Dave-Barry

...in which outgoing President Joe Biden, preparing to wander out of office, pardons pretty much everybody he has ever shaken hands with — Not that anybody did anything wrong! — thus clearing the decks for America’s new leadership team of President Donald Trump and Executive President Elon Musk.

Even before taking office Trump is working on big things, HUGE things, INCREDIBLE things, including a goal that has been shown, in poll after poll, to be the number one priority of the American public: purchasing Greenland. We need Greenland because it is a vital strategic resource that produces nearly 70 percent of the world’s supply of frostbite. Technically Greenland belongs to Denmark, which doesn’t want to sell it to us, but the harsh military reality is that the entire Danish army has fewer weapons than the entourage of a mid-tier American rap artist.

Trump also wants to take possession of the Panama Canal, which was built by Americans and therefore needs to be physically relocated to the United States; and to rename Mount Denali and the Gulf of Mexico, both of which were also built by Americans.

On January 20 Trump is sworn into office and — after unsuccessfully attempting to kiss his wife, Melania, who as a defensive measure is wearing the wide-brim style of hat popularized by both the Hamburglar and Zorro — he pardons pretty much everybody who was not pardoned by Biden, including the January 6 rioters Capitol tourists, among them the bare-chested, face-painted guy with the horned headpiece, who needs to be out of prison because he is our new ambassador to Great Britain.

In keeping with presidential tradition, Trump signs executive orders reversing all the Biden executive orders that reversed all the previous Trump executive orders that reversed all of Barack Obama’s executive orders that reversed all of George W. Bush’s executive orders that reversed all of Bill Clinton’s executive orders, and so on back to George Washington.

Meanwhile Elon Musk and an elite squadron of really smart 13-year-olds set about the task of making the federal government less wasteful by eliminating the root cause of inefficiency: employees. To accomplish this goal, the Musk team offers buyout agreements to all two million federal workers. The first person to accept is Melania. No, that’s a joke, obviously. She was third.

In other Washington news, the hearings for Trump’s cabinet nominees produce the greatest oratorical moment in the history of the U.S. Senate, if not the world, when Bernie Sanders, questioning Robert F. Kennedy Jr., points to photographs of two infant garments with anti-vaccination slogans and demands to know “ARE YOU SUPPORTIVE OF THESE ONESIES?”

If these words are not, some day, engraved on the front of a major federal building, we have to wonder why we even HAVE federal buildings.

...when President Trump threatens to slap tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada and China, all of which were originally built by Americans. Tariffs are taxes, so this would mean that the American consumer would pay more for these goods. To understand why this is a shrewd business tactic, consider an analogy: You’re in a dispute with your neighbor, Bob. So you go to Bob’s house and ring his doorbell. When he opens the door, you turn around and punch the American consumer in the face. Take that, Bob!

Meanwhile, as Elon and the Musketeers continue whacking away at the federal government, the Washington Post publishes a front-page story that begins: “A 19-year-old acolyte of Elon Musk known online as ‘Big Balls’ has taken on new roles as a senior adviser at the State Department and at the Department of Homeland Security....”

This is followed by several days of cable-TV news coverage featuring platoons of Serious Commentators, frowning to indicate the magnitude of their concern, talking about: Big Balls. They are obsessed with Big Balls. They cannot get enough of Big Balls. The only thing that could have made this episode more magical would have been if there had been a Senate hearing in which Bernie Sanders demanded to know if Big Balls was supportive of the onesies.

Speaking of the Democrats: Recognizing that their main message in 2024 — that anybody who would vote for Donald Trump is a racist idiot — failed badly, the Democrats have decided to win voters back with a more positive message, namely, that they are positive that anybody who would vote for Donald Trump is a racist idiot. This is the kind of tactical shrewdness that makes the Democratic Party such a formidable foe of the Democratic Party.

In yet another alarming aviation mishap, a Delta regional jet attempting to land in Toronto flips over and slides down the runway upside-down, coming to a stop only inches from a waiting clot of personal-injury attorneys. A spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration, seeking to reassure the public, notes that “many flights are still landing right-side up.”

…the Trump administration ramps up the trade war against Canada and Mexico, which used to be friendly neighboring nations where vacationing Americans went to shoot moose and throw up on the beaches respectively, but which now apparently are our arch-enemies. We’re also in a feud with Europe, because for decades we’ve been spending billions of dollars protecting Europe from the Russians while the Europeans were lounging around cafes without leaving tips.

Our new foreign policy is: Protect your own selves, Europeans! We’re not going to fight the Russians for you! In fact now we LIKE the Russians! We’re chatting on the phone with them right now about how much of Ukraine they can keep!

At least that appears to be our foreign policy at the moment. There’s a lot of confusion about exactly what our strategy is: Either we’re playing four-dimensional chess, or somebody’s slipping Ecstasy into the White House Diet Coke supply. Either way it’s exciting!

In domestic news, President Trump marks his sixth week in office by giving a speech to Congress lasting for much of the seventh week, the gist of which is that he is, in all modesty, doing a better Job than all the other presidents combined plus Jesus Christ. This message does not go unchallenged by the Democratic members of Congress, who, in a bold display of Resistance reminiscent of the civil-rights marches of the Sixties, take courageous high-impact action in the form of...

Holding up little paddles.

Really. That’s the protest they came up with. They also considered wearing their underpants on their heads, but decided that wouldn’t look ridiculous enough.

Speaking of ridiculous: A group of high-level Trump administration officials, including Secretary of Defense War Pete Hegseth, hold a group chat on the Signal app to discuss a sensitive military operation against the Houthis and somehow — this actually happened — include the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg. Despite widespread criticism of this blunder, the administration insists that it was no big deal, and that it’s pure coincidence that shortly after the chat, U.S. military drones destroyed the offices of the New Yorker.

On a happier note, two astronauts finally return to Earth after being stranded aboard the International Space Station for nine months. They say they’re “happy to be home,” but add “that’s the last time we’re booking on Spirit.”

…a Blue Origin rocket blasts off from west Texas, carrying a historic six-woman celebrity crew on a historic mission that lasts for nearly 11 historic minutes, including nearly three historic minutes in actual space, before setting them safely down in… west Texas. Not only does this mission result in a breakthrough scientific discovery — namely, that space is located directly above west Texas — but it also serves as an inspiration to every little girl who has ever looked up at the heavens and dreamed that some day, somehow, she would grow up and become engaged to Jeff Bezos.

Speaking of things going up and down: the stock market is bouncing around like a kangaroo on meth as the financial community, along with the rest of the world, frantically tries to understand President Trump’s tariff strategy, which changes almost hourly as he responds, as a shrewd negotiator, to random neural firings in his brain. Now he’s raising tariffs! Now he’s lowering tariffs! Now he’s raising tariffs again, but only for countries with predominantly blue flags and large yak populations!

As the public sees TariffPalooza disrupting the economy, Trump’s poll numbers begin to slide, presenting the Democrats with a golden opportunity to take advantage of Trump’s vulnerability by offering Americans the one thing that they crave most in these uncertain economic times: a really long speech.

This bold stroke is executed by New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who sets a U.S. Senate record by speaking for more than 25 hours without peeing, forever transforming the lives of the estimated three interns who were listening.

...when the Washington press corps is rocked by the revelations in “Original Sin,” a bombshell new book by veteran journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, which reveals the shocking revelation that during his presidency, Joe Biden was suffering from dementia, but this was covered up so effectively that nobody noticed it except for everyone on the planet who is not a member of the Washington press corps.

The question now is: If Biden was incapacitated, who was actually running the government? We can rest assured that we will soon have an answer, now that the Washington press corps has been alerted.

Meanwhile President Trump takes a break from changing his mind about tariffs to receive the gift of a luxury jet plane from Qatar, a generous nation that expects nothing in return. “Just treat us exactly the same way as you would anybody else who gave you a $400 million gift,” is the selfless attitude of the Qataris.

Also definitely not expecting any special favors are the 200 people who spend an average of more than a million dollars each on Trump’s cryptocurrency meme coin — which is named (really) “$TRUMP” — so they can attend a dinner with the president at the Trump National Golf Club. This is totally ethical. In fact having a personal cryptocurrency has been a U.S. presidential tradition dating all the way back to the Abraham Lin¢oin. (See the Lincoln Penny)!

Speaking of Lincoln: On Memorial Day, a somber occasion when America honors its war dead, Trump posts a social-media message strongly reminiscent of the Gettysburg Address in its dignity and thoughtful eloquence. It begins (really): “HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL, INCLUDING THE SCUM THAT SPENT THE LAST FOUR YEARS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY THROUGH WARPED RADICAL LEFT MINDS...”

...and so on for 109 thoughtful capitalized words, not one of which mentions our nation’s war dead, but you only have so much space on social media.

Meanwhile the Democrats, according to the New York Times, are spending $20 million on a research project code-named SAM, which stands for “Speaking with American Men: A Strategic Plan,” intended to figure out how the party can appeal to young men. So far the researchers have come up with a campaign based on the slogan: “The Democratic Party will hit a touchdown out of the ballpark for America! Because, like young males, we enjoy athletic sports games!” The Democrats plan to workshop this slogan with actual young males, once the researchers find out where they live.

In transportation news, Newark’s Liberty International Airport (motto: “Our Motto Has Been Canceled”) is plagued by flight disruptions after staffing problems reduce the number of available air-traffic controllers to one, Marty Fleegleman, who is unable to leave his post and has been peeing into a Gatorade bottle since Christmas. A spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration says “there is no reason for airline passengers to be concerned” and reminds pilots planning to land in Newark to “buzz the tower first in case Marty has dozed off.”

In a historic action, the College of Cardinals chooses the first U.S.-born pope, Robert Francis Prevost. The new pontiff, whose official name is Pope Bob I, pledges to reinvigorate the College of Cardinals football program, which last season had zero wins and 12 losses, including a 63-0 shellacking by the Sisters of Mercy.

Speaking of shellackings, in...see next month, next month.

...seven American B-2 stealth bombers, operating under conditions of strictest secrecy, take off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and, in a surprise attack that shocks the world, drop 14 massive “bunker buster bombs,” each weighing 30,000 pounds, on the headquarters of the personal-injury law firm Morgan and Morgan.

No, sorry, wishful thinking. In fact the bombs are dropped on Iran, which the Trump administration claims is trying to build nuclear weapons, although Iran insists that it is enriching uranium for, quote, “peaceful purposes such as agriculture.”

The bombing mission is called “Operation Midnight Hammer,” a name that was chosen over these candidates:

-- “Operation Big Stomping Boot of Consequences.”

-- “Operation FAFO.”

-- “Operation You Talkin’ To ME?”

-- “Operation We Have Come To Chew Bubblegum And Destroy Your Nuclear Facilities, And We Are All Out Of Bubblegum.”

-- “Operation Enrich THIS, Motherf****rs.”

Trump claims that the strike “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, but Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a brief public appearance that is cut short when an Israeli drone flies out of his turban, downplays the damage and warns that Iran’s nuclear program will soon be restored, and it will be “more peaceful than ever.”

In another controversial military operation, Trump sends National Guard troops to Los Angeles to quell civil unrest, but by the time the troops are able to reach the scene, after spending 14 hours gridlocked on the 101 freeway, the unrest has pretty much quelled itself. Basically Iran is a more mission-friendly environment.

In politics, New York City Democratic primary voters pick, as their mayoral candidate and almost-certain future mayor, Zohran Mamdani, an attractive and hip young social-media-savvy fellow with an exciting new idea for governing that has never before been proposed and appears to have no downside: giving away free stuff. Among his novel ideas is to have the city operate grocery stores, which would no doubt provide New York food shoppers with a consumer experience every bit as pleasant as the one they currently enjoy in the city’s legendarily reliable, safe and hygienic subway system.

...a heated debate rages in Washington over the budget bill, as two competing ideologies clash over the nation’s financial future:

— One side believes that the federal government, for a variety of reasons, must continue to spend way more money than it actually has;

— Whereas the other side believes that the federal government, for somewhat differentreasons, must continue to spend way more money than it actually has.

It comes down to the wire, but after many hours of passionate debate Congress passes, and President Trump signs, a bill under which the federal government will continue to spend way more money than it actually has. Both sides congratulate themselves, secure in the knowledge that they will be comfortably retired or dead when the massive ticking debt bomb they have helped create explodes all over whatever future generations are stupid enough to not have been born earlier.

With that pesky chore out of the way, Washington resumes being fixated on what Washington has clearly decided is the most important issue facing the nation: Jeffrey Epstein. He is the financier/dirtbag who died in 2019 in a New York City jail cell in what the Medical Examiner’s Office ruled was a suicide, although many people are skeptical, largely because immediately after the word “suicide” on the death certificate are the words “wink wink.” Wow, I made the news! JR

The federal government allegedly has a massive trove of Epstein-related documents that allegedly either do or do not implicate many alleged individuals, including, allegedly, Donald Trump, who at one time said he was in favor of releasing the documents but is now saying we should forget about them and just move on, thereby guaranteeing that this is the only thing Washington can think about. If a Chinese nuclear submarine surfaced in the Houston Ship Channel, Washington’s main concern would be how it would affect the release of the Epstein files.

In business news, an incident at a Coldplay concert serves as a reminder to corporate executives of the number one rule of career success: Stay off the Kiss Cam.

Speaking of scandals, at the end of the month Eagle Jeans releases an ad featuring actress Sydney Sweeney, who makes a play on words involving “jeans” and “genes.” Naturally, this being 2025, some leading thinkers conclude that the ad is LITERALLY NAZI PROPAGANDA. The professional opinion-having classes spew out thousands of words about this controversy, as Sydney Sweeney and her jeans get sucked into the vast swirling cyclone of crazy that constitutes American political discourse, which is why the overwhelming majority of Americans want nothing to do with it.