“As more of the Epstein files are released, reminding us of Donald Trump’s close association with Jeffrey Epstein and the young people he abused and trafficked, as well as the president’s ongoing array of misogynist insults and actions (like calling journalist Catherine Lucey ‘piggy’ and name-calling Marjorie Taylor Greene to the point where she jumped ship), what keeps coming to my mind are the sexual exploits of authoritarians throughout history. As a scholar of the New Testament and the origins of Christianity, I have a special interest in the lives of the Roman emperors — in particular, the notorious Emperor Nero. According to historians of antiquity (trigger warning here!), Emperor Nero was known to use and abuse many people, especially women, allegedly murdering two of his wives and his aunt while sleeping with a Vestal Virgin and — yes! his mother before he killed her.” (12/11/25)
“The Affordable Care Act was passed upon a mountain of lies about ‘bending the cost curve’ and phony cost estimates. Not a single Republican in the House or Senate voted for it. The subsidies Obamacare shoveled to insurance companies — that enriched them greatly — are set to expire exactly as the Democrat designers planned. This will cause premiums to skyrocket. Right on cue, Democrats label the failed Obamacare promises a ‘Republican health care crisis’. In 2019, right before President Barack Obama signed the bill, I wrote the following column in which I predicted he would be long out of office when the true bill came due, leaving others to clean up the mess. Here are excerpts: Americans overwhelmingly like their health care and their health insurance. While Americans reject Obamacare, the president and Congress insist on driving it through. Most Americans, up to 85 percent, already have health insurance and are satisfied with it.” (12/11/25)
“A judge has ordered the immediate release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly [sic] deported and brought back to the US to face criminal charges, from immigration custody. US District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland said since returning to the US, Mr Abrego Garcia was re-detained ‘without lawful authority’. The order means he can at least temporarily return to his home in Maryland. The Department of Homeland Security said the decision was ‘naked judicial activism’ and ‘lacks any valid legal basis’. The case became a focal point in the administration’s crackdown on immigration after he was deported to El Salvador in March, despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation. Judge Xinis wrote in her ruling that the government did not have a removal order, which blocks it from deporting Mr Abrego Garcia ‘at this juncture’.” (12/11/25)
“I don’t know enough maritime law to tell you exactly why it’s wrong for America to be dropping troops onto tankers to seize them—just to say that, no matter what legalistic excuse the administration cooks up, it looks exactly like being a pirate. (It’s worth remembering that the US Navy was founded largely to take on piracy, and thanks to the Barbary corsairs, the early Americans had a lot to say about the subject. George Washington, for instance: Pirates are ‘enemies to mankind’.) But I can tell you this. In the ever-shrinking mind of our current president, the reason why it’s good to seize a tanker is because it carries oil, and oil is the source of all strength, his contemporary equivalent to pieces of his eight.” (12/11/25)
“Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado said she planned to take her award back to Venezuela, but declined to say on Thursday when she would return to her home country after leaving in great secrecy to receive the honour. The 58-year-old engineer had secretly left Venezuela for Oslo in defiance of a decade-long travel ban imposed by authorities and after spending more than a year in hiding. ‘I came to receive the prize on behalf of the Venezuelan people and I will take it back to Venezuela at the correct moment,’ she told reporters at Norway’s parliament, dressed in white, declining to say when this would be. When Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize in October, she dedicated it in part to U.S. President Donald Trump, who has said he himself deserved the honour.” (12/11/25)
“One would think that running a profitable legal marijuana industry would be just about the easiest thing in the world, but don’t tell that to the Democrat leadership of Minnesota, which allowed wokeness and apparent corruption to grind their legalization rollout into dust. Wherever one lands on the benefits or increasingly evident harms of marijuana legalization, once a state decides to do it, it has a responsibility to do it in a way that most benefits all the citizens. Of course, Gov. Tim Walz and the Minnesota Democrats made it all about social equity.” (12/11/25)
“Tennessee executed Harold Wayne Nichols by lethal injection Thursday in Nashville for the 1988 rape and murder of Karen Pulley, a 20-year-old student at Chattanooga State University. Nichols, 64, had confessed to killing Pulley as well as raping several other women in the Chattanooga area. Although he expressed remorse at trial, he admitted he would have continued his violent behavior had he not been arrested. He was sentenced to death in 1990. ‘To the people I’ve harmed, I’m sorry,’ Nichols said in his final statement. Before Nichols died, a spiritual adviser spoke to him and recited the Lord’s Prayer. They both became emotional and Nichols nodded as the adviser talked, witnesses said. Media witnesses reported that a sheet was pulled up to just above Nichols’ waist and he was strapped to a gurney with a long tube running to an IV insertion site on the inside of his elbow.” (12/11/25)
“Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) dropped almost $50,000 on hotels and meals in Puerto Rico in the third quarter of this year — as well as renting a San Juan venue where she was caught on tape grooving at an August Bad Bunny concert. AOC’s principal campaign committee shelled out $680.52 on July 28 to stay at the lavish Hotel Palacio Provincial, along with another $1,507.26 on Aug. 29 and a whopping $9,440,79 on Sept. 29, according to third quarter federal campaign finance filings — even as the ‘Squad’ rep on her social media accounts denounced gentrification that was taking place on the island. The ‘first-class’, ‘adults only’ Palacio Provincial boasts of being ‘situated within an historic early 19th century building’ with ‘transcendent hints of the structure’s grand colonial past.'” (12/11/25)
“As the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence nears, President Donald Trump’s escalating attacks on immigrants of color has made his administration the most globally racist, hostile administration for non-white immigrants in US history, on top of its aggressively implemented racist policies in the US and around the world. In the past two weeks alone, we’ve witnessed Trump’s racist rants against the Somali community in Minnesota, the freezing of all non-white asylum bids, and denial of citizenship rights for long-time legal immigrants from non-white majority nations. These come on top of the increasingly violent assaults and deportations of mostly brown and Black people, including citizens, solely based on skin color, language, and where they work. The November 26 shooting, one fatally, of two National Guard members in Washington was the pretext for the latest intensification of Trump’s anti-non-white immigrant crusade.” (12/11/25)
“Senators from both parties pushed Thursday for changes to a massive defense bill after crash investigators and victims’ families warned the legislation would undo key safety reforms stemming from a collision between an airliner and Army helicopter over Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people. The head of the National Transportation Safety Board investigating the crash, a group of the victims’ family members and senators on the Commerce Committee all said the bill the House advanced Wednesday would make America’s skies less safe. It would allow the military to operate essentially the same way as it did before the January crash, which was the deadliest in more than two decades, they said.” (12/11/25)
