Donald Trump's presidency is fast approaching the "first 100 days" milestone, and he seems to be trying to set his own record during this period -- a record of breaking more campaign promises than any previous president ever has during his first 100 days. This week brought on a flurry of flip-flops, perhaps signaling that in the remaining two weeks or so Trump will be trying to outdo himself in the broken promises category.

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Today's topic is the mess United Airlines now finds themselves in, after video of a passenger being forcefully dragged off an airplane (even though he had a reserved seat) went viral. Not only viral, but all over prime-time news as well.

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Late last week, President Donald Trump ordered a cruise missile strike on a Syrian airfield, in an escalation of the United States' participation in the Syrian civil war. While it's still too early to come to a definitive conclusion about the effect this airstrike had -- in either the military situation, the foreign policy of the Trump administration, or the raw domestic politics involved, a few preliminary assessments can now be made.

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It turns out that Donald Trump is pretty good at predicting his own future behavior. You just have to change the names, that's all. A while back, Trump tweeted out the following: "Now that Obama's poll numbers are in tailspin -- watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate."

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This could be a historic week for the Senate, as it now seems likely that the Republicans will change the chamber's rules to remove the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. This is known, in Washingtonese, as "going nuclear" or "dropping the nuke." That's a pretty powerful metaphor, which was intended to show the far-reaching consequences of making such a move. But as we begin this epic debate, it would behoove everyone inside the Beltway (especially those working in the media) to review a quick rundown of how, exactly, we got to this point. Because this won't be the first Senate filibuster nuke, and it may not be the last one -- at this point, who knows if the legislative filibuster will survive for much longer?

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Will tomorrow be any different at the White House? Since we all seem to now be living in Bizarro World, wouldn't that tend to make you think that we'd get no foolishness from our president on April Fool's Day? I mean, in an April Fool's Year, shouldn't one day be set aside for nonfoolery? Maybe even that's too much to ask from this fool's paradise of a White House.

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A little more than two months in, Donald Trump's presidency is already unique in a number of ways. One of these that has so far gotten little attention (since there's so much else going on) is Trump's complete lack of a honeymoon period with the public. Trump's job approval polling started out pretty bad and it's only gotten worse. The first few months of a presidency isn't always indicative of how successful any president will wind up, of course, but Trump is truly in a category of his own in the polls so far -- and not in a good way.

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Never were the words of the Grateful Dead so fitting in the world of politics. "Trouble ahead, trouble behind" is indeed a perfect description of the spot Paul Ryan and Donald Trump found themselves in today. Because Casey Jones faced precisely the same no-win situation, and it didn't work out so good for him, either.

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Donald Trump will doubtlessly go down in history as many things, but what we're all coming to grips with right now (a bare two months into his presidency) is that Trump will also surely be remembered as the first "Conspiracy-Theorist-In-Chief" in American history. Trump, in fact, personifies the old adage: "I've made up my mind -- don't confuse me with the facts!" This was on full display today, as the heads of the F.B.I. and the N.S.A. testified before a House committee that there is simply no evidence whatsoever that can in any way, shape, or form validate the wild claim Trump made two weeks ago -- that Barack Obama had personally wiretapped Trump Tower during the campaign. This adds to a long list of people (who all have the highest security clearance and full access to such things), all of whom have now said the same thing: no evidence exists whatsoever to back up Trump's bizarre accusation. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

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This was a tough choice to make, for a Thursday column. After all, this was a fairly big week in punctuation news, which normally would be catnip for a pedant such as myself. Not only was the president's spokesman trying to use the old "it was in quotes" defense (or should that be the "it was 'in quotes'" defense?), but there was a recent court ruling which actually hinged on the "Oxford comma." The plaintiffs won because they (correctly) argued that absent the final comma in a list, the final two items have to be taken as a single item, at least legally (it hinged on the phrase "loading for transport or delivery" -- which is different than "loading for transport, or delivery"). As you can see, I could easily have gotten a fun (to me, at any rate) column out of those juicy grammatical items alone.

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