Dem
47
GOP
53
Next week, we really hope things will be less hectic than they were this week. Not only was there a LOT of news, but one of our two main authors is preparing for a trip, while the other had some pretty serious professional and personal obligations, on top of Thursday night's technical issues. The point here is that we really dislike pushing this feature all the way to Friday. However, what we dislike even more is not getting to it at all. So, let's do it, starting with the several ways in which FBI Director Kash Patel made the wrong kind of news this week:
Patel, Part I: Consistent with a general pattern seen in this administration (see above), Patel's "leadership" has a clear misogynist streak. Specifically, every time he has ordered the FBI to investigate a journalist, that journalist was a woman. Targets have included Sarah Fitzpatrick of The Atlantic, Hannah Natanson of The Washington Post and Elizabeth Williamson of The New York Times.
Our Take: We actually suspect that Patel is not targeting women, per se. We suspect that the area of reporting that bothers him the most, accountability reporting, is dominated by women reporters. That said, if an official's actions have a discriminatory impact, it's still illegal, whether or not intent was there. And, perhaps more importantly, the Trump administration is already having enough trouble with women voters. It doesn't need even more fuel for that particular fire.
Patel, Part II: Patel, whose attendance at work is spotty at best, wants to make it seem like he's the most "law and order" FBI Chief since J. Edgar Hoover. To that end, he has been bragging about statistical evidence of his own effectiveness as leader, namely that arrests have doubled under his leadership, and so has the rate at which "Ten Most Wanted" fugitives are captured. To nobody's surprise; these numbers are cooked. The "arrests" figure includes all the accused undocumented immigrants that have been arrested. Meanwhile, the Bureau has developed a habit of tracking a person down, quickly adding them to the "Most Wanted" list, and then popping them.
Our Take: Everyone knows the old Mark Twain line about "lies, damned lies and statistics." Well, between working for The Los Angeles Times on a longitudinal study of murder rates in L.A., and taking Eric Monkkonen's class on urban crime, (Z) can affirm that there is no kind of statistic that is more easily manipulated than crime statistics.
Patel, Part III: Trump appointees like to indulge deeply when it comes to the "spoils" of office. And Patel particularly enthusiastic on this front, even among his Trump administration peers. This week, there was news that he pulled strings in order to be able to undertake a snorkeling expedition, on the site of the U.S.S. Arizona.
Our Take: First, it's a particularly important cemetery for a particularly hallowed group of American war dead. Why can't you just leave it be, Kash? Second, the boat and the bodies have been down there for 85 years. What, exactly, so you expect to see, Kash? Third, voters don't like it when you treat war dead cavalierly. Don't you know that, Kash? Everyone involved in this, from Patel on down, should be fired immediately.
Musical Chairs, Part I: Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is done after this term, and there is much competition for her safe-blue district. This week, Pelosi made an endorsement, saying she would like to see progressive San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan (D) succeed her.
Our Take: There is a Republican in the race (Scott Wiener) who will advance to the next round, and the other candidate will either be Chan or Saikat Chakrabarti (D) for the second spot. It's fair to assume that Pelosi's endorsement will propel Chan to the general, and it's even fairer to assume that the Democratic candidate in the race will win the D+36 district. Should all of that come to pass, Chan will have the honor of being the person who succeeded Pelosi, and will also have the challenge of being the person who succeeded Pelosi.
Musical Chairs, Part II: Also leaving Congress, as of this week, is Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN). The new maps leave him without a viable district to run in, and so he announced that after 20 years in the House, and 50 years in politics overall, he's retiring.
Our Take: Having spent nearly his entire adult life in politics, Cohen's certainly earned a nice retirement. It is a shame it could not be on his own terms, however.
Musical Chairs, Part III: In contrast to Pelosi and Cohen, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) is not quite ready to be done. She currently represents FL-25, but that district is now going to be spread across five districts, which means she has to choose. And she has now chosen FL-20, which will still be plenty blue, even under the new map. The problem is that the district has been represented by a Black person for decades, and how it will be Wasserman Schultz, who is white, up against a bunch of Black candidates, in what is still a plurality-Black district. So, the optics here are pretty icky. This is a dry run for a problem the Democrats are going to have in next year's round of gerrymandering. To maximize the number of seats they get, they will have to draw lines that dilute Black-majority districts in such a way that a white Democrat is going to win the primary. There won't be a lot of Black Democrats in Jan. 2029 unless the DCCC makes a real serious effort to have Ivy League-educated Black lawyers run in overeducated blue districts and endorses and supports them. It's going to be a real problem.
Our Take: Wasserman Schultz will probably win, especially since the most prominent Black candidate in the race is Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who is a crook.
Black Like Me: Mike Lee would like you to know that his political party is plenty diverse. To that end, he posted to eX-Twitter a picture of the four Black members of the House Republican Conference, along with the comment "This is NOT the party of Jim Crow." Problem 1: There are 218 members of the Conference, which means that Black members make up just 1.8% of it. Problem 2: All four Black members will be leaving at the end of this term, for various reasons, and are not likely to be replaced by other Black members, reducing that number to 0.0%.
Our Take: It would seem that the GOP, in fact, IS the party of Jim Crow. Barring the unexpected, the only Black Republican in Congress, as of Jan. 3, 2027, will be Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC).
That's our story and we're sticking to it. (Z)