Dem
47
GOP
53
This week's headline theme was tougher than we thought. We thought we'd given away the store with the Davy Crockett hint, particularly if you consider both references to him in yesterday's posting. Today, we'll add the hint that we think Jeremy Allen White would do pretty well with this theme, too.
R.M.S. in Lebanon, CT, asks: We are now about 5 months into the Iran War, and Donald Trump still seems to think bombing Iran will coerce them to re-open the Strait of Hormuz. He has tried this multiple times, and it should be obvious to everyone that it won't work. It is because the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is using irregular naval warfare tactics to threaten and attack civilian ships.
However, what I don't understand is why the Joint Chiefs of Staff would stand by silently while the president's tactics are failing. As the President's main military advisors, they surely must know his choices in this war are not working. Do you think they are lying to him about what will work? Are they giving him bad advice? Or are they just staying quiet to further their careers?(Z) answers: Someone like Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine has to walk a very fine line.
On one hand, he is responsible for giving honest advice, and for anticipating potential problems before they happen, and before they turn into disasters.
On the other hand, like any soldier, he must honor the chain of command. Further, in contrast to, say, a captain who does not like the orders his colonel gave him, Caine must be constantly mindful that the U.S. military is ultimately subordinate to civilian leadership. Finally, in contrast to someone like Colin Powell or George Marshall, Caine is dealing with a president who is very thin-skinned and is prone to temper tantrums, and who would absolutely remove a high-ranking military officer solely because that military officer hurt the president's fee-fees.
By all indications, Caine is doing what he can to walk that line, and, unlike a Todd Blanche or a Scott Bessent, is not compromised by partisan politics or by a desire to promote his own prospects. There was just a story yesterday that Caine is trying to gently but firmly tell White House staffers that they need to be thinking about an off-ramp, because the current campaign of bombing is not working (and is going to run short on bombs), and any sort of escalation (say, an invasion by ground troops) will likely turn disastrous.
A.Q. in Ithaca, NY, asks: I'm a little surprised that you have not written about the possibility that Donald Trump, given the depleted stock of weapons, may decide to go nuclear in Iran. It would seem like a very Trumpian thing to do. Do you think that it's unlikely?
(Z) answers: I think it is very unlikely.
First of all, the United States' allies in the region, most obviously Saudi Arabia and Israel, would be hopping mad, to the point they might actually turn their guns on the Americans. The European allies would also be furious, and while they probably wouldn't attack the U.S. or its forces, they would very likely impose some pretty serious sanctions.
Meanwhile, Trump would be risking open season around the world if he re-ignited the era of nuclear warfare. Can we really be sure that Iran doesn't have, say, a few suitcase nukes that it managed to lay hands on when Russia was in turmoil? And speaking of Russia, it would be all bets off in terms of them lobbing some nukes at Ukraine. If and when that happened, then Pakistan and India might get in on the fun. Or China might strike Taiwan.
It is such an obviously bad idea that if Trump tried to give the order, I suspect that Dan Caine and his underlings would simply refuse to carry it out, and would dare the President to do something about it. There have been multiple studies over the years, and they suggest that the personnel who would actually have to execute the launches are generally only willing to do so defensively, not offensively. Nearly all of them are willing to sacrifice their careers if they believe they might be preventing a nuclear holocaust.
It is true that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth would probably be willing to launch nukes preemptively, but I suspect he can barely operate his cell phone, much less operate a nuclear launch vehicle.
D.B. in San Diego, CA, asks: I'm curious if the marketplace might be able to dissuade Iran from their plans to charge tolls in the Strait of Hormuz? As I understand it, Iran is almost as heavily dependent on incoming cargo (especially for food) as they are on out-going cargo (oil), which makes me wonder if the shipping companies might refuse to deliver to Iran if they are charging tolls in the Strait? Governments clearly have very little leverage, but maybe the market does?
(Z) answers: There is virtually no question this is the case. There's already a consortium of 10 Middle Eastern countries working together to countermand Iranian ambitions to control the Strait. This consortium is willing to impose severe sanctions on Iran, it's willing to develop alternate shipping routes, and it's willing to work on some sort of anti-drone defense system. It may take a little time for the Strait to be fully reopened if Iran continues to assert itself, but that nation cannot hope to have permanent control of the Strait so that it may impose permanent tolls.
E.F. in Baltimore, MD, asks: I am not a constitutional scholar. Hell, I'm not even a Supreme Court Justice. But it strikes me as somehow wrong, perhaps unconstitutional, for someone whom the Senate has explicitly rejected for a position to continue indefinitely in an acting capacity, the Federal Vacancies Act notwithstanding. Can you enlighten me?
(Z) answers: The laws that govern vacancies were written based on three main assumptions:
- It is necessary to have a clear-cut person "in charge" at all of the executive agencies, even if that person is "acting."
- The president will make a good-faith effort to nominate qualified people to office, especially Cabinet posts.
- If the Senate declines to approve a nomination, the president will make a good-faith effort to choose another qualified nominee with as much haste as is possible.
Because #1 is so important, the deadlines for making nominations, and for making replacement nominations, are pretty loose. That wouldn't be a big problem if assumptions #2 and #3 were correct, and the president was acting in good faith. The issue here is that assumptions #2 and #3 do not apply to Donald Trump, who basically never acts in good faith.
A future Democratic president might be able to convince Republicans that the current laws need to be changed. He could do that by firing every Trump appointee on day 1 and replacing them all with acting officers while the Senate debated their confirmations. Then the president could ask Congress to repeal all the laws about filling vacancies by temporary presidential appointments and have a single rule for the entire Executive Branch. When a position becomes vacant, the highest-ranking Senate-confirmed officer in the department or agency would automatically take over the vacant position as an "acting" replacement until the Senate confirms a permanent one. This way no one would ever run any department or agency without Senate confirmation.
M.M. in San Diego, CA, asks: I read that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been voting by proxy to break ties on the Senate Agriculture Committee. Is that possible? Does the Senate get proxy votes, but the House doesn't? Did McConnell get a proxy vote because it was a committee vote and not a floor vote? I'm confused.
(Z) answers: There are two things that are being balanced here. On one hand, for any action involving the entire Senate, a senator must vote for themselves. On the other hand, when it comes to committee work, all senators serve on multiple committees, some of which meet at the same time. Since a member cannot be in two places at once, they must have a means of voting at committee meetings, at least on some things, without being present.
The way this plays out is that a senator may vote by proxy when it comes to amendments introduced in committee. However, they are not allowed to vote by proxy when it comes to advancing bills (or nominations) to the floor of the Senate. And they are not allowed to vote by proxy on the Senate floor, either.
In the House, there is no proxy voting at all, even in committees. There was for a short while during the pandemic, but they got rid of it. Since there are 435 members, they are spread a little less thin than the senators, and so there is somewhat less likelihood of a member having dueling committee meetings.
B.S. in Huntington Beach, CA, asks: I understand why defense lawyers go before the public to proclaim their clients' innocence, but I am perplexed by the behavior of prosecutors who attempt to try the case in the court of public opinion before the trial begins. Prosecuting Attorney Jeanine Pirro went public immediately after the arrest of David Hearn in the Reflecting Pool caper to announce all kinds of evidence proving his guilt. Of course, all charges were subsequently dropped.
Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence? Is the Justice Department not bound by legal ethics to present their case before a court rather than to the public? Does a presentation of all particulars of evidence to the public prior to trial not constitute a tainting of the trial? What am I missing?(Z) answers: Yes, there are some ethical considerations here, though prosecutors in high-profile cases often put pieces of their case out before the general public as a means of trying to influence would-be jury members. They are careful not to say anything that would get them disbarred, and they try very hard not to say anything that will piss off whatever judge is in charge.
In Pirro's case, however, she clearly had no intention of trying the case, nor any expectation she might win. She put her "evidence" out there for the benefit of a jury of one, sitting in his office at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
E.H. in Washington, DC, asks: I am writing to express my concern regarding U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro dropping the case against David Hearn. Correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that the case was dismissed with prejudice. If that is the case, would a future U.S. Attorney be able to refile the charges against Hearn, potentially causing him further legal costs?
Where the President will find more of a lackey than Jeanine Pirro I don't know, but surely there's someone out there.(Z) answers: We will indeed have to correct you. First, the case can only be re-filed if it is dismissed without prejudice. Second, the judge in this case has not yet decided what kind of dismissal this will be, and plans to hear arguments from both sides before rendering judgment.
And I would say that both Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche are more lackey-ish than Pirro. It's close, but at least Pirro shows occasional integrity.
T.W. in Norfolk, England, UK, asks: The comment on the migration of moderate Democrats towards being independents is illuminating. Given that allows candidates with a more left-wing progressive outlook, like Abdul El-Sayed, to more easily win their primaries, and given the current historic unpopularity of the U.S. government, which really ought to be eminently beatable, does this mean there's a very strong risk of the Democrats grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory (again)? Is it likely to be a case of "When will they ever learn?" after the dust settles in November? What do your tea leaves say?
(Z) answers: Might El-Sayed lose a race that Haley Stevens would have won? It's certainly possible. There is no way to speak with any confidence until the votes are tallied, and until we see some exit polls.
More broadly, however, I don't think the Democrats are in danger of "blowing" this election. Sometimes, voters aren't choosing the more popular party/candidate, they are choosing the least unpopular party/candidate. And when many voters feel like they have to hold their nose and vote for the lesser of two evils, they tend to choose the party that is not in power.
P.M. in Port Angeles, WA, asks: With the increasing resistance to data centers, I ask this: what is the actual purpose of these massive computational structures?
(V) answers: Data centers are collections of servers that do whatever the company that owns them wants them to do.
Google, for example, has captured a large part of the entire Internet on its servers. It needs this so it can search it upon request. People estimate the Internet at above 100 zettabytes (a zettabyte is 10^21 bytes, or a trillion gigabytes). Google has to store that somewhere. It has many datacenters for that. Facebook stores a lot of data, too. It too has datacenters for that. Amazon has a lot of data. So do Apple, Netflix, etc. A lot of companies have tons of data to store somewhere. Sometimes it is in-house, but often it is easier to rent space in someone else's datacenter. Many small and medium-sized companies want a website but don't want to manage the IT infrastructure, so they rent a (possibly virtual) computer at a datacenter. When something is in the cloud, like Apple's iCloud, it is just in somebody's datacenter. This site rents a computer in a datacenter in upstate New York for about $1000/year. We run Linux, but we could run a different operating system if we wanted to. They keep the machine running, but we log in using a secure protocol to manage the content. We don't have to think about power, cooling, OC-12s, etc. They do all that.
As an aside, while Amazon is widely known as an online store, it generates a sizable amount of its revenue from renting computers at its datacenters to other companies. Fun fact: The person who runs that operation, Amazon's Chief Technology Officer, Werner Vogels, got his Ph.D. under my co-supervision.
AI is another story. AI companies also have massive amounts of data, typically obtained by searching the Internet to train their models. AI also does a lot of computing whereas, say, Google, just needs a lot of storage. The computers in an AI datacenter use special chips that are (relatively) power-efficient at doing the kind of computing they need, but even so, they still consume massive power. The best of these chips are made by Nvidia, which is why the U.A.E. had to pay Donald Trump a billion dollars to get permission to buy them so it can construct its own AI infrastructure.
There are a few companies whose business is compiling data on everyone. Peter Thiel's company, Palantir, comes to mind here. They are in the data business, not in the IT business, so they asked Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, and other companies that run data centers for a price quote and picked one or more based on price, response time, availability, backup management, security, and whatever other factors they care about.
D.R. in Hillsboro, VA, asks: Is it AI that is unpopular among citizens, or is it the data centers that are needed to run AI?
And is it the resource intensity and climate impact of data centers that is unpopular, or is it that people just don't want them for neighbors?(Z) answers: A little from column A, a little from column B, a little from column C.
Some Americans are just generally suspicious of change, particularly technological change.
Some Americans dislike AI because they think (with reason) that it will take away jobs and/or that it will cause people (especially young people) to get dumbed down.
Some Americans dislike data centers because they have a big impact on usage of water and electricity. This can mean that there's not enough available for everyone or, more commonly, that prices go up.
There are also plenty of people in more than one of the above categories.
N.S. in Los Angeles, CA, asks: In this week's Political Bytes, you described Texas Attorney General and Senate candidate Ken Paxton (R) as "running scared" for his refusal to debate his opponent James Talarico (D).
In 2022's, Arizona gubernatorial race, Democrat Katie Hobbs refused to debate her Republican opponent, Kari Lake. Her reasoning was essentially that it's not wise to play chess with a pigeon, because the pigeon will just knock over the pieces, defecate on the board, and strut around like it won anyway. Though I completely understood her reasoning, I remember thinking Hobbs was going to get hammered for this decision, likely to the point of it deciding the election in Lake's favor. I was very pleasantly surprised when Hobbs emerged victorious, albeit by a tiny margin (50.32%-49.65%).
In her reelection bid this year, Hobbs has again refused to debate her opponent, the possibly even-more-out-there-than-Kari-Lake Rep. Andy Biggs (R).
Do you think Hobbs' refusal to debate Lake in 2022 was a wise decision, or is it more likely she still won despite her refusal, and would've won by a larger margin had she debated? And do you think her decision to not debate Biggs will affect this year's gubernatorial election in a similar way? Finally, is there any sort of corollary to be drawn from Ken Paxton's refusal to debate James Talarico, in terms of how it will affect the Texas Senate race?(Z) answers: First, I think that Hobbs' reasons for not debating are a little different from Paxton's. In both cases, they took a pass because they are not very good public speakers. However, Hobbs had a second, probably more salient reason. There was little doubt that Kari Lake would pull a Trump, and would spend the night Gish Galloping (or pigeon pooping). It is exceedingly difficult to counter a Gish Galloper, particularly if you are not a skilled debater. This is why Ben Shapiro (to take one famous example) chooses college students to "debate" against, then Gish Gallops all over them, then posts videos with titles like "HILARIOUS! Ben Shapiro DESTROYS LIBERALS At Berkeley!"
I suspect that, these days—with even Donald Trump having skipped a debate—it's not a major liability for a candidate to take a pass. The biggest problem is not that people will judge them for it (though that might happen in Paxton's case, because it makes him look weak), it's that they lose an opportunity to change the trajectory of the race. If a candidate believes they are the solid frontrunner AND that they are more likely to perform poorly than well on the debate stage (and all of this describes Katie Hobbs, both in 2022 and 2026), they are better off skipping the debates.
Paxton is going to have to think long and hard about whether HE is also a solid frontrunner, or a frontrunner at all. He may need a debate or two to try to sell himself to the people of Texas. And if he only figures that out in, say, October, it may be too late. If Talarico is consistently up 5 points by then, then he will say, "I tried very hard, for many months, to get my opponent to debate. At this point, he's desperate, and I cannot accommodate him because I need to be meeting voters on the campaign trail."
J.P.G. in Montreal, QC, Canada, asks: I've been following this site from the beginning, back in 2004 I believe. I'm writing about something which has bugged me for quite some time. Earlier this week, discussing the Tennessee primary, (V) wrote that whoever the Democratic nominee would be was irrelevant, and he wondered why anyone wasted their time pursuing such a hopeless nomination.
This is a comment that I've frequently seen on this site, but it leaves me perplexed. Sure, in terms of pure "winning percentages," the comment is accurate. But as a site created to promote voting rights and democracy, isn't it in fact highly admirable for people to decide to run for office, even if they know they have little chance of winning? By doing so, they are allowing the minority (usually about 40% of the electorate) someone for whom to vote, and also preventing the winner from claiming a 100% mandate (which is the usual trademark of authoritarian regimes).
Personally, I believe that when Democrats refrain from running a candidate in a Southern or Midwestern state, they are committing gross negligence and depriving the voters of a legitimate option to at least express their opposition to the majority position in their state of district. I'd be very interested to know the thoughts of (V) and (Z), as this type of comment has frequently appeared in their columns over the years. Running candidates in those races would also expose the voters to another line of thinking, and perhaps bring some of them to at least start questioning the indoctrination spoon-fed by Fox or talk-radio.J.M. in Arvada, CO, asks: You often mention races where one party has no chance of winning, yet there will be a competitive primary for that race for the destined-to-lose party or the nominee for the general election will go all-in even though they have no shot. Setting aside the people who are perennial candidates that just like to run for office, is there any sort of strategy in these attempts? Is there a thought process of "I'll run for Senate in Tennessee, I'll get killed, but then my name will be out there so when I run for state Senate or state AG, I'll have a leg up on my competition"? Or are these really just people tilting at windmills for no reason?
(Z) answers: We write about many races where one side or the other has no real chance of winning. It is difficult to find fresh ways to say the same thing over and over again, particularly if we're writing about 10 such races on the same day. So, sometimes there's a little sarcasm or dramatic license—writing about tilting at windmills, or having a death wish, or something like that. However, we would prefer that every race, from president down to deputy assistant dogcatcher, have (at very least) candidates from both of the major parties, for the reasons laid out here. And we agree it is basically malpractice when a party fails to come up with someone. As the Great One, Wayne Gretzky, observed, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."
There are many reasons that someone might mount a seemingly hopeless bid. For ego. To sell books or promote some other business venture. To learn how the system works from the inside. To start building name recognition and infrastructure for a future run for office. To be there just in case the bottom falls out on the other party's candidate (e.g., Roy Moore). Also, and this is important, most states eventually switch polarities. Vermont used to elect only Republicans. Texas used to elect only Democrats. A candidate can never be sure, when they file, if they might be the first step in a new era in state politics, as may well be the case with Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), or Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock (both D-GA), or Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH).
R.C. in Des Moines, IA, asks: Why do political parties announce they are expanding their target list maps like the DCCC just did? Doesn't this just give the other party more time to figure out how to counter the strategy?
(Z) answers: Well, it could be a head-fake, designed to trick the other party into wasting resources on "safe" races. That said, the primary purpose of those target lists is to encourage people to donate. And that will not happen unless the DCCC/DSCC/NRCC/NRSC announce loudly which candidates could really use some extra support.
F.G in Bethesda, MD, asks: Elon Musk went ranting about actress and activist Anne Hathaway in support of a now viral speech from 2018 supporting women's rights, marriage equality, LGBTQ rights, and opposing Donald Trump.
Should she sue him for defamatory statements, including calling her a "marionette"? This is the same guy who happens to have a trans child but doesn't care about her.(Z) answers: It is not defamatory, at least not legally, to say mean things about someone.
Elon Musk is a drug addict, a bigot and a bully. Those are all factual assertions, and we can make them because truth is an absolute defense in defamation cases, and there is abundant evidence of all of these things.
Musk is dumb, ugly and obnoxious. Those are all opinions, and we can say those things because they cannot be proven true or false.
Musk is nine feet tall, speaks Vietnamese fluently, and dyes his hair green. Those are all factual assertions, and are plainly false. However, we can say those things because there is no plausible argument that writing these things harmed him.
To be actionable, a person must make a statement that is not factual in nature, and that they knew was false, or that they would have known was false if they had not shown a reckless disregard for the truth. On top of that, it must be shown that the statement actually damaged the person.
The nasty things Musk says about Hathaway do not clear the bar for defamation. First, to call her a marionette is clearly an opinion and not a statement of fact. Second, it would be hard for her to show she was damaged, since few people take the online ramblings of the world's second-biggest windbag seriously.
Also, note that Musk knows very well where the line is, and is careful not to cross it, since his deep pockets make him a very attractive target for an ambitious lawyer. The world's biggest windbag, Donald Trump, also used to know where the line is, and used to be careful not to cross it, for the same reason. However, The Donald has gotten a little sloppy as of late, which is why he'll be funding a very nice retirement for E. Jean Carroll.
M.Y. in Alto, NM, asks: My Facebook feed is full of elected Republican politicians, including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), that just continually say outlandishly false things about Democrats. You know, they're Marxist, communist, support open borders, hate America, all that.
You've noted that for a libel suit to prevail: (1) the statement needs to be false, (2) the defendant needed to know it was a false statement when they said it, and (3) the statement had to do real damage to the plaintiff.
This rhetoric seems to check all the boxes. So why aren't they filing a libel suit?(Z) answers: A public figure, particularly a politician, has an extra-high bar to clear when it comes to succeeding in a defamation case. This is because political discourse is inherently adversarial, and is all-but-certain to involve exaggeration for dramatic effect. If Mike Johnson, for example, calls Abdul El-Sayed a communist, the courts don't regard that as an assertion of fact, but instead as normal political hyperbole, and thus not actionable.
M.M. in El Paso, TX, asks: You wrote: "Most former prisoners are working-class white men." Is that correct? Because my impression is that the vast majority of incarcerated individuals are people of color. Is it just that the white guys get parole while the others don't?
(Z) answers: We went back and clarified that. Working-class white men make up about 30% of the prison population. However, they are vastly more likely to have their voting rights restored, as compared to non-white prisoners, such that white men (of all social classes) comprise about 55% of the felons who have regained voting rights.
T.J.R. in Metuchen, NJ, asks: How is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) worth only $49K? She has been a Congresswoman for 7 years now, with a salary of $174,000 per year, adding up to $1,218,000, or roughly $730,800 after taxes. I'm not saying she's rolling in it. But $49K beggars belief.
(Z) answers: It is not cheap to be a member of Congress, particularly a member whose home base is an expensive housing market.
AOC must maintain a home in New York City, one of the two or three most expensive housing markets in the nation, because that is where she lives during the many days and weeks that Congress is not in session. She must also maintain a home in Washington, DC, or its environs, because that is where she lives during the many days and weeks that Congress IS in session. The average apartment price in New York City right now is about $3,500 a month; the average in D.C. is about $3,000 a month. That's $6,500 a month right there, and so accounts for $78,000, or about 44% of the Representative's salary, right there. We don't know if she has a home and a mortgage, instead of a rental, in one or both of those places, but even if she does, the monthly amount would be the same (or likely higher).
Of course, it is also necessary for those residences to have things like electricity and Internet, and some sort of TV service. That likely adds something close to $1,000 more a month to the price tag. Plus, AOC has to dress professionally, which is not cheap, particularly for women. She also has to pay for travel back and forth to New York City. And she used to help support her mother; she may still be doing so.
AOC does have a fiancé, and presumably Riley Roberts contributes to the family budget. Still, it is entirely plausible that the Congresswoman is only able to put aside $7,000 or so a year, once she's covered all her other expenses.
C.J.R. in Avondale AZ, asks: I have been watching Silo recently. It got me wondering: Are we still teaching "The Allegory of the Cave" to young people?
(Z) answers: When I was a freshman in college (1992-93), I took Philosophy 1. The professor, who was visiting from a university in Europe, spent three lectures trying to explain the allegory to a class of 200 UCLA students (in other words, a reasonably elite group). Nobody appeared to have heard of it before, and nearly everyone seemed to be struggling to understand it.
From this experience, I would speculate that today, in a world where "the classics of Western thought" are even more de-emphasized than they were 3 decades ago, nobody outside of Philosophy majors is learning about anything Plato had to say.
D.D. in Bucks County, PA, asks: (Z) wrote: "At the height of the Gilded Age in the U.S., a period that also featured much social upheaval and frequent changes of leadership, the top 1% held about 31.4% of the wealth. That figure declined through the 1980s or so (ahem, the Reagan presidency), at which point it began trending upward again."
What were the reasons and/or events that caused the wealth inequality to decline after the Gilded Age? (I'm assuming Franklin D. Roosevelt's policies played a large role, but I'm sure there are other reasons.)(Z) answers: FDR's policies helped, but do keep in mind that the New Deal came roughly 35 years after the Gilded Age ended, so he was building on momentum that already existed.
For the wealth gap to close, wealth has to move from the upper classes toward the working classes. And in the early decades of the 20th century, there was pretty substantial pressure on both ends of that. By that, I mean it became a little harder for the ultra-wealthy to concentrate vast wealth, particularly thanks to trustbusting and to the income tax. And it became a little easier for the working class to gain more wealth, particularly thanks to minimum wage/maximum hours laws, and due to greater unionization.
J.L. in Calw, Germany, asks: In response to C.L. in Fairbanks, (Z) wrote: "And nobody is changing their mind, at this point, on the JFK assassination... I usually avoid these three subjects..."
Perforated bovine, Batman! "Usually avoid"? Are you getting "questions"/comments about JFK conspiracy theories? JFK died in 1963. It's 2026. Feel free to check with the staff mathematician, but that was over 60 years ago. Who the !@#$% cares? Is there really anyone still obsessed with this? How many JFK emails is Electoral-Vote.com getting?(Z) answers: We don't get many JFK assassination e-mails, unless we specifically mention that incident. But if we do, and in particular if we write something like "historians have reached a consensus that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone," we will get multiple dozens of e-mails pushing back, and advancing various "alternate" theories.
T.J.C. in Cambridge, MA, asks: When do you start showing polls for Senate races?
(Z) answers: Later in August.
R.V. in Pittsburgh, PA, asks: Are either (V) or (Z) Howard Stern Show fans? I'm a 30-year listener, and I think his show has been the most entertaining in the Sirius XM days. I think he is a great interviewer; the recent interview he had with Taylor Sheridan is just one example. I have never even watched any of Sheridan's shows, but it was a very fascinating, nearly 2-hour interview. Unlike TV talk interviews, where most celebrities and the host just do some shtick for 10 minutes, Stern has a REAL conversation with his guests.
I also admire Stern's self deprecating humor. He often makes fun of his 20+ years' worth of visits to a psychiatrist. And he pokes fun at his looks almost daily.
It will be a sad day when the Howard Stern Show is no more.(Z) answers: I have been a listener, off and on, since Stern came to L.A. in the very early 1990s.
He has clearly grown into a masterful interviewer. A lot of the bits that he (or, usually, his staff) put together are very funny, especially since he leans much less into gross-out/sexual stuff these days, and more into things like phony phone calls and other practical-joke-type stuff. He's a great improviser, the self-deprecating moments make him accessible and real, and the portion of the show where Robin Quivers reads the news and Stern riffs on it is always a highlight.
I do think there are some things, especially these days, that he beats into the ground. For example, I don't particularly need to hear any more long-form segments on Ronnie the (former) limo driver's sexual peccadilloes, or Jon "Hit 'em with the" Hein's eating habits. But no show is perfect, I suppose.
N.N. in Murray, KY, asks: As a lifelong Laker/Dodger fan, I wanted to get your personal opinion on the Dodgers' visit with Donald Trump. I've never even been to California, and since you're local, would love to get your take, because I'm struggling with my fandom. I'm MUCH more of a Laker fan (yes, I know Mark Walter now owns both teams), but this is really bothering me.
(Z) answers: It is hard to ascribe too much meaning to it, as the players who attended undoubtedly had different motivations. Baseball has the largest number of political conservatives among the four major sports, so undoubtedly some of the players were there because they are Trump supporters. Others went because it's a chance to see the White House and meet the president, and they would go regardless of who happens to be in office. Some went because they are a team, and they don't want to rebel against the team concept.
I would suggest you should judge the organization, rather than one decision made by the players who currently play for the organization. And this is an organization that broke the color line in baseball, and that was among the first two teams to have LGBTQ-themed events. It's an organization that cultivated Latino fans back when other teams found that demographic undesirable. It's an organization that famously treats its players, its staff and its alumni well. I am most certainly not a Dodgers fan, but it's hard to think of an organization in professional sports that's more classy than they are (though the Lakers are high on that list, too).