USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving.
Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free.
I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these."
"They just come with the table, man."
They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner.
This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat.
I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared.
"Did we…?"
"Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless."
Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined.
My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude."
Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man.
I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy.
Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived.
I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most.
Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.
Trump hasn’t made a public appearance in 8 days. This after an unscheduled visit to the hospital- because he “likes getting check ups.” Thank God Jake Tapper (or as I like to call him- the Brick Tamland of his generation) is on the case hunting down clues in a book about my mom’s experience as First Lady four years ago.
So let me get this straight.
Jake Tapper is focused on attacking my Mom.
Jared and Ivanka are building a private island paradise on Albanian protected land.
Don Jr married the daughter of Epstein’s banker, and a startup his fund backs just got a record $620M Pentagon loan.
Eric is taking an Israeli drone company public for $1.5B in the middle of a war with Iran that nobody wanted.
And I know: “But what about your paintings, Hunter?”
Please.
Ken Paxton offered a man 1 day in jail for raping a little boy. Today Texas Republicans made him the GOP nominee for US Senate. The Republican Party protects people who rape kids.
How come nobody ever tells billionaires “just have 1 house and 1 car, there’s no need to have 10 cars, 10 house, a yacht, and a private jet. Pay your fair share in taxes instead.”
Fun fact for the $10 billion lawsuit crowd.
The IRS leak that exposed Donald Trump’s tax returns happened between August 2019 and November 2020.
405,427 other taxpayer returns were also leaked.
Trump was president. His own pick, Charles Rettig, ran the IRS. The contractor who did it, Charles Littlejohn, worked on a Trump-era IRS contract and is now serving five years in federal prison.
On January 29, 2026, Trump sued the IRS and Treasury for $10 billion over a breach that happened on his watch, under his commissioner, by a contractor his administration paid.
He is suing the federal government he ran, for failing to stop a leak that occurred while he was running it.
The taxpayer foots the bill either way.
Can't raise minimum wage because it will kill jobs.
Can't raise taxes on the bourgeoisie class because it will kill jobs.
Can't ditch oil because it will kill jobs.
But when these companies replace 50% of their workforce with AI, it's "sorry, that's just the way it goes."