Donald trrump

“When you die at the palace, you really die at the palace,” laments Comicus, the ancient Roman “stand-up philosopher” played by Mel Brooks in his iconic, if not exactly well received, History of the World, Part I (1981). Forced to improvise a comedy routine for Dom DeLuise’s Emperor Nero, Comicus repeatedly puts his foot squarely in his mouth, insulting the capricious ruler for his corruption and weight. An enraged Nero sentences him to death, setting up a madcap escape sequence.

Bombshell or damp squib? The Wall Street Journal has dived into L’Affaire Epstein with a vengeance, reporting tonight that Donald Trump contributed an epistolary effort to a leather-bound birthday book in 2003 for his Palm Beach buddy that contained what it delicately refers to as “bawdy language” as well as a drawing of a naked woman. The letter that has Trump’s name affixed to it apparently concludes, “Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.”  This is catnip for Trump’s detractors who apparently are starting to include a number of disaffected MAGA followers. They’re disenchanted by Trump’s volte-face.

President Trump’s criticism of Jay Powell has increasingly triggered calls for the Federal Reserve’s independence. But those defending Powell’s autonomy are making ahistorical claims about the Fed’s relationship to the executive and legislative branches of government: the Fed has never been independent. The president appoints the Fed’s chairman. The bank enjoys broad authority to implement the policies necessary to achieve its mandates of stable prices, full employment and interest-rate stability, but these objectives are defined by Congress and could be altered by Congress. Congress created the Federal Reserve in 1913 and has amended the Federal Reserve Act more than 200 times. It could do so again.

In a 2023 interview, California Governor Gavin Newsom was asked how he ended up in a leadership position. After struggling with his response, he eventually paraphrased a line from George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant: “I put a mask on and my face grew into it.” It was a remarkable admission that inadvertently validated his most common critique – that he is fundamentally inauthentic. Newsom has always seemed as though he were grown in a lab to be a politician. In a way, he was. The son of a well-connected judge and insider of the Getty family dynasty, he has glided through public life with the polished ease of someone born to power. He looks like a central casting governor, speaks in political platitudes and has successfully learned to suppress any sign of human spontaneity.