Maybe it’s the natural contrarian in me. Or maybe it’s my irrepressible optimism (if you know me, you’ll know that’s sarcasm). Or maybe it’s my budding Christmas spirit, which is building even despite the disturbing lack of decent Christmas movies this year (Hollywood can’t make ANY decent movies. Why would Christmas flicks be any different?). But I’m listening to all these talking heads and assorted doomsayers and Eeyores who can’t stop talking about what a disaster 2026 is going to be, and, well… I just don’t agree. I think people will be surprised at how good a year America is about to have. And you should probably not scoff at it when I offer up such a prognostication. After all, I’m the guy who wrote the Mike Holman novels (find them here on Amazon), and they’re full of so many things which ultimately came true that I’ve been accused of predictive programming, like I was some sort of CIA info operative (and if I’m that, then my check is clearly lost in the mail). (RELATED: You Get (and Deserve) What You Tolerate. That Isn’t Good News for the UK.) But I don’t need Holman and friends to work this crystal ball. The green shoots are visible if you’re willing to look for them. To wit… 1. The Economy? It’s Getting a Little Better. And That’ll Continue. This week, it came out that we’re now experiencing five straight quarters of wage growth outpacing inflation, which is something — assuming it continues — that people are going to begin seeing and feeling. Gasoline is way down pretty much everywhere. I don’t know about you, but I hit the supermarket earlier this week and picked up a full load of groceries, and for the first time in a while, I wasn’t aghast at what it cost — it was still high, but not higher, and that was a notable change. I’m pricing a new TV for the master bedroom, and it’s considerably less than I expected. New house? New car? OK, fine. Still got a lot of work to do there. (RELATED: A 50-Year Mortgage Is a Financial Narcotic) Insurance is the killer for a lot of American families. But a year without a hurricane making landfall on the U.S. mainland is going to help drive home insurance rates down a bit, and in several states, car insurance is going down. That’s understandable — getting rid of illegal aliens means getting rid of uninsured drivers. And getting serious about urban crime, if it’s done effectively, means a lot fewer cars get stolen, which is also a big driver of high insurance rates. Controlling our border is a big deal where car theft is involved, too — lots and lots of stolen cars go to Mexico, and the cartels are in that business. Health insurance is a mess, and it isn’t going to get better. And the Democrats are going to do everything they can to stop any legislation that would fix the problem, other than just to throw more money at Obamacare subsidies. That’s a whole column in itself. (RELATED: Trump’s Pivot Could Make Health Care Affordable Again) But on Thursday, the White House noted there are real wins out there… U.S. exports are up 6 percent over last year — rising to their second-highest value on record — while Inflation-adjusted exports of consumer goods are the largest ever. The seasonally adjusted trade deficit with China has narrowed to its second-smallest since 2009. In the third quarter of 2025, real exports grew by a 4.1 percent annual rate, and imports fell by around 5 percent — adding about 1 percent to real GDP growth. As President Trump delivers better terms for American workers, farmers, and manufacturers, November’s deficit was cut by more than half compared to the same month last year, fueled by soaring tariff revenues. ? CNBC: September trade deficit comes in better than expected “-$52 billion would be the lightest going back to… WOW we’re really going back!… We’re all the way back to June of 2020!” https://t.co/opzmTSCAIk pic.twitter.com/NnU6kQHtCb — Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) December 11, 2025 Here’s another win, and it’s significant. For two reasons. First, it involves housing, and second, you can and should see this as a result of good policy. Good news for affordability. Renting is now cheaper than owning in the 50 largest metros and down nearly 4% since 2022. https://t.co/AJzzEnD5cA — Quantus Insights (@QuantusInsights) December 11, 2025 Rents dropping below mortgage costs are a direct result of more than two million illegal aliens going home. There is less competition for housing in America’s cities because Americans aren’t competing with as many foreigners, and that should tell you that the more illegals are sent home, the easier it will be to find a place to live. (RELATED: America Is a Real Country, Not the World’s All-Star Team) And eventually, the owners of those housing units who can’t rent them for satisfactory rates will look to unload them, which means more available housing stock for purchase. There are lots and lots of things which can and should be done to make housing more affordable — Steven Crowder actually did a really good podcast not long ago going through a bunch of them — but the most brute-force effective one is simply to take demand off the board by getting rid of the illegals. You’ll notice there are awfully few poor and working-class Americans screaming about ICE raids, right? One of my favorite scenes from Operation Swamp Sweep here in Louisiana was the one when Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol agent in command, showed up in a convenience store in a black part of New Orleans and was mobbed by the neighborhood folks who were ecstatic about what his task force was doing. The Democrats don’t want you to see this picture… Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol agent in command of Operation Swamp Sweep poses with residents in New Orleans (FREEDOMNEWS.TV/YouTube) You aren’t going to see the real economic effects of the mass deportations until next year, but they’re going to be significant and beneficial for the Americans who’ve been struggling most. I could do a lot more on this, but I’ve got four more things to touch on. Next… 2. The Death of the Climate Change Scam People are not giving this the weight it deserves, and I’m not sure why. Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Loyal American Spectator Reader, I know what you’re saying. You’re discounting the climate change thing because to you, it’s been disproven as a grift a long time ago. And I’m with you there. But remember, in marketing, you’re not selling to yourself, you’re out there hawking product to the great unwashed. And the great unwashed have had the climate change crap forced down their throats for a couple of decades now. (RELATED: The Welcome Demise of Climate Change Catastrophism) It’s never actually taken with them, but the fact that all of the climate change narratives have utterly crashed has changed things. Even The Hill, which has fanned the climate change narratives with unbridled enthusiasm for practically its entire online existence, is running op-eds declaring that the jig is up… The gap between alarmist predictions and observed reality is no longer possible to hide. Scientists deliberately misled the public with cherry-picked data, tortured computer models until they produced the “correct” scary result and misrepresented natural weather events as proof of climate change. What masqueraded as “consensus” was nothing more than a cartel of profiteers feeding on public guilt and taxpayer money. This was not good-faith scientific inquiry but rather a narrative designed to frighten, to control consumer choices and to justify a massive political and economic reorganization. Much of the public, sensing this dishonesty, no longer listens. The authority of the climate “experts” has been damaged, perhaps irrevocably. Their incessant cries of “wolf” failed to produce the climate beast. The climate cult declared war on the very engines that lifted humanity from hunger and hardship. Its legacy is economic vandalism and moral decay. But the spell is breaking, and what’s emerging from the rubble is not despair, but liberation — a long-awaited return of reason to a world held hostage by fear. There are all kinds of factors to this. Obviously, Trump calling it out as a scam was a big one. That we had zero hurricanes this year, after years and years of the alarmists guaranteeing us that more and stronger hurricanes were a necessary consequence of global warming, didn’t help their cause. The skyrocketing price of energy in Western countries, something that in America is exacerbated by the necessity of more electricity to power data centers the AI revolution will require, has severed the climate change crowd from the Big Tech overlords who’ve been on their side, and that’s consequential. (RELATED: Has the Left Moved on From Climate Change?) OK, fine, you say. Climate change alarmism is melting away. So what? Why does that matter? Well, it’s one less thing standing in the way of economic growth. For several reasons, but perhaps most importantly, you’ll see fewer stupid decisions being made based on net-zero or other faux environmental rationales. (RELATED: Bill Gates Has Discovered Something More Profitable Than the Climate Apocalypse) When people are unfettered to make smart decisions, they’ll make smarter decisions. That means more efficiency, more growth, more progress. That means less money wasted making EVs, which means more availability of cars people actually want to buy, which means people getting hired at car plants and cars being available at more affordable prices. (RELATED: Celebrating the End of EVs) And so on. That this is happening now, or beginning to happen, means you could start seeing real results by the second half of 2026. And the Democrats will have a messaging problem: do you try to revive the climate change thing, knowing that ordinary Americans are going to hate it, or do you abandon it and demoralize the Trader Joe’s Parking Lot Feminists with their Think Globally, Act Locally bumper stickers on their Subarus who make up the hardest core of their base? Remember — since Barack Obama and his gang took over that party, their electoral strategy hasn’t been attempting to seize the center. It’s been to turn out more of their radicals and hard-core ideologues than the GOP can. So when you say the obvious answer is to dump the climate change stuff, you aren’t wrong as a function of practical politics, but for them, it isn’t that simple. (RELATED: Feminism, the Nose-Ring Theory, and Our Potential Extinction) And when you recognize that climate change nuttery has been up there at the top of the Democrats’ list of political sacraments like abortion, anti-white racism, LGBTQ supremacism, and open borders, it’s not so easy to move on from it without paying a price in turnout. The people who’ve spent a lot more than 12 years believing planetary collapse was but 12 years away aren’t going to ignore such a betrayal. Especially when the rest of us are healthier, wealthier, and laughing at them. 3. Get Ready for the YUGE Foreign Policy Wins No, I’m not talking about Ukraine. Eventually, that war will end — it might well end before the election in 2026 — but at this point, the number of Americans who care about Ukraine anymore is basically minimal. You might notice that your Facebook friends on the Left quietly took their blue-and-yellow profile-pic filters down, and the fact that the Trump administration is engaged in diplomacy in trying to end that conflict makes it a lot less of a political football. Ukraine pales in comparison to two things that are almost certain to happen in 2026. The first is that the Iranian regime is going to collapse. Yes, people have been saying this for a long time. I get that. It’s been 46 years since the Twelver Shi’a lunatics took power in Tehran, and the world has been waiting for them to fall apart ever since. (RELATED: Iran Is Not Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya) But while the Iranians have spent half a century trying to punch above their weight as the military and political superpower of the Middle East, they’ve not done such a fantastic job at the basics. You’re aware of the fact that the entire city of Tehran is about to run out of water, and the regime is now talking about having to move the capital away, right? Yeah, that’s happening. You can’t evacuate a capital city of 15 million people without massive civil unrest. Where are those people going to go? They’re going to destabilize their destinations. Not to mention that this situation is going to call into question all that money the Iranians spent bankrolling Hamas and Hezbollah and a stupid missile and nuclear program, which the U.S. and Israel pretty much turned into smithereens this year. That cash probably could have been used a little better on desalination plants and pipelines from the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea, dontcha think? There is an enormous amount of activity among the Iranian expat community now in an effort toward making a plan for a new, peaceful, and secular Iran. When the theocratic revolution fully collapses there — let’s face it, when Allah won’t send enough rain to raise the crops or wash Ali’s feet, it starts to look like Allah isn’t as happy with the ayatollahs as they say he is — those discussions will start to look a lot more consequential. Iran’s collapse doesn’t even require U.S. participation. It’s going to happen because of those empty reservoirs. Hungry people are angry people. Thirsty people go crazy, fast. In Venezuela, though, we will need to do something. I’ve got a couple of links from RVIVR — one which is a piece of mine, the other is by Trent Kubasiak from RealClear — talking about the justification and necessity to take down the Maduro regime by force if necessary. (RELATED: We Should Declare War on the Cancerous Cartel in Caracas) Iran going down will be a big prestige boost for the Trump administration and a nice morale hit for the average American — and particularly everybody Gen X and above who remembers the hostage crisis and is still pissed off about it. Images of happy, free Iranians waving U.S. flags, mobbing the C-130s at the airport as they offload pallets and pallets of bottled water after the regime collapses will make Democrats look like morons. But Venezuela turning over will be a lot bigger deal than that. Venezuela turning over will have an interesting and quite likely consequential effect on our election results. I’ll just leave it at that. It’ll also have an effect on crime in our cities. Additionally, you’ll see a lot of self-deportations as Venezuelans return home. We used to do a lot of trade with Venezuela when it was a free country. That’s over now. Returning it to status as a market democracy will likely bring some of that trade back, though how soon we see it is a question. But most of all, while the Democrats might look like idiots when Iran’s regime is toppled, when Maduro goes, they’ll look like… something else. And I’m going to just let that be for now. 4. Hollywood and Big Media’s Collapse Will Matter Next Year Everybody talks about how there’s nothing on TV, and the movie industry is basically done. The record industry is done. Kamala Harris’s campaign last year wasted millions of dollars trying to enlist celebrities to throw their star power behind her, and that failed. And if you’re paying attention, you’re noticing that Big Media is collapsing (just like I talked about in Blockbusters — available on Amazon — which you should buy dozens of copies of and give them to all your friends for Christmas, but anyway). I’d said that Skydance’s takeover of Paramount was the most entertaining corporate saga of the modern age, but it might be that the takeover fight in which Skydance, Paramount, and Netflix are at war over Warner Bros. Discovery is even better. (RELATED: Netflix Doesn’t Want Competition — It Wants Narrative Control) Why do you care about that? Well, consider the caterwauling at CBS News over Bari Weiss’s burgeoning dominion there. That’s a direct consequence of David and Larry Ellison taking over one of the old three major broadcast networks, and they can all see what’s coming. (RELATED: The New Editor-in-Chief of CBS News Is Not Like the Others) Weiss isn’t even a conservative. Far from it. But she isn’t a Marxist propagandist, and she now runs CBS News — and has an axe to grind against the Marxist propagandists who ran her out of legacy corporate media. Bear in mind that both CNN and MSNBC — excuse me, MSNOW — have been set adrift by Big Media. Warner Bros. Discovery dumped CNN on its Discovery Global Networks spinoff, and MSNOW is part of something called Versant after Comcast jettisoned it. The legacy corporate TV news business was always a loss leader for the entertainment companies that controlled major media in this country, but those companies don’t make much money on their crappy entertainment product anymore, and now they’re getting eaten by others. If Skydance gets Warner Bros., they’re going to control more of American entertainment than Disney does. And Skydance is not woke. At all. This is going to matter because it will affect what’s on TV and what’s at the theater, and it’ll also affect what’s on the news. So, your assumption that the slimeballs in the media will report this thing and that thing in a way that will kill Republicans politically? Don’t be so sure it’ll stay that way nine months or a year from now. 5. Primary Season Is Going To Be Lit This far out from a midterm election, you get an inordinate amount of pontification based on macro trends. But the thing to understand is that we know who very few of the candidates will be. In the past, that’s been sort of a mixed bag. Frequent readers of this column know that I’ve been howling about the sabotage Mitch McConnell has done to conservative Senate candidates in GOP primaries pretty much as long as I’ve been writing in this space, and the political corpses lie just about everywhere. But McConnell is a political corpse himself. He’s done after next fall. And his influence on, say, the NRSC is waning rapidly. I am not here to tell you the NRSC has become a positive force for the conservative movement. Just a month or so ago, I had some 20-something cub operative from that organization email me attempting to spread dirt on Blake Miguez, one of the more MAGA candidates running to unseat establishment hack Bill Cassidy in Louisiana’s GOP primary, and it was all I could do not to publish that email at The Hayride. I didn’t, because if I had, I would have blown up the poor girl’s career without getting at whoever put her up to the hijinks she was attempting. Except here are all of these people saying that it was the NRSC that was responsible for baiting Jasmine Crockett into the Texas Senate race and scaring off Collin Allred and the other Democrats who could actually win. Even Matt Gaetz is saying it. “[Jasmine] Crockett for Senate is a total Republican op. It is a BRILLIANT Republican op. Here’s why:” Matt Gaetz discusses the Jasmine Crockett for Senate op in Texas with @PearsonSharp on a new ‘Anchormen Show”. Catch live at 7pm Eastern/4pm Pacific: https://t.co/UYoOIw87IY pic.twitter.com/8wFVGcnTfb — Former Congressman Matt Gaetz (@FmrRepMattGaetz) December 11, 2025 I had this in my last column, referencing a RedState story by Teri Christoph, and I was dubious about it. But since then, I’ve had people in the know who aren’t establishment GOP fans contact me and tell me it’s real. (RELATED: Did Jasmine Crockett Take Republicans’ Bait?) If the NRSC is going to spend the primary season sabotaging Democrats rather than conservative Republicans — even if it’s only some of the time, rather than 100 percent of the time like it used to be when McConnell ran that organization with an iron hand — this will be different. And Trump has almost literally nothing to do other than to go to war against RINOs who have held back his agenda. He isn’t running again, and while they might want to make him a lame duck, he’s got a lot more juice left in him than they do. As the idiot Republican state senators in Indiana who literally gave away two congressional seats on Thursday are likely to find out. We don’t know who the candidates are going to be, that’s what I’m saying. You might assume an angry public is going to turn on the Republicans in charge of the House and Senate, but how do you know that’s going to manifest itself in the general election? What’s just as likely is that the Cassidys and John Cornyns of the world get taken out by GOP primary voters long before the Democrats get to do it, and then it’s somebody fresh, and not hated by his or her own voters, running in the fall. Against the Jasmine Crocketts that the Democrats can’t stop nominating. There’s a poll out there showing that voters over 50, who typically play a lot bigger role in midterm elections, are +8 for the GOP this year. That’s a big number. The 2026 midterms may not be shaping up to be a wipeout for the Democratic Party, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Thursday. The Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 46 percent of Americans aged 50 and older — who tend to participate more in non-presidential elections than younger voters — said they were planning to vote for the Republican candidate in their congressional district in the midterms. Meanwhile, just 38 percent of U.S. voters aged 50 and up said they intend to vote for a Democratic congressional candidate, according to the survey. The newly released survey “shows there is still a lot of work ahead for Democrats to unify their base and to demonstrate they can meet the moment,” Joel Payne, a longtime Democratic strategist, told Reuters. In December 2021, older U.S. voters favored Republicans by 43 percent, compared with 42 percent who viewed Democrats more favorably, Reuters reported. Comparatively, Democrats notched a lead among older Americans during the same month ahead of the 2018 election, 40 percent to 38 percent, according to Reuters. Again, I’m not making any hard and fast predictions. It’s too damned early for that. What I’m giving you is the green shoots coming through cracks in this conventional wisdom narrative everybody is trying to sell you. And if the people everybody is most irritated with on the Republican side end up getting blown out of the GOP primary, are you so sure the party loses that seat in November? Especially after what could be a very good year next year? Don’t prejudge it. Let it play out some. You might be pleasantly surprised. READ MORE from Scott McKay: Did Jasmine Crockett Take Republicans’ Bait? Are They Illegal? Because If They’re Illegal, That’s Why They’re Getting Arrested Five Quick Things: Traitors, Traitors Everywhere

146 days. That’s how long Kamala Harris’s book tour will be when combining the fall leg of the tour and the additional spring dates she announced on Wednesday. That eclipses the 107 days she spent on the campaign trail. Her speaking tour complaining will now exceed the time she spent campaigning. Perhaps that’s appropriate for Harris. It’s symbolic of the fact that she will be remembered much more for losing than for anything she accomplished in office. Unfortunately for Harris, her book tour is coming at a time when her prospects for the 2028 presidential campaign are dimming. (RELATED: The Spectacle Ep. 279: Kamala Harris’ Book Tour of Excuses) While in February she led all Democratic presidential candidates in a SurveyUSA poll with 37 percent support, an August Emerson poll placed her well behind Gavin Newsom. In that survey, Newsom received 25 percent support, followed by Buttigieg with 16 percent support, with Harris trailing at 11 percent support. (RELATED: Kamala Finally Says Something True, And Now She’s Truly Cooked) Recent state polls have also placed her behind both Newsom and Buttigieg. A November St. Anselm poll put Pete Buttigieg in the lead at 28 percent support, followed by Gavin Newsom at 24 percent support. Harris came in third, but well behind, with 6 percent support. A November Emerson poll in Nevada put Newsom in the lead with 37 percent support, Buttigieg in second with 19 percent support, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in third with 9 percent support, and Kamala Harris in fourth at 6 percent support. (RELATED: Pete Buttigieg: America’s Second Gay President?) Last month, the Washington Post placed her in the “middle of the pack” of Democratic presidential contenders, saying that many Democrats have taken issue with her decision to blame others for letting Biden run for office again (when she herself was his vice president and repeatedly claimed that he was cognitively capable). (RELATED: Josh Shapiro–Kamala Harris Feud Heats Up) One question Democrats are increasingly asking themselves is why they should go with Harris in 2028 when she already had her chance and failed. One question Democrats are increasingly asking themselves is why they should go with Harris in 2028 when she already had her chance and failed. Even one Democratic senator, who remained anonymous, put forward this line of reasoning against a second Harris bid. Harris is struggling with Democrats on both sides of the political spectrum. Progressives are upset with her for prioritizing winning over moderate Republicans during the 2024 election, while many moderate Democrats perceive her to be a progressive in disguise, given her extremely liberal voting record in the Senate. This week, a progressive think tank, RootsAction, put out a report blaming her loss on her decision to act as a moderate throughout the campaign, which it says caused poor turnout among Democratic strongholds. In an interview with the New York Times published this week, in which the newspaper said of Harris, “Is she now suddenly a figure of [the Democratic Party’s] past?”, Harris fared quite poorly at answering the question of why she should have a political future. She was unable to put forward a coherent vision for the Democratic Party or explain what direction she wants to go politically. When asked by the Times what the party should do, she said, “This sounds really corny, but we have to stand for the people. And I know that that sounds corny. I know that. But I mean it. I mean it.” As for her answer on the direction she personally wants to go politically, the Times was baffled. “The elevator pitch of Ms. Harris’s ideology remains as elusive as ever,” said national political correspondent Shane Goldmacher. One thing Harris did attempt to do in her interview was combat the idea that her national political career will simply be remembered for failure. She already has a storied place in history, Harris claimed. “But there will be a marble bust of me in Congress. I am a historic figure like any vice president of the United States ever was,” she said. Harris’s vice presidency was, of course, far from impressive. It began with a year-long period in which she was kept at arm’s length by a Biden camp uncomfortable with the dysfunction within her office. And it ended with no notable policy wins or initiatives. Her election defeat while sitting as vice president sealed the nation’s displeasure with her term in office. Harris is using her book tour to prepare for a 2028 presidential run. It’s a way to travel through swing states and interact with voters. But Harris seems not to have asked herself if spending more time mulling over her defeat is a good way to prepare for a new presidential bid. With every book tour she does — and she has 18 more stops to go across 13 different states — she binds herself more closely to her 2024 defeat, letting it define her entire political identity. Politicians may be granted a year to mourn a devastating political loss, but dragging her mourning period (she says of her loss that she “grieved in a way that I have not since my mother died”) into 2026 may go too far for anyone in the Democratic Party. READ MORE from Ellie Gardey Holmes: Cheaters Faking Disabilities Are Dragging Colleges Into Crisis Texas Might Be the Only State Strong Enough to Face Real Evil Rev. Phil Phaneuf’s ‘Transition’ Shows United Methodist Church in Turmoil

“I’m not f—ing apologizing for that,” screeched angry actress Amanda Seyfried, who had referred to Charlie Kirk as “hateful” after his assassination. “I mean, for f–k’s sake, I commented on one thing…. What I said was pretty damn factual, and I’m free to have an opinion.” I was alarmed and disappointed to see such guttural language from Ms. Seyfried. For this family-friendly publication, I abbreviated the f-bombs. Read them silently to yourself, in original form, to get the full brunt and gut-punch. So many of them, and indeed young women generally, have become terribly profane. And though I was alarmed by Seyfried’s language, I’m sadly not surprised. After all, she is a modern celebrity woke woman. So many of them, and indeed young women generally, have become terribly profane. Nonetheless, I was saddened because, gosh, Seyfried was such a cute gal when she playacted as the lovely “Cossette” in the outstanding 2012 film adaptation of Les Misérables, starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, and Eddie Redmayne. Redmayne was lucky enough to be Cosette’s love interest, “Marius.” Indeed, watch Cosette sing “A Heart Full of Love” to Marius and tell me your heart doesn’t melt. Any red-blooded male would strap on a football helmet and run through a wall for that girl. Many a dude would wish he were Marius, looking into Seyfried-Cosette’s loving eyes as she croons admiringly. Kind of like how every guy of my youth wished that Olivia Newton-John as “Sandy” in Grease might have pictured themselves rather than John Travolta when she beautifully sang “Hopelessly Devoted to You.” Of course, one can’t imagine the delightful Newton-John launching into an f-bomb tirade at anyone of her era, least of all a Republican. In fact, Olivia was a Reagan supporter. She was a nice girl on and off the screen who didn’t swear like a truck driver. In fact, she immediately expressed grave doubts about racy lyrics in her hugely successful 1981 hit, “Physical.” ‘Goodness, maybe I’ve gone too far!’” she blushed. She called her producer and said, “We’ve got to pull this song!” (RELATED: The Wreck of Feminist Hollywood) Not only were the likes of Olivia Newton-John not vulgar, but neither were other glamorous gals of her genre. Can you imagine the splendid Karen Carpenter crooning “There’s No Place Like F—ing Home for the Holidays?” Or go to the big screen. Can you visualize Ginger Rogers or Grace Kelly flipping the bird to Fred Astaire or Cary Grant and telling him to go “eff” himself? (RELATED: Feminism, the Nose-Ring Theory, and Our Potential Extinction) No, dear reader, neither can I. Imagine other such sordid spectacles. Never was Audrey Hepburn prettier than in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, where she played a sort of call-girl (the exact role based on Truman Capote’s original work requires a more nuanced description), but even then, it’s inconceivable that she would have cursed George Peppard in that taxi during the film’s climax as Henry Mancini’s “Moon River” soared in the background. Audrey spoke multiple languages (six, to be exact), but I bet this elegant creature didn’t care to know how to translate “f— you” in French. (RELATED: Please Deliver Us From the Poorly-Behaved Women) But then again, women back then had class. Moving aside from Ms. Seyfried, I could give countless other modern examples. How about the sewage-slinging singer Adele? I wrote about her last year when I came across a profanity-laced tirade that she cut loose on one of her own fans at a concert. “Are you f—ing stupid?” barked Adele. “Don’t be so f—ing ridiculous.” Such outbursts from this musician/vulgarian are hardly unusual. In July 2023, Adele taunted a fan: “I f—ing dare you. I dare you to throw something at me, and I’ll f—ing kill you.” Hmm, nice girl. Not the kind I would want to bring home to meet mom, or that I would want my sons bringing home: “Hey, dad, here’s my f—ing fiancé!” All of this begs the question. How do women like Adele and Seyfried develop such dirty mouths? Didn’t their mothers teach them better? Did they ever get their mouths washed out with soap? You’ve heard the expression, “Spare the rod, spoil the child?” How about a twist? I say, “Spare the soap, soil the mouth.” The dirty language spits out so fluidly from the mouths of these women that, gadzooks, I would be afraid to kiss them — even with the charming Seyfried as “Cosette” warbling to me. I would’ve considered myself a lucky guy then, but maybe not now. I’d be afraid of her biting my lip! Alas, this is yet another troubling indicator of our degenerative culture. Once upon a time, it was men who swore like sailors and construction workers, while the ladies shook their fingers, attempting to civilize us. But now, even the ladies, well, don’t act like ladies. It is a shame. Girls, clean up your act. READ MORE from Paul Kengor: Indiana U’s Historic Season The NFL’s ‘Criminal Element’: Remembering the Raiders–Steelers Rivalry of the 1970s My Planned Parenthood Turkeys

During Larry Summers’s long involvement with Jeffrey Epstein, Harvard and two Democratic administrations vetted him. The pinnacle positions they vetted him for were university president and secretary of the treasury. The question is: Did everyone miss the connection and its seriousness, or did they choose to ignore it? We know Larry Summers’s involvement with Jeffrey Epstein goes back to at least 1998, when he is reported to have flown on Epstein’s private jet from Aspen to Washington, D.C. Summers was the deputy secretary of the treasury at that time. He maintained his contact with Epstein until July 5, 2019, the day before Epstein’s arrest on new charges of sex trafficking. That is a cumulative 22 years, a considerable amount of time by any standard. (RELATED: The Bonfire of the Academies) We also know that Summers’s contact with Epstein was not simply casual. The 1998 plane flight is just one example. Another is that Summers spent time on Epstein’s private island while on his honeymoon in 2005. Even more telling comes from a release of tens of thousands of documents by House Republicans on the Oversight Committee. Included in House Republicans’ “data dump” were hundreds of emails Summers exchanged with Epstein between 2013-2019. Summarizing these emails, The Harvard Crimson wrote that “Summers placed an extraordinary degree of trust in Epstein, confiding to him about his pursuit of a romantic relationship with an economist.” Epstein called himself Summers’s “wing man” in the pursuit. There is no need to go into what else is revealed in the Summers-Epstein emails. Nor is there a need to speculate on the men’s relationship: Epstein had many in his massive network that included many influential people for many purposes. Worth considering here is not Summers but the organizations and people who vetted him during his two-decade-long connection with Epstein. Worth considering here is not Summers but the organizations and people who vetted him during his two-decade-long connection with Epstein. During that time, Summers held many extremely important positions, the most significant being with the Clinton and Obama administrations and Harvard University. Larry Summers joined the Clinton administration in 1993 as undersecretary for international affairs at the Department of the Treasury. In 1995, he moved up to deputy secretary of the treasury. As earlier mentioned, it was during his time in that position that we know he took his first flight on Epstein’s private jet. While it is presumable that Summers already knew Epstein before he was invited to fly on his private jet, for simplicity’s sake, we can start our count from there. The next year, in 1999, Summers became treasury secretary, remaining in that position through the end of the Clinton administration. When the Clinton administration ended, Summers became the president of Harvard University, staying in that role from July 2001 to June 2006, before being pushed out by a faculty no-confidence vote. Summers joined the Obama administration as director of the National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010, amid the Financial Crisis. Summers returned to Harvard, where he remained a tenured professor. For roughly 15 years, there things stayed — Summers remaining at Harvard and serving in various private sector capacities — until House Republicans’ Nov. 12 release of thousands of pages of Epstein files. And things began falling apart quickly. With the revelation of Summers’s emails to Epstein, the DOJ opened an investigation into the connection between Summers and Epstein on Nov. 14. On Nov. 17, Summers announced his withdrawal from public commitments but not his teaching obligations: “While continuing to fulfill my teaching obligations, I will be stepping back from public commitments.” At the same time, Summers sent a statement to The Harvard Crimson: “I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein.” Just two days later, and one day after Harvard announced it was probing Summers’s ties to Epstein, Summers announced that he would not continue teaching while Harvard investigates and that he was resigning as director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard’s Kennedy School. Throughout almost all of this long and complicated timeline, we know Summers was involved with Epstein. It also seems unlikely others did not as well: Flying on a private plane while a high-ranking public official invites scrutiny; taking a honeymoon on a private island attracts attention. Granted, the contact that we know of, between Summers and Epstein, was brief during the Clinton administration. Even so, he was tapped to be secretary of the treasury after we knew of Summers’s contact with Epstein. Did the Clinton administration uncover anything in its vetting process for one of the top cabinet posts? After the Clinton administration, things get more serious as the Summers-Epstein connection continues and, presumably, grows. What did Harvard find out about Summers during its 2001 vetting of him to be president? That was three years after Summers had met Epstein. Did Harvard uncover anything about Summers’s relationship with Epstein during Summers’s presidency — a presidency marked by contention and scrutiny? What did the Obama administration uncover about Summers in its 2009 vetting for a crucial economic position at a time of economic crisis? Until his abrupt withdrawal from teaching, Summers was deeply involved with the university for 15 years — a period when Summers was also closely connected to Epstein. During much of Summers’s prominent public career, he was involved with Epstein. From the released emails, we know that connection was deep. And during these entwined professional and personal paths, Summers was repeatedly vetted at presumably the highest levels for some of the nation’s most important and prestigious jobs. How was the Summers-Epstein relationship not known? And if it was, why was it not a disqualifying factor? Since Summers’s contact with Harvard has been the most prolonged and overlaps with Summers’s entire period of contact with Epstein, how did Harvard miss the Epstein connection over and over again? It is one thing to claim that Summers’s personal conduct was not closely scrutinized for government service (though this also seems hard to believe, considering the prominence of the positions). However, personal conduct would seem to be quite crucial for Summers’s roles at Harvard, where he taught young people. Remember, too, Epstein’s first conviction was in June 2008 for soliciting prostitution and for soliciting prostitution from a minor under 18. That conviction took place well before Summers joined the Obama administration. It was also 17 years before Harvard finally undertook its own investigation this year. It is certainly possible that someone’s deepest secrets could be successfully hidden — and that Summers would go to great lengths to hide these. Yet it is equally questionable how they could be missed for so long by so many. # # # READ MORE from J.T. Young: Trump Critics Unintentionally Elevate His Successor The Price of Democrats’ Extremism What Did Professional Sports Expect? J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left, from RealClear Publishing. Follow him on Substack. 

There is no International rules-based order. It is only a comforting phantasm of peripheral nations. The real law of the earth in the 21st century is blatant and crude (excuse the pun). Ideas of multi-polarity are overdone. Whilst there are areas of strategic interest — i.e., the U.S. Monroe Doctrine in America, Chinese maritime dominion in the South China Sea — the real game is played out in brute geoeconomics, in a murky maelstrom of swirling competitions. Competitions are multilateral, and it echoes Mearsheimer’s doctrine of “zero-sum” competition of winners and losers, a Hobbesian struggle for land and sea. Europe is in a downward spiral of its own making. The new vogue is “nation building” rather than globalisation, and the Europeans have missed the boat. The real power struggle is between the U.S. and China. Yet Russia, for all its bluster, is the real loser in the new dynamic. (RELATED: Importing Chaos: The Paradox of Nation-building) Though continents apart, their fates are tied to a broader struggle over energy, influence, and great-power rivalry… Geopolitical crises rarely unfold in isolation. While the world focuses on Ukraine’s fight for survival, Venezuela sits on its own geopolitical death row. Though continents apart, their fates are tied to a broader struggle over energy, influence, and great-power rivalry, with the United States increasingly central to both theatres. The world splits into winners and losers. For example, Cuba has avoided complete economic collapse for one reason: subsidized oil from Venezuela. Under Chávez and Maduro, Caracas supplied Havana with free or heavily discounted crude, keeping Cuba’s stagnant economy afloat. Should conflict erupt with Venezuela, a possibility analysts are taking seriously, the Cuban regime would lose its final energy lifeline and could collapse alongside Maduro. For some policymakers in Washington, this is not an unfortunate side effect but an acceptable, even desirable, outcome. (RELATED: Putin’s Caribbean Gambit) The Miami Factor Senator Marco Rubio and the Cuban exile community in Miami have spent 65 years pushing for the dismantling of the Castro regime. A destabilized Venezuela that cuts off oil to Cuba would achieve a long-sought goal of weakening Havana’s communist leadership. Meanwhile, a post-Maduro Cuba could become ripe for foreign capital. Some observers even speculate that Donald Trump, ever the businessman, may envision a return of grand casinos and American tourism in Havana, should the political landscape shift. The days of Playboys and Batista are back. While Cuba is a secondary objective, the primary strategic concerns in Venezuela run deeper. Washington is increasingly preoccupied with countering China’s growing influence in the Western Hemisphere, which has been expanding through oil-backed loans and infrastructure agreements. (RELATED: How Cuba Is Becoming Beijing’s Caribbean Outpost) A major 2020 CSIS report highlighted Beijing’s role: China’s trade deals … have sustained the repressive Maduro regime, and China’s non-transparent involvement in Venezuela’s energy sector indicates deeper meddling in Venezuela’s political and social structures. The Wilson Center concluded that while China once heavily backed Venezuela, its confidence in the regime has eroded: “For years China lent to Venezuela with few policy conditions… under shaky leadership the economic and political dysfunction has grown and Chinese confidence in the Bolivarian nation appears to have plummeted.” A further CSIS study on Venezuela’s fragility noted: “China has already lent Venezuela more than $50 billion payable in oil. There is increasing possibility Beijing will restructure its loans to delay oil payments  freeing up oil exports elsewhere.” The more Beijing withdraws, the more vulnerable Maduro becomes and the more opportunity Washington sees for regime change. At the center of the Venezuela question is oil. Venezuela possesses some of the world’s largest proven reserves, but the crucial detail is the type of oil. U.S. refineries, roughly 132 in total, are overwhelmingly configured to process heavy sour crude, the very type produced in Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela. Conversely, the U.S. domestic boom in light sweet crude is largely unrefinable at home without massive reconfiguration. Re-tooling U.S. refineries would cost roughly $2 billion per facility and take a decade to complete. In the face of strained trade relations with Canada and Mexico, ensuring long-term access to Venezuelan heavy crude becomes strategically important. A 2024 Foreign Affairs article described Washington’s strategy as an attempt “to hasten a democratic transition, apply long-term pressure to the Maduro regime.” This pressure campaign — economic, diplomatic, and geopolitical — is designed to weaken the regime without direct intervention. A transition or collapse in Venezuela would not remain confined to Latin America. It would immediately affect the global environment in which Ukraine fights its war. Think tanks such as RAND and the Atlantic Council warn that “major crises in multiple regions stretch U.S. strategic bandwidth thin.” On the other hand, restoring Venezuelan heavy-crude flows to global markets would weaken Russia’s energy leverage. If Washington becomes preoccupied with a major crisis or political transition in Venezuela, the intensity of support for Ukraine could be affected. Russia would likely interpret such a distraction as an opportunity to escalate or pressure Europe. This is the present Russian view. On the other hand, restoring Venezuelan heavy-crude flows to global markets would weaken Russia’s energy leverage. Moreover, the fall of a Moscow- and Beijing-aligned regime in Latin America would shrink Russia’s propaganda reach in the Global South. In other words, Venezuela’s fate will shape Ukraine’s battlefield indirectly but materially. As global tensions escalate, especially amid the war in Ukraine, Washington appears more willing to force a strategic reshuffling in its own hemisphere. And while Ukraine dominates today’s headlines, Venezuela could be next year’s newsmaker. The current competition between great powers is a struggle for a new world order. “Potemkin villages” were the structures built to impress Empress Catherine II of Russia in the 18th century, creating the illusion of prosperity. This is the Russian modus operandi of bluster. Back home, the nation faces economic ruin, a demographic implosion, and the degrading of its only asset — oil. The “Potemkin State of Putin” could soon be joining Venezuela on death row. READ MORE from Brian Patrick Bolger: International Law Is Not Protecting Individual Safety Ursula von der Leyen: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing Brian Patrick Bolger has taught international law and political philosophy at universities in Europe. His articles have appeared in leading magazines such as The Spectator, The Salisbury Review, etc, and journals worldwide in the U.S., the U.K., Italy, and Canada. His new book, Nowhere Fast: Democracy and Identity in the Twenty First Century, is published now by Ethics International Press. He is an adviser to several think tanks and corporations on geopolitical issues.

They are embarrassing. And embarrassing themselves. Instead of settling in and doing their job of debating and voting on the issues confronting the nation, House Democrats have decided the uniform answer to the election of President Trump is to impeach both the president (again) and his Cabinet members. Such as? Here’s a sample headline on the problem from Axios: “Scoop: House Democrat seeks impeachment hearings into DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.” Axios reports that Democrats have moved to impeach the following, in addition to President Trump: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr Secretary of War Pete Hegseth And, but of course, who can forget the two impeachment attempts directed at President Donald Trump by Democrats in 2019 and 2021? With Democrats like Michigan Representative Shri Thanedar and Texas Representative Al Green already out there proposing a third Trump impeachment right now? (RELATED: Hegseth War Crimes Charge By Dems: What About Obama?) All of which makes crystal clear one serious fact. Which is that today’s Democratic Party is decidedly anti-democracy and will go out of its way to overturn the results of a free election by impeaching both President Trump and members of his Cabinet. And it takes no imagination to realize that the impeachment virus has so infected the Democrats that if President Trump is succeeded in the White House by the election of Vice President JD Vance — or any other Republican — that Republican president will quickly be targeted for impeachment by Democrats as well. All of which sends the vivid message that today’s Democrats no longer believe in free elections or democracy itself. Case in point: At a recent hearing, Illinois Democrat Congresswoman Delia C. Ramirez went out of her way to make wildly over-the-top accusations against Noem, saying: “YOU are not fit to hold the office, and I, again — to your face — demand your resignation.” This accusation, mind you, is against the decidedly experienced Noem, who, before becoming Homeland Security Secretary, served as, first, a member of Congress and then governor of South Dakota. Watching the Ramirez performance is to see a vivid example of the anti-democracy virus running rampant inside the Democrats’ own party. Simply based on her performance in that hearing, it is Ramirez, not Secretary Noem, who is decidedly “not fit to hold the office” she holds. It would seem obvious to most sentient observers that the American people have little to no patience in putting up with these anti-Trump antics from various Democrats. They produce no accomplishments, no legislation, no progress in dealings with any perceived problem facing the country. They just hurl political invective to get some television time. At the end of the political day, this insistence on playing impeachment/resignation politics by Democrats will be up for a vote from the American people. The self-same American people who have, a little over a year ago, re-elected President Trump in a landslide, solidly rejecting the Democrats’ anti-democracy politics. Then again, that’s democracy at work. For which today’s Democrats like Rep. Ramirez seemingly have little to no respect. Amazing. And a political loser. READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord: Trump, the Political Rocky Hegseth War Crimes Charge By Dems: What About Obama? Trump and Hegseth Defending America From Drug Traffickers

by CJ Hopkins, Activist Post: Three armed Berlin police officers arrived at my door this morning with a warrant to search my apartment. They conducted the search, interrogated me and my wife, and confiscated my computer. The search warrant was issued in connection with a new criminal investigation of me by the Berlin State Prosecutor. Once […]

by Doug Casey, International Man: I think it will interest you not because of my moral case against taxes (a case which was new to most attendees), but because of the reasons Milei is flirting with failure (reasons that I don’t think most of the attendees had considered). — It’s a strange pleasure to be […]

The Collision Course Pitting Joseph Stalin Against Emanuel Nobel, with Doug Brunt: "A Ripping Read"