Commentary by Jerry Lanson

Hey parents.

You may want to think twice before sending your kids off on that class trip to the White House.

It’s not because of the man occupying the Oval Office or the wreckage of what was the East Wing. It’s because of the propaganda they may be inundated with once they arrive.

PBSreposted a PolitiFact article over the holidays about the plaques Donald Trump has put up, lining a walkway for visitors. They are ugly. Here is the rather refined way in which PolitiFact tiptoed into the issue.

“In a break with tradition, Donald Trump decorated the White House walkway with bronze plaques for each US president. In an even sharper break with tradition, the plaques were written in a style echoing Trump’s Truth Social posts, with misleading or false descriptions of recent Democratic presidents.

Translation: They are loaded with lies.

• President Barack Obama’s plaque calls him “one of the most divisive political figures in American history.” That may be true among those KKK descendants in MAGA-land, but it’s certainly not true for the American public. A 2025 poll identified Obama as the most favorably viewed of the last five presidents, at 59 percent, PolitiFact reported.

• The Obama plaque also says that the Affordable Care Act, known as Obama Care, was “highly ineffective,” although the number of uninsured Americans dropped by 8.6 percent between its passage and his final year in office, PolitiFact notes. Starting January 1, 2026, some 22 million Americans will see their premiums soar because of the GOP’s refusal to extend subsidies designed to keep the cost of insurance affordable. Millions are expected to drop out of the program, leaving them vulnerable and likely driving up overall medical costs in the country.

• President Joe Biden is depicted on the wall with an autopen, not a picture of him. His plaque says he took office in 2021 “as a result of the most corrupt Election ever seen in the United States,” an overt lie made clear by Trump’s failure to overturn the results after five dozen lawsuits. Biden’s plaque also says he oversaw the highest inflation ever recorded in the United States – also demonstrably false (if you’re in your mid-60s or older, you might recall the inflationary struggles of the late 1970s when the country lived through double-digit inflation).

And so it goes.

It’s important to note that, unlike Trump’s regular rants on Truth Social, these words are cast in bronze for visitors to the White House to read. One can only presume Trump hopes visitors will take them at face value. (I wish PolitiFact had reported on what was said about each of the presidents.)

Of course, this information should come without surprise, particularly given the ongoing screes launched by Trump over the holidays. On Christmas Eve, for example, he wrote: “Merry Christmas to all, including the Radical Left Scum that is doing everything possible to destroy our country, but are failing badly.”

On Christmas Day itself, starting in the wee hours of the morning, he posted more than 100 times on Truth Social, Mother Jones reported. This included multiple posts proclaiming that the 2020 election was stolen; attacks on individuals ranging from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Joe Biden; and a final post that read, “enjoy what may be your last Merry Christmas.”

In keeping with the spirit of the season, Trump followed up on New Year’s Eve day, according to politicalwire.com, by calling Colorado’s Democratic Gov. Jared Polis a “scumbag” and saying he should “rot in hell.”

So as 2026 begins, fasten your seatbelt. Never take your eyes off the road ahead. Every New Year’s Eve, you have to be prepared for some crazy careening around a turn in the road and heading straight toward you. In 2026, that intense defensive driving may well need to extend for days, weeks and months ahead.

Republished by permission from Lanson’s Substack, From the Grassroots

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SATURDAY 1/3/26

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

Let’s say for the sake of argument that Donald Trump has had enough of Canadian prime minister Mark Carney and claims — without any evidence — that the amount of fentanyl coming over the border is a case of narco-terrorism. So he calls Gen. Dan “Raisin’” Caine to the Situation Room and tells him to fly to Ottawa to grab Carney. 

Operation Maple Syrup. 

What’s to stop him from doing this?

This is not a case of drawing an equivalency between Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Carney but to raise a point about what seems to be the policy and procedure that the Trump Administration is undertaking.

Let’s not put too much credence in the 2020 drug trafficking charges against Maduro that Pam Bondi is going to be pursuing.

Remember that former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández was convicted in US federal court in March 2024 for various felonies, including smuggling cocaine into the US — the federal prosecutors said 400 tons — and collaborating with the Sinaloa Cartel.

Let’s break this down:

• Hernández
• 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.
• Working with one of the largest drug cartels in the world
• Sentenced to 45 years in prison and fined $8 million

On December 1, 2025, Donald Trump pardoned Hernández, blaming this all on Biden.

The Trump Administration is blowing up boats in the Caribbean that allegedly are carrying fentanyl but are apparently carrying cocaine. If these were specially engineered drug smuggling vessels, it would take 267 of them if each carried 1.5 tons to hit the 400-ton mark.

Trump says that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is under the direction of Maduro, which US intelligence agencies have disputed. (Perhaps Vladimir Putin told Trump of the link between Maduro and Tren de Aragua.)

And, again, Hernández was convicted in US court, in part, because of a link to the Sinaloa Cartel.

Trump gave Hernández a get-out-of-jail free card and he sent the Delta Force — supported by more than 150 military aircraft (including B-1 bombers) — and personnel from 20 different bases to grab Maduro and his wife.

None of this is to say that Maduro is a good guy.

But it is to say that it seems rather odd that Trump releases a convicted drug trafficker who was operating on a massive scale -- cocaine sold on the street is generally cut with substances like Levamisole, an animal dewormer, and as the average street purity of product is on the order of 40% to 60%, this means the 400 tons is increased some 40% to 60% -- and then initiates a major military maneuver to seize a “narcoterrorist” and his wife.

Now, he says, the US will be running Venezuela. That country has a lot of oil. Trump says that that’s American oil because US oil companies that established facilities there were ejected from the country. When? Oh, 2007.

And what isn’t mentioned is that Chevron still operates there.

The president has Article II powers that puts him in control of the military. 

Congress is the only body that can declare war, but the US is not going to war with Venezuela, so that seems to be a moot point.

But one wonders: Are there any limits on the president’s powers or can he act at will?

Maybe by the time you read this Canada will be the 51^st state.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings.

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SATURDAY 1/3/26

Commentary by K.E. Bell

What's the healthcare impact of the Big Beautiful Betrayal? I have first-hand knowledge.

In late December I looked into going on the Affordable Care Act – “Obamacare” -- after also getting a quote in July. Based on the numbers below, the effects of the bill weren’t factored in by last July. 

July: 

Based on an expected freelance income of about what I was making at my last job and choosing a plan that would include my doctor, my hospital, and my medications, I received the following quote. This is for a man in his late 50s without any serious health issues.

• $563 a month with a $7,500 deductible and a premium tax credit of $309 a month for a net of $254 a month, or $3,048 for the year.

December: 

Same income, as well as the same doctor, hospital and medications. 

• $966 a month premium with a $7,750 deductible and no premium tax credit, or $11,592 for the year.

The math says the government now wants me to pay an additional $8,544 per year. The premiums increase by 380% from what they were in July and the deductible goes up by $250. 

This is in addition to a deductible that would grow by $5,750 versus the insurance from my job, so really the government wants to take another $14,294 out of my pocket annually. 

I shared this information on Facebook, and commenters replied with several similar stories. 

Here’s a sampling.

One friend in his early 60s who needs to carry insurance for himself and his wife, said “Just canceled our health insurance for 2026 - $497 [cost in 2025] --> $2,750 a month.”

Another friend who is a YouTuber in is late 20s replied, “Mine went from $545/mo. to $890/mo.” He appears to be the lucky one.

A couple, both freelancers in their 40s, noted their healthcare premiums will exceed their mortgage, going from about $660 to more than $1,600 per month.

These are only anecdotal examples, but it’s clear that the Big Beautiful Betrayal is going to screw anyone involved in the gig economy. 

Elect Republicans, who have been trying to claw back Obamacare for years, and fend for yourself. 

A couple of commenters on my post who lean right seemed to take it as granted that the ACA just can’t work. However, when a party sabotages something then says it's a disaster it's that party's fault. 

Lost in the political bluster since the ACA passed in 2010 is the fact that it was based on a Republican idea, Romneycare, which went into effect in Massachusetts in 2006. 

The individual mandate, which required people without another form of insurance to buy in or pay a fine, was originally an idea from The Heritage Foundation. Yes, the same Heritage Foundation that penned the Project 2025 that is quickly dismantling this country. During negotiations to pass the ACA, Republicans actually improved the bill by adding the individual mandate. That spurred younger people with fewer health issues to buy in and therefore reduce costs for everyone. 

Then, in 2019 under the first Trump Administration, they stripped it. 

The ACA was working in the sense that it slowed the annual rise in healthcare costs. It was never the best idea for the country because the best idea is Medicare for all, which would remove the insurance middlemen that account for so much of our healthcare costs. 

Now it’s clear that universal healthcare is needed more than ever. 

But Republicans shout that the government is inefficient and would certainly bungle its rollout. 

We love to boast about American exceptionalism, and yet we don't have the confidence in our country to enact a policy that almost all first-world countries have managed to make happen. Which is it?

If one good thing manages to arise from the destruction brought about by President Trump, it will be a real appetite for universal healthcare. It will be a hard thing to create and get right, but today’s skyrocketing healthcare costs show it's the best solution for the American people.

Bell is contributing pundit to The Hustings.

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Your Turn

Hopes of those to the left of populist-conservative President Donald J. Trump that the 2026 mid-terms will reverse Republican majorities in Congress are being tempered by an economy that has not yet felt the effects of the White House’s love of tariffs. 

After missing October numbers thanks to the government shutdown, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 64,000 new jobs in November – a fairly small number, but a bit higher than economists had expected. Then the BLS reported the Consumer Price Index had slipped slightly from 3% in September to 2.7% in November. Though still above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, it’s a sign manufacturers and retailers are absorbing more of the Trump tariffs than what they pass on to consumers. 

More recently, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported a healthy Gross Domestic Product growth of 4.3% in the third quarter. 

Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay tackles the issue of the Trump tariffs on the economy in his right-column opinion piece, “Of Tariffs & Tipple.” 

What do you think? Agree or disagree? We welcome your civilly stated comments for this or the right column. Email us at editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings (irrespective of the comments within) in the subject line, so we may post them in the proper column. –Editors

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TUESDAY 12/30/25

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

“To go from a 10% across the board to 15%, for the broad base of countries, not a huge impact.”-- Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, CBS News Face the Nation, December 28, 2025

Moynihan is talking, of course, about the tariffs that President Donald Trump applied in a willy-nilly manner before and after April 2, “Liberation Day.” One wonders what it is “liberation” from — economic sanity?

That Moynihan seems rather, as the kids say, “chill” about a 15% tariff isn’t entirely surprising, given that he is the top exec of the second-largest bank in the country.

According to the latest figures from the Yale Budget Lab, “Consumers face an overall average effective tariff rate of 16.8%, the highest since 1935.” While that is only off 1.8% from Moynihan’s broad characterization of things, a percentage here and a percentage there and pretty soon it is real money:

The latest figures from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York have it that in Q3 2025 there was an increase of $197 billion in household debt in Q3 2025, so the total now stands at $18.59 trillion.

One of the functions of operations like Bank of America is to loan households money. No wonder Moynihan is sanguine about how things are going.

To be sure, there were many people (including me) who thought there would be a bigger impact from the tariffs by now. But for a variety of reasons — like companies buying lots of pre-tariff inventory that they’ve been selling off since, or companies absorbing tariff costs so as to maintain market share — things haven’t gotten as bad as anticipated.

For now.

Writing in Project Syndicate on December 29, Jeffrey Frankel, professor of Capital Formation and Growth at Harvard, put it:

“But firms will not let tariffs erode their profit margins indefinitely. Assuming the tariffs remain, the US can look forward to more price increases, and downward pressure on real incomes, in 2026.”

Or put another way: What was expected to have happened will happen.

And the “reciprocal tariffs” that have been put in place by Trump — because seemingly all the countries in the world have been “ripping us off” — haven’t simply had the people in those countries saying “Thank you, sir, may I have another” but many of them have simply decided they’re no longer interested in products imported from America.

Case in point: the Canadians saying “No” and “Non” to beverages like bourbon. 

Here’s this from Chris Swonger, president and CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, upon the release of the organization’s mid-year report on exports:

“After celebrating a record year for US spirits exports in 2024, this new data is very troubling for US distillers. Persistent trade tensions are having an immediate and adverse effect on US spirits exports. There’s a growing concern that our international consumers are increasingly opting for domestically produced spirits or imports from countries other than the US, signaling a shift away from our great American spirits brands.”

The organization found “particularly steep” declines in exports to markets including the European Union (which accounted for half of all spirits exports in 2024), Japan, the United Kingdom and Canada.

US spirits exports to Canada are down 85%.

In this case causation may be correlation: Jim Beam announced it will not be operating its main distillery in 2026. It will operate other distilleries, and it will use the time to improve its Clermont, Kentucky, facility, but it goes to the point that businesses like Beam have more than enough issues to deal with without having the government adding more. 

On December 8 the US Department of Agriculture announced it will be making $12 billion in “one time bridge payments” to farmers “in response to temporary trade market disruptions and increased production costs.”

So let’s see: Other countries decided to source agricultural products from places not in the US because of the tariffs. What makes anyone think this is “temporary” — unless Trump will rescind tariffs on other agricultural products like he did for coffee, bananas, tomatoes and more?

Increase production costs? Well, there were the price increases farmers faced for fertilizers because of the tariffs, until Trump suspended those, too, on November 13.

But if farmers want some new equipment from John Deere — which makes its gear with steel and aluminum, both of which have 50% tariffs — they’re going to have to pay more for that: John Deere announced it anticipates a $600 million hit to its profits in 2025 — and double that hit, to $1.2 billion in 2026.

Going back to the topic of alcoholic beverages, in the announcement of the bridge payments there is a “List of Trade & Market Access Wins to Date.” It includes this: “Wine exports to Mexico are up 30% in 2025, reaching $18 million.” Sounds good, right? 

According to the very same US Department of Agriculture, in 2024 the total value of wine bought from the US by Mexico was $25.4 million.

Perhaps they thought the Mexican people would buy a whole lot more wine between December 8 and December 31.

By the way: In 2024 the number one buyer of US wine by a huge margin over number two EU was Canada, at $459.55 million.

According to the Wine Institute, as of mid-October wine exports to Canada from the US were down 91%. That would be down about $418 million. Sure puts that $18 million the USDA is so chuffed about into perspective.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings, where he writes primarily for the right column.

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TUESDAY 12/30/25

Commentary by K.E. Bell

It certainly appears the coverup is unfolding right before our eyes. First, on February 21, Attorney General Pam Bondi said she had the Epstein client list on her desk, then she said there is no such list.

Next, according to a Bloomberg report in March, FBI Director Kash Patel ordered up to 1,000 FBI agents to scour the Epstein files and redact Donald Trump’s name because he was a private citizen when the Epstein case was opened. 

The public face of the coverup kicked into high gear when in July Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, President Trump’s former personal attorney, met with convicted Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, seemingly to ensure she wouldn’t expose Trump or the other high-powered men surrounding Epstein. Apparently satisfied with that meeting, he ordered Maxwell’s move to a minimum-security prison.  

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson then chipped in with a stall tactic when he kept Congress out of session for 54 days using the government shutdown as an excuse. This conveniently avoided securing the final vote on the discharge petition that would require a vote to release the Epstein files.

Johnson brought the House back into session around the same time the Democrats caved on the 43-day government shutdown, which was the longest in US history. Their capitulation was horrible for the country, but it shined more light on the suspected coverup. It gave Johnson no choice but to finally seat Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva, who did indeed provide the final vote to move the discharge petition forward to the House floor, which in turn spurred all House Republicans but one to vote with the Democrats to release the Epstein files. 

Now, the Department of Justice has violated the law, thus keeping the Epstein files from coming to light.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA) required the DOJ to release all of the files by December 19. Instead, the DOJ released a small percentage of the files, many heavily redacted. A 119-page record of New York grand jury testimony consists of only the title of the document with the rest of the pages blacked out entirely.

The EFTA permits redactions only for victim privacy, child sexual abuse material, and ongoing investigations, the last of which must be narrowly tailored. It also requires “a written justification published in the Federal Register and submitted to Congress” for all redactions. The DOJ redacted its brains out and provided no justification.

What the Department of Justice calls compliance I call a “f*** you” to the rule of law. 

For its part, the DOJ says the complete files will come out in the coming weeks. If you believe that I have an abandoned island to sell you.

The problem is that the criminals are in charge of the Justice Department. The DOJ is not going to arrest itself. That means there is likely no accountability while Trump is in office. But the statute of limitations runs five years, and these brazen criminals are acting like they will never face justice for their actions. 

Congress his little recourse, but it should do everything it can. While the EFTA is a law, there are no penalties for breaking it. Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY), who introduced the EFTA, have suggested filing inherent contempt charges against Pam Bondi. They should do that and more. They should introduce articles of impeachment as well for Bondi, Patel, and Blanche. That effort almost certainly wouldn’t be successful, but it would apply more pressure and keep the lawbreaking in the public spotlight.

Justice will likely have to wait. The DOJ has plenty of reason not to release the Epstein files, both for the embarrassment and the culpability of those involved. 

Blanche continues to say the DOJ is not covering for Trump. Bondi speaks of absolute transparency while breaking the law by withholding the files. Patel told Congress that there is nobody else worth charging for sex trafficking. Releasing the files in full could very well prove they’re all wrong and/or lying, and Patel would be especially vulnerable because he could be brought up on charges for lying to Congress. 

It's very likely that there is more than just Trump to protect. Epstein ran in elite circles with heads of state, high-powered politicians from the US and abroad, celebrities, and even intelligence officials, again at home and abroad. The latest drop of files shows there were 10 coconspirators, and yet Patel and Bondi (or the incredibly weak Merrick Garland for that matter) haven’t found occasion to charge any of them.

Even before the Trump era, it became apparent that justice doesn’t apply to these types of people, and that’s only supercharged in the age of cash for pardons. The DOJ seems intent on protecting them too, unless they’re Democrats. 

What’s lost here is justice for the girls, now women, victimized by Epstein. The coverup protects rapists and pedophiles while marginalizing the 14-, 15-, and 16-year-old girls whose lives he ruined. 

I can’t imagine a form of “justice” more disgusting, and I can’t wait for these sick people complicit in the coverup to get their justice. It will just have to wait.

Bell is contributing pundit for The Hustings, where he writes for the left column.

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WEDNESDAY 12/24/25

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

“First and foremost, I’m a real estate person. And that’s what I love the most.”

“I look at the real estate. I’m always looking at the real estate. I don’t know, I’ll never get it out of my blood.”

“I love people that are in the real estate business. I have a little bit of a proclivity for it.”

That, it goes without saying, are quotes from President Donald Trump about what is evidently something dear to his heart. 

So, it is probably not a stretch to claim that he probably has a better understanding of real estate than any president since George Washington who, as you may recall from Schoolhouse Rock, was a land surveyor at age 17.

But this knowledge of real estate and his recently announced “Warrior Dividend” seem to be at odds with one another — but in keeping with his modus operandi, which is to go for the glitz and skip the reality on the ground.

The checks for $1,776 to US military service members makes great TV.

But because not even Donald Trump can manifest money out of thin air, it had to come from somewhere. (No, not from the tariffs.)

The funds are coming from the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) defense appropriation, part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. There are $2.9 billion appropriated for BAH. The Warrior Dividend checks are going to take $2.6 billion.

According to the most recent Consumer Price Index, shelter (a.k.a., housing) increased 3%. Household furnishings are up 4.6%.

So, for our military living off-base (like all other Americans), costs are rising. They need supplemental assistance, which is the point of the BAH. But now only 10% of the BAH funds are still in place.

While some might argue that it is just as well to give the military personnel the money and let them decide what to do with it, presumably the BAH was written into the bill because there was a very specific determination made that it was necessary to help out with housing allowances.

But that doesn’t make good TV.

And Donald Trump knows that.

He doesn’t seem to know that there are a lot of Americans that are facing rising costs in many areas of their daily lives and it doesn’t matter how many times he claims that gasoline is under $2 a gallon in some places (places, evidently, only he knows about) and that reduced energy costs will cut the prices of things like groceries (the latest 

Consumer Price Index shows an 11.3% increase in fuel oil and 9.1% increase in natural gas), the price of food has gone up 2.6%.

But it is all about performance for Donald Trump. While housing costs go up (and let’s not lose sight of the fact that the total effective tariff on Canadian softwood lumber — which is used to build things like houses — is approximately 45%) he has overseen the demolition of the perfectly good East Wing of the White House so that he can have an ornate 90,000-square foot ballroom built. Is that something the US needed? 

Many Americans have their “ballroom” experiences in VFW and Eagles Clubs halls and the folks that run them are wondering about affording the paint to brighten up the place — and know that paint prices have risen by as much as 7%.

On the subject of performance, there is the newly named “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

The building, originally established by Dwight Eisenhower in 1958 as the “National Cultural Center,” was renamed, through an act of Congress, to the “John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts” after the assassination of the 35^th president.

Kennedy, among other less noble things, was known to be a patron of the arts. He championed the establishment of the National Endowment for the Arts. Trump’s 2026 budget includes its elimination.

What has Donald Trump done to deserve having his name attached to the center that has had people like Mikhail Baryshnikov and Twyla Tharp appear on its stage, beside his repeatedly performing the goofy grandpa dance that he often does in public venues?

(Some may protest: “But it was the center’s board of trustees who made the change!”, don’t kid yourself: he stacked the board so it is like he did it himself.)

In his televised presentation the other evening Donald Trump continued to insist that things are what they aren’t (nor what they can be, like the 600% reduction in prescription drug costs).

He proclaimed: “Many families will be saving between $11,000 and $20,000 dollars a year,” but he didn’t explain who these families are, nor how this will be achieved — and given that the median household income in the US is presently $83,730, it is hard to imagine how many — if any — are going to have savings on the order of 13% to 24%, especially given what is going on in the economy.

But it sounds good and makes good TV.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings, writing primarily for the right column.

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TUESDAY 12/23/25

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

The Business Roundtable is an organization consisting of CEOs of more than 200 US-based companies. One of its objectives is to “develop and advocate directly for policies to promote a thriving US economy and expand opportunities for all Americans.”

Or to put it another way: the Business Roundtable is all about improving conditions for businesses to make money, which is, after all, the role of a business.

Each quarter the Business Roundtable releases a “CEO Economic Outlook Index,” which provides an indication of what CEOs think about in terms of hiring and capital spending — things they directly control -- and sales, which they can’t control but must plan for, for the next six months.

Last week it released its numbers for Q4 2025, and while there was improvement in outlook, the index “remains below the historic average.” But really by just a smidge. The average is 83 and this quarter’s number is 80.

Chuck Robbins, chair and CEO of Cisco, and the Business Roundtable chair, said that CEOs are “approaching the first half of 2026,” but that “they are starting to see opportunities for growth.”

Which sounds rather cautious, certainly not bullish. 

Realize that Robbins’ day job at Cisco probably has something to do with this carefully worded, PR-massaged statement. After all, he certainly wants to keep the fortunes of the digital communications tech firm he heads going in the right direction (i.e., up).

But Business Roundtable CEO Joshua Bolten doesn’t have direct connection with shareholders so his statements can be more to the point.

And so there’s this: “Notably this quarter, more CEOs plan to reduce employment than increase it for the third quarter in a row — the lowest three-quarter average since the Great Recession”

Now a bit of chronology is in order. Three quarters in a row mean three quarters during which time Donald Trump has owned the economy.

And realize that the Great Recession began during the watch of George W. Bush, so this “lowest three-quarter average” can’t be blamed on “Biden,” as Trump likes to utter with a sneer of contempt (did you ever notice that past presidents seemed to have at least a cordial relationship with their predecessors . . . before Trump?)

Bolten went on to say, “CEOs’ softening hiring plans reflect an uncertain economic environment in which AI is driving sizeable capex growth and productivity gains while tariff volatility is increasing costs, particularly for tariff-exposed companies, including small businesses. We continue to urge our trading partners and the Administration to stabilize the system and bring tariffs down.” (“Capex” is biz-talk for “capital expenditure”.)

The sizeable capex growth he refers to related to AI goes to things like Cisco equipment, NVIDIA chips, and the massive spending by the likes of Amazon ($125 billion) and Google ($93 billion) on AI infrastructure. AI investment is thought to have contributed to more than half of the GDP growth in the US during the first half of 2025.

But then there’s the stuff that’s available in the supermarkets and on the shelves of Target and in the parking lots at car dealers: “Tariff volatility is increasing costs, particularly for tariff-exposed companies, including small businesses. We continue to urge our trading partners and the administration to stabilize the system and bring tariffs down.”

The increased costs are increased costs to businesses which then are going to be passed along to consumers. As previously mentioned, the purpose of a business is to make money, and for the Business Roundtable-caliber companies, the money goes to shareholders.

Many companies have been absorbing the costs of the tariffs during the past several months, but that means they are spending money that might otherwise go to shareholders. Consequently, that’s going to go by the wayside and prices are going to go up.

And then we have reduced employment, which is going to make it increasingly hard for people to pay for anything.

This whole MAGA thing just doesn’t seem to be going the way it was described.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings where he writes primarily for the right column.

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["Holiday Traditions in Harmony" by ChatGPT.]

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Good Kwanza, and if you celebrate Festivus for the Restuvus, hope your feats of strength outnumber your grievances. 

The Hustings is easing back but not taking off the couple of weeks up to New Years 2026. We continue to post updates to the center column and take your comments for right or left, though not on our normal, Monday-Friday daily basis.

So your opportunities to become a citizen pundit and help us fight the ravishes of journalism by social media are as good as ever.

To comment on center-column news/aggregate/analysis/context, and/or any of the comments by right- and left-column pundits, or even to address an issue you believe we’ve missed, please email editors@thehustings.news and indicate whether you lean right or left, politically, in the subject line so that we may post your civil, non-personal comments in the proper column. –Editors

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THURSDAY 12/18/25

Commentary by Rich Corbett

Democrats are suddenly discovering "affordability" as their new talking point now that Republicans control the White House and Congress. It's a remarkable pivot. After four years of presiding over the worst inflation in four decades, they're lecturing Americans about the cost of living.

The record is unambiguous: Consumer prices rose cumulatively by more than 21% during the Biden-Harris administration, compared to roughly 8% during Trump's first term. That isn't a temporary blip or a "global phenomenon" America alone suffered. It's a permanent shift upward in the cost of essentials. Groceries, energy, housing, vehicles: Everything families buy is meaningfully more expensive today than it was in January 2021, and those higher prices are now baked in as the new baseline — and much of it in 2025 still left over from the previous administration's policies.

This surge didn't happen by accident. It followed trillions in new federal spending pushed through when Democrats held unified control of government, combined with restrictive energy policies and regulatory bottlenecks that constrained supply at exactly the moment demand was being supercharged. Inflation wasn't "transitory" as they repeatedly claimed. It was persistent, painful and entirely foreseeable.

Real wages fell for most American workers during the height of the inflation, meaning families weren't just seeing higher price tags, they were losing ground even as they worked harder. Only in the final stretch, after the political damage was done, did annual inflation readings cool. But the cumulative hit to purchasing power remains.

Now, with voters having decisively rejected that economic record in 2024, Democrats want to pose as the champions of affordable living. The timing is convenient, but the hypocrisy is glaring. When prices were spiraling, the focus from the White House and congressional Democrats was on downplaying the problem, redefining "recession," or blaming everything from corporate greed to Vladimir Putin. Affordability wasn't a priority then.

Republicans now have the opportunity and the mandate to reverse course: Unleash American energy production, cut burdensome regulations, secure the border to ease pressure on housing and public services, and pursue pro-growth trade and tax policies that bring jobs and investment home. These steps won't deliver instant relief. 

Some, like strategic tariffs, may involve short-term adjustments.

But they attack the root causes of stagnation and high costs in ways the previous administration never seriously attempted.

Americans aren't looking for lectures on affordability from the architects of the inflation era. They're looking for results, and the new majority in Washington has both the responsibility and the political capital to deliver them.

Corbett is contributing pundit for The Hustings and author of his My Desultory Blog.

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THURSDAY 12/18/25

On Macaulay’s ‘Trump Talks Cars’ – Macaulay is, as usual, right on the money with this analysis of Dozy Don’s latest hyperbolic fact-bashing. (President Trump) knows nothing about the auto business, as he clearly illustrated in the recent White House photo op. –Albert Brooke/via Substack

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After five years online, The Hustings remains committed to fostering civil discourse between conservatives and liberals, the hard-right and progressive, right and left – whatever words you use to express your political beliefs. We trust in facts over false equivalencies and conspiracy theories and we seek to present a diversity of ideas, without echo chambers.

So do Hustings editors and yourselves a favor and become a Citizen Pundit. Email your comments to our center-column news/aggregate and/or left- or right-column commentary to editors@thehustings.news and please list your political leanings (left or right, or any of the adjectives mentioned above) so we may post your comments in the proper column.

Also note, you do not have to agree with all prevailing liberal thought to consider yourself “left” nor all prevailing conservative thought to consider yourself “right.”Of further note: The Hustings will ease off its usual daily (M-F) center-column posting schedule going into the holidays. But we know the type of news/aggregate we regularly cover will not slow down much, if at all, especially from the Trump White House. Please check in regularly, if not daily, through January 2 and send us your comments any time. –Editors

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MONDAY 12/15/25

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

On December 3 “President Donald J. Trump is delivering major relief to American families by resetting the Biden Administration’s costly and unlawful Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards.” 

For those of you who are not familiar with this: the standards are the things that give rise to the “miles per gallon” that you hear about or see on the window stickers of new cars. The objective for getting more mpgs is to reduce the amount of fuel needed to power vehicles. Less fuel burned means reduced emissions. Which is a good thing for people who like to breathe.

While President Trump can’t just strike these standards, there are things like public comment that must be undertaken, let’s face it: No one is going to push back on this.

As is his wont, President Trump said a lot of things when the announcement was made.

And as is his wont, most of them were. . .exaggerations.

Here’s a look at some of the things he said:

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“We’re officially terminating Joe Biden’s ridiculously burdensome horrible, actually, CAFE standards that imposed expensive restrictions and all sorts of problems. It gave all sorts of problems to automakers. And we’re not only talking about here, we’re talking about outside of our country because nobody could do it. Nobody wanted to do it and it was ridiculous, very expensive. It put tremendous upward pressure on car prices. Combined with the insane electric vehicle mandate, Biden’s burdensome regulations helped cause the price of cars to soar more than 25%. And in one case they went up 18% in one year.”

About the “nobody could do it.” The European Union has vehicle regulations that measure different things but that can be translated into miles per gallon, which presumably are behind the “expensive restrictions.”

The Biden “horrible” standard was a corporate average of 50.4 mpg in 2031.

Presently in Europe, if the CO2 regulations are translated into miles per gallon, cars must meet 56.5 mpg and light commercial vehicles 38 mpg.

Now, not in 2031.

China’s numbers are even better.

“Nobody could do it”? Seems that the Europeans that he has indicated are crumbling are doing a better job on this front.

The source of the “burdensome regulations” causing a 25% or even 18% price rise isn’t clear.

But there’s this from Kelley Blue Book as of December 10, 2025: 

“The new-vehicle ATP [average transaction price—a.k.a., what people actually pay] in November was $49,814, up 1.3% year over year.”

That’s right: it costs more now than it did when President Biden was sleeping or using the autopen or doing something else that he can be accused of. 

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“I signed an executive order to end the unfair, expensive electric vehicle mandate. As you know, we had to have an electric car within a very short period of time, even though there was no way of charging them and lots of other things. It would have cost $5 trillion to build the charging plants.”

“Very short period of time?” Trump’s former colleague Elon Musk launched the first Tesla on the market in 2008. The mainstream Model S in 2012.

And as for that $5 trillion. . .according to S&P Global Market Intelligence:

“The nation's electric, gas and water utilities are directing substantial investments into infrastructure enhancements aimed at modernizing mature generation, transmission and distribution networks, and meeting new demand. These initiatives include the construction of new natural gas, nuclear, solar and wind power generation facilities, alongside the integration of advanced technologies such as smart meters, smart grid systems, cybersecurity protocols, electric vehicles and battery storage solutions.”

How much will the capital expenditure be between 2025 and 2029 for all that (note the electric vehicles are just one element)? Just over $1 trillion. One, not five.

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“And as you know, in certain parts of the Midwest, they spent to build nine chargers, they spent $8 billion, so that wasn’t working out too well.”

The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula program is providing $5 billion and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program is providing $2.5 billion to build 500,000 chargers by 2030. So (1) there is $7.5 billion, not $8 and (2) that’s for 499,991 more chargers in five years.

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“I’ve never had a group of people come to me more powerfully and really just devastated that they had to do it. It was killing them, than the automobile manufacturers, the Tailpipe Emissions Standards. And I can tell you your people at Ford were coming to me all the time and they were saying like, ‘Please, it doesn’t do anything and it’s killing us. And it’s driving the cost through the roof.’”

The “Tailpipe Emissions Standards” have been around for a long time, enacted in California in 1966, for the rest of the country for model year 1968. The Clean Air Act was passed in 1970, which created the EPA. Tailpipe standards were modified for model years 1994-1997, then in 2000, starting for model year 2004. Another tightening for model year 2017. Then the standards, that the Trump administration is lifting, for model years 2027 thorough 2032.

Evidently companies like Ford have been being killed for nearly six decades.

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“Under the Trump administration $70 billion are now being invested in the American auto industry.”

What better source for investment numbers than the official White House website?

Well, a bit of a problem. If all the investments by auto companies are summed, the number is $43 billion, not $70 billion. 

Not that there’s anything wrong with $43 billion, but that figure is 39% lower than what’s claimed.

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“Auto production has surged by 10% so far this year.”

According to the Omidia Production Outlook, which is an industry recognized source of automotive data:

“Entire-2025 is tracking to production of 15.56 million units, 3.1% below 2024’s 16.06 million and lowest since 14.765 million in 2022. Excluding medium-/heavy-duty trucks, light-vehicle production is pegged at 15.11 million in 2025, 2.4% below the prior year’s 15.48 million.”

Sorry. No 10% surge. A decrease, instead. 

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“You see it, closed factories all over the place. Now they’re all opening up. In most cases, they’re being knocked down and new ones are being built in their place.”

How many new auto factories — old ones that had been closed and now reopened or torn down and rebuilt — have there been in the US in 2025?

Zero.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings, where he writes primarily for the right column.

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MONDAY 12/15/25