“‘Is it an earthquake or simply a shock? Is it the good turtle soup or merely a mock?’ Those opening lines from Frank Sinatra’s 1962 hit song ‘At Long Last Love’ came to mind when President Trump parried with reporters on March 13 over how to characterize the U.S.-Israeli aerial bombardments of Iran. Trump called it a ‘little excursion.’ Some thought he meant to say incursion. But when a reporter pressed him and asked, ‘which is it, a war or an excursion?’ Trump stuck to his semantical guns and hedged: ‘Well, it’s both. It’s an excursion that will keep us out of a war, and the war is going to be — for them it’s a war, for us it turned out to be easier than we thought.’ … The president’s semantic juggling over whether to call our current military operation a war or an excursion cannot gloss over that we are already at war with Iran.” (03/26/26)
“Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, hosting his first monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon since the Iran war began, prayed on Wednesday for American bullets to hit their targets. … The services proceeded even after a lawsuit was filed Monday over such gatherings by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The advocacy group filed a similar suit against the Labour Department, where Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer also hosts monthly prayer gatherings inspired by Hegseth. The nonprofit group, in existence since 1948, said both officials were ‘abusing the power of their government positions and taxpayer-funded resources to impose their preferred religion on federal workers.'” (03/26/26)
“The Declaration of Independence was both performative and expressive. It announced the United States as a separate entity from Britain. It also articulated the core political premises on which the new nation was established. The commemoration of its 250th anniversary will mostly focus on its first function, because a nation, like a person, most readily celebrates its birth. But especially at our time of division and polarization, a renewed focus on our founding principle has never been more urgent.” (03/26/26)
“Transgender women athletes are now excluded from the Olympics after the IOC agreed to a new eligibility policy on Thursday which aligns with U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order on women’s sports ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games. ‘Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females,’ the International Olympic Committee said, ‘determined on the basis of a one-time SRY gene screening.'” (03/26/26)
“The Commonwealth of Virginia is poised to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement already joined by 17 other states and Washington, DC, in an attempt to effectively eliminate the Electoral College. Both the state senate and state house approved the measure, and the bill is now awaiting the governor’s signature. Electoral College opponents will celebrate, but they shouldn’t. Americans do not realize what is about to hit them if the national popular vote becomes reality.” (03/26/26)
“In his recent social media diatribes, Donald Trump has complained that our allies are ungrateful for the war he has initiated against Iran. He is angered that they aren’t anxious to send in their military forces to win a war that he claims is already won. Trump also doesn’t seem to think it matters that he never consulted, or even warned, any US allies, with the notable exception of Israel. To anyone not in the Trump cult, these complaints qualify as batshit crazy. Trump’s war is a massive whack to economies across the world. These countries are not grateful for an economic hit that is equivalent to a massive weather disaster or serious pandemic.” (03/26/26)
