Trump administration

Hats off to President Trump! At the conclusion of his speech to the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Trump donned a red cap with 2028 emblazoned upon it and declared that he had hit upon a scheme to “save” the ratings of the new media. “I am pleased to announce my intention to run for a fourth term as President of the United States,” he said.  Trump evoked a few titters from the assembled press corps at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, but that was about the extent of the hijinks. In one sense, it’s no laughing matter. What will the press do without Trump? He’s correct in viewing himself as its savior. Without the 24/7 entertainment provided by the Donald, views would dwindle.

Taking the luck out of betting might lessen the thrill, but it certainly ups the profit. White House teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez allegedly made more than $100,000 by using inside knowledge of the President’s speeches to place bets on prediction market Kalshi, according to ABC News. Perez, who has operated Trump’s teleprompter since 2016, is believed to have placed bets on more than a dozen speeches – including February's State of the Union address. At times, he would even alter the bets mid-speech if he saw that the President was skipping a section on the teleprompter. Cockburn can't help but respect the hustle. His account’s winning streak was tracked and reported to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is now initiating a full investigation.

Donald Trump has exposed a weak link in American democracy. It is dependent, as the Founders would put it, on its leaders having a modicum of good character. Benjamin Franklin warned that without strict character requirements, government roles would attract "the bold and the violent," rather than the wise and peaceful. Trump’s new financial disclosure forms, released Tuesday, provide only the latest confirmation that the President and his family has gotten richer while he has served as president, stemming from a set of actions that have been brazen, if not illegal.

On April 9, Melania Trump held a lone press conference. She showed up in a charcoal suit, delivered a speech and turned to exit, runway style, without pausing. Melania doesn’t take questions from the press. The facts, according to Melania: Jeffrey Epstein had not introduced her to Donald Trump. She met her husband, “by chance, at a New York City party, in 1998.” She and her husband were acquainted with Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein, but this was “common in New York City and Palm Beach.” She had engaged Maxwell in polite “casual correspondence” over email. That was the extent of the relationship. “I am not Epstein’s victim,” she said somberly. White House staff were perplexed. Why had the presser been called?

Geostrategists used to fret over the “Eastern Question” or the Maginot Line or the Missile Gap. Today there is no doubt that the overriding geostrategic question of our day is whether the President of the United States is playing with a full deck. With the US-Israeli war on Iran failing, and depleting much of both countries’ non-nuclear defenses, with the Strait of Hormuz closed and western economies spiraling toward depression, Donald Trump greeted the world on Easter morning with a message to Iran’s leaders to “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards,” then threatened the next day to wipe out Iranian civilization. He then denounced the Pope for having imparted Catholic teachings on just and unjust war.

America is having its Golden Age, Iran is about to get blasted into the Stone Age... and Elbridge Colby wants to go back to the Late Middle Ages? According to a Free Press report by Mattia Ferraresi, the Under Secretary of War for Policy summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s then-ambassador to the US, to a meeting in which the Avignon Papacy was invoked. (For those of you who didn’t go to Catholic school: in the 1300s the king of France had Pope Boniface VIII captured and beaten after the pope excommunicated him; a few years later the papacy moved to Avignon amid continued threats from the French crown and instability in Rome.