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This may seem an odd question, but if you have any thoughts on whether or not Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) would make a good presidential candidate for the Democrats in 2028, please send them to comments@electoral-vote.com

Musk Has a New Role: Impounder-in-Chief

Trillions of dollars in payments go through the Treasury Department's payment system every year. Having access to that system would allow someone to know exactly what the government was spending all its money on. For DOGEy Elon Musk, getting access would be like finding the Holy Grail. He could put all the numbers in a spreadsheet, sort by amount, and have a good guide to where to cut. This is much, much better than some random pie chart he found on the Internet, like this:

U.S. federal government 2024 2024 budget

The former top official at the Treasury in charge of disbursements, a 35-year career civil servant named David Lebryk, opposed giving Musk or anyone outside of Treasury access to the system. On Friday, Donald Trump first placed Lebryk on administrative leave. Shortly thereafter, Lebryk "retired." The circumstances of his retirement have not been announced.

Now, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has granted access to the payment system to Tom Krause, CEO of Cloud Software Group, who works "closely" with Musk. Reportedly, said access is READ_ONLY, not READ_WRITE. However, in many operating systems, there is no way to mark a user as READ_ONLY. Normally access rights are assigned to individual files and directories, not to specific users. Some database systems allow more narrow access rights though and some encrypt files on the disk, so getting read or write access at the operating system level isn't worth anything.

The Department has an agency, the Bureau of Fiscal Service, that has an office tasked with blocking or recovering improper payments. Musk once tweeted: "The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups. They literally never denied a payment in their entire career." He offered no evidence, and this is probably a flat-out lie, since why would Treasury create a bureau to root out fraud and then order it never to do so? So clearly there are people who have the power to block payments. And now we have to take the officials at their word that Krause and Musk won't somehow get this power.

But even READ_ONLY access to all payments could endanger national security, because payments to spies and U.S. assets around the world also go through the payments system and Musk does not have a security clearance, as far as we know (although Trump could have granted him one without any background check at all). Only folks with the highest level of security clearance and a need to know get access to that kind of information.

And yesterday, Musk basically admitted that he actually does have READ_WRITE access to the payment system. He vowed to cancel hundreds of millions worth of government grants on his own authority.

This would amount to impounding the congressional appropriations. Would that be legal? There is a Watergate-era law stating that the president does not have the authority to impound funds, but as far as we know, there is no law specifically banning DOGEys (or private citizens generally) from doing it. It never occurred to Congress that someday a private citizen holding no Senate-confirmed position would have the ability to do that. It could get messy. And if Musk really does it, it will ignite a firestorm that might infuriate Trump because he could think Musk is getting too big for his britches.

It is also possible that some members of Congress are thinking: "I spent weeks working on a bill and did a lot of negotiation with members of both parties to make it a good bill and I shepherded it through Congress. Now some guy who is not an elected official and is not a presidential nominee confirmed by the Senate decides he doesn't like it and hits DEL to kill the disbursement that bill created? WTF? Who is running the country?"

Jonathan Martin, Politico's senior political columnist, made a similar point in his column yesterday. Martin at first thought Musk would ultimately get the axe due to his competing for attention with Trump. But now he thinks the break might be triggered by policy instead. Musk wants to reduce the size of the government. That is a policy issue. Trump doesn't give a f**k about the size of the government. He cares mostly about getting "wins" that get him lots of praise from right-wing media outlets. Laura Ingraham doesn't give a hoot about the size of the government. If Musk cuts $1 trillion from the budget, she won't even mention it.

Martin points out that the plane crash in D.C. last week should have been a teaching moment for Musk. What lesson should he have taken away? When the plane went down, Trump blamed DEI. Or more generally, when something goes wrong on his watch, Trump always blames someone or something else. ALWAYS. If Musk cuts something out of the budget and someone or some important group squeals (which is likely), Musk will get the blame. Musk may not realize this yet. For Trump, the only thing that matters is Trump winning. Policy is secondary, at best.

And to the extent Trump does care about policy, he is not a deficit hawk. During Trump v1.0, there was a COVID epidemic, as you may or may not fondly remember. What did Trump do? He had IRS send taxpayers a $1,200 check with his name printed on the checks and put the bill on the national credit card. This is not something a deficit hawk would ever do. He cared about his name on the checks, not the $100 billion bill. The same is true of every policy issue. What he cares about is getting credit and avoiding blame. Musk would do well to learn this very quickly, lest he get deported to South Africa for working illegally on a student visa when he first arrived in the U.S. (V)

The Co-Presidents Are Shutting Down USAID

As we note in the previous item, Donald Trump does not care about the deficit or the debt, per se. However, he is a pretty devoted xenophobe, particularly when it comes to nations and peoples where the skin colors are of a darker hue. And consistent with that, Trump really hates to see American money go to sh**hole countries. Elon Musk is clever enough to seek out areas where he and The Donald are on the same page, albeit maybe for different reasons. And so, it is not much of a surprise that Musk announced last night that USAID would be shut down. That cuts the budget (win for Musk), is a big move that will be praised by right-wing media (win for Trump), and does these things substantially on the backs of brown-skinned peoples (win for both).

USAID, for those not familiar, is the United States' (and the world's) largest foreign-aid agency. It distributes, at the moment, between $40 billion and $50 billion a year to over 100 different nations, primarily in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. That aid is spent on many and varied things, including disaster relief, combating poverty, fighting disease, socioeconomic development, protecting the environment and promoting democracy. That kind of coin tends to go a long way in poorer countries, even though it's a relative drop in the bucket that is the federal budget.

Over the past week, the administration telegraphed that something like this was coming. First, 50 career USAID staffers were placed on paid administrative leave. Then, on Saturday, the USAID's director of security and his deputy had a confrontation with DOGErs working for Musk, who were trying to access secure USAID systems. The director and deputy threatened to call the U.S. Marshals, and instead were added to the list of people on administrative leave. Musk's people did gain access after that, although it's not clear what information they were able to retrieve. Also unclear is for what—or for whom—they might want confidential information about foreign nations. Could Mohammed bin Salman's investment in Jared Kushner be paying off? It's not impossible.

It is hardly news that Musk and Trump, who have never wanted for anything in their lives, have zero empathy for those who are less fortunate. However, the two men are also so colossally narrow-minded that they cannot conceive that USAID's work is not entirely beneficent, because it also exists to serve American interests. To take one example among many, poor and desperate people are much more likely to become radicalized. And the price tag of the war in Afghanistan, which was a fight against radicalism, was rather more than $40 billion (in fact, it was $2.313 trillion). We do not suggest that wisely invested foreign aid would have completely prevented 9/11 and the associated conflicts, but we do suggest that wisely invested foreign aid can often mitigate certain problems far more cheaply, as compared to the cost of addressing those problems once they've been allowed to really take root and to fester.

Also, poor and desperate people may do anything to get out and come to America. Keeping them out requires more walls, Border Patrol officers and their equipment, holding pens to contain them when they are caught, and a bigger and more expensive government. Maybe spending a measly $40 billion to try to keep people in their own countries would be a much cheaper way to stem unwanted immigrants than building walls and hiring more cops.

Beyond all the other dynamics here, Trump and Musk also very clearly have one other goal in mind. They are going to throw the gauntlet down on impoundment, as many times as they need to, as flagrantly as they can, to see what Congress and the courts do about it. The history of USAID is very complicated, but the short version is that it was part of an evolution in American foreign assistance that began with the Marshall Plan of the 1940s, acquired its current form thanks to an executive order in 1961, and has since been enshrined into law by Congress. In particular, the current USAID outlay of $40 billion was set aside for... USAID. It was not set aside for border walls, or to buy new computers for the DOGE department, or to cover $400 tax rebate checks for all taxpayers. Nor was it set aside to go unspent.

If this issue is left up to the courts, then it could be months or years until there is a resolution. Congress, by contrast, could make a move much more quickly. The ball is in the courts of the Senate and House Republican conferences who, of course, have a majority in their respective chambers. Undoubtedly, they do not relish the idea of standing up to Trump, and having him sic the right-wing media and the MAGA militia upon them. On the other hand, if the two co-presidents are allowed to rewrite the budget at will, then Congress will have been stripped of the power of the purse, which might be its single most important power. Aren't you glad you got promoted, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA)? Isn't this SOOOOOO much better than quietly serving as a backbencher? Turtle had some health issues but is feeling more relieved every day now that he can bask somewhere in peace. (Z)

The Trade Wars Have Begun, Part II

Yesterday, we had an item on the trade wars. Naturally, the countries hit with tariffs will respond in kind. This is how trade wars start. An editorial in the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal called it the "dumbest trade war in history." Reed Smoot and Willis Hawley are probably feeling relieved now, wherever they may be. They could well be off the hook for the title of "dumbest protectionist maneuver in American history."

Trump was not happy with the Journal, which is often considered the voice of Big Business. So he posted this response on his boutique social media app:

The "Tariff Lobby," headed by the Globalist, and always wrong, Wall Street Journal, is working hard to justify Countries like Canada, Mexico, China, and too many others to name, continue the decades long RIPOFF OF AMERICA, both with regard to TRADE, CRIME, AND POISONOUS DRUGS that are allowed to so freely flow into AMERICA. THOSE DAYS ARE OVER! The USA has major deficits with Canada, Mexico, and China (and almost all countries!), owes 36 Trillion Dollars, and we're not going to be the "Stupid Country" any longer. MAKE YOUR PRODUCT IN THE USA AND THERE ARE NO TARIFFS! Why should the United States lose TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN SUBSIDIZING OTHER COUNTRIES, and why should these other countries pay a small fraction of the cost of what USA citizens pay for Drugs and Pharmaceuticals, as an example? THIS WILL BE THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICA! WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!). BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID. WE ARE A COUNTRY THAT IS NOW BEING RUN WITH COMMON SENSE—AND THE RESULTS WILL BE SPECTACULAR!!!

There are a few noteworthy things here. First, note the short reference to "pain." This means Trump knows that there will be enough inflation ahead that people, including his supporters, will notice it. And as soon as reciprocal tariffs kick in, Trump may up his game and increase his tariffs. That means more pain. Rinse and repeat.

Second, many companies make their products abroad because if they made them domestically, they would be so expensive that their market might shrink to the point that the product was no longer economically viable and would simply disappear.

Third, picking a fight with the Journal is probably not a good idea. The business leaders who read it have a fair amount of power in various ways, and are not shy about using it. Walmart buys a lot of stuff in China and other countries. It will probably have to raise some prices. Imagine it putting up signs in all of its stores reading: "We are terribly sorry for the recent price increases across the store, but we were forced to do that by President Trump's tariffs. If you would like to help us reduce our prices, please contact the President at comments@whitehouse.gov with your thoughts."

Fourth, are Trump's supporters so naive that they think tariffs will affect fentanyl? Do they think U.S. companies import fentanyl from China and it will now cost 10% more?

Fifth, since the tariffs apply only to three countries (so far), some companies may decide to buy products from manufacturers in other low-wage countries in Asia, when that is feasible. A lot of clothing, for example, can be sourced almost anywhere. A U.S. retailer that sells, say, shirts made in China, could probably find a shirt manufacturer in Vietnam or Thailand, give it a big order so it can ramp up production, and move its purchases there fairly quickly. Complicated products, like electronics, probably won't be moved for a tariff of only 10%, but for 30% or 50%, it might be worthwhile.

Sixth, some products really can't be made in the U.S. because the raw materials aren't available. Depending on what the raw materials are, shipping the raw materials to the U.S. and processing them may be difficult for cost or legal reasons (e.g., the processing of them would violate U.S. environmental laws).

The first round of tariffs did not hit the European Union. The second round might. But the E.U. is expecting this and is ready for it. Tariffs on any E.U. products will instantly generate tariffs on U.S. products. The last time this happened, the E.U. tariffs pinpointed specific industries that hurt specific politicians. For example, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) surely heard from his constituents about the E.U. tariff on bourbon. This time there might be some of that again. The current majority leader is John Thune of South Dakota and his state exports soybeans, corn, grain, beef, and other agricultural products that would likely be hit hard.

Another issue you rarely see addressed in the context of tariffs is exchange rates. If China reduced the value of the renminbi by 10%, that would automatically make its products 10% cheaper to the importer, so even with the tariff, the store price wouldn't have to change. Actually, it is slightly more complicated than this, because the tariff is based on what the importer paid, not the store price. If Walmart sells some Chinese-made product for $10, it probably paid the manufacturer $5, so the 10% tariff is $0.50, not $1.00. To counteract that, China would have to devalue its currency only 5%, not 10%. As a bonus, if China devalued its currency, that would make American products more expensive in China, so even without a tariff, Chinese companies and consumers would buy less of them. That could result in some unemployment in the U.S., which Trump doesn't want. (V)

Trump Has Near-Record Low Approval for New Term

FiveThirtyEight has started to track Donald Trump's approval over time here. Lots of organizations are asking this question constantly, so there is plenty of data to plot.

An interesting question is: "How is Trump's approval/disapproval compared to other presidents at the start of their respective terms?" Here are the numbers on that:

President Election Approve Disapprove Net
John Kennedy (D) 1960 72.0% 6.0% +66.0
Dwight Eisenhower (R) 1952 68.0% 7.0% +61.0
Jimmy Carter (D) 1976 66.0% 8.0% +58.0
Richard Nixon (R) 1968 59.0% 5.0% +54.0
George H.W. Bush (R) 1988 61.5% 12.3% +49.3
Barack Obama (D) 2008 63.3% 16.5% +46.9
Ronald Reagan (R) 1980 51.0% 13.0% +38.0
Bill Clinton (D) 1992 54.4% 20.3% +34.1
George W. Bush (R) 2000 44.9% 17.0% +27.9
Joe Biden (D) 2020 53.5% 31.7% +21.8
Donald Trump (2) (R) 2024 49.8% 42.8% +7.0
Donald Trump (1) (R) 2016 44.6% 41.4% +3.2

What is amazing is that the first four presidents on the list, two Democrats and two Republicans, started with a disapproval under 10%. That is unthinkable now. It is totally inconceivable that any Democrat or any Republican could get more than half of the other party's voters to approve of them. Most Republicans automatically hate every Democrat and vice-versa.

The good news for Trump is that his net approval rating now is not the worst for a new president in the past 70 years. The booby prize goes to... Donald Trump in 2016. Still, less than half of Americans approve of Trump, and this is before he really starts to carry out his program, many parts of which are deeply unpopular.

And even the parts of his program that are popular—say, deporting undocumented immigrants—could lower his approval if he botches how they are done. It is not hard to imagine deportation raids that sweep up people grabbing some American citizens who were born in the country. Or worse yet, raids where ICE ends up killing American citizens who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And what about Trump's tariffs, which could cause inflation to take off again? People who voted for him simply because they expected him to lower the cost of eggs won't be too happy.

Historically, almost all presidents get less popular over time. They all tend to get a "honeymoon period" at the start where people who voted against the president's opponent, as opposed to for the president, are willing to wait and see how it goes. Very often, they don't get a lot done at first, or what they get done doesn't please the voters who were lukewarm on the president to start with. And when you are starting under 50% approval, getting into the 30s isn't that hard, especially with many controversial actions. (V)

Ken Martin Wins the DNC Election

The Democratic Party has a new leader. And technically, he is not even a Democrat. The new chair is Ken Martin, the now-former chair of the Minnesota DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party). His party was formed on April 15, 1944, when the Minnesota Democratic Party merged with the Farmer-Labor Party and came up with this really cool name. It was an easy win, with Martin getting 246.5 votes, Wisconsin's Ben Wikler getting 134 votes, and former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley getting 44 votes. The results are slightly surprising, since Wikler had many high-profile endorsements, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Govs. Andy Beshear (KY), Michelle Lujan Grisham (NM), Laura Kelly (KS), Tina Kotek (OR), Maura Healy (MA), Janet Mills (ME), and Gretchen Whitmer (MI), and many large and important unions including the AFSCME, AFT, NEA, and SEIU.

It isn't like most Americans are now going to regard Martin as the leader of the Democrats, though, even if formally he is. In fact, he won't even try. He is pretty low-key and as a long-time member of the DNC understands that his job is definitely inside baseball. He has to make sure the machinery runs well and money is raised. Martin hinted at that in his acceptance speech: "The role of the party is not just to go out there and build the infrastructure. It's also to make sure we're defining them and we're out there making sure the American people know what the stakes of not only these coming elections are, but what's happening in this country." He is also going to start a "post-election review" of what went wrong. He said he wouldn't call it a "post-mortem" or "autopsy" because he said the party is not dead.

At least three of the major factors that led to Donald Trump's victory are clear right now:

  • Enough Democrats voted for Jill Stein in 2016, because Hillary Clinton wasn't perfect, to let Trump get started.
  • Joe Biden said he would be a transitional president and then refused to announce his retirement in January 2023.
  • Then, Biden pulled out so late in 2024, there was no time for a normal primary.

Nothing can be done now to fix these problems. Nevertheless, Kamala Harris got 6 million fewer votes than Biden in 2020 and Democrats can ask why. They know that many young Black and Latino men voted for Trump. The Party needs to figure out how to get them back. That will likely be a painful process and fracture the Party, especially if the study shows that the voters they lost wanted gas prices to be lower and don't give a hoot about climate change, gay rights, pronoun usage, or even abortion, issues dear to many Democrats.

Almost the first thing on Martin's agenda is thinking about the 2028 presidential primary process. In what order should the primaries go and how will he deal with states that don't like the order? Suppose there are two dozen or more serious candidates (i.e., Democratic senators, representatives, governors, mayors, etc.). Who gets to debate? Then there is fundraising, which is a major part of Martin's job. Should he cozy up to Democratic billionaires? Some Democrats don't like that idea, but others say "money is money." It is not going to be an easy job. Democrats should be thankful somebody wanted it. (V)

Mayor Pete --> Secretary Pete --> Senator Pete (?)

The dual retirements of Michigander Sen. Gary Peters (D) and Michigoose Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), his voluntarily and hers due to term limits, have set off a game of musical chairs in the Wolverine State. Political junkies will be treated to the spectacle of two top-level open-seat races in 2026 in a key swing state packed with ambitious and capable Democrats but not so packed with ambitious and capable Republicans. All eyes are on Pete Buttigieg, a new arrival who moved to Traverse City, MI, because that is where his husband is from. For a guy whose only elected office was mayor of South Bend, IN (pop. 103,000), Buttigieg has become a heavyweight. His 2020 presidential run was impressive enough that Joe Biden picked him for secretary of transportation. He did the job well, responding to transportation disasters the way he should have. He also loudly hit back on Donald Trump blaming the plane crash in D.C. last week on DEI before any facts were even known.

Buttigieg clearly wants to be the first gay president—well, at least the first one who was open about it. Historians have been arguing for 180 years about whether James Buchanan and his beloved friend, William Rufus DeVane King, were more than roommates during the 13 years they lived together, but the only two people who know for sure have been dead for over 100 years. Their relationship was well known at the time, enough that Andrew Jackson called them "Miss Nancy" and "Auntie Fancy." Buttigieg believes that there have been secret gay presidents before, but this is complicated because the term "homosexual" wasn't even invented until 1868, and 19th-century views on this matter were rather different from 21st-century views.

In any case, Buttigieg is clearly a rising star in the Democratic Party, and skipping both an open gubernatorial race and an open Senate race would be the end of a promising career. Since he has now definitely ruled out a run for governor, it seems very likely he will declare for the Senate. He wouldn't even be the first gay senator from the Midwest. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) was in an official registered domestic partnership with another woman, Lauren Azar, for 15 years until they split in 2010.

However, Buttigieg may not have the field to himself. Other ambitious Democrats include Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and AG Dana Nessel. Fortunately for Buttigieg, Benson has already announced she is running for governor. That gets her out of the way. Nessel (55) is up for reelection as AG in 2026. She won her 2022 election by almost 9 points, so she could run for reelection as AG and be the heavy favorite. Or she could challenge Benson for governor or Buttigieg (43) for the Senate. If she runs against Buttigieg, the election would be a gay old time, since she is an open lesbian. She is also Jewish (he was baptized a Catholic at birth). When he was a graduate student as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, Buttigieg sporadically attended services at an Anglican cathedral. He later married Chasten Glezman in an Episcopal church in 2018. A Jewish lesbian against a fallen gay Catholic running for the Senate in a state that hasn't elected a Republican to the Senate for 30 years would be... something different.

There is a small chance that Buttigieg will skip both races and go directly for president in 2028. If he does, that would make him not a very smart politician, and we think he is. Running for president as a sitting senator would give him a platform, status as a high-ranking elected official, and proof that he can win a key swing state. Running as a former secretary of transportation in what is sure to be a crowded field gives him very little against a dozen or more sitting or former governors and senators. In a hypothetical primary debate, when Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) says: "I can win Arizona with its 11 electoral votes," Buttigieg would be a lot better off being able to reply: "Yes, but I can win Michigan, with its 16 electoral votes."

The Republicans' bench in Michigan is thin. There are currently no Republicans in statewide elected office. One potential candidate is Rep. John James (R-MI), but he might be loath to give up his seat since he ran for the Senate in 2018 and lost to Debbie Stabenow. He ran again for the Senate in 2020 and lost again, this time to Gary Peters. Would he be willing to give up his advantage of being a House incumbent to run again for an office he has twice lost? We'll see. If he doesn't run, the Republicans will probably look for some rich businessman, even if he is out of state. It worked for Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT) and Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA), so why not? (V)

Republicans Are Still Fighting with Each Other over the Budget

Republicans plan to use the budget reconciliation process to pass their tax cuts and budget. The first step is passing a budget resolution—but so far they have failed to pull that off. Mike Johnson wants to get that done by this week, but the votes aren't there. In fact they don't even have a date for the markup session, when members of the Budget Committee get together to make the sausage. Of course, it doesn't matter since Elon Musk is the person who controls what the government actually spends, but it looks good to pretend that Congress has some role here. The Republicans' problem isn't the Democrats. They are in the minority and have no power if the Republicans can agree on what they want. The problem is that the Republicans can't. In particular, deficit hawks Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Ralph Norman (R-SC), both members of the Committee, want drastic cuts in total spending. That invariably means cutting spending on programs that other members do not want cut. So there is an impasse.

You might think that Donald Trump would come to the rescue, telling Congress what he wants cut, and then everyone would fall in line. That's not going to happen. First, Trump doesn't understand the federal budget. Second, Trump doesn't care one whit about the deficit. Third, Trump does not want to touch the big items, like defense, Social Security, and Medicare, with a two-inch pole. Or a ten-foot pole, if he can find one. He's not going to help the Budget Committee out of the impasse. They will have to do it themselves. And so far, they don't seem able to do it.

To cut spending in a serious way, the Republicans will have to cut programs that help Trump's supporters, like Medicaid, food stamps, and farm aid. Or they will have to deprioritize things that Trump thinks are important, like defense and protecting the border. In the past, these conflicts have been averted using smoke and mirrors. The Committee adopts some magic accounting scheme in which cutting taxes counts as more revenue. Another hot issue is whether to compare the deficit produced by the new budget to last year's deficit, or the one that would have been produced had the 2017 tax cuts expired. The trouble is that Roy and Norman have been fooled once with these tricks and may not be easy to fool again.

Another issue already looming large is the 2026 midterm election. Most Republicans know that given the history of midterms, they will probably lose control of the House in 2026. But this insight is leading to a split among Republicans. One faction says that since they have only 2 years to get stuff done, now is the time to barrel ahead, elections be damned. What does it matter if we lose 10 seats or 42 seats (as they did in 2018), if we can get Trump's program through in 2025? However, the front-line Republicans—the ones whose seats are in danger—seem to have a strong preference for avoiding things that would cause their personal unemployment on Jan. 3, 2027, even if those things make their glorious leader happy. Roy really doesn't care if a couple of congressmen in suburban New York lose their seats next year if he can get his budget through this year. (V)

Maybe Congress Should Get the Blame for the Mid-Air Collision

The National Transportation Safety Board is far from completing its report on what went wrong that caused the crash into the Potomac River last week. In the end, no matter what else happened, the helicopter pilot was not supposed to barrel into a large commercial airliner.

It is also already known that the tower at DCA was understaffed at the time of the crash. When one air traffic controller has to do the work of two, it makes an already stressful job even worse. This doesn't mean they did it wrong this time, but at the very least it should be a warning. Elon Musk's dream of firing thousands of government employees to shrink the government is going to run into arguments like: "Oh, so you want fewer people looking out for air safety, rail safety, maritime safety, etc., so we get more accidents like in January?"

But there is another scapegoat here, that may or may not get named in the final report: Congress. For years, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority has warned Congress that the D.C. airspace is already overcrowded and unmanageable. Yet Congress, which has oversight over the two Washington airports, keeps adding flights from DCA to far-flung corners of the U.S. because some Congresscritter wants a direct flight from DCA to Wichita or somewhere else out in the sticks and is in too much of a hurry to get to IAD, which is 25 miles west of the Capitol in suburban Loudoun County, VA, and which is far less congested than DCA. Congress has added 60 flights out of DCA since 2000. Runway 01/19 at DCA is the busiest commercial runway in the U.S., with an average of 819 takeoffs and landings every day, even more than 07L/25R at the famously congested LAX, with 781 movements per day. LaGuardia's busiest runway clocks in at 528 movements/day. No runway at JFK makes the top 10. DCA was designed to handle 15 million passengers/year. It now has 25 million and is growing. Here is a map of the flights going into or out of DCA at the time of the crash:

Flight pattern at DCA at the time of the crash; there are so many they cannot be parsed, visually

The red lines are for planes arriving or departing DCA. The green squiggles are flights in and out of Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. The many helicopters in the area are not shown. DCA is a very dangerous airport to start with, because it has three runways, each of which crosses the other two. In addition, two of the three are very short, 5,000' and 5,204' respectively, and the longest is only 7,179'. By way of contrast, the four runways at JFK have lengths of 8,400', 10,000', 12,079', and 14,511' respectively. A short runway means the pilot has to align for landing perfectly and there is no margin for error. With far too many flights per day and massive helicopter traffic in the area, it is a miracle that crashes at DCA aren't more common. Yet Congress keeps ordering more flights there. Whose fault is that? (V)

Rubio's First Task: Talking Panama out of the Canal

Little Marco, now Secretary of State Marco Rubio, got his first marching orders from Donald Trump: Go to Panama and talk the Panamanians into giving up the Panama Canal. Panama is very unlikely to do that, since canal tolls are an important source of revenue for the government. Also, Panama is a well-run, moderate-income, pro-U.S. country in a region where not many countries fit that model. Panamanians are proud of that and don't like being bossed around.

But if Rubio comes home empty-handed on his first mission, Trump will be furious and might send the Marines in. Panama's president, José Raúl Mulino, understands that, so he has to give Rubio something to show for his efforts. It might be something as small as allowing U.S. warships through for free or rolling back China's presence at the ports on both ends of the canal.

Mulino can also threaten, if pushed too hard. Right now, Panama tries to block would-be immigrants to the U.S. from Colombia and farther south at the border. He could decide to let them in and have them safely escorted to Costa Rica. That would cause Trump headaches. Of course, that is a last resort. Mulino hopes to buy Rubio off with smaller concessions that Trump can brag about as a "win." (V)

New York Doctor Indicted for Prescribing Mifepristone for Louisiana Teen

Louisiana has some of the strictest abortion laws in the country, including banning prescribing mifepristone for an abortion. The D.A. for West Baton Rouge, Tony Clayton, got a grand jury to indict a New York physician, Dr. Margaret Carpenter, for prescribing mifepristone for a teenager in Louisiana who took it on advice of her mother. This opens a whole can of worms.

First, New York has a shield law that protects New York doctors who provide abortion pills and certain other services to out-of-state patients. The law prohibits state officials from cooperating with other states trying to prosecute someone in New York for an act that is legal in New York. It also directs state officials to flatly refuse to extradite anyone indicted in another state for an act that is legal in New York.

This case is going to end up in John Roberts' lap sooner or later. Among other things, it will test state-shield laws. It also has other far-reaching implications, way beyond abortion, because it attempts to extend one jurisdiction's power to another, distant jurisdiction. New York bans the sale of AK-47s and other assault weapons, some of which are legal in Texas. Suppose a Texas gun store sells an AK-47 to someone in Dallas, and that weapon later kills someone in New York. Can New York indict the gun store's owner for violating New York law? There are a large number of things that are legal in some states but illegal in others, and if states can enforce their laws on other states, well, it gets pretty complicated.

And this doesn't even begin to touch on the Internet, which allows websites to be visible worldwide. Can Saudi Arabia indict or sue a California winery for having a webpage that sells wine and is accessible in Saudi Arabia, thus violating that country's total ban on alcohol? Can Austria indict or sue a bookstore in Chicago for having a webpage selling the original version of Mein Kampf, which is illegal in Austria? A list of webpages that are illegal in some country could get quite long very fast. And as soon as Canada finally gets around to outlawing electoral-vote.com, it could make all of our readers into felons. (V)


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