Hello, and welcome to Wednesday, May 06, 2026. Today is National Nurses Day. I’ve got a sister who is now a retired nurse. I’ve always admired her for that ability. A job I doubt I could do. It’s also National Anxiety Disorders Screening Day and Childhood Depression Awareness Day. And, a little sweeter, it is National Crêpes Suzette Day, National Beverage Day, Sauvignon Blanc Day, National Skilled Trades Day, and National Tourism Day. It’s also The Great American Grump Out. I don’t know about the last one. After all, anyone who reads these daily pieces will tell you I stumble into grumpiness every day. Today is no exception.
1541: King Henry VIII orders a bible in English be placed in every church in England.
1835: James Gordon Bennett Sr. publishes the first issue of the New York Herald for one cent.
1837: American blacksmith John Deere creates the first commercially successful self-scouring steel plow in Grand Detour, Ill.
1851: American physician and inventor John Gorrie patents a “refrigeration machine” to make ice.
1851: Linus Yale Jr. patents the Yale cylinder lock.
1889: Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair) in Paris opens with the recently completed Eiffel Tower serving as the entrance arch; the elevators in the tower are not yet ready, so intrepid visitors have to climb 1,710 steps to reach the top.
1937: German airship Hindenburg explodes in flames at Lakehurst, N.J., killing 35 of the 97 on board and one on the ground.
1940: Pulitzer prize awarded to John Steinbeck for The Grapes of Wrath.
1941: Joseph Stalin becomes Premier of the Soviet Union, replacing Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov.
1955: West Germany joins NATO.
1957: Last broadcast of I Love Lucy on CBS-TV.
1968: Columbia Records releases Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, the first live album by American singer-songwriter Johnny Cash.
1975: Early warnings provided by REACT (ham and CB radio operators).
1987: American politician Gary Hart denies affair with model Donna Rice.
1994: Channel Tunnel linking Folkestone, England, and Calais, France, officially opens.
Birthdays today Include: Maximilien Robespierre, French revolutionary; William Strong, lawyer, jurist, politician, and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court (1870-80); Robert Peary, arctic explorer who claimed to have reached the geographic North Pole first (Apr. 6 1909); Sigmund Freud; Motilal Nehru, Indian lawyer and freedom fighter; Amadeo Giannini, banker and entrepreneur (founded Bank of America), Russell Stover, chemist, entrepreneur, and co-founder of Russell Stover Candies; Rudolph Valentino, Italian actor and silent movie idol (The Sheik, Eagle); Raymond Bailey, actor (Vertigo, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Incredible Shrinking Man); Stewart Granger, British-American actor (The Prisoner of Zenda); Orson Welles, actor and director (Citizen Kane, War of the Worlds); Willie Mays, Baseball Hall of Fame center fielder, Leon Hughes, pop-rock singer (The Coasters – “Young Blood”); Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, boxer (famous murder conviction overturned after 19 years imprisonment); Bob Seger, singer and songwriter (“Old Time Rock and Roll,” “Hollywood Nights,” “Against The Wind”); Mary MacGregor, pop singer (“Torn Between Two Lovers”); Tony Blair, British PM; and Tom Bergeron, TV host (America’s Funniest Home Videos, 2006-15).
If today is your day, you’re in some well-known company! Enjoy this day.
***
I said in yesterday’s daily:
But here’s what the chattering class consistently misses: Rank-and-file voters in both parties sit measurably and consistently to the right of their own party leadership. That’s not an opinion; that’s a well-established pattern, running decades deep.
So, you might imagine my reaction when I noted an interesting report at The Federalist this morning:
Establishment Republicans have for more than a month stalled their half-hearted effort to keep their focus on the bill in hopes of convincing enough Democrats to vote for it. Of course, it’s hard to make liberals defend their unpopular stance if you don’t make them defend their unpopular stance.
The Federalist reached out to Thune’s office on Monday. No answer on the status of the SAVE America act, which would amend the flawed National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo identification to cast a ballot in a federal election. Majority Republicans could push for an end to the bill-killing filibuster to pass the legislation. Several senators and President Donald Trump have urged Senate leadership to do just that. But they won’t, apparently trusting that Democrats wouldn’t do the same when they control the upper House again.
Let me explain my position here so there’s no doubt in your mind: Last October, I drew a thick line between the GOP, which is to say, actual conservatives, and the establishment GOP, thusly:
I have often said that our country suffers from two major problems.
- The GOP establishment, which, with its willingness to negotiate away America’s culture, values, people, and place in the world, demonstrates it couldn’t care less about any of it, so long as it gets to position itself as ruling over the ashes.
- The Democrats, who are holding the torches.
Go read the older column from last October for the full picture — but here’s the gist, with no more coy throat-clearing.
For decades, we watched the radical left systematically gut every institution. And the establishment — your Mitch McConnells, your John Thunes, your Mitt Romneys — stood there flat-footed, did absolutely nothing, and then had the audacity to scratch their heads, wondering why GOP voters stayed home for Romney and McCain, and why both houses of Congress kept slipping through their fingers. Oh, and lest we forget, they still can’t wrap their minds around Donald Trump winning not once, not twice, but probably three times. (Unless you actually believe that Joe Biden got 81 million votes out of his rambling and nonsensical campaign from his basement.)
Related: The Internal War of the Democrat Party Against the Progressives Continues Apace
So here’s my message to the GOP establishment. It’s simple, and it comes with some heat. I offer a four-point plan:
- Stop making excuses.
- Kill the filibuster.
- Pass the SAFE Act.
- Get it done.
Stop wetting your Depends over Democrats swooping back in and undoing everything with the filibuster gone, because the concern is a bogus one. Listen closely, because I’ll say this once: If you pass SAFE, Democrats will have to stand in front of the voters and justify ripping it out. We both know that pitch doesn’t work. And here’s the bonus: Passing SAFE guts their vote margins for the foreseeable future. They won’t have the numbers to touch it for decades. The Democrats already know this. That’s the entire reason they’re howling so loudly right now.
This is the moment. Yours. Ours.
We won’t get another chance in our lifetimes. Don’t you dare squander it. A country hangs in the balance.
Get it done.
Thought for the day: How fragile is life? You literally have two minutes to live, but every time you manage to take a breath, that timer gets reset.
Take care of you today. Without you, who would I be writing for?
See you here tomorrow.
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