A belated congratulations to the Seattle Seahawks on their second Super Bowl championship!

Another Day, Another Scary Election for Republicans

Thus far, since Donald Trump re-took office, the Democrats have flipped 27 state legislature seats. The Republicans have flipped zero.

This weekend, the GOP liked its chances to finally end that shutout. The good people of Louisiana headed to the polls to fill five legislative seats that had come open, mid-term, for various reasons. In a tribute to the longstanding Southern tradition of one-party politics, four of the races were either Republican vs. Republican (predominantly white districts) or Democrat vs. Democrat (predominantly Black districts). However, there was one seat that involved a Democrat facing a Republican. Prior to coming vacant, that seat was held by a Democrat, Chad Brown, who was appointed to a position in the bureaucracy. Brown won the seat under somewhat wonky circumstances; in a four-way field, he and a "No Party" candidate were the top two finishers, and then the "No Party" candidate dropped out before the runoff. Meanwhile in 2024, Donald Trump won the district's vote by 13 points. So, you can see why Republicans were licking their chops.

So much for that. After the votes were counted, Chasity Verret Martinez (D) had laid waste to Brad Daigle (R), 62% to 38%. That means that the swing from Trump 2024 to Verret Martinez 2026 was a staggering 37 points in favor of the blue team. At this point, it's kind of hard to see what the profile of "legislative seat the Republicans might plausibly flip" would be right now.

We have written, dozens of times, that no matter how you squint your eyes, there's no avoiding the conclusion that these election results are an ill omen for the GOP in 2026. Even allowing for the small, wonky electorates that special elections tend to attract, the swings are just too big, and too consistent, to be random bad luck.

It is, of course, more than 6 months to Election Day, and things can change. But, as a thought exercise, try to think of what, exactly, might shift the momentum in the direction of Trump and his party. Economic upturn? Not too likely and, besides, it didn't work too well for Joe Biden. Foreign military intervention and "rally 'round the flag" effect? See Venezuela. An inspiring speech? He's Donald Trump, not John F. Kennedy. We spend a lot of time thinking about hypotheticals, and we struggle to think of something that might plausibly add, say, 10 points to Trump's approval rating. If readers have ideas, we're very interested to hear them at comments@electoral-vote.com. (Z)

Ghislaine Maxwell "Testifies"

Ghislaine Maxwell, enabler of Jeffrey Epstein, and procurer of girls for sex-trafficking purposes, was scheduled to speak to the members of Congress yesterday (via video link, from the prison in which she is being held). And Maxwell did indeed speak to them, technically. But we put "testifies" in quotations, because she just pled the Fifth in response to every question, and so provided no new information or insight.

Maxwell and her lawyer DID have an idea for how to improve upon the situation, however. They said that if Donald Trump will grant her clemency, she will be happy to clear both Trump and Bill Clinton of any and all wrongdoing. We suppose Trump might possibly take that deal, particularly if Maxwell agreed to knock Bill Clinton off the list and to ONLY clear Trump. However, even if the offer is accepted, will it change anything? Anything at all? It's such an obvious quid pro quo, and she has such a clear-cut motivation to lie, that it's hard to imagine she would change any hearts or minds.

Truth be told, we are rather shocked that she put that out there. After she chatted with Assistant AG Todd Blanche last year, and then was moved (in contravention of regular practice) from a real prison to a Club Fed, anyone and everyone assumed that a clemency deal was already in place, and that it was just a matter of timing ("after the midterms," most likely). But negotiating in public like this just lessens the value of whatever she has to offer (which, let's be honest, isn't much since she is a convicted felon and a pathological liar). Maybe she's getting desperate, because there actually isn't a secret clemency agreement in place.

We're not sure what's going on with her; we're just trying to read the tea leaves as best we can. What we do know for sure is that this subject ebbs and flows in terms of how much attention it is getting, but it's not going away. After every ebb, there's eventually another flow. And that attention is certainly not working to the benefit of Trump. Democrats are of course enraged, but plenty of Republicans are enraged, too. Just yesterday, Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) flipped sides, and joined Team Transparency. She told reporters that she had not seen Epstein Mobilier as a big deal before, but now that she knows there were victims as young as 9 years old, she wants answers. Lummis, not coincidentally, has announced her retirement from the Senate, and so is beyond Trump's reach in the same way as Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC).

Meanwhile, remember that for the better part of half a century, Republicans carped on Roe v. Wade, and used that to rally the troops and to peel off some voters from the other side (there are, of course, a sizable number of folks who are registered as Democrats, but who are also anti-abortion). When Roe was wiped out by Dobbs, Republican politicians cheered, but in private many of them were surely disappointed. We don't think it's a coincidence that the number and variety of wacky culture-war issues—Bud Light ads, Mr. Potato Head, drag shows, trans girls playing high school sports, Bad Bunny—seems to have exploded in the last few years. Part of that is Trump's love for this sort of thing, but we think part of it is that the GOP has largely been deprived of its very best wedge issue.

The reason we mention this is that Jeffrey Epstein is filling a similar gap for Democrats. Pretty much every member of the Party is demanding clarity on the whole situation, even if it ends up taking down Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, and every other liberal named "Bill." To take a prominent example, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), who needs to win reelection in a purple state this year, has been leaning into Epstein pretty hard. And he has taken to using the framing first put out there by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), referring to the "Epstein class." In other words, that the U.S. is currently being run by a cabal of people—Trump, Steve Bannon, Elon Musk, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick—who were apparently all chummy with Epstein. It's a version of the "deep state," except with actual evidence behind it, and involving sexual exploitation of children.

It could be very potent stuff. And it means that while Democrats will push for a final resolution to Epsteinpot Dome, and while they might be happy if that somehow comes to pass, the Party is likely better off if this lingers until, at very least, November 3 of this year. (Z)

DHS Negotiations Are Going Poorly

Congressional Democrats have their list of demands, if they are going to vote for a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Congressional Republicans are not especially interested, since negotiating legislation is apparently the job of Donald Trump. And yesterday, the news broke that, as far as the White House is concerned, one of the Democrats' demands is a dealbreaker.

So, which demand is it? We would say it's the one that the blue team and its voters care about the most: The requirement that ICE officers (and other DHS personnel) have actual judicial warrants, as opposed to permission slips (aka "administrative warrants") written by some DHS flunky. Reportedly, the administration describes this demand as a "complete non-starter."

There are some items on the Democrats' demand list, like the masks, that maybe they can back off a bit. But this one? We just don't see how. First, those pseudo-warrants are, perhaps, the single most important tool that ICE uses to trample on people's civil liberties. If the blue team gave in on that, their base would be spitting-fire furious. On top of that, this issue speaks to a fundamental issue with Trump, namely that he tramples on the prerogatives of the other branches, and that he's erasing checks and balances. So, not only can the Democrats not give in on this when it comes to the specific concern of ICE/DHS, they also cannot give in on this when it comes to the broader concern of good governance and the sanctity of the Constitution.

On that point, let's pass along a message we got from reader D.G. in Occupied Saint Paul, MN:

Despite what the government wants you to believe, the situation on the ground in the Twin Cities has not changed much in the last week. If anything. ICE has stepped up its intimidation of observers, smashing windows and dragging people out of their cars, issuing verbal threats and illegally detaining citizens and documented immigrants. You know, typical well-trained law enforcement behavior.

But my main reason for writing is to once again call on the Democrats to hold firm. Don't fund DHS if that's what's necessary. Frankly, their 10 negotiating points are pathetic. Every one of them is normal, ordinary police behavior in a functional constitutional Republic. This is the bare minimum. ICE needs to be dismantled.

Where is the call for using marked vehicles? ICE has already caused several crashes due to their reckless driving. They have roughed up citizens. They allowed literal Nazi Jake Lang to ride in the back of an open U-Haul, through protesters, covering them with pepper spray and shooting paintball guns into the crowd. Jake Lang had a restraining order against him. Why was no one in his group arrested? They arrest protesters all the time.

The mass media has done a terrific job of misleading people about what is going on. Everything seems focused on Minneapolis, but the same things are happening across the river in Saint Paul. The same things are happening in the suburbs like Roseville, Little Canada, Eagan, Richfield, Saint Louis Park and Maple Grove. The same things are happening in the medium-sized cities like Rochester, Saint Cloud, Mankato and Duluth. The same things are happening in the small towns like Willmar, St. Peter and Northfield.

This is not a urban vs. rural issue. It isn't a Democrat vs. Republican issue. It's a human rights issue and it's happening all over our state.

To be absolutely clear, ICE out of Minnesota is not enough. The last thing Minnesotans want is for this chaos to be inflicted on another community. ICE and CBP must be dismantled and a new organization put in its place. We are past the time for reform. The culture is deeply warped from legitimate border control to intimidation and control of people. Shut down DHS if you have to. We're not getting any funding from this administration anyway.

Again, is there ANY plausible way that the Democrats can back down on the judicial warrants? We can't see how. It would be gross political malpractice.

So, unless someone (presumably the White House) blinks very soon, the 2 weeks will run out, and then DHS will partly shut down. ICE, as it turns out, will still be able to operate, because it has a pot of money from the Big, Beautiful Bill. We erred on that point previously. But TSA will shut down, and FEMA, and the Coast Guard, and a host of others. Then, both sides would point the finger at the other side, and the voters would get to decide who wins. We still think that the Democrats would have the much stronger hand in that scenario, but the proof is in the pudding. (Z)

The Cheese Is Slipping off the Cracker, Part 322

On one hand, this is getting close to dog-bites-man territory these days. On the other hand, the man is the sitting president of the United States, and theoretically has his finger on the nuclear button. So, when one of his performances is extra shocking, even by his (current) standards, we think we have to pass it along.

Here is one of the messages he posted to his Looney Tunes social media platform yesterday. In case readers don't want to try to parse an only semi-comprehensible stream-of-consciousness wall of text, we bolded the REALLY crazypants parts:

As everyone knows, the Country of Canada has treated the United States very unfairly for decades. Now, things are turning around for the U.S.A., and FAST! But imagine, Canada is building a massive bridge between Ontario and Michigan. They own both the Canada and the United States side and, of course, built it with virtually no U.S. content. President Barack Hussein Obama stupidly gave them a waiver so they could get around the BUY AMERICAN Act, and not use any American products, including our Steel. Now, the Canadian Government expects me, as President of the United States, to PERMIT them to just "take advantage of America!" What does the United States of America get—Absolutely NOTHING! Ontario won't even put U.S. spirits, beverages, and other alcoholic products, on their shelves, they are absolutely prohibited from doing so and now, on top of everything else, Prime Minister Carney wants to make a deal with China—which will eat Canada alive. We'll just get the leftovers! I don't think so. The first thing China will do is terminate ALL Ice Hockey being played in Canada, and permanently eliminate The Stanley Cup. The Tariffs Canada charges us for our Dairy products have, for many years, been unacceptable, putting our Farmers at great financial risk. I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve. We will start negotiations, IMMEDIATELY. With all that we have given them, we should own, perhaps, at least one half of this asset. The revenues generated because of the U.S. Market will be astronomical. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

We have four questions:

1. What the hell is he talking about? What, exactly, is the mechanism of action by which China, which is just a trading partner of Canada, can shut down "ALL Ice Hockey" and get rid of the Stanley Cup?
   
   
2. Who, exactly, is the audience for this? Does he think Canadians/Mark Carney will be cowed into submission by his unhinged ramblings? Is he trying to make nice with the small group of Canada MAGA separatists, in hopes they'll try to break free, and maybe make Alberta the 51st state? Does he think there are Americans who are reading this and saying, "Now THAT is what leadership looks like!"
   
   
3. Is there any explanation for a screed like this that does not involve, on some level, the conclusion that his brain is diseased, or damaged, or both? Could a person with all their faculties actually crank messages like this out, on a near daily basis?
   
   
4. What, exactly, would the response have been if Joe Biden had issued forth with even ONE message like this? Much less a message (or two, or three) like this NEARLY EVERY DAY?

Oh, and since he's prattling on about steel, we might as well pass along this crime against statistics that the White House posted to its official eX-Twitter account last week, with the note "American steel is BACK!":

That looks very impressive, unless you actually examine the y-axis, and figure out that the increase was about 1 Mt, which, on a year-by-year basis, is just a rounding error. It's also an increase of about 1.3%, despite the fact that the bar chart makes it looks like the increase was closer to 100%. Perhaps this is the same "math" that allows Trump to claim that he's going to cut prescription prices by 500%?

You know, we bet that even some MAGA folks are secretly looking forward to a day when there's a normal president who is not surrounded by a constant whirlwind of lunacy. (Z)

The Administration Is Working on a Rule That Guts the Pendleton Act

In his first term, Donald Trump hatched a plan (well, OK, Russell Vought hatched a plan) to implement something they called Schedule F. It would exempt something like 50,000 civil servants covered by the Pendleton Act and suddenly make them political appointees subject to being fired on a presidential whim. On his first day in office, Joe Biden rescinded Schedule F.

Now Trump has renamed it Schedule Policy/Career and is pushing it through, despite the Pendleton Act, which makes it difficult for the president to fire civil servants except for cause. Their disagreeing with his policies and refusing to do things that violate the law is not "cause." The 255-page schedule also removes protections for whistleblowers and does much more to give the president additional powers. Like Schedule F, it would turn 50,000 civil servants into political appointees. Currently, about 4,000 government employees are political appointees. This is already one or two orders of magnitude more than any other democracy, where typically everyone below the cabinet and subcabinet are permanent civil service employees who do not change when a new administration comes in.

The move was very unpopular the first time around and still is. The Pendleton Act was passed in the first place to end the spoils system and make working in the civil service be based on competence, not being a crony of the president. There will be lawsuits, of course. Democracy Forward has already filed one, in fact. Its president, Skye Perryman, said: "This is a deliberate attempt to do through regulation what the law does not allow—strip public servants of their rights and make it easier to fire them for political reasons and harm the American people through doing so." The American Federation of Government Employees called it a "direct assault" on the civil service. Its president, Everett Kelley, said: "When people see turmoil and controversy in Washington, they don't ask for more politics in government, they ask for competence and professionalism. OPM [Office of Personnel Management] is doing the opposite. They're rebranding career public servants as 'policy' employees, silencing whistleblowers, and replacing competent professionals with political flunkies without any neutral, independent protections against politicization and arbitrary abuse of power."

The new rule does not spell out which specific positions have been moved from protected civil service positions to the newly reestablished patronage system. It leaves that decision up to the president, so any time a civil servant does something the president doesn't like, the president can reclassify the position and then fire the employee. The Pendleton Act was intended to stop precisely that. Trump likes the patronage system better and OPM has now obliged with its new rule.

Trump, of course, is an ignoramus when it comes to both history and civics. And the people around him (like Vought) aren't much better, by all appearances. It was the various presidents of the Gilded Age, starting with Rutherford B. Hayes, who pushed for this legislation, because there were some pretty big benefits in it for them. Most obviously, it's a real pain to find hundreds, or thousands, or tens of thousands of people who are even baseline-level competent, and then to get them up-to-speed and able to do their jobs. Even if a president sacrifices some amount of loyalty by having pros on the job, he gains enormously in terms of ability to get things done.

Another issue is that the more patronage there is to hand out, well, the more hands that are out. If you have a few thousand people who would really like to be considered for, say, a thousand high-level jobs, that's easier to manage than if you have 100,000 people who would really like to be considered for 50,000 jobs. This is a logistical issue, but it's also an issue of angering those for whom the answer is "no." A thousand or so disappointed office-seekers are less likely to do damage to a president than fifty thousand disappointed office-seekers are. Indeed, the thing that pushed the Pendleton Act over the line was when a disappointed office-seeker assassinated James Garfield. Trump probably doesn't risk assassination, but angry people could lobby their communities against Trump, or they could spill any dirt they might have to the press, or they could mount primary challenges to Trumpy candidates, or they could become anti-Trump pundits, or a whole slew of other thorn-in-the-side things.

Undoubtedly, Trump/Vought think that they will be able to use people's desire to keep their jobs as a way to intimidate them into doing the administration's bidding. Good luck with that; bureaucrats are very good at slow-walking things, so that they aren't exactly defying orders, but they aren't getting things done, either. And if Trump does fire some large swathe of the federal bureaucracy, does anyone really think he'll be able to fill those jobs anytime soon? He and his people are pretty good at finding fawning lackeys. But they aren't too good at finding fawning lackeys who are competent (even a few of them, much less 5,000). Think about what a train wreck Kristi Noem has been, or Ed Martin, or Alina Habba. Then multiply that by a thousand.

In any case, it's yet another bit of drama to add to the pile. In the end, like everything else in the country, this will land on John Roberts' plate and he and his band of merry men (and woman) will get to decide whether law and precedent actually mean anything. (V & Z)

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