Good morning and Happy Tuesday! Welcome to Ron Swanson’s least favorite day of the year.

It was 80 degrees in my nape of the neck yesterday, sunny and beautiful with a delightful light breeze. I pulled all my summer clothes out of storage, and I’m very excited to see that the high later this week will be (checks notes) …44 degrees. Lousy Smarch weather.

Also yesterday, I had to get gas for the first time in a while (I love my fuel-efficient Honda HR-V so much), and it was up to $4.50 a gallon in the far-flung suburb where I was running errands. A month ago, it was $2.98! Donald Trump has suggested that high gas prices “are good, actually,” because “we make a lot of money” when prices are high. I don’t doubt at all that Trump has somehow figured out how to make money off gas prices via some backdoor deal that involves Jared Kushner and the Saudis, but for us regular people, it sucks.

Once I got home from running errands, I saw this screengrab making the rounds on social media.

Uh… can we pay fewer taxes? As far as I’m able to ascertain, my tax dollars are going to build a tacky ballroom, fund Trump’s secret police force, and finance multiple wars, none of which were necessary or even, seemingly, planned out ahead of time.

For example, let’s talk about the Strait of Hormuz, which is still blocked by the Iranians as a result of Trump’s war on Iran. I can’t emphasize enough that this vital body of water was open to international freight traffic up until the moment Trump decided to bomb Iran, their murderous leadership, and a girls’ school. Now? Very little is moving through the Strait, and much of the world is paying for it in higher gas prices, increased heating costs, and, worst of all, a possible worldwide food shortage.

So what kind of American ingenuity is the Trump administration bringing to solving this crisis? Let’s take a look.

Hmmm, that’s interesting. Nothing in the objectives about the Strait of Hormuz or “cleaning up the mess we made for no justifiable reason that is now impacting innocent civilians worldwide.” I’d also like to add that I’ve been told daily for the past month that the “war is over” and that Iran’s abilities to do anything offensive have been “obliterated.”

(You don’t have to read the piece; the headline says it all.)

Did you ever have that one kid come over to your house, break all your toys, then leave because “you don’t have anything fun to play with”? That’s sort of the vibe I’m getting from Trump. “Oh, I destroyed a vital international shipping corridor and caused international chaos? That’s okay, I’ll just go back to golfing in Florida.”

Then today, our Secretary of Defense, an abusive morning show host with a Call of Duty kink, came out with this banger:

I’m sorry, the… what? Last time I checked, there were a whole lot of sovereign countries between the US border and the Panama Canal — at least seven. Are we still doing this Greenland thing? We are, aren’t we?

Not to mention that the US military is committing war crimes all over the place, bombing civilians, civilian infrastructure, and leaving fucking landmines in Iranian villages.

And hey, remember the girls’ school we bombed, killing 165 Iranian children? Turns out, we also bombed a girls’ volleyball tourney.

And, just to put a cherry on top of this dystopian news report, ICE is going to be loitering outside Marine Corps graduations in South Carolina, in the hopes of snatching a few family members of young men and women who have pledged their lives to protect their country, and also so that you get used to seeing Trump’s secret police force everywhere you go.

Tell me that doesn’t sound like something the SS would have posted outside a sporting event, circa 1937.

And this is where I sound like a broken record, because not giving American voters the right to recall our elected federal officials was a big swing and a miss by our Founding Fathers. We have to rely on Congress to impeach, the President’s cabinet to admit that he’s several hot dogs short of a picnic, or…. we’re just stuck with the same guy who is making our lives harder in every conceivable way for the next three years?

There’s something really nightmarish about being able to get eight million people into the streets on a random Saturday, but still not being able to force our elected officials to end a war that is deeply unpopular, use our tax dollars to provide us with basic services, or otherwise act in our best interests. Given that it took the US 100 years to get enough states to admit that women should be equal to men under the law, I’m not optimistic that we could get a new amendment with a provision for recalling elected members of Congress and the White House within our lifetimes, but my God, is there any amendment to the Constitution are in more desperate need of?

I’m sure there is some academic legal reason why including such a recall provision is a bad idea, but I can’t seem to wrap my head around what it would be. Toss out the Electoral College, and give Americans the ability to recall the POTUS or their elected members of Congress with, say, three-fourths of the votes cast — the same percentage of states needed to ratify a constitutional amendment.

It was wildly hopeful of the Framers of the Constitution to believe we could weather whatever idiot we elect President in the future, but what we have going on now is not sustainable for the next three years, and we have a Congress and a cabinet that just shrug and stare at us, slack-jawed and clueless about what to do with the madman in charge. Meanwhile, the opposition party has exhausted its supply of strongly worded letters and tough-guy social media posts, but is doing very little else to remedy this situation.

What choice do we have? This is no longer a country of the people, by the people, and for the people. We’ve become a country run by corporations, billionaires, and special interests. While we’re all stuck paying higher prices for everything, watching our fellow Americans lose their healthcare, and being stalked by ICE, too many in Congress and the White House are raking in the dough.

I’m tired of it. And I bet you are, too.

Few women have been as wronged by the IOC and international sports communities as Caster Semenya — a woman who was banned from competition because she wasn’t the right kind of woman. You can read more about her history with the IOC here, but suffice it to say that Semenya was raised as and has always identified as a woman, despite having differences in her sex development (DSD).

Semenya is now calling for a “class-action” against the IOC, following their ban on trans women competing in the Olympic Games.

I would love to see cis women take on the IOC in solidarity with their trans sisters and women with DSD, but it’s hard to imagine athletes giving up their shot at competing in the Olympics to do so. Interesting that the IOC doesn’t sex test men. Perhaps that should be the basis for a lawsuit.

Each Day, I do my best to leave you with a smile on your face, a song in your heart, and the will to fight another day.

Hey, survive and advance out there today, kids. Don’t let the bastards get you down.

Follow Julie on Bluesky and Instagram so she can get another book contract.