Schwab: Sure, the SOTU address was a mess, but what else is new
Published 1:30 am Friday, February 27, 2026
By Sid Schwab / Herald Columnist
A minute in, when Donald Trump flat-out lied about the economy he inherited and Republicans gave him a standing ovation, I turned off the SOTU. Everything to follow was predictable and sad (NBC News: tinyurl.com/mostlylies). I returned to making a list of recent events. So many topics, too many to ignore or do justice. So here’s a compendium, in shorthand:
• As if we need more evidence of Trump’s unending desire for fawning adulation, or that, with AG Pam Bondi’s slavish obeisance, he’s turned the Department of inJustice into a vengeance vehicle, there’s that Soviet-style, North Korea-emulating visage hanging from DOJ headquarters (HuffPost: tinyurl.com/hisface4u). Pre-Trump, Americans found such submissive, cultish idolatry abhorrent.
• The Supreme Court’s rejection of most of Trump’s unconstitutional wielding of tariffs like a child wields a toy light-saber ought to have been 9-0. Three so-called originalists dissented, ignoring clear, parchmentalized language. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, by acclamation the least intelligent of the nonet, based his dissent on adverse consequences of returning the ill-gotten money. Which is like arguing criminals shouldn’t be punished if it would make their families sad.
• Classic Trump: after the verdict, he’s relentlessly attacked “the f***ing courts” (his words), calling the justices, including two of his appointees, traitors. What he should have said, is “the f***ing Constitution.” Because that’s how he sees it (New Republic: tinyurl.com/2badwords4u).
• Lee Zeldin, head of the Environmental Destruction (sorry: “Protection”) Agency, proudly announced: “We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more.” Unpacking the Trumped-up mendacity and dangerous stupidity would eat up the rest of this column.
• As Trump hypes his Epstein-distracting warlette on Iran, recall his words after his prior dog-wagging mission: Iran’s nuclear capability had been “completely and totally obliterated,” debunked within days. The lie is reconfirmed by his current demand that they end their nuclear program (YouTube: tinyurl.com/2obliterate).
• Expecting airports to be named after him, Trump has applied for trademarks for gift-shop junk bearing his name, “including clothing, handbags, luggage, jewelry, watches and tie clips.” GOTUS. It’s pathological (Heather Cox Richardson: tinyurl.com/2buyhiscrap).
• Ignoring the First Amendment, Pentagon Pete Hegseth holds prayer meetings there. His latest was led by a Christian nationalist who favors submissive, non-voting women and finds slavery not so bad. They’ll produce fine soldiers (Washington Post gift article: wapo.st/3MXDU2G).
• Sending an unrequested and unnecessary hospital ship to Greenland? The ridiculousness is self-evident (National Post: tinyurl.com/bullship4u). But he may have hallucinated it (New Republic: tinyurl.com/noshipmaybe). The man is unwell.
• Because they make voting more universally accessible, MAGA hates mail-in ballots, which we’ve had here, scandal-free, for decades. Because it’s what he does, Trump lied again about them, including claiming the U.S. is the only country that allows voting that way (New Republic: tinyurl.com/2mail4u).
• Like his tariff usurpation, Trump’s desire to nationalize elections is unconstitutional. Does SCOTUS have a two-fer in them? He lies daily about non-existent election rigging by Democrats while planning to do just that, including sending ICE agents to polling places. Not to arrest people voting illegally, which doesn’t happen, but because many non-white, legal voters, fearing the harassment and detention for days and weeks we’ve seen, might stay away.
• A former ICE instructor testified that ICE drastically cut required training and lied to Congress about it. Given the intentional brutality and lawlessness we see from them, it would be surprising if it were otherwise (Washington Post: tinyurl.com/notrain4u).
• Kash Patel, the FBI’s most unqualified director ever, who loves using his position for personal pleasure, shared the U.S. men’s hockey victory by guzzling beer with them on live TV, like a frat boy. J. Edgar Hoover, he’s not. A Hegseth-Bondi-Pirro-level embarrassment, he is, confirming, once more, that Trump chooses people for compliance, not competence.
• If it turns out Trump’s personal law firm, dba Bondi’s DOJ, withheld parts of the Epstein files that explicitly accuse him of sexual abuse and rape, would it surprise you? (Daily Beast: tinyurl.com/hiddenfromu)
• Decades ago, senators on both sides were honorable, intelligent and committed to legislating for the common good. Though there’s plenty of competition, no one better represents the level of stupidity and uselessness to which the Republican Party’s choices have descended than Utah’s Sen. Mike Lee (Daily Beast: tinyurl.com/2dum4school)
• After a lifetime of scams, grifts and ripoffs, Trump’s brazenly corrupt “Board of Peace” tops them all (MS NOW: tinyurl.com/boredofpeas). In part consisting of dictators and murderers, each of whom reportedly contributed a billion dollars for a piece of the action, it’s announced-by-Jared-Kushner mission is to turn Gaza into an investment opportunity for oligarchs (NPR: tinyurl.com/2gaza4u), who’ll be protected by a huge military base (MSN: tinyurl.com/base4u). Trump will be the board’s president for life, in control of the money, including $ 10 billion in taxpayer funds he’s committed, unilaterally, to it. For what purpose, other than enriching himself on other people’s dime? More tie clips? He gets away with such outrageous self-dealing by “virtue” of Republican silence and the manufactured devotion of gratefully suckered MAGAs. The importance of the November election he’s trying so hard to scuttle can’t be overstated.
End of partial list. Thank you for your attention to these matters.
Email Sid Schwab at columnsid@gmail.com.
