By Jon Bauer / Herald Opinion Editor
Digging deep during a week of indignities, name changes and confirmations:
Gotta Boogie: During an Oval Office press briefing that included President Trump and Special Government Employee Elon Musk discussing Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency program, Musk brought along his 4-year old son, X Æ A-Xii — X for short — who during the boring parts, stuck his finger in his nose and then wiped the booger behind the Resolute Desk, next to Trump.
Yet, that wasn’t the disregard shown the desk that most upset Trump. That honor belongs to Musk, whom Time magazine pictured in a cover illustration, seated behind Resolute.
An ever-widening gulf: President Trump officially announced the name change of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America last Sunday as Air Force One flew over the body of water on his way to the Super Bowl. Trump also signed an executive order that marks Feb. 9 as National Gulf of America Day, calling on “public officials and all the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.”
Best to get your vacation requests in now and make flight and hotel reservations for resorts in Cancun, where you can loudly proclaim to waitstaff, pool attendants and hotel workers, “That there is the Gulf of America.”
“I didn’t get a harrumph out of that guy”: The White House says it will continue to bar journalists from its news conferences, in particular those with the Associated Press, who refuse to use the term Gulf of America for the body of water formerly known for hundreds of years as the Gulf of Mexico. The AP said it would continue to use “Gulf of Mexico” in its widely used Stylebook because its work is distributed around the world and the original name is more recognizable.
We get it; we’ve had a long-running beef with the Chicago Manual of Style over its refusal to end its use of the Oxford comma. Yet, we wonder about Trump’s insistence in using a name like America that, really, sounds kind of “Italian.”
Should we check the rest of Senate Republicans for brain worms? Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmental lawyer turned conspiracy theorist and vaccine critic, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and sworn in as secretary of Health and Human Services on Thursday. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., a survivor of polio, was the only Republican to vote against Kennedy’s bid. This as a delayed CDC report shows increased evidence of bird flu spreading to people.
As if on cue, that chorus of coughs, then light thuds you heard was from a nearby flock of pigeons.
Stop making cents: President Trump has ordered the U.S. Mint to stop making pennies, citing their production and distribution costs at 3.7 cents per penny as a cost-saving measure. The penny’s eventual demise would mean stores and retailers accepting cash would have to round prices up or down to the nearest nickel. The problem there is that nickels cost 13.8 cents to produce, according to the Treasury Department.
Hear me out: What if Trump just orders — because really, that’s all it takes any more — that pennies are now worth 10 cents, making pennies a bargain to make. Not only will this save the federal government money, it provides incentive for everyone to clean out car seats, couches and swear jars.
Where there’s always a boast and Bragg: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, seemingly scoring a blow against a woke military, announced that the Army’s Camp Liberty in North Carolina, which had been renamed in 2023 to remove the name of a Confederate general and slaveholder during the Civil War, would be re-renamed to Fort Bragg, except not for Gen. Braxton Bragg, but for a World War II paratrooper, Pfc. Roland Bragg, who earned a Purple Heart and Silver Star for his service during the Battle of the Bulge.
Good on Pfc. Bragg, but during the upcoming re-renaming ceremony, Hegseth will award himself the Distinguished Lip Service Medal for courageously standing against the forces of DEI by using a war hero’s memory to own the libs.
I have a flat white mocha for Braxton: Missouri’s attorney general is suing Starbucks over its diversity, equity and inclusion policies that have made the Seattle-based coffee giant’s workforce “more female and less white,” forcing customers, he alleges, “to pay higher prices and wait longer for goods and services.”
The AG, Andrew Bailey, didn’t explain how Starbucks’ hiring policies were affecting prices and service, but with the obvious conclusion that DEI is responsible for wildfires, aviation disasters and bridge collapses, then it follows that DEI is also responsible for having to wait for a pricey venti eight-pump oat milk, 12-scoop matcha, no foam, green tea latte, exactly 180 degrees. With a cup of ice.
Email Jon Bauer at jon.bauer@heraldnet.com. Follow him on BlueSky at @jontbauer.bsky.social.
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