This is unfortunate, but it's the correct choice: We're going to need to take one more weekend off. In an effort to identify the cause of the kidney infections, like the one that wiped out last weekend, (Z) was scheduled several weeks ago for a medical procedure (in other words, BEFORE getting sick last weekend). This procedure, which was not well explained, took place yesterday. And it turns out it wasn't so much a scan from a machine (though it was that, too), it was something close to a full-blown operation, with anesthesia and everything. The incision is exactly where one's waist bends when sitting at a desk, and, truth be told, it hurts. The doctor also said to "take it very easy" over the weekend. So while (Z) felt well enough to do today's post, it is probably best not to gamble, and to fully recover, so as to avoid the risk of losing more than a weekend.

Not to overshare, but vague "there's a health issue" notes are generally worse than just telling what the issue is. Anyhow, see you on Monday!

1954, Meet 2026

Students sometimes struggle to wrap their heads around the periodization of the Vietnam War, and the fact that different sources list different start dates for that conflict. It's not too hard; there was no Pearl Harbor for Vietnam, but there was a fall of the French colonial regime, accompanied by the partition of the nation and the arrival of a few dozen U.S. military advisers (1954), with that few dozen growing to a few hundred and then a few thousand over the next decade. And there was also a little incident in the Gulf of Tonkin, followed by a use of force resolution, followed by a dramatic increase in the number of troops (1964). So, it's really just a question of "when U.S. troops first arrived" vs. "when things got serious."

One cannot help but sense parallels with the burgeoning Iran War, albeit on an extremely accelerated timeline (as is always the case with this administration). First, it was the June 2025 airstrikes on Iran, which Donald Trump said had ended Iran's nuclear program for all time, defanging them as a threat to U.S. national security. Then it was the bombings of Tehran a few weeks ago, which were also meant to end the supposedly-already-ended nuclear threat. Since then, the U.S. and its one real ally here (Israel) have continued to pour it on, with Trump claiming that the U.S. has "destroyed 100% of Iran's Military Capability." Hm, interesting. As those wry Brits at The Economist observed earlier this week: "Although President Donald Trump says he has 'destroyed 100% of Iran's Military Capability,' the 0% that remains is playing havoc with the global economy."

Despite the President's multiple claims of total victory, and his suggestion that the U.S. might leave Iran at any time, the administration continues slip-sliding its way toward another long, drawn-out "forever" war. Yesterday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that the United States is about to launch its "largest strike yet." As a historian, (Z) can tell you that the purpose of such a massive strike is generally to bring the enemy to its knees. If it works (e.g., Hiroshima and Nagasaki), then great. But usually all it does is kill a bunch of people and cause the enemy to become more entrenched (e.g., the Battle of the Somme, Operation Rolling Thunder, etc.). By all indications, the regime in Iran is the latter type of foe (more entrenched) and not the former (we surrender!).

This "largest strike yet" will presumably be conducted with planes and drones and missiles, since that is how this war has been waged by the U.S. so far. However, there is also reporting that the Pentagon is making preliminary arrangements to deploy thousands more soldiers in the region and, critically, to begin deploying them on Iranian soil (specifically, along the Strait of Hormuz). And once you've got a few thousand soldiers occupying enemy territory, what's a thousand more? And a thousand more beyond that? And a thousand more beyond that?

Coincident with the announcement of the "largest strike yet," the administration also asked Congress for money to keep prosecuting the war. How much? They want $200 billion, an amount that Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) described as "staggering." Needless to say, that is a figure that is completely incompatible with "this thing will be over in a week or so."

The House Republican Conference, which is of course a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump Organization, welcomed the request for more funds. Or, at least, the leadership, starting with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), certainly did. In fact, some House Republicans are licking their chops, because they think this might be their key to a second reconciliation bill full of all sorts of goodies. The logic is that many members would be afraid to vote against an appropriation for the Pentagon, for fear of being accused of not supporting the troops.

This line of thinking seems like fantasy to us. First, consider the $200 billion as just a standalone bill. We would imagine that there are many Republicans in the House who would vote against it (and we already know of two, because Reps. Lauren Boebert, R-CO, and Thomas Massie, R-KY, said they would). Meanwhile, why would Democrats be cowed into paying for a war they had no voice in approving, that they largely don't support, and that is unpopular with the public in general and with Democratic and independent voters in particular? Any Democratic member who got "Why don't you support our troops?" at a town hall would answer, "I do, but I don't support another 10,000 $6 million missiles for use against a country that posed no threat to the U.S., and where military action was not approved by Congress." That would probably get an ovation.

Yes, we think Democrats would hold the line on a standalone bill, particularly in the Senate, where getting to 60 votes would be a near-impossibility. The Senate problem is why the reconciliation idea is being bandied about, of course, because that only requires 50 votes in the upper chamber. However, there is still the problem of getting enough Republican votes, in both chambers. Further, everyone wants to put their particular goodies into reconciliation bills. And if there was a second Trump v2.0 reconciliation bill, it would run headfirst into the problem of GOP members who want some pork and maybe some tax cuts versus Freedom Caucusers who want to cut spending to make up for any new outlays. Put another way, it will be hard to get the correct number of Republican votes for just a standalone bill. It will be even harder for a reconciliation bill that has the $200 billion plus a bunch of other stuff.

There's one other story on the Iran front that we should mention right now, because there's a possibility it comes home to roost before we're back at it on Monday. DNI Tulsi Gabbard appeared on the Hill yesterday to be questioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee. It would be fair to say it was Kristi-Noem-level disastrous, for two reasons. The first is that Gabbard provided a written opening statement to the committee, but when she read her own statement (which is usually what is done at the start of committee testimony) she noticeably left out this portion:

As a result of Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran's nuclear enrichment program was obliterated. There has been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability. The entrances to the underground facilities that were bombed have been buried and shuttered with cement.

The problem here is that this runs entirely contrary to Trump's claim that the re-invasion of Iran was necessary to re-crush their nuclear program. When asked why she self-edited, Gabbard lamely remarked that she was "running short on time."

The other issue, though related to the first, is that in response to questioning from Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Gabbard refused to say whether Iran was an imminent threat to the U.S., and declared that identifying imminent threats isn't her job. Of course, it is exactly her job. In fact, you almost couldn't come up with a simpler description of the DNI's job than "they identify imminent threats to the U.S."

So, Gabbard looked foolish and, more importantly, she looked like she was just saying whatever she needed to say to avoid making Trump look bad. Trump likes it when people cover his a** for him, but he doesn't like it when it's so obvious that everyone is saying "She was just covering Trump's a** for him." Trump is also very angry about Joe Kent still, and while he is now beyond reach, his close ally and former boss Gabbard is not. So, there is much supposition that Gabbard will be fired, or will "resign" before the weekend is out. Remember that, for Noem, once the end came, it came fast. (Z)

Legal Bytes: Roll, Jordan, Roll (Eggs, That Is)

Some weeks, we need to catch up on the legal news, before it gets away from us. This is one of those weeks:

Eggheads: So much winning losing! Yesterday, the White House suffered another inevitable loss when U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi (a Trump appointee) ruled that the administration does not have standing to sue California over their more stringent egg safety laws just because it (the White House) has different standards, and that if executive agencies were allowed to impose themselves like this, it would make possible all kinds of abuses.

Also, you know how sometimes we write marijuana items with a bunch of marijuana-related slang snuck in? Well, Scarsi did the same in his ruling, except with eggs.

Our Take: Someone in this administration should consider reading the Wikipedia article on Federalism in the United States and, even more important, the one on the Tenth Amendment.

---

Unemployment Rate Inches Upward: The courts have declined to extend the appointment of two more interim U.S. Attorneys.

One of those is in the Eastern District of Wisconsin, where the federal district judges just said "no" to Brad Schimel. In this case, the judges did not select a replacement and were careful not to criticize Schimel or the office. In fact, the judges praised the office's work. Schimel is a former state court judge who ran for the Wisconsin Supreme Court with the considerable financial backing of Elon Musk. Schimel lost to Susan Crawford, who vowed to follow the law and keep the court independent of political influence. Schimel's term expired on March 17.

The other was in the Western District of Virginia, where the judges declined to extend the term of Robert Tracci. The judges also said they would not choose a replacement but would wait until Donald Trump appointed someone who was confirmed by the Senate. Tracci's term was up on March 18.

Our Take: Presumably in both offices, the first assistant U.S. attorney will lead the office until a permanent U.S. Attorney is confirmed, unless "Attorney General" Pam Bondi pulls some other shenanigans to evade the court's ruling.

In any case, these fights continue to play out, with the Department of Justice refusing to follow the law and to recognize the court's authority under the Vacancies Act to deny an extension and then appoint a temporary U.S. Attorney. Each time the courts have done that, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche or Bondi have fired them. And Bondi's insistence in keeping these people in place has real consequences on the ground since, without an actual U.S. Attorney, they need main DoJ approval for just about everything. This will eventually reach the Supreme Court, but like so many things this White House does, if they would just appoint competent people to lead these offices in the first place instead of partisan loyalists, it would save everyone lots of time, money and resources.

---

And as Long as We Are on the Subject of Unemployment: A couple of FBI agents, who were fired by Director Kash Patel because they had the temerity to follow orders when they were told to work on the investigation of Arctic Frost (the internal code name for the efforts to overturn the 2020 election), have sued, asserting that Patel did not observe FBI and federal policy, which says that people can only be fired for cause. It would seem that the two agents are father and son, because court documents identify them as John Doe I and John Doe II.

Our Take: There were already a bunch of suits like this, and there will be a bunch more. What we will be interested to see is, if a Democratic administration is returned in the 2028 elections: (1) Will there be a tsunami of such suits, from people who have been holding out for more gentle treatment? and (2) However many such suits there are, will a Democratic administration just drop the government's defenses, and thus give the plaintiffs an automatic victory? If folks just want their jobs back, that would seem to be a no-brainer. But if they want a million dollars in damages, it's trickier. On one hand, that could get expensive fast, but on the other, a Democratic president presumably doesn't want to be defending the Trump administration's capricious firings in court.

We guess that situations like this are why God invented settlement conferences.

---

Loaded for Bear: It seems the "AG" isn't the only one making illegal appointments. Bobby Kennedy Jr. got in on the action by firing all the members of the ACIP, which recommends vaccines, information that insurers use to determine what to cover. Kennedy stacked the board with his cronies, who predictably trashed vaccines and made false claims about their effectiveness and safety. But he then bypassed even them and made up his own schedule, which included removing certain vaccines that have protected school kids from infectious diseases for decades.

Now, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy of the District of Massachusetts has ruled that Kennedy's actions violated multiple federal laws. Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist, explains it thoroughly: "A win for your access to vaccines, federal accountability, and health."

The Judge struck down not only the current committee but also any actions they took. So, the old vaccine regime remains in effect. Kennedy violated laws that require a certain make-up of members on the ACIP and also that require the CDC to consult with ACIP. In addition, he acted "arbitrarily and capriciously" in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act.

Our Take: Public health officials are breathing a sigh of relief that the old schedule will remain in place. Several states have already broken with the CDC and have formed their own science-based vaccine committees that insurers must follow, but the poorest states have not. Kennedy has vowed to appeal, of course, but for now, the quacks can't make kids sick—or, should we say, any more sick thanks to their already having made measles great again.

---

You Don't Mess Around with Jim: Judge James Boasberg, the Chief Judge for the federal district courts in the District of Columbia, has issued two orders that aim to curb the administration's retribution campaign. Last week, he granted a motion to quash subpoenas issued by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office to the Federal Reserve Board and Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

Anyone who paid attention in law school knows that the feds can't just issue subpoenas to harass people; there has to be a valid legal basis and they can't be served for an unlawful purpose. Presumably, Pirro knows it, too. The judge found that the only purpose of the subpoenas was to intimidate Powell because he had displeased the president. Pirro has vowed to appeal, as Trump officials always do, but for now, the investigation, such as it is, is on life support. It's clear Powell is not going anywhere and his term as chair is up in May, so the smart thing to do would be to cut their losses and move on to investigating actual crimes. But don't hold your breath.

In addition, Boasberg has ordered the DoJ to report to the magistrate judge whenever a grand jury has declined to indict. As a result, the Court will be better able to track prosecutors' efforts to harass people when they don't result in an indictment and prosecutors drop the case.

Our Take: It's clear that Boasberg is getting really fed up with the DoJ using the criminal justice system as a tool of revenge and he's coming up with effective ways to put a stop to it. Whatever deference or benefit of the doubt the government used to enjoy in his courtroom is gone. And he is a very well-respected judge, so you can bet other district judges are following his actions closely and will likely follow suit. And Pirro is really taking it on the chin in D.C. and looking increasingly unhinged. In a press conference that she called in response to Boasberg's ruling on the Powell subpoenas, she basically said that she doesn't care whether a case she brings has any merit. If she wants to bring a frivolous case, she will. We suspect the D.C. bar will take note of that admission.

And that's the latest. Court adjourned. (L & Z)

In Congress: Markwayne Mullin Nomination Advanced to the Senate Floor

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) sat for his grilling with the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee yesterday, and made it through. Depending on how you look at things, you might say he advanced because he got the vote of every single Republican on the Committee.

The chair of the Committee, and this was just Mullin's bad luck, is Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). Paul loathes Mullin and, of course, he's only R-KY because you can't win elections as L-KY. The Chairman came out of the gate with barrels blazing. He first demanded that Mullin apologize for his approving remarks about the time Paul was attacked by his neighbor. He then asked some very pointed questions about Mullin's anger management, accompanied by considerable footage of the Oklahoman losing his cool in various situations. The climax of that super-cut was, of course, the footage of Mullin challenging Teamsters President Sean O'Brien to a fight during a committee hearing.

Paul's obsession with demanding an apology for the personal insult (an apology he did not get) is a little silly. On the other hand, as reason's Jacob Sullum points out, the temperament concern is very valid, indeed. Mullin is very clearly a hothead, and has often expressed an attitude toward violence that is somewhere between "laissez faire" and "enthusiastic." This is not the ideal profile for anyone who would presume to be head of DHS. It's even worse right now, given what DHS has been doing, and given who Mullin would be succeeding.

That said, Mullin survived. Paul voted against him, but the nominee's bacon was saved by Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman. When Fetterman began his career, he seemed to be the second coming of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). As it turns out, he is the second coming of Joe Manchin. That's as big a surprise as Kyrsten Sinema's evolution from lefty firebrand to hardcore centrist (and not-so-secret grifter). Oh, well, you know what Ben Franklin said about the effect of power upon people.

For Mullin to fail when he comes up before the whole Senate, he would have to lose Paul's vote, plus all the non-Fetterman Democrats and independents, plus four other Republicans. The first part of that is definite, the second part is very likely, and the third part is exceedingly unlikely. The Senate Republican Conference has signed off on considerably worse candidates than Markwayne Mullin, and if four of them were going to rebel, they would already have hinted at it to reporters. So, expect him to be on the job by sometime next week. (Z)

"Hero" Is Not a Noun, It's a Verb

That observation comes from, of all people, the actor Robert Downey Jr. Undoubtedly he's had to give this particular subject more thought than most people, since the signature role of his career was Iron Man, a fellow who does heroic things, but is sometimes not much of a hero (he is, after all, an arms dealer).

This particular conundrum, or paradox, or whatever you wish to call it, looms large in the mind right now, particularly for residents of California, and for members of the Mexican-American community. That is because Cesar Chavez, who most certainly did heroic things, has now been outed—more than 30 years after his death—as someone who was most certainly not a hero.

Actually, Chavez was a... complicated figure even before this week. His iconic status was rooted, of course, in his work with the United Farm Workers, and his success in securing better working conditions for agricultural laborers. However, he was a labor leader first, second, and third, and did not regard himself (until late in life) as a leader of the Mexican community. Consequently, he was famously hostile to undocumented immigrants, often turning them over to the FBI when he discovered their immigration status. His reasoning, which was absolutely correct from the vantage point of a labor leader, was that the undocumented immigrants were bad PR (since the enemies of the UFW slurred the union as "a bunch of illegals") and they were the likeliest people to be hired to cross the UFW's picket lines.

Broadly speaking, fans of Chavez have dealt with that by either not knowing it (and Z has had hundreds of students come up after lecture and say they had no idea about his anti-undocumented-immigrant activism), or by accepting that a labor leader's gotta do what a labor leader's gotta do, or by saying "well, nobody's perfect."

There's not going to be any "dealing" with the latest revelations, though. On Wednesday, a couple of weeks before Chavez' birthday, and thus the various celebrations and commemorations that always accompany that date on the calendar (March 31), The New York Times published the results of an investigation into the labor leader's past. As it turns out, he was something of a Latino Jeffrey Epstein. There are no reports that Chavez trafficked anyone—at least, no reports so far—but he did groom and rape girls, he did use his power as the leader of the UFW to press women into non-consensual sex, and he did use job termination (or the threat of termination) to punish those who did not accommodate his sexual demands and/or to make sure that nobody told what they knew.

The Times' reporting is based on two very credible accounts from two women, now in their 60s, who explained, in detail, how they were either raped (one victim) or molested (the other) by Chavez well before reaching the age of consent, and how the grooming that made that possible began when they were 12. The newspaper writes that it found a great deal of corroborating evidence to back up the two women's accounts, though it doesn't provide a lot of specifics, very likely to protect additional victims.

What seals the deal, and puts the claims beyond any and all doubt, is that the Times also talked to Chavez' most famous associate, Dolores Huerta, who is still among us at the age of 95. She confirmed that she too was victimized, and issued a statement that reads, in part:

I am nearly 96 years old, and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for.

I have encouraged people to always use their voice. Following the New York Times' multi-year investigation into sexual misconduct by Cesar Chavez, I can no longer stay silent and must share my own experiences.

As a young mother in the 1960s, I experienced two separate sexual encounters with Cesar. The first time I was manipulated and pressured into having sex with him, and I didn't feel I could say no because he was someone that I admired, my boss and the leader of the movement I had already devoted years of my life to. The second time I was forced, against my will, and in an environment where I felt trapped.

I had experienced abuse and sexual violence before, and I convinced myself these were incidents that I had to endure alone and in secret. Both sexual encounters with Cesar led to pregnancies. I chose to keep my pregnancies secret and, after the children were born, I arranged for them to be raised by other families that could give them stable lives.

If anyone prefers to read in Spanish, there is a Spanish-language version available at the link.

The reaction to this news, which hit university campuses in California and elsewhere like a thunderclap, has been shockingly swift. Within a few hours of the news breaking on Wednesday, there were e-mails going out to students and faculty offering counseling to anyone who needed help processing the information. Not long thereafter, there were cancellations of dozens if not hundreds of Chavez-centered events that were to be hosted by schools, or labor organizations, or communities.

Yesterday, the actions were even more decisive. Chavez statues and murals have been wrapped in plastic, or crated, or otherwise covered as the cities that host them figure out how to proceed. Some monuments, such as the one in San Fernando, have already been taken down. Street signs are also being taken down, and street names are being changed, or will be. It took the state of California less than 24 hours to rename Cesar Chavez Day, which is an official holiday and a day off for state employees, as Farmworkers Day. Other states are expected to make similar moves, with Minnesota furthest along that path. The UCLA Cesar Chavez Center has similarly already been renamed the UCLA Chicano/a Studies Center—and trust us, by the standards of academia, that is light-speed fast. Other universities with programs or research centers named after Chavez are not going to be far behind.

(Z), as you can imagine, has something akin to a front-row seat for all of this. And so, he can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that these moves are driven by one thing, and one thing only, and that is to do right by Chavez' victims, and to immediately stop lionizing someone for whom that has now become distasteful. There are millions of people who are devastated to have lost a hero, but they would be even more devastated to carry on with a terrible lie.

Put another way, there was absolutely nothing about this that involved "scoring" political points, or trying to make a statement about national politics, or anything along those lines. When Sen. Al Franken (DFL-MN) got cashiered, at least a part of that was Democrats performing "us vs. them" theater, and trying to show that the blue team is way better on these issues than the red team, with particular reference to then-U.S. Senate candidates Doug Jones and Roy Moore.

(Z) can assure you that nobody was thinking in this way, or talking in this way, when it came to Chavez. And yet—and we point it out because this IS a politics-centered site—that IS the message that comes through. The new evidence against Chavez is rock-solid; nobody can seriously doubt its veracity. And the new evidence against Chavez is also eerily similar to the evidence against some of the people who were a part of Epstein's web, most obviously Les Wexner, Leon Black and Donald Trump. We don't expect there to be swift action when it comes to those men, and probably not any action at all. But it's worth pointing out that righting these sorts of wrongs is not partisan, in most cases. It's only partisan in the case of one particular wing of one particular party when it comes to one particular miscreant.

There's another politics angle here, as well. As chance would have it, (Z)'s lecture on Mexicans in California is coming up in a few weeks. As you might imagine, Cesar Chavez is the central figure of the lecture (along with Dolores Huerta). So, he's got a fairly short amount of time to figure out what to do with that. The Trump administration approach to messy history, of course, is to Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive, and to pretend there is nothing else.

That really never works, at least not with college students, and this particular situation is an especially good illustration of why. It is simply not possible to tell the story of Mexicans in California without talking about Chavez. That would be like talking about the Civil War and neglecting to mention Robert E. Lee. At the same time, if you only talk about Chavez' public works, and you don't address what is now the 800-pound gorilla in the room, you are telling a lie of omission. Students would be outraged, as well they should be.

So, (Z) will have to find a way to integrate the new information, and to make it a teachable moment. There are, of course, plenty of historical figures who did good things, but were bad guys or gals. But with Chavez, the gap between public persona and private individual is unusually large, and feelings are particularly raw right now. It's going to be tricky to get it right. (Z)

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Sam Malone Starred in Sinners... Really

(Z) often has students, including a few right now, whose names would surely have been off limits 20-30 years ago, due to teasing. So it would seem to be with the up-and-coming actor Sam Malone, who happens to bear the same name as the lead character of Cheers, arguably the most successful comedy on TV in the 1980s. (Z) always wonders if parents don't know about the parallelism, or they know but think people have forgotten, or what. But it can be a little jarring to, say, hand back essays and have to call out the names of "Steve McQueen" and "Alex Keaton."

Oh, and in case anyone looks it up, the actor was born in 1984, when Cheers was in its third season and was already a hit. So, if you had to guess, you would have to guess his parents knew. Maybe they even did it deliberately. On the other hand, even popular shows are not watched by everyone, particularly early in their runs. Plus, the Malone family (the actors, not the Cheers characters) is Black. (Z)'s final exam as an undergrad, in Comm 10 (Intro to Mass Communications) involved being presented with a list of the top 10 shows of the 1980s for white households and a list of the top 10 shows of the 1980s for Black households, and the only show on both lists was The Cosby Show. So, it's very possible a Black family in 1984 had zero awareness of Cheers, in the way that a white family might name their kid Tyler Perry without knowing.

Anyhow, we only gave one hint last week (unexpectedly), and it was: "the correct answer could be expressed in a couple of different ways, but that all variants that are correct will include one (and only one) word that is in French. If your answer does not have a word that is French in it, you're barking up the wrong tree. Or the wrong arbre."

And here is the solution, courtesy of reader T.K. in Half Moon Bay, St. Kitts:

The headlines all contain the title of an example of film noir:

• The Iran War, Part I: All the King's Horses, and All the King's Men, Could Not Get the Oil Market Stable Again
• The Iran War, Part II: We Would Say This Is Cause for Alarm
• Legal News: Don't Forget, Judges Are Notorious for Being Slow and Steady
• I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: The Blue Dahlia... Also Likes Teals
• This Week in Schadenfreude: Who Grifts the Grifters?
• This Week in Freudenfreude: NetZero Could Be an Ace in the Hole for the U.K.

Have a great weekend, maybe grab lunch in Chinatown.

Forget it, Jake. Or T.K. Oh, and Sinners, from this headline, is also a noir film (though some prefer to say neo-noir).

Here are the first 60 readers to get it right:

C.A. in West Palm Beach, FL M.B. in Albany, NY J.T. in Philadelphia, PA M.S. in Canton, NY P.R. in Havertown, PA S.G. in Durham, NC J.S. in Huntington Station, NY R.S. in Landing, NJ R.N. in Cleveland OH S.K. in Ardmore, PA D.B. in Pittsboro, NC G.W. in Avon, CT K.M. in Ypsilanti, MI M.W. in Marlborough, CT J.H. in Walla Walla, WA M.T. in Wheat Ridge, CO P.A. in Redwood City, CA S.J.V. in New York City, NY M.J. in Oakdale, MN T.K. in Half Moon Bay D.S. in Layton, UT J.M. in Eagle Mills, NY S.W. in Winter Garden, FL T.T. in Conway, AR R.S. in Pittsgrove, NJ J.M. in New York City, NY E.S. in Cincinnati, OH T.C. in Key West, FL N.H. in London, England, UK M.W. in Altea, Spain

D.S. in Fort Collins, CO M.K. in Seattle, WA D.D. in Bucks County, PA D.G. in Wood-Ridge, NJ K.R. in Austin, TX M.M. in Dunellen, NJ G.S. (with help from Mrs. G.S.) in Basingstoke, England, UK E.K. in Berkeley, CA S.A. in Downey, CA M.T. in Simpsonville, SC J.F. in Fayetteville, NC R.J.S. in Peoria, AZ G.K. in Blue Island, IL P.L. in Skövde, Sweden A.C. in Bangor, Northern Ireland L.D. in Bedford, MA D.B. in Glendale, CA M.B. in Menlo Park, CA M.K. in Long Branch, NJ D.M. in Oakland, CA J.N. in Zionsville, IN S.W. in Corvallis, OR W.L. in Springfield, MO B.N. in San Rafael, CA M.A. in West Windsor, NJ J.M.R. in Muncie, IN M.K. in Maplewood, NJ B.B. in Avon, CT M.W. in Frederick, MD M.S. in New York City, NY

The 60th correct response was received at 10:12 a.m. PT on Friday.

For this week's theme, it relies on one word per headline, and it's in the category Sports. For a hint, we'll say that you might think "O'Neal" should be a potential clue, but that is actually not correct (to the chagrin of many people, including Z, in the relevant time period).

If you have a guess, send it to comments@electoral-vote.com with subject line March 20 Headlines. (Z)

This Week in Schadenfreude: A Little Bird Told Me Never to Hire One of Those Pinko MIT Law Grads

We've been trying to get to this for a few weeks, but more pressing stories came up. Still, it's worth making sure that we get to it, because while the implementation of the policy is schadenfreude-worthy, the policy itself is nothing to sneeze at, because it's quite authoritarian.

This administration, of course, has declared war against higher education. Not all higher education, we suppose, in that they're fine with the "educations" being proffered at places like Bob Jones "University," but certainly most higher education. And leading the fight, by all appearances, is Pete Hegseth. He is himself a graduate of two different Ivy League schools, namely Princeton and Harvard. And his approach has been described by many, appropriately we think, as "I've got mine, and I'm going to pull up the ladder behind me before you can get yours."

One tool that Hegseth can leverage is the various programs wherein the military trades tuition for some sort of military commitment. This includes the Funded Legal Education Program, which the Judge Advocate Recruiting Office uses to attract new talent to run the military's court system. Basically, "We'll pay your law school tuition, and then you'll come work for us for [X] years." Late last month, well after most law school application deadlines had passed, the Department of Defense sent out a long list of private law schools no longer eligible for this program. Allow us to highlight a selection of schools from the list, and see if you see a recurring problem:

Brown
Carnegie Mellon
Florida Institute of Technology
Hawaii Pacific University
Johns Hopkins
MIT
Princeton
Tufts

Note that there was supposed to be a second list of public schools that are now verboten, but if it was sent out, nobody has laid hands on it (the private schools list was snagged by Above the Law).

The problem, as readers may have gathered by now, is that none of these universities actually have law schools. The list did include a bunch of universities that DO have law schools, like Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Northwestern, but also a bunch that do not. The London School of Economics (LSE) was on the list, as well. And while it does have a law school, it is improbable that would-be U.S. military lawyers are looking to matriculate there. "Do you have a lawyer to defend you, General? No, but I DO have a barrister!"

In short, it's yet another slapdash job, just like the list of tariff countries that included an island full of penguins. They started with a list of top-ranked undergraduate schools, separated out the public schools, cut the University of Chicago off the list for unknown reasons (did they think it's also a public school?), and added a few kind of random schools, like Hawaii Pacific and LSE, possibly because they have well-established DEI programs.

All we know is that if Hegseth doesn't get at least a little more competent at his job, he's at risk of dying from schadenfreude poisoning. (Z)

This Week in Freudenfreude: Afroman Works His Magic

A lot of people get treated very badly by the police (see: ICE). And a lot of them suffer damage as a result. And relatively few of them are made whole, because the chances of successfully winning a police misconduct case are low enough that it's rarely worth it to make the attempt.

Afroman is not most people, however. The singer, best known for his novelty-ish reggae song "Because I Got High," found himself on the radar of sheriff's deputies in Adams County (Ohio), who apparently suspected he was engaged in drug trafficking. They wrecked his driveway gate, busted down his front door, (allegedly) pocketed $400 in cash, disabled his home security cameras, and even ate some lemon pound cake that was in his kitchen. The po-pos found no evidence, and did not charge the singer, but also did not apologize, or pay for any damage, or return his money.

Given his profession, Afroman has... options for getting even. And so he wrote, recorded, and released a string of music videos about the incident, including "Lemon Pound Cake," "Why You Disconnecting My Video Camera," "Will You Help Me Repair My Door?," and "Randy Walters is a Son of a Bitch." Randy Walters, as you might guess, is one of the deputies who participated in the invasion.

Foolishly, Walters and his department took the bait, and sued for defamation. And so, Afroman got his day in court, and he used it to full effect. The plaintiffs' lawyer was not so great, judging from video of the trial, and he backed himself into questions like "[Is there] anything that could change your mind about what you're doing to these deputies?" Hard to know what response he was looking for, but what he got from the defendant was:

Is there anything that can change my mind about the fact that they shouldn't have been at my house in the first place? Is there anything that can change my mind about how my money shouldn't have been touched in the first place? No.

Trying to clean up whatever argument he was making, the lawyer then asked Afroman what, "gave [him] the right to do everything..." Afroman cut him off and said:

Under the circumstance that I got freedom of speech after they run around my house with guns and kick down my door. I got the right to kick a can in my backyard, use my freedom of speech, turn my bad times into a good time. Yes, I do, and I think I'm a sport for doing so, because I don't go to their house, kick down their doors, flip them off on their surveillance cameras, then try to play the victim and sue them.

Thereafter, the plaintiffs' counsel said the smartest thing he'd said all day: "No further questions, your honor."

We should note that the cops got their chance on the stand, and Afroman's lawyer, David Osborne, ran circles around them, effectively getting them to admit that the song lyrics were satirical and not literal, and could not be understood in any other way. So, it is no surprise that the jury quickly found for the defendant. Afroman may not get his $400, or his pound cake, or his front door back, but he did score a pretty big moral victory, and one for free speech.

Have a good weekend, all! (Z)

---

Previous report         Next report

---

If you wish to contact us, please use one of these addresses. For the first two, please include your initials and city.

• questions@electoral-vote.com    For questions about politics, civics, history, etc. to be answered on a Saturday
• comments@electoral-vote.com   For "letters to the editor" for possible publication on a Sunday
• corrections@electoral-vote.com To tell us about typos or factual errors we should fix
• items@electoral-vote.com            For general suggestions, ideas, etc.

To download a poster about the site to hang up, please click here.

---

Email a link to a friend.

---The Votemaster and Zenger