The Invasion of Los Angeles Was Illegal...

A responsible public official normally consults with government attorneys before instituting some dramatic change in policy, so as to make sure they're complying with the law. Donald Trump, on the other hand, can't be bothered with such trivialities as following the law. He cares only about two things: (1) does this action serve me and my political ends? and (2) does it hurt as many of my enemies as possible? And he's got plenty of underlings with the same goals. He believes, with good reason, that nothing he does will put himself at any personal risk, financially or politically. And he knows he's immune from criminal liability as long as he's in office. So, his attitude is "sue me, and if I lose in court, at least I'll get to break the law for a while (and often a long while) before we have to stop." For him, there's no downside, especially since Congressional Republicans are completely impotent and have demonstrated no willingness to stiffen their, um... spines.

And so here we are. We've written many times that the Posse Comitatus Act prohibits a president from using the U.S. military to execute domestic law. And yet, Trump went ahead and sent troops to Los Angeles to do just that, and has now been enjoined by a federal district court in Northern California from continuing to violate the law. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer's permanent injunction prohibits the Trump administration from using the National Guard or any military troops to enforce civilian laws. Specifically, they cannot "execute the laws, including but not limited to engaging in arrests, apprehensions, searches, seizures, security patrols, traffic control, crowd control, riot control, evidence collection, interrogation, or acting as informants, unless and until Defendants satisfy the requirements of a valid constitutional or statutory exception, as defined herein, to the Posse Comitatus Act." The judge did not order the removal of the 300 National Guard troops still left in Los Angeles and was careful to note that the order only applies to the use of the military and the National Guard in California, since that's the region his district covers. The troops can still be used to protect federal property and in other ways that are consistent with the law. The order is stayed until September 12 to give time for the inevitable appeal.

Readers may recall that this same judge granted a request for a temporary restraining order in June and found that Trump had impermissibly federalized the National Guard. In that same order, the Court denied a TRO based on the Posse Comitatus Act (PCA) because, at that time, the Court held that there was no evidence of a violation. The Ninth Circuit stayed the TRO pending appeal and held that Trump likely had the discretion under the National Guard statute to federalize the troops in spite of the governor's opposition—the Ninth Circuit did not weigh in on the PCA claims. The district court's latest order comes after a trial on the merits of only the PCA claims (not what the TRO was based on), where the court heard extensive evidence in August of violations, such as the raid in Carpinteria and a FBI/DEA action in Long Beach. Task Force 51 (as the troops were called) was specifically told that they could engage in actions that recent training slides told them were prohibited, such as security patrols, traffic control, riot control, and crowd control:

That's directly from the ruling; the judge copied and pasted the slide and highlighted the specific issues he was addressing.

The administration reacted predictably, by respectfully disagreeing with the court's order and vowing to appeal. Ha, I joke. No, they resorted to name calling and playground taunts, as per usual. Yet another spokesperson, Anna Kelly, who also seems to have attended the Trump school of petty insults along with the rest of the "communications" team, trotted out the usual over-the-top buzzwords "rogue judge," "deranged leftist lunatic," etc. to express profound disagreement with the order. Noticeably absent from the rant is any substantive defense of the administration's actions. Even in their court filings, the administration's defense boils down to "if Trump says the action is necessary to protect federal personnel, then it's a lawful exception to the PCA." The Court disagreed and dryly noted, "There were indeed protests in Los Angeles, and some individuals engaged in violence. Yet there was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law." One could say the same about D.C., Chicago, Baltimore and all the other cities where Trump has threatened to send in the U.S. military to police American streets. Indeed, the Court found that while most of the troops have been withdrawn from Los Angeles, the injunction was necessary, given Trump's rhetoric about repeating the lawless acts in other cities. In Los Angeles, Trump "used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles. In short, Defendants violated the Posse Comitatus Act." Trump is threatening to "create a national police force with the President as its chief." So, an injunction is necessary to protect the plaintiffs here from future violations.

The opinion is 52 pages and it's well worth a read. It goes into the history of the Posse Comitatus Act and Americans' aversion to the military intruding in domestic affairs. We do not want tanks on our streets. And we don't take kindly to a president who thinks he can unilaterally declare when he can deploy the U.S. military to carry out domestic, largely political, errands. The Court cites the seminal case of Youngstown Steel, when Harry S. Truman tried to claim expansive presidential power as Commander-in-Chief to seize the steel mills. The Court rejected that power grab. Likewise, Judge Breyer holds that Trump does not get to declare new, unwritten exceptions to the PCA. This obviously has implications for the use of troops in other U.S. cities, even if the decision does not technically bind any other court. The reasoning is sound and well-supported and, as conciliatory as this Supreme Court has been to Trump, this might be a bridge too far even for them. (L)

...And Yet The Invasion of Chicago Is Still Moving Forward

Ostensibly, Donald Trump is sending National Guard troops and ICE officers to invade various cities because crime in those places is "out of control." He's already hit Washington, DC, and Los Angeles, and Chicago is on deck. Trump has also suggested that New York City and Baltimore are in the queue.

We imagine that roughly 100.0% of readers know that this is nonsense, and that these invasions are just MAGA red meat for the benefit of the base. Still, instead of just assuming, how about some evidence? First of all, here are the 10 American cities with the highest rates of violent crime:

1. Memphis, TN
2. Detroit, MI
3. Baltimore, MD
4. Kansas City, MO
5. Milwaukee, WI
6. Albuquerque, NM
7. Houston, TX
8. Nashville, TN
9. Denver, CO
10. Washington, DC

It is true that some of the cities on this list are also some of the cities on Trump's list. On the other hand, the single most violent city in America, crime-wise, is Memphis, and there's been nary a word about that. Not to mention Kansas City, Houston, or Nashville. At very least, even if the administration is trying to fight "crime," it's clear that red states get a free pass, no matter how bad some of their cities might be.

Readers might also notice that two of Trump's first three targets (namely, Los Angeles and Chicago) aren't even on that list. We suggest that greater clarity into the decision-making process can be had if we examine the list of blue- and purple-state cities (remember, red-state cities get a pass) with the largest number of Black people. Here are all such cities with at least 200,000 Black residents:

1. New York City, NY (2.3 million)
2. Los Angeles, CA (936,000)
3. Chicago, IL (840,000)
4. Philadelphia, PA (674,000)
5. Detroit, MI (514,000)
6. Baltimore, MD (354,000)
7. Charlotte, NC (309,000)
8. Washington, DC (305,000)
9. Milwaukee, WI (239,500)

That's eight cities, five in blue states/districts and four in purple states. The purple-state cities are certainly possibilities in the future, and J.D. Vance has even hinted at Milwaukee. However, purple states are not ideal, since there is considerably more chance of the GOP being punished at the ballot box (each of the three purple states on the list has either a gubernatorial election or a U.S. Senate election next year).

Following from that, if we therefore limit ourselves to blue states (which are basically a lost cause for the Republicans), and cities with at least 200,000 Black residents, we end up with this list:

1. New York City, NY (2.3 million)
2. Los Angeles, CA (936,000)
3. Chicago, IL (840,000)
4. Baltimore, MD (354,000)
5. Washington, DC (305,000)

Gee, that list of targets cities looks awfully familiar. You might say that Trump's hands aren't the only thing in this administration to be Black and blue.

Meanwhile, take a look at this chart of murders in next-target Chicago over the last 60 years:

The city did not report data for those two years in the 1980s, if you are wondering about the gap. In any case, it's clear that if murder—the most violent of violent crimes—has been a problem, it was during the Reagan-Bush years, and then during Trump v1.0. However, there was no deployment of the National Guard in response at those times. Today, murder rates (and other violent crime rates) are close to historical lows, and certainly are not at "crisis" level.

We think it would be hard for it to be clearer that this is just political theater, meant to convince the MAGA base that Trump is doing something about those crime-ridden blue cities in general, and about those uppity negroes in particular. Given that this man rose to power by scapegoating Mexican immigrants as gang members, and given that demagogues always have to keep finding new targets, this is par for the course.

It's actually a little strange to us, though, that the White House is doing this NOW, as opposed to next year (i.e., when the elections are much closer). Maybe Trump doesn't have the patience to wait, or maybe he's trying to create a distraction from the EpsteinYZ Affair. If he just so happens to order the commencement of operations in Chicago today (see item below), it would certainly lend support to the latter thesis.

In any case, we may well be getting close to the point of the Trump administration overplaying its hand. The administration has already lost in court, on this very issue (see above), and will presumably keep doing so. Even the Supremes, as accommodating as they have been for him, are going to be very leery of granting him the authority to make war against those Americans who are unfavored. Trump might defy the courts, of course, but if he does, that might well be a bridge too far for even some Republicans in Congress.

Meanwhile, consider a blue-state governor like J.B. Pritzker (D-IL). On his side of the ledger, Pritzker knows a few things. He knows, first of all, that he would like to run for president in 2028. He also knows that more than 99% of Democrats are unhappy with the Trump administration, and many of them want some sort of pushback. On top of that, Pritzker knows that the law is on his side here, based on both what the actual legal texts (like the Posse Comitatus Act) say and the court decisions thus far (again, see above) have said.

On Trump's side of the ledger, Pritzker knows a few things, too. He knows that Trump is a coward who generally chickens out. He also knows that Trump's only real interest is in a photo-op or two, and maybe a few over-the-top prosecutions of sandwich throwers. As many readers will know, the National Guard has done virtually nothing while being deployed to D.C., and now, so the government gets something for its money, many of the soldiers have been reduced to picking up litter. Yet despite the fact that the assault on D.C. has had no appreciable impact, and that Jeannine Pirro's efforts to over-charge and indict keep blowing up in her face (and there was yet another one yesterday), Trump has nonetheless claimed total victory, asserting that he "eliminated" crime in D.C. He's even got sycophants, like Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), decreeing that Trump's efforts in D.C. should cause him to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In view of all of this, it is no surprise that Pritzker gave a defiant speech last week. The Governor told Illinoisans to keep their protests peaceful, but he also ended with this:

Finally, to the Trump administration officials who are complicit in this scheme, to the public servants who have forsaken their oath to the Constitution to serve the petty whims of an arrogant little man, to any federal official who would come to Chicago and try to incite my people into violence as a pretext for something darker and more dangerous: We are watching and we are taking names.

This country has survived darker periods than the one that we are going through right now, and eventually the pendulum will swing back, maybe even next year. Donald Trump has already shown himself to have little regard for the many acolytes that he has encouraged to commit crimes on his behalf.

You can delay justice for a time, but history shows you cannot prevent it from finding you eventually. If you hurt my people, nothing will stop me, not time or political circumstance, from making sure that you face justice under our constitutional rule of law.

As Dr. King once said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Humbly I would add, it doesn't bend on its own. History tells us we often have to apply force needed to make sure that the arc gets where it needs to go. This is one of those times.

Yesterday, after Trump once again affirmed that "We're going in" to Chicago (which sounds like he's been watching a few too many World War II movies), Pritzker responded, firing back at the "loss of sanity." Meanwhile, Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson (D) has already signed an executive order with a tentative framework for how the city will resist the President's efforts, most obviously by not lending assistance from local police, and otherwise lifting no fingers in response to the administration's efforts. Well, OK, maybe one finger.

There is little to no precedent for this in U.S. history, so we have no idea how this will play out. All we can offer are the following, disjointed, observations. First, Pritzker and Johnson are clearly setting up the lawsuits that are undoubtedly already drawn up and ready to file; they will make the argument that deploying the National Guard when there's no emergency, and there's been no input from local officials, is unprecedented and illegal. Second, they are working to get their messaging out there, ahead of the Trump administration messaging. Third, during the Civil Rights Movement, when government personnel acted aggressively, and protesters responded passively and non-violently, it was not the government personnel who won over millions of hearts and minds. We are now getting dangerously close to Civil Rights Movement, Redux. (Z)

Epsteinpot Dome Returns to the Front Burner

The Jeffrey Epstein scandal faded for a while, mostly because Congress was away on recess, and maybe a little bit because the White House created a few distractions. But it's back, at least for now.

The biggest "news" from yesterday is that the House Oversight Committee, acting at the direction of Chair James Comer (R-KY), released a whole bunch of Epstein documents (about 33,000 of them) that the Committee received from the Department of Justice. Following the release, Comer noted that "As far as I can see, there's nothing new in the documents."

The documents were released fairly late in the afternoon yesterday, and undoubtedly cub reporters at various media outlets got stuck with the task of going through them, and are still at work. However, we are 99.9% certain Comer is telling the truth, and that there's nothing in the tranche that's particularly revelatory, much less a "client list" or other smoking gun. First, these documents came from the Department of Justice, and we don't believe that the DoJ would hand over to Congress anything even mildly incriminating. Second, Comer is a Trumper, and we don't believe that he would voluntarily hand over to the general public anything even mildly incriminating.

Note that our skepticism extends even to documents that might incriminate Bill Clinton, or some other prominent Democrat(s). If such material were in there, then Comer, followed by every other Republican politician and media outlet in the land, would be waving the document around and saying "We told you so!" That is not happening right now, obviously. We also believe that even if there is material somewhere (say, a file on "AG" Pam Bondi's desk) that incriminates Clinton or some other prominent Democrat(s), the administration and its allies would keep that in their back pockets to be deployed when a distraction is needed. You know, a "break glass in case of emergency" kind of thing.

Note that we said we are 99.9% certain that there's nothing in there. The 0.1% is because we allow for the (slight) possibility that everyone involved has decided that there is some document that is going to have to be released eventually, and they might be using the old lawyer trick of burying the one salient piece of evidence under tens of thousands of pieces of irrelevant evidence. We really don't think this is what is going on, but we allow that it's at least possible.

What's really going on, almost to a certainty, is that the MAGA Republicans are trying to get out ahead of what could be a big story today. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is about to file the discharge petition he has threatened, which, if adopted, would require the White House to turn over ALL documents related to Epstein, and would require Congress to release ALL those documents (after appropriate redactions). To accompany that, Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), in today's episode of Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows, will jointly hold a press conference on the steps of the Capitol, where 10 victims of Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell will speak, supported by another 90 or so victims who are expected to be in attendance.

It seems improbable that the victims' remarks will be limited to "yep, Epstein/Maxwell took advantage of us." Everyone already knows that. We presume they will get into some graphic detail about what Epstein/Maxwell did, so as to create maximum pressure to release everything, and so as to make anyone who opposes the release of the files look like a monster. It is at least slightly possible that one or more of them will specifically implicate Donald Trump. We doubt that, but if it does happen, it will instantly become the 1A story for the rest of the week, and maybe beyond. In that event, we very much hope that someone has made heavy-duty security arrangements for any woman who directly accuses Trump. Everyone knows what this administration does to its perceived enemies.

The bottom line is that Jeffrey Epstein is once again back from the dead. How long he'll remain, at least for this go-round, will probably be much clearer by about 2:00 p.m. ET today. (Z)

On Democratic Messaging, Part I: The 2026 Democratic National Convention

No, that headline is not a typo. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the Democrats sometimes held conventions in midterm years. The good news is that they got some free PR out of it, and a few extra headlines. The bad news is that it took a fair bit of time and energy to stage the events, and viewership was generally pretty flaccid, and mostly limited to True Believers, anyhow. So, the midterm conventions were 86'ed back in, well, '86.

Now, the blue team is tentatively thinking about bringing them back, at least for this cycle. The notion is that it would be a good platform for getting some messaging out there about what the Democratic Party stands for, and also about the evils of the Trump administration. Since the Democrats' approval rating is very poor right now, you can understand why the pooh-bahs are trying to think creatively.

Details are sparse, since the idea is only in the formative stages, and may not come to pass. For our part, however, we will say that if the Democrats try to stage something that looks like a traditional televised political convention, we think it will go over like a lead zeppelin. We suppose there might be some small "novelty" factor that drives some small amount of interest, but if people weren't willing to tune in back in the '80s, when there were basically only three channels, they aren't going to tune in during an era with hundreds of channels, plus streaming movies, plus YouTube and other Internet sites, etc.

If we were advising the Democrats, we would say the very best way to approach such an event is not "How can we get some free PR?" but instead "How can we get everyone in the tent on the same basic page, messaging-wise?" In other words, we'd advocate something like a version of the platform-writing process, where representatives of the various factions within the Party could be heard as to what particular lines of attack Democrats will focus on in the midterms, from things like "The minimum wage must go up!" to "Donald Trump is taking away your healthcare." It's not easy to herd cats, but if the Party could collectively agree on a basic set of messages, that would help a lot when it comes to making clear what the Democrats stand for.

Heck, if they really want to think creatively, we could even imagine them "electing" people to be the "face" of the party for the next calendar year. Ostensibly, the "face" of the party is the sitting chair of the DNC, but do you even know the name of that person right now? We don't. It's a bland white guy from the Midwest, but if we needed his actual name, we'd have to look it up. And certainly, he's not a standard-bearer who is going on TV each week to sell the Party.

As a real, publicly forward alternative to the chair, the Democrats could create a role with a title like "Secretary for Public Communication" and then appoint three prominent members of the party to fill the role through Election Day. Those folks would be expected to coordinate regularly with each other, and also with party leadership. Think Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) might be interested in such an opportunity? Or maybe former senator Sherrod Brown?

In an alternative version of this plan, and one that actually has been mentioned a bit, if fleetingly, the Democrats could use a convention to elect a "Shadow Cabinet," in the style of the Brits (and some other countries). The British Shadow Cabinet actually gets to go to intelligence briefings, and meetings, and so is much more in the loop on what's going on than the Democratic Shadow Cabinet would be. Still, it would be pretty good for party messaging if the Democrats had a single, go-to person for interviews, etc. on Treasury Department matters, or Homeland Security matters, or State Department matters.

We don't expect the Democrats to do these things, though the Shadow Cabinet idea is out there, and it's not totally impossible. In fact, we'll revisit the Shadow Cabinet idea in some more depth, starting next week. Meanwhile, for the rest of today, we'll talk about some of the messaging-related issues that the Democrats might discuss, if they do hold a midterm convention (or even if they don't). (Z)

On Democratic Messaging, Part II: Zohran Mamdani

Politico had a piece this week talking about how Republicans are "giddy" about New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani (D-ish), while moderate Democrats are gripped with "fear" that "his far-left politics will cost them at the ballot box."

The article does have some evidence, in terms of Republican digital ads and some slideshows that have been shown at various local committee meetings, as well as a few Democrats expressing anxiety. That said, we are not sure how much this is a real phenomenon right now, and how much it is a few anxious Democratic muckety mucks wringing their hands, and a few journalists looking to discover a horse-race angle in an election the Republicans have no chance of winning.

However serious this dynamic is right now, we'll make a couple of observations. The first is that Mamdani is, to a pretty large extent, a cipher right now. We know that worrying is what Democrats do, but perhaps any anxious Democrats should calm themselves for the moment, and wait to see: (1) if Mamdani actually wins, (2) how he governs, and (3) how good he is at making his views palatable to a larger audience. We are reminded of the quote by Upton Sinclair, an observation made nearly 100 years ago, and yet still salient:

The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label. I certainly proved it in the case of EPIC [End Poverty in California]. Running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the slogan to "End Poverty in California," I got 879,000. I think we simply have to recognize the fact that our enemies have succeeded in spreading the Big Lie. There is no use attacking it by a front attack, it is much better to out-flank them.

In a development that could be instructive, Mamdani has been winning over New York police officers, who have found that when he explains his ideas about policing to them, in person, they don't actually sound very much like the meaning that people take from "defund the police," a slogan that Mamdani once embraced (and whose meaning was ALWAYS distorted, usually deliberately).

Our second observation is that whether Mamdani wins election or not, and whether he personally becomes a right-wing bugaboo or not, the right-wing media is going to seize on someone to fill that role. If not Mamdani, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX). If not Crockett, then one of the Squad members. If not the Squad, then Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA). If not Newsom, then some other Democrat. This happens every cycle, and has for at least decades.

What this means is that worrying about giving "fuel" to Republicans and their media apparatus is a waste of energy. The right-wingers are going to FIND that fuel, damn it, and there's nothing that can be done to stop that. To us, then, that suggests that all the Democrats can do is work on ways to counteract that line of attack. For example:

• "One person can be the face of their party? OK, then I guess Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who hangs out with AND EMPLOYS white supremacists, loves tax breaks for millionaires, voted to take away healthcare and food assistance from poor people, and is hated by his own family, is the face of the Republican Party."
  
  
• "Mamdani won based on promises to get housing prices down, increase the minimum wage, and fight for working people. I hadn't thought about it before but, gee, I guess he kind of is the face of the Democratic Party, since that is what we are fighting for."
  
  
• "I am trying to figure out why Fox, owned by billionaire Rupert Murdoch, devotes roughly 40 minutes a day to slamming Mamdani. I know Mamdani called for additional taxes on corporations and the ultra wealthy... could that be it? Mayyyyybe."

Perhaps the person to study here is Mamdani's fellow New Yorker and Democratic socialist, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). There was a time when she fulfilled the bugaboo role, to the point that The Daily Wire, for example, was cranking out an average of over 8 pieces PER DAY about her. But now, she's basically gone mainstream. How? Why? Answers to those questions, which AOC herself might be able to help with, might be very useful to the Democrats. (Z)

On Democratic Messaging, Part III: The PATRIOT SHOP

It is not a secret that humor, particularly of the mocking type, can do enormous damage to a politician, even when slings and arrows are otherwise failing to pierce the armor. We imagine that nearly every reader of this site, for example, is familiar with the damage that Saturday Night Live did to Gerald Ford, by portraying him as a dumb, clumsy fool, or to Sarah Palin, by presenting her as a dunderhead who "can see Russia from my house." And it's not like SNL invented that bit. In the 1870s—100 years before "Live from New York!"—the seemingly invulnerable New York politician William Magear Tweed was brought down by derisive cartoons from the pen of Thomas Nast. And even before Tweed, the political road was littered with the bodies of politicians who were made into the butt of the joke, among them Matthew Lyon, Roger Griswold, Martin Van Buren and John C. Frémont.

Gavin Newsom has been taking a cue from these folks (or maybe from SNL) and, as we've already noted a couple of times, has commenced a program of mockery aimed at one Donald John Trump. Everyone reading this surely knows about the ALL CAPS tweets, invariably ending with "THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!" The Governor's latest initiative, meanwhile, is his so-called PATRIOT SHOP. It's a two-fer. Actually, now that we think about it, it's a three-fer. First, it's a fundraiser for the redistricting campaign. Second, it allows Newsom to mock, in general, Trump's hamfisted efforts to cash in on the presidency. Third, it allows Newsom to mock specific aspects of Trumpism, like the Trump-branded Bibles, or the red hats, or the tendency of the President's followers to indulge in idol worship. A shirt with this image, for example, is available for thirty-two bucks:

For those who don't get the references, that's Newsom bowing his head in prayer, while Kid Rock, the deceased Hulk Hogan and Tucker Carlson all lay hands on him and do the same. This alludes to many photos from the Trump Oval Office, like these, where Trump has bowed his head and closed his eyes and pretended he cares about Jesus, while various faith leaders have bought that lie, hook, line and sinker, and put hands on him while they actually pray.

We do foresee a couple of issues here, though. The first is that Newsom is not a naturally witty guy, and the people who are helping him are pretty good, but they aren't great. The second is that his particular shtick(s) might get old.

So, Democrats should be seriously thinking about how they, as a party, can keep things fresh and relevant. If we were running the show for them, we would strongly consider allocating say, $1 million a year to a smallish (5-6 person) rapid-response humor team. These folks would work on general bits that could be deployed at any time (such as satirical websites or products), but would also be on call to come up with tweets and one-liners in response to breaking news.

The Republicans have certain built-in advantages (like a hammerlock on effective cable "news"), but the Democrats have a few advantages, too. And one of those is that outside of the occasional Shane Gillis, or the guy who makes racist jokes about Puerto Rico, or Greg Gutfeld (who isn't actually funny), most of the comedy writers in the country are liberals. You think Bruce Vilanch, who is as gay as the day is long, and as liberal as Bernie Sanders, and who has written gags for something like 30 Academy Awards shows, would be interested? He might do it for free; an annual salary of, say, $100,000, would just be a bonus. Or how about Al Franken? He has 5 Emmys for his comedy work, and he wrote hundreds of zingers for Weekend Update, on a tight deadline, over the years. Or maybe Cherry Chevapravatdumrong, who is 47 and wrote some of Family Guy's best episodes. She would obviously bring a different sensibility to balance out some of the older gentlemen. And we can think of numerous other folks who would be suited to such a gig.

We don't doubt that the DNC already has a guy, or a gal, who is their "funny tweets" person. But we don't know of anything that is more formally organized or substantive than that, and that draws on people who are decades-long, successful veterans of the American comedy scene. If such an entity did exist, we think we would have heard about it, because it would make a great feature story for the politics sites. Anyhow, an investment of a million or two along these lines could pay much more handsome dividends than, say, another million or two spent on TV advertising. (Z)

On Democratic Messaging, Part IV: Donald Trump Murdered a 10-Year-Old and an 8-Year-Old

As you can tell, we've been saving up links for this day. Anyhow, another thing the Democrats have to work on, messaging-wise, is how to make Donald Trump and his Party pay, politically, for the unpopular things they've done. To some extent, the problem will solve itself, as people are going to notice if milk now costs $9/gallon, or there aren't any Christmas gifts on the shelves, or there's an epidemic of measles in Texas.

That said, it is part of the blue team's job to stick it to the GOP as aggressively as possible, and thus far, that's at least been something of a struggle for many Democrats. We've written about this, but we think the problem here might be that Democrats are prone to being a little (or a lot) too high-minded, and unwilling to get their hands dirty. Several years back, Michelle Obama famously said, "When they go low, we go high." That may have been good for many Democrats' egos, but it may also have been bad advice when it comes to politics in the era of Trump.

Consider, for example, the headline for this item. Everyone knows about the school shooting in Minnesota. And, as it turns out, the DHS cut funding for mass shooting prevention programs in Minnesota a few months ago. On the whole, even if Democrats do try to hang something like this on Trump and his party, they do it in a wonky and diplomatic way. Perhaps the more direct, and more raw, approach is called for. Something like: "Donald Trump cut funding for mass shooting prevention in Minnesota. Now, two children are dead as a result. Donald Trump is a child murderer."

Or how about this? As of Monday, work requirements for receiving SNAP kicked in. The CBO estimates that the change will result in 2.4 million people a month being thrown out of the program. It may take a while for that change to fully manifest, but certainly by November of next year, poor people will be feeling the pinch. How about something like: "While Donald Trump gorges on Big Macs and pâté de foie gras in his new ballroom, kids are going hungry. What kind of priorities are those?"

One other quick example. Trump surely had September 1 circled on his calendar, not because of the hungry children, but because of one of his several crypto scams. After reversing a Biden-era directive that a company cannot market a crypto token as an investment, and then engaging in a little additional chicanery to get around the rules, World Liberty Financial was able to begin selling 24.6 billion tokens as of Monday morning. The Trump family gets 75% of all proceeds, and Trump himself owns nearly 16 billion tokens. As a result, since Monday morning, the Trump family has made $5 billion on paper.

Not only is Trump profiting off the presidency here, something that previous presidents did not do (at least, not until after they left office), but he's profiting off of access to the presidency. That is to say, the tokens cannot be used as currency, and cannot be sold. Their only value is that they entitle holders to a say in company governance. However, because the Trumps and their partners control the vast majority of the tokens, outsiders can't actually influence... anything. That means the only purpose for buying the tokens, which will be close to worthless as of January 20, 2029, is to gain influence with/access to Trump. It's a bribe, plain and simple. And Democrats would be well advised to find a simple and effective way to rail against this kind of corruption. Maybe a Trump-style nickname, like the Crypto Crook? The Hamburgerburglar? The President of the U.S., Incorporated?

We recognize that getting down into the mud will be a real downer, in terms of the national discourse. However, it's less of a downer than sending people to Guatemalan prisons without benefit of due process. Or trying to get rid of birthright citizenship, gay marriage, Medicaid, SNAP, etc. Or invading U.S. cities with armed soldiers. You know what they say about desperate times...

Anyhow, these are the kinds of things Democrats could be talking and thinking about if they have a convention in 2026. Or, even if they don't. (Z)

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