No price is too high. When running for president in 2024, Donald Trump promised, “I will immediately bring prices down, starting on day one.”

Maybe he meant, starting on day one and ending a few days later? Like a temporary sale, rather than everyday low prices?

That’s basically what has happened. Inflation bottomed out more than a year ago and is now roaring again, thanks to Trump’s war with Iran and his taxes on imports. And high prices no longer bother Trump, now that he’s president.

“I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation,” Trump said in front of the news cameras on May 12, when a reporter asked if soaring prices affected his peace negotiations with Iran. “I don’t think about anybody,” he stressed. “Not even a little bit.”

Trump was trying to make the point that his only priority in dealing with Iran is to stop its nuclear weapons program. You might be wondering, didn’t President Obama have a plan to stop Iran from getting the bomb?

[Inflation would be tamed, if not for Trump]

Yes, he did! Under the 2015 Obama deal, Iran agreed to dismantle its nuclear weapons program and let international inspectors monitor the progress. Trump canceled the program in 2018. Only since then has Iran been stockpiling bomb-grade uranium, as the New York Times recently explained.

If Trump hadn’t canceled the Obama deal, Iran wouldn’t be building atomic weapons, which means there would be no 2026 Iran war and no 2026 Trump energy crisis. Trump still wouldn’t care about voters, but it would be less infuriating if gas prices were still $3 per gallon and there was no new inflation outbreak.

Instead, we have gas at $4.50, and maybe heading to $5. Higher costs for transportation and production will soon send the price of groceries and many other things higher. Nothing to worry about here.

Fertile imagination. Here’s a challenge for Hallmark: Design a greeting card for Fertility Father’s Day. Of course, it would have to feature Trump’s likeness.

At a May 11 White House event focused on maternal health care, Trump called himself “the father of fertility.” If you didn’t know the context, what would you think? Even in context, what do you think? Is Trump bragging about his sperm count? Does he compare his sperm count with Joe Biden’s?

Maybe, but Trump says he is the father of fertility because he signed an executive order giving health insurers the option to cover the cost of IVF, the expensive fertilization procedure for couples with difficulty conceiving. Trump has been thinking about his fertilization legacy for a while. In 2024, he called himself “the father of IVF” because he planned to sign legislation making it a covered insurance benefit. Earlier this year, he dubbed himself the “fertilization president.”

But the order won’t do much. There’s no federal money to help pay for IVF, and insurers aren’t required to cover it, just encouraged to do so. Maybe Trump should don his Jesus smock and perform some immaculate conceptions.

Petty Ka$h. The wonderful Kentucky bourbon Woodford Reserve has an unfortunate problem with the FBI. Director Kash Patel, who seems to be a problem drinker, apparently gives out personalized 750-millimeter bottles engraved with his name and title, according to the Atlantic. Sometimes Patel signs the bottles, using the charming spelling he prefers: Ka$h. It’s a pretty weird branding mashup, given that the FBI doesn’t make bourbon or have a stake in any liquor company.

[Nobody’s fixing anything 😡]

People on social media are calling for a boycott of Woodford. That seems unfair. Brands don’t need to be punished just because jerks like them. Should Trump foes boycott Diet Coke and Heinz ketchup because they’re Trump staples? Nah. Leave Woodford alone, unless it turns out they’re giving Patel free bourbon or dishing secret dirt on Jack Daniel’s.

Patel is a problem child. The Atlantic previously reported that Patel is a heavy drinker who sometimes misses meetings without explanation and has other hallmarks of an alcoholic. Leaks like this usually happen because a dogged reporter finds a source who really wants to dump on the target. The Atlantic seems to have found many. Patel has upended the FBI and fired a lot of agents far more qualified than he is, no doubt earning the ire of many expert leakers. Some are shivving him now.

Patel is such a snowflake that he sued the Atlantic for $250 million. That’s a show lawsuit that won’t go anywhere, and if it did, would involve a discovery phase likely to turn up more Patel embarrassments. Patel has also reportedly ordered an investigation to find out who’s leaking to the Atlantic. Trump might fire him before any of this gets anywhere. Trump doesn’t care that his aides are incompetent, but he does care if they embarrass him. Patel may be too shabby even for Trump.

There’s one more farcical tidbit. During Senate testimony on May 12, Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland asked Patel to take an alcohol disorder test. Patel basically said, I will if you will. So Van Hollen took the test and posted the results on social media on May 13. He’s pretty dull, reporting just 3 drinks per week. So now Patel gets to report on his own drinking habits. If he can’t remember, maybe some FBI agents could help him reconstruct the details.

Senate slaps its own wrist. The Senate passed a measure on May 14 that will halt its pay if the government shuts down, starting once the midterm elections are over in November. Good start, but it should go further.

[5 things to know about this year’s midterm elections]

The rule restores full back pay once the shutdown is over. Nope. Members of Congress should forfeit pay for every day they shut down the government, like professional athletes who lose their pay when they get suspended for an infraction. And the House should adopt a similar rule, so that the people responsible for shutting down the government pay for it.

James Tacorico. Texas is abuzz over James Talarico’s lunch order at the Taco Joint in Austin on May 12. Talarico is the Democrat with a fighting chance of flipping a Texas Senate seat in this year’s election. Barack Obama paid him a visit, and while campaigning, the two stopped in for a bite, with a news throng in tow.

Obama ordered one steak and one chicken taco. Normal.

Talarico ordered two potato, egg and cheese tacos. Questions arose.

Greg Abbott, the Republican governor, said it was evidence that Talarico was a closet vegetarian, as if that would be a mortal sin against cattle ranchers. A taco podcast debated eggs for lunch. (Easy answer: Yes) The taco editor at Texas Monthly told the New York Times that both the establishment and the order were good choices for a candidate trying to appeal to moderates and centrists.

Hot sauce is still okay, right?

Iran war running hot and cold. Does anybody know if the Iran war is on or off? The Trump administration says it’s both.

US and Iranian forces are still shooting at each other. Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says Iran has attacked US forces more than 10 times since President Trump declared a ceasefire on April 7. Iran sporadically fires at tankers in the Gulf. US forces recently sank six Iranian vessels in the region, and they continue to disable Iranian cargo ships trying to run the US blockade. The Strait of Hormuz is still blocked to most oil shipments.

But everything is fine, seriously. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on May 5 that the war is over and the mission has been accomplished. What mission? Well, not deposing Iran’s authoritarian regime. It remains in place. The Iranian people have had no chance to take back their country, either, even though Trump promised they would when he launched the war on February 28. All of Iran’s nuclear weapons material is still in the country. Rubio says reopening the strait to oil shipments is now a humanitarian mission, as if it would be a nice gesture to the rest of the world, but not really that big a deal.

Here’s what is really going on. Trump is in a bind that’s the political equivalent of each of his six business bankruptcies. He completely failed to foresee the consequences of attacking Iran, like a hustler who takes on too much debt and then can’t pay it back. He’s desperate for a face-saving solution that doesn’t look like defeat. So he keeps telling his creditors that he’ll come up with the money, hoping for some kind of miraculous intervention, such as a bailout from his dad. But dad isn’t around to help on this one. So, a mess.

The Internet thinks this captures Trump’s Iran predicament:

Cartoon Pete. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted a two-and-a-half minute cartoon video featuring himself trying to explain why taxpayers should gladly raise the defense budget by half a trillion dollars, to $1.5 trillion. “We’re putting the American taxpayer first,” Hegseth lies in the video. There’s a cameo appearance by Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, in cartoon format, smoking a cigar at a big desk, like an old-timey tycoon who doesn’t care if smoking is banned. Then he orders “Deal Team Six” into action. They’re going to go out and whip the military-industrial complex into shape, you see.

Hegseth doesn’t mention the bill for the unnecessary Iran war, which is at least $25 billion so far, and could easily end up double or triple that. His idea of putting American taxpayers first is giving sweetheart defense contracts to Trump family members, who had zero experience in defense technology before their Dad became president. Defense contracts to the president’s family would be prohibited in any other administration. Where’s Hunter’s laptop?

Hegseth promises us there will be more videos like this, so you might want to wait for the whole series to drop before gathering the family in the home theater. Meanwhile, here are a few highlights from the pilot.

The people’s ballroom. The Justice Dept. will probably be prosecuting Trump for cost overruns at the new White House ballroom any day now. When Trump announced the ballroom project last year, he said donors and friends would pay the $200 million cost, and taxpayers would cover nothing. Then the cost doubled, to $400 million. And now, some Republican senators are trying to appropriate as much as $1 billion for the project, which means taxpayers would be footing the bill, after all.

Trump said on social media that the cost went up because the size of the project doubled and the quality improved, following “deep rooted studies.” Somehow, it is still “under budget,” Trump says. Now that’s some next-level developer talk.

The White House hasn’t explained why taxpayers should cover the bill, though.

Trump’s Justice Dept. launched a prosecution of the Federal Reserve and its chair, Jerome Powell, because a Fed renovation project is running about 30% over budget, due to unforeseen asbestos contamination at two 100-year-old buildings, and construction costs that spiked after the Covid pandemic. If taxpayers get stuck with the ballroom bill, then the entire project is a cost overrun, because the actual cost to taxpayers should be 0. If Congress funds the $1 billion ballroom, they should throw in several million more to make sure the prosecution is well-financed.

Put up your dukes, Trump. Polling firm YouGov ran a survey asking people if they thought they could beat Trump in a fistfight. I checked the date to make sure it wasn’t April 1. It wasn’t. I looked at the web site address to make sure it wasn’t a spoof. No, it was the actual YouGov.

They ran the poll because Trump held a May 5 White House event highlighting physical fitness, and asked one boy in attendance, “you think you could take me in a fight?” YouGov jumped on the bandwagon by asking more than 2,600 Americans three questions: Could an eight-year-old boy beat Trump in a fight? Could a typical American beat Trump in a fight? And could you personally beat Trump in a fight?

The survey results are below. The YouGov pollsters didn’t reach me on the question, but if they had, I would have said that Trump would run like a banshee from any fight where he didn’t have a bodyguard. The fight I’d most like to see is Trump against a transgender woman, because in addition to getting beat up, he’d probably pass out from cooties.

Anyway, here’s what Americans think about this timely topic:

Art diss. I’ve never been invited to the Met Gala and never will be, but I do enjoy checking out the world’s most elaborate Halloween costumes and wondering how you go to the bathroom inside one of those contraptions. This year’s event was controversial because billionaire Jeff Bezos and his arm-cleavage wife Lauren Sanchez-Bezos co-chaired it, and they represent everything that’s bad about conspicuous consumption, I guess. Of course, it’s a FUND-RAISER for the Met’s Costume Institute, so maybe you’d want RICH PEOPLE helping you raise all those funds?

Anyway, the whole thing is meant as spectacle and the Bezos involvement didn’t bother me, and if did, who would care?

But this was fun: The theme of the event was fashion as art, and what do celebrities know about art? Not much, is what real art mavens think. So the Whitney Museum, a few miles south of the Met, posted on its Instagram account after the gala, “I hereby order all celebrities to take an art history class.”

That’s what I’m talking about! A museum-on-museum diss track!

The Whitney followed up by pointing out they have free tours every day at 1 and 2 pm. Well worth a visit! I love the Whitney. And the Met, too.

86 Comey. President Trump’s henchmen at the Justice Dept. indicted former FBI director James Comey for a second time over some seashells he photographed on a beach last year. The case will undoubtedly fail a second time. This is an absurd abuse of power that would be laughable if—well, it is laughable. But it’s also grotesque.

Last year, Comey posted a picture on social media of shells on a beach arranged to form the numbers “86 47.” 86 is slang for get rid of. The dictionary definition is “to eject, dismiss or remove.” 47 refers to Trump, the 47^th president. So Comey was saying, get rid of Trump. Criminal, right? No, not remotely. Anybody has the right to say get rid of Trump, or get rid of anybody.

[See all of Trump’s losing causes]

The snowflake Trump claims “86” means “kill” because he’s seen that in gangster movies. In Trump’s addled mind, Comey was calling for his assassination. Trump’s corrupt Justice Dept. charged Comey with the same thing last year, but a judge threw it out for procedural reasons. If the latest indictment leads to an actual prosecution, there’s no way the government will win, because Comey and everybody else are protected by the First Amendment.

But Trump isn’t trying to win the case. He hates Comey because the former FBI director insisted Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, which Trump won. That triggered Trump’s deep insecurity, provoking his feral need for revenge. Trump is just trying to hassle Comey with pointless prosecutions and force him to spend bajillions on lawyers. By the way, your tax dollars and mine are financing these frivolous prosecutions.

[AI gave me some investing advice. It’s pretty good]

Gallows humor. It’s been a busy week for federal malpractice. The Federal Communications Commission says it’s going after ABC because its late-night host Jimmy Kimmel keeps roasting Trump. Oh wait, the FCC didn’t quite admit that’s why it ordered an early review of ABC’s broadcast licenses.

But that’s obviously what is going on. Trump called (once again) for ABC to fire Kimmel on April 27, and the next day the FCC issued what is plainly a threat against the network.

Kimmel’s latest offense is an April 23 segment spoofing the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner. It’s funny and worth watching, if you haven’t seen it. In the skit, Kimmel jokes that First Lady Melania Trump has the look of an “expectant widow.” I laughed at that when I watched, which was before the actual correspondents’ dinner on April 25. Trump is 79 and Melania is 56. She will very likely outlive him, maybe by a lot. That’s the joke.

Well, at the actual dinner two days later, some crazy guy planning to shoot Trump wrecked the whole party, with Secret Service agents whisking Trump to safety. So the fragile Trump claimed that Kimmel’s expectant widow joke was an incitement of violence. Brendan Carr, the humorless FCC don, took the hint and now seems to be threatening ABC with regulatory extortion. Kimmel responded with another funny segment that’s also worth watching.

Trump in your pocket. To stroke Trump’s ego, the State Dept. will issue 250,000 commemorative passports featuring Trump’s image and signature. There was a momentary nationwide panic when some people thought all US passports would come with Trump’s face, for the rest of Trump’s term, forcing American travelers to endure 10 years of mockery every time they enter another country. But only weirdos who actually want the Trump passports will have to endure the mockery.

Junior Apprentice. The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon is mulling a reboot of “The Apprentice” that would feature Donald Trump, Jr. as the obnoxious tycoon who fires people for fun. The idea is in the early stages, and it’s a good guess somebody leaked the plan to the Journal to embarrass Amazon and maybe kill the idea before it gets any further. Amazon is already taking heat for the awful “Melania” film that looks like a badly disguised ransom payment to the Trump family. Regular episodes of a Trump Jr. vehicle would probably lead to boycotts and a lot more trouble than Amazon would ever want.

But Don Jr. certainly has star power. Somebody should cast him as the lead in a reality show about a boorish trust funder struggling with anger issues.

War over. The Iran war is over, according to an official notice Trump sent to Congress. That’s very convenient, because the War Powers Act requires the president to end a war once it has been underway for 60 days, unless Congress explicitly authorizes the war. The 60-day mark for the Iran war was April 29. Trump declared a ceasefire April 7. So … we’re good?

Yeah, sure—as long as the bombs don’t start flying again. If they do, there will be a big argument over whether a resumption of hostilities represents a new war that restarts the 60-day clock, or a continuation of the old war, which would then be beyond the 60-day mark.

[See the economic toll of Trump’s Iran war]

Markets aren’t subject to the War Powers Act, and they consider the war to be ongoing, at full tilt. Brent crude oil is trading at around $110 per barrel, which is 60% higher than the pre-war level and close to the wartime high. The average gasoline price is about to hit $4.50 per gallon, an abrupt 50% hike from pre-war levels. Whatever is going on in Iran, the affordability war many Americans are engaged in is as hot as ever.

National debt > GDP. The amount of federal debt held in public markets now exceeds the size of the whole US economy for the first time since the World War II era. And it will probably exceed the record of 106% of GDP, set in 1946, by 2028 or so. Congress plans to address the problem … never.

It could always be worse. The next time you’re feeling sorry for yourself, take solace that you’re not a North Korean soldier. Bloomberg reported that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has publicly acknowledged that North Koreans fighting in Ukraine have orders to kill themselves instead of being captured. Kim calls it “self blasting” and describes it as a form of heroism. He should demonstrate the technique.

North Korea started sending troops to fight alongside Russian forces in Ukraine in 2024, in exchange for cash and goodies. Ukrainian intelligence noticed the North Korean suicides, which dear leader now seems to have confirmed. An estimated 2,000 North Koreans have died fighting for Russia in Ukraine, while Ukraine has captured only two North Korean soldiers alive. Since they disobeyed orders, those two probably can’t go home once the war is over. What a predicament.

Somebody likes Congress? Congress’s disapproval rating rose to 86% in the latest Gallup survey, matching record-high hate marks from 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2015. The recurring theme is a government shutdown, which was underway during most of those prior spikes. If you’re not aware, there’s currently a shutdown of the Dept. of Homeland Security, except for the worst part of it: Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE is up and running because it got a separate funding stream as part of the Republican tax law President Trump signed last summer.

Democrats are blocking DHS funding because they want reforms at ICE, which has plenty of funding. Republicans won’t consider any reforms at ICE, so most of the rest of DHS is idle. Make sense? No, not at all.

There’s only one question: Nine percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing. WHO ARE THEY?

Come on people, we can do this. Let’s get those Congressional hate numbers closer to 100. Gallup runs its Congressional survey monthly. Tell everybody you know to vote against Congress if Gallup calls. And ask why they need convincing in the first place.

Redistricting regret. Republicans who kicked off a repugnant wave of off-schedule redistricting in Texas last year now stand to lose from what they unleashed. 😄😄😄 Texas redrew its Congressional districts because Trump pushed the state to add five House GOP seats, by drawing new borders that would lump Democratic voters in the fewest number of districts and let Republicans win the rest. This is an odious but technically legal process that has been going on for decades and is democracy at its worst. Normally, it only happens once every 10 years, after the decennial census. But Trump wanted an edge NOW, and Texas did what he said.

[See why it could take months for the Iran war to end]

What Trump didn’t foresee is that some Democratic states would do the same thing, which they have, and now it looks like Republicans will get no advantage at all from trying to rig the vote. The whole scheme might even hurt them. Virginia tilted the odds back toward Dems by passing a redistricting plan on April 21 that will probably flip four seats from R to D. California redistricting has probably flipped five seats for the Dems. Florida may still net Republicans a seat or two if it joins the fray. But Republicans basically cheated in plain view of voters, with nothing to show for it.

The Cook Political Report says Democrats have a six-point advantage heading into the November midterm elections. That portends a blue-wave election. CNN’s Harry Enten calls the Republican redistricting scheme “one of your all-time backfires.” Republicans deserve it.

Uncle Sam Airlines. President Trump, whose companies declared bankruptcy six times, apparently can’t stand to see a business go bust. So he’s committing taxpayer money to save a small airline most fliers would never miss.

Spirit Airlines, America’s seventh-largest carrier, has been reorganizing under bankruptcy protection and was on track to emerge healthier sometime this summer. But the soaring cost of jet fuel caused by Trump’s war on Iran has wrecked the company’s finances, pushing it toward liquidation. So Trump is preparing a government bailout that would inject $500 million of taxpayer funds into the budget carrier in exchange for an ownership stake that could be as high as 90%.

This is a dangerous anticapitalist idea. The US government has helped out airlines before, but only under extraordinary circumstances that threatened the entire industry, such as the 2001 terrorist attacks and the 2020 Covid pandemic. Numerous individual airlines have gone bankrupt, including Braniff (1982), Eastern (1989), Pan Am (1991), TWA (2001), US Airways (2002 and 2004), United (2002), Northwest (2005), Delta (2005) and American (2011). Bankruptcy is capitalism’s way of compelling efficiency and punishing bad management.

[See why the Trump economy lags Biden’s]

The government didn’t bail out any of those companies, and nearly all of those bankrupt airlines were bigger than Spirit. Some disappeared, while others merged with existing carriers. The problem with government ownership is it inevitably injects political factors into management decisions.

What’s so special about Spirit? Probably that it would be a victim of Trump himself. Trump is the one who started the Iran war oblivious to the inevitability of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz and causing a global energy crisis. So a bailout is Trump’s way of buying off his own guilt. With our money. We should all demand free flights on our new airline.

How to fix the weather. Traders on betting site Polymarket seem to have figured out how to win thousands of dollars by rigging weather equipment. There have been at least two incidents in which an official temperature gauge at De Gaulle airport in Paris jumped by 4° Celsius, or around 7° Fahrenheit, even though there was no such change in the ambient temperature. In the first instance, a lucky trader just happened to place a bet guessing there would be such a temperature surge, winning $14,000 on a bet of $30. The odds of that payout were 0.2%. The second time, a trader won $21,000 betting just $119 on the micro heat wave. Those odds were 0.5%.

[See the economic toll of the Iran war, so far]

A French climate-monitoring group noticed the oddities, which first occurred on April 6, and then again on April 15. Commenters speculate that somebody with access to the temperature gauges blew on them for a few minutes with a battery-powered hair dryer. French authorities are investigating.

I’ve written before about how scammy betting sites seem to be, and there have been numerous fishy payouts to traders who placed prescient bets, as if they had insider information. On April 23, authorities arrested a US special forces soldier on charges of using secret classified information on the January operation to snatch Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro to net $419,000 on Polymarket. Some people think higher-echelon Trump administration officials are cashing in, too. We’re democratizing everything, including graft.

Dumb … Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dragged his family name even lower on April 22 when he tried to convince a Senate committee that (600-590) = (-600%). Kennedy was trying to defend Trump’s frequent claim that he’s going to cut drug prices by multiples of 100%, such as 500%, 600%, or 1,000%. Anybody who shops for themselves knows you can only cut the price of anything by a maximum of 100%, at which point the product is free. A 500% discount on, say, a $100 item, would be getting it for free and then getting an extra $400.

Anyway, one senator prodded Kennedy about Trump’s made-up math, and Kennedy took the bait, saying, “if you have a $600 drug, and you reduce it to $10, that’s a 600% reduction.” Is Kennedy that dumb? Or is he just acting dumb because Trump is dumb? Is the whole Trump administration engaged in a stupid contest?

If the price of a $600 drug fell to $10, that would be a 98% decline. You get that by dividing the amount of the change, 590, by the original price, 600. 590 ÷ 600 =98.33 and you round down to 98%.

JUST ASK AI, YOU BRAINDEAD BUMPKINS!

And dumber …. The Centers for Disease Control won’t publish its own research showing that Covid-19 vaccines cut the risk of hospitalization in half. You know why. At some point in Trump’s mad past, he decided: Vaccines, bad. So now, vaccines are the unmentionable word Trump will not speak, or allow anybody else to speak. Trump should rename the CDC the Trump Center for the Spread of Disease.

Better than Putinland. Ukrainian negotiators have proposed renaming a besieged part of eastern Ukraine “Donnyland,” as a tribute to Donny Osmond. Just checking if you’re awake. It’s not Donny Osmond, it’s the other Donny, Donald Trump.

Apparently it started as a joke among the acerbic Ukrainians, who then thought, wait, he might actually fall for it: Name part of our country after Trump and he might provide more aid to fight the invading Russians. “Donnyland” is a mashup of “Donald” and “the Donbas,” the region that would gain this unparalleled honor if Trump went along. Trump obviously doesn’t go by Donny, but he’s an expert at naming things after himself and could offer guidance. “Trumpatorsk.” “Trumporizhia.” Throw in a peace prize. Whatever.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky doesn’t love the idea, but he left the door open when reporters asked him about it on April 1. “The main thing is that it's not 'Putinland,'” he said.

You have to think about it for a while, but yeah, Donnyland seems slightly better.

This stuff actually happened:

Trump revives Epstein scandal. Melania Trump, that is. The First Lady gave a six-minute statement to reporters at the White House on April 9 to clarify that “numerous fake images and statement about Epstein and me … are completely false.”

Huh? It’s well known that Donald Trump was an Epstein pal for years, and that he and Melania socialized with Epstein in the early 2000s. But of all the people linked with the dead pedophile’s crimes and depredations, Melania Trump isn’t one of them.

Or is she? What don’t we know?

The rumors Melania is referring to might be social-media speculation that Epstein somehow procured Melania Knauss, as she was known when she came to the United States in 1996, for Trump. But if so, who cares. Knauss was 26 when she moved from Slovenia to New York. She couldn’t have been one of Epstein’s underage victims, unless it was abroad in the 1980s, and there’s no evidence of that.

Trump, the president, told a reporter after Melania’s performance that he didn’t know she was planning to make such a statement. Do they ever speak? Bounce things off each other, like old married couples typically do?

Epstein sleuths think Melania might know that some Epstein publicity bomb is about to drop, and be preemptively distancing herself from her husband to escape the damage. She might also just be loony or paranoid. Or insulted to be likened to a prostitute on social media. Who knows.

It’s still the case, however, that Donald Trump’s name is conspicuously absent in the Epstein documents, and it’s pretty obvious that a politically compromised Justice Dept. run by Trump cronies has airbrushed his name from the public files. There are probably still some Epstein secrets and Melania may have an inkling what they are.

Iran trolls Trump. After Trump announced an April 7 ceasefire with Iran, Iranian media posted an AI-generated video on social media showing Trump descending the steps of Air Force One sheepishly bearing a white surrender flag. Conciliatory, huh?

The ceasefire looks very shaky, largely because it’s not clear Iran will agree to any kind of concession. Instead, it’s asserting what could be permanent control over tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz, which would be an astonishing degree of new leverage gained by a nation that survived 39 days of bombing by two of the world’s most powerful militaries. The Iranian regime took a beating and may be cowed privately, but its public stance toward the United States is still, up yours, Trump.

[See 5 huge problems with the Iran war ceasefire]

War Bunny. Trump addressed the Iran war on April 5 while emceeing the annual White House Easter Egg roll from a balcony at the White House, with the Easter Bunny standing to his left. The audience below was mostly kids there for the egg event. “I don’t think it gets more hostile than Iran,” Trump told the kids, while the Easter Bunny looked out with a reassuring permagrin. “You don’t mind when the enemy is weak, but that enemy is strong, not so strong like they were about a month ago,” Trump explained to the captivated egg rollers. Like a good soldier, the Easter Bunny remained inscrutable.

Vance touts poverty and corruption. Vice President JD Vance took time out of his busy schedule (?) to fly to Hungary and campaign for Europe’s worst leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who looks likely to lose an April 12 reelection bid. “Trump loves you, and so do I,” Vance told Orban in a public meeting on April 7.

[See the economic toll of the Iran war, in 8 charts]

During 20 years in power, Orban has transformed Hungary from a fragile democracy into a corrupt autocracy that is Europe’s poorest country. Among his claims to shame, Orban is widely viewed as a lapdog for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Bloomberg recently published a transcript of a phone call in which Orban said to Putin, “In any matter where I can be of assistance, I am at your service.” So of course the American president sent his lackey to gush over Orban.

If Orban loses the April 12 vote, it’s not clear he’ll relinquish power. That could put Trump and Vance in the position of supporting a crook trying to overturn a legitimate election. Vance and Trump might be backing Orban so that if he loses, they can call it a rigged election and use it as a template for overturning any results that might go against them in US elections this year or in 2028. God bless America.

Vance’s other crappy job. Trump also assigned Vance to head the ceasefire negotiations with Iran. The starting point for that is the US and Iran have each listed a separate set of demands, with almost no common ground. Iran thinks it has the upper hand because Trump can’t stand the pain of US gasoline prices heading toward $5 per gallon. The Iranians think they’ve won by merely surviving the US assault, so Trump may be setting Vance up for failure.

[Trump’s inflation immolation]

Iran’s new leverage over oil shipments is unnerving, but Vance’s comeuppance is entertaining for anybody disgusted by his transmogrification from the insightful author of “Hillbilly Elegy” to a rage-baiting culture warrior who cozies up to some of the world’s most loathsome people.

Easter miracle in Islamic country. While describing the rescue of a downed aviator in Iran on Easter Day, April 5, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, “Flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday, a pilot reborn. All home and accounted for. A nation rejoicing. God is good.”

At least 13 other Americans have died in the Iran war. God has not been so good to them, if survival is the measure of goodness. Hegseth’s divine accounting seems woefully incomplete.

Hegseth is a weirdo who laces war briefings with biblical verse and seems to think God intervenes in wars that humans wage on each other. During a March prayer breakfast, he asked God for “overwhelming violence” against Iran. He later made a public plea to all Americans to pray for victory “every day, on bended knee … in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Jesus Christ hasn’t said how he feels about this, but Pope Leo said in a recent homily that that some so-called Christian causes are “distorted by a desire for domination, entirely foreign to the way of Jesus Christ.” But what does the pope know.

Enjoy a cartoon!

You can order this cartoon ^☝️ or others like it, plus merch featuring cartoons, at CartoonStock.com.

Trojan tankers. President Trump said Iran gave the United States a “present” by allowing 10 oil tankers registered in Pakistan to pass through the Strait of Hormuz so they can eventually deliver their cargo to customers.

You might be thinking: How nice! Where do I go to claim some Pakistani oil?! I don’t need a whole tanker, but a few barrels of oil might hold me over for a month or two until the war’s over.

Well, Trump hasn’t told Americans how to claim their oil just yet, and it’s possible that Iran didn’t really give America any gift at all, but just let some ships from a friendly nation sail through the strait, as it has been doing in recent weeks. Iran may also be charging “tolls” as high as $2 million per ship, and therefore profiting handsomely from the presents Trump thinks he’s getting.

It’s possible the Iranians are pranking Trump and there’s nobody in his administration smart enough to figure it out. It’s possible that an aide told Trump the Iranians gave him a present, because Trump was in a bad mood and needed something to cheer him up. It’s possible Trump doesn’t even remember that he started a war with Iran and is regressing to a childlike state in which he imagines every day is Christmas morning.

[See when the Hormuz Strait might actually open]

But presents from Iran? If you ever get one, check it for booby traps.

Aya-told-you-so. If you want to know how the Iran-war ceasefire negotiations are going, you’ll get a straighter answer from the extremist ayatollahs in Tehran than from the president of the United States. Trump has constructed an alternate reality in which Iran is “begging” for an end to the war, which keeps not ending because …? Iran, meanwhile, says there are no peace talks, with one regime mouthpiece mocking Trump for “negotiating with yourself.”

Whom to believe? Well, Trump is obviously deploying that old huckster tactic, fake it till everybody knows you’re bullshitting. Iranian spokesterrorists seem more trustworthy at this point.

How do we know? Because of what we can see with our own eyes: Iran’s strategy of causing financial pain and political turmoil for their American enemy seems to be working, as US gasoline prices close in on $4 per gallon, inflation worsens, stocks tank, interest rates spike and Trump looks like an idiot. If the Iranians presented any opening for a deal at this point, Trump would jump at it. Trump’s peace negotiations are as imaginary as gifts from Iran.

[Are you better off than you were one year ago? Our Better-Off Index has the answer]

Rigged! Trump used a mail-in ballot this week to vote in a Florida House race in the district that includes his Mar-a-Lago residence. If this sounds fishy, it might be because Trump has railed against mail-in voting for years, calling it “cheating” and “a disaster.” He’s pushing hard for Congress to pass a voter-suppression law called the SAVE Act that would sharply restrict mail-in voting. (The SAVE Act doesn’t have the votes and won’t pass, as we told you recently.)

So why would Trump vote in this dubious method himself? “Because I’m president.” That’s literally how he explained himself. Trump gets special privileges, see, like a king. Mail-in for me, not for thee.

[Check out the outlook for stocks one the Iran war is over]

Oh, Trump’s preferred Republican candidate lost. Trump won the district by 11 percentage points in 2024, but Democrat Emily Gregory beat Trump’s guy by 2.4 points, for a 13-point swing away from Trump in his own voting district. Gregory ran on affordability and vows to do something about $4 gas (caused by Trump’s war!).

Back of the line. Delta Air Lines suspended a VIP program for members of Congress due to the obscene congressional funding impasse for TSA agents that has snarled airports across the country. The VIP service includes airport escorts, expedited screening, a dedicated customer-service line and other perks.

Once Congress finally gets around to paying TSA agents, here’s the new special program Delta and all the airlines should institute for members of Congress: Last boarding group, middle seats only, no carry-on bags, and special seating areas in the terminal where other passengers can throw fruit at them. If they want to complain, let them mail a letter to company HQ.

My fellow Americans, our country is a mess. Here’s a cartoon to make you feel better:

You can order cartoons by this artist👆 or merch featuring the cartoons at CartoonStock. And you should!

^{~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~}

This stuff actually happened:

Our new oil BFF. The US-Iran war is turning into a boon for one Middle East oil exporter. And it’s Iran! First, Iran has been the only Persian Gulf nation able to freely ship oil through the Strait of Hormuz, which is effectively closed to most other shipments because of Iranian threats to sink ships. But Iran won’t sink its own ships, and apparently they’re sailing right on through. Bonus: The war has pushed oil prices up by about 35%, to around $100 per barrel, so Iran is earning a windfall.

When Trump mounted his takeover of Venezuela a few months ago, he sent the US Navy and Coast Guard to interdict at least 10 Venezuelan oil tankers, seizing their oil and selling it. But no US ships are bothering the Iranian tankers. Iran is a lot farther away than Venezuela and there may be a shortage of naval assets, especially since Iran has warships of its own that could put up resistance. But it’s also clear that Trump is not willing to interfere any more than he already has with global oil supplies. If he blocked Iranian oil from getting to market, the supply crunch would get even worse and prices might hit $110 per barrel, $120, or higher.

Trump is so desperate for Iranian oil that he may even ease US sanctions he imposed during his first presidential term, making it easier for Iran to sell some oil and possibly lowering prices a tad. Iran is adept at evading sanctions, and sells most of its oil to China, which doesn’t enforce US sanctions. But Trump may be trying to jawbone prices down a notch anyway, as US gasoline prices soar toward $4 per gallon.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wants us to think it’s all part of the plan. “We will be using the Iranian barrels against the Iranians to keep the price down for the next 10 or 14 days,” Bessent said on March 19. Wow, trippy. Trump is either playing three-dimensional geopolitics here, or scamming us with oil slickery. Gee, I wonder which.

It’s an economic truism that more oil on the global market will lower prices, no matter where it comes from. But Trump and his advisers are improvising to cover up how badly they prepared for the consequences of going to war with Iran. Thousands of experts of every political persuasion have war-gamed an Iran conflict for decades, and could have told Trump, Bessent and the punkish Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth what a mess they were about to create. The Trumpers thought they knew better and are now coming up with one laughable story after another to excuse their incompetence.

Little Marco’s oversized shoes. The Wall Street Journal broke a fun story on March 9 about how Trump likes to hand out Florsheim dress shoes to the men on his team, which might seem endearing if it were any other president. But everything with Trump seems to have a perverse angle. After the story broke, somebody photographed Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the US Capitol wearing a pair of black Florsheims that seemed a couple of sizes too big. The supposition is that Trump gave Rubio the wrong size, but in his obsequiousness to Trump, “Little Marco,” as Trump once belittled him, wore them anyway, afraid to disappoint the boss. It recalls the “boar on the floor” scene in Succession, in which billionaire Logan Roy flexes by debasing just about everybody in attendance at a company retreat, with virtually no resistance.

CNN Style interviewed some footwear experts to get to the bottom of the Rubio shoe situation, where they found … soles. (Sorry.) But CNN did helpfully explain that the old saw about the size of a man’s feet reflecting the size his penis is a myth, even though the erudite Trump likes to say, “you can tell a lot about a man by his shoe size.” Heh-heh. Heh-heh.

One question for the dignified Secretary of State: Why didn’t you just have an aide buy the same pair of Florsheims in the right size? There’s a Nordstrom Rack, Jos. A Bank and Macy’s within a mile or so of State Dept. headquarters at Foggy Bottom, and they all sell Florsheims. Somebody could get there and back in an hour on the Metro and spare you another embarrassment at Trump’s hands.

Call me, Marco, if you need any other fashion advice.😉

Banksy unmasked. 😟 The Reuters news agency says it has determined the identity of Banksy, the provocative street artist who has satirized pomposity in black, white and red stencils on building walls in cities all around the world. Banksy has been drawing his murals, more or less illegally, since around 2000, and they’ve become world famous. So it’s probably surprising he stayed anonymous as long as he did.

Still, if an editor assigned me to do the investigation to unmask Banksy, I don’t think I could do it. I first learned about Banksy when I was lucky enough to tag along on a tour of some Banksy images in London several years ago. His subversiveness and caustic humor made me an instant fan. Anonymity gave Banksy a mythlike quality, like there was a cosmic conscience that would arise out of nowhere from time to time to skewer humanity’s arrogance.

I visited New Orleans in 2019 and was delighted to come across a Banksy while going for a run. I didn’t know Banksy had been in New Orleans. Turns out he made more than a dozen stencils there in 2008, three years after Hurricane Katrina devastated much of the city. The mural below, known as Umbrella Girl, was on the side of a building on N. Rampart Street, intersecting Kerlerec, when I stumbled upon it. The owner of the building removed the mural in 2024 and is reportedly restoring and preserving it.

Churchill canceled. The Bank of England says it plans to update the nation’s currency notes and replace the visages of historical figures with wildlife. Notes currently being printed have an image of King Charles on one side, plus wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill on the £5 note, author Jane Austen on the £10, artist J.M.W. Turner on the £20, and the brilliant mathematician and World War II codebreaker Alan Turing on the £50. King Charles will remain, but options for the new images include no people. Instead, the contenders are native species such as otters, badgers, puffins, red squirrels and hedgehogs.

The BOE says the animal images—including elaborate depictions of their habitat—will help deter counterfeiting and fraud. And it released survey data showing that nearly 60% of respondents voted for nature images on the currency, with fewer than 40% going for historical figures.

But some Brits think the BOE has gone mad. “England’s new badger banknotes tell a dismal story of national decline,” the Telegraph newspaper declared. Both liberal and conservative politicians have bashed the move.

The BOE says it will run another “consultation” this summer, to identify the exact forms of wildlife to be on the banknotes. One wonders if Badger McBadgerface will be in the running. He’s a descendent of Boaty McBoatface, who was the surprise winner in a 2016 naming competition held by UK’s National Oceanography Centre. Careful what you ask for, BOE.

César Chávez was a pedophile. The famed union-rights leader and farmworker hero raped at least two underage women, and possibly many more, according to a lacerating New York Times investigation. Chavez died in 1993 at the age of 66, but two victims who are now in their 60s documented the abuse to the Times. They said Chavez started fondling them when they were around 12 or 13 and had sex with them a couple of years later, while they were both still minors. Chavez also raped Dolores Huerta, who worked with Chavez and became a notable labor activist in her own right. “He used some of his great leadership to abuse women and children,” Huerta, who is now 95, told the Times.

There are at least 130 streets, parks, monuments, community centers and other types of things named after Chavez in the United States. Officials are rushing to rename them. Maybe they should be called “Badger Park” or “Hedgehog Park,” to assure the next honoree doesn’t also turn out to be a sex offender or some other type of creep. I don’t mean to convert anybody to my grim view of humanity, but for all the fallen heroes there are, why do we bother with having heroes at all?

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Mean-photo ban. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who calls himself “Secretary of War,” banned journalistic photographers from Pentagon briefings because his staff felt they took unflattering photos, according to the Washington Post. Hegseth gets worked up sometimes and good photographers capture everything, and it would be unseemly for the man leading President Trump’s war on Iran to be seen frothing or foaming at the podium. So only official government photographers are allowed at Pentagon briefings now, and they’ll only publish polished glamor shots. This comes after Hegseth banned most real media organizations from the Pentagon, only allowing friendly right-wing outlets.

This careful control of the media explains why all the Iran war coverage has been glowing and optimistic, with everything going exactly how Trump and his brilliant war counsel scripted it. The glorious war is practically over, with no disruption to anybody other than Iran’s bloodthirsty despots. Democracy will soon thrive in Iran and nobody will ever again mention Trump’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein. Attaboy, Pete!

Some media outlets filled out the story by publishing unflattering photos of Hegseth, providing important context for why candid shots might make Hegseth antsy. I asked Gemini what an unflattering photo of Hegseth might look like, if anybody was allowed to take it. Gemini offered this:

Higher oil prices, please! On March 12, Trump pointed out that Americans are about to enjoy a huge windfall thanks to the higher oil prices his Iran war has caused. “The United States is the largest oil producer in the world, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” Trump said on social media.

Trump is obviously referring to Americans who hold shares in oil companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron, who do benefit when oil prices rise, because they sell their product for more and bank more profits. Exxon stock is up 26% this year, while the overall market is down slightly. If you don’t own Exxon stock, then you are not a patriotic American and you won’t make any money from the Iran war. Too bad.

Everybody who does own Exxon, please tell us: How are you planning to spend your war bounty?

Cowardly captains. The real reason oil prices are spiking is oil tanker captains are cowards with no sense of adventure. “These ships should go through the Strait of Hormuz, and show some guts,” Trump said on Fox News on March 9. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Trump said US and Israeli forces have destroyed the majority of Iran’s missiles and drones, so what was there to worry about?

Iran has only attacked 16 ships in the Persian Gulf since the war began, which suggests the odds of getting blown up if you try to drive a tanker past Iran are, I dunno, less than 100%? Feel lucky, punk? Trump himself would no doubt blast right through the Iranian fire in one of his superhero getups if he were helming a ship.

This ship, meanwhile, was reportedly struck by Iran near the Iraqi shoreline in the western gulf, which means it wasn’t trying to run the strait, it was just waiting out the hostilities. The flames don’t seem that big, nothing a gutsy captain couldn’t contend with:

Ghost ship. On March 9, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on social media that “the U.S. Navy successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz,” causing a huge celebration in oil markets. Prices dropped about $15 per barrel right away, as traders assumed the US Navy had sailed to the rescue and reopened the strait to tanker traffic.

But Wright’s post disappeared and the White House said, nope, we don’t know of any navy escorts. Oil prices went right back up. The Energy Dept. blamed a staffer who “incorrectly captioned” Wright’s post. It’s always the staffers! If not for the staffers, the Iran war would be going swimmingly.

Geezer keeps going. Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn, who’s 85, said he will run for another House term this year. Why not. At least four members of Congress are older, including 92-year-old Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa. The olds have done a great job running the country lo these last 25 years, so everybody would benefit if they just stayed forever. Younger people don’t really need to step in, AI will just do their jobs, anyway.

Famed magician disappears. David Copperfield is ending his 25-year stint at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas after revelations that—can you guess? Yup. Epstein buddy. Documents released by the Justice Dept. say there was a “clear connection” between the two, and worse. One FBI report says Copperfield “trained his employees to identify young females (teens to early twenties) in the audience of his shows.” These women were “separated from their boyfriends, families and husbands and brought backstage … there were allegations that he drugged some of the females.” There have been other, similar allegations against the magician, which Copperfield has disputed. But Epstein is the kiss of death. Still, a hopeful Copperfield said in a statement, “I’m excited to announce what’s next soon thereafter. It’s the largest project I’ve ever tackled.” That sounds like an apt description for rehabilitating yourself from the Epstein curse.

Where are your clothes? The “naked dress” is an official fashion trend, as documented by the New York Times. Famous people including Jennifer Lawrence, Chappell Roan, Karol G, Li Jun Li, and that crazy woman who hangs out with Kanye West have recently sported naked dresses out in public, since that is where it’s most comfortable to be naked. (Disclaimer: I’m not even sure who all those people are.) Purists will tell you that the naked dress has been around for centuries, but maybe what’s old is new again.

If you’re a guy and your date wears a naked dress, are you supposed to wear a naked suit? As a divorced guy in the dating world, this question has been nagging me. I googled it, and it turns out the only naked suits seem to be gag costumes like you might wear to a Halloween party. Women get to have all the fun. Thank god.

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“Here’s our bombing address.” This has gotten a lot of attention, but it’s worth highlighting that with American forces bearing down on them and President Trump telegraphing an imminent attack, Iran’s leadership met on February 28 for an above-ground meeting at a regularly used government building that was probably one of the Pentagon’s top Iranian targets. It’s almost like they volunteered for regime change.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei knew that Israel’s spy service, the Mossad, had thoroughly infiltrated his government, evidenced over the years by numerous assassinations of key Iranian officials. Trump had arrayed the largest US armada in the Persian Gulf region in at least 20 years. Yet Khamenei and his top aides went about business as usual, and they’re now mostly dead. If they had just flipped on CNN, they might have gotten the hint that they should be a little more careful.

Maybe they read the Pinpoint Press and saw my January 30 prediction that Trump was not going to attack Iran. I based that on Trump’s pattern up to that point, which was to foment a crisis then announce a last-minute deal that averted the worst-case outcome. But we have a new Trump, now, one who is willing to drive the stunt car off the cliff and hope the parachute deploys. I thought I had Trump’s M.O figured out, but I must have given my AI tool the wrong inputs. So did a lot of others.

[More: How Trump gets out of his Iran war]

Putin to the rescue. Russian President Vladimir Putin is offering himself as a mediator able to bring peace to the Middle East, as he has done so successfully in Ukraine. Putin called the leaders of at least four Gulf nations Iran has attacked, to emphasize “the need to urgently resolve the conflict through diplomatic means,” according to the Institute for the Study of War. Putin probably had his fingers crossed behind his back when he said that. Putin has personally started at least three wars that have killed millions of people, including the “special military operation” in Ukraine that began in 2022 and is the largest European war since World War II. If you ever invite Putin to a party, don’t be surprised if he hijacks your house and then moves on to your neighbor’s.

It’s all Zelensky’s fault. On March 2, Trump wrote a social media post calling Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky “the P.T. Barnum of Ukraine.” Trump appeared angry that the United States under President Joe Biden gave Ukraine a lot of weapons Trump wishes he had to available to use against Iran. Barnum, for what it’s worth, was a successful businessman and showman extraordinaire who supposedly said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” One would think Trump admires that kind of record.

Noem more. Trump fired Dept. of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after a year in which she proved to be profoundly incompetent. Axios has this list of Noem’s top five controversies. A sixth is that she said during a March 4 Congressional hearing that Trump personally approved a $220 ad campaign, funded by you and me, to improve her personal image. The new DHS Secretary is Markwayne Mullin, the only member of Congress with two first names rolled into one.

Noem will become special envoy to “The Shield of the Americas.” If anybody knows what that is, please explain. She seems happy, though. In a social media post, she thanked Trump for the demotion and said she’s looking forward to blah blah blah.

Diligent readers will recall that on February 17, I placed a $10 bet on Kalshi that Noem would be gone by May 31. The odds at the time were just 23%. My $10 bet will pay out $41. I also guessed right with my Kalshi bet that three Supreme Court justices would dissent from the decision to overturn Trump’s emergency tariffs. That $10 bet paid out $30. I guessed wrong when I said Trump’s State of the Union speech would not include the word “ICE.” I lost $10 on that one.

[More: Why I started gambling on the news]

The new worst Trump Cabinet secretary. With Noem gone, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is now winning the race for worst Cabinet official in Trump’s government. The list of scandals involving the former representative from Oregon includes accusations of: Drinking on the job from a stash she keeps in her office, having an affair with a member of her security detail, taking staffers to a strip club while on an official trip, and using taxpayer funds to finance a birthday party and personal trips. Oh, her husband has also been accused of groping two women at Labor Dept. headquarters in Washington, DC, and he’s barred from the building. The Labor Dept. inspector general is investigating, but in Trump’s government, the only real sin is embarrassing Trump himself. He may not even know who his Labor secretary is.

AK Guy v. Sexy Pic Guy. Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas finally admitted he had an affair with a former aide who killed herself last year at the age of 35. That means he’s probably toast. Gonzales was defiant after the recent revelation of a text exchange with the aide in which he asked for a “sexy pic” and inquired about her “favorite position,” as we explained last week. Now that Gonzales has admitted the obvious, House leaders are calling for him to resign, which he probably will.

In the March 3 primary election, neither Gonzales nor his opponent, Brandon Herrera, won 50%, sending the race to a runoff. Herrera is a gun nut who calls himself “AK guy” and is far more conservative than Gonzales. So if Gonzales drops out and AK Guy ends up as the Republican candidate, Democrats might have a chance of flipping the district, which is conservative but not excessively Trumpy. The Democratic candidate is Katy Padilla Stout, a lawyer and former teacher you can barely find on the Internet. That will change if this becomes a legit flip opportunity for Dems.

Autopen absolved. Everybody can breathe a huge sigh of relief now that Joe Biden’s autopen has escaped prosecution. Trump’s Justice Dept. tried to prosecute Biden for using an autopen to sign presidential documents and preserving his arm strength for salutes and the like. But Trump’s autopen police couldn’t find a crime and the New York Times recently reported that the Justice Dept. has shelved the case. Nobody is clamoring for Trump to release the autopen files, and Congress plans no hearings. So autopengate is probably over.

Trump has a consolation prize: A portrait of an autopen hangs in a White House gallery of presidents in the spot where Biden would otherwise be. One wonders what the next Democratic president might hang in lieu of Trump’s portrait.

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This was actually three federal agencies operating independently of each other in what looks like a satire of government. The US military (Dept. of Defense) apparently used a laser to shoot down a drone operated by Customs and Border Patrol (Dept. of Homeland Security), prompting the Federal Aviation Administration (Dept. of Transportation) to shut down some airspace because lasers can blind pilots. This comes two weeks after a similar screwup shut down El Paso’s airspace for 10 hours.

The three agencies issued a joint statement saying, “At President Trump’s direction, the Department of War, FAA, and Customs and Border Patrol are working together in an unprecedented fashion.” Translation: This is unprecedented incompetence, and it looks to be systemic, not isolated. Be prepared for worse.

Reminder: My guess for the first Trump Cabinet member to depart is the up-failing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

How to tarnish a gold medal. Could politicians just leave athletes alone? US hockey players are on the defensive now that President Trump has tried to use them as props, politicizing what ought to be a proud sports moment. First, Trump called the men’s team after they won Olympic gold on February 22 to invite them to the White House. On the call, he said he’d have to invite the gold-medal women’s US team as well, joking that he might get impeached if he didn’t. Several of the players laughed. I might have laughed too, out of nervousness or fatigue or maybe it was vaguely funny.

But some people didn’t see the humor. Hilary Knight, captain of the women’s team, called Trump’s joke “distasteful.” Social media slagged the men’s players who laughed at Trump’s joke. A few of the men ended up giving media interviews to explain they weren’t sexist and really were happy for the women’s team, which appears to be completely true.

Then Trump trotted out the men’s team at his February 24 State of the Union speech, pretty clearly trying to piggyback on their champion status. Most of the team appeared, but not all. Same with a White House visit the same day. The women’s team declined a White House invite, citing scheduling conflicts, adding, “they were honored to be included and are grateful for the acknowledgment.” Good call, and deftly put. Trump wants everything to be political and divisive, and if you’re not into that, just stay away.

[More: Windy speech shows Trump stuck in neutral]

The “sexy pic” referendum. On paper, Tony Gonzales seems impressive. The 45-year-old Republican Representative from Texas enlisted in the Navy, reached the highest enlisted rank, did some schooling at Georgetown and won the House seat representing part of San Antonio in 2020. But he must have skipped the management and ethics programs at Georgetown. Newly revealed text messages from 2024 show Gonzales asking a 35-year-old aide, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, to send him “a sexy pic.” She said she didn’t like taking pictures of herself. He then asked, “favorite position.” She said, “Yours first?” He answered, “On top pinning your legs.” Then he said, “anal?” She said “never.” Other evidence suggests the two did have some kind of affair.

Santos-Aviles died last September after dousing herself with gasoline and lighting herself on fire. She had an 8-year-old boy and was married, though possibly headed for divorce. Gonzales is married with six kids. This is a sad and messy story, and it isn’t clear that Santos-Aviles committed suicide because of Gonzales’s behavior. But it looks pretty awful for Gonzales, who says, “what you’ve seen is not all the facts.” Wonder if his wife buys that.

Many members of Congress think Gonzales should resign, including some Republican women. He says no. Gonzales, who’s fairly moderate, faces a right-wing challenger in the March 3 primary election. The district is solidly Republican, but the Democratic candidate in November will either face the scandalized Gonzales or a far-right conservative. Trump has endorsed Gonzales and seems to be sticking by his man. Um, voters?

The pepperoni tell. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says he might order a slew of pizzas delivered to the Pentagon as a head-fake in the confrontation with Iran. War watchers over the years have noticed that a surge in take-out pizza orders at the Pentagon or CIA sometimes indicates a big operation is underway, with everybody chained to their desks while T-minus-zero approaches. There’s even a social-media account that tracks Pentagon pizza deliveries. An interviewer asked Hegseth about the pizza indicator on February 22, and he joked, “I’ve thought of just ordering lots of pizza on random nights just to throw everybody off.” Maybe they’ll all order Chinese once the attack is on.

Reminder: I’m betting that Trump does not order an attack on Iran. Here’s why.

Cocaine Island. It’s not in the Caribbean, but in the northern Atlantic just off the Massachusetts coast. Officials in Nantucket say there’s been a surge in the amount of cocaine detected in wastewater, putting the tony island’s cocaine-concentration levels at twice the national average. Police aren’t sure why. Famous denizens of Nantucket include Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Elin Hilderbrand, Ben Stiller, Bill Belichick, Dave Portnoy, Joe Biden and many others. If any of you are reading, drop a note and let me know who’s snorting all that coke. 😉

One observation: Trump is making a big show of going after drug traffickers by blowing up their boats and hidey-holes and threatening other takedowns. So if the cocaine flow magically dries up, are users just going to go without? Maybe Trump should start running some “just say no” PSA ads on Nantucket.

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Hassett Job. White House economist Kevin Hassett said on CNBC that four researchers at the New York Federal Reserve should be “disciplined.”

Spanked? Sent to bed without dessert? Put in a time out? Hassett didn’t say. He just wants his boss, President Donald Trump, to know that he’ll gladly throw his credibility out the window to prove his loyalty.

Hassett was referring to a New York Fed study published February 12 on who’s paying the cost of the new tariffs Trump has leveled on imports from most countries. Like virtually all credible research on the issue, the New York Fed found that American businesses and consumers are bearing most of the cost of the tariffs. This is practically self-evident.

The way a tariff works is, the US importing company pays the import tax to the federal government when it takes possession of the import. That company then passes on as much of the added cost to its own customers as it can, and so on through the supply chain, right down to the final purchaser. Tariff defenders claim there are magical adjustments, such as importers lowering their prices by the amount of the tariff, that spare Americans any pain. But those effects are minor at best.

[See the latest stock-market buzzword you might want to know]

There’s a heap of research by organizations such as the Tax Foundation, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Yale Budget Lab, the Penn Wharton Budget Model and many Wall Street banks that comes to the same conclusion as the New York Fed: Tariffs raise prices! Hassett said the New York Fed paper “is an embarrassment” and that “the people associated with this paper should be presumably disciplined.”

But many economists think Hassett is the one who should be disciplined.

“The only one who should be embarrassed is Kevin Hassett, the smell of whose burning reputation flavors the air of D.C.,” Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, wrote on February 19. He called Hassett “a bipartisan embarrassment to all who have attempted to inject economic reality to the policy process.”

Many other economists pounced on Hassett, some reminding the public that he co-authored the 1999 book “Dow 36,000,” a prediction that took 22 years to come true.

Hassett was once known as a cheerful and friendly centrist wonk. Maybe he grew sour because Trump passed him over for the top job at the Fed, choosing Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair instead. Or maybe you just turn crusty when you hang around Trump long enough.

At any rate, tariffs raise prices! Tell everybody you know.

Best Epstein photo ever. Reuters nabbed a priceless photo of former Prince Andrew being driven away from a British police station after they arrested him in connection with dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In the photo, Andrew is slouching in the back seat of a car with a gobsmacked expression on his face that seems to say, “holy shit, I actually got caught.” I don’t have rights to the photo so I can’t publish it, but you can see it here at the BBC, among many other places.

By the way, British authorities seem to be investigating the former prince not for sex-related crimes, but for improperly sharing confidential government information with Epstein. They haven’t yet charged him with anything. This is all based on info the US government has had for several years, and only released recently because of public pressure.

[Why I started gambling on the news]

CBS helps a Democrat. A lot of people who wouldn’t otherwise care now know who James Talarico is, because CBS tried to block his appearance on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Talarico is a Democratic member of the Texas House of Representatives who’s running for the Senate seat currently held by Republican John Cornyn. Colbert had booked him for a normal show segment on February 16 but CBS lawyers blocked the appearance just before showtime. They said federal law prevents broadcast networks from hosting political candidates unless they give equal airtime to their opponents. But Colbert tweaked CBS lawyers for cowardice and media critics pointed to CBS’s growing history of deference to Trump and reluctance to criticize him.

Colbert interviewed Talarico on the Late Show set and posted the video to YouTube, which is not bound by the same federal rules as over-the-air TV. It’s an earnest 14-minute interview touching on religion and other potent topics, with Talarico, who’s also a Presbyterian seminarian, coming off as thoughtful and moderate. An early February poll showed Talarico trailing Rep. Jasmine Crockett by 8 percentage points in the Democratic primary, which takes place on March 3. But the Colbert interview racked up nearly 8 million views and brought Talarico a $2.5 million fundraising windfall. Getting canceled pays off.

Here’s the interview. It’s not filled with chuckles but is informative and refreshingly civil.

The Iran war will start at precisely … When the US military launches a war, it wants as much surprise as possible. So it’s odd that news stories are popping up saying all the forces are pretty much in place for the big attack on Iran Trump has been threatening. The Washington Post ran a handy map showing where US combat jets, warships, drones and other assets are deployed in the Middle East, for the ayatollahs to clip and tape to the wall. Trump himself suggested on February 19 that a 10-day countdown had begun.

Sorry, but this is not how the Pentagon goes to war. The evidence of that is the January raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, which was a total surprise nobody talked about beforehand. Trump is most likely flexing military muscle to coax Iran into some kind of deal on giving up its nuclear program or making other concessions. Yet crude prices have jumped by nearly $10 per barrel during the last two weeks, registering real market concern about a messy shooting war.

[Why Trump is not going to attack Iran]

At the end of January, I predicted that Trump would not attack Iran, because there are no simple options and he prefers clean, one-and-done military operations. I still think that. I went to the Kalshi prediction market to see if I could place a $10 bet on the odds of a US-Iran war, and they’re not offering that bet. Polymarket is, but for now, Polymarket is off-limits to most Americans. Polymarket’s odds are 76% there will be no US strike on Iran by the end of February, but 41% odds there will be no strike by the end of March. So the bettors forming that market think the most likely outcome is a US attack on Iran sometime during the month of March. I think they’re wrong, but I’ll own it if I’m the one who’s wrong and Trump does order an attack.

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• There’s so much crazy news that Weekly WTF is now a standalone feature.

• Somebody in Texas is seriously incompetent.

• The most entertaining part of the Super Bowl was the extended cultural warfare over Bad Bunny.

• Olympians have turned on Trump just like other young Americans.

• The Epstein scandal is finally over. 😄

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

El Whoopso. On February 10, the Federal Aviation Administration imposed a 10-day closure on the El Paso, Texas airport … for seven hours. The FAA said with no warning late on February 10 that it was closing airspace around El Paso for 10 days. But the next morning it said, never mind, the airport is open again. Officials in El Paso don’t know what’s going on, and the Trump administration can’t get its story straight.

🛫 Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said there was a “cartel drone incursion.” Really? So the feds penciled in what, a 10-day viewing party?

🛫Unnamed sources told several news organizations the military was testing lasers and other anti-drone technology at nearby Ft. Bliss.

🛫 But doesn’t the military know how to conduct tests without shutting down airports?

🛫 There were also reports that the US military mistook a rogue party balloon for a hostile drone and neutralized the target. Okay? So? Were there another 10 days worth of balloons inbound?

Obviously somebody screwed up in pretty spectacular fashion. President Trump never admits mistakes or apologizes, and his minions mimic the boss. So this could remain a comedy of errors with all the involved parties blaming each other. It’s Congress’s job to conduct oversight and get to the bottom of messes like this. But Congress has become a laughingstock itself. This is government by farce.

Killer Bunny. Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show was far more entertaining than the football game—and it went deep into overtime, with white nationalists battling multiculturalists over the Spanish-language intermission far longer than the Seahawks and Patriots went at it.

President Trump, surprising nobody, trashed the Puerto Rican star’s halftime performance, calling it “absolutely terrible” and adding, “nobody understands what this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting.” Trump supporters piled on, Bunny fans fired back, and we all enjoyed a few days of post-game cultural warfare.

Trump, you’ll recall, is an expert dancer who always keeps it clean on stage, so he’s speaking from a position of authority. I mean, look at these two, and tell me Bad Bunny couldn’t use a bit of stage guidance from Grandpa Trump:

I watched the Bad Bunny halftime show with some fellow Anglos. None of us knew what was going on. But it looked like fun. I appreciated some of the decoders published after the game, such as this one by Rolling Stone, that explained the significance of the sugar cane, the electrical poles, the coco frío stand, the dominoes, and the wedding (which was real!) Bad Bunny seems like a charismatic performer passionate about his homeland. Hard not to like him.

[How to survive America in 2026]

The NFL is extremely shrewd, and Commish Roger Goodell and his board of team owners had to know they’d be tweaking Trump by booking a Spanish-speaking Latino, even if he’s the world’s most popular singer. Trump is on a crusade to toss mostly brown migrants out of the United States and whiten and homogenize the whole country. Bad Bunny’s pan-American message of inclusivity and tolerance is the exact opposite of Trump’s.

So why did the NFL risk Trump’s wrath? Two reasons. One is the league is intent on expanding outside the United States, with Mexico, Brazil and other parts of Latin America prime targets. Bad Bunny was a pitch to the NFL’s future audience, not its current one.

The other reason is the NFL thinks it is bigger than Trump. It survived his attacks in 2017, when Trump went on a rampage against black players kneeling during the national anthem. It’s one of the few cultural bastions able to transcend polarization and thrive no matter who tries to politicize it. The NFL probably is bigger than Trump.

[See who’s up and who’s down in the K-shaped economy]

U-S-BOO! American athletes at the Winter Olympics in Italy are competing with their peers from all over the world, and also with their own president. Freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy peed “fuck ice” into the snow and posted a picture on his Instagram account, which got 95,000 likes. The artwork is quite impressive and one has to wonder if he pulled this off on the first try. (We know he was talking about Immigration and Customs Enforcement, not the conditions in Milan, because he said so in his post).

Freestyle skier Hunter Hess said, “just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.” That’s pretty mild, but Trump must have been having a snowflake moment because he called Hesse a “real loser” and said it’s “too bad” Hess made the Olympic team. Other athletes stood up for Hess.

Maybe Trump will take control of the US Olympic team, like he took control of the Kennedy Center, and only allow Trumpers to try out. That would solve this ridiculous problem of young athletes having their own opinions.

No panicans. The Trump White House published an urgent message urging supporters, “don’t be a panican.” That’s a Trump word for people who worry too much that his policies and actions will cause problems. Why would anybody think that? Americans are totally down with Trump’s racist memes, his federal agents killing nonviolent civilians in Minneapolis and tariffs that are raising everybody’s costs.

At any rate, Trump’s panican message reminds us that the stock market has “exploded,” the border is now sealed, and Trump is “ending the barbaric mutilation of kids.” If you stop to think about it, Trump really is not getting enough credit for ending barbaric mutilations.

The Epstein Six. The last big batch of Epstein files released by the Justice Dept. does contain some enticing new information. Two members of Congress say six men mentioned in the documents are “likely incriminated.” They are: Leslie Wexner, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, Salvatore Nuara, Zurab Mikeladze, Leonic Leonov, and Nicola Caputo.

[The sell-America trade is looking pretty good.]

Les Wexner, now 88, is the billionaire retail magnate who was one of Jeffrey Epstein’s original patrons, hiring him as a financial manager all the way back in the late 1980s. Sulayem is a rich businessman based in Dubai. The other four are more obscure.

The two members of Congress, Democrat Ro Khanna of California and Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky, didn’t say what “incriminated” means. Khanna did suggest more such names would be forthcoming. He and Massie looked at unredacted Justice Dept. files for only a couple of hours, leaving millions of documents unexamined. “If we found six men that they were hiding in two hours, imagine how many men they are covering up for in those three million files,” Khanna said on February 10.

Oh, also, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says he cut Epstein off in 2005, but it turns out he paid a visit to Epstein’s fantasy island in the Caribbean in 2021. Time flies, must have got his dates mixed up.

At the White House, when reporters asked spokesmodel Karoline Leavitt about the latest Epstein news, she said, “we’re moving on from that.”

Glad it’s finally over!

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