By Jon Bauer / Herald Opinion Editor
If the news would stop for a minute, maybe we could catch up and laugh. Among this week’s punchlines:
What do you have in big and blocky? Elon Musk, in an interview to be broadcast on CBS’s “Sunday Morning,” says he’s disappointed in the President Trump-supported “big, beautiful bill” because it will add to the budget deficit. “I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful,” Musk said in the interview. “But I don’t know if it can be both.”
Which is the same choice offered to Tesla customers.
Why is there a gold crown sitting on a pillow over there? Several companies that trade in gold coins and gold investment accounts are playing up — with the help of right-wing podcasters and pundits — a simmering conspiracy theory that gold may be missing from the Federal Reserves’ heavily guarded cache at Fort Knox, warning that if the allegation is true it could trigger a financial crisis for which they have the perfect investment; gold itself. President Trump has prodded speculation himself and has promised to visit Fort Knox to reveal the truth, even though there are annual audits and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has insisted that “All the gold is there.” However, after making the pledge to visit the gold in February, Trump has yet to schedule a visit.
At least, a visit we’ve been told of. There’s been an awful lot of gilding of picture frames, eagle reliefs, urns, trophies, cornices and crown moldings in Trump’s Oval Office of late.
Hey kids; who’s up for a swim in the sewage-contaminated creek? Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the CDC was no longer recommending the covid vaccine for healthy pregnant women and children, a move that bypasses the past practice of hearings and vaccine recommendations by an independent CDC vaccine advisory panel before making such a decision. Kennedy’s ruling means that insurance companies won’t be required to provide the vaccines without charge to pregnant women and children. Previously the CDC had recommended that everyone get the vaccine or a booster once a year. “We’re now one step closer to realizing President Trump’s promise to ‘Make America Healthy Again,’” Kennedy said.
Rather than vaccines, perhaps Kennedy wants to reconsider Trump’s 2020 covid news conference musing about using “very powerful light” or a “disinfectant … by injection inside or almost a cleaning.” (Disclaimer: The Buzz’s attorneys — Sioux, Settal & Billem — have asked us to publish the following disclaimer: Do not inject bleach into your or anyone else’s body. Do not attempt to shine a very powerful light inside the body; by any orifice. Do not accept a dinner invitation from RFK Jr. Do not take medical advice from RFK Jr., President Trump or any Trump administration official. Do not attempt elaborate musical dance numbers to the Jardiance jingle. If your erection lasts longer than four hours, you’ve taken the wrong medication.)
That’ll teach you not to eat anything other than a Big Mac and fries: Again, breaking with past practice, the Food and Drug Administration did not not publicize the findings of an investigation in February after an E. coli outbreak linked to romaine lettuce killed one person and sickened nearly 90 people in 15 states last fall. At the time the Trump administration decided not to release the names of the grower and processor because no contaminated product remained on the market. The Trump administration also has withdrawn a proposed regulation meant to reduce the presence of salmonella in raw poultry that was expected to prevent more than 3,000 illnesses each year.
Any more steps closer to realizing Trump’s promise to “Make America Healthy Again” and we’ll have this Social Security solvency problem solved in no time.
The other, other white meat: Kennedy and Mehmet Oz, who oversees Medicaid and Medicare for the Trump administration, are objecting to Canadian health officials’ plans to cull a “wobble” of ostriches at a farm in British Columbia, following of an outbreak of H5N1 bird flu. “We believe significant scientific knowledge may be garnered from following the ostriches in a controlled environment,” Mr. Kennedy said in a letter to the country’s food inspection agency.
We’d be more convinced of his scientific interest in the flightless birds, if Kennedy wasn’t already following the ostriches with a butcher knife in hand, waiting for one to drop dead.
It was, after all, TACO Tuesday: Stock markets jumped on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 rising more than 2 percent, following the news that President Trump had suspended a 50 percent tariff against imports from European Union countries until July 9, just days after threatening to levy the significant tax on imports beginning June 1. This and other instances where markets have rebounded after Trump backed off earlier sky-high tariff threats has earned the phenomena the term TACO trade for “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
Bad news for the Trump trade team; the European Union trade negotiators have offered to buy lunch for upcoming talks by calling in DoorDash orders from Taco Time.
How much does your mother love you? A former nursing home executive, who had pleaded guilty to tax crimes — including using employees’ Social Security deductions for a $2 million yacht — following the 2024 election, was pardoned by President Trump last month, sparing him from an 18-month sentence and paying restitution of $4.4 million. Paul Walczcak’s pardon petition, which noted his past fundraising for President Trump and other Republicans, got no response; until his mother, Elizabeth Fago, attended a $1 million-a-plate fundraising dinner last month that offered face-to-face access to Trump.
On the menu for the dinner that night were TAPAS, Trump Always Pardons for A Simoleon.
Just couldn’t stick the landing: Mary Lou Retton, who became the first U.S. woman gymnast to win all-around Olympic gold in Los Angeles in 1984, was arrested this month for driving under the influence of “alcohol, controlled substances or drugs,” and was released after posting a $1,500 bond in a West Virginia county court.
Rather than walk a straight line during her field sobriety test by police, Retton performed her balance beam routine on top of the patrol car, but was arrested after receiving scores below 8.5 for execution and difficulty.
Email Jon Bauer at jon.bauer@heraldnet.com. Follow him on BlueSky @jontbauer.bsky.social.
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