Donald Trump Cannot Federalize Election Law via Executive Order

Greetings and welcome into this milestone 50th performance of the Carnival of Fools! But is it a milestone, really? Must we be slaves to base ten around here? (As far as I’m concerned, the metric system was made solely for Euro-proles and chemists; I’ll exchange my feet for meters only when I exchange my freedom for communism.) And what means a mere 50 stagings of the Carnival of Fools in light of the world we live in, this eternally ongoing theater of the absurd? No, I’ll wait until the big 52 — a year of our lives gone by, wading through the political sump — for any deeper thoughts. Until then, it’s time for more grand entertainment.

Give Peace a Chance

As readers already know, major peace talks in the Ukrainian war are afoot, with Donald Trump first meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska at the end of last week, and then with Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington, D.C., on Monday. This time, Zelensky took the advice of a thousand pundits and at least one “sign guy” and chose to wear a suit to the Oval Office — no tie, a very Eastern European look — for his meet and greet with the president and the press. Things went far better than during his disastrous previous visit, with no major public glitches. (He also got a decent zinger in against the reporter who chastised him last time for his lack of formal attire: “You’re wearing the same suit. I changed — you did not.”)