Saturday, June 06, 2026
Most Say The U.S. Is Not Living Up To The Ideals Of The Declaration of Independence
The chart above is from the Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between May 14th and 18th of a nationwide sample of 1,316 adults, with a 3.4 point margin of error.
The Unemployment Rate Remained Steady At 4.3% For May
The Labor Department released its unemployment report for May on Friday. It showed the economy produced about 172,000 new jobs in May. While not great, that was better than the last several months. And it was good enough to keep the unemployment rate steady at 4.3 (for the third month in a row).
Here are the relevant statistics for May.
SIZE OF THE CIVILIAN WORK FORCE:
170,078,000
OFFICIAL NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS:
7,307,000
OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:
4.3%
DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN OF OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT:
Adult men...............4.0%
Adult women...............3.8%
Teens (16-19)...............14.7%
Whites...............3.8%
Blacks...............6.6%
Asians...............3.8%
Hispanics...............5.0%
No HS diploma...............6.0%
HS graduate...............4.4%
Some college...............3.6%
Bachelor's deg. or more...............2.7%
NUMBER OF MARGINALLY-ATTACHED WORKERS (unemployed but no loner counted):
1,723,000
MORE REALISTIC NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS (official + marginally-attached):
9,030,000
MORE REALISTIC UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:
5.3%
One Out Of Sixteen Insurrectionists Pardoned Have Been Arrested For Other Crimes
The following is part of an article by Katherine Pompilio at Lawfare:
At least 97 of the more than 1,500 individuals granted clemency by President Trump for their roles in the January 6 Capitol attack have been arrested for, charged with, or convicted of crimes separate from Jan. 6 since their participation in the Jan. 6 riot.
A Lawfare study reveals that almost one in 16 insurrectionists subject to the president’s clemency order has been arrested for and charged with—and in the vast majority of cases convicted of—other crimes, at least some of which were actively enabled by the clemency actions.
The alleged crimes by Jan. 6 defendants since Jan. 6, 2021, run the gamut from relatively low-grade offenses like property damage, possession of drug paraphernalia, and trespassing to serious felonies like grand larceny, stalking, planning to assassinate law enforcement officials and prominent politicians, and defrauding government agencies. One Jan. 6 pardonee was convicted in February 2026 of child molestation and sentenced to life in prison. Another was convicted in 2025 of reckless homicide.
At least 14, meanwhile, have been charged with sex crimes or crimes related to child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and at least six have faced domestic violence charges. Others have faced charges for physical assaults, illegal firearms possession, or other violent crimes. At least 20 have been charged with driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol or drugs or public intoxication.
Perhaps most strikingly, five recipients of presidential clemency were arrested in connection with conduct that occurred at least in part subsequent to Trump’s freeing them from prison—meaning that Trump’s clemency order on the first day of his second term may have actively facilitated criminal conduct. These include:
- Andrew Paul Johnson, who was freed from prison as a result of the pardon in 2025, was convicted of five charges, including child molestation, in February 2026, and sentenced to life in prison. The criminal conduct for which he was convicted took place both before and after his pardon.
- Zachary Alam, who was convicted of felony charges of grand larceny and burglary just months after his pardon.
- Ryan Nichols, who was charged with deadly conduct and harassment on May 10, 2026, after allegedly threatening a person with a gun in a church parking lot.
Another defendant’s charges are still pending. And still another, Enrique Tarrio, was arrested for simple assault in March 2025, but the then-interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia ultimately declined to bring charges.
Friday, June 05, 2026
Marquette Poll Mirrors Other Recent Polls - Trump's Numbers Are Bad!
The chart above is from the Marquette University Law School Poll -- done between May 20th and 26th of a nationwide sample of 1,001 adults with a 3.4 point margin of error.
EPI Answers Some Common Questions About The Federal Minimum Wage
You can click here to see a more in-depth discussion of each question.
The Tests Trump Took Measure Cognitive Impairment - NOT INTELLIGENCE!
Trump has taken a mental test as part of his physical exams at least 4 times in the last few months. He is bragging that it shows his "extreme intelligence". It doesn't. It measures cognitive impairment, and it's worrying that he has taken it so many times. It's usually given more than once if some mental decline is noted.
Lewis Jacobson (at PolitiFact) tells us the truth about the tests:
We’ll have to take Trump’s word for it that he scored a 30 out of 30 on the test, which medical experts believe — based on Trump’s own descriptions — is the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. (When we asked the White House whether that was the test Trump took, a spokesperson did not dispute it.) Trump reportedly also took the test in 2018 and twice in 2025.
But medical experts said Trump inaccurately described the test as measuring intelligence. Instead, it aims to detect signs of cognitive impairment; if the score is low enough, then further testing is recommended.
"The test measures cognition," including attention, concentration, language, memory, abstract thinking and calculation skills, said Ziad Nasreddine, a Quebec-based neurologist who created the 10-minute Montreal Cognitive Assessment in 2005. "Cognitive function is correlated with IQ. But the test was not designed to detect the genius level of cognitive performance. It's meant to reassure that cognitive functions are normal."
Patients might have to read a list of words and recall them; repeat a list of numbers forward and backward; subtract a one-digit number repeatedly starting from 100; repeat a sentence; draw comparisons between two objects; and know the time of day and their location.
Trump garnered attention in 2020 when he told Fox News, "It's like you'll go: Person, woman, man, camera, TV. So they say, ‘Could you repeat that?' So I said, ‘Yeah. So it's person, woman, man, camera, TV.’ ‘Okay, that's very good. If you get it in order, you get extra points.’" (Nasreddine has said that the test has never included that series of words, nor another example Trump has cited involving a giraffe, tiger and whale.)
Scores from 26 to 30 are considered normal. Scores below 26 are considered to reflect some form of cognitive impairment, with the degree of impairment increasing as the score drops.
This is not the first time Trump has boasted about having high scores on the test. He mentioned it in several speeches and interviews earlier this year. In December 2025, after he said he took the test for the third time, Trump posted, "I have been told that few people have been able to ‘ace’ this Examination and, in fact, most do very poorly, which is why many other Presidents have decided not to take it at all."
Neither Nasreddine nor Ishani Ganguli, a Harvard Medical School associate professor of medicine and a primary care physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said they would describe the test as "high difficulty," as Trump did.
"A 30/30 score would suggest normal cognitive function, meaning no evidence of cognitive impairment or dementia," Ganguli said.
Neither expert offered specific data on whether a 30 out of 30 is "very rare," but from their own experience, the frequency of a 30-point score is somewhere between "relatively uncommon," as Nasreddine estimated, and "somewhat common," as Ganguli said.
"It has to be sufficiently hard to detect early-stage cognitive disorders, and not too hard to decrease the risk of false positives," Nasreddine said.
Thursday, June 04, 2026
Public Opposes The War With Iran - And How Trump Is Handling That War
Most People Say The Economy Is Bad - And Getting Worse
The charts above reflect the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between May 29th and June 1st of a nationwide sample of 1,604 adults (including 1,453 registered voters). The margin of error is 3.5 points for adults and 3.2 points for registered voters.
The United States Needs To Erect More Monuments To Donald Trump (Satire)
The following is a delicious bit of satire by Bret Stephens in The New York Times:
To: Our greatest president
From: Your greatest fans
We are writing to let you know, sir, that we are as outraged as you are that some liberal judge has ordered that your name be stripped from the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. Not only is the decision wrong, it’s also backward. You’ve survived three assassination attempts and yet the building will keep his name?
On a related subject, sir, we hope those knuckleheads in Congress won’t let some old law stand in the way of putting your face on a $250 bill. After all, nothing advertises the strength of a country’s economy like high-denomination bank notes. And since restaurant meals now often run to about $250 (minus drinks and dessert) for a party of four, making a bank note with your mug shot on it will be triply convenient: faster payment; a reminder of how affordable things have become under your presidency; and proof that, in the land of the free, you can get away with just about anything.
We’re also big supporters of your plan for your triumphal arch for Washington soaring a proud 250 feet, nearly as tall as the Capitol itself. Hopefully it will include large gold-plated statues of the greatest American leaders, such as Abraham Lincoln and yourself. People are calling it the “Arc de Trump,” like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. That one was commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte, just before such strokes of military genius as the Peninsular War, the invasion of Russia and the Hundred Days campaign of 1815.
Do you know they named a bridge and a train station in London in honor of the battle that ended that last excursion?
At any rate, leaders who build gargantuan triumphal arches always go on to greater military glory. Maybe yours will be for the liberation of Hormuz, though that may have to await the deployment of the new “Trump class” battleships after the first one commissions sometime around 2036.
We fear, however, that you may be missing significant opportunities to enhance your and your family’s visibility.
We were tempted to suggest, for example, that you consider renaming the Statue of Liberty the “Melania Knauss Trump Statue of Liberty,” in honor of the first immigrant — a legal immigrant, of course — to become first lady. But Lady Liberty isn’t exactly a “10,” except maybe in her dress size, and the poem about “the wretched refuse of your teeming shore” is not on-brand when it comes to the Trump name.
For now, we have shelved the idea. But have you considered building a svelter “Statue of Melania,” 250 feet tall (not including the base), on nearby Governors Island? The inscription could read: “Give me your Central European catalog models and anyone willing to write a $25 million check.”
Future generations will find it inspirational.
We also believe you were too modest when you chose to rename the Gulf of Mexico after America rather than after yourself, as you had thought to do at first. But why settle for a mere gulf? The Atlantic Ocean is named for Atlas, a figure from Greek mythology, which makes little sense since Greece is nowhere near the Atlantic. And the Pacific Ocean, which is much larger than the Atlantic, was named after a brand of Mexican beer, Pacifico, which makes no sense at all.
You know what does make sense? Trump Oceans. Plural. It simplifies geography while amplifying your name.
And we cannot stop there.
You mustn’t be shy about putting your name to the new White House ballroom. And though we understand that adding your face to Mount Rushmore (for which there’s already a bill in Congress) may, alas, be a geological impossibility, why not, while it’s being repaired and redone, add the name TRUMP in huge gold-tiled letters to the floor of the Reflecting Pool in the National Mall? Ideally, these should be lit up at night in a way that can be visible from 30,000 feet, if not from space.
Speaking of space, aren’t we going back to the moon under your presidency? That’s got to mean naming rights in addition to bragging rights. At a minimum, our first lunar base must be named for you. (The second one can be named for Elon, or maybe Jeff, whoever is first, provided you’re still on good terms with either of them.) But why do we even call our planet’s moon “the Moon,” as if a generic noun should be a proper noun, too? That needs to change.
Get ready for it: Trump Moon.
Mr. President, there are so many ways to honor your priceless achievements and legacy, but we’ve already taken too much of your time. And time being the most valuable thing of all, it reminds us, finally, of a poem:
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Yours sincerely,
Percy, Bysshe and Shelley
Wednesday, June 03, 2026
New Poll Shows Trump's Job Approval Numbers Are Still Terrible
The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between May 29th and June 1st of a nationwide sample of 1,604 adults (including 1,453 registered voters). The margin of error is 3.5 points for adults and 3.2 points for registered voters.
Americans Don't Want A 250 Dollar Bill With Trump's Picture On It
The chart above is from the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between May 29th and June 1st of a nationwide sample of 1,604 adults, with a 3.5 point margin of error.
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