If you'll check a historic calendar (which is easy enough to do), you will clearly see that there are three possible days which could validly be celebrated as marking the end of World War II. They are: August 14th, August 15th, or September 2nd. The initial announcement of the surrender of Japan was made on August 14th, in Japan. Due to the nature of time zones, this happened when it was August 15th in America already. Then the formal surrender, which happened on the deck of the battleship U.S.S. Missouri, was signed on September 2nd. The president at the time, Harry Truman, announced the United States would celebrate what was known as "V-J Day" (for "Victory over Japan Day") on September 2nd. So that would be the most likely day you'd expect any subsequent American president to announce as a new semi-holiday, since it was when World War II actually officially ended. But you'd be wrong.

This week, Donald Trump announced that May 8th would be celebrated as "Victory Day for World War II." His proclamation does not even mention how the war continued in the Pacific for months afterwards. May 8th was "V-E Day" (Victory in Europe Day), when Germany surrendered, but it would take dropping two atomic bombs on Japan before the war was truly over. Which Trump has apparently never heard of, or something. As always, with Trump it's hard to tell what he doesn't remember from school versus what he never managed to learn in the first place.

In other idiotic news emanating from the White House, Trump watched a movie last weekend and has now instructed the government to reopen the federal prison on Alcatraz Island. This is truly idiocy squared (since it would be insanely expensive to do so), but Trump thinks it'd be a great idea, which is all that matters.

Speaking of idiocy squared, Trump's trade war lurches on with no end in sight. There were two developments this week, neither of which were all that promising. The first was a "deal" announced with Britain, which upon examination was not actually a deal but more of "the concepts of a deal" (as Trump might say). It is a bare-bones framework with lots of "details to be filled in later" parts to it. Trump announced the development but pointed out that his 10 percent tariff rate would remain on British goods sold here. This spurred headlines such as: "Trump Boasts Of New Deal That Triples Taxes On Americans Buying British Products," and also spurred some bad reviews from people on the right:

Conservative radio host and pundit Erick Erickson slammed President Donald Trump's newly announced trade agreement with the United Kingdom as "shitty."

"It's actually a pretty shitty deal" for Americans, he wrote on social media.

. . .

"First, they told us the 10% tariff was just a baseline for negotiations to get to free trade deals," he wrote on X, the Elon Musk-owned platform formerly known as Twitter.

"Now we're being told the 10% tariff is for keeps. That's just a tax on the American people," he added.

Meanwhile, the European Union (of which Britain is no longer part) announced retaliatory tariffs on $100 billion in U.S. goods, just in case they don't get their own "deal" with Trump. And even if such deals are reached, America is going to have a real hard time closing the trade gap with Europe, since American-made products are now being actively shunned or even boycotted all over the continent. Including Tesla cars, which are now seen as completely unacceptable to European buyers.

Of course, the biggest front in the self-induced trade war is with China. Which brings us to the second big development. Trump, for the past few weeks, has been sounding more and more desperate over getting the negotiations started with China, while China took a "time is on our side" hands-off stance. Trump hinted that the Chinese leader had called him up on the phone -- which China denied -- and that negotiations had started -- which China also denied. So late last week, the U.S. negotiators must have begged China to open negotiations, and a meeting this weekend in Switzerland was announced. Trump blustered that he would never consider lowering his 145 percent tariff on China just to get the talks started, which is precisely what China was demanding. But then lo and behold, today Trump announced that he was open to doing exactly that:

President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States could lower tariffs on China to 80 percent ahead of a meeting this weekend between his top aides and their counterparts from Beijing.

In other words, Trump blinked -- before the talks even began. Plain and simple.

Mind you, this is what absolutely needed to happen, so it is a positive development. While expectations for the talks are not exactly high, perhaps both sides will announce they are dialing back the tariff rates as a gesture of goodwill made in order to continue the talks later? Or maybe not -- time is still on China's side in all of this, and their initial stance is that all the new tariffs Trump has announced (or 125 percent out of that 145 percent) must be revoked before they'll even consider serious negotiations. So we'll see what happens this weekend, but it is notable that Trump is backing down first, since that's precisely what was needed to move things along.

The ripple effects of this trade war are already becoming apparent. West Coast ports have slowed to a crawl, since ships are no longer arriving from China packed with goods. Experts are still warning of imminent shortages in the stores, and prices are still going up. Parents, in particular, could get hit very hard (and not just when buying dolls or pencils for their kids). Small businesses are begging for relief, but Trump doesn't care if shelves become bare or prices go up (he's now preaching austerity, which is pretty downright laughable, considering the source). The supply chain has already been disrupted, and it is now just a question of how long that disruption will last. Will it be temporary? Will store shelves be empty for a couple of weeks or months, only to be replenished again at the end of it? Or will it be more long-lasting, if the talks grind on with no progress? While 80 percent is a lot less than 145 percent, it is still so incredibly high that U.S. stores still won't be able to sell Chinese products at any sort of reasonable price that people will be willing to pay. So even if a symbolic drop in the tariffs is achieved this weekend, it still may not forgo wider disruptions to the supply chain.

In other "Trump backs down" news, his nominees for U.S. attorney for D.C. and the surgeon general were both pulled this week, since they were headed for trouble in the Senate confirmation process. Ed Martin, the nominee for the U.S. attorney position (who has been doing the job on an interim basis) was doomed when Senator Thom Tillis (who sits on the Judiciary Committee) announced he couldn't vote for him. By week's end, Martin was literally being spat upon (on live television, no less) by passersby on the streets of D.C. Trump then retreated to the warmth of his Fox News universe and announced that Jeanine Pirro would take over the job on an interim basis. Pirro, astonishingly enough, has far more relevant experience than Martin had, which just goes to show you how low the Trump administration sets the bar for their nominees.

Trump fired a few people this week as well, including the head of FEMA -- who was fired for telling Congress in a hearing that he thought eliminating FEMA entirely wasn't such a hot idea. The agency is now being run by a peach of a guy (a "former Marine artillery officer") who has zero experience in disaster relief, and who introduced himself to the FEMA staff with: "I'm not going to start out by saying I'm honored to serve. I'm here to do a job." Charming, eh? He also announced that all disaster payments must be personally approved by him, which will slow things down in a big way. It's worth mentioning that hurricane season starts in three weeks, so what could possibly go wrong with all of this? We look forward to seeing him do a "heckuva job" (as George W. Bush might have put it), when a hurricane does hit.

A few months back, Elon Musk tried to fire some air traffic controllers, which resulted in a cabinet-level spat between him and the secretary of Transportation in the White House. The air traffic controllers' jobs were saved, but Musk still fired hundreds of F.A.A. employees, including those responsible for maintenance. It was also revealed that the F.A.A. suspended an independent panel that provided oversight of the nation's air traffic control system, back in February. Fast-forward to today, and Newark airport's air traffic control system seems on the brink of collapse. Again, who could have possibly predicted problems like this?

The moral of the story is: when you fire everyone who actually knows what they are doing and you replace them with bootlickers and ideologues and cranks (or you don't replace them with anybody), don't expect an optimal outcome.

Trump continues to lose in court, in case after case. Rulings were entered against him on his vendetta against a legal firm, his use of the Alien Enemies Act, flying deportees to foreign countries, and plenty of other immigration cases to boot. One judge ruled that the Trump administration had to get another prisoner back from El Salvador, while the woman who was arrested by masked and unmarked federal agents on a street for the "crime" of having written an op-ed article in her college's newspaper was first ordered returned to Vermont (rather than Louisiana, where the admiration had moved her in an effort to get her case moved to a friendly court), and then ordered released on bail. And more and more judges are less and less impressed with the "shoddy work" the Department of Justice lawyers are displaying in their courtrooms.

In other court news, the re-election of a Democrat to the North Carolina supreme court was upheld in federal court after the losing Republican tried to have upwards of 65,000 votes just thrown out, which is (as we wrote earlier) good news for anyone who cherishes American democracy.

Other good news: Trump backed down in his feud with the state of Maine, and has restored at least some of the funding he had been withholding in a snit. Looks like Maine's governor got the better of him in the end, which is a hopeful sign (for any other governors who might be contemplating standing up to the bully).

And we will actually end with some good news (continuing our title theme) that we have to actually credit Trump for (gasp!) -- the Houthi rebels in Yemen reached a deal with the Trump administration to stop targeting U.S. shipping in the Red Sea, in exchange for Trump stopping his bombing campaign against them. We'll see whether this ceasefire holds up or not, but if it does it will be good news indeed (for the safety of worldwide maritime shipping).

Senator Chris Murphy continues to impress, as he has become one of the most prominent Democrats in the fight against Trumpism. The Connecticut senator was interviewed this week by a conservative writer at the New York Times, and one piece of advice he had for the Democratic Party seemed to come straight from the Bernie Sanders wing:

I mean, what I argue for is that the Democratic Party should be more overtly populist and more pugilistic, more confrontational in its populism -- meaning that you are more regularly naming the individuals, the organizations and the companies that are screwing voters; that we might become more overtly antagonistic to tech companies; that we might be more willing to name individual health care companies and pharmaceutical companies that are price gouging; that we would explain what the takeover of our health care system by the private equity industry is going to mean for quality and prices.

If we did that, yes, you're right, we would probably lose some piece of our coalition. There would probably be a handful of voters in Greenwich, Conn. -- I'll name it, right? -- that would be unhappy with the way in which we were calling out and naming certain companies or certain industries that were harming voters.

I think the net benefit to the party of that kind of confrontational politics of explaining who's screwing you -- which is what voters want, they want you to explain who's screwing them -- and an opening up of the tent would net far more voters into the coalition than it would lose in a group of very, very wealthy individuals who were probably with us only because of Trump's ethical problems and social issues that they were -- that made them very distasteful.

Sounds like it's certainly worth a try, right? For his continued presence on the national stage shaking things up, Murphy deserves at least an Honorable Mention this week.

All the Senate Democrats helped tank a crypto bill in the Senate this week, in protest over Donald Trump's continued grift of anything he can sell to his followers. It is heartening to see Democrats achieve any sort of legislative victory these days, to put it mildly.

But this week we're giving the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week to some Democrats who, by their actions, showed some real leadership. The first two of these go to the city councils and mayors of both Salt Lake City, Utah, and Boise, Idaho. Both capital cities reacted this week (in advance of June, which is Pride Month) to new state laws which banned any government building from flying flags that weren't official U.S., state, or city flags. This was done by their Republican state governments, so the Democratic capital cities turned the tables in a rather elegant way:

The state measures were seen by civil rights groups as efforts to prevent the display of flags supporting L.G.B.T.Q. people. The City Council in Salt Lake City approved three new flags: one with the rainbow colors of the Pride flag, a second with the pink and blue of the transgender Pride flag and a third with a symbol and date referring to the Juneteenth holiday that commemorates the end of slavery. Each flag also includes the sego lily, a city symbol and Utah's state flower.

In Boise, the City Council designated the rainbow Pride flag and a flag promoting organ donation as official city flags.

"The City of Boise will continue to fly the flags on City Hall Plaza that represent our community and speak to our values of caring for people and welcoming all," Lauren McLean, Boise's mayor, said in a statement before the resolution was adopted.

. . .

Mayor Erin Mendenhall of Salt Lake City, a Democrat, said in a statement that the new flags promoted unity. "I want all Salt Lakers to look up at these flags and be reminded that we value diversity, equity and inclusion," she said, "leaving no doubt that we are united as a city and people, moving forward together."

These states may be deep red, but their capitals are still islands of blue, and it's heartening to see them stand up to bigotry from their own state government in such a way.

And another Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week goes to Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, who was just arrested while protesting a new ICE detention center in his city. He's been protesting the opening for a while, and has sued the operators (a private prison firm) for not getting the necessary permits to open the 1,000-bed facility. Here's the story:

Witnesses said the arrest came after [Newark Mayor Ras] Baraka attempted to join a scheduled tour of the facility with three members of New Jersey's congressional delegation, Reps. Robert Menendez, LaMonica McIver, and Bonnie Watson Coleman.

When federal officials blocked his entry, a heated argument broke out, according to Viri Martinez, an activist with the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice. It continued even after Baraka returned to the public side of the gates.

"The agents started intimidating and putting their hands on the congresswomen. There was yelling and pushing," Martinez said. "Then the officers swarmed Baraka. They threw one of the organizers to the ground. They put Baraka handcuffs and put him in an unmarked car."

Granted, Baraka is running for governor, but political stunt or not it was still a worthwhile thing to do, to draw attention to the mass deportations under Trump. Which is why we felt it was worthy of a MIDOTW award.

[Congratulate the governments of Boise on the city's contact page and Salt Lake City on their city contact page, and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka on his official contact page, to let them know you appreciate their efforts.]

Once again, we are happy to say that no Democrat personally disappointed us during the week. So we will return the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award to the shelf until next time.

Volume 795 (5/9/25)

We don't normally comment on religion, but we had to at least note the elevation of the first American ever to become Pope. Cue all the Chicago jokes you can think of... (best so far: Stephen Colbert ending his bit on the new Pope with, in the proper Chicago accent: "Da.... prayers").

And it didn't really rise to the level of an actual talking point, but it was so funny we had to include it anyway. For "Star Wars Day" this year ("May the 4th be with you"), Trump posted a ridiculously buff image of himself wielding a light saber. A red one -- which is the mark of the bad guys in the movies. To which Mark Hamill responded: "Proof this guy is full of SITH."

To which we can only say: "Nice one, Luke."

   Republicans want to kick millions off Medicaid

This is going to be the most potent argument Democrats have, over the next few weeks (as all the budget battles get fought).

"Republicans swear up and down that they're not actually gutting Medicaid, but when you take a look at what they're proposing, it turns out that -- surprise! -- they're gutting Medicaid. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office shows how the Republican plans will cut benefits and cause millions of Americans to lose their healthcare safety net. One of the GOP proposals would mean 5.5 million people lose their coverage, and the other one would mean 'only' 3.3 million would lose coverage. And you know what? There are a lot of Republican voters among those who would lose their coverage. Next year, the Republicans are going to have to explain out on the campaign trail why they promised not to touch Medicaid but then went right ahead and gutted it. And don't worry, we Democrats will be pointing it out pretty much every single day."

   Crony capitalism... or oligarchy

Gee, what a surprise!

"It seems that countries around the world are deciding to do business with Elon Musk's Starlink satellite system to curry favor in their trade negotiations with the United States. This is crony capitalism at its worst, folks -- pay Elon Musk a bunch of money and it'll help when you try to cut a deal with Donald Trump. In fact, it's exactly what Bernie Sanders calls it: oligarchy. Government of, for, and by the rich, period."

   Let's review, shall we?

Trump gave an interview to Meet The Press last week where he showed some rather astonishing ignorance.

"Donald Trump has been sworn in as president twice now. And yet he just answered 'I don't know' to the question of whether he was required to uphold the United States Constitution? Seriously? I will quote from that Constitution, where it lays out the presidential oath that Trump has taken twice now: 'I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.' Period. That's the whole oath of office. And yet somehow the man sitting in the Oval Office doesn't know his most basic constitutional responsibilities? Imagine what Republicans would say if a Democratic president had ever said 'I don't know' to that question -- I mean, the impeachment proceedings would already be underway...."

   Geographically-challenged

Hoo boy. You just can't make this stuff up folks!

"Republican House member Harriet Hageman just proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that she is one of the dimmest bulbs in the entire Republican House -- and that's saying a lot, these days! During a hearing, here is what she had to say about Trump decreeing what maps should say: 'I think another reason why we should change this to the Gulf of Amexi -- of America versus the Gulf of Mexico is for over 40 years, the country of Mexico has been dumping raw sewage into the area near San Diego, California.' Got that? Hageman quite obviously has never seen a map of the United States in her entire life, since any elementary school student could have told her that San Diego is on the Pacific Ocean and not the Gulf -- no matter what you call it. Such ignorance is downright frightening, in an elected official."

   Sounds good to me...

They do have a track record of blowing races such as these, after all.

"Republicans were disappointed that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp announced he would not be running for Senate next year, since he probably easily could have beaten Senator Jon Ossoff. Instead, some other Republican will have to take him on. And one name keeps popping up -- Marjorie Taylor Greene. She's leading in the polling, at any rate. Although the same polls show that Kemp would have had a three-point lead on Ossoff, whereas Greene is currently trailing him by 17 points. So as a Democrat, let me just say: Go right ahead, Marjorie! Jump in the race! What could possibly go wrong, after all?"

   Won't be for sale, ever

This is a great quote, since it is rare to see Trump get contradicted to his face (even from world leaders). The new prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney, met with Trump in the White House this week and gave remarks to the press. And he wasn't shy about (we can't resist) telling Trump to "Take off, eh?" about the prospects of Canada ever becoming the "51st state." Here's what Carney told Trump, right to his face:

As you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale. We're sitting in one right now. You know, Buckingham Palace, that you visited as well. And having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign, last several months, it's not for sale. Won't be for sale, ever.

   Only if Trump retires there

Here's a good response to Trump's inane new bugaboo, for Democrats.

"OK, sure... let's reopen Alcatraz prison. Why not? Let's let Trump spend a bunch of money fixing it up and getting it up and running again. I'd vote for that -- as long as Trump retires there, of course, since he truly belongs in federal prison for the rest of his life."

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground