A free jet, a grounded Boeing program, and a shopping spree for spare parts — Washington proves once again that nothing costs more than something we’re told is free.

There was a time, not long ago, when the American taxpayer was fleeced with a certain modesty — a sheepish decorum, as if the pickpocket at least tipped his hat after lifting your wallet.

Those days, alas, are gone.

We have entered a new era of plunder so brazen, so operatic in its stupidity, that it deserves not merely condemnation but a brass band and a commemorative plaque.

Consider the current aviation burlesque unfolding under the august banner of the United States government.

The Glorious Return of Military Darwinism

There are bad ideas, and then there are ideas so catastrophically, historically illiterate that they feel like they were drafted on a cocktail napkin somewhere between the third Old Fashioned and a lobotomy.

Enter Pete Hegseth’s latest brainwave: making flu vaccines optional for members of the United States military.

Optional.

In the military.

Yes, the same institution that regulates the angle of your shoelaces, the exact geometry of your haircut, and the moral alignment of your socks now apparently draws the line at… vaccines.

A partial inventory of the Trump Administration's Ongoing Demolition of Public Life

Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigns. The Border Patrol chief solicits prostitutes abroad. Trump sues the IRS he controls. Corey Lewandowski sells federal contracts. This is Washington, D.C.

Let us begin with Lori Chavez-DeRemer, because she is the freshest wound, though in this administration, she is barely a paper cut.

The Labor Secretary — former one-term congresswoman, former mayor of the magnificently named Happy Valley, Oregon — resigned Monday, departing "to take a position in the private sector," which is the Washington formulation for: the inspector general was about to interview her and the walls were closing in like a particularly well-upholstered trash compactor. The White House, with its customary relationship to reality, announced that she had "done a phenomenal job."

This is the same White House that will, when the report drops, have no memory of her whatsoever.

The allegations against Chavez-DeRemer constitute a scandal so baroque it would embarrass a Medici.

An affair with her security detail.

Fabricated official trips to cover personal travel. Fancy hotels, SUV rentals, and meals billed to the public.