Game of Shutdown Chess Continues

There are going to be some bleary-eyed baseball fans in Toronto today. For those who did not watch and have not seen the story, Game 3 of the World Series, featuring the Dodgers and the Blue Jays, was historic in a couple of ways. It is, first of all, tied for the longest World Series game ever played (by innings). It ended in the 18th inning (on a Freddie Freeman home run), and lasted 6:39, meaning that the game concluded at 2:51 a.m. Toronto time. On top of that, Shohei Ohtani recorded hits in his first four at bats, followed by five walks, which were varying levels of "intentional." That's the first time in modern MLB history (i.e., since 1900) that a player has reached base nine times in a postseason game. If we extend that to the regular season, it's only happened three other times, with the most recent being in 1942 (Stan Hack of the Chicago Cubs, against the Cincinnati Reds).

The federal government shutdown is not quite record-breaking yet, but it's getting there. It will enter its fifth week at 12:01 a.m. ET tonight, which will mean one more week to tie the record of 35 days, and a week plus a day to break the record. Since nobody is talking right now, and Donald Trump is not even in the country, reaching the 36-day mark seems likely. That said, let's take a look at the pressure points that might eventually change the calculus for one party or the other—or both.

Federal Workers: This is one of the most visible pressure points, and was the one that loomed largest in the news yesterday. First, Everett Kelley, the National President for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 800,000 members, penned an open letter calling for an end to the shutdown. While he did not mention any political party by name, he did declare that Congress should "Reopen the government immediately under a clean continuing resolution that allows continued debate on larger issues." That, of course, is the Republican position on the shutdown.

Democrats who spoke to reporters yesterday after the letter was made public said it would not affect their approach to the shutdown. They are probably telling the truth. However, it is possible that Kelley will get the most important thing he wants (pay for the members of his union) nonetheless. Last week, the Democrats wanted to pay everyone during the shutdown, while the Republicans wanted to pay only "essential" personnel (basically, military and air traffic controllers) and also to make clear that Donald Trump is allowed to fire any employees he wants to fire.

This week, the Republicans' lead negotiator on this point, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), is offering a different deal. His new proposal is that everyone would be paid, but the language affirming Trump's right to fire federal workers would remain in the bill. It's plausible that Democrats might take that deal, perhaps persuading themselves that: (1) Trump has already fired most of the employees he could plausibly fire, or (2) that the firings are a violation of the Pendleton Act, and will eventually be overturned in court.

Military Pay: Military pay has the potential to be a huge pressure point, since nobody wants to deal with the blowback involved in soldiers missing paychecks. That said, the Republicans have the trifecta, and not only do not want soldiers to go unpaid, but also do not want Democrats to get any credit for riding to the soldiers' rescue. The first military payday was covered by money that the White House "found" and reappropriated for the purpose. The next military payday is on Friday, and the administration announced over the weekend that it would be covered by a $130 million donation from an anonymous Trump "friend." Yesterday, it came out that the donor is longtime Trump supporter Timothy Mellon.

Readers probably don't need our help to figure out that "gifts" like this are against the rules. They are a violation of both Pentagon policy on gifts, as well as the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits the executive branch from spending money beyond what has been appropriated by Congress. Of course, the Antideficiency Act ship sailed the moment that Trump took $300 million for the White House ballroom. Clearly, neither the majority in Congress nor the DoJ has any interest in actually enforcing the law.

The other problem, which is probably also obvious, is that $130 million works out to about... $100 per active duty servicemember. Needless to say, that's not even enough to cover the paycheck of a buck private, and hasn't been since, oh, the days of the Korean War. If the government makes payroll on October 31, where will the other money come from? And is the $130 million cover, so as to hide the primary source of funding?

Air Traffic Controllers: The nation's air traffic controllers have been calling in sick at an increasing rate since the shutdown began. For some of them, it's probably a protest against going unpaid. For others, it's because they need the time to earn some money—say, driving an Uber, or delivering DoorDash—to pay the bills. In any case, there have already been temporary shutdowns of airports, including LAX, ORD and EWR (that's Los Angeles, Chicago and Newark, for those who don't know their airport codes).

If things continue on this track, says CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean, the situation will undoubtedly get worse. Travelers hate delayed flights, of course. And the rules used to determine "on time" rates mean that once a flight is 10 minutes late, it might as well be 8 hours late. So, some people will experience delays that are far longer than "brief." On top of that, if airports are non-operational for a few hours (or more), then carefully calibrated flight routes won't work, and flights will be canceled. Travelers hate that, too. And if the shutdown goes on long enough, the problem could end up in a head-on collision with Thanksgiving. The Tuesday and Wednesday before that holiday and the Sunday after are the three heaviest travel days of the year.

If the current "pay the government employees" bill makes it through the Senate, it will theoretically resolve this problem, maybe for 2 weeks, maybe for longer. However, the people whose travel plans were ruined might not forget so easily. And if there is some sort of accident, due to an overtaxed air traffic control system, then heaven help us all.

SNAP: This one is a biggie. On Saturday, 42 million people will lose SNAP (food stamp) benefits. That is about one in eight Americans. If they are hungry, they might just start paying attention. Who they blame could be critical.

Democrats have urged Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins to use the Department's contingency funds to pay beneficiaries. For a while, it looked like the Dept. of Agriculture had some spare funds lying around somewhere that could be used to pay benefits, which come to $8 billion/month. Now Rollins has said that the contingency funds are not available to cover regular benefits. Unless somebody pulls a rabbit out of a hat, the 42 million beneficiaries are not getting their food stamps next month.

If the administration wanted to find the money somewhere, it surely could. Obviously, not finding it is a tactic intended to pressure Democrats to fold. After all, Democrats actually care if people, especially children, go hungry. Donald Trump certainly doesn't care. In case there was any doubt about that, here is the masthead that now appears on the DoA website:

There is no world in which that is NOT a violation of the Hatch Act. But again, nobody in a position of power is much interested in enforcing the law right now.

The Republican finger-pointing speaks to a certain amount of desperation, which implies that Trump & Co. know they are more likely than not to get the blame here. That said, we are surprised that the Democrats—as far as we know—have not introduced a bill to fund SNAP during the shutdown. It would not pass, presumably, but then the members of the blue team could say "We tried to fund SNAP, but the Republicans voted it down."

If millions of people do go without, you can expect Democrats to wield that like a hammer during next year's election cycle. They don't like to say it out loud, but they know very well that ads next year featuring very skinny, pitiful-looking children crying that they are hungry could be good material for blaming the Republicans as heartless monsters who care only about tax cuts for billionaires. It could be an effective juxtaposition: hungry kids vs. billionaires, as part of a larger theme of "the Republicans are for them, and the Democrats are for you."

Health care: This is the area where Democrats are absolutely convinced they have a winner. And they are probably right about that. It is no longer the case that "soon, many Americans will get a severe case of sticker shock when they see what their health insurance is going to cost this year." In fact, that day has already arrived. Many states do not open enrollment until November 1, but those crazy kids in Idaho do it on October 15. So, some people there are about to get an unpleasant surprise. We haven't seen any reaction pieces yet, but we assume a few reporters will be headed to the Gem State in short order. Assuming their flight to BOI (Boise) isn't canceled, that is.

This is certainly the issue where the biggest chinks in the GOP armor are showing themselves. A group of Republican members of the House, who just so happen to represent swing districts, have been making lots of noise about their party's lack of a plan when it comes to health care for poor people. Someone should tell these swing-district members that their party actually does have a plan; it's just that the plan is to kick 10 million people off the insurance rolls. In any case, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), who is serving as something of a point person for this group of Republican members, said yesterday that, when it comes to creating a plan for working-class people to access affordable health care, "It's morally bankrupt not to do it and it is politically stupid." We can't see anything there we disagree with.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA), for his part, spoke to reporters yesterday and insisted that he and his fellow Republicans are "working on a fix for health care." He also picked up and waved around some papers; the papers apparently were the plan that Johnson and several other conservatives cobbled together back in 2019-20. Inasmuch as Republicans have been claiming for 15 years that a better plan than Obamacare is just around the corner, and that the Johnson plan has been knocking around for 5 years without even coming up for a vote, we are... skeptical, let's say, that the GOP is miraculously going to pass a brand new health care plan, especially not by the end of the year, and especially with Congress not even in session right now. The fundamental problem is that you can't take $1 trillion or so out of the health care budget to give a tax break to rich people AND insure the same number of people AND keep the deficit from skyrocketing even further. One of these three things has to give.

Mike Johnson: Speaking of the Speaker, he's been dancing around like a trained monkey, trying to deflect responsibility for the shutdown from himself and from his political party. In the last 5 days, he's offered three explanations for why the shutdown is still ongoing, and why he hasn't called the House back into session (either to work on some sort of shutdown resolution, or to work on the actual budget, or to work on something else). His first explanation is that it's a tactical move meant to place pressure on the Senate. The general idea is that the House has passed a sorta clean bill kicking the can down the road, and the Senate can take it or leave it.

Johnson's second explanation, which he shared with reporters yesterday, is that the members of the GOP conference:

...are having some of the most meaningful interactions at a time of great crisis with their constituents they've ever had. And that's really, really important. So, I don't want to pull them away from that work right now when their insight and their counsel and their assistance... that is most essentially needed back home.

Hm. While we appreciate that constituent services are an important part of the job, we could have sworn that representatives are elected to, you know, REPRESENT their voters in Washington. And let's not get started about the fact that many Republican members, possibly most, are not actually holding public events, for fear of being lambasted about the Epstein files or other issues.

Johnson's third explanation is the wildest one of all. He says that the blame for the shutdown lies with... New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Here are the Speaker's exact words:

We can't allow a rise of Marxist and far-left activist in one party to shut down the entire operation of the federal government, and that is exactly what they are allowing them to do. The Democrats have got to come to their senses. You can endorse communists all you want, but at least keep the government operating for us.

According to our high school civics teachers, city mayors, let alone candidates for city mayor, do not, in fact, have the power to shut down the federal government. Maybe Johnson's civics class taught him differently, though we must confess, we've tried to parse his words a dozen times, and we still don't exactly understand the sequence of events here. The Democrats have shut down the government because Mamdani has hypnotized them into demanding Marxism? Is that the argument? We really don't follow.

In any event, Johnson is clearly under a lot of pressure right now. Democrats have adopted the talking point that the Speaker "has dissolved" the House of Representatives. That is usually the prerogative of monarchs, so the implication that Johnson has appointed himself king is pretty clear (though we would actually say he's more like a court jester, performing tricks to keep the actual monarch amused). Many Republicans are also grumbling, and one of them—Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA)—keeps showing up for work every day, as a form of protest. We'll see how long Johnson can hold out, or if he finally bows to pressure and reopens the House.

The Filibuster: Like a fire extinguisher—break glass in case of emergency—Republicans in the Senate are most certainly keeping in mind that they could end all of this by killing the filibuster. Some of them are now talking about that quite openly. In particular, folks like Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Rick Scott (R-FL) are talking about the SNAP situation (above) as the main reason they are willing to go nuclear.

We are not persuaded that Hawley or, in particular, Scott care all that much about hungry people. SNAP might just be useful political cover. But, in any case, if the Republicans do kill the filibuster, that will almost certainly be a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Obviously, they could ram through a budget and anything else that the GOP (with its slim majority in the House) can agree on. But the filibuster would be dead, with zero blood on the Democrats' hands. And the next time the Democrats had the trifecta, they would tee up a long Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Eid/Lunar New Year list, including statehood for D.C., changes to the Supreme Court, anti-gerrymandering legislation and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and most of his colleagues on that side of the aisle are not stupid, and they know what they would be signing up for. The question is: Does it eventually become worth it for them?

Last night, the announcers calling the Dodgers-Blue Jays game were talking about how it might go 19, 20, 21 innings. They were somewhat giddily discussing the prospects of Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Kevin Gausman coming in to pitch. This was a big deal, because those two players pitched on Saturday and, under normal conditions, would never pitch on 2 days' rest. They were the last-ditch options, however, as all the other pitchers had been used up. Then, Freddie Freeman hit that home run, and it was all over, practically in the blink of an eye.

Is that a rough metaphor for how this shutdown will end? Maybe one of the pressure points will blow, and then all of a sudden things will get hammered out and the government will reopen? Could be. But we haven't the faintest idea which of the pressure points above might be the one. (Z & V)

Putting the "Con" in Conservative, Part IV: Pardon Me!

Time for some more discussion of the outright corruption that Donald Trump and his underlings have embraced during his second term. Here are the stories we've done so far.

• Putting the "Con" in Conservative, Part I: Kristi Noem
• Putting the "Con" in Conservative, Part II: Trump Is Going to Create a Space for His Balls, Damn It
• Putting the "Con" in Conservative, Part III: That's a Nice Government You've Got There...

Today, it's two incredibly sleazy pardons. Pardons that, incidentally, barely attracted notice because Team Trump is so effective at overloading all channels with myriad forms of B.S.

The first pardon was granted a little over a week ago, to former representative "George Santos." He was guilty as sin of committing fraud, admitted his guilt, and agreed to prison time and to pay about $400,000 in restitution. Those restitution figures are often fantasy numbers, as the guilty party has no real possibility of paying them off (especially since certain kinds of income are protected). That said, "Santos" is young, and $400,000 is not $400 million, so... maybe he might have satisfied part or all of the total. But he doesn't have to worry about that anymore, because Trump wiped out the conviction AND the restitution. The former congressman is now a free man, and can keep every penny he makes on Cameo.

Why was "Santos" pardoned? Let's let Trump explain for himself, courtesy of his favored-by-Cosa-Nostra social media platform:

George Santos was somewhat of a "rogue," but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren't forced to serve seven years in prison. I started to think about George when the subject of Democrat Senator Richard "Da Nang Dick" Blumenthal came up again. As everyone remembers, "Da Nang" stated for almost twenty years that he was a proud Vietnam Veteran, having endured the worst of the War, watching the Wounded and Dead as he raced up the hills and down the valleys, blood streaming from his face. He was "a Great Hero," he would leak to any and all who would listen — And then it happened! He was a COMPLETE AND TOTAL FRAUD. He never went to Vietnam, he never saw Vietnam, he never experienced the Battles there, or anywhere else. His War Hero status, and even minimal service in our Military, was totally and completely MADE UP. This is far worse than what George Santos did, and at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN! George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated. Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY. Good luck George, have a great life!

For those who struggle to make it through that word salad, the explanation basically comes down to two things. The first is whataboutism; it would seem that when Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) implied (falsely) that he had served in the Vietnam War, that was somehow worse than "Santos" misrepresenting his entire life history AND bilking supporters out of half a million dollars. The second is that "Santos" always voted Republican. We are quite confident that one of those is the real reason, and the other is just misdirection. Readers will have to figure out for themselves which is which.

That pardon was bad, but the one that came down last Tuesday was several orders of magnitude sleazier, as Trump granted a pardon to the founder and former CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao (usually known as "CZ"). Binance is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, and while Zhao was running the company, it got popped for looking the other way while money laundering took place. Binance had to pay $4.3 billion, while Zhao (who pleaded guilty) had to pay $50 million and spend 4 months in jail. He already served his sentence, and he apparently won't get his money back (though you never know). However, the pardon means that Zhao once again has a clean record, and that he's no longer barred from running financial ventures.

When Trump was asked about the situation, he pretended not to know who CZ is. So, it was up to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt to explain the reason for the pardon:

President Trump exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency. In their desire to punish the cryptocurrency industry, the Biden Administration pursued Mr. Zhao despite no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims.

Does she really believe that victimless crimes are not actually crimes? Very odd for an administration that is fanatical about deporting undocumented immigrants (including many who aren't actually undocumented). When someone enters the country illegally, or overstays their visa, there is also no identifiable victim.

So, why might Trump have wanted to pardon CZ? Well, the word "cryptocurrency" in the above paragraph is a pretty big clue. It's a little weedy, but basically, even during the time CZ could not run Binance, he still owned a majority of the company. And Binance set up an under-the-radar auxiliary called PancakeSwap. Because details surrounding PancakeSwap are fuzzy, it's hard to know if CZ merely owns that auxiliary or if he's quietly helping run it. And, as you might guess, PancakeSwap's single-largest client is... World Liberty Financial, owned by the Trump family. Now, CZ doesn't even have to lurk in the shadows if he wants to run PancakeSwap. In fact, he might well be able to resume leadership of Binance, which would allow him to move the Trump cryptocurrencies to a much larger platform with much greater visibility.

This is not Trump's first time doing this, either. He's also pardoned the founders of the crypto exchange BitMex, as well as Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht. On top of that, he's given Get Out of Jail free cards to 17 different people who were convicted of fraud. As you might imagine, Democratic members of Congress are screaming to the heavens about all of this, particularly the CZ pardon. So too are some Republican members. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who is retiring and has nothing to lose, told reporters, "I don't like it. [CZ] was convicted. He's not innocent."

The folks who wrote the Constitution did pretty well. But their batting average was not quite as high as Shohei Ohtani's was last night. They are guilty of a few swings and misses, and the pardon power is among the worst of those. Did they honestly imagine that presidents would resist the temptation to pardon friends and family members? It is true that the presidents before Trump at least had the good taste to, by and large, wait until their last week in office before issuing dubious pardons. Now, even that guardrail is gone. (Z)

Trump Had MRI, Cognitive Test

A few weeks back, Donald Trump went to Walter Reed Medical Center for an "annual physical"—his second one in a 6-month period. And yesterday, while speaking with reporters, he revealed at least part of what took place on that day: an MRI and a cognitive test.

As with everything that comes out of Trump's mouth, particularly everything that comes out of Trump's mouth that is related to his health, there is very little clarity, beyond the fact that the tests took place. Trump bragged about his MRI result, calling it "perfect" and asserting that the doctors said it was the best MRI for someone of his age that they'd ever seen. Certainly, that could be true. That said, Trump always "paraphrases" his doctors' remarks to be as glowing as is possible (when, of course, he's not just writing the reports himself, as with the "healthiest president in history" letter signed by Dr. Harold Bornstein). Oh, and even if Trump's doctors did flatter him in this way, it's worth remembering that he tends to surround himself with medical sycophants (e.g., Bornstein, Ronny Jackson, etc.).

As to the cognitive test, Trump took the opportunity to slur a couple of Democratic members of Congress—Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)—claiming that they are "low IQ" and they couldn't pass the test. Probably just a coincidence that he targets Democrats who are women, and people of color, for that kind of remark. Here is what he said about his own result:

Those are really hard, they're really aptitude tests, I guess, in a certain way. But they're cognitive tests. The first couple of questions are easy. A tiger, an elephant, a giraffe, you know. When you get up to about five or six, and then when you get up to 10 and 20 and 25, [Ocasio-Cortez and Crockett] couldn't come close to answering any of those questions.

It appears, from his remarks, that Trump took the same cognitive test he had taken previously, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. He seems to think that this is akin to an IQ test, but it definitely is not. It's meant to judge if someone is impaired; a score of 26 (out of 30) means "not impaired," and none of the questions are intended to be difficult. The questions that Trump claims are difficult include things like "repeat the digits 2 4 8 1 5" in order, and "explain what a banana and an orange have in common" and "tell me what city you are in right now" (that last one is the final question, and ostensibly the "hardest," according to Trump's rubric). Whether he thinks those questions are actually difficult, or he's just using the fact that MAGA folks don't know what's on the test in order to score some cheap political points, we don't know.

The general public is not likely to get an accurate accounting of Trump's results on either of these tests, or on any other tests he might have had. And the general public certainly isn't going to get an accurate answer to, arguably, the most important question of all: Why did Trump have the tests in the first place? Neither an MRI nor a cognitive test are routine parts of an annual physical, much less a person's second physical in 6 months. They are only administered if there is a reason for them. So, what prompted Trump (well, his people) to make the appointment?

We are a little surprised, actually, that Trump shared as much information as he did. Maybe he developed a case of loose lips, as he so often does. Maybe he was pleased enough by the results that he felt the need to do a little peacocking. Either he doesn't realize, or he doesn't care, that announcing "Yep! I had an unexpected MRI! And another cognitive test!" is not a good look, no matter how "well" he did on them. (Z)

Who Watches the Watchers

No, there isn't supposed to be a question mark there. As with Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the title of that Star Trek: The Next Generation episode is meant to be a declarative statement, not a question.

Anyhow, we had an item yesterday about plans by the Department of Justice to deploy "poll watchers" to various polling places in California. Officially, this is being done for... reasons. The truth of the matter, of course, is that it's a way of trying to intimidate voters, and keep them from voting. Most obviously, any voter who is of a darker hue has to be worried that some/most/all of the "poll watchers" are actually ICE agents with orders something along these lines:

Yes, we've shared that image before, because it so perfectly captures this administration's mindset.

We had some advice in that item yesterday for how blue-state governors should respond, both for elections this year and next. We can only assume that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) is one of our readers, because he's already followed one of our bits of advice. Yesterday, he and state AG Rob Bonta announced that the state government will deploy observers to make sure that the federal election monitors do not violate any voter's legal rights.

As a sidebar, if this was, say, a Monty Python movie or a Dr. Seuss book, this could turn into something really surreal. We've already got federal monitors to watch the voters and state monitors to watch the federal monitors. What if the DoJ announced it was going to dispatch special federal monitors to watch the state monitors? And then Newsom/Bonta announce they were going to send special state monitors to watch the special federal monitors? Someone should really hire us to write the script for the next Coen brothers film.

The part that we least understand here is this: Why did the DoJ lay its cards on the table so early? If they really and truly want to initiate a campaign of voter intimidation, doesn't cold, hard strategic logic dictate that they should have waited until the weekend, or even Monday? That would give the Californias and the New Jerseys of the world very little time to respond. But with well over a week? It should be no problem for the blue states to deploy a "defense," for lack of a better term.

Indeed, cold, hard strategic logic might well dictate that the administration should forego any mucking around this year, and should wait until next year. The two "prizes" are the New Jersey governorship and "No on Prop 50." Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) appears to be an unusually weak candidate, and polls say that her race against Jack Ciattarelli (R) is close, with Sherrill's lead between 1 and 5 points (i.e., within, or nearly within, the margin of error). We suppose the Trump administration might be able to steal that one.

"No on 50," by contrast, looks to be a lost cause. In theory, the anti-50 forces were going to raise $100 million. In fact, they've managed to raise and spend about a tenth of that. One implication of this is that the "No on 50" commercials have all but disappeared from TV. Another, considerably bigger, implication is that the "No on 50" millionaires and billionaires have concluded that victory is unlikely, and that they would be throwing their money down the toilet. Polls back this up. In mid-September, an Emerson poll had 51% of voters supporting Prop 50 and 34% opposing. In the poll Emerson released this past weekend, it was 57% and 37%. When Emerson forced respondents to choose "yes" or "no" (so, no "undecided"), the numbers were 60% and 40%. The newest CBS News/YouGov poll has it even slightly more lopsided, with 62% favoring Prop 50 and 38% opposing.

Our point is this: Is maybe flipping the New Jersey governor's race (and that's a big maybe) worth giving up the element of surprise in 2026? We understand this year is potentially a "practice run," but is the "practice" really that valuable? Everyone knows the old line about a million monkeys with a million typewriters eventually reproducing the works of Shakespeare. Well, this administration is a million bulls in a million china shops. Everything they do is clumsy and accomplished with brute force. There's no tactical skill, no apparent thought given to strategy. The current plan for California and New Jersey just seems to affirm that, from where we sit. And if we are right, that's good news, because people like Gavin Newsom and Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) DO have the ability to think strategically, and so may well be able to counter the anti-democratic moves made by the White House. (Z)

A Bridge Too Far?

Donald Trump has had a fair bit of success indicting his political enemies. He wanted James Comey indicted and—bam!—Comey was indicted. He wanted Letitia James indicted and—bam!—James was indicted. He wanted John Bolton indicted and—bam!—Bolton was indicted.

It would appear that there may be limits here, however. Obviously, Trump hasn't come close to indicting some of his first-term bugaboos, like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. He's not having much luck with Jack Smith, either. And the President is getting some real pushback on someone he would dearly love to see perp walked into court: Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA).

Schiff is in Trump's doghouse for either two or three reasons. The first is that Schiff led the prosecution in the first Trump impeachment and has been, in general, a loud (and pretty effective) critic of the administration. For an example, see this 30-second clip from a few years ago:

Schiff's second crime, meanwhile, is that he is from California. Trump hates Californians, except for the ones who give him lots of money (e.g., Peter Thiel). Third, and this is the maybe, but not too much of a maybe, is that Schiff is Jewish. It seems to us that Trump is particularly enraged by Jews who don't see the light and line up behind him. The President did say, for example, "Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion." He also said that, "I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty."

Anyhow, in contrast to Smith, the Department of Justice has cooked up something to charge Schiff with, namely mortgage fraud. He is ostensibly "guilty" of the exact same thing that James is, namely representing a second residence as his primary residence in order to gain more favorable interest rates. However, there are two big differences between the James case and the Schiff case. One of those is that James lives and works in New York City, and does not necessarily need a second home. Schiff lives in California and works in Washington, DC, so he does. In those circumstances, banks are willing to accept that a person has two primary residences.

The even bigger difference between James and Schiff is that her second house is in Eastern Virginia, while his second house is in Maryland. That means that James is within the jurisdiction of pseudo-U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, who is an agent of the Trump Organization, and will do whatever she is told. Schiff, on the other hand, is within the jurisdiction of actual-U.S. Attorney Kelly Hayes, who is not, and will not.

Hayes and her two main deputies are well aware that the would-be Schiff prosecution is being driven primarily by Trump lackey Ed Martin, the fellow who was supposed to be U.S. Attorney for Washington, DC, but was way too MAGA for even the Republican-controlled Senate. So, there is a war going on right now, with Martin on one side and Hayes and her two main deputies on the other. And Martin's problem is that he cannot legally sign an indictment in Maryland. Only Hayes (or her deputies) can.

In theory, Trump could try to fire Hayes (and possibly her lieutenants), but it's not quite that easy. He already had his bite at the Maryland apple, and whiffed with Phil Selden. Hayes is in her job because the judges of that district tossed Selden overboard and chose Hayes to replace him. So, the only legal way for Trump to replace Hayes is with someone confirmed by the Senate. The Senate doesn't have too many limits these days, but it's not generally been willing to appoint Trump henchmen as U.S. Attorneys. Trump could also say "law be damned" and try to seat his chosen stooge to replace Hayes. But then the administration would have another Alina Habba problem, where everything the "U.S. Attorney" did might be illegal and subject to reversal.

So, Schiff can probably rest pretty easy. On the other hand, it was Kelly Hayes who signed the indictment of John Bolton. As we wrote when the former NSA was indicted, he's the Trump enemy who may be in some real hot water here. The fact that Hayes is holding the line on Schiff is evidence she's probably just calling balls and strikes. That means that Bolton, in contrast to Schiff, probably should not be resting easy. (Z)

There's Something Happening Here: The No Kings Protests, Part VII

We weren't able to have an installment yesterday, due to a power outage, but that is now past. So, here are half a dozen more reader reports from the No Kings protests:

D.S. in Bath, ME, writes: Jimmy the Hound brought a lot of smiles and some good therapy to the protesters in Brunswick, ME:

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B.Z. in Baltimore, MD, writes: I went to the D.C. protest. My sign was about those "VERY firm ideas on how to deal with kings" you mentioned.

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D.T. in Oceanside, CA:, writes: Unlike the MAGA rallies, it was refreshing to see the signs at the No Kings Rallies with all of the words spelled correctly.

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A.B. in Bedford, MA, writes: I hail from the very blue Boston area, but was in northeast PA in Pike County, PA (which voted 62% for Trump in 2024) at a reunion of friends over the October 18 weekend. A group of us decided to head to the No Kings rally in the county seat of Milford, PA (Pop. 1,100). The crowd was, to our eyes, an impressive 500+ people and the mood was one of deeply felt disgust topped with jovial/civil affect. What struck me was not only the near absence of pro-MAGA disrupters (which I had expected) but also the range in ages between young and old. I left feeling hopeful that the resistance is very much alive, even in rural Pennsylvania:

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M.G.F. in Minneapolis, MN, writes: I wasn't going to write in about my 'No Kings' experience here in Minneapolis, but something B.B. in Newtown wrote connected for me. They commented "the crowd was very white with little diversity..."

I noticed the same thing here, though Minnesota's population is less diverse than Pennsylvania's, there's still plenty of Black, Hmong, Somali, and people of a variety of Hispanic heritage that a representative sample would be noticeable. But what came to my mind was that if I had been asked why I was protesting I would have said this:

I am here on behalf of those afraid to be here. I'm here representing my Black neighbors, whom the President is falsely describing as inherently less capable than white men. I'm here representing my immigrant and refugee neighbors, afraid to leave the house because of ICE's lawless assaults and kidnappings and the arbitrary recissions of visas and green cards that follow. I'm here on behalf of my neighbors who are working an extra job right now because the minimum wage has fallen so far behind the standard of living that their full time job isn't enough. I'm here on behalf of every citizen afraid to exercise our constitutional right to protest because of this Administration's threats. I'm here in support of abundant life: clean air and water, quality education, freedom from gun violence, affordable quality health care, honest governance, peace and tranquility. But mostly I am here because this government is making others afraid to be here.

B.B. asked: "My question is, what is keeping them from joining in, and in droves? Is there something we can do to make protesting more open, attractive, and safe for a wider community?"

I think we all know why minority people are not joining in. And I think that the second question is the wrong question. For too long we in the majority have been content to wait for the minority to protest for equality. But that's not their job. It's our job as the majority to ensure equality. Can we make protests safer for minorities to participate? No, we can't. That's a big part of the reason we protest. Those of us for whom protest is less dangerous must shoulder this task on behalf of our more vulnerable neighbors.

My sign read "Stop Terror: Stop ICE." Please call your legislators and demand an end to warrantless abductions by masked and un-uniformed agents.

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J.P. in Horsham, PA, writes: At the first No Kings rally I had a hand printed sign that was so popular I decided to make a more professional-looking one. Here I am in Hatboro, PA with my partner, in the middle of what they estimated to be 1,000 people, and directly across the street from Amy's Pizzeria, which made national news a couple of years ago when a customer went on an anti-immigrant tirade against an employee. Feels like a degree of justice on a couple of levels.

More tomorrow! (Z)

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