“Gavin Newsom won headlines Friday after he trolled Elon Musk — by attacking his relationship with his children. ‘We’re sorry your daughter hates you, Elon’, the California governor’s press office posted on X. Yes, this is the same Gavin Newsom who recently said Democrats’ next presidential nominee needs to be ‘someone who is a repairer of the breach’. By that standard, he has disqualified himself. Newsom has spent much of the year trolling President Donald Trump, trying to match — or exceed — Trump’s provocative rhetoric. Last week, responding to a White House post of footage of criminal illegal aliens being arrested, Newsom posted an AI-generated video showing Trump handcuffed and crying on a street curb. Ironically, Newsom once boasted that he had banned such AI ‘deepfake’ videos. But a federal judge said Newsom’s ban violated the First Amendment. Now such videos are part of Newsom’s daily output.” (12/15/25)
“All Chad Tausch wanted to do was add a few rooms to his Miami home. In many cities, homeowners need a permit to make such additions. But although the city had no problem with his proposed construction, it required something more than a permit fee: half of Tausch’s front yard — without even offering to pay for it. No land surrender, no permit. The city has been making the same demand of other homeowners who need alteration permits. The city has a plan, a goal: Pile up land that the city might one day use to widen roads.” (12/15/25)
Source: The American Conservative
by Joseph Addington
“The U.S. seizure of the tanker Skipper earlier this week has been widely interpreted as a significant escalation by the Trump administration against the government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. Losing the tanker, which was carrying Venezuelan crude to Cuba, is a significant blow to Maduro and will make it more difficult for the Venezuelan government to fund itself, as it is overwhelmingly reliant on oil exports for government revenue. However, the seizure is also an escalation of American economic warfare generally, including against Iran and Russia, which have also taken advantage of the world’s ‘shadow tanker’ fleet to evade U.S. sanctions and sell energy abroad.” (12/15/25)
“Pardons go back to ancient Mesopotamia, 4,000 years ago, and they haven’t improved with age. I’m currently writing a book about Julius Caesar, who employed ‘clementia’ — clemency — extensively in the closing days of the Roman Republic. After Caesar’s civil war, he pardoned two guys named Brutus and Cassius, and we know how that worked out. Caesar pardoned enemies to get them to his side. I’d be shocked if Trump has ever read anything about Caesar, but he’s taking a leaf from him. Witness Trump’s anger at Representative Henry Cuellar, indicted on federal bribery charges, when Cuellar wouldn’t switch parties. … In the (good) old days, that kind of quid pro quo would have landed Trump in hot water, but it is almost quaint in the context of the 1600 pardons Trump has granted since 2017, including his appalling decision to free the convicted January 6 insurrectionists.” (12/15/25)
“In a rare display of North American harmony, President Trump, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum, and Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney managed to rise above the FIFA 2026 World Cup draw’s cringeworthy game-show theatrics. There were no juvenile recriminations, new tariff threats, or provocations. Though the president showcased dance moves better left behind in 1978, the prime minister restrained himself. ‘It’s the first time I haven’t danced to the Y.M.C.A. when it came on, but there you go’, Carney confessed when he returned to Ottawa. Sheinbaum, sometimes called the ‘Trump whisperer’, emerged unscathed from her first in-person meeting with the president. As for Carney, Trump has described him as ‘a good man; and ‘a tough negotiator’. Even the leaders’ short tête-à-tête minus advisers avoided drama and left the world to decode whether the short meeting offered any bankable assurances that the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will survive the Trump presidency.” (12/15/25)
“Ken Burns’s newest docuseries may have its shortcomings, but others looking to tell the story of the Founding could learn from his attention to detail.” (12/15/250
“On December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights was ratified and became part of the Constitution. Most people think they know why. But most actually don’t. It was birthed out of a brutal political battle between Federalists and Anti-Federalists over a question that nearly killed ratification: When the Constitution doesn’t mention a power, who gets to exercise it – the federal government or the people of the several states? Federalists insisted a Bill of Rights was unnecessary, even dangerous. The Constitution, they argued, was already designed to limit federal power to those delegated, and nothing more. Anti-Federalists shot back with a dark reality: government always assumes it can do whatever you haven’t explicitly forbidden. That fight got settled with a deal. And the deal’s centerpiece – the answer that saved ratification – was the Tenth Amendment.” (12/14/25)
“The government has been cracking down on the misuse of opioids, but the restrictions have gone too far, hurting ordinary Americans who need them. Approximately one quarter of the nation’s population suffers from pain. The latest assault, causing problems for those suffering, which includes many elderly people, is the Biden DOJ’s lawsuits against the pharmacies CVS and Walgreens for prescribing them. This has resulted in repeatedly denying those in pain the prescriptions their doctors wrote, forcing them to try to convince pharmacists who know nothing about their conditions that they’re not criminals, but patients in need of relief. The DOJ launched its nationwide case against CVS about a year ago. Today, we’re no closer to a resolution. The lawsuit alleged that CVS ‘knowingly filled prescriptions for controlled substances’, a dramatic headline that masks something much simpler, instead portraying it as far more dangerous.” (12/15/25)
