The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Trump’s tariffs are unconstitutional.  Just hours after the ruling was released, Trump had to let it be known that it was a dumb ruling and that the Supreme Court was doing great harm to his economic agenda.

Trump declared that he would be enacting a 10% global tariff using a different law that would only last 150 days.  A day later, Trump said it would be 15%, continuing the chaos from his earlier tariff decrees.  And maybe Trump will just try to extend the tariffs again after the 150 days is up.

This is reminiscent of the Biden era not that long ago.  Biden and his handlers threw all of these unconstitutional decrees at the wall to see what would stick.  Tell 100 million people that they have to get an injection or they aren’t allowed to work.  The Supreme Court strikes most of it down.  “Oh well, back to the drawing board.”

Biden and his handlers declare that student loans would be forgiven.  These things are just done out of thin air with no legitimacy other than it is the president saying so.  The Supreme Court strikes it down.  “Oh well, let’s try a different way to get rid of student loans.”

A Lack of Consequences

That is a big problem with our system.  There are seemingly no consequences for the people imposing these dictatorial orders.

Biden should have been impeached for his injection mandates that he tried.  He should have been impeached for a lot of things.

Trump should be impeached for bombing 7 countries on his own without any Congressional oversight.  He should be impeached for imposing his tariffs that have caused mass chaos in the business world.
The Constitution is quite clear.  Article 1, Section 8 states, “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States”.

Tariffs are taxes on imported goods.  Only Congress has the power to enact legislation to impose tariffs.

Trump’s Picks

In the 6-3 ruling, there were two justices who voted in the majority who were appointed by Trump.  They were Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch.  In Trumpian fashion, Trump was very critical of them.

Now Trump can blame Gorsuch and Barrett for the economy when things don’t go his way.  Just like he will also blame Mr. “Too Late” Powell at the Fed.

Does Trump have any self-realization that he nominated all of these people?

Of course, Gorsuch and Barrett got this one right, and Gorsuch’s opinion was right on.  But Trump doesn’t argue with the facts and the arguments.  He just makes baseless claims and calls names.

But even if Trump’s criticism is valid of Gorsuch, Barrett, and Jerome Powell, at what point does he blame himself?  Trump will never blame himself, but even an outsider who doesn’t dive deep into these topics should at least question Trump’s judgment in character.  Why is he going hard after the people that he nominated?

The Disappointments

This should have been a 9-0 ruling by the court.  The three dissenting justices were all Republican appointees: Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh.

Kavanaugh was also appointed by Trump.  He has never been a strong proponent of liberty or constitutionalism.

I have long thought that Thomas is the best justice on the court.  I would have put Alito tied for second with Gorsuch.

I don’t have much respect for these people in the first place, but any respect I had for them is way down now.  To me, this is a major stain on the legacy of Clarence Thomas.  It is inexcusable to rule that these arbitrary tariffs are somehow legal.  It is actually absurd.  It is obviously partisan.

Gorsuch rises a bit in my eyes.  But I never put too much faith in any politician or elected official.

Tariffs and the Economy Ahead

This whole sage is far from over.  Trump will see what he can get away with.  When the economy goes south, he will blame it on the Fed and the Supreme Court.

The Fed is somewhat to blame, but not for the reasons that Trump says.  Trump wants lower interest rates and looser monetary policy.  That was what created the problem in the first place.

If Trump is prevented from enacting tariffs, this will make it so that there is less damage done to the economy.  It won’t save the economy, but it will stop it from being even worse.

There will be debate and discussion about the tariffs that were already collected.  Will they need to be refunded?  How would they be refunded?

Trump will blame this mess on the court, but it is Trump who created this mess.  We didn’t need this chaos.  He used tariffs as a means to bully other countries, even though it is the American people who suffer the greatest.

It seems we haven’t had “normal” times in quite a while.  A lot of Americans wish we could return to the Obama era, not because Obama was a good president, but just because there seemed to be a lot less controversy.

Some of it is the media blowing things up because they hate Trump.  But it’s not all in our imagination either.  The first Trump presidency was filled with chaos, but much of it was enabled by the establishment media making up stories about Russia and other things.

In 2020, that’s when things really blew up.  We got the COVID hysteria and the lockdowns, followed shortly by the vaccines.  We also got the protests and riots in major cities across the U.S. after the death of George Floyd in May 2020.

Then we had the actual election in November and all of the controversy with it.  Then we had January 6, 2021, where we still don’t know the extent of federal agents on the ground encouraging some of the events that day.

We suffered through 4 years of a Biden presidency where Biden was a puppet of the Democratic establishment.  He gave us vaccine mandates, which threatened about 100 million Americans by telling them they weren’t allowed to work if they didn’t take an injection in their arm.  We also had all of the other COVID insanity such as mask mandates and vaccine mandates for non-residents entering the country.

We got hit with high consumer price inflation in 2022, and there is a lot of blame to go around for that.  We also got the Russian invasion of Ukraine because the Biden people refused to talk in a civilized way with the Russians and assure them some security.

All this time, it was evident that Biden had some kind of dementia while his handlers and the media assured as that he was sharp as a tack.

Trump 2

There were reasons for cautious optimism in 2024 leading up to the election.  Trump was surrounding himself more often with seemingly decent people like Vivek Ramaswamy, Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr., and Tucker Carlson.  Even his pick for VP was a little out of the ordinary, as Vance was not a conventional Republican establishment war hawk.

When Trump became president, things actually looked a little promising for liberty lovers.  He pardoned the J6 people.  He pardoned Ross Ulbricht.  He allowed Elon and DOGE to start uncovering massive waste and corruption.

And within a couple of months of being in office, it all went downhill quickly.  Trump now seems to be best friends with Lindsey Graham, and he seems to take his orders from Netanyahu.  Trump bombed 7 countries in his first year back in office, including kidnapping the president of Venezuela and his wife.  He is threatening a major war with Iran now.

Trump has been a total disaster for liberty in almost every way in his second term.  It is at the point where it is hard to make the claim that “at least it’s not Kamala Harris”.

Trump has become such a loose cannon and narcissist that we don’t know what he is going to do on any given day.  We can only imagine what he will do if the economy goes into a depression.

Returning to the Basics

As long as we don’t get nuclear war, then life should go on for most people.  It is wise to not make any rash decisions, especially when things are emotionally charged.

It is tempting to think things will completely blow up, which can lead to bad decision making.

We probably won’t get hyperinflation.  We probably won’t see a complete default on U.S. government debt.  We probably won’t get martial law.  We probably won’t get concentration camps other than what ICE is doing.

I think back over 25 years ago.  I heard rumors during the Clinton administration of government officials wanting to confiscate 401k accounts.

The best bet is to count on some continuity.  We have lived in an inflationary world for a long time, so you can count on that continuing.  It might get worse because of the debt and spending, but it doesn’t mean we will get hyperinflation.

You probably won’t get your student loans forgiven.  The debt will become less in real terms because of inflation, but you will still owe the money.  That goes for every other debt too.

Your best bet is to stick with the basics.  Have a well-diversified portfolio of stocks, bonds, gold, and cash in the bank.  Stay out of debt.  It is still a good idea to pay off your mortgage if you can, especially if the interest rate is anything above 4% or so.

If you are working, do a good job and continue to gain skills and show your worth.  Your job probably won’t be replaced by AI anytime soon.

Your number one threat for retirement, financially speaking, is inflation.  It is probably your number one threat at any time, other than a job loss.  Inflation makes it hard to plan for the future.  It makes it hard for individuals and businesses.

Stick to the fundamentals.  Pay attention to what is happening in the world, but don’t let it drive you crazy, and don’t get too emotional over it.  People tend to make bad decisions when they are driven by too much emotion.

The latest CPI report came out showing that the annual CPI now stands at 2.4%.  This was a little lower than expected.  It is still not at the Fed’s supposed 2% target.

Even though we will hear that inflation is going down, prices are still going up.  The rate at which prices are going up is going down.

In other words, things are still 2.4% more expensive than they were a year ago.  This is an added 2.4% to the already-higher prices from last year.

Compounding interest is magical for investors.  Unfortunately, it is a nightmare when it comes to price inflation for savers.  It is a compounding reduction in the value of your money.

Celebrating Dow 50,000

Pam Bondi was on Capitol Hill this past week to testify about the Epstein files.  She pointed out that the markets are hitting all-time highs, including the Dow hitting 50,000.  She asked why we aren’t talking about this instead.

Bondi seemed to be reading from a script at times.  Maybe she didn’t know the stock market numbers.  If somebody wrote that script for her, they should be fired.  Pam Bondi should also be fired.  She should probably be in jail.

We should be happy that Bondi wanted to talk about the Dow hitting 50,000 instead of the Epstein files.  Her message was a political loser to say the least.

To answer Pam Bondi’s question about why they weren’t talking about Dow 50,000 that day:

1. Pam Bondi, you are the attorney general, not the Treasury secretary or the chair of the Federal Reserve.
2. Pam Bondi, you were in front of Congress to testify on the Epstein files, not on the state of the stock market.
3. Pam Bondi, covering up a massive blackmail and pedophile ring is important to some people.  For some people, it means more to them than the returns in their 401k account.

There also seems to be a bit of irony that the Dow 50,000 benefits many of the rich and powerful people whom we might refer to as the ruling elite.  There is an overlap with the ruling elite who are highly exposed in the Epstein files.

This could be one of the biggest political miscalculations in a long time.  This should be enough to force Pam Bondi out, but you never know with this administration.  Meanwhile, Trump is posting messages saying that Thomas Massie is a loser and that Pam Bondi did a great job.  If this was a great job, you really have a lot of problems.

The memes are already coming out on this one.  Whenever someone brings up an uncomfortable topic, the response is: “Why are we even talking about this?  The Dow just hit 50,000.”

Stocks and the Economy

Bondi was trying to suck up to Trump by touting his economy.  Of course, the stock market is not the economy.  Biden was trying the same trick when he was in office.  The sentiment was: “Forget about the rising prices of your groceries and your car insurance.  The markets are doing great.”

There is probably a slight majority of Americans who actually own stocks Most of the people who do own stocks have a modest brokerage account or 401k/ retirement account.

If someone has $100,000 in a 401k and it goes up 15% in one year, sure they are probably happy with the return.  But that doesn’t really help offset the higher credit card bills every month from groceries.  It doesn’t do much to make you feel better about your rising insurance costs.  If you need a new roof that costs $25,000, that $15,000 gain in your retirement account doesn’t seem to carry a lot of weight.

Also, we are far from guaranteed that these abnormal returns will continue.  The day after Bondi touted Dow 50,000, it lost over 1% the following day.  What if the Dow proceeds to fall to 30,000 over the next year?  Will Pam Bondi then be willing to talk about a giant pedophile ring run by our ruling elites?

You can be almost guaranteed that overall prices will continue to go up, even if they go up at a slower pace.  With the stock market, this is far from guaranteed.  Stocks tend to always go up over time because of inflation itself.  But you can easily have a bear market that lasts for years.

That is one of the notable things of recent times, particularly over the last 5 years.  There is a major disconnect between the stock market and living standards.  Even though we hear about good times on CNBC in terms of stocks, this is not how the average American is feeling.

Even if the stock indexes continue to hit new highs, this is a major political miscalculation by the Trump administration.  If stocks go into a bear market, you might see the lowest approval ratings ever for a president.

With the releases of millions of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, it is revealing a lot of lies and hypocrisy.  Of course, it is also revealing more evidence that Epstein was running a giant blackmail operation.

First, it is important to verify things on your own to the extent possible.  This is always important whenever you are going to speak publicly about events.  The internet is great for getting information out there.  Unfortunately, it is also great for spreading false information.

You can look at and search the files here.

With the Epstein files, there are a lot of things that are being made up or not presented in a truthful manner.  It is also important to understand that there are a lot of names in the files, and just because someone’s name is in the files doesn’t alone implicate them.

I am not one to defend Bill Gates, and I believe he is guilty of a lot of evil things.  But one of the juicier files talks about Bill Gates contracting an STD and secretly trying to give antibiotics to his then wife.  But Gates didn’t write this email.  Epstein supposedly drafted it and didn’t send it.  This alone does not prove Gates did anything wrong.  If anything, the bizarre language just shows that Epstein likely was blackmailing him.

I also want to point out that there probably are some innocent people who may be seemingly implicated in these files.  Epstein was running a blackmail operation, so he purposely tried to associate with rich and powerful people.  Someone’s association with a bad person doesn’t necessarily make that person bad.  It is an indicator of someone’s character when it seems to happen frequently, like the Clintons.  The Clintons have been associated with many bad people over the years, including Epstein.

I am a lot less forgiving for people who were associated with Epstein after he was indicted the first time and given a lenient sentence, to say the least.

The Hypocrisy of the Left

Most of the leftists who are talking about this issue at all are hypocrites.  They have all of a sudden been given permission to throw Bill Clinton under the bus.  But where have they been for the last 30 years?  For anyone who care to knew, there have been credible rape allegations against Clinton since he was president.

Regarding his association with Epstein, which was apparently quite bizarre at times, it’s funny how the left is just now willing to criticize Clinton just to give them permission to criticize Trump.

I wrote a post about the Democratic nomination leading up to the election in 2016.  In that post, I wrote:

“I think the next step will be to link Bill Clinton with the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.  Clinton has taken repeated trips on his private jet.  Personally, I would be surprised if Bill Clinton isn’t a pedophile.”

That was in 2016.  Unfortunately, the link to the story in that post is dead.  But the point is that it was already known that there were flight logs of Bill Clinton flying to Epstein’s island.

So, to all the Democrats who are now willing to throw Slick Willy under the bus, where were you 10 years ago?

In fact, where were you on any of this for the last 5 years?  I see all these leftists saying that Trump and MAGA just want to ignore the Epstein files and cover them up.  To some degree, they are correct now.  But none of this would even be an issue if it weren’t for the rightwing in this country, including some of MAGA.

The left, generally speaking, never made this an issue.  They only made it an issue when Trump seemed to have something to hide.  I don’t remember loud calls from the left for the Biden administration to release the Epstein files from 2021 to 2024.  If anything, they would just call people conspiracy theorists if they pushed the issue too hard.

PizzaGate

With the release of the Epstein files, we get to circle back to 2016 and Pizzagate.

From Wikipedia:

“Pizzagate is a conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 United States presidential cycle, falsely claim that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) had discovered a pedophilia ring linked to members of the Democratic Party while searching through Anthony Weiner’s emails.  It has been extensively discredited by a wide range of organizations, including the Washington D.C. police.”

There you have it.  Wikipedia has declared it to be false, so it must be so.

I didn’t get much into Pizzagate back in 2016, although I was aware of it.  The establishment had to assure us that it was a wild conspiracy theory dreamt up by Qanon and Trump supporters.

The pizza references came from emails of John Podesta, who was a close associate of Hillary Clinton.  We were supposed to believe that Podesta really just was referencing pizza.

Well, here we are in 2026, and there are many bizarre references to pizza in the Epstein files.

It might be normal if adults were eating together in person and one of them mentioned how delicious the pizza is.  But it is not all that normal for adult men to talk about delicious pizza in emails to each other and to talk about when they can get together again for pizza and grape soda.  Given that Epstein was running a sex ring with minors, it calls into question the use of the term pizza.

I’m sure we’ll be getting an apology any day now from all of the people who slandered anyone who talked about pizzagate in 2016.

The Hypocrisy of the Right

This is more obvious because the hypocrisy has happened over such a short time span.  Still, there are many MAGA faithful out there who will just go along with Trump and his administration no matter what they do or say.

Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, and Trump himself have all shown themselves to be absolute liars.  Of course, it is worse than this.  They are lying to cover for pedophiles.

Maybe some of them have been threatened and don’t want to get involved in this mess.  If that’s the case, then resign.  Bongino left, but he is still defending what he did during his short time with the FBI.

All of these people talked about the Epstein files.  Then, sometime in 2025, word came down that there would be a coverup.  They said the files didn’t really exist.  Trump said it was a Democratic hoax, thinking his supporters are a bunch of fools.  He wasn’t completely wrong.

Trump goes after Massie and MTG for trying to get the Epstein files released.  Trump then is forced (politically speaking) to sign legislation to release the files, which supposedly didn’t exist.

Now we have these files that implicate a lot of people and strongly suggest this whole thing was a blackmail operation.  But Kash Patel and the FBI can’t be bothered to do an actual investigation.  Instead, we are left to sift through the files and piece together the puzzle.  Kash is satisfied that pizza is just pizza.

I don’t necessarily believe that Trump is guilty of raping children, but he is covering for people who rape children.  So are Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and Dan Bongino.  They are liars, and they are despicable people.

Conclusion

Some of the things in these files are so sick that is it is hard for many people to grasp.  They largely ignore them because it is so sick.  It is hard for people to comprehend that there are individuals in this world who are this sick.  It is even more disturbing when you think that these sick people are the ones who are ruling over us.

With millions of files, more is going to get uncovered, and we are going to start to fit more pieces together.  Of course, this uncovering is not going to come from the FBI or any federal government agency.  It also isn’t going to come from CNN or any other establishment news outlet.  It will come from the alternative media and regular people who are curious and willing to do some work.

We shouldn’t expect to see anyone else go to jail for this stuff, but it doesn’t mean it is pointless.  It is another wakeup call for people.  More people are losing faith in the system and realizing that the ruling elite are not on their side.  In many cases, the ruling elite are just really sick and criminal people.

It is funny how the Trump apologists are already trying to blame people who are criticizing Trump for what is going to happen in the mid-term elections in November 2026.

To be sure, some of the Trump apologists actually hate Trump and are just using him to execute their interventionist foreign policy.  Do you really think that Marco Rubio, Ben Shapiro, or Lindsey Graham like Trump?  They hated Trump, and they weren’t all that shy about it 10 years ago.  But now they realize that they can just suck up to Trump and stroke his ego, and then they can get him to do their bidding by bombing, invading, and funding foreign countries.

You also have the Trump apologists who probably really do like Trump, or at least they don’t hate him.  They like the prestige that comes with being a Trump apologist.  For example, Tim Pool went on a rant against Candace Owens with some colorful language, blaming her for why the Republicans would lose in November.

There are many people on the political right who are getting blamed already.  It isn’t just Candace Owens as mentioned above.  It is Tucker Carlson, Dave Smith, Thomas Massie, Rand Paul, and many others.  Sometimes it is even less political people like Joe Rogan, who supported Trump in the last election but has been critical of things coming from his administration.

While the Democrats reign in the White House from 2021 to 2025 was horrific, it would also be scary if the Republicans didn’t lose in November.  It’s hard to imagine that anywhere near a majority of people endorse the madness that has been happening for the last year.

Both parties abuse and expand power so much while in power, it is almost necessary to have them alternating.  At least the abuses shift.  We’ve gone from vaccine mandates to invading Greenland.  Unfortunately, the weaponization of the “Justice Department” hasn’t changed.  Only the victims have changed. The funding of Israel and Ukraine also hasn’t changed.

Whose Fault is This?

It is hilarious, if not irritating, when the Trump apologists blame the Trump critics, especially people who actually supported or voted for Trump.  This includes Trump himself.

Trump attacked Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who actually helped Trump when he didn’t have many friends.  Thomas Massie was trying to identify undercover federal agents who were at the Capitol on January 6^th before Trump even understood that this was a setup against him.

MTG is now out of Congress, and Trump is attacking Massie relentlessly, including attacks against his wife.  Trump doesn’t like Massie because Massie wanted the Epstein files released, and he doesn’t want foreign wars.  The lobbyists for Israel want Massie out, therefore Trump obeys his masters.

The Trump apologists will blame people like Massie for the Republicans getting wiped out this November.  The Democrats will likely take majorities in both houses of Congress.

Is it Massie’s fault that Trump bombed 7 countries in his first year back as president?  Is it Massie’s fault that Trump and his administration lied about the Epstein files, claiming it was all a Democrat hoax?  Is it Massie’s fault that the administration was arresting legal immigrants because they didn’t like what they were saying about Israel?  Is it Massie’s fault that Trump has created unnecessary chaos on the streets of major cities?  Is it Massie’s fault that Trump keeps growing the budget and the debt and continually changing tariffs on other countries on a whim?

It is hard to see how someone could have supported Trump in November 2024 and still supports him today. Virtually everything he’s done since March 2025 has been a total disaster.  He has been anti liberty in almost every way, plus we get all of the chaos and division that comes with it.

Trump has completely betrayed America First.  He has done the opposite of adopting peace towards other nations.  He has grown government in almost every way.  When the Democrats get in power and use ICE and tariffs and whatever else Trump used to enact their agenda, the Trump apologists will be crying over it.

The Power to Abuse

This is one thing that the loyalists to both major parties don’t get.  Or if they do get it, they are just evil.

They complain when the other party is in power.  But they never want to reduce that power.  They want the power for their side.

Harry Browne liked to say that the problem isn’t the abuse of power.  It is the power to abuse.

In other words, whenever there is power available, it is inevitably going to get abused.  It is going to get used against your side at some point.  The solution isn’t to try to get power for “your side” (whatever that means).  The solution is to reduce the amount of power so that nobody can have the power over others.