The big anniversary is next year, and the powers that be, big and small, are already planning for the big super All-American 250th Birthday shindig.

This weekend, in our little corner of God’s great creation, we are recovering from another successful Windjammer Days extravaganza and racing into summer. But we will have fireworks, a band concert and other big things. Merchants, local (please patronize them) and national, will offer deals they tell us are too good to pass up.

The Maine legislature has packed up and gone home, leaving the heat on Gov. Janet Mills to pick through the leavings. In Washington D.C., Congress is hiding from constituents who are reading and discovering the topics included in the 900-plus pages of the big beautiful bill that most members didn't read. The White House wants to spin it as a victory for responsible government. Both branches are moving on as the next election cycle is about 17 months away. They figure most folks will forget about the landmines tucked into the BBB by the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November 2026.

Meanwhile, POTUS dropped the bomb, which (you choose the adjective) the Iranian nuclear bomb production program. And after the leader of the free world took both of them to the woodshed, using the dreaded F word, no less, the Israelis and Iranians are not shooting at each other, so far.

In Europe, the Russians are still trying to take over their neighboring nation. And Vlad the Aggressor is fuming because the Ukrainians refuse to lie down and play dead. Instead, they are kicking the tush of one of the world's largest armies by re-inventing the art of war by turning toy quad drones into deadly weapons.

While we celebrate the 249th anniversary of the Fourth of July this week, it is not the big one. But the fact a nation invented by Thomas Jefferson’s quill pen survived ain’t chopped liver, either. Jefferson wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence, and Congress edited it. FYI, they blue-penciled out a clause prohibiting the African slave trade and another blaming the Brits for sending “Scotch and foreign mercenaries” to our shores. The Continental Congress included some Scottsmen, so they deleted that reference. Thankfully, they didn’t ban Scotch (whiskey) from our nation, although we tried to do that to ourselves when we adopted the ill-fated 18th Amendment.

So, here is what Mr. Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence. “WHEN in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

Then Mr. Jefferson went on and on about how we should be an independent nation because of all the bad stuff King George was doing to us.

Ironically, he listed several topics that can be related to front page news in 2025. (FYI, just like the Bible, the founding fathers included passages that could be used to justify a particular political belief.)

Here are the words from the Declaration: “The king has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for the Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”

The D of I also blames King George for cutting our trade with all parts of the world and transporting Americans beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses.

I know you would rather plow through the instruction manual for your family car than read the Declaration, but read it. Then, if you are still a glutton for punishment, read American Scripture by Pauline Maier. FYI, she said Jefferson was overrated. Read her book to find out why she felt that way.

Until next time, America will be fine.