This is a week of celebration, despondence, disbelief, anger, worry and fear for Americans.
The wave of conflicting emotions was largely true when the only news of the week was the historic action by the U.S. Senate (or more precisely half of it plus a tie-breaking vice president) to pass what they call the Inflation Reduction Act.
Assuming the House of Representatives also passes the measure and President Joe Biden signs the compromise struck by Senate Democrats, the legislation will deliver on a long-promised congressional response to climate change and another pledge to lower prescription drug prices.
And that's just for starters.
However, what happened in the Senate over the weekend paled compared to Monday's first-time-in-history FBI search of a former American president's home.
None other than Donald Trump himself, who was not at his Mar-a-Lago home when the raid occurred, confirmed the truth of this unprecedented move by the U.S. Justice Department.
As experts explained in the hours afterward, just seeking the search warrant means that U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland personally signed off on this course of action.
The fact that the FBI got the search warrant means a federal judge was persuaded there was probable cause that whatever the FBI was asking to search for at Trump's South Florida home could be evidence of federal crime.
Speculation about what FBI agents expected to find has focused on boxes of classified documents Trump improperly had transferred from the White House to Mar-a-Lago.
The court-authorized search is the latest and most significant indication that the former president is the target of a Justice Department criminal investigation.
How individual Americans reacted to the news depends largely on their respective political allegiances.
There are Trump supporters out there still willing to do whatever the former president asks of them. They followed when he asked them to gather in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, and march on the U.S. Capitol. He wanted to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power from his administration to Biden's. It was interrupted, but only temporarily.
A select committee of the House of Representatives is famously still collecting testimony about the bloody, Trump-inspired insurrection that left some police officers defending the Capitol and some of the rioters they sought to contain dead and injured.
It is that same insurrection and all that led up to it, including plotting among Trump loyalists to secure fake electoral votes from several states, that came way too close to overturning Biden's election by the Electoral College.
As testimony before the select committee began to unravel what happened that day and in the days and weeks leading up to it, Americans began listening and learning and reacting to the growing mass of telltale information.
Certainly, some Americans dismiss it out of hand. But others want to know the whole story and expect those responsible for what happened to be held accountable -- even a former president.
Many more Americans likely land somewhere between the never-give-up Trump backers and those who are encouraged by this most recent indication that the Justice Department may indeed be investigating whether Trump is criminally responsible for any of it.
Still others are bracing for what happens next: worrying about whether the American democracy will survive the next chapter in this ongoing historic drama.
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UPDATE: Thwarting Initiatives
The state Board of Election Commissioners last week refused to certify the popular names and ballot titles for both of the proposed citizen initiatives for this year's general election in Arkansas.
It is a new role for the commission, one formerly held by the state's attorney general and the subject of last week's column.
The commissioners proved they can be just as disappointing as the state's attorneys general in thwarting initiatives from the people.
The state panel rejected the popular name and ballot title for a constitutional amendment to legalize recreational marijuana because they did not clearly specify whether edibles would have a certain THC limit.
Responsible Growth Arkansas, the organization that petitioned for the recreational marijuana amendment, has already filed an appeal with the Arkansas Supreme Court challenging the Election Commission decision.
The problem with a proposed amendment intended to remove Pope County as a state-licensed casino site, the board ruled, was the failure to mention in the popular name and ballot title that Cherokee Nation Businesses already holds the one, allowable state casino license in Pope County.
Fair Play for Arkansas 2022, the group behind the Pope County gambling petition, has said it is exploring its options, including the possibility of appeal.
But those options got more complicated Monday when the secretary of state's office declared the committee failed to collect enough additional signatures to qualify for the ballot.