And the Shutdown Goes On...

We probably won't do an item every day on the shutdown, since that could get pretty boring, and pretty useless if this thing goes on for 20, 30, 40 days. But we certainly do need to do check-ins on occasion.

At the moment, both sides think they have the stronger hand to play. As we have written several times now, the polling very clearly favors the Democrats. We have also written that the White House has put out press releases spinning certain polls so aggressively that there is a risk of creating a black hole. Donald Trump might well be delusional enough to believe the spin, but we doubt that other Republicans are. So, we assume that they think their ace in the hole is that once the pain of a shutdown is felt, voters will turn against the Democrats.

The White House's position, at least at the moment, is the same as when the shutdown began close to a week ago: No negotiating. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said yesterday that the Democrats can vote to reopen the government and THEN there can maybe be talks about the Obamacare subsidies. Hard to imagine why such negotiations would need to wait... unless the administration is planning to go back on its promises as soon as the government is reopened. Will some voters look at this not-so-helpful posture, and reach the same conclusion? We don't know.

Meanwhile, the Senate conducted two more show votes yesterday, bringing the overall total to five. Each of the five have failed in the same way, with Democrats Catherine Cortez Masto (NV) and John Fetterman (PA), and independent Angus King (ME) crossing the aisle in one direction, and Republican Rand Paul (KY) crossing the aisle in the other (though some senators have skipped some of the votes). Nothing is changing thus far, and the number of votes for the can-kicking CR is well short of the 60 needed for cloture.

Most of the drama yesterday was actually in the House. Well, not really in the House, since the House is in recess right now. But the drama certainly involved the House. Going in no particular order, we'll start with the challenge that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) made to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA): Let's have a live debate on the floor of the House chamber, so we can explain our positions to the American people. Obviously, this is a stunt, although one that would be interesting, and might even be helpful. However, Johnson declined the offer, presumably because he's got the weaker position, or he's not a great public speaker, or both.

That said, the Speaker is doing what he can to take lemons and make lemonade... we suppose. Since there's no budget in place, apparently the House can't do anything at all right now (despite the fact that congressional salaries are paid out of a different pot of money, and so are not affected by the shutdown). Anyhow, Johnson has extended the members' 2-week recess to 3 weeks, which certainly does not suggest he expects progress anytime soon. Also, in what is surely a complete and total coincidence, the extra week of recess means that it's just not possible to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D). Darn the luck! This means that Grijalva has been waiting for 2 weeks (and counting), and it also means that the Jeffrey Epstein discharge petition still lacks the final signature needed to bring the matter to the floor of the House. With this kind of fringe benefit, one can imagine Trump keeping the government shut down until, oh, maybe November of 2028?

Also from the House, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) broke ranks and said she wants to see the Obamacare subsidies saved. Though she says she's "not a fan," here's her reasoning:

But I'm going to go against everyone on this issue because when the tax credits expire this year my own adult children's insurance premiums for 2026 are going to DOUBLE, along with all the wonderful families and hard-working people in my district.

It's still a version of "healthcare for me, but not for thee," but it turns out that "healthcare for me" (or, at least, "healthcare for my kids") is dependent on the subsidies. If you are worried that Greene is going soft, or has become more sane, don't be. In the same posting to eX-Twitter (and note, even MAGA does not use Truth Social), she noted that "I think health insurance and all insurance is a scam, just be clear!" Not long thereafter, she also ranted against the Bad Bunny Saturday Night Live appearance and upcoming Super Bowl halftime show, declaring that the time has come to make English the official language of the United States, and also that "the NFL needs to stop having demonic sexual performances during its halftime shows." Yep, still crazy after all these years.

The bottom line is that there just isn't much movement right now, and does not figure to be for a while. That said, the Republican facade IS cracking a little, even if it's the House's biggest crackpot who is responsible. (Z)

Virginia Is Certainly Giving Louisiana, New Jersey a Run for their Money

Maybe we are picking on the Bayou State and the Garden State unduly. But is there any state besides those two that is more likely to have a candidate for office be enmeshed in some sort of scandal? Maybe Florida, we suppose.

We had an item yesterday about Jay Jones (D), who is running to be the state's AG. The National Review somehow laid hands on several text messages that Jones sent to a colleague, in which he (Jones) suggested jokingly (but tastelessly) that a rival politician should be shot. With Charlie Kirk still fresh in the memory, this was not a good time for those messages to come out, and there has been much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments from Republicans, who have demanded that Jones drop out of the race. Meanwhile, Democrats, most obviously gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger, are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They don't want to appear tolerant of political violence, but also don't want to throw a candidate, particularly a Black candidate, under the bus this close to an election.

We have a fair number of readers in Virginia, and several of them wrote in with additional information about this story. We thought it best to share those messages now, as opposed to waiting until the mailbag on Sunday. To start, a lot of the people calling for Jones to step down say that the state AG is the "top cop" and you just can't have someone in that job who has embraced the use of violence as a tool. We repeated that framing in our item yesterday. Reader M.W. in Richmond wrote in to correct that misapprehension:

You called the attorney general of Virginia the state's "top cop," but this is a common misconception. I worked at the AG's office for over a decade. Except for a few specific exceptions, it's not a prosecutorial agency. Prosecutions are usually handled by a county's Commonwealth's Attorney, who is elected by the residents of the county (or independent city).

The AG's office is mostly just the state's law firm. It gives legal advice to state agencies and defends those agencies against lawsuits. When inmates sue their prison, or when students sue their university, the AG's office defends them. It helps acquire land and hire contractors for state parks and highways. The AG only steps into criminal cases after a criminal appeals his conviction to a higher court.

The AG probably should be appointed rather than elected, because the job needs a professional and not a politician in the office. There's an unfortunate tendency for Virginia voters to elect an AG from the opposite party as the governor, which makes the AG think he can be an independent co-governor.

Obviously, we did not have any sort of agenda in misstating the situation. But the folks who are trying to push Jones off the ballot, and who are repeating the "top cop" bit? They very well might.

Meanwhile, reader V.S. in Charlottesville wrote in with a couple of observations, including pushing back at our note that Republican gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears may have cut her deficit in the polls to single digits:

Over 355,000 Virginia residents have already voted early in the election after over two weeks. This is likely at least 10% of the final vote tally. Polling that has come out recently indicates that Spanberger has a substantial lead among these voters, and I would assume the same is for Jay Jones. Since the ballots are already printed and being used, there is no way to replace Jones on the ballot, and a write-in candidate at this point is almost too late. It's like the National Review timed the release so the Democrats had no easy way out.

Also I wanted to correct something that you said regarding Abigail Spanberger losing her double-digit lead in the polls. It depends on which polls you look at. If you only look at the higher quality polls, she still has a double digit lead: Emerson, CNU, the Washington Post, VCU (9 points), and even SoCal Strategies, which is a Republican pollster. It's the flood of Republican associated pollsters that has her closer to 5 points. The issue with earlier polling in Virginia that showed Spanberger with an insurmountable lead is that the polls had too many undecideds and Winsome Earle-Sears had only 20 to 30 some percent of the vote. There was no way the final vote was going to have her at that level. Essentially during the summer, Earle-Sears consolidated Republican support that was lukewarm on her candidacy. Except for a few cases in wave elections, the Virginia gubernatorial race is usually within 10 points either way.

Reader A.R. in Arlington seconds the note about the polling, and adds a couple of other useful insights:

Regarding polling, there was a poll last week that had Abigail Spanberger with a lead in the single digits, which seemed like a major tightening, but on Saturday, there was a poll from the Washington Post/Schar School that had Spanberger up 12 points, 55%-43%. And just today there was a new poll from Christopher Newport University showing Spanberger with a 10-point lead, 52%-42%. So low double digits seems to be where we are now on the top of the ticket.

The Jay Jones situation is tough, especially because the current Attorney General, Jason Miyares, has been the most vocal culture warrior of the three Republicans holding the top three offices in the state. Virginia has no term limits for the AG and Lt. Governor, so he is running for reelection. We rarely hear anything from governor sweater-vest anymore on the culture war front. As you mentioned, there are reasons Spanberger isn't calling for Jones to withdraw, so right now it seems like he will ride it out to Election Day.

The other development on the topic of candidate quality is that the Republican candidate for Lt. Governor, John Reid, has his own problems, and is alleged to have created/operated a Nazi Porn account on Tumblr. Youngkin said he should withdraw from the campaign, but he hasn't, so now each team has someone with dirty laundry, even if they aren't running against each other for the same office. Reid's opponent is Ghazala Hashmi, and we haven't been hearing much from her. I think she is just betting on riding the anti-Trump coattails with the others.

Here is a story about the Reid scandal from New Republic.

Finally, reader B.C. in Richmond wrote in, also to bring our attention to the New Republic item, and to add this assessment: "As a (mostly) lifelong Virginian I think these two 'scandals' will likely cancel each other out. We all know off-year elections bring out ultra-partisans and the angry side usually wins. I would think that the Democratic side will ride the blue wave on Spanberger's coattails, but we'll see."

Incidentally, it's not just the New Republic that is reporting the Nazi porn story (and there's a sentence we never expected to write). Many other outlets have it, too. Here is the story as told by The Advocate, which can get away with being a little more... unvarnished than some of the more stately press outlets. Any readers who click through either story are likely going to have the same reaction we did: "Man, there are some messed up people in the world."

The conclusion here would seem to be that there's just no way Jones is going anywhere, given the late date, and that the Republicans who are kvetching about him (now including Donald Trump) are pretty much executing a Hail Mary pass to try to help GOP AG candidate Miyares, and maybe even to try to save gubernatorial candidate Earle-Sears. It may work for Miyares, since he's incumbent and that race is closer, but probably not for Earle-Sears. Anyhow, thanks to all the readers who wrote in with clarifications and additional information! (Z)

Utah May Soon Have New Congressional Maps

Utah is one of the many states that has taken steps to try to reduce gerrymandering, with voters there having passed laws meant to make the district maps "fair." Of course, "fair" is often in the eye of the beholder, and while the state legislature does get input from an advisory committee, the legislators there have the final say (Iowa, Maine and Vermont have also set up their process in this way).

The most recent map adopted by the legislature was not "fair" by any meaning of that word, and so there were lawsuits. Due to the lawsuits, a judge said that the legislature had to do a better job. The advisory committee proposed six possible maps, and yesterday, the GOP-controlled state legislature adopted the most Republican-friendly of the six. Now, the map heads back to the judge for approval.

Needless to say, this story has not reached its end. The judge may reject the map, especially knowing there were five other options that were less gerrymandered than this one. Anti-gerrymandering groups are already at work on their briefs, and will be doing some filing bright and early today. In the other direction, the legislature is tinkering around with a few ideas that would get rid of this pesky anti-gerrymandering stuff once and for all.

However, there isn't all that much time left for maneuvering, as candidates need to be able to decide if they are running and, if so, where. So, it's well within the realm of possibility that the map adopted yesterday will be in place for the 2026 cycle, and then will be gone by 2028. If so, the new map puts two of Utah's four CDs in reach for the Democrats. Currently, the four districts are R+10 (x3) and R+14. Under the map adopted yesterday, one district might be roughly EVEN, and one might be R+4. Those are estimates from a couple of (neutral) analysts; another (neutral) analyst says they're not quite that close, and puts it as something more like R+4 and R+9.

At very least, it's at least one more seat, and maybe two, that the red team will have to defend. So, that's good news for the blue team. And it remains the case that in a big, blue wave, the Republicans are going to be smacked upside the head, while in a moderate blue wave the GOP will at least lose the majority. Anything less blue than that, from a blue ripple to a red ripple/wave/typhoon, and Mike Johnson probably gets to keep his gavel. (Z)

H-1B Visas? It's Complicated

A couple of weeks ago, we had an item about Donald Trump's announcement that the price for H-1B visas would jump to $100,000. This particular program is intended to allow employers to recruit skilled workers from other countries when they cannot fill those needs domestically. Some employers have used the program as it was intended; others have abused it in various ways.

There have been a couple of pretty prominent angles to this story that have gotten attention since Trump made his announcement. The first of those is that the tech sector will be OK, one way or the other, but the healthcare sector could be badly wounded. There aren't enough doctors in the U.S., nor enough nurses, nor enough orderlies, nor enough of any of the folks who make healthcare work. So, many hospitals and health systems have looked beyond America's borders to fill the gap. The impact is likely to be felt most keenly... in red states and rural areas (aka Trump Country). Be careful what you vote for, you just might get it.

The other news is that, of course, the various affected parties are not going to take this lying down. It is possible that getting up in the morning does not cause Trump and his administration to be sued, but pretty much everything else he does produces that result. And so, a rather unusual coalition (labor unions, health care providers, universities, religious organizations and tech companies) has taken the matter to court. We do not have any idea how strong their case is, but we do know that there are some entities on that list who have a lot of money—virtually unlimited funds—for lawyers. So, they will certainly give the White House all it can handle.

Meanwhile, when we ran that item originally, we got a lot of interesting feedback. However, there was no mailbag that weekend, so we never got to run it. We want to rectify that right now; the clear theme here, as noted in the headline, is, "it's complicated":

K.S. in Lafayette, IN: As someone who grew up in the U.S. as the dependent child of an H-1B holder, I have a unique perspective I hope will provide a greater understanding of the U.S. immigration system for everyone.

While what (V) and (Z) wrote about the H1-B program being abused by bad actors is certainly true, this abuse is specifically perpetrated by a handful of Indian consulting companies who provide low wages and fraudulent applications. A lot of H-1B visa holders, my parents included, were and are paid more than their American counterparts in the same roles due to their experience/skill set (not to mention the added corporate expenses for immigration lawyers and visa fees). There are much better ways to fix the program (like wage rules) than a blanket $100k fee that would harm even those who haven't abused the system.

However, I would like to draw attention to a more important problem. As I mentioned, I did grow up in the U.S. (arriving here at the age of 7) and just recently graduated with my bachelor's degree. However, despite the fact that I've grown up in this great nation, no different from my American peers, I will be unable to have any pathway to permanent residency and/or citizenship.

This is due to the country cap, which limits employment-based green cards to 7% of the overall issuance for each country. This has created a large backlog for countries like India, China, Mexico and others, which send a lot of immigrants to the U.S. The net result of this, in India's case, is that someone who applies for a green card today will not receive it for multiple decades. Despite the fact that my parents applied not long after getting here, and were approved to receive one, they will have to wait in the backlog until a green card is available for them.

During that wait time, I have "aged out" (21+), which means I will not be considered a dependent of my parents any longer and would be treated as an entirely new immigrant. I had to switch to a student visa during my final year of studies, and will now have to either find a job (which would throw me straight back into the H-1B cycle my parents went through), or leave the country I grew up in, with the friends I made and the people I love. This is the situation facing so-called "Documented Dreamers" today, with sizable numbers having self-deported already, or getting thrown back into the backlog despite having grown up as Americans.

Despite having arrived in the country legally and having grown up as American children, they will be forced to leave the only country they've ever known and leave behind everyone they've come to know, as there are no programs like DACA available to protect them. I've shared my story with you not because I expect anything to be done for me or for the tens of thousands of others in the same situation today, but because I hope for future generations of children in the same situation to not be forced to leave the nation they know and love through no fault of their own.

F.L. in Allen, TX: It's very likely that I, a native born American, lost my job to an H1-B visa holder. The premise is that H1-Bs have some special skill set that no American has.

This is utter horse hockey. During the last 10 years of my career, I was an engineer training other engineers in telecoms. I can safely say that well over half of my students were H1-Bs. If they had "special skills" that no one else had, then why did I have to teach them?

All that said, I felt no animosity towards them. If I were in their shoes, I'd do the same—in fact, for decades, I tried to get residency in England (even though it would mean a lower income). Sadly, to no avail. It all ended when I was sacked the day after cancer surgery, after nearly 16 years of service.

As much as I despise The Convicted Felon (TCF), this is a good solution. There are innumerable American engineers desperate for a professional job and are more qualified than the Brazilians, Asians, and Indians that are being brought in. The corporations (in my case, it was the "We believe in work-life balance" Swedes) just want cheap engineering workers who will work 80 hours a week because the employees are legally "exempt" (e.g. not paid for overtime and, thus, exploitable).

L.W. in St. Paul, MN: I have been retired for several years after a career in IT, much of it working with people from India and other countries who were here under an H1-B visa program. But in recent years the tendency was to utilize teams of people who were based in India, working for the company who had built a facility there and hired Indian employees. It seems to me that the $100,000 H1-B fee for a visa will simply accelerate this trend. Like it or not, the Internet makes it relatively easy to have a few business analysts here in the U.S. working with a team of developers working in a remote place.

N.W. in Middletown, CT: The $100,000 fee for H-1B visas is even worse than it sounds. There are about 10,500 physicians on H-1B visas in the U.S. In other words, this policy change will effectively get rid of 1.4% of our active physicians, at a time when our shortage is worsening already.

I read that physicians at a conference in Canada were urged to return to the U.S. immediately, as this was announced. Then there was a tweet that suggested the fee is one time and not annual. I'm saddened that my hardworking colleagues have to scour eX-Twitter, of all places, to try to figure out if they will have a job or have to leave the country.

R.C. in Newport News, VA: Here's my experience with H1-B visas. For a while after I quit my Computer Science professorship, I worked for a software contracting company AMA (not the medical group) at NASA Langley. The company was run by an Indian and a Dane and almost all of the workers were on H-1B visas. They put me in charge of a project that seemed to me to be one of those wild projects that sounded good but made no sense—things NASA scientists had to propose to justify their jobs. However the company did not want me to interact with NASA, for example, to find out what the project was for. I was prohibited from talking to the NASA project manager. They did not want NASA to be the least interested in what they were doing. I soon found out why.

They had scheduled a weekly meeting at noon to report on each of the nine groups' activities and to receive advice and orders. People brought lunch, but it was a working meeting that could last up to 2 hours. After I went to my first meeting, I asked the two bosses what I should charge the meeting to. Every minute of my working day had to be attributed to some charge. The company got paid through charge accounting. The bosses told me that there was no charge. The meeting was purely voluntary. That was contrary to government rules. No one was allowed to work for free. We had to keep our time sheets on our desks, visible to any NASA personnel. I asked that, since the meetings were voluntary, could I not attend. After a long pause and looks between the two bosses, I was told yes. They did not want NASA to know about this "voluntary" unpaid work.

No H-1B visa person would ever miss a meeting. Based on conversations with AMA workers, I was told there were other things workers were required to do outside the 8 daily work hours. H-1B visa workers did not "own" their visas. The sponsoring companies did, and if a worker were separated from the company, fired or resigned, that worker no longer had a visa.

I was fired a month later. (Which made me happy because I hate to quit anything. I got another software engineering job in two weeks.) Meanwhile, students I had taught, students at least as qualified as the AMA workers, were unable to find jobs locally in a software rich area like the Virginia Peninsula.

S.K. in Bloomfield, MI: I am glad you did an item on the attempt to impose the $100K fee and highlighted the reality of how the visa has been abused. Prior to retirement, the company where I worked employed many of these "highly skilled" Indian IT workers, some of whom did not know how to use a toilet. Yes, you read that right; they would stand on the toilet and squat. We had to ask management to add that to their specialized training.

M.D. in San Jose, CA: Please don't buy into the administration's talking points that the H1-B visa holders are undercutting American workers' wages. Studies consistently show that about 75% of H1-B holders earn more than the prevailing wage for their industry. From my anecdotal view in Silicon Valley, this is certainly true and the numbers from independent sources back this up.

These workers are essential to keep America's biggest economic engines (finance and technology) running. This initiative will hurt these industries and there is no economic good that will come of it. Take aerospace, for example. The U.S. only graduates about 7,000 to 9,000 aerospace engineers a year. Demand is several thousand engineers higher than that. If we don't get them from Canada, Brazil, France or India, we will probably have to cede our leadership position in the world, costing countless thousands of top notch manufacturing and service jobs.

Thanks to all who wrote in. As we said, it's complicated.

It may be that Congress is collectively going to find its spine, and try to assert itself here, fixing some of the problems, and undermining Trump's plans and his presumptions. Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) have re-introduced a bill that would endeavor to rein in some of the abuses of this program while trying to preserve the benefits. Congress doesn't do much these days, and it certainly does not stand up to Donald Trump very often. However, the bill does have a sponsor from each party. Further, the original sponsors—get this—were Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL). If this is something that even those two gentlemen can agree on, then the bill certainly has, at very least, a puncher's chance. (Z)

Of Course MAGA Doesn't Actually Care about Antisemitism

Readers, especially Jewish readers, hardly need us to tell you that antisemitism remains a real problem in (some corners of) American society. That means that combating antisemitism, either broadly, or in specific contexts (e.g., campuses) is a very worthy goal.

The Trump administration has cynically used that very worthy goal—specifically, fighting antisemitism on campus—as cover for its anti-education/own the libs war on America's universities. We imagine that approximately 100% of our readers agree with combating antisemitism, and that approximately 0% of our readers believed that cutting Harvard's research grants or imposing new anti-DEI rules on Penn had anything whatsoever to do with that goal.

Over the weekend, the administration showed its true colors in just... utterly blatant fashion. FBI Director Kash Patel showed up for work long enough to announce that the Bureau is cutting ties with the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. He explained that "This FBI won't partner with political fronts masquerading as watchdogs." Later, there was also some meaningless prattle about wokeness.

(Z)'s very first paper in grad school was on the Ku Klux Klan (the one from the 1920s). And so, he's got some expertise here, and has also followed the general subject of American extremism for many years. You can be absolutely certain, beyond any doubt, that any serious effort to combat antisemitism (and other bigotries) demands the ADL and SPLC as partners.

The game here could not be more clear. The administration is making a concerted effort to frame political violence as a predominantly/exclusively left-wing problem. Donald Trump, Patel, FBI Assistant Director Dan Bongino, etc. want to unleash everything they've got against left-wing "extremists," including many "extremists" who aren't at all extreme and aren't guilty of anything. The Trump-issued NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM/NSPM-7, which was promulgated just a few days before Patel made his announcement, makes clear that the administration will be pursuing "domestic terrorists," which are defined as people or groups whose message "include(s) anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity" or "extremism on migration, race, and gender, and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality." In other words, if you indulge in any activism, or even any thought, that is lefty in nature, you are guilty of WrongThink, and you may be deemed a domestic terrorist.

Decreeing political violence/domestic terrorism/left-wing thinking to be one and the same conveys two benefits as far as Trump, et al., are concerned. First, it allows them to "own the libs," up to and potentially including all kinds of dirty tricks in relation to next year's elections. Second, it allows them to ignore right-wing violence. That is the vast majority of political violence, but it's also perpetrated by folks who are, by and large, MAGA.

We will also note here that the Trump administration's support for Israel is also not really about pro-Jewish or pro-Zionist advocacy. Sure, MAGA might attract the occasional Jewish supporter here and there, but the real agenda is two-fold: (1) pander to Christian evangelicals who believe Jewish control of the Holy Land is key to inaugurating the end times, and (2) "own the Muslims."

We are also well aware, by the way, that Trump did some saber-rattling in the direction of Hamas this weekend, and that there's been some reporting that today—the second anniversary of the commencement of this terrible, terrible conflict—the two sides are close to some sort of peace agreement. If an agreement is actually reached, we will certainly write about it, and will be pleased to give credit wherever credit is due. However, these things always seem to fall apart at the last minute, or they seem to be less substantive than the Trump administration claimed, or both. So, we shall cool our jets until there's something more substantive than "maybe an agreement is near." (Z)

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