We haven't forgotten about Minnesota, but we need time to go through all our notes and links, and to plan out the next entries in the series. The last few days were... just not the time for it. Friday's post will make clear why that was the case.

Legal News, Part I: Another Embarrassing Loss in Court for the White House

After Sens. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado (D-CO), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH) and Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan (both D-PA) made a 90-second video reminding America's soldiers that they are not allowed to follow illegal orders, the administration blew a gasket. That includes the fellow in the Oval Office, who posted this to his social-media-platform-for-draft-dodgers:

It's called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand — We won't have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET. President DJT

Strangely, we apparently still seem to have a country. Although we are given to understand that the video DID lead to the cancellation of all ice hockey in Canada, along with the end of the Stanley Cup.

Of course, when Trump says "Jump!," the current Department of Justice asks: "How high?" The marching orders were clear in this case, and so U.S. Attorney for Washington, DC, Jeanine Pirro put together an indictment and tried to get it past a grand jury. Apparently, the ham sandwich did not have the right condiments on it, because the grand jurors told Pirro and her office to pound sand.

We stick by our already stated view that the smart play here is to drop this whole thing. Messing with ex-military and ex-intelligence, people who actually put themselves on the line, does not play well with voters. That includes many of the voters who supported Trump and the GOP in 2024. And not only is this harming the GOP's political bottom line, it's also making rock stars out of some of the Democrats who are being targeted. It's hard to imagine anything that would do more than this to make Kelly into a viable 2028 presidential candidate. And the others could well ride their newfound fame to a governorship or (in the case of the four representatives) a Senate seat. (Z)

Legal News, Part II: How Did We Get Here?

The Trump administration, as is its habit when practicable, recently went judge-shopping to get a favorable ruling on its new policy of locking up anyone suspected of being in the country unlawfully and denying them any opportunity for a bond hearing while their case is pending. And that judge-shopping paid off last week when a 3-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled 2-1 that locking people up without any due process is fine and dandy with them and completely consistent with immigration statutes and the Constitution.

The two judges in the majority are arguably the most extreme right-wing partisans on an already extremely conservative court. Judge Edith Jones (a Ronald Reagan appointee) and Judge Kyle Duncan (a Donald Trump appointee) held that anyone anywhere in the U.S. is subject to indefinite detention while their cases are pending. This court is in the minority: 360 judges, regardless of who appointed them, in 3,000 cases, have ruled that this new policy violates the law and the Constitution. In dissent, Judge Dana Douglas (a Joe Biden appointee) said that "The government's proposed reading of the statute would mean that, for purposes of immigration detention, the border is now everywhere. That is not the law Congress passed, and if it had, it would have spoken much more clearly."

This practice began in July 2025 when Donald Trump & Co. decided to re-interpret the law so that "applicant for admission" or someone "seeking admission" now means "anyone out of status, regardless of where they are in the country or how long they've been here." Non-citizens are now subject to mandatory detention and are no longer eligible for a bond hearing, which is heard by an immigration judge to determine eligibility for release. This has resulted in the mass detentions that have allowed ICE and CBP to operate with such impunity in cities across the country without regard to their proximity to the border. This is a break from any previous administration, including Trump himself in his first term.

And we're seeing the consequences—in addition to the human toll and the abuses of not only immigrants but also American citizens, the strain on every aspect of the system (including on government lawyers who are breaking down in court and asking to be held in contempt in order to get some sleep) shows how completely unworkable indefinite detentions of millions of people are, even if the detentions were lawful, which they are clearly not. And thanks to the Supreme Court, the only way to fight this overreach is through an individual habeas corpus petition, which is why the courts and attorneys are so completely overwhelmed with these cases. It is possible to file a class action, but that is very difficult, costly and time consuming—last December a California judge certified a nationwide class action, but there has been no ruling in that case, as yet. The most efficient tool, an injunction that applies nationally, was killed off by the Supreme Court in the midnight ruling several months back.

The rush to get a ruling from the Fifth Circuit before another court of appeal could rule also explains why most people who are swept up in these raids are immediately shipped off to prison camps in Texas or Louisiana, the states covered by the Fifth Circuit. Any challenge to a detention has to be heard in the district where the person is being held. So, the White House just sends people anywhere it thinks it's likely to get a favorable ruling. Some judges in Minnesota have noticed this pattern and have started issuing injunctions prohibiting detainees from being sent out of state before a hearing can be held to determine if they're entitled to be released while their case is pending.

Steve Vladeck did an excellent writeup back in December of the various immigration statutes and how they have been interpreted by the courts and by every previous administration up to now. Basically, the immigration statutes distinguish between those who are stopped at the border as they "arrive," where detention may be mandatory, versus discretionary detention with a right to a bond hearing for non-citizens found elsewhere in the country who meet certain criteria. Non-citizens who hadn't committed any crimes and were following the rules could work, pay taxes, start families and become a part of the community—which many of them did. Subjecting such people to mandatory detention without bond violates the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which, as readers will recall, applies to all "persons."

A ruling from last year from Judge Lynn Winmill, U.S. District Judge in Idaho, sums up the thinking of the majority of judges who have heard this issue:

Since the United States began restricting immigration into this country in the late 19th century, it has distinguished between those noncitizens seeking entry into the country and those already residing within it. Noncitizens "stopped at the boundary line" who have "gained no foothold in the United States," do not enjoy the same constitutional protections afforded to persons inside the United States. But once a noncitizen enters the United States, "the legal circumstance changes," for the constitutional right to due process applies to all "persons" within our nation's borders, "whether their presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary, or permanent." This distinction between noncitizens who have entered and reside in the United States and those who have not yet entered "runs throughout immigration law."

In case readers are wondering about the odd use of quotations, no, Donald Trump did not get ahold of the judge's ruling and rewrite it. Those are allusions to specific phrases in specific cases that the judge's ruling is referencing.

The 2-1 ruling from the Texas judges could be appealed to the entire Fifth Circuit or the plaintiffs could petition for review in the Supreme Court. Our guess is that they will try for an en banc hearing first before venturing into the great unknown that is SCOTUS. The Fifth Circuit has been known to issue rulings consistent with the Constitution on some of these matters, so it's probably worth a shot. (L)

All On Account Of the Tariff

That headline is the title of a song written in 1890, by popular banjo player Ike Brown. Here is the fourth verse:

The Democrat says prices now will be higher,
     All on account of the Tariff.
The Republican says, "Democrat, you're a liar,"
     All on account of the Tariff.
But one thing has gone up, and you can't rub it out,
The Republicans this year have gone up the spout,
And the cause of it all I've no reason to doubt,
     Is all on account of the Tariff.

And they say history doesn't repeat itself.

Anyhow, Donald Trump's tariffs are back in the news, specifically some of the tariffs imposed on Canada, as House Democrats want to hold a vote on a resolution meant to end those Canadian tariffs. The resolution has been kicking around for months, but yesterday it took a pretty big step forward.

To understand what happened, you first have to know that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) maneuvered to put a rule in place that kept the House from voting on ANY tariff-related measures. This is rather similar to the rules, back in the antebellum era, that kept the House from so much as recognizing the anti-slavery petitions it received. Anyhow, the tariff gag rule is expiring, and Johnson held a vote yesterday meant to renew it. Three Republicans, namely Don Bacon (R-NE), Kevin Kiley (R-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY), crossed the aisle to vote with all the Democrats. Presumably, anyone who reads this site knows that Johnson can only afford one defection right now. Three is more than one, so the rule was not renewed. The Democrats plan to use a discharge petition to bring their measure to the floor, and it will probably pass.

This does not mean the tariffs are going away, of course. The measure would have to get through the Senate, and if it did, then it would promptly be vetoed by Trump. It is improbable that there are enough votes for a veto override, but... you never know. A new study from the nonpartisan Kiel Institute for the World Economy reveals that, predictably, Americans are paying 96% of the costs of Trump's tariffs. Meanwhile, the frontline folks, who are hit hardest by tariffs, are hopping mad. In particular, farmers are demanding action from Congress, asserting that the tariffs are squeezing them to death. As a reminder, Georgia, Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas are among the states that have: (1) a lot of farmers and (2) key U.S. Senate elections this year. It's also worth noting that the Democrats have chosen a fairly narrow target, as opposed to going after ALL the tariffs, which means a Republican member of Congress could vote against the White House without it being a scorched-earth moment. It would be a small poke in Trump's eye, as opposed to a piano leg upside his head.

Still, we don't really believe this will ever become law, and Congressional Democrats don't either. They just want to get the Republican members on the record so they can wield that vote as a weapon, pretty much the same way Democrats did back in the midterm elections of 1890. (Z)

What's Going on in These Special Elections?

Yesterday, we had an item about the latest special-election disaster for the Republicans. Whether it's for Congress or for state legislature, there has been a consistent and pronounced shift in the direction of the Democrats. If we were talking about only 60% of elections, or if the shift was mid-single digits, then maybe it wouldn't be too instructive. But it's 100% of elections, and the shift from Trump 2024 to Democrat 2025/2026 is almost invariably in the double digits, and is often in the 20s or 30s. It certainly looks like the ground is shifting underneath the President and his party.

That said, we wondered if there might be a different way to look at things that might support (or falsify) this conclusion. And we think there is a useful one. One of the big lessons of the 2016 election (and we've written about this many times, too) is that college vs. non-college is an important dividing line in the electorate these days, with the former skewing Democratic and the latter skewing Republican (and skewing Trumpublican, in particular). In 2024, for example, according to Pew Research, non-college voters broke for Trump by 14 points, while college voters broke for Kamala Harris by 16 points.

There aren't too many exit polls for state legislature special elections, so we can't quite examine things that way. However, there ARE approval polls that look at Trump's approval through the lens of education level. Given what happened in 2016, and how overlooking this dynamic led many pollsters astray, you might think they would ALL be collecting this information. Most of them aren't, at least not right now, but we did find four major pollsters who have done recent polls, and who did have an "education level" cross-tab. Here are their results:

Pollster	NC Approve	NC Disapprove	Net	Coll Approve	Coll Disapprove	Net
Economist/YouGov	39%	52%	-13	33%	65%	-32
NPR/PBS/Marist	43%	50%	-7	31%	68%	-37
PPP	43%	50%	-7	33%	65%	-32
Marquette	46%	54%	-8	34%	66%	-32

Among college-educated voters, 58% voted against Trump in 2024. Now, about two thirds of them disapprove of him. That's probably meaningful. Among non-college voters, 43% voted against Trump in 2024. Now, more than half of them disapprove. That's probably meaningful, too.

It's a different sort of evidence that suggests there's been a meaningful shift in the electorate. Due to the lack of exit polls, we don't know exactly what the dynamic is. Are the folks who appear to have moved into the "disapprove" camp actually flipping, and voting for Democrats? Or are they just staying home on Election Day? Either way, it almost certainly means a loss of support for Republican candidates.

And how about a third sort of evidence? In this case, it's not numerical. On Monday, the administration posted a remarkable document to the White House website, with the title "Don't Be a Panican. We're Winning — and We're Not Slowing Down." It is a summation of all the ways in which the Trump administration is allegedly "winning." Presumably readers don't need us to tell them that if you are actually winning, you do not generally need to persuade people that is the case. We were reminded of the fact that, while he was alive, and after his playing days were over, the public-appearance contracts for former Yankee Joe DiMaggio specified that he MUST be identified as the "greatest living ballplayer." DiMaggio was a fine ballplayer, no doubt, but let's just say that Babe Ruth, Willie Mays and Henry Aaron never felt the need to make such a demand.

The upshot is that there are several pretty solid pieces of evidence that a blue wave could well be forming. It won't be as tsunamic (yes, that is a word) as some of the blue waves of the past, because the number of competitive House and Senate seats is smaller than it once was. The picture will get clearer as we get closer to Election Day, the candidates are known, and there begins to be substantial polling of the actual races voters will weigh in on in November (and in October, for early voters). (Z)

The Sports Report: Super Bowl Ratings Are In

It takes a couple of days to compile the numbers, but Nielsen has announced that this year's Super Bowl averaged 124.9 million viewers. That's down slightly from last year's event, which averaged 127.7 million U.S. viewers. Donald Trump does not seem to have commented on this yet, but we've gone ahead and taken the liberty of putting together the infographic he'll need:

See? Going woke was a disaster for the NFL. Are you going to doubt your own eyes?

And a slightly finer-grained report on the ratings most certainly tells a tale different from the one the White House wants to tell. This Super Bowl did set a ratings record, for the largest number of viewers tuned in at one time, 137.8 million. That peak occurred... right at the end of the second quarter, undoubtedly as some viewers who did not care about the game tuned in to catch Bad Bunny. After halftime was over, the ratings dropped a fair bit, because the game was not great and because no more Bad Bunny. The much softer second half is how we end up with an average of 124.9 million.

The halftime show itself averaged 128.2 million viewers, which places it fourth all-time behind Michael Jackson, Kendrick Lamar, and Usher. With a list like that, it's not very hard to figure out why the NFL features so many people of color in its halftime shows these days. By contrast, Kid Rock's show attracted 5 million viewers on YouTube (the other outlets were not metered, and so there are no data for those) and the Puppy Bowl attracted 12 million viewers. For those keeping score at home, then, that is:

1. Bad Bunny
2. Puppies
3. Kid Rock

Kid Rock insisted yesterday that he was not lip synching, which is reminiscent of the time that Donald Trump insisted that he read that hurricane map correctly. It becomes ever more clear why Kid Rock is MAGA.

Perhaps you thought that since the game and the halftime show are in the rear-view mirror, and there are new culture-wars battles to be fought, this storyline has reached its end. If you did think that, then all we can say is: "Ha! You fool!" MAGA thinks there is still plenty of red meat to be harvested here, and they have been kvetching about Bad Bunny for days. For example, Laura Loomer sniffed that it made no sense for the show to include utility poles, since Puerto Rico is known for power outages. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, that one. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) decreed that the Bad Bunny performance was "smut" and included "gay porn." Fox entertainer Greg Gutfeld went on a bizarro rant, apparently in an effort to make a point about identity politics, in which he said next year's show should feature Jews slinging pastrami sandwiches, while a circumcision is performed live at the 50-yard-line.

In view of all this, some House Republicans are pushing for an investigation of the halftime show. The same folks who were claiming on Sunday that the show stinks because you can't understand the lyrics are now saying that if you DID listen to the lyrics, they broke the rules about over-the-air indecency. And actually, in making the claim, they are confirming that they definitely did not understand the lyrics. Bad Bunny has songs that are not family-friendly, but those are not the ones he performed. He did choose one song that has four-letter words, but they were bleeped out.

We shall see how much more mileage MAGA can get out of this. Could be a lot; the Bud Light thing went on for well over a month. On the other hand, many MAGA Republicans have moved on... to using the Winter Olympics as their primary supplier of red meat. (Z)

Trump Administration Working Hard to Rewrite History

This administration is a big fan of certain policies right out of Soviet Russia. For example, government ownership of the means of production—Joseph Stalin would certainly have approved of the various deals wherein the federal government took control of portions of various tech companies. Similarly, there is an old Soviet joke that goes, "The future is certain, it is only the past that is unpredictable." That, of course, is a reference to the tendency of each Soviet leader to re-write the history books to make their premiership look better, and their predecessors' premierships look worse. Trump is a big fan of this practice, too.

The National Park Service is, of course, part of the executive branch. That means that if Trump or one of his underlings says a change has to be made at any of the sites run by that agency, then a change has to be made. A couple of weeks ago, because MAGA fee-fees are hurt by the thought that maybe, just maybe, the United States once benefited from slave labor, the administration ordered that a display in Independence National Historical Park, which talked about the role of enslaved people in the construction of the buildings there, be removed. Now, all you see is empty bolt holes and darkened spots on the wall where the exhibits once stood.

The statement this makes, with the exhibits obviously missing, may be a different one than the administration intends. Recall that the reason that Malcolm Little changed his name to Malcolm X was to make clear that his real last name is unknown, because his culture and his history had been erased by the white man. The current situation at Independence National Historical Park makes an awfully similar statement. In any case, the city of Philadelphia has sued to try to bring the exhibits back.

Yesterday, the administration made a somewhat similar move. Among the many properties that Park Service administers is the Stonewall National Monument, which pays tribute to the Stonewall Inn, and thus to the start of the modern gay rights movement. As you might imagine, there are some rainbow gay pride flags flying there. Or, at least there were. As of yesterday, they were taken down on orders from the White House.

One might think that a White House that thinks it is entitled to, for example, rename the Kennedy Center on a whim would decide that it is also empowered to shut down sites like the Stonewall National Monument. But just removing the flags? That's a pretty feeble move (actually, the phrase that first came to mind is "pencil di**," but this is a family-friendly blog). Meanwhile, Stonewall is right in the middle of one of the bluest parts of New York City (Greenwich Village). We suspect that if you went there yesterday, and counted the number of rainbow flags you could see, and that if you went there next week, and counted again, the total would double, or maybe even triple. After all, Trump can't order private citizens to take down whatever flags they choose to display on their residences and their businesses. Well, he can issue an order to them to do so, only they won't obey.

Moving along, Christopher Columbus was once among America's greatest heroes. That is why the national capital is named for him and George Washington. He was arguably an even greater hero in 1892 when, at the tail end of the "Manifest Destiny" era, the U.S. celebrated him and itself at the World's Columbian Exposition. Since then, his star has fallen pretty far, pretty fast. Not only did he initiate the Age of Exploration, which was disastrous for the Native Americans, he was also an incredibly cruel man who enslaved, killed and maimed countless Natives without a second thought. And it is not just modern sensibilities that are offended by his actions; even many of Columbus' contemporaries thought he went way too far, which is why he eventually lost his job as Governor of the Indies.

Anyhow, Trump doesn't like slavery, and he doesn't like gay pride, but apparently he is just fine and dandy with enslavers, including violent ones. It is also worth noting that Columbus suborned rape, and participated in sex trafficking, so maybe that was the clincher. Whatever the case may be, Trump announced that a statue of Columbus will be installed at the White House. It is, in fact, the same statue that used to be on display in Baltimore, and then was smashed up and dumped into the harbor during the George Floyd protests. The President claimed that he hopes this will attract Italian-American voters to the GOP banner.

[Sidebar: On Wednesday of last week, (Z) lectured in his California history class about how Christopher Columbus was once a great American hero, but that people don't build statues of him anymore because he's now seen as a racist, and an imperialist and an enslaver. And, on that same day, in his U.S. history class, he lectured about the dehumanization of Black Americans as an aspect of the slave system, and how it was common back then to depict Black people as animals, but that it's not done anymore because it's seen as racist. That night, Trump announced the Columbus statue. The next day, he posted the video with the Obamas as apes. Could somebody be listening in on (Z)'s classes?]

Our last rewriting-the-past news item, for today, involves Vice President J.D. Vance. One of these days, we will write an item on Vance's principles—if he ever decides to adopt any. Vance is on an international trip, and as part of that, paid a 2-day visit to Armenia. He took a tour of the Tsitsernakaberd Armenian Genocide Memorial, and then someone posted a message to his Twitter account that read, in part, that his visit was meant to "honor the victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide."

Nobody seriously doubts that the Armenian genocide took place. It is as much a historical certainty as, well, slavery. Still, in the same way that acknowledging slavery hurts the fee-fees of some Americans, acknowledging the Armenian genocide hurts the fee-fees of some Turks. That includes the Turkish government, whose official position is that the Armenian Genocide never happened. So, despite the fact that the United States officially recognizes the Armenian genocide (though it took until Joe Biden's presidency for that to happen), Vance meekly deleted the tweet.

Presumably, MAGA voters (or Turkish politicians) hear about these things, and are pleased that Trump is prioritizing the story of straight, white men and is pushing everything else back into the shadows. All (Z) knows for sure is that it makes his job a lot easier. All of a sudden this goes from "people who died hundreds of years ago" to "forbidden historical knowledge." It's like a historical version of the Streisand effect. So, in a strange way, Trump's almost an ally to history educators. (Z)

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