Donald Trump seems to be determined to break as many campaign promises as he possibly can, in the shortest period of time possible. Conveniently (for Democrats), he is doing all of this right at the start of the midterm campaign season, as the first states conduct their primaries. This seems like a rather spectacular way to commit political suicide, but then again Trump is a master at avoiding consequences, so who really knows how it will all play out?

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There's a certain type of young child who gets that phrase written about him on his early school report cards. The type who has to be the center of everything, all the time. Who always has to be the one who picks what games the other children play. Who, when losing one of those games, angrily throws the game board to the floor, scattering all the pieces, while yelling: "You cheated!" Who insults the other children and mocks them mercilessly for any perceived shortcomings. Who has an incredibly thin skin when mocked himself. Who never takes the blame for anything or admits any wrongdoing. Who throws epic tantrums at the drop of a hat. In a word: a bully.

Donald Trump, our toddler-in-chief, is in the midst of one of those incandescent tantrums. His war isn't going anywhere near as well as he thought it would, and the fact that Iran has effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz is making him apoplectic with rage. He is now demanding that other countries of the world save him from his missteps, by sending their warships into the Strait to escort oil tankers and other ships. But he's finding that the rest of the world is not exactly leaping to help him out, which shouldn't come of much of a surprise to anyone, considering how he has treated all of America's closest allies up to this point.

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Donald Trump just got the biggest smackdown of his second term from the Supreme Court today, as they ruled -- 6 to 3, even! -- that Trump does not have the authority he assumed he had to slap any tariff he felt like, on any country he felt like, for any reason he felt like.

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Perhaps it was because the week ends on Friday the 13th, but whatever the real reason was, Donald Trump didn't have a great week this week. Which, of course, is good news for everyone else! There was actually a lot of good news in the political world this week -- so much that we're not even going to bother with the other news that wasn't so good.

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The House of Representatives -- against the wishes of the Republican speaker -- seems poised to vote today on a direct rebuke to Donald Trump's willy-nilly tariff regime. This is interesting news at the start of a midterm election year, but it probably won't actually serve to rein in Trump. Even so, it would be only the second time the Republican Congress expressly pushed back on Trump for any reason at all, so it is at least noteworthy.

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We're going to begin today with a prediction that is completely unrelated to what happened last week. Because next Friday the 2026 Winter Olympics will begin. Our prediction: the U.S.A. is going to get booed. Loudly. It'll probably be most noticeable during the opening ceremonies, but will likely sporadically pop up throughout the games. Perhaps this is why Donald Trump decided to skip the whole thing and send JD Vance in his place? Maybe Vance -- who is not as well-known worldwide -- won't get booed as loudly as the catcalls would have been if Trump had been there?

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Welcome back to the ongoing saga of "The Arsonist Fireman." In this week's episode, our protagonist lights a fire which could burn down the entire Western world -- starting with its military alliance -- before grabbing a fire extinguisher and singlehandedly snuffing it out. As usual, he then wonders why everyone doesn't congratulate him on having bravely averted such a disaster.

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Welcome back to the second of our year-end awards columns! And if you missed it last Friday, go check out [Part 1] as well.

This article is mind-bendingly long enough, so we're not going to bother with any other introductory words at all. Instead, let's just get right to the awards, shall we?

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Welcome to our annual year-end awards! As always, we honor the memory of The McLaughlin show with our categories, and we want to thank the readers who responded to our calls for nominees for them all.

Also as always, it is long. Really, really, insanely long. You have been warned!

And also as always, we'll be back again next Friday for [Part 2].

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Donald Trump's "Day One" in office is now less than two weeks away. He promised American voters a lot of action on his first day, but in the past few weeks he seems inordinately focused on some rather odd (one might say: "downright bizarre") goals. He has become a big fan of expanding America in what can only be called imperialistic fashion -- adding Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal to the American map. Today he floated a new idea, this one not a land-grab but instead of a sort of water-grab: he wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America," for no particular reason (other than to annoy Mexico, one assumes).

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