Dem
47
GOP
53
Need another hint for the headline theme? We actually came up with that theme in honor of Neil Young's 80th birthday. And then... we couldn't make any of his songs work for any of the items we wrote.
B.D. in Cleveland, OH, asks: Your item You Got to Know When to Hold 'Em, Know When to Fold 'Em made me think of a possibility of forcing the ACA subsidy vote in The House. Whatever got into Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), she actually has been vocal about the ACA subsidies going away being very bad for people.
My question is: Is it an option for her (or any House member, for that matter) to put together a discharge petition to try to force a vote on the ACA subsidies, if she were to get to 218 signatures, just like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is about to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files?(Z) answers: That is absolutely a possibility. In fact, because a lot of swing-district Republicans are scared witless of running and getting killed for, well, killing the subsidies, it might even be a likelihood.
C.P. in Fairport, NY, asks: Is there a good reason why commercial air traffic controllers are not considered essential government workers, and therefore paid through a shutdown?
(Z) answers: They ARE considered essential government workers, which is why they have to work. ALL people who are deemed essential workers still have to report to work during a shutdown, and none of them get paid until it's over.
J.M. in Davis, CA, asks: I'm curious about what you folks, my go-to political gurus, think about Ezra Levin's analysis of the shutdown deal.
I was interested to read your take that maybe this was a longer game/trap for the Republicans. My first reaction was pretty much Ezra's, but now I think, just maybe, it's OK-ish.(Z) answers: Ezra Levin is a progressive and an agitator, and one who makes his living by getting people to donate money to his activist group. He wrote exactly the "analysis" we would expect someone like that to write, one that just so happens to provide details (several times) as to how you can donate money to Levin's group (Indivisible).
I understand that many people who supported the Democrats are very angry right now. But I just don't have much use for any analysis that does not acknowledge that all of the options available to the Democrats had downsides. Even if a person comes to different conclusions than I did in my two items on the subject, they are being intellectually dishonest if they pretend that continuing the shutdown was the "easy" choice.
Indeed, ask yourself this question: What, exactly, was the Democrats' motivation in ending the shutdown? (And note that it wasn't all Democrats, it was just some of the Democrats in the Senate, albeit probably more than the 7 who voted for the CR). If you assume that all the Democratic members care about is their own careers and getting reelected, then the "easy" thing for them to do would have been to keep the shutdown going, since they were winning the battle of public opinion, and since Donald Trump in particular was flopping around like a beached whale.
There has to be some motivation here, and "the Democrats were scared" and/or "the Democrats are spineless" just don't pass the smell test. I've suggested a list of possible motivations, but even if you reject my list, this is a question that must be answered.
(V) is with JVL of The Bulwark. Trump voters need to touch the stove and have it held there for a bit to make the point this is what they voted for. Enjoy it. Messing up Thanksgiving travel would have done that.
J.B. in Bend, OR, asks: Can you elaborate on the process for the House vote on the Epstein petition? I've read that even though they had 218 signatures, bringing it to a vote required a decision by "House leadership"; however, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) decided to bring it up immediately. Could Johnson have delayed the vote indefinitely?
Also, I've read that some House members are hoping for a veto-proof two-thirds vote, but I thought that only applied to the Senate. Can you explain what exactly is going on?
Bonus question: What if the Senate passes it with a veto-proof majority? Would Trump concede and sign it or still veto it?(Z) answers: The House has rules for how quickly a discharge petition must be handled, and on when a discharge petition must be handled (usually Monday afternoons). Johnson had a little leeway in terms of the scheduling, but he would have been in violation of House rules if he'd tried to sit on the petition indefinitely. We presume that, once it was clear he wasn't going to break the unity of the 218 signers, he decided to cut his losses and, in particular, to get the vote done before Thanksgiving, in hopes that the holiday will be a partial distraction.
As to vetoes, overcoming one requires two-thirds of both the House and the Senate. So, a veto-proof two-thirds vote in the House does potentially matter.
No matter what happens in the Senate (and don't assume the matter will even come up for a vote), we cannot imagine Donald Trump signing the bill. He will resist in every way possible, and if the bill does somehow become law over his veto, he and his underlings will undoubtedly find ways to avoid releasing the evidence. For example, just not doing it. Then what?
All of this said, when it became clear the discharge petition was not going to be killed, the White House held an all-hands-on-deck meeting in the Situation Room (!) to try to strongarm the members of Congress, and to strategize. There is something in there that has Trump scared to death. Given the newest batch of e-mails, it's not that he knew about Epstein's statutory rape—since that is now a publicly known fact. The obvious answer is that it's proof that Trump himself engaged in rape and/or other sexual crimes. Epstein apparently had secret video recordings made of the various activities on his island. The FBI seized them when they raided Epstein's place. Maybe this is what Trump is scared witless of.
However, I am increasingly open to the idea that what's in there is not sex stuff at all, but instead is ironclad proof that Trump is a Russian puppet. Epstein did talk to the Russians (after he and Trump had their falling out), and Epstein reportedly told them "everything." If this were to be shown, beyond all doubt, it might be more damaging to Trump with MAGA, since MAGA has already tolerated all kinds of sexual misconduct from him.
J.D. in Cold Spring, MN, asks: I haven't been able to get a clear answer to some questions that have been bugging me. As you describe it, the Massie bill is unlikely to become law even if the House passes it with a bipartisan vote. No way does Trump sign it. Surely, Massie and the Democrats know this. So, I don't see the point other than to get people on record, and get some very bad press for Trump when he vetoes it. But why do they even need a bill? Why not simply subpoena the files? As I understand things, the bill is aimed at the Department of Justice and FBI. Why wouldn't a subpoena be as effective? If Massie has enough GOP votes to pass a bill, wouldn't he have the votes for a subpoena?
(Z) answers: This is most certainly a messaging bill. Massie and the Democrats do not really believe they are going to be able to get whatever the DoJ has; they just want to put the screws to Trump, and to any Republican member of Congress who goes on the record in support of keeping the evidence suppressed.
And note that it appears to be working, as Trump just told the DoJ to investigate the matter. It's very Nixon-esque, in that it's just for show, and nobody seriously believes a Pam Bondi-led investigation is going to actually incriminate Trump. Still, it's clear the President is sweating.
As to a subpoena, it's a little weedy, but there are two problems. The first is that subpoenas can only be issued by House committees (usually in the name of the chair). The specific rules vary by committee, but Massie might suspect or know that he can't get the votes he needs on the committees that he (and the other three GOP rebels) serves on. The second problem is that it's pretty easy to tie up a subpoena in court for a very long time, as we learned during Trump v1.0. Congressional subpoenas are only legal if they serve a legislative purpose, and cannot be used as a substitute for law enforcement. So, it's pretty easy to go to court and argue "this subpoena does not serve a legislative purpose!" and to drag things out for a long time. That is exactly what happened with Trump's tax returns (even if the courts eventually decided that Congress DID have a legislative purpose in subpoenaing them).
All of this said, Massie might well be keeping the subpoena option in his back pocket. If the DoJ does not cooperate (and it won't), well, there are other people and entities out there who also have this material (or some of it). And some of those people and entities, like the executors of Jeffrey Epstein's estate, might be more amenable to a subpoena than the White House will be.
V.F. in Richmond, VA, asks: With the 218th signature locked in, the House will demand the release of the Epstein files. Given that Donald Trump has openly threatened members who support their release, there must be some really damaging stuff there.
My question is that given the sycophancy of FBI Director Kash Patel and AG Pam Bondi, what's to stop them from destroying incriminating evidence against Trump in the files?(Z) answers: As we note in the answer above, the DoJ does not have a monopoly on this evidence, and there are copies of some of it, or maybe all of it, in the hands of non-DoJ people and entities.
If Bondi or Patel is caught withholding or destroying evidence, that is a federal crime, is possibly a state crime, and is also grounds for disbarment. They might still do it, nonetheless, but they would be taking a risk on behalf of a guy who often discards people once they are no longer of use to him.
P.R. in Arvada, CO, asks: I am curious to hear what you guys think will happen with the Epstein files. Will Congress be able to get enough votes to override Trump? Is this the start of the end of Trump, or will his base decide he didn't do anything wrong after all? Will he try to create a situation that is bigger than the Epstein files to distract and could it be successful? How do you see the next year playing out?
(Z) answers: As I note above, I don't expect the Trump White House to surrender the way the Nixon White House did in 1974. But Trump is clearly feeling the heat. It is possible that someone else who has the evidence (or some of it) comes forward. It is also possible that no more evidence comes to light, but that Trump's increasing radioactivity, his declining approval ratings and his lame-duck status serve to substantially weaken his hold on the Republican Party, and also lay the groundwork for a blue wave next year.
And there is no question he will try to create distractions. That's his modus operandi in general, and he's already done things that were clearly meant to deflect attention from Epsteinpot Dome. How about a nice war with Venezuela for starters?
P.K. in Arlington Heights, IL, asks: Now that the U.S. government shutdown is nearing an end, and Mike Johnson is re-opening the U.S. House, I am seeing an interest in military action against Venezuela for some unspecified reason. Could this be due to the impending vote for release of the Epstein Files and Trump desperately wanting something to distract people's attention? Was the 1998 film Wag the Dog aired recently on basic cable?
(Z) answers: We see no explanations for the ongoing violence against Venezuelan fisherman other than: (1) Trump is trying to distract from Epstein and/or other political problems he has, and/or (2) Trump is trying to create a state of war, so he has a stronger legal justification for things like invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
With any of the other men who have served as president, the previous paragraph would be conspiratorial. With Trump, it's just another Saturday.
R.H.D. in Webster, NY, asks: How long is the flag lowered to half-staff for a former vice president? Is it more that what Charlie Kirk got when he was assassinated? I believe that was 10 days.
(Z) answers: The U.S. flag code (which is advisory, even if White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt seems to think it's enforceable law) says that it should be 30 days for the death of a sitting or former president; 10 days for the death of a sitting VP, sitting Speaker, or sitting/former Chief Justice; and from the date of death until the date of interment for any other former officeholder that is to be honored.
In Cheney's case, death-to-interment happened to be 10 days. The sitting president is allowed to adjust as he sees fit, and since Trump hates the Cheneys, he certainly could have shortened it. He didn't, presumably because some things are too petulant for even him, but he also remained silent about the former VP's death, and did not issue the customary polite acknowledgement of Cheney's service to the country and yadda, yadda, yadda.
The flag code does not contain any verbiage about civilians being honored, so the sitting president is free to do whatever he wants to do. For Charlie Kirk, Trump chose to adopt the "from the date of death until the date of interment" standard, which also happened to be 10 days. It is more common, when a civilian is to be recognized, to fly flags at half-staff and half-mast only on the day of interment. This is what happened, for example, with Rosa Parks and Neil Armstrong. Of course, Kirk is clearly more heroic than either of those people.
K.H. in Maryville, TN, asks: (V)'s item "Supreme Court Will Handle Late-Ballot Case" made me think... If SCOTUS rules that ballots have to arrive on or before Election Day regardless of postmark, isn't that going to open a giant can of worms? Lots of things that are mailed are credited by the postmark date. The first (and possibly best) example that popped into my head is income tax returns. A previous job I had entailed receiving tax-adjacent documents; we accepted forms as timely filed if postmarked by a certain date. So, if they change the rules for ballots, wouldn't that change the rules for everything else?
(Z) answers: No. SCOTUS is not ruling generally on the meaning of postmarks. It is ruling specifically on whether "postmarked in time is good enough" violates the Constitution's Elections Clause. So, the ruling will not apply to any other postmark-related circumstances.
B.J.L. in Ann Arbor, MI, asks: I have a general question based on the fact that we are phasing out the penny. It seems to make sense on one level that this should happen. It costs more than 3x the face value to make this coin based on the 2024 Mint's annual report. The nickel is also behind the 8-ball; the other coins, the government is making money per coin produced.
But a more distressing fact is that it appears that we make a lot of pennies. Penny production per coin appears to be half the production. If we stop making pennies, are we RIFFing all the workers on the penny line? Because if we are not, the cost to make everything else just got more expensive. I assume that is what will happen. We are simply idling the machines. Maybe we should take all these idle stampers and send them to the postal service and the IRS, where they can improve service for these agencies.(Z) answers: Over the last three years, the Mint has produced an average of about 4.7 billion pennies a year. The number has been in general decline since the very height of penny production (16,725,504,368 pennies in 1982), and about half of that 3-year average is actually provided by the pennies made 3 years ago. Still, it's a fair number for "current production."
When it is striking pennies, the mint cranks them out at the rate of 2,430,000 per hour. So, in recent years, it's spent about 1,934 hours making pennies each year. That's about 48 weeks of full-time work. Let us assume that it takes 5 people to keep the line running, and let us further assume that the amount of time it takes to produce the pennies is tripled by the amount of time it takes to manage the production (acquiring raw materials, getting the dies set, moving pallets around, etc.). You're still looking at maybe 15 full-time workers. That's not a lot, and surely there's enough work to be done at the mint that their newly spare time can be used profitably on other things.
We are not sure how the IRS and/or USPS could make use of machines that strike coins. On the other hand, some sort of Trump token might be a possibility, especially if Trump got a cut of the revenue.
M.G. in Piscataway, NJ, asks: With regards to prices going way up, you wrote: "This is not an invention of the Democratic propaganda machine (which, even if it exists, is pretty anemic)."
The fact that the Republican propaganda machine has been a leviathan for many decades and the Democratic propaganda machine barely exists is perhaps the greatest failure of the Democratic Party. Do you have any idea why the Democrats not only fail to invent ways to beat the Republicans, how come they can't even copy some of the successful techniques the Republicans use?(Z) answers: Propaganda operates mostly on emotion, and largely demands that someone not think too hard about the information they are being given. We are not experts, but apparently it is the case that some people can be hypnotized and others cannot. Similarly, some people are susceptible to propaganda, and others are not. At the moment, the type who are susceptible are overwhelmingly within the Republican Party in general, and MAGA in particular.
Consider this as a thought exercise. Imagine we ran an answer today (or an item next week) in which we said we suspected that J.D. Vance is running a pedophile sex ring out of a pizza place in D.C. Do you know how many e-mails we would get from readers asking what the hell we are talking about? It would never fly.
The remarkable thing about Fox, and all the various podcasters and radio hosts, is that they manage to get people to listen to the SAME propaganda, over and over, for hours, or even days. Even if you accept, for example, that Joe Biden's use of an autopen was a crime on par with the Manson Family killings, how much carping about that can you hear? And yet, the audience accepts it gratefully, and it serves to really lock the notion into their heads.
There is no way that the Democratic Party, or Democratic-inclined commentators, could hope to replicate this dynamic. And it's not for lack of trying (e.g., Air America Radio Network). They just aren't speaking to an audience for whom it's possible.
L.B. in Savannah, GA, asks: Your analyses of the 2024 election pointed out that there was a worldwide trend of "throw the bums out," and Kamala Harris and the Democrats were affected by that. Is it possible that the Blue Tsunami a few weeks ago was the same thing, only directed at the party in power? I can't imagine having the same results if Harris was president and the Democrats controlled Congress. Given that the Democrats are only slightly more popular than the Republicans right now, are elections just the only way to send a message of disapproval to whoever happens to be in power? Are we doomed to several cycles of power being handed back and forth until this is no longer a factor?
(Z) answers: There's no great way to prove this, but here is what I suspect. Normally, many voters use elections as a referendum on the party in power, while a smaller number of voters uses them to vote for "change." At the moment, it seems the "change" group has grown larger in number, to the point that it might even be larger than the "referendum" group.
If I am right, then what we saw last week was some people voting against the party in power, and some people voting specifically against Trump. I actually think that because it's an off-year election, and those tend to attract more dialed-in people, the anti-Trump voters were probably larger in number than the "we want a change" voters. In any event, it's not all one dynamic, and it's not all the other. If Kamala Harris was president right now, she surely would not have done so many things to upset American voters (other than presidenting while Black), so I doubt the backlash would have been so severe. Indeed, there might not have been a backlash at all, especially since it was blue states that were voting.
It is possible, even likely, that "change" will dictate the outcomes of presidential elections... until it doesn't. Eventually a president will come along and will deliver answers that the majority finds satisfactory. After Ulysses S. Grant left office in 1877, and the problems of the Gilded Age began to manifest, it took quite a few elections to find that president (really two presidents; William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt). Who knows how many elections it will take this time.
S.S. in West Hollywood, CA, asks: Assume Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) decides to support the push for younger leadership and steps aside before next year's midterm election. Who do you think would be the person most likely to replace him? Who else do you think has the right skill set and should be in the conversation to be the next Democrat Senate leader?
(Z) answers: The obvious frontrunner, I would say, is Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ). He's young by Senate standards (56), he's "diverse," he's already a member of leadership (formerly Chief Deputy Whip, now Strategic Communications Committee Chair) and he's known as a "fighter" thanks to his sorta-filibuster speech.
Other contenders would be Raphael Warnock (D-GA; 56), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ; 45), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI; 49), Alex Padilla (D-CA; 52), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM; 53), and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL; 57). I think age 60 is probably an upper limit, and I don't think they will go with a white guy. John Fetterman (D-PA) might have been a possibility, white-guyness notwithstanding, at some point, but not anymore between his health and his repeated acts of rebellion.
K.L. in Paterson, NJ, asks: Does John Bouvier Kennedy Schlossberg actually enjoy a meaningful electoral advantage due to his name?
JFK was President more than 60 years ago. Realistically, anybody under the age of 70 today has no direct memory of him or his presidency. There've been other Kennedys in government since then, but none of his stature (though I suppose RFK's story is still being written).
NY-12 probably has a 70+ population of about 20%. Is the fraction of those voters making their mind up by nostalgia, enough to provide a meaningful edge? This Millennial wants to know!(Z) answers: Yes, he does. First, older people make up a disproportionate share of the electorate, and if even 10% of them are influenced by their fond memories of Jack Kennedy, that's meaningful.
Second, it is not necessary to have been alive for JFK's presidency to have warm feelings about the family name. Abraham Lincoln has no living descendants, but what if John Hanks Lincoln Schlossberg was the only living great-grandson of Lincoln, and were to announce a run? He would get some votes on the basis of being part of the Lincoln family.
Third, being a Kennedy comes with other advantages. Press and political operatives immediately take you seriously. You have the Kennedy money and the Kennedy good looks. You also know, your whole life, that politics might be in your future, so you are likely to be more careful about not doing something dumb, like posting "Defund the Police" memes to Twitter or accidentally getting a Nazi tattoo.
F.I. in Philadelphia, PA, asks: Hearing about Donald Trump's granddaughter's predictably pathetic performance in her pro debut got me wondering: Is Donald actually any good at golf? Does he have a known golf handicap? For all the time he spends golfing, I'm curious if he's at least decent.
(Z) answers: There have been plenty of articles, and even a bestselling book, on this subject. The universal consensus is that he's quite good for someone of his age and level of physical fitness, that he cheats to make his scores even better, and that he turns around and lies about those phony scores to make them even better still.
D.K. in Iowa City, IA, asks: Is there any chance that some States would secede from the union and form a new country? The most likely, of course, would be the Deep South states. I ask because it would seem that many people in the other states might be happy to see them go. Is it possible that other states might be interested in doing that?
(Z) answers: The Civil War established that states cannot leave the union without consent from all the other states. The Supreme Court affirmed this shortly after the Civil War, in the 1869 case Texas v. White. In short, the state of Texas tried to get out of paying the bonds it had issued during the Civil War, asserting that it was part of a foreign nation during that time. The Supreme Court said "no," and that Texas was, and remained, a U.S. state from the moment it joined the union in 1845, regardless of whatever temper tantrums it might have pitched in the first half of the 1860s.
So, if some group of Southern states were to secede, they would have to get the permission of all the other states, or they would have to defy the Constitution and then back that play militarily. Either outcome is very, very unlikely. Every person in the South over the age of about four knows what happened last time they tried.
D.G. in Fairfax, VA, asks: You mentioned that removing the filibuster would allow passage of a law to grant statehood to D.C. and Puerto Rico. What would prevent a later Congress from repealing that law, revoking statehood? Could a law be passed that, say, revoked Montana's statehood and gave control of that territory to Wisconsin? After all, who says states have to be contiguous? Hawaii isn't. I think I recall a state can't fully enclose another state, so no simply turning New York City into its own state, I suppose.
(Z) answers: Texas v. White (see above) not only establishes that states cannot leave the union without the assent of all the other states, it also establishes that they cannot be kicked out of the union without the approval of ALL the states. In other words, not only would all of the blue states have to agree to revoke D.C.'s statehood, so too would D.C. itself. Not happening, obviously.
B.T. in Kansas City, MO, asks: Regarding your recent comments on removing the filibuster: Is it possible for one party to kill it, legislate as needed without it, and then reinstate it immediately after an election where they lose power (before the new Congress is sworn in)? It would be incredibly dirty politics, but I wouldn't put it past Republicans to do that at some point.
(Z) answers: Possible, yes. But there would be no point in doing so. The first reason to keep the filibuster is to avoid having to take votes on tricky issues (the Republicans, for example, can say, "Gee, we just can't vote to outlaw abortion nationwide, because that would never get past a Democratic filibuster.") The second reason, and almost certainly the bigger one, is that the party that killed the filibuster would get a lot of blowback.
So, a majority party that killed the filibuster would suffer that dreaded blowback (and then would also have to hold votes on a bunch of tricky issues). Then, that party would get more blowback when they tried to put the filibuster back in place, since it would be such a sleazy move. Then, when the other party took over, they would kill the filibuster in the name of "fairness" and would avoid most or all of the blowback.
The only filibuster-killing strategy that makes sense for the Republicans is to cue up a bunch of juicy legislation, kill the filibuster with 6-8 weeks left in the term, pass as much of that juicy legislation as is possible, claim there just wasn't time to deal with things like outlawing abortion (darn the luck!), and then hope it was worth it when the Democrats respond in kind.
For the Democrats, I would say the calculus is a little different. The Republicans have been avoiding votes on very unpopular issues (abortion being the obvious one, even looser gun regulations being another) for a very long time, and killing the filibuster would make it way harder to keep doing that dance. The things the Democrats want to do are largely pretty popular, and any anger about killing the filibuster would probably soon be drowned out if the blue team were able to make some fixes to the Supreme Court, or to healthcare, or to voting rights. There ARE positions within the Democratic Party that are unpopular with voters nationwide, but the Democrats have never promised, as soon as it is possible, to bring up legislation about, say, letting trans girls play high school sports. And certainly, none of them would do it, even if the filibuster is abolished. So, there's more maneuvering room on that side of the aisle.
L.S. in Greensboro, NC, asks: One of the many things you do well is explain the finer points of American civics. When a U.S. Senate seat becomes vacant, the state's governor quickly appoints an interim senator who serves until a special election can be held. However, if a U.S. House seat becomes vacant, it remains vacant until a special election, meaning that the district is without representation, often for months or even the better part of a year. Is there something in the Constitution that prohibits appointing an interim representative? I assume there is something that does require the appointment of an interim senator, right?
This is especially noticeable here in North Carolina, since any vacancy in the state legislature is quickly filled by a replacement chosen by the district party committee of the party which that senator or representative served. There have been a number of vacancies in recent times due to deaths or resignations, and in all cases the seat was open for days or weeks at most.(Z) answers: The Senate Vacancies Clause of the Constitution empowers state legislatures to choose a new senator in the event that a seat comes open. This makes sense, because at that time, state legislatures chose all senators. That clause also specifies that if the state legislature is out of session, the governor can step in and make a pick. The logic here is that a senator represents all people in a state, and is voted on by all people in a state, and so is a governor. So, a governor ostensibly represents the same constituency a senator does, and it is appropriate for them to choose a replacement.
The Seventeenth Amendment gave the job of electing senators to the people, but also specified that state legislatures could make arrangements for the appointment of replacements, as needed. The state legislatures have generally delegated that power to the governors, based on the "same constituency" logic. These days, of course, many state legislatures have also put rules in place to make sure that the replacement senator is from the same party as the departed senator.
The House Vacancies Clause of the Constitution says that House seats that come open must be filled by an election. The logic here is that a representative might represent a very different constituency than the governor. For example, a representative from Des Moines might answer primarily to urbanites with urban concerns, while the governor of Iowa might answer primarily to rural dwellers with rural concerns. The Framers did not want people stuck with a representative in Congress who was completely unrepresentative.
States are free to manage their legislatures however they see fit, assuming they do not violate the Constitution. Some states follow the same basic approach as with the federal legislature, others choose to limit, as much as possible, the amount of time that people go without representation in the state legislature.
D.P. in Oakland, CA, asks: If Ghislaine Maxwell is pardoned, doesn't she lose the option to plead the Fifth—that is, won't she have to answer truthfully every question or face going back to prison?
(L) answers: It's possible she could be subpoenaed to testify to Congress. In that situation, if her answers could incriminate her for a state crime, she can plead the Fifth. But any potential state charges would have to be different from the federal crimes and the statute of limitations could not have run. For example, she would have to answer questions about trafficking, because she's already been convicted of that, and can't be convicted again. On the other hand, she might plausibly face sexual assault charges in New York, so she could avoid questions that might hurt her in such a case.
D.D. in Portland, OR, asks: How would you rank the top U.S. Presidents who failed to get re-elected? I'm talking about true one-termers, so no James Garfield love-fest, please.
(Z) answers: We are going to presume that "one-termer" means anyone who served between 2.0001 and 4 years. Further, we will not make guesses about who might have run, or who secretly wanted to run but didn't. We'll just consider everyone who served between 2.0001 and 4 years and survived to the end of their time in office. From worst to best:
- James Buchanan: One of the three worst presidents in American history; through his ineptness he took a situation where a civil war was likely and made it into a situation where it was an inevitability.
- Andrew Johnson: Another of the three worst presidents in history. He was left to deal with the aftermath of the Civil War, and he screwed it up so badly he got impeached. America was not going to eliminate racism overnight, or even within the 19th century, but a better president certainly could have done better by the freedmen and freedwomen.
- Franklin Pierce: He didn't screw up quite as badly as Buchanan when it came to laying the groundwork for the Civil War, but he wasn't far behind either. His mishandling of the mess in Kansas was particularly problematic, even if things there didn't really explode until after he was out of office.
- Martin Van Buren: He inherited the policies of Andrew Jackson, which laid the groundwork for a disastrous presidency. In particular, killing the Second Bank of the U.S. led to the worst depression in American history to that time, while Jackson's Indian policy led to the Trail of Tears. Both of these things happened almost entirely on Van Buren's watch.
- John Tyler: He gets some credit for establishing that, when a vice president ascends to the presidency, that person has all the powers of the presidential office. But beyond that, he was a nonentity and a traitor.
- Herbert Hoover: He would have been a good caretaker president, like Calvin Coolidge was before him. Unfortunately, the Great Depression was not a caretaker moment, and Hoover blew it badly, particularly with his handling of the Bonus Expeditionary Army.
- Millard Fillmore: A nonentity, not particularly good or particularly bad.
- Rutherford B. Hayes: Ibid.
- Benjamin Harrison: Ibid. Feel free to put this trio in any order.
- Chester A. Arthur: Getting the Pendleton Civil Service Act through Congress and signed into law is no small achievement, but that's about it for him.
- John Quincy Adams: A great secretary of state, and a great U.S. Representative, who happened to also serve as president. His time in the big chair was largely devoid of accomplishment, excepting a couple of treaties, and some progress on internal improvements, like the National Road.
- William Howard Taft: He's a little underrated, as he actually broke up a larger number of monopolies than "Trust Buster" Theodore Roosevelt did. That said, Taft did not like being president, he was outshone by TR on both sides of his term, and he became very passive during the latter part of his term.
- George H.W. Bush: He brought a basically peaceful end to the Cold War, which was quite a feat, and he also successfully prosecuted the Persian Gulf War. He was done in by the economy, and by the corruption that had already begun to eat away at his political party.
- Gerald Ford: The Nixon pardon did not work out well, that is for sure. And the economy took a nosedive while he was in the Oval Office, and he proved powerless to do much about it. However, he was a very decent man, and that is what America badly needed after the Nixon years.
- John Adams: It is not easy to follow George Washington, and the Quasi-War with France was a mistake, particularly the Alien and Sedition Acts that were passed as a result. But Adams did receive power from one leader, and he handed it off to another leader (of a different political party) and so played a big role in establishing the stability of the new government. His domestic policies were also good, even if the foreign affairs stuff was poor.
- Jimmy Carter: Because Ronald Reagan did such a great job of making Carter into a bugaboo, and because the Carter-era economy was generally bad, it has been taken as a given that Carter was a bad president. Not so fast. He inherited the bad economy, and actually managed to improve it some. He also had some major foreign-policy achievements, like the Camp David Accords. He greatly diversified the federal judiciary, and made the government, on the whole, more inclusive. Not bad for a white guy from the Deep South. He was also one of the two or three most decent men to be president.
- Joe Biden: I suspect that when future scholars look at what Joe Biden did, with virtually no margin for error in Congress, they will roll their eyes and wonder what voters were thinking. Bonus points for being a man of principle who made some hard foreign-policy choices, like ending the drone attacks in Syria and withdrawing from Afghanistan.
- James K. Polk: He's always been the gold standard for one-term presidents. Though his agenda would not play well with modern voters, he ran on promises to acquire California, settle the border dispute with Britain/Canada in Oregon, and formalize Texas statehood. He did everything he promised, took virtually no vacation, went home to Tennessee when his time was up, and died shortly thereafter.
C.P. in Fairport, NY, asks: Although we are not yet one year into Donald Trump's second presidential term, there are many differences between this term and his first term. For example, the quality and motivations of the Cabinet and staff he has appointed, the extreme measures he has taken, his contempt of the Congress and the courts, and a higher degree of shamelessness. How did Grover Cleveland's second term compare with his first term?
(Z) answers: Grover Cleveland really, really believed in the supremacy of the legislature, and in a federal government and a presidency with very limited powers. This was basically the thinking of the fellows who wrote the Constitution, and Cleveland is probably the last president to embrace it (though you can make a case for William Howard Taft or Calvin Coolidge).
And so, the way Cleveland presidented during his first term, and the way he presidented during his second term, were almost entirely the same. The first term was pretty good, because he brought integrity and honesty to government, and the second term was pretty bad, because the economy tanked. But Cleveland himself was not especially different across the two terms, nor was his executive team.
R.L.D. in Sundance, WY, asks: I noticed that you focused on legislative and executive offices in your list of the potentially most powerful and important women in U.S. history, and was surprised that you didn't include Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor or any of the women on the Court. Is there something systemic about the Supreme Court that you think makes them less powerful or important, was it simply an oversight, or is there a failing in the individuals?
(Z) answers: I was thinking about politicians, and justices are not politicians. At least, they are not supposed to be. The other problem, as you anticipate, is that any associate justice is just 1/9th of the Court, and not the most important 1/9th. There is more potential for 1/100th of the Senate to change the course of American history, or 1/435th of the House, than 1/9th of the Court, I would say.
D.R. in Phoenix, AZ, asks: I have always wondered what would have happened if the Western powers had decided that the Jewish homeland could not be in the Middle East because, well, ocupado. What if the U.S. had made an offer—a chunk of Nevada twice as big as modern Israel, with all the security and prosperity that could be imagined for a country entirely within the boundaries of the United States? If the American people could have been persuaded to make that offer, and the Jewish people agreed with the details, might such a scheme have worked out?
(Z) answers: Well, there are two obvious problems here. The father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, made a secular argument for Israel to be in, well, Israel because that is the historical homeland of the Jewish people. Indeed, the name "Zionism" comes from Mt. Zion, which is in Jerusalem.
There is also a religious argument. One element of Jewish teaching is that, one day, the Third Temple will be built on the site where the Second Temple was once located. This is understood to be a key step toward the coming of a messianic era. And the Second Temple was located on the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem.
In short, while Nevada has many things, it does not have Mt. Zion and it does not have the Temple Mount. So, while the climate might be vaguely similar, the state is not an acceptable choice for approximately 100.0% of Jews.
R.C. in Des Moines, IA, asks: Your answer to R.H. In Anchorage about Victor Davis Hanson got me wondering about your assessment of the work of fellow Hoover Institute personality Niall Ferguson. I wonder how his work is viewed by historians?
(Z) answers: Niall Fergson used to write books with interesting ideas and his politics lingering in the background. His basically-19th-century views were present, but they were not at the forefront. I read, and cited in my dissertation, his very interesting book Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals, for example.
In his more recent books, the politics are in the foreground and the interesting ideas are relegated to a supporting role. He has also gotten in the habit of relying on research assistants, so the books tend to be a little sloppy and disjointed.
R.M.S. in Lebanon, CT, asks: I was wondering if any of you have seen the 2024 film The Apprentice. It's currently free on the Roku Channel. If you have seen it, what are your opinions on it?
(Z) answers: I saw it and I liked it. The movie accepts as fact some incidents that are disputed (most obviously, Trump's rape of his first wife, Ivana), but it doesn't make things up out of whole cloth. And it does a pretty effective job of showing how Roy Cohn was the master manipulator and the user of people, while Trump was a pathetic hanger-on, and how the polarity of their relationship reversed, such that by the end Trump was the master manipulator and the user of people, while Cohn was a pathetic hanger-on.
B.H. in Frankfort, IL, asks: Some of my favorite films were never highly acclaimed: Breaking Away, Pleasantville, and Lonely Are the Brave are on my list. (Yeah, I'm old). What would be on your list?
(A) answers: Pleasantville is a great choice, I remember loving that film but I never got around to rewatching it.
A few of my favorites could fall into this category in one way or another.
There's Sliding Doors, which didn't get much attention when released or since. It's a film from Gwyneth Paltrow's British period that's about the butterfly effect; a little bit about how getting what you want isn't always all it's cracked up to be, and a little bit about fate.
The Adjustment Bureau is about the same themes as Sliding Doors, but is a very different film. There's more mystery and intrigue, and it's a little more intense.
I loved Zack Snyder's Watchmen (the 2009 film, not the 2019 HBO miniseries, which is also excellent). While it was a moderate box office success, it didn't make nearly as much as expected, and I recall it getting absolutely skewered by critics at the time. With the passage of time, people seem to have become more appreciative of it, so I'm not positive it belongs on this list.
(L) answers: About Last Night. One of my favorites that has been dismissed as a standard rom-com, but is actually very smartly written about the pitfalls of modern relationships. It's based on a play by David Mamet, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, who also wrote the screenplay for the film.
The Painted Veil. Based on the Somerset Maugham novel, an excellent remake that was shot in China and set against the backdrop of the Chinese Revolution. It was largely ignored when it came out, which I've never understood. But the cast is terrific, with Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Toby Jones and Liev Schrieber.
Passengers. This movie was panned by critics but I found it to be really compelling and haunting. Chris Pratt delivers a great performance as the only man awake on a starship traveling for another 90 years to a distant planet. Does he remain alone or strand another passenger with him? The music is also excellent and really sets the tone.
Working Girl. Also largely dismissed as a rom-com but it's actually an astute take on sexism and classism in the workplace. And Sigourney Weaver is priceless as a rich, spoiled executive who is used to getting her way because "I am, after all, me." Classic.
(Z) answers: I'll start with The Aviator. It did well at the box office, and got some Oscar nominations (and a couple of wins), so maybe it doesn't qualify for this list. However, when people mention Scorsese films, they rarely mention this one, so I think it's been kinda forgotten. That's a shame, because it's a great little biopic (of Howard Hughes), and I don't think anyone has done a better job of capturing midcentury Los Angeles on film. It's actually my favorite Scorsese film; I've seen it at least 20 times.
The Stöned Age definitely belongs on this list, by contrast, because virtually nobody has heard of it. Dazed and Confused captures the vibe of high school in the early 1970s, Fast Times at Ridgemont High does the same for the early 1980s, and The Stöned Age covers the early 1990s. Maybe it only works for someone who was in high school at that time, as I was. I don't know. In any case, it's about 60% Fast Times, about 30% This is Spinal Tap, and about 10% American Pie.
The Red Violin, meanwhile, is a very clever film about a legendary, Stradivari-style violin. We see its creation (and the tragic circumstances that unfold at that time), and then we check in with the violin several times over the course of several centuries. There is a vignette about a prodigy who plays the violin in 18th-century Vienna, for example, and another one about a feckless English concert master, and a third about the Cultural Revolution. Everything is connected by scenes set in the present day, when an appraiser (played by Samuel L. Jackson) figures out that a violin being sold as a copy of the famous "Red Violin" is actually the long lost original, and he schemes to try to gain possession of it.
Parenthood: Maybe this one also doesn't belong on the list, because it did OK at the box office when it was released. However, I think the film has a serious claim to being the greatest film of the 1980s. It's got an unbelievable cast, including Steve Martin, Rick Moranis, Dianne Wiest, Joaquin Phoenix, Keanu Reeves, Jason Robards and Mary Steenburgen. It's got a dynamite script written by the same guys who did A League of the Their Own. It's directed by Ron Howard. And it's got tons of heart. But it gets zero attention today; it's not shown on TV, it doesn't appear on "best film" lists, etc., so that's why I include it.
S.T. in Asbury Park, NJ, asks: If you had greenlighting powers at a major film studio, what would be a reboot of a TV series you would approve? It could either be a reimagination of the original (e.g., Battlestar Galactica) or a natural extension/sequel (e.g. Star Trek: The Next Generation). My answer: One of the great limited TV series of all time, I, Claudius. It could be reimagined, though finding comparable talent to recreate the role of Caligula (John Hurt in the original cast) or Livia (wonderfully acted by Sian Phillips) would be a challenge. One could also imagine a Game Of Thrones-like sequel with the fall of Nero and Year Of Four Emperors, with the major difference being the establishment of the Flavian dynasty is a far more satisfactory conclusion than that of Game Of Thrones ("Bran, I knew Vespasian. You, sir, are no Vespasian").
(L) answers: I think it would be fun to see a reboot of The Mary Tyler Moore Show without the weird infantilizing behavior with "Mr. Grant"—just a happily single professional surrounded by a cohort of interesting/funny characters.
(Z) answers: Many of the shows I might choose have already been brought back to life, in one way or another, including The Addams Family, The Wonder Years and The Twilight Zone. Others, like M*A*S*H, I just don't see how it's possible to bring them back, because they are so linked to a moment in time that has passed.
The one answer I did come up with, however, is Family Ties, adjusted for the 21st century. The fundamental dynamic there was 1960s hippie parents vs. 1980s Reagan-loving kid. For a reboot, it might make more sense to have Trumpy parents vs. a Democratic-Socialist kid, though I am also open to Obama-loving parents vs. a Trumpy kid.
C.F. in Waltham, MA, asks: I've been a programmer since I was a teenager—about 45 years. I've written programs in Assembly, BASIC, Fortran, Pascal, Java, C, C++, C#, Erlang, and Python. In the past few years, I've been reading about RUST and recently, I started to do a deeper dive into it. So far it looks like an ideal language which compromises on nothing. It's super fast and super secure. It is compiled so it may not be as fun as Python or BASIC, but the language and compiler can be a huge win for preventing bugs in highly complex code before it even runs.
At any rate, in the last month or two I started looking at Redox, a new operating system completely written in RUST. It is in the very, very early stages, but I did figure out how to run it. I'm only asking this because (V) is mentioned in its documentation and it takes a lot of its design from MINIX, specifically the micro-kernel architecture, which is clearly the best way to make an operating system. (I've worked on kernels, drivers, storage, graphics, GUIs, high level tools and now networking—I'm kind of a strange engineer that way.)
So, my question is: Has (V) heard of Redox (the authors clearly know him)? If so, does he have an opinion about it? Does he think Redox might succeed eventually? Does he know anything about RUST and have any opinions about that language?(V) answers: I have heard of Rust and Redox but don't know much about them. Most current programming languages have problems. C is blindingly fast but not type safe. C++ is very complex and hard to learn. C# is slower than C, not open source, and somewhat .NET centric. Python, Java, and PHP are slow and make it hard to get at the hardware, which makes them unsuitable for system programming. Go uses a garbage collector.
Rust is an attempt to devise a language with none of these problems (e.g., fast, simple, type safe, no garbage collector). That kind of experimentation is valuable, but dislodging incumbent programming languages is harder than dislodging incumbent senators. Worth a shot, though, and the developers are to be commended for trying. And things DO change, eventually. Nobody in their right mind would use FORTRAN or COBOL for a brand-new application (say for AI or a new game) even though they were once dominant. (Note for nonprogrammers: yes, garbage collectors are a real thing for reclaiming unused memory, but they slow programs down and are unsuitable for real-time applications.)
Redox is a microkernel written in Rust. It has an attack surface smaller than Linux and vastly smaller than Windows. It has real potential, but it is not there yet, but is worth watching (or helping at redox-os.org).
T.J.R. in Metuchen, NJ, asks: Sometimes I submit a question you sadly do not reply to. I figure there are four reasons for this: (1) the question sounded like it came from a donkey's netherparts (sadly, most of mine probably fall in this category); (2) Someone submitted a question on the same topic better phrased than mine ("Inconceivable!"); (3) A person submitted too many questions and you wanted to spread the wealth; (4) It was a valid question, it just didn't fit because some other topic was more dominant.
My question is what should we, the creator of questions that Socrates would be in awe of, do? Should we resubmit, or just sigh mournfully and move on? And should we limit ourselves to one brilliant question a week? (Wait... does this count as my one question? Damn!)(Z) answers: You correctly identify some of the reasons that questions do, or do not, get chosen. It is rare that a question is just terrible, but sometimes we don't have anything to say, or we've answered the question already, or it's something that could be looked up on the Internet. And yes, sometimes we choose one version of a question where we got multiple variants, or we omit a question because it's not a great fit or there isn't space. Oh, and we do try to limit things, so we get questions in from as many people as is possible.
There are a few additional considerations, as well. First, really long questions are less likely to be chosen. Try to keep it to a paragraph at most. Second, if a person asks a question, and then answers it, even partially, that's much harder to write around. Third, if there are no initials/city, that's extra work for us to track that down, and might be a tiebreaker in terms of "Eh, maybe we won't answer that one."
We do not object to people submitting more than one question per week. And we don't mind people re-submitting. Keep in mind also that we get a LOT of questions, so we can only use a fairly small percentage of them.
K.H. in Albuquerque, NM, asks: Forget Epstein. Forget imminent war with Venezuela. Forget the fallout from the shutdown. Is the California contingent of Electoral-Vote.com safe from this weekend's atmospheric river, as it overflows its atmospheric banks?
(Z) answers: The humans are doing just fine. The staff dachshunds, on the other hand, are very, very cross right now.