Here's the amazing thing about written agreements: they are comprised of words we can all read and then form opinions about! It's really neat! So release the MOU text. Now. Don't keep it secret and then complain that people aren't trusting your version of events.

Here’s an idea:  if you want people to stop speculating about the MOU release the MOU. Don’t brief a few anointed ones to control the narrative and expect everyone else to sit silently.  That’s not how our country works. It’s going to be signed soon. It takes time for people to digest it all once it is released.  Controlling the narrative can only last so long.

The Committee of Five—John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman—was appointed to draft the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago today. Jefferson's draft of the document is here at the Library, and will be featured in a new exhibition opening July 3.

250 years ago today, a man stood up in a room full of nervous delegates and said the words that made America inevitable. Not Thomas Jefferson. Not George Washington. Not Benjamin Franklin. A Virginia planter named Richard Henry Lee. It was June 7, 1776. The war had already been going for over a year. Men were dying. Cities were burning. And yet the Continental Congress still had not officially declared independence from Britain. That morning, Lee rose and read aloud a resolution he had been instructed to deliver by Virginia: "That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." John Adams immediately seconded it. The room erupted. The debate that followed was so heated that Congress had to table the vote entirely. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina were not ready. Their delegates had not been authorized to vote for independence. Some feared it was too soon. Some feared it was treason. So Congress bought time. They postponed the vote for three weeks and quietly appointed a committee to draft a formal declaration, just in case the resolution passed. That committee included Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and a soft-spoken 33-year-old Virginia lawyer known for his elegant writing. Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson wrote the Declaration. It was adopted July 4. The world celebrated. And Richard Henry Lee, the man whose words started everything, whose resolution is the reason any of this happened? He had already gone home to Virginia. He missed the signing entirely. Jefferson is immortalized. Lee is a footnote. History is funny that way.

On June 6, 1944, a 56-year-old general with a secret walked onto Utah Beach under fire, armed with a cane and a pistol. The secret: his heart was failing. He had hidden it from the army doctors so they wouldn't pull him from the mission. His name was Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Son of the President. He had begged three separate times to lead the first wave ashore at Normandy before his commanders finally said yes. When his landing craft drifted 2,000 yards off course, every instinct said redirect the following waves to the correct zone. Instead, Roosevelt walked the beach himself, alone, under artillery fire, cane in hand, reading the terrain. His verdict: "We'll start the war from right here." He then stood on that beach and personally greeted every regiment that landed after him, pointing them inland, cracking jokes under shellfire, steadying 18-year-olds who had never seen combat. He did this for hours. Years later, Omar Bradley was asked to name the single most heroic act he had ever witnessed in combat. His answer, without hesitation: "Ted Roosevelt on Utah Beach." Roosevelt's son, Captain Quentin Roosevelt II, also landed at Normandy that same morning. He was named after his uncle, Quentin Roosevelt, who had been shot down as a fighter pilot over France in World War I. Three generations. Three wars. One family. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. died in his sleep 36 days later. Heart attack. The thing he had been hiding finally won. He never learned he had been awarded the Medal of Honor. He was buried at the Normandy American Cemetery. In 1955, his family had his brother Quentin, killed in WWI, exhumed from where he fell in France and reinterred right beside him. Quentin is the only World War I soldier buried there. Two brothers. Two world wars. The same French soil. Their father had once said: "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." Both of his sons did exactly that.

The calm before the storm. Pointe du Hoc. The most dangerous mission on D-Day, according to Omar Bradley. 225 men will fight here late tonight, US time. 77 will be killed, and more than 140 will be wounded.

One of the greatest speeches of the late 20th century, given on the 40th anniversary of one of the most spectacular days in human history.

82 yrs ago today 160,000 allied soldiers led by the Americans & Brits stormed the beaches of Normandy to free Europe from Nazi tyranny & secure freedom for themselves & future generations. Never forget their bravery & what is gave to you 🇺🇸 🇬🇧

The eyes of the world were upon them - and today, we honor their legacy as we live in the freedom secured by their noble sacrifice.

Out of 16.4 million Americans who served in WWII, only about 40,000 are still alive. They’re dying at a rate of ~100 per day. These are the heroes who saved the world from tyranny. Find one. Thank one. Listen to their stories. While you still can.

On the night of June 5, 1944, Eisenhower stood on a tarmac in England and watched 13,000 paratroopers board their planes. He already knew what Air Marshal Leigh-Mallory had told him in private: up to half of them might not survive the night. 6,500 men. Dead before a single soldier touched the beach. Eisenhower had approved the mission anyway, called the decision "soul-wracking," and said nothing to the men. Instead he drove out and visited them. He chatted. Laughed. Asked where they were from. Shook hands. Cracked jokes. Not one of them knew their general had just signed what might be their death warrant. When the last plane disappeared into the dark sky, his driver Kay Summersby looked over at him. There were tears running down his face. He drove back to Telegraph Cottage in silence. Then he sat down, picked up a pencil, and wrote a note he prayed no one would ever read. "Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone." Look at what he edited. He had first written "This particular operation." He crossed it out and replaced it with "My decision to attack." Then he pressed the pencil down hard and drew a long, firm line under the words "mine alone." He misdated it July 5 instead of June 5. He was so consumed with dread he had forgotten what month it was. He folded the note and put it in his wallet. He carried it there as 156,000 men stormed the beaches of Normandy. When word came back that the beachhead had held, he took it out, crumpled it, and threw it in the trash. An aide quietly pulled it out and saved it. That note is now behind glass at the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas. You can still see where the pencil pressed hardest. Right under the words "mine alone." 82 years ago tonight.

The anniversary of the eve of the D-Day invasion seems like a fitting night to see this movie

D-Day Minus 1 has begun in England. Ike is feeling the pressure like no other can. These are the most stressful hours of his life. A journalist notes he is "bowed down with worry...as though each of the four stars on either shoulder weighed a ton." He has a constant ringing in his right ear. Almost frantic with nervous exhaustion, he lights cigarette after cigarette, some 60 filterless a day. He has a palsy in his hand from signing so many orders. The fate of the free world rests with him and him alone. See more at alexkershaw.substack.com/

If you like Russia, fine. Like it. Love it. Live there for all I care. But no, we aren't going to do this gaslighting where you get to lie and claim Russia is a clean, safe, traditionalist Christian paradise. It is quite literally the opposite.

Law professors reading about this case after struggling for weeks to come up with a final exam question.

Today in 1940, over 330,000 Allied troops were saved at Dunkirk when civilian ships from England joined the rescue effort.

Will be watching this tonight. I love the rare occasions like this when the History Channel produces actual history shows and not stupid stuff about aliens, ghosts, and other non-history stuff I don’t care about

All gave some. Some gave all. Honoring all the members of our armed forces who gave what President Abraham Lincoln called "the last full measure of devotion," Memorial Day is one of the most important and solemn days on the National Mall. #WashingtonDC

The uncle I never knew. I always think of him on this day. He was killed on D-Day.

Every year, I share this video of French caretakers who take sand from Omaha Beach in Normandy, and scrub them into the letters to give them the gold coloring. They do this for all 9,386 US soldiers who died. France also gave us this land as American soil. #MemorialDayWeekend