1,061: Some New Year's Resolutions for 2026

December 31, 2025 / Kurt F. Stone

As I begin writing this essay, we are about 60 hours away from the secular New Year, 2026. That means we should be well on the road to figuring out precisely what our resolutions for the next 12 months should be. According to people one whole hell of a lot smarter and better educated than I, this custom/ritual goes back at least 4,000 years . . . to the time of the ancient Babylonians. From what I’ve read, rather than making self-reflecting resolutions, this ancient folk would make promises to their gods. It was part of an immense twelve-day festival known as Akitu that took place not in January but in mid-March when crops were planted. Promises made to the gods included paying their debts and returning objects they had borrowed in hopes that the gods would bestow a favor on them for the upcoming year.

Similarly, ancient Rome established January 1 as the beginning of the new year in 46 B.CE., naming the new year after Janus, a two-faced god whose spirit inhabited doorways and arches. This was symbolic because the Romans believed that Janus looked backwards into the previous year, and ahead into the future, therefore the Romans offered sacrifices to the god and made promises of good behavior for the coming year.

Nowadays, of course, there is a greater tendency for those who do make New Year’s resolutions, to keep them to the self-reflecting sort . . . more often then not dealing with things like diet and exercise, the maximization of good deeds and the minimization of things that are harmful or deleterious to one’s bodily or spiritual well-being. For 2026, I myself have decided to take on a new type of resolution . . . a negative one. To wit, in 2026, I am resolving to not forget a dozen or more acts of delusion, mendacity, madness and/or imbecility on the part of the 47th POTUS, his staff and the vast majority of Congressional Republicans who, despite all the delusion, mendacity, madness and/or imbecility, have managed to sit on their hands and keep their mouths shut.

Let’s face facts: within mere minutes of taking his second oath of office on January 20, 2025, Felon#47 began acting like an unhinged autocrat ruling over a vast dictatorship, rather than the democratically-elected leader of the planet’s most praiseworthy representative democracy. Let’s remember a dozen or so of his worst (and downright loopiest) acts . . . acts which we resolve not to forget in the New Year 2026. What follows is not ranked from really bad to absolutely the worst of the worst, but rather, somewhat chronologically:

February: 5 weeks and 3 days into his second term, POTUS invites Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelenskyy (Criminy!! So many ways to transliterate Володимир Зеленський) and members of his presidential staff to pay a lunch call at the White House. While there, Pouter Pigeon and V.P Vance begin castigating Zelensky for not demonstrating enough gratitude for American support. It turns into a shouting match, with Trump and Vice President JD Vance accusing the besieged Ukrainian leader of standing in the way of a peace agreement with Russia. Later, Zelenskyy and his staff were essentially kicked out of the White House (even before lunch was served) and departed with grim looks on their faces. (n.b. By April, Felon47 was accusing Zelenskyy of being the one who initiated the war against Russia, not vice versa!)

March: In a new version of “March Madness,” Pete Hegseth, the Sec. Def (more on him below) added new meaning to the term “ineptitude” by accidentally (?) including Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic’s Editor-in-Chief, in a “signal chain” on Goldberg’s I-phone while sitting in his car in the parking lot of the local Safeway. The chain, which involved a highly classified meeting discussing attack plans against the Houthi in Yemen, included then-National Security Advisor (and current U.N. Ambassador) Michael Waltz and the aforementioned Hegseth, who wound up putting all sorts of highly sensitive, classified information on that chain. This episode represented one of the biggest, most painful black eyes of Pouter Pigeon's second term; there is simply no reason why such information should have been included on a signal chat . . . especially one including a devout anti-Trump journalist like Goldberg. “Signal Gate” (the shorthand name for this debacle) will be debated in political circles for at least the next half-century.

April: Precisely 24 hours after April Fools Day, IT announces a sweeping set of tariffs upending decades of US trade policy and threatening to unleash a global trade war. Henceforth, he announces, in the future, every April 2nd will be known as “Liberation Day.” That which he and his economic advisors have in mind look to be the most sweeping tariff hikes since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act . . . the 1930 law best remembered for triggering a global trade war and deepening the Great Depression. As a predictable response to the newly-added tariffs on imported products, consumer prices continued to rise. Trump clung to his familiar lie that these tariffs are paid by foreign countries, not by people or companies in the US. (The tariff payments to the government are made by US importers, not foreign exporters, and importers often pass on some or all of the added costs to the final consumer.) The president essentially fact-checked himself this past November, when he told an interviewer that he would lower Americans’ coffee prices by lowering his tariffs on imported coffee.

May: On the 21 of the month, the U.S. government announced the United States had officially accepted as an “unconditional gift,” a $400 million Boeing 747-8 luxury jetliner from the Qatari government, and that the Air Force was being tasked with upgrading and retrofitting it in order for it to be used first, as a new Air Force One for POTUS, and then to be moved to his future presidential library . . . presumably in South Florida.

December: While speaking in Mount Pocono, PA on the 11th of the month, Felon47 told the assembled crowd of MAGAites that he believed the term “affordability” was a hoax perpetrated by Democrats. Nonetheless, 16 days later he proclaimed that the 2026 midterm elections would revolve around "pricing.” During an interview with Politico on the day after Christmas, the Republican president expressed confidence that midterm voters — who will decide which party controls Congress next year — will embrace his economic agenda. “I think it’s going to be about the success of our country. It’ll be about pricing,” POTUS told the outlet. “Because, you know, they gave us high pricing, and we’re bringing it down. Energy’s way down. Gasoline is way down.”

August and September: Throughout these 2 months, IT declared at event after event that the “most favored nation” policy he unveiled in an executive order in May would serve to reduce the price of prescription drugs by 1,000% or more. Depending on the date and venue, his numbers would change; at various times the price reduction might be “1,400 to 1,500%, or, in a single day, “I’m going to be reducing drug prices by 1,000% – by 900, 600, 500, 1,200.%” Needless to say, this is not how math works. Even if his policy does produce a big decline in drug prices – and that is very much uncertain given that it relies on cooperation by reluctant pharmaceutical companies or hypothetical future regulatory action – he can’t actually cut the price of any product by 500% to 1,500%. If he magically got the companies to reduce the prices of all of their drugs to $0, that would be a 100% cut. Cutting drug prices by more than 100% would mean that Americans would get paid to acquire their medications rather than paying for them. I for one know of no drug company in the world that would give a person $400 to buy a drug that they are now pricing at $100.

July: On the second of the month the administration announced that in order to save money, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was being defunded and thus closing its doors. For the past 20 years, the USA has been the leading government donor to humanitarian response plans, development aid, and multilateral development banks. USAID was established in 1961 as an independent agency in the executive branch under the direct authority and guidance of the Secretary of State. The agency's aim was twofold: the first, to provide humanitarian assistance, and the second to also assist and support economic growth and self-resilience of developing countries, especially those deemed strategic for the US economic and geopolitical impact In each mission and country where USAID had been operational, the agency engaged with diverse partners, such as central governments, private entities, local organizations, and international and national non-governmental organizations operating mostly bilaterally. Over the years, and despite a relatively modest effort in relation to its national wealth, the USA's importance as a donor for development and humanitarian aid overshadowed any other donor. From 2001-2021 alone, it is estimated that USAID saved more than 92 million lives worldwide. According to a report by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Atul Gawande, the White House decision to fiscally dismember USAID, has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition. To my way of thinking, this story, in the long run, could likely turn out to be the gravest, most inhumane act that the IT Administration will be remembered for . . .

July: On the last day of the month, POTUS announced that he would be building a 90,000+ sq. ft. ballroom . . . a single room twice as large as the entire White House. In his initial announcement, he promised that nothing would happen to the East Wing; it was totally destroyed in less than a week. The room, which could easily seat more than, 3,000 people, would be paid for by ITs wealthy friends . . . the very billionaires who would benefit so greatly from his “Big Beautiful Budget Bill.” The cost has been skyrocketing; as of today, the estimated price is above $400 million. (n.b. On December 12 fr this year, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which was chartered by Congress in 1949 to facilitate public participation in the preservation of sites of national significance, filed suit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia against various individuals and agencies of the government asserting that ongoing construction of the White House ballroom is unlawful and asking the court to halt further construction activities until the government complies with the law by going through the legally mandated review processes, including a public comment period.)

Since Day One: As like many candidates for the White House, Felon#47 repeatedly spoke about what he would do “on day one.” How was anyone to know that his first act would be to pardon all those felons languishing in federal prison as a result of their being convicted of crimes on January 6, 2021? Pardoning felons would quickly turn out to be one of his favorite activities . . . including: On May 28, Trump pardoned reality TV stars Todd Chrisley and Julie Chrisley, who were convicted in 2022 of several counts of fraud and tax evasion involving more than $30 million. Todd was serving a 12-year sentence, and Julie was serving seven years; In mid-October, Trump commuted the prison sentence of Grpthr Santos, the disgraced New York Republican who pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft last year. Days later the president handed a full and unconditional pardon to Changpeng Zhao, the former CEO of Binance, who pleaded guilty to money laundering charges. Binance had ties to the Trump family's cryptocurrency business, but Trump said in an interview with 60 Minutes that he does not know who Zhao was. In early December, IT formally pardoned former President Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras, fulfilling a vow he had made days before to free an ex-president who was at the center of what the authorities had characterized as “one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world.” In issuing the pardon, IT pledged to issue the pardon after Mr. Hernández sent him a four-page letter casting himself as a victim of “political persecution” by the Biden-Harris administration and comparing his fate to that of the American president. Do remember, this pardon occurred at the same time the administration was carrying out a series of naval attacks against Venezuelan boats under the assumption that they were transporting drugs to the United States under the orders of President Nicholas Maduro. . .

September-December: Speaking of Maduro and Venezuela, there are the extraordinary efforts by the administration’s least competent equerry, Sec. of War Pete Hegseth, to carry out attacks by both sea and now air, all the while convincing Americans that it is for the purpose of keeping Fentanyl out of the hands of American youth. The secretary has even gone so far as to claim that each downed power boat saves the lives of no less than 25,000 potential Fentanyl users . . . perhaps even higher. It is highly likely that when it reconvenes, Congress will look into: A), whether or not firing at the Venezuelan boats constitutes an act of war which requires Congressional approval, and B), whether or not the real issue is Venezuelan oil and minerals.

January 21- December 31, 2025: The Epstein Files. Need we say more? This is a scandal which has already bypassed both “Teapot Dome” and “Watergate” in terms of smarm. Indeed, as the years go by, this will likely be known as “The scandal that destroyed both a presidency and a political party . . .”

Dec. 30, 2025: The “Trump-Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,” created by an act of Congress in 1964 in memory of the slain John F. Kennedy, has just announced that due to circumstances beyond their control, it was cancelling its annual "New Year’s Eve concert . . . and likely suing The Cookers, a much revered jazz ensemble scheduled to headline the evening’s festivities. Ever since IT fired the Kennedy Center board and replaced them with a roster of billionaire allies . . . and added his name to its masthead . . . attendance has fallen precipitously. In matter of fact, no events are currently scheduled until the end of March, 2026. Just the other day, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), one of the few remaining non-Trump selected Kennedy Center Board Members, joined by a large group of her Democratic colleagues, filed a suit in federal court arguing that only Congress can change its name. a controversy sparking legal action from both sides

There are certainly other issues, events and political sins that we should resolve ourselves to never forget . . . such as ICE raids in largely “Blue” states and metropolitan areas; the shipping off - frequently without benefit of any legal recourse - of immigrants to CECOT (El Salvador’s brutal mega prison . . . Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo); and Felon47’s transmogrification of both himself and his government into a rebirth of France’s Louis XIV , Le Roi Soleil (“The Sun King”), who gilt everything he saw or touched in his expansive realm, . . . sort of like the Oval Office . . . except his gold wasn’t purchased at Home Depot!.

During this coming New Year, I urge one and all to resolve to use the memory of what in 2025 as the fuel for what can and should be in 2026. About the only positive thing I can say about POTUS is that he is distinctly mortal . . . and that his mortality is making itself increasingly evident with each passing day.

There are precisely 307 days to go until America votes . . .

I urge us all to keep the two-faced Janus in mind; one face to the past and one to the future. . . and remember the words of Dante (Paradiso, Cante III): "E 'n la sua volontade e nostra pace" . . . “And in His will is our peace.”

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