Reflections from the Heart of the Empire: Dances with Foolhardiness

Plus an anti-authoritarian bobcat

• Following Trump’s tariffs is like taking a ride on a roller coaster in serious need of maintenance. First, two Federal courts ruled they were illegal because they are—only Congress has the power to levy taxes—and a Federal appeals court temporarily reinstated them.

  

  • This will end up at the Supreme Court, which will likely strike the tariffs down 9-0, maybe 7-2, because most of the Justices have heard of Article I of the United States Constitution.

    

  • Donald Trump has not. Really. He hasn’t. He has no clue. He thinks he’s playing the part of Mob Boss/CEO in a television show, and mob bosses and CEOs don’t need no stinking constitutions. He’s right about the TV show bit.

  • At least the tariffs have introduced a new acronym: TACO(Trump Always Chickens Out). Apparently, Trump himself was unaware of it until a reporter asked him about it, with hilarious results.

• Trump’s Department of Justice announced that it is dropping its case against Boeing for criminal negligence after Boeing had already pleaded guilty. It’s like they fumbled on the goal line, which always brings back very bad memories to Cleveland Browns fans.

  

• What it all boils down to is that the Trump Administration could end both the Ukraine War and the Gaza Genocide simply by refusing to finance them, but it has not. I recall Trump saying he would end the former in 24 hours.

  • It seems that Trump Always Chickens Out when it comes to saying no to militarism and Zionism.

• Elon Musk has left his Department of Government Efficiency after looking for waste, fraud and abuse everywhere except for the Pentagon, which needed no investigation because agencies that never pass their own audits are totally honest.

• The US Empire sent Kenya’s Finest to restore order in Haiti months ago, but those worthies have only managed to control maybe 10% of Port-au-Prince, so now the Empire is letting Erik Prince and Blackrock play with drones there because if the world doesn’t care about Palestinian women and children being used for target practice, it sure as shit won’t care about Haitians.

• Remember those cattle shutes in a free-fire zone the Israelis are making the Palestinians walk miles to in order to get food? Well, they’re run by the Israeli Ministry of Defense and Mossad, and those two are grifting hundreds of millions of Israeli tax shekels and no doubt American tax dollars while they are about it.

  

• The grift must flow, and it flows all the sweeter for genocidal maniacs when their victims line up for food so they can be more easily shot in the head.

• Venezuela arrested a US Drug Enforcement Agency dude on charges of infiltrating the Venezuelan police to do a false flag op. OK, but what false flag op, Venezuela? Inquiring minds want to know.

• India’s highest ranking general admitted that India had lost at least one fighter jet in its recent kerfluffle with Pakistan, but said that wasn’t important. What’s important is “Why did these losses occur, and what we will do after that.”

  • Perhaps the losses occurred because Indian jets violated Pakistani airspace and fired missiles at things in Pakistan?

    

• British Prime Comprador Minister Starmer said,

We will restore Britain’s war-fighting readiness as the central purpose of our armed forces.

• Just what was the central purpose of the British military before now? The jokes write themselves. Please feel free to provide your own in the comments.

• French President Macron, not content with the ridicule he received not all that long ago for being on that train of cocaine going to Ukraine, obtained some more by doing something to piss off his wife enough to shove him in the face.

  

• I’m beginning to think Macron and Starmer are in a contest to see who can say the stupidest things. Macron may have just taken the lead by going to Vietnam and warning Vietnamese students that “on the impulse of a superpower, everything can change.”

  • As if the Vietnamese are not among the world’s foremost experts in dealing with the impulses of superpowers. I feel insulted for them.

• Six gray whales beached themselves and died near San Francisco in the last week. Nobody knows why. Somehow, I don’t think this photo will be popular with the California tourism industry.

  

• Finally, sheriff’s deputies in Jefferson County, Colorado, discovered that a bobcat who had made himself at home in someone’s house simply could not care less about the laser pointers they used to try to encourage him to depart. Eventually, he moseyed on to other adventures on his own.

  

Thank you for reading, good day or night, and good luck.

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