s good, because we’re not all sons of a former president, so at least we have something in common. Someone has really been working the 12 steps! Cockburn will admit that he didn’t really see it until now, but after yesterday, he’s ready to admit that Robert Hunter Biden may be the only person who can lead the Democratic party out of the wilderness. It’s a development worthy of the best "scion’s fiction.

It's been a minute since Democrats have heard any good news coming out of Florida, a one-time swing state where Republicans now hold a 1.2 million voter advantage in party registration. And so, the fact that Democrats were looking forward to watching special election results in the Sunshine State in two heavily conservative districts Tuesday night is surprising – and reflects some important realities about national and local politics. Perhaps the most important dynamic is the national scoreboard. Republicans went into the night holding a 218-213 advantage with four seats vacant, and came out of it up 220-213, despite two Florida wins that were surprisingly lackluster.

Palm Beach, Florida Casey DeSantis is running for Florida governor. That is simply a matter of accepted knowledge for the West Palm Beach denizens gathered at the Flagler Museum on a breezy evening among the palm trees. But it's still astonishing to see how quickly she adapts to the role and inhabits it in a bright pink pantsuit. The far more telegenic half of the gubernatorial team, who benefits from a Myers-Briggs score that begins with "E" instead of "I," delivered a speech last week that put a strong emphasis on "we" at every juncture — what "we" accomplished for Florida, how "we" pushed back against Joe Biden's foolishness and how close "we" believe the loss of Florida's model could be should Democrats prevail in the state her husband helped turn bright flaming red.

Former congressman Matt Gaetz kicked off the 119th Congress by not showing up and taking the Capitol Hill press corps to school. After weeks of drama, Mike Johnson was reelected as speaker of the House on the very first ballot — exactly as Gaetz predicted. Some Hill reporters, such as Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman, and even Congressman Thomas Massie, had tweeted in response to Gaetz’s declarative prediction that he was wrong. Heading into the vote, everyone knew that Massie was implacably opposed to Johnson — but everyone else’s opposition proved to be quite placable. The drama kicked off almost immediately, when Democratic congressman Hank Johnson failed to show up before roll was called.

President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday gave his first rally speech since winning the 2024 presidential election, delivering the keynote address at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest conference for young conservatives. The former and future president spoke for more than an hour and made plenty of headlines with his suggestion that the United States take back control of the Panama Canal, a rejection of the Democrat attack that he is a shadow puppet of billionaire Elon Musk, and a renewed promise of his second-term priorities.

Last night’s White House Christmas party with digital creators resulted in a cacophony of posts from social media influencers praising Hunter Biden. The swath of pro-Hunter posts following President Joe Biden’s hugely unpopular pardon of his son gave the impression that the Democrats were keen to rehab his image and tamp down accusations of nepotism. “Just met Hunter Biden at the White House Holiday Party.” Majid Padellan, or “BrooklynDad_Defiant!,” posted to his 1.2 million followers on X. “Super nice guy.”“This one is dedicated to all my favorite meme-making trolls out there!” Joanne Carducci, or “JoJoFromJerz” wrote with a picture of her and Hunter Biden. “Merry Christmas!” She has almost a million followers on X.

Donald Trump may have a four-year term, but he has far less time to make a real difference. In practice, he may have a year or perhaps eighteen months before the midterm election looms and Congress slows to a crawl. If Trump wants to be a transformational president — and he clearly does — then he will have to move fast. That’s exactly what he’s doing. He’s beginning with a series of rapid-fire appointments, most of which require approval from the new, Republican-majority Senate. (His White House aides, such as national security advisor, do not require Senate approval.) What message is Trump sending with his appointments so far? First, he demands loyalty — to him and to the agenda he articulated clearly on the campaign trail.

Jose Ibarra, the “sick, twisted and evil coward” who was accused of murdering Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, was convicted on all counts and sentenced to two life sentences without the possibility of parole, with an additional twenty-seven years tacked on.“She fought for her life in dignity, and to save herself from being brutally raped,” Riley’s mother said. Ibarra, who is reported to be a member of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang, “showed no regard for Laken and human life. We’re asking the same be done to him.”Riley’s high-profile murder inspired the Laken Riley Act, a bipartisan measure that “directly addresses one of the federal policy issues related to Laken Riley’s murder,” according to Congressman Mike Collins’s office.

President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump were all smiles at the White House on Wednesday as the two met to discuss efforts to transition to a new presidential administration. The duo appeared in front of reporters this afternoon as Biden emphatically shook Trump’s hand and congratulated him on his victory before promising a “smooth transition.“We’ll do everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated with what you need,” Biden said. “We’re going to get to talk about some of that today.”  “Thank you very much. Politics is tough and is in many cases not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today,” Trump replied. “I very much appreciate it.

My favorite line in Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s novel The Leopard comes midway through the first chapter. The times are unsettled. The Risorgimento is sweeping Sicily. Prince Tancredi, the idealistic young nephew of the book’s protagonist Prince Fabrizo, is bantering about the political situation with his uncle. He suddenly waxes serious: “If we want things to stay as they are, everything will have to change” (Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga come è, bisogna che tutto cambi). Most readers will understand that the whiff of paradox points not to a contradiction but to a profound truth. There are plenty of historical situations in which fundamental assumptions about society are disrupted and can be restored only by something like revolution.

Dumb is dumb. Among the dumbest is a political strategy that harms your own side and infuriates your normal allies, the ones who stand with you on most issues. That describes Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is a master of both bad ideas and bad strategies. She’s a bomb-thrower who lights the fuse, gathers her friends around her and then drops the bomb on her own toes. She illustrated those qualities last week, not once but twice. First, she opposed a House bill on antisemitism, which passed easily with bipartisan support. Her reason was that the resolution could be used to attack believing Christians. To prove it, she dredged up medieval calumnies against the Jews as “Christ-killers,” who handed Jesus over to the Roman authorities.