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Thanks to a self-indulgent tariff fixation based on a profound misunderstanding of international economics, an insouciance about public finances that has widened the deficit, and a reckless military adventure that has choked off global energy supplies, inflation and interest rates are higher than they were in November 2024. Instead of a hands-off approach to the economy that would have generated noninflationary growth owing to the AI investment boom, we now have gasoline prices 30% higher than they were two years ago, diesel 60% higher, and the average mortgage rate nearly a percentage point higher, adding more than $2,000 a year to a typical home buyer’s interest cost. The war that has done so much harm to Americans’ finances is doing far more harm to our military capacity and our strategic interests. The president has alienated everyone in the world who could be helpful to us (perhaps excepting Israel) and emboldened and even embraced every country in the world that threatens us: China, Russia, North Korea. A signal achievement has been getting control of the border and removing some of the people who have no legal right to be here. But even with this proper and overwhelmingly popular policy, the administration has managed to harm the country and the GOP’s standing. The unnecessarily cruel and indiscriminate approach has caught many in its dragnet who shouldn’t be treated that way and is fundamentally un-American. The political effect has been to devastate support for the GOP among Hispanics, more than reversing the gains Mr. Trump had made with the fastest-growing ethnic population in the country. Further dismaying is the caesarism of the past two years: the grotesque self-enrichment, the self-satisfying prosecutorial pursuit of political enemies, the endless projects of self-grandiosity—the ballroom, the Kennedy Center and the Memorial Arch. Not to mention the buffoonish symbolic acts that substitute for actual thought and policy: the Gulf of America, Lake America, New America, the 51st state.

Frankly, most Mormons find all the astrological meanderings in the book of Abraham a bit confusing and strange; they're not very frequently talked about, sort of like the weird murder subplot in the second season of Friday Night Lights.

Meta executives convened a series of calls among themselves to discuss strategy after being repeatedly asked to give money to various Trump funds. The company has donated to the inauguration, the ballroom and two Easter events. About $22 million of Meta’s money went to the library after the social-media company agreed to settle a lawsuit Trump had filed for suspending his accounts.

“Trump is shattering all fundraising paradigms in regards to hitting up corporate America for donations. The scope is mind-bogglingly large,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University. “We used to talk about the Lincoln bedroom being for sale, but this is just a wholesale money trough that’s totally different.” Critics alleged in the 1990s that the Clinton administration allowed overnight stays in the White House’s Lincoln bedroom in exchange for campaign contributions.

At a meeting with tobacco executives in May at Trump’s golf club in Jupiter, Fla., the president promised to do much of what executives wanted on policy related to vaping and the Food and Drug Administration. He also took in millions of dollars in contributions for his political committees. O’Rourke sat in on the meeting. Shortly after the meeting, the FDA lifted restrictions on some flavored vaping products, and the FDA’s chief was gone.

"Government-subsidized grocery stores = Communism," Rep. Jim McGovern said in a Wednesday social media post. "Government-run gas stations = Freedom. Got it."

James Madison: At least when the British burned this place down, they didn’t try to monetize it.

Hegseth says Pentagon will review Mark Kelly’s US weapons stockpile remarks Defense secretary accuses senator of disclosing classified info but Kelly says ‘that’s not classified, it’s a quote from you’