So... is everyone ready to pay more for everything? Because that's why America elected Donald Trump president, right?

On Wednesday, Trump will be announcing sweeping tariffs on the entire rest of the world. As he likes to put it, "tariff" is his new favorite word in the dictionary. But consumers are likely to call it what it will actually be, to them: a tax. A big fat "Trump Tax" on all sorts of things consumers buy. Which will likely drive up inflation, and which will definitely hit consumers hard in the pocketbook.

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In keeping with the "world turned upside-down" nature of this week, we are going to start with a few things that haven't been front-and-center, then we'll circle in to a bigger-picture take, and finally we'll fit in the big story of the week at the end.

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House Republicans seem to be getting worried. Their historically-thin majority isn't in jeopardy quite yet, but the political trends aren't exactly going in their direction. Which led to a surprise announcement from the White House that the nomination of Representative Elise Stefanik to be the ambassador to the United Nations was being pulled. Stefanik had already delayed going through the Senate confirmation process, since her vote was needed on budget bills. But now she won't be confirmed at all, as Republicans worry about holding on to their majority.

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Without a doubt, we now live in Orwellian times. Anyone who runs afoul of the Dear Leader must be punished. The truth is whatever the Dear Leader says (even when he contradicts something he earlier said). We don't have a Ministry of Truth (yet), but we do have Truth Social. We have always been at war with Canada, and Russia has always been our friend, right? The past is being rewritten, erasing any mention of the trans people who were instrumental in leading the Stonewall Riots, and any mention of why pioneers like Jackie Robinson weren't considered just some random baseball star. Maybe Rosa Parks will be next: "She was just some woman on a bus... not really sure why some woman on a bus is historic, but everyone remembers her name for some reason...." In all this Orwellian flood, though, the one that stands out for me is the up-is-down nature of the richest man in the world absolutely destroying major government departments in the name of "government efficiency." That one really takes the Orwellian cake, as it were.

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President Elon Musk and his figurehead Donald Trump inched closer to a constitutional crisis (once again) last week. It still hasn't been fully resolved, so we've all got more of this to look forward to next week as well.

Trump invoked a law from the 1700s this week which would allow him personally to determine who gets deported. No due process, no hearing before a judge -- none of that. Just Trump deciding: "I don't like this guy, let's kick him out." The Alien Enemies Act is only supposed to apply when the United States is at war with another nation, and has only been used three times -- the most recent being the shameful internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. But as far as Trump is concerned, it doesn't matter than we aren't at war, he just doesn't want to deal with the courts at all.

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is in the Democratic doghouse right now, after he (and a few other Democrats) recently voted with the Republicans to keep the government open, rather than forcing a shutdown which would have allowed Elon Musk to shift his efforts to eliminate the federal government into warp speed. It was a real "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for Schumer, but his performance and leadership have been heavily criticized (and denounced) by other Democrats ever since. Which isn't a good place for the highest-ranking Democrat in the entire federal government to now be. So should Schumer stay in his Senate leadership position, or should he go?

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Happy St. Patrick's Day to all!

First, let's just quickly check the weather report from the Emerald Isle, shall we?

(Heh.)

But surprisingly enough, the country that caught my eye this particular Paddy's Day wasn't Ye Ould Sod, but instead our neighbor to the north. And it wasn't the fine stout product from Sir Arthur Guinness that intrigued my beer-loving sensibilities this year, but instead... Moosehead?

That's right. Moosehead beer (lager, actually, if you want to be pedantic). From Canada.

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As is now the new normal, there were so many things happening in the political world this week it is hard to keep track of them all. But what is currently in the center ring is the vote happening in the Senate on the continuing resolution to fund the government for the rest of this fiscal year.

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Senate Democrats are currently trapped between a rock and a hard place. They face a lose-lose situation, so it's no wonder they haven't figured out a viable path forward yet. Anything they do, at this point, is going to disappoint the voters in their base in one way or another (which is really just the natural result of being in the minority in both houses of Congress and not holding the Oval Office).

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Program Note: Today is the final day I was too preoccupied with real-life stuff to write a new column (new columns will resume tomorrow), so I conclude my little look back at the COVID pandemic with a much later article than the last two. I wrote this before we were all completely out of the woods (pandemic-wise), mostly because I was exasperated with the silliness of the baby boomers dictating to all following generations: "You shall be known by a single letter" (which wasn't true at the time, for most of us), and also with the silliness of merely drawing an arbitrary line on a calendar and declaring "This generation will end at this year, and the next generation shall begin here!" To me, a "generation" implies a shared event or a shared perspective that is outwardly defined (such as the post-World War II baby boom), and not by an arbitrary division of years.

In any case, the term still hasn't caught on (at least, that I am aware of), so maybe I'm still just trying to (pun intended) make it "go viral." So here is my rare foray into sociology (or whatever you want to call it), just in the hopes that people start using it one day.

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