No week goes by in Washington without another display of Trumpism, i.e. the expressed desire by the president to turn our constitutional republic into an expression of Trump-world that honors and glorifies, as he put it recently, “me.” Trumpean conceit has included his Tr(i)ump(hal) Arch in Arlington, his bid to rename the Kennedy Center, his takeover of the Institute of Peace, his seizure of the District of Colombia’s public golf courses, and a declaration two weeks ago that he continues to consider awarding himself a Congressional Medal of Honor. How a draft dodger comes up with that proposal remains a mystery as one does have to serve in the armed forces of the United States of America to qualify.
Last week encompassed two bizarre demonstrations of how Donald Trump can turn the ordinary functions of government into mechanisms to glorify himself. First up was the disaster of the Lincoln Monument reflecting pool where the president hired a political crony illegally without a competitive bid to drain and then repaint and resurface the waterway to suit his color choice of USA-blue. The job predictably turned out badly and way over the cost estimate and it was soon discovered that paint was peeling and floating to the surface, together with leakage of the treatment used to seal the work done, and blooms of algae. The result was so toxic that ducks who landed on the water’s surface have died! Trump, who had said that the new finish was so tough that it could not be cut by a knife, immediately targeted blade-wielding vandals who turned out to be nonexistent. What was “existent” was photos of Trump in his heavily overweight armored official limousine accompanied by other similar vehicles in convoy driving through the pool before the new surface covering the unfilled pool was allowed to dry, leading to the reasonable assumption that it was the president and his brain dead friends that had actually caused the damage.
Read Full Article: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/06/phil-giraldi/are-there-really-iran-us-peace-talks/
