Trumpiana: Paper panther strikes again!

First he changed the Gulf of Mexico into Gulf of America. Then he ‘annexed’ the Strait of Hormuz before making Lake Ontario Lake America and eyeing Atlantic or Pacific Ocean next.Bogged down in a seemingly forever war with Iran with his ‘Epic Fury’ fizzling out, Donald Trump dismissed it as “small potatoes” and “not a big thing,” boasting the US has “essentially” taken over Iran.“Now that we have it under USA control, should we change the name Hormuz Strait to ‘TRUMP STRAIT???’” he wondered proclaiming, “Like America itself, it would be ‘hotter’ than ever before!”And after ditching the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado after snagging her Nobel peace prize, Trump struck an unusual deal with what Machado called “an illegitimate regime” propped up by Uncle Sam.Questioning the deal with the interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, who took power in January after her predecessor, Nicolás Maduro, was abducted by U.S special forces, Machado said Rodríguez did not have the right or the democratic mandate to negotiate Venezuela’s natural resources.“This Historic Transaction” — described by some observers as a new form of colonialism— to take majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s oil reserves, was made “at no cost to the American Taxpayer,” wrote an unruffled Trump on Truth Social.A conservative influencer who styles himself as ‘PostMaster General Derbsch’ hailed the chief with a CGI of Trump walking in the White House corridor reflecting a large lion on the shiny marble floor below.But even before making these ‘conquests’ with his big black Sharpie, Donnie the conqueror donned a historian’s hat to rate all his predecessors who had merely kept the seat warm for him.It was a no brainer to put himself alone at the top — above the likes of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln — as he ranked them into six categories, from “greatest” to “failures.” His bêtes noires Barack Obama and Joe Biden ended up at the bottom with Bill Clinton somehow escaping as only “average.”One may or may not agree with a Presidential Greatness Project survey of 154 academics ranking Trump dead last, but he certainly is the fastest.The courts just cannot keep pace with Trump’s ‘lightning speed,’ rued the New York Times noting that in cases on immigration, spending, mass firings and restructuring agencies, he “has barreled ahead in the face of slow-moving legal challenges. If Trump loses when those lawsuits are finally resolved, it may be too late as a practical matter to undo what he has achieved.”In the latest instance of Trump’s big beautiful projects slipping through legal loopholes, the friendly neighborhood Supreme Court allowed him to keep building his new $40o million White House ballroom.In a 5-4 judgement, the conservative wing including three of his own appointees, ruled that the National Trust for Historic Preservation suffered no direct personal harm required to bring a lawsuit without opining on the legality of the ballroom itself.However, in a stinging rebuke, conservative Chief Justice John Roberts ruling the construction as “likely unlawful,” cited a telling quote of Winston Churchill: “We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.” It is a reason to follow rules at the People’s House, Roberts wrote in his dissenting opinion siding with the three liberal justices.“Trump is going to get his ballroom – even if courts conclude it’s illegal,” predicted Leah Litman, a law professor at the University of Michigan cited by the Times.But with no danger of the Republican-controlled Congress challenging the judgement, Trump gloated, “There is nothing like it, and never will be! It was a long, hard, fight in the Court System, but the winner is, as always under ‘TRUMP,’ the U.S.A.”Meanwhile, Trump asked the Supreme Court to greenlight a new Postal Service rule that would exert control over mail ballots after a U.S. District Judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking parts of the rule from being implemented.Trump is also bound to knock on the doors of the apex court after another judge blocked Trump’s new attempt to limit birthright citizenship — a law making anyone born on U.S. soil a citizen.Calling it “almost certainly unconstitutional,” a federal judge temporarily restrained Trump’s new fiat that children born to “enemy aliens” or foreign lobbyists, among others, not be granted citizenship.Outrunning other legal challenges, Trump is reshaping national parks, memorials and the landscape of the nation’s capital in his own image.A federal judge has just blessed his plans to replace a popular, inexpensive public golf course with what he has called a “world class championship” course after chopping down 150 trees, including cherry trees gifted by Japan. Though the Judge Ana Reyes did find it ironic that 250 years after the nation’s birth, “we are here talking about a president yet again chopping down cherry trees.”Despite legal challenges, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum also announced that the excavation work for Trump’s planned 250-foot-tall triumphal arch in Washington, nicknamed ‘Arc de Trump,’ will start “over the next two-week period.”And the U.S. Mint has just put in circulation a commemorative coin for America’s 250th anniversary bearing Trump’s scowling face despite a federal law barring the “portrait or likeness” of living people from appearing on currency.But that law was for paper currency and another law allows the Mint to create coins to “honor 250 years of great American heritage,” said the administration to justify the coin.The new “illegal” $1 coin is legal tender, and looks gold but is actually made from zinc, manganese, nickel and copper. It costs $61 to buy 25 one-dollar coins – or roughly $2.44 apiece. — Just emblematic of the gilded Trump presidency— overhyped and under delivering!(By arrangement with The American Bazaar)Catch the latest World News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.