It was little noticed, but last week the U.S. government admitted that this year's budget deficit has already topped the trillion-dollar mark. And the fiscal year won't be over for another month. This will be only the fifth time in American history that the annual deficit has been over a trillion dollars, and the other four years were all in the depths of the Great Recession. We're supposed to have a good economy right now, but we're running a deficit as if we're in some pretty bad times. Of course, all of this proves how both Donald Trump and the Republicans have been lying to the American public all along, and how Democrats can continue to make the rather easy argument that the only time the nation gets its fiscal house in anything resembling good order is when there's a Democrat in the White House.

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We have to begin today with an apology. Five years ago, without knowing any better, we erroneously reported in this space that there would not be another Friday the 13th which coincided with a full moon until 2049. So it was much to our surprise that we heard that this week we all were going to see another one, only five short years after we feverishly coined the word "selenofriggatriskaidekaphobia" to describe those with the very specific neurotic fear (-phobia) of both full moons (seleno-) and Fridays (-frigga-) the 13th (-triskaideka-).

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Finally, everyone on one stage! That was my reaction before the third 2020 Democratic presidential debate even began, because for the first time it's a one-night affair. Unfortunately, at least 11 candidates have already qualified for the next debate, with a few other candidates hovering on the brink of qualification, so it's looking like we're going to have to wait for the fifth debate to see all the frontrunners on the same stage together again.

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The great fear of those who did not support Donald Trump's election in 2016 was that if America hit a crisis point -- a virtual certainty, over a span of four years -- Trump would prove to be dangerously unstable and not know how to deal with it. The consequences could be alarming, as Ted Cruz joked about on the campaign trail at the time:

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The mainstream media does a good job on some things, I'd be the first to admit. But admitting they were wrong is simply not one of them.

Case in point is Elizabeth Warren's DNA test. Back when she revealed the results of the test, the inside-the-Beltway punditocracy jumped to a rather overblown conclusion: Warren's DNA test had been such a monumental and fundamental error that her campaign for the presidency was over before it began. Warren's chances were completely written off by just about every pundit banging on a keyboard. She was toast, they all told each other at their cocktail parties, and they shared this conventional wisdom with their readers and viewers, confident that it was an accurate read of the situation.

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This week, the Wall Street Journal revealed that Donald Trump, for some strange reason, now wants to try to buy Greenland again. The Washington Post later followed up on the story:

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Donald Trump finally had to admit today that his tariffs are actually paid by American consumers and not China (as he's been saying all along). This is a fairly basic economic concept, but Trump has deluded himself up to this point that up is down and black is white. Finally, cracks are showing in this facade. The Trump administration announced (after a disastrous day on the stock market) that they would be holding off on inflicting another round of tariffs in September, and instead would wait until the middle of December to add this new tax to thousands of products made in China. This way, American consumers won't get hit by the Trump tax when they do all their Christmas shopping. But if Trump's version of reality were correct -- that China was paying all the tariffs -- then Christmas wouldn't even matter and there would be no reason to delay the new tariff. Trump even reluctantly had to admit this out loud to a reporter (although he included caveats like: "just in case some of the tariffs would have an impact on U.S. consumers").

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Well, the second round of the Democratic debates is over, which means we are now smack in the middle of the debate about the debates. This is a window where we don't yet have an accurate picture of whether this week's debates will change anything in the polling (likely outcome: not very much), so instead of hard data all we have to argue about is sheer speculation and opinion. And, from what's being said, some are wringing their hands with worry.

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Whew! The second Democratic presidential debates are now officially in the history books. Thankfully, this will likely be the last marathon two-night debate round, as the third debate is likely to cut the field so significantly that those who qualify might all be able to fit on a single stage.

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Last night was indeed a throwdown in the Motor City, with 10 Democrats sparring on one stage. My overall impression of the first round of the second debates was that this was, in many ways, the debate that I've been personally itching to see for at least four years now. It was a direct confrontation between the "moderate" or "centrist" wing of the Democratic Party versus the "progressive" or "Democratic" wing of the party. It rarely descended into personalities, and instead remained a purely ideological battle of different visions for how to lead both Democrats and the entire country into the future. We almost got such a debate last time, with Bernie mixing it up with Hillary, but there was far too much personality getting in the way of the purely ideological debate. Also, both the country and the Democratic Party have moved significantly since 2016, so the ground for this debate has shifted.

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