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The First Head Rolls: Waltz to U.N; Rubio to Replace Him
A couple of months ago, give or take a few days, readers weighed in on which high-ranking Trump administration official would be the first to get broomed. Far and away the most popular guess, both in the responses we received, and the ones we actually ran, was Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Boy howdy, was that wrong.
The "winner" of this particular race, such as it is, turns out to be... NSA Mike Waltz, who is taking the fall for the Signal fiasco. In order to make it look like it has nothing to do with the Signal fiasco (even though it definitely does), Donald Trump waited a few weeks, and he's also kicking Waltz to New York City, where he'll serve as U.N. Ambassador once he's approved by Congress.
Waltz is not especially qualified to be U.N. Ambassador, but he was not especially qualified to be NSA, either. For that matter, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the original U.N. nominee, was not especially qualified for the job. On some grim level, this does not matter all that much, since Trumpian foreign policy is a one-man show, and changes on a daily basis.
The new NSA, at least for now, is... Rubio. That means that Rubio's portfolio now includes four jobs. In addition to being SoS and NSA, he is also director of USAID and Archivist of the United States. Put another way, he has become the Jared Kushner of Trump v2.0. That is pretty far removed from "yup, he'll be the first to go." Of course, Kushner had the insurance policy that he was also a relative, so Rubio certainly could be cashiered once he falls from grace. After all, look how powerful Elon Musk was 2 months ago compared to how powerful he is now. You just never know when you've got a president that is this mercurial. (Z)
In Congress: Republicans Show They Don't Care about National Security, the Economy
As we have pointed out numerous times, Donald Trump has run up against some pretty stiff resistance in his first 100 days in office. The courts are largely holding the line (see below for more). The news media, excepting de facto state-run media like Fox, is holding him accountable. Some law firms are fighting back. Some universities are fighting back. Wall Street has expressed its displeasure. There have been large and frequent protests, including yesterday. Public opinion has soured, and he's not only underwater, approval-wise, but he's on the cusp of being double-digits underwater (at the moment, on average, 52.7% of voters disapprove, as opposed to 43.9% of voters who approve, for a net of -8.8%).
However, amid all of this pushback, the institution that is most responsible for keeping Trump in line, per the Constitution, has been missing in action. That, of course, would be Congress, where nearly all Republican members are scared—for their political lives, or their actual lives, or both—to oppose the Dear Leader. Two votes this week, one in each chamber, speak to the problem.
We'll start with the Senate, since it's the upper chamber. Nearly all of the 53 Republicans who serve there know, full well, that Trump's trade war is extremely ill-advised. Even those members who are protectionist know that tariffs are to be deployed deftly, and with precision, like a scalpel. Trump's chainsaw approach, by contrast, is just begging for both economic and political upheaval. On Wednesday, the Senate voted on a Democratic-sponsored resolution that would have canceled the "emergency" tariffs that the administration has imposed. The final tally was 49-49, with Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) joining 46 Democrats in supporting the measure. It might well have succeeded, but Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY), both of whom expressed support for the proposal, were absent. A second vote, to bring the measure up for a second vote next week, failed 50-49, with every member voting the same way they had on the original measure, and President of the Senate J.D. Vance casting the decisive tie-breaking vote.
Moving on to the House, nearly every member on both sides of the aisle knows full well that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has been a big problem and that, in particular, his use of Signal poses huge risks to national security. The Democrats want to investigate the matter, since that's about the only power the House has in these circumstances (undoubtedly, an impeachment would go nowhere). And so, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) leading the way, House Republicans unanimously approved a rule that stops the minority party from bringing up resolutions of inquiry. So, there will be no investigation.
Perhaps our headline here seems unduly judgmental. We do not think so. This week, Congressional Republicans had to choose: Is it better to: (1) push back against the tariffs/threats to national security, or (2) stick our heads in the sand, and risk being accused of not caring about the economy and/or national security. Ultimately, 268 of the 272 GOP members of the Congress chose Option #2. Our headline is just us doing our small part to make certain those 268 suffer the consequences of their choices, for all the good it will do. (Z)
Legal News, Part I: Trump Shot Down on Use of Alien Enemies Act
Like most weeks since he took office, Donald Trump is not having a great week when it comes to immigration policy. The first wound of the week was self-inflicted. After multiple weeks of everyone in the White House, including Trump himself, claiming that there was no way to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the U.S., Trump sat for an interview in which he said that he most certainly CAN bring Abrego Garcia back, he just chooses not to do so. Trump just hates, hates, hates to admit that he is anything other than all-powerful, and so he simply could not help himself. It's a fair guess, however, that there are going to be a few judges who will be very interested in what Trump had to say. Very interested, indeed.
The bigger wound, meanwhile, came courtesy of a judge that Trump himself appointed to the bench, Fernando Rodriguez Jr. of the Southern District of Texas. Rodriguez issued a 36-page opinion yesterday in which he said that the administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 is invalid, as the United States is not at war with anyone right now. The Judge backed that up with an injunction that says that the administration can continue to deport lawbreaking undocumented immigrants, consistent with the terms of the Immigration and Nationality Act, but it is barred from using the Alien Enemies Act.
Rodriguez's ruling thus significantly limits the number of people that the White House can target. This is the first time a judge has ruled directly on the applicability of the Alien Enemies Act. Undoubtedly the administration will appeal, although given that it's kind of a slam dunk, by virtue of the whole "there's no war right now" thing, the higher levels of the federal court system may decline to hear the matter.
At roughly the same time the administration was being dealt a setback by Rodriguez, it was in court trying to reverse an earlier setback. Trump (OK, probably Stephen Miller) wants to revoke the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) that allows 600,000 Venezuelans to be in the United States because it's too dangerous for them back home. Under the terms of that law, there has to be a review of conditions in [COUNTRY X] before TPS status for refugees from [COUNTRY X] can be revoked. The White House, as is usually the case, did not follow the rules, and jumped right to the finish line. So, a San Francisco judge imposed a temporary injunction, and yesterday, Team Trump asked the Supreme Court to cancel the injunction. This one should also be a slam dunk, because the rules say what they say, and the administration clearly didn't follow them. But with the Roberts Court, you just never know. (Z)
Legal News, Part II: North Carolina's Bad Judgment
The saga continues in the race for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court. On Wednesday, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals stayed all state court orders mandating that certain voters cure alleged registration defects within 30 days in order to have their votes counted in the 2024 North Carolina state Supreme Court race. The federal district court had denied the request for a stay made by winning candidate Allison Riggs, so she went to the court of appeals, which has now granted it to avoid any voter confusion while the case plays out in federal court.
Adding to the intrigue, following the state Supreme Court's ruling that some voters could be required to provide additional information in order for their votes to count, there are now disputes as to which voters are actually affected. North Carolina election officials now say that only 1,409 ballots from one county, Guilford, are subject to challenge. The NC State Board of Elections found that other challenges are invalid because Jefferson Griffin, the losing candidate, missed the deadline for raising issues.
As a reminder, this case is not about curing ballots, such as if a return address was left off a mail-in ballot, or whether an election board can count an absentee ballot received after the deadline. This is about registered voters whose registration is being challenged after the fact. Everyone, including Griffin, agrees that the voters did nothing wrong. They registered to vote properly, were added to the voter rolls, and dutifully and lawfully cast ballots in the November election for this race and other races. But now Griffin wants to disenfranchise some of them, from his race only AND after the fact, because he alleges they were not asked to provide ID at the time they registered to vote. To illustrate this, (L) registered to vote at her current address 17 years ago—this is the equivalent of someone saying to her, "Hey, your vote doesn't count in the 2024 U.S. Senate race because we didn't ask you for a utility bill verifying your residency at the time you registered to vote—oops, our bad. But don't worry, your vote for president still counts!" All the other races on the North Carolina ballot have been certified and all of these voters that Griffin is challenging voted in those other races and those votes were duly counted. And, in what is surely just a big coincidence, Griffin is only challenging voters in heavily Democratic counties.
What we have seen in the past, from voter suppression groups, are efforts to cull voter rolls BEFORE elections take place by challenging the legality of certain registrations. In those cases, voters can correct any deficiencies before the next election. But if voters can be retroactively kicked off voter rolls and their ballots thrown out after an election, when it is undisputed that the voters followed all the rules, then every vote in every election can be called into question. Voters would not be able to rely on the rules when they registered to vote because they can be changed or interpreted differently after the fact—essentially changing the rules after the game has been played, which would further erode confidence in the country's electoral process. And if you thought the Republicans' efforts to overturn the 2020 election were outrageous, you ain't seen nothing yet. If these tactics are found to be legal, you can take this to its logical conclusion: Every winning candidate who faces these types of challenges will be forced to bring their own challenges in counties that favor their opponents in the hope of cancelling out an equivalent number of voters. There will be no end to the gamesmanship and it will consume the already overworked and under-resourced elections officials. (L)
Um, What?: Trump Wants to Call Veterans Day "Victory Day for World War I"
World War I was supposed to be "the war to end all wars." Thanks to the armistice worked out by the warring factions, the shooting stopped on November 11, 1918. And all of the victorious nations turned this date into a national holiday, meant to honor: (1) the people who fought and/or died in the conflict and (2) the "end" of warfare.
Of course, warfare did not end with World War I. There was, as you may have heard, an even bigger war just over 20 years later (or less than 20 years later, if you are Asian). Once World War II ended, with the Allies again victorious, the November 11 date was retained, but the name was changed to Veterans Day. That proved to be a fortuitously generic choice, since World War II did not turn out to be the "end" of warfare, either.
Yesterday, apparently pleased by the response to the "Gulf of America," Donald Trump made the following announcement on his meme-stock social media platform:
Many of our allies and friends are celebrating May 8th as Victory Day, but we did more than any other Country, by far, in producing a victorious result on World War II. I am hereby renaming May 8th as Victory Day for World War II and November 11th as Victory Day for World War I. We won both Wars, nobody was close to us in terms of strength, bravery, or military brilliance, but we never celebrate anything—That's because we don't have leaders anymore, that know how to do so! We are going to start celebrating our victories again!
Did someone put this idea into his head (Laura Loomer? Charlie Kirk?), or does he come up with these things all by himself?
First, let's talk history. It is true that May 8 is Victory in Europe Day (a.k.a. V-E Day). Perhaps Trump is unaware, however, that there was also a war over in the Pacific, and that World War II did not actually end until August 15, 1945, which was Victory over Japan day (a.k.a. V-J Day). Some readers may have heard about it; it was in all the papers. Also, the claim that the U.S. did more than any other country to win the war is... arguable. The U.K, the U.S.S.R., Australia, Canada and France, among others, fought the Axis for considerably longer, and some of those nations paid a considerably higher price in terms of blood and treasure. Even if the U.S. actually WAS the biggest contributor to the Allied victory, it was not "by far."
Now, let's talk politics. Broadly speaking, Americans in general, and veterans in particular, are not fond of mucking around with tradition like this. (Z) lives just a few blocks from a very large park dedicated to veterans, and when it was substantially renovated a few years ago, a decision was made to change the message on the gate from "Duty, Honor, Country" to "Beauty, Honor, Country." When a bunch of veterans saw that on re-dedication day, they blew multiple gaskets. It was changed back within a week (no small feat, as the letters were steel set in granite).
Speaking more specifically, there are no living veterans of World War I. Their children are largely gone, too. So, there won't be too many people out there who will be grateful for the newfound recognition. On the other hand, changing things so that the U.S. specifically honors World War I and V-E Day shows a lack of respect for veterans of the WWII Pacific War. Some of those folks are still alive, and so too are their children and grandchildren. In fact, one of their grandchildren is writing this very item. It also shows a lack of respect for veterans who served after V-E Day, from Korea to Afghanistan, and who are about to lose the holiday that, until yesterday, also honored them.
So, this looks like yet another unforced error by Trump, in which he aggravates a bunch of voters in service of... wait, what's the benefit here, again? (Z)
O, Canada: Poilievre Blew His Chance
The dust has settled, and all the ridings have been called, so we thought we'd note the final results of this week's elections in Canada. PM Mark Carney, and his Liberal Party, will have 168 seats in the new Parliament, just four seats short of a majority. They will undoubtedly form a coalition government with the New Democratic Party, which lost 17 of its 24 seats, but still has enough seats to give a Liberal-NDP coalition a majority.
The other pending storyline on election night was whether or not Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, in addition to losing his shot at the prime ministership, would also lose his own seat. His position was very tenuous on election night, and now it is official: He lost, by a little less than 5,000 votes, taking 46% of the ballots in Carleton, as compared to 51% for Liberal challenger Bruce Fanjoy.
In January, Poilievre and the Conservatives still had a huge edge in polling, well more than 20 points. As recently as March 1, they were still in the lead. However, Poilievre failed to respond effectively to the resentment and anger that Canadians feel toward Donald Trump. The wannabe PM did not exactly hug Trump close, but he didn't lambaste him either, the way that Carney did. Also problematic was Poilievre's (Trumpy) support for the now-infamous anti-vaccine mandate convoy, as well as his (Trumpy) pledge to cut public services. Added to these missteps was a fair bit of hubris; Poilievre presumed that as a politician of national stature, he did not need to bother campaigning in his riding, so he didn't do it. Oops.
So, what comes next? For both Carney and Poilievre, the future is murky. Carney ran on a promise to rein in Trump, and also to fix Canada's economic woes. As Trump himself has shown, the latter promise is easy to make, but hard to deliver on. And Trump doesn't have to deal with a world leader who has an ill-founded, seemingly arbitrary tariff policy that changes on a daily basis. Carney does. So, the new PM's honeymoon could come to an end quickly, just like Trump's has.
As to Poilievre, he does not intend to resign as leader of the Conservative Party. However, he cannot lead the Party in Parliament if he is not actually a member of Parliament. The likely solution here is that some Conservative member will resign, opening up a seat for Poilievre to pursue in a special election. However, it's going to have to be a safe seat, and safe seats tend to be occupied by veteran members, who may not be keen to fall on their swords because Poilievre botched his own election. Assuming a sacrificial lamb is found, Governor General of Canada Mary Simon would have to call a special election to be held 11-180 days after the seat is formally vacated. The likelihood is that Poilievre would not be able to return to Parliament until the fall sitting, at the earliest.
Meanwhile, it's looking like the same basic story could play out in another former British colony. Tomorrow, Australians will head to the polls. Throughout 2024, and for the first several months of 2025, the Liberal Party (in Australia, that's the main right-wing party) had a comfortable lead in polling. But now, many Australians fear that Liberal leader Peter Dutton will not manage Donald Trump effectively. So, that's given new life to Anthony Albanese, the current PM, and leader of the Labor Party (that's the main left-wing party). Heading into Election Day, the polls now have it neck-and-neck. We'll keep an eye on it, and will likely have a brief update on Sunday. (Z)
I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Curtain Time
Because of the manner in which last weekend unfolded, we only had one hint for last week's headline theme: "If you get the theme, you might also catch the conscience of the king." However, that proved to be enough. Here is the solution, courtesy of reader T.J. in London, England, UK :
The connection is that all the headlines include terms from theatre production:
- Diplomacy, MAGA Style: Frustrated with His Friend Vladimir, Trump Goes Off Script
- Fascism Watch, Part I: Trump Targets Act Blue
- Fascism Watch, Part II: Plaintiffs, Get in Line
- Fascism Watch, Part III: 2028 Merch Setting the Stage for a Third Term?
- I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Berth Marks
- This Week in Schadenfreude: The Economist Sets the Scene
- This Week in Freudenfreude: Heading in the Right Direction
Well done, T.J., even if you did spell "theater" wrong. You Brits have got to work on your English! William Shakespeare, author of the line that provided the hint—"the play's the thing, wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king"—would never have made such an error. Especially in the original Klingon.
Of course, "Curtain Time," this item's headline, is also a theater term.
Here are the first 50 readers to get it right:
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The 50th correct response was received at 5:50 a.m. PT on Friday.
For this week, the theme depends on a single word in every headline, and is in the Trivial Pursuit category Language. For a hint, we'll say that this theme certainly wasn't our first choice.
If you have a guess, send it to comments@electoral-vote.com, with subject line "May 2 Headlines." (Z)
This Week in Schadenfreude: This Administration Is a Laugh a Minute
Last week, as readers will recall, this item was given over to an unfriendly-to-Donald-Trump magazine cover, courtesy of The Economist.
We try to mix things up, so that we don't do the same basic item too many times, or target the same person too many times. However, as we looked around for a schadenfreude item, we kept running into story after story about how people are laughing at Donald Trump. No kidding; it's ALL OVER the place. Consider:
- Trump held yet another of those Cabinet meetings where everyone goes around the table and tells him how wonderful he
is. This procession was highlighted by AG Pam Bondi making the bizarro claim that Trump has already saved the lives of
238 million Americans, or about 75% of the entire country (she got to this number by multiplying the amount of ounces of
fentanyl that has been seized by the number of people who can be killed by a single ounce of fentanyl). Anderson
Cooper's staff
put together a supercut
of the most absurd and fawning claims, and then joked about how very much the Trump administration is like
the cult-of-personality-based Kim administration in North Korea.
- Trump did an interview with ABC this week in which Terry Moran asked about the obviously photoshopped image of
Kilmar Abrego Garcia's hands, and Trump insisted it was not photoshopped, despite the fact that it was so clumsy that
someone standing on the moon would still be able to tell. Moran, deciding there was nothing more to be gained from the
conversation, tried to move on, but Trump refused, and continued to belabor the point. Multiple outlets mocked him for
that; for example, Daily Show anchor Desi Lydic said: "What is so crazy is Terry Moran kept trying to change
topics, but Trump wouldn't let him. I have never seen an interview where a reporter catches a politician in a gotcha and
the politician is the one who says, 'Stop trying to move on! I am not done embarrassing myself!'"
- Trump also did a town hall this week with Bill O'Reilly, who is (apparently) still alive. The host was live, the
audience—made up of Democrats, Republicans, and independents—was live, but Trump called in, and was put on
speakerphone. One of the questions he was asked was about the biggest mistake he made in his first 100 days, and he
answered that it's the hardest question that he could be asked, because he hasn't made any mistakes. The entire audience
burst into laughter
at that claim.
- Trump gave the commencement address at the University of Alabama (which should be ashamed of having him, given his ongoing war against higher education). In service of his message, which was "keep moving forward," he mocked William Levitt (of Levittown fame), a real estate developer who divorced his wife so that he could marry a trophy wife. It is not clear if Trump noticed the sniggering from audience members, who might have been thinking about a different real estate developer who divorced his wife so that he could marry a trophy wife.
We can only stumble over so many different "people are laughing at Trump" stories before we have to bow to reality and accept that is where the news is taking us. So, as the main focus this week, we choose the mockery visited upon Trump by The New York Post, which is normally a part of Team Trump. As many readers will know by now, various members of the administration have made some very tone-deaf comments this week about the impact of the trade war. And one of the tone deafest (tonest deaf?) was from the President himself:
You know, somebody said, "Oh, the shelves are going to be empty." Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally
Trump is always very generous in inviting others to go without, particularly as someone who has himself NEVER gone without. More important, however, is that people are not worried if there will be enough dolls for Christmas. They are worried if there will be enough food, clothes, transportation, and other necessities of life.
Anyhow, this "let them eat cake"-type moment even stuck in the craw of the Post, and so the paper published a blistering editorial arguing that Trump is hurting "the little folks," including his own voters, and that he's handing the midterm elections to the Democrats. The Post punctuated its point with this cover:
This is really the Post's forté; after all, this is the paper that brought you the headline "Headless Body in Topless Bar."
Next week, we very much hope that the schadenfreude item will not be about a Trump-critical periodical cover. But you never know. (Z)
This Week in Freudenfreude: Hope Springs Eternal
Normally, the "schadenfreude" and "freudenfreude" items are supposed to have some connection to politics, because this is a politics-centered site. However, the staff dachshunds said that if we did not cover the story we chose here, they would resign. So...
For those who have not seen the story, this is Valerie the dachshund:
As you can see, Valerie—like most dachshunds—was extremely spoiled, and was persuaded that she is human, and so entitled to all the privileges that entails.
Close to 2 years ago, Valerie traveled with her family on a camping trip on Kangaroo Island in Australia, which is quite far removed from civilization, and is very well populated with dangerous animals. During the trip, Valerie—then just over a year old—escaped her playpen and disappeared into the wilderness. Her parents Georgia Gardner and Josh Fishlock, who are actually human as opposed to just thinking they are human, looked for her for several days, but without success. Eventually, they had to give up the search and return home. Given that a sizable majority of the dangerous animals on the island are snakes, they had to assume the worst, especially since local authorities, who promised to keep a lookout, saw no sign of the dog.
Actually, to be more precise, they saw no sign of the dog... until well more than a year had passed. Early this year, a small dachshund with a pink collar was spotted about 9 miles from the spot where Valerie went missing. As you can imagine, the island does not have a population of wild dachshunds, and the collar Valerie was wearing just so happened to be pink. It is not known, nor will it ever be known, how she managed to survive during that time, both in terms of feeding herself and also not becoming food for one of the local animal inhabitants.
When a dog is in survival mode, and has reverted to its ancestral instincts, it is no small feat to capture them. It is even harder to do it in a way that does not traumatize the pooch. But, as chance would have it, a specialist group called Kangala Wildlife Rescue is headquartered nearby, and they were willing to take on the challenge. And so, they created a humane dog trap—effectively, a room-sized cage with a door that could be closed remotely. And they used tempting foods and Valerie's old toys to persuade her to visit the trap and to become comfortable with it (the door was not closed until after she had made numerous visits over the course of several weeks). She was finally captured earlier this week, and will be reunited with mom and dad over the weekend. And so, all's well that ends well.
Have a good weekend, all! (Z)
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