Yeah, he's a duck, but such a weird one!

Maine is just 20 miles from my front door, and like New Hampshire is a purple state that's trending bluer with each passing election. Both voted for Kamala in 2024, but only Maine has a Democratic governor. She was a leading contender for the Senate seat held by the moderate Republican Susan Collins this year, but dropped out and left the field to -- Graham Platner, who's such a weird duck that nobody knows what his politics are. Nevertheless, he's certain to win the Democratic nomination next week, and Senator Collins is running scared of what that means for November. (She's not among Trump's favorites and unlikely to get an endorsement from him.)

Mr Platner presents himself as a horny-handed oyster farmer, though his only customer is the restaurant run by his mother. He attended private schools including the elite Hotchkiss School in Connecticut, then served a four-year hitch in the US Marines and another with the Maryland National Guard while attending George Washington University, and perhaps a stint as a military contractor. "I wanted to play soldier," he explained. "Perhaps I read too much Hemingway."

Somewhere along the line, he got a death's-head tattoo, symbol of the Waffen SS combat units in the Second World War. At least until he was 30, Platner boasted of "my Totenkopf" even as he claimed to be a Communist, a contradiction he now explains as the result of post traumatic stress disorder. Yeah, sure. Please don't let this scumball represent Maine in the US Senate!

The Art of the Deal

Donald Trump wrote the book, but it seems to be Iran that's making the movie.

Memorial Day, whenever and whoever

In my heart it'll always be Memorial Day on the 30th of May, recalling the Union dead in our Civil War. Now of course it's the last Monday in May, honoring all who died in any of our wars. My younger granddaughter and I went out to the cemetery the other day to neaten up the family gravestones (I added my own in 2023 alongside those of my wife and daughter) and ensure that the American flag still marked the grave of my father-in-law, who skippered a fast-supply boat with a Kiwi crew in the Second World War. For myself, I served two years and a day in the 1950s and became a "veteran" retroactively in 1977. It was enough, however, to give me an appreciation for those who shed their blood for this country, and never more than in this, its 250th year. Thank you for your sacrifice!

Will Putin and Trump go down together?

With Donald Trump punishing Republicans who don't bow deeply enough to him, and asking the rest of us to front nearly $2 billion in a slush fund to pay off the January 6 rioters who invaded the US Capitol building five years ago, November 2026 doesn't look very promising for Republicans. He's apt to lose his House majority, thereby ensuring Impeachment 3.0. More important, he may also lose the Senate. That won't remove him from office (an impeachment is an indictment; it's the Senate that convicts, and it takes a two-thirds majority to do that) but it will certainly render him a lame duck. For most Americans, that's probably the best outcome, since President JD Vance would not only take us in the wrong direction, but could very well remain in office until January 2037.

As dictator-for-life, Vladimir Putin needn't fear impeachment nor even an honest public-opinion poll, but he too could be a lame duck by the end of the year. His pathetic Victory Day parade on May 9, without the cannon and tanks and missiles that in years past made the boast impressive even if unhistoric. (Hitler's successors actually surrendered to the Allies on May 8.) Stalin's Red Army battled the Wehrmacht for 47 months before reaching Berlin; Putin's has been at war with Ukraine for 51 months already and is farther from Kyiv than it was four years ago. Indeed, there are those who say that the Russians have actually lost territory so far in 2026.

Trump of course could bail him out, but would Speaker of the House Hakeem Jeffries permit that?

A dune-buggy ambulance for Ukraine

This squat, camouflaged ambulance was delivered the other day to the 28th Separate Brigade in southeastern Ukraine, along with a Nissan Pathfinder pickup truck, gasoline-powered generators, and other supplies from one of my favorite charities, the Ukrainian Freedom Fund in Afton, Wyoming.

The Ukrainian army is massively outnumbered by the Russians, and that shit in the Kremlim doesn't care how many bodies he wastes to overrun the defenders. (The Ukrainians call the Russian soldiers "single-use" items, like the Shaheed suicide drones Putin got from Iran.) A wounded Ukrainian might wait days or even weeks before he can be safely evacuated, and the dune buggy can go where no other vehicle can.... Yes, its front wheels are larger than those in the rear, the better to climb over obstacles.

The Ukrainian president was kind enough to allow a cease for Putin's pathetic Victory Day celebration, which for the first time in 81 years was held without the marching troops, clanking tanks, and trucks loaded with nuclear missiles; spectators who dared present themselves in Red Square were treated to television images instead.

Living up to his despicable record, Putin repaid Ukraine with a barrage of missiles and drones yesterday, killing "at least" 14 civilians and wounding more than 80 in an assault that began at 11 a.m. and continued into last night, killing another civilian and wounding 36 more when a residential building collapsed in Kyiv.

For its part, Ukraine inflicted 1,130 Russian casualties yesterday, bringing Putin's losses since 2022 to 1,344,180 men killed, wounded, captured, or deserted. The casualties include nearly a third of the 15,000 North Korean troops sent to Russia to help defend the Kursk region from Ukraine's counter-offensive in August 2024. More recently, Russia has been recruiting Africans with promises of well-paying jobs, which turn out to be combat after four days of military training.

The Pleasure of Having a Comedian for President

Before he was elected president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky was a comedian who portrayed the president on a popular television program, "Servant of the People." When his film company became a political party in 2019 -- five years after Putin's "little green men" had seized Crimea and launched a low-level war in eastern Ukraine -- he was elected for real with 73 percent of the vote. He was himself from a Russian-speaking Jewish family, but in February 2022 he became the 21st century version of Winston Churchill, standing tall and eloquent in combat fatigues against the 21st century version of Adolf Hitler.

But he hasn't lost the comedian's touch. On May 8 (the actual date that Hitler's Germany surrendered to the Allies) Zelensky issued the following proclamation:

"I hereby decree: 1. To authorize the holding of a parade in Moscow (Russian Federation) on May 9, 2026."

We Americans have something of a comic in the White House, but he never seems actually to be having fun with the job.

Victory Day Is Near, and Putin Is Worried

Yaroslav Trofimov in the Wall Street Journal and Jim Geraghty in National Review have remarkably similar stories this morning about a nervous Vladimir Putin as his favorite day in the year approaches: May 9, Victory Day, when Soviet Russia supposedly defeated "the Nazis." In fact, Germany surrendered to the Allies on May 8, but Stalin demanded that they send a delegation to Moscow the following day, to surrender to him personally. That's how Russian history gets written, or rewritten.

It's not just that Putin is afraid that a Ukrainian drone might target his seat (Mr Geraghty conveniently supplies the lat/lon of Lenin's tomb in case the Ukrainians don't have it). There's also the fear of that very Russian phenomenon, the coup -- two of those in 1917, a civil war the following year, and a confusing number of government upheavals in the 1990s, the last of which installed Putin as the country's dictator. Not to mention a short-lived rebellion by Wagner Group mercenaries in 2023.

But not to worry, Mr President-for-Life! Enjoy your day

King Charles Tiptoes Into the Breech

Well, Charles III's address to Congress was a bit short of what Winston Churchill would have achieved, but perhaps it was right-sized, reflecting Britain's much-diminished role in Europe and the world. (His country today, including reserves and Gurkha mercenaries, can muster about half the number of British soldiers who were rescued from Dunkirk in the spring of 1940.)

The king wisely pointed out that the only time NATO's common-defense article has been exercised was to support the US after 9/ll: 457 Brits died in Afghanistan, along with 159 Canadians, 90 Frenchmen, 63 Germans, 53 Italians, 44 Poles, 44 Danes, 41 Australians, and troops from 23 other nations. "Today," he added, "... that same unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine and her most courageous people."

We keep hearing that President Trump has a curious affection for the British royal family, including King Charles. Let's hope that the king's visit will remind him that we too have a stake in supporting Ukraine against its monstrous invader.