I recently called Ms.Pigette to see how she was doing, as she, and the rest of us, are buried in a new batch of snow.

“We live on the Maine coast. It is winter. What do you expect, Bozo, tropical breezes, some creamy French cheese, and a nice, cool gin and tonic? Are you thinking about getting out your Speedo, nut job? Geeze, that would be a sight,” she said.

“Of course it is cold, the snow is over my bum, again. The guy down the way had to call the plow guy over so he could get the snow blower out of the garage. In case you don’t get my point, I am damn tired of winter, period, paragraph.”

Well, I asked for it, and she delivered. As usual, she didn’t pull her punches, and I’ll bet a lot of readers feel the same way. It has been a long winter.

“So now, Mr. alleged smart guy, what the Duce is going on in the District. Somebody said POTUS blew his stack on Friday. What gives?” she asked. Well, I explained, back in April, the prez pulled out his magic marker and signed a series of executive orders imposing tariffs on imported goods from most nations. Along the way, he pulled in billions from importers who passed the costs onto their customers, and thence to you and me.

On Friday, the Supreme Court, which has been very, very kind to him, ruled he didn’t have the authority to impose tariffs. They said tariffs are a tax, and the Constitution gives Congress, not the Prez, the authority to levy taxes. If you want to impose tariffs, you must ask Congress first, said the court. Of course, Congress, which would rather get a fatal dose of the plague, or buy their own meals,  than raise taxes, balked, so the prez did it himself.

Oops. Justice Neil Gorsuch (a Trump appointee) reminded the Prez that one reason the founders fought the Brits in 1776 had to do with a tax they didn’t vote for, or like. If you look inside the court’s box score, (6-3), three conservative judges, including two he appointed to the bench, hammered him.

The Prez picks folks who are loyal to him alone. Thus, we have a gaggle of senior officials, some brought straight over from Fox News third string, pulling the levers of power. On Friday, standing before the TV cameras, he hammered the court as “unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution.” He said, without providing evidence, that those justices had acted to satisfy “foreign interests.”

Meanwhile, one governor asked the White House to open his billion-dollar tariff treasure chest and send a large bucket of money back to taxpayers.

After his rant, the Prez imposed other tariffs, citing another emergency law, but that action is expected to be challenged, again, in court.

In London, the Epstein A-bomb exploded when British cops arrested the former Prince Andrew. It is the first time a senior member of the royal family has been arrested since 1647, when King Charles I was locked up and, eventually, lost his head. The Andrew arrest sent the Brits into a tizzy, and even the WSJ carried a graphic photo of ex-Prince Andrew cowering in the back of a Range Rover.

Meanwhile, the Epstein survivors and their supporters pressure the White House to release more of the FBI files that have sullied the reputations of many powerful men, including the Commerce Secretary, who lived next door to Epstein. The Andrew/Epstein flap even got the attention of a Trump fan and Fox News show, Jesse Watters. “A lot of people are very nervous tonight. If (the arrest) could happen to a prince, it could happen to anyone,” he said.

Do you remember Pizzagate? A couple of years ago, the internet buzzed with a bizarro QAnon claim that a bunch of privileged elites were running a child sex ring out of a Washington pizza joint. A North Carolina guy believed it. So he grabbed his AR-15 and waltzed into the pizza joint and opened fire, demanding they open the basement door so he could expose their crime. FYI, the pizza joint didn’t have a basement.

But the nutty QAnon internet rumor persisted, and Trump pledged he would investigate and expose deep state elites. Now, the survivors are pushing him to fulfill his pledge and release more FBI files.

The survivors, and some foreign governments, say Epstein’s playgrounds featured lots of cameras. Are there videos? Did Epstein set a bunch of honey traps? Why didn’t the FBI investigate the claims of the survivors? Next up is Tuesday’s State of the Union speech. Stay tuned. The seas are about to get rough.