As most slide numbly into Memorial Day weekend, I dutifully look back on the past week and answer the pressing question: What the (BLEEP) just happened?
President Trump goes “full-Nixon”
Angered by both checks and balances, President Donald Trump took to the Rose Garden on Wednesday and, standing behind a sign that read “No Collusion, No Obstruction,” gave us the modern-day equivalent of President Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook!” moment.
In response to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying Trump is involved in a “cover-up” — an allegation based on Trump’s desperate attempts to cover up his tax returns and to not allow any current or former administration officials to comply with congressional subpoenas — the president said that he would engage in no further presidenting until the Democrats leave him alone.
“I don’t do cover-ups,” Trump snarled, inaccurately, as adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, I assume, rolled her eyes so hard she fell over.
The president, who walked out of a planned meeting with Democratic leaders regarding a national infrastructure plan, said he won’t work with Democrats until they “get these phony investigations over with.”
So that should free Trump up for the foreseeable future, giving him ample time to keep tossing legal tarps over all the things he definitely hasn’t done wrong and funnel more taxpayer money into his own golf resorts. HE IS NOT A CROOK!
Meet the new mayor, hopefully not the same as the old mayor
Lori Lightfoot officially became mayor of Chicago this week, offering up bold visions for reform and a new style of leadership that largely involves her not being Rahm Emanuel.
So far, so good.
Self-driving postal trucks are coming to kill us all
We learned a bit more this week about how we’re all going to die, as the U.S. Postal Service announced it’s partnering with a truck company to test self-driving trucks on a long-haul route from Phoenix to Dallas.
Two not-at-all-malevolent-sounding “autonomous trucks” from a San Diego company will be used in the two-week pilot program, with a safety engineer and driver riding along in each truck to monitor how things go.
The name of the truck company? TuSimple. Which sounds exactly like the kind of overconfident name humans would give a company that unleashes mail-laden tractor-trailers on America’s highways, never imagining the trucks would become self-aware and hell-bent on destroying humanity.
Oh, well. We’ve had a good run.
Naperville “Jeopardy” winner keeps being super annoying by winning
James Holzhauer, the Naperville native who has got to be cheating on the game show “Jeopardy,” edged closer to reaching $2 million in winnings this week, making me mad because I haven’t won close to $2 million on “Jeopardy” or any other game show.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not jealous of Holzhauer’s staggering skill at the quiz show. I’m just jealous of him winning all that money and me not winning any money, so I’m making myself feel better by assuming he’s cheating. (I have no evidence to support that assumption, but lately it doesn’t seem evidence is a prerequisite for stating assumptions as fact.)
Holzhauer is chasing a record of $2,520,700 won in 2004 by Ken Jennings, whom I also dislike because he has $2,520,700 more than I do.
It seems clear that Holzhauer should either bow out of the game show in deference to those of us who aren’t winning barrels full of money, or he should keep winning and just start giving us all some of his money.
Some call that “game show socialism.” I just call it common courtesy.
Thousands of Illinoisans deemed too dangerous to have guns may still have their guns. Sleep tight!
A Tribune investigation found that “nearly 27,000 Illinois residents over the past four years have not informed authorities what they did with their guns after state police stripped their licenses.”
Super! Said gun licenses were stripped because authorities believe these individuals were too dangerous to own guns, including “people convicted of domestic violence or people who had their cards rescinded because of mental health concerns.”
The bottom line: “law enforcement has no idea whether 78% of revoked cardholders since 2015 still possess guns.”
Clearly there’s only one answer to this problem: Everybody buy more guns.
Food trucks are weird and gross and the Illinois Supreme Court agrees
The Illinois Supreme Court wisely ruled this week that food trucks are totally gross and annoying and should be banned like asbestos.
OK, that wasn’t quite what the court ruled, though I’d argue it should have. The ruling found that food truck regulations enacted by the city of Chicago — rules that keep them a certain distance away from brick-and-mortar food businesses and allow the city to track the trucks using GPS devices — are constitutional.
I have long complained that food trucks promote grotesque behavior, like buying food from trucks and eating outdoors. So this ruling is a win for those who believe in traditional dining.
Besides, with the rise of war-hungry autonomous postal trucks, the last thing we need is people cozying up to the enemy.
rhuppke@chicagotribune.com
