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.

Read Complete Article »

There was some good news today for all Americans who cherish the United States Constitution. Interim U.S. Attorney for D.C. Ed Martin's nomination to be permanently confirmed for the job is in trouble. Senator Thom Tillis -- a Republican who will be facing a tough re-election fight next year in North Carolina -- has announced he will not support Martin's nomination in the Judiciary Committee. So Martin's confirmation won't even make it out of the Senate committee responsible for vetting candidates. Since no Democrat is going to vote for him, it leaves Martin with only 11 votes for and 11 against -- which is not enough to make it out of the committee.

Read Complete Article »

Donald Trump hit two milestones this past week: his first 100 days in office, and his first quarter of negative G.D.P. growth. True to form, he celebrated the first of these with a rally, while blaming the second on Joe Biden. He even tried to front-load any bad economic news in the second quarter as Biden's fault too. Oh, and for good measure, Trump expressed a desire to become the next pope. Which would probably be fine with plenty of Americans -- as long as he quits his current job in order to do so.

Read Complete Article »

Which brings us to Trump's strongest point, albeit one where his polling is also falling fast. On the subject of the southern border, the public does approve of what Trump has been doing. But on the larger subject of immigration, Trump is underwater in most polls, after starting out his term with those numbers in the positive ranges.

Read Complete Article »

There's a new poll out from the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania which has some interesting data -- interesting both for what the data says about American public opinion as well as interesting because of the specific questions that were asked. Most public opinion surveys limit themselves to a few key indicators (presidential job approval being the biggest one), but this poll seemed designed to address some pertinent current issues in much more depth.

Read Complete Article »

The Pentagon, under the "leadership" of Pete Hegseth, seems to be in meltdown mode. That specific word was used by several different people to describe it, I should mention, lest I be accused of being hyperbolic. This news kind of surprised me, because while I fully did expect there to be Pentagon-meltdown stories before now, I expected them to come from a different direction entirely. I thought Elon Musk and his minions would have taken the chainsaw to the entire Pentagon structure and procurement process and it would have blown up in their faces (much like many of their other efforts has) and thus be a big scandal. But so far, that hasn't happened in a big way. Maybe Musk has been told "hands off the Pentagon" or something? At this point, it's hard to tell.

But getting back to the actual scandal (rather than my expectations of a scandal), Pete Hegseth seems once again to be teetering on the edge of becoming more trouble than he is worth to the White House. What's more, this seems to be the result of a power struggle not between Hegseth's own personal minions and the entrenched bureaucracy at the Pentagon (as might have been expected), but it seems to be coming entirely from within Hegseth's inner circle itself. Which is also kind of surprising.

Read Complete Article »

This weekend will mark the end of the third month of Donald Trump's second term in office. Only 45 more fun-filled months to go!

Sorry if that's a bit disheartening, but at this point it's hard to find much in the way of optimism in the political world. And we're certainly not alone in this view.

Read Complete Article »

I begin today for an unusual (for me) foray into the Bible. Because there are two passages that seem particularly apt for the moment of crisis we find ourselves in. There are many translations of these verses available, but I decided on a traditionalist approach and used the King James Version for both.

Read Complete Article »

In keeping with the "world turned upside-down" nature of this week, we are going to start with a few things that haven't been front-and-center, then we'll circle in to a bigger-picture take, and finally we'll fit in the big story of the week at the end.

Read Complete Article »

Without a doubt, we now live in Orwellian times. Anyone who runs afoul of the Dear Leader must be punished. The truth is whatever the Dear Leader says (even when he contradicts something he earlier said). We don't have a Ministry of Truth (yet), but we do have Truth Social. We have always been at war with Canada, and Russia has always been our friend, right? The past is being rewritten, erasing any mention of the trans people who were instrumental in leading the Stonewall Riots, and any mention of why pioneers like Jackie Robinson weren't considered just some random baseball star. Maybe Rosa Parks will be next: "She was just some woman on a bus... not really sure why some woman on a bus is historic, but everyone remembers her name for some reason...." In all this Orwellian flood, though, the one that stands out for me is the up-is-down nature of the richest man in the world absolutely destroying major government departments in the name of "government efficiency." That one really takes the Orwellian cake, as it were.

Read Complete Article »