It has been about two weeks since President Trump has taken the oath of office (mind you, without placing his hand on the bible; not that it bothers me, nor is it required by the Constitution, but something that may be of potential interest or significance to the vast number of Christian and especially evangelical voters, and frankly a bit odd, considering the fact that the President sells his own brand, “God Bless the USA” Bibles, made in China, at a bargain price of $59.99 each). During this past month of inauguration, there have been some good news and unfortunately some bad news. I will save the good news for the last.

On the side of the bad and unfortunate news, we had

• the wildfires in Southern California, more specifically around Los Angeles, which killed 29 people and displaced more than 100,000 people. For what it’s worth, my heart goes to all those who have been affected by this devastating natural disaster, and I sincerely hope that they will receive, in a timely and effective way, the help and support they need at these difficult times. But fortunately for us, we now have a president that, with the help of other responsible politicians and his favorite news outlet, can quickly identify and attack the root causes of the problem:
  • California had grossly mismanaged its forests and water supplies; specifically, they had forgotten to rake the floors of the forests before going to bed the night before the fires, and they had chosen to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, which is only found in Northern California.
    The California governor had torn down four dams, more than anybody in the history of this country. “Because the Native Americans told him to do it, because it would save some salmon. Now look at this.” as Mr Jesse Watters of Fox News has discovered and reported.
  • “DEI is deadly,” which is now proven, because the leadership team at the Los Angeles Fire Department includes individuals that are not straight white males.
  • They did not use geoengineering like could seeding to bring rain down on the wildfires.
    Now, while the Congress, and more specifically Speaker Johnson is working on holding the state government accountable for all the above failures, by holding disaster relief funds until House democrats agree to removing the debt ceiling (which is somehow related to this issue?), fortunately, we have a president who takes matters into his own hands and fixes the problems. He ordered the Army to open the California’s water, which quickly put out all the fires. Oh, but wait! wasn’t that because the hurricane-force winds stopped blowing, and it started raining? and, by the way, the opened “California’s water” nearly flooded the areas that were still dealing with the aftermath of floods from a few years ago. And that “opening of waters” was without coordination with the state officials, to at least be able to help with preventing any potential damage it might cause.
• the freezing of all federal funds, grants, loans, through an OMD (Office of Management and Budget) memo, which resulted in quite a bit of chaos, especially since it resulted in Medicare portals to go down in most states. It was challenged by several lawsuits, blocked by one federal judge, rescinded, contradicted by the White House Press Secretary on social media, blocked again by another federal judge, and now we are eagerly waiting for the next exciting development on this matter. I am sorry about the dark humor here; I don’t mean to be insensitive to the discomfort or suffering that some are likely enduring as a result of this entire fiasco, especially those who had medical procedures or surgeries scheduled which have been affected by the freeze. But I am sure you agree that the whole thing sounds like a shxt show. In the midst of all this chaos, the following statement by the White House Press Secretary stands out:
  “DOGE and OMB also found that there was about to be 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza. That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money. So, that’s what this pause is focused on, being good stewards of tax dollars.”
  Aside from the fact that she provided no evidence for this claim (other than, notably, the Fox News article that quoted herself!), one wonders, how the United States got to the point where a White House Press Secretary feels the need to tell lies to justify her boss’s actions? Isn’t this because of the woke policies of the liberals throughout the years, teaching and encouraging people that, in addition to turning homosexual or signing up for sex change operations, to also not accept whatever the White House tells them, at its face value, like any good, obedient citizen would do? Why don’t American people lookup to the remarkable individuals in the incoming administration, most notably, the nominee for the FBI director, Mr Kash Patel, to learn how a loyal, obedient servant should behave?
• two tragic plane accidents in three days, which sadly resulted in the loss of tens of lives. My heart goes to all who have been affected by these very unfortunate events. To me, these accidents are just that, accidents. They could have happened at any time and under any administration. Unless there is evidence for malice or wrongdoing, pointing fingers at the current or former administrations as being responsible for them is flat out wrong. But, of course, why would our president miss this golden opportunity to further air grievances? After all, he has not touched the FAA since he has taken office, so the blame should obviously go elsewhere.

But now let’s look at the bright side:

• Mr. President and his beloved wife launched their own vastly popular and extremely successful meme coins, $TRUMP and $MELANIA. These are by no means Ponzi schemes similar to $HAWK, but rather excellent investment opportunities, especially for the President’s loyal supporters who can, at the same time, help the President raise money for various expenses that come with being a billionaire. If you haven’t already, don’t miss this golden investment opportunity.
• Mr. President successfully saved TikTok for the American people. Or rather, successfully created the appearance of him saving TikTok. This was a quite interesting and exciting turn of events, since the idea of banning TikTok because of its Chinese ownership, and the possibility of providing, to the Chinese government, unrestricted access to the users’ data, was initiated by the President himself, during his first term in office. The Republican-dominated Congress then picked it up and passed a law requiring TikTok to either shut down operation in the US, or divest its ownership. TikTok challenged the law, until it reached the Supreme Court, which upheld the law on Friday before the presidential inauguration. Despite the fact that Joe Biden had already announced that he was not going to enforce the law, possibly because the ban was set to start on a Sunday which was also the last day of his presidency, TikTok engaged in a deception scheme, by first shutting down its operation late Saturday, citing the ban and expressing hope that the incoming president will help them restore their service in the US. Then, the next day, it restored service and announced the following:
  “We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive. It’s a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship. We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States.“
  Kudos to TikTok’s CEO on willing to do whatever it takes to get on the good side of the President, and avoid any potential consequences of disloyalty.
• Mr. President helped most, if not all, big tech CEOs/founders to finally realize and appreciate the gravity of their past flaws and especially their liberal biases, and to go through a phase of enlightenment, as a result of which they all took pilgrimages to Mar-a-Logo to express their loyalty and obedience to the incoming president.
• As another result of the above enlightenment, same CEOs/founders “voluntarily” made $1M donations a pop, to the President’s inaugural fund.
• Amazon’s founder was so enlightened that, possibly to help expedite his redemption, struck a deal to pay Mr President’s beloved wife $40M to purchase the rights for a documentary on her life.
• Mr President successfully settled his lawsuit against the ABC network for $15M.
• Mr President successfully settled his lawsuit against facebook/Meta for $25M.
• Mr President is in the process of settlement negotiations with CBS for his lawsuit against them regarding the “60 Minutes” interview with the then presidential candidate Kamala Harris. The negotiations are very likely to be successful in favor of the President, since they enjoy support, e.g., from FCC, whose commissioner has requested Paramount (the parent company of CBS) to hand them the transcripts of that “60 Minutes” interview. Probably they needed those transcripts to verify that CBS’s use of the airwaves is not violating any potential laws or regulations, such as out-of-band emissions or maximum allowed transmit powers.

Now, before anyone jumps into premature conclusions, and tries to undermine the above monumental achievements, by casting doubts that whether some of these payments could be considered as some form of quid pro quo in which, e.g., the quid is related to the personal lawsuit, and the quo is related to the presidential powers of instructing regulatory agencies to go lenient on some of these companies, I should direct your attention to a Supreme Court ruling from last year, the case of “Snyder v. United States.”

In that opinion, the conservative super majority of the Supreme Court argue that while the law (Section 666 of Title 18) “prohibits state and local officials from accepting bribes that are promised or given before the official act“, “[t]he question in this case is whether §666 also makes it a crime for state and local officials to accept gratuities—for example, gift cards, lunches, plaques, books, framed photos, or the like—that may be given as a token of appreciation after the official act.”

They then conclude that the $13,000 check that Mayer Snyder had received from a trucking company after granting them two contracts for the purchase of 5 trash trucks for $1.1M, is just a gratuity and not a bribe, since it was paid after the official act. As such, that payment should not be considered as being illegal. A remarking aspect of that ruling is the concurring opinion of Justice Gorsuch that starts with “Call it what you will.“

Now, if you are wondering what the above case has to do with the payments I listed above, I should mention that the statute describes bribe as being in return for an official “act.” Whereas a promise and/or conduct of no retaliation or retribution is really not an “act,” but rather “absence of an act” or an “inact.” Therefore, if a case involving a payment for securing protection against retaliation or retribution is presented to the Supreme Court, a very likely ruling will be that, such payment is in return for an “inact,” and should not be considered a bribe. Let me know if you disagree with this assessment.