This week is non-politics-question weekend. So, if you have questions about film, food, books, history, science, computers, sports, theater, television, music, geography, urban legends, fashion, humor, fads, puzzles, etc., please send them to questions@electoral-vote.com. That post takes the most time of any, so we like to get an early start.

Federal Government Shutdown Enters Week 4

As of yesterday, the current shutdown is the silver medalist, having pushed the 21-day shutdown of the Bill Clinton presidency into third place. And now, it's onward and upward to the record! (Cue the theme from Chariots of Fire.)

On Monday, the Senate considered a continuing resolution (CR), one that would fund the government short-term, for the 11th time, and failed to pass a CR for the 11th time. The headline that virtually every outlet went with was some variation of "Democrats block bill to end government shutdown for 11th time" (see here, here, here and here for examples). That framing seems a little leading to us; either side could have taken steps to advance the bill, and neither chose to do so.

At the moment, there is no meaningful negotiating going on. Or, if there is, it's not being made public. There is, however, a lot of energy being expended in the White House on trying to pay for certain key things without a budget. Federal employees have paydays coming up, and Trump does not want some of them to start staging sickouts if they don't get paid. In particular, the administration is trying to find a way to keep air traffic controllers on the payroll. There's also some attention being paid to farmers, to the next round of military paychecks and to WIC.

What Trump would very much like to do is use the money collected from tariffs—reportedly $200 billion so far—as a slush fund to pay for whatever he thinks is worth paying for. The problem—to clarify what we wrote earlier this week—is that the tariff funds go into the U.S. Treasury, and Trump can't legally spend the money without Congressional approval. It could hardly be otherwise; if a president had personal control over tariff revenues, then any and all presidents could use tariffs to create a presidential piggy bank to be utilized as they see fit, with virtually no oversight.

Trump is often willing to say "Congress be damned," and to do whatever he wants, of course. However, his underlings would have to play along, and some of them might not be so eager to break the law. Another issue is that even if Trump taps into the tariff money, $200 billion will only go so far, and the time will come fairly soon that it won't be enough to cover all the expenditures that the White House wants to cover.

Congress, for its part, is wrestling with a couple of things right now. First, the CR was meant to buy them 7 weeks to work out a real budget; nearly half of that 7 weeks has already been used up, with no real end in sight. So, even if a deal is worked out to pass the CR, a new one will be needed, one that once again opens up a 6-7 week window. In addition, the two parties are working out different plans for paying federal employees, including military personnel, during the shutdown. The details aren't completely ironed out yet, but the executive summary is that the Democrats want to pay everyone, while the Republicans want to pay only selected people (military personnel and air traffic controllers, mostly).

As we have written many times, this is only going to end when one side or the other thinks they have the weaker hand, and wants to stop the bleeding before it gets worse. There have been two new major polls in the last week, and they report the same result as the last several weeks' worth of polls: The Democrats have the stronger hand here. The newest from Reuters/Ipsos says that 50% of respondents assign more blame to the Republicans, while 43% assign more blame to the Democrats. And the newest from CNBC says that it's 53% who place more blame on the Republicans against only 37% who blame the Democrats. The latter poll also has a cross-tab that should be scary for the GOP: Independent voters blame the Republicans by a margin of almost 3-to-1, 58% to 21%.

The fact that the White House is scrambling to plug the holes in the dike is also pretty good evidence that the Republicans have the weaker hand, and that the administration knows it. After all, from a purely political vantage point, if it's the other side's numbers that are sinking, you should let that process play out. And if there's ever been an administration that would think strictly along those lines, it's this one. Clearly, Trump & Co. think that if air traffic controllers walk off the job, or farmers lose some crops to spoilage, or poor kids go without food, the Republicans will get more of the blame than the Democrats.

There are other indications of weakening resolve on the red side of the aisle. A group of 13 moderate Republican House members just sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), informing him that even if he does not negotiate an extension to the Obamacare subsidies before the shutdown ends, he better be ready to do that the moment the government re-opens. Those 13, and some of their colleagues, are already preparing for those discussions. In addition, several Republican senators have communicated to the White House that they do not like the Russell Vought-engineered plan to punish blue states, as Republican voters will get caught up in the damage, too.

The Democrats, by contrast, appear to be sticking together. And, according to reporting from The Hill, the blue team is motivated to keep holding the line because... they are scared witless the base will rebel if they do not. One unnamed Democratic senator said that "People are going to get hammered" if they vote to reopen the government without getting anything in return, while another used the term "guillotined." So, it would seem the pooh-bahs have taken note of what the rank and file is thinking.

On Monday, we launched a poll to gauge readers' assessment of the shutdown. We intended to publish all the results today, but we got thousands of responses, and a lot of good comments. We want time to go through them and do this properly. So, for now, we'll do a preview; the results produced by the first question. Here's when the readership thinks this is likely to finally end:

Timeframe	Readers Predicting
By the end of this week	0.5%
By the end of this month	6.3%
In the first 2 weeks of November	33.3%
In the last 2 weeks of November	35.9%
Sometime in December	14.7%
Not until 2026	9.3%

The overwhelming consensus is that we've got at least a couple of weeks to work with here. We think that's on the mark. (Z)

Arizona Sues Johnson

As long as we're on the Congressional beat, Arizona AG Kris Mayes has made good on her threat and filed a lawsuit seeking to have Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) seated. Grijalva, of course, won the special election to replace her father just shy of 1 month ago, and her certificate of ascertainment was issued shortly thereafter. There is absolutely no question, and nobody disputes, that Grijalva is duly elected and is entitled to the seat. Equally important, the residents of AZ-07 are entitled to be represented in Congress, especially given that they have had no representation since Raúl Grijalva died on March 13.

Mike Johnson's very clear goal here, as we have noted many times, is to keep Grijalva from adding the 218th and decisive signature on Rep. Thomas Massie's (R-KY) "release the Epstein Files" discharge petition. In order to achieve this goal, the Speaker's done quite the tap dance, to the point that even Mitch McConnell—who has an 8th degree black belt in making up B.S. rules—has to be impressed. For a couple of weeks, Johnson said that it's just not possible to swear a new member in when Congress is only meeting for pro forma sessions. When it became clear that was a lie, inasmuch as two Republicans were sworn in during a pro forma session earlier this year, Johnson eventually came up with a new explanation. He now claims that what makes Grijalva different is that when she won her election, Congress was already out of session. So that's why she can't be sworn in during a pro forma session. The Speaker did say that Grijalva is welcome to begin serving her constituents, even if she's not officially seated. What a sport he is!

Mayes' lawsuit has both a PR value and a practical value, we would say. The PR value, of course, is that she's standing up to Republicans who are bending and twisting the Constitution to serve their own ends. Democrats want this kind of pushback right now (see above for more), and Mayes is delivering it. The practical value is that, if the shutdown—and the House recess—drag on and on, this might actually get before a judge, and there might actually be a ruling, since this is clearly a time-sensitive matter.

And what might that ruling be? Let us be clear that we are hardly experts on the laws of federal procedure. And even if we were, it might not help all that much, because this particular situation is not one that has come up before. That said, we think we can venture an educated guess. In general, courts are pretty deferential to Congress when it comes to how Congress runs itself. However, the courts are also very clearly willing to step in and lay down the law when they feel that is necessary. The key case here is Powell v. McCormack, in which the Supreme Court found that a member of Congress may only be denied their seat if they fail to meet the requirements laid out in the Constitution (e.g., age, citizenship, residency).

Needless to say, "you have to show up during the right kind of House session" is NOT one of the requirements laid out in the Constitution. And beyond that, if a Speaker can refuse to administer the oath based on some flimsy pretext, that opens up some pretty big cans of worms. For example, let's say the next Congress meets, and the Speaker refuses to swear in anyone elected from a Southern state, claiming that those states are not in compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and so their members-elect are not, in fact, duly elected. Those members would head to court, and would probably win, but it would be chaos for a while. And during that period of chaos, say a week or two or three, the House would be dominated by the party of the Speaker. And if that party was very organized and very disciplined, they could pass a whole lot of very partisan stuff during that period of time. If you pair that with the ending of the filibuster, and you assume a trifecta, then you could end up with a version of the parliamentary system on steroids—your party can implement whatever it wants, but it only has 10 days to do it.

In short, our guess is that if this does get before a judge, Johnson will lose. It's also not impossible the judge could find the Oath of Office Act of 1789 to be unconstitutional, which would mean that anyone who is legally entitled to administer an oath could swear Grijalva in. After all, it was not clear that a notary public could swear in a president... until it happened with Calvin Coolidge. And, as a sidebar, isn't it a little strange that the list of people who can legally swear in a president is way, way longer than the list of people who can swear in a member of the House?

Let us also note one other legal point, even though it's VERY inside baseball. The whole point of these pro forma sessions is to keep Congress from being out of session long enough for the president to make recess appointments (it's weedy, but they basically have to be completely out of session for 3 days to unlock the recess appointment power). If Johnson is taking the position that pro forma sessions are not real sessions, that runs contrary to the jurisprudence that says they ARE real sessions (most obviously, NLRB v. Noel Canning). Kris Mayes could, and probably will, bring this up in court. Alternatively, a current or future president could file suit, reclaiming their power to make recess appointments, with the argument "even the Speaker of the House admits these aren't actually sessions of Congress."

Truth be told, we continue to struggle to understand exactly what Johnson's endgame is here. The explanation that seemed most plausible was that the Speaker was buying extra time to turn the screws on the three non-Massie Republicans who have signed the petition, in hopes that one of them would defect. Clearly, that is not working. And we are now at a point where flipping one of them won't do much good, anyhow. On November 4, there will be a special election in TX-18 to replace the deceased Rep. Sylvester Turner (D). That district is even bluer (D+21) than Grijalva's district (D+13). So, a Democrat is going to win (and polls confirm this). It's a jungle-style election, which means that if no candidate claims a majority, there will have to be a runoff, likely in December or early January. However, one day, not too far off, there will be another fire-breathing leftist joining the House. And THEY can be the 218th signature, even if Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) or Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) or Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) gets cold feet. So, Johnson's extended holding pattern is going to degrade one of these days; it's only a matter of when. (Z)

The Peace in Gaza Is Shaky

The first casualty in war, of course, is the truth. It's hard to know what information you can believe, when it's coming from a war zone. That problem seems to be even more acute when the war zone in question is in the Middle East.

We say this as prelude to a rundown of some of the things that have been announced by one or the other of the hostiles in the Gaza War in the past few days. Starting with the Israelis, they said that either two or three IDF soldiers were killed by Palestinian forces, which justified an armed response. And so, the Israeli government commenced a bombing campaign over the weekend, one that lasted several hours. The Israeli government says it has now "resumed" the ceasefire.

Hamas, meanwhile, says there is no proof that Israeli soldiers were killed. It also says that the Israelis have killed 87 Palestinians since the ceasefire took effect (neutral sources say the figure is actually about half that). The Palestinians also claim that roughly 135 of the bodies they received, of prisoners that had been held at the Israeli prison Sde Teiman, were mutilated, and in some cases had organs removed. The implication here is that the Israelis were conducting medical experiments on the prisoners, either before or after they died.

Again, it's hard to know what's true. That said, there is no question there has been some substantial amount of firing on both sides during the "ceasefire." On top of that, neither side trusts the other, and the leadership, in both cases, has motivation to resume the fighting. And regardless of how true the competing claims are, neither the Israelis nor Hamas is speaking or acting like they are moving toward a permanent peace.

The situation has grown tenuous enough that the White House has dispatched several envoys to try to calm tensions and smooth things over. Leading the delegation are J.D. Vance, United States Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and First Son-in-Law Jared Kushner. None of these three men has impressed us as being a particularly able diplomat, but what better option does the White House have? Marco Rubio? Yeah, right. Anyhow, the administration is clearly concerned. And, given developments over the past week, that concern would seem to be justified. The next week or two will be crucial. After all, if the cease fire breaks down, there goes that Nobel Peace Prize that Donald Trump can smell but can't taste yet. (Z)

Only the Best People, Part I: The Department of Justice

There's an old saying in the legal profession, one that we have mentioned many times: If the law is on your side, pound the law; if the facts are on your side, pound the facts; if neither is on your side, pound the table. As a general rule, the Department of Justice, which has the luxury of deciding whom to charge with a crime, doesn't have to do a lot of table pounding. However, when charges are brought by a political stooge to satisfy the whims of a vengeful president, the table pounding starts early. We have a couple of examples along those lines today, both of which backfired.

First up, prosecutors filed a motion on Sunday for an expedited ruling on a "filter protocol" motion that they claim will support a motion to disqualify James Comey's lawyer, Patrick Fitzgerald, based on an allegation that he helped Comey leak classified information. They claim that creates a conflict of interest with Fitzgerald representing Comey now. If that sounds far-fetched to you, you're not alone. The technical term here is "red herring." Why? Well, let's unpack this a bit. Neither Comey nor Fitzgerald has been charged with leaking classified information. Back in 2019, Comey admitted that some memos were shared with Daniel Richman, who in turn shared non-classified information with the media. Some memos were also shared with Fitzgerald (who did not pass anything on to anyone) in his role as Comey's attorney, but they were unclassified at the time and then later labeled as classified at the lowest level. In a blistering response, Fitzgerald reminded the prosecutors and the court that once he was informed that some of the material had been labeled classified after-the-fact, he immediately returned them, a claim the Inspector General confirmed in a report.

The prosecution's request for a filter team is a way to get access to privileged communications between Comey and his attorney. The filter team is supposed to be walled off from the prosecutors, but this current iteration of the DoJ has lost all benefit of the doubt and, indeed, the defense argued that a member of the team "may already have been tainted." On Tuesday, Judge Michael S. Nachmanoff denied prosecutors' request for an expedited ruling on a filter team, noting that they should have asked for that when they filed their motion on October 13. According to the judge, the DoJ "has had the materials at issue in its possession for several years and apparently failed to seek any guidance with respect to a filter protocol at any time before October 13, 2025." Moreover, "the government failed to raise any concern with lead counsel's representation until the filing of the government's motion to expedite on October 19, 2025."

As a result of this, the defense has until October 27 to respond to the prosecution's motion. So far, the DoJ is 0-2 in Nachmanoff's court and these types of games serve to signal the lack of confidence in their case. Meanwhile, as expected, Comey filed two motions to dismiss the charges against him on Monday. One is based on selective and vindictive prosecution and the other is based on "Acting U.S. Attorney" Lindsey Halligan's not having legal authority to bring the charges. The second motion will be heard by a judge (as yet unnamed) outside the Eastern District of Virginia, to avoid a conflict with the judges who voted to keep the former U.S. Attorney, Erik Siebert, in the role. Trump fired Siebert, his own appointee, when Siebert balked at Trump's demand to bring charges against James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Meanwhile, Lindsey Halligan continues to demonstrate her inexperience, incompetence and sheer stupidity. It all started when Anna Bower, of Lawfare, linked to a report in The New York Times that the home at the center of the indictment against James is used by her grand-niece, Nakia Thompson, who doesn't pay rent. Thompson testified to a Norfolk grand jury that she has lived there since 2020, when James purchased the property, and that James visits frequently for extended periods. (Note that witnesses are free to discuss their grand jury testimony.) And yet it was an Alexandria grand jury who handed down the indictment that claims the property is used as a rental property—Thompson did not testify before that grand jury. This obviously raises some serious questions about what the Alexandria grand jury was told and whether that information was truthful. Lying to a grand jury is a crime.

Halligan didn't like the implication that she had lied to a grand jury. She was unhappy with some reporting by Anna Bower at Lawfare, it would seem, and sent Bower dozens of texts that contained some... pretty interesting information. Halligan tried to defend her behavior by claiming that the Times is "disclosing grand jury info—which is also not a full representation of what happened." She went on to say, "You're assuming exculpatory evidence without knowing what you're talking about." That is awfully close to violating grand jury secrecy rules. When Halligan realized what she had done, she wrote "I can't tell you grand jury stuff" and then she tried to claim it was all "off the record." But that's not how this works, and Bower made their exchanges public (click on the link above).

The bottom line is that we're only a month into Halligan's tenure and she is already on really thin ice. Maybe she's hoping the court will disqualify her so she has an excuse to go back to Florida and the insurance business. And Comey, for his part, has to be feeling very good about his chances. If we may adapt the old aphorism, this clown show looks like it couldn't convict a ham sandwich in a beth din. (L)

Only the Best People, Part II: Everyone Else

Donald Trump cares a lot about corrupting the Department of Justice. For him, it's a two-fer; DoJ attorneys who are compliant lackeys WILL go after his "enemies" and WON'T go after him and his cronies. So, it's not too surprising that a disproportionate number of the really awful appointments made in this administration are to be found somewhere in that portion of the bureaucracy.

At the same time, the DoJ doesn't have a monopoly on lousy Trump appointments. There were actually two pretty big news stories of this sort yesterday, both of them very predictable. To start, and as expected, Paul Ingrassia—he of the self-admitted "occasional Nazi streak"—has withdrawn from consideration to be the head of the White House Office of Special Counsel. The Senate made clear he would not be confirmed and, in fact, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) hinted that his chamber might not even hold confirmation hearings. So, Ingrassia had little choice but to fall on his Seitengewehr 42. He still has a job in the White House (as liaison to DHS) and there's no reason to believe he's going to be removed from that post. Though he should be nervous if Secretary Kristi Noem asks him to join her in that gravel pit over there.

And then there is Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, whose service surely horrifies any American, Republican or Democrat, who is not an aspiring fascist. Yesterday, the Washington Times, which is a generally pro-Trump publication, ran an item headlined "'He lost us': Generals, senior officers say trust in Hegseth has evaporated."

As readers can surely guess, the major source of consternation among the top brass was the dick-waving session speech that Hegseth summoned them to Virginia to witness. "It was a massive waste of time... If he ever had us, he lost us," one general told the newspaper. Another, speaking not only of the speech, but of various MAGA/anti-woke policy changes, decreed "The theater of it all is below our institution." A third said that Hegseth is already hurting the nation's military readiness: "Across the services, we are bleeding talent, talented generals and flag officers, for what appears to be the opposite of a meritocracy... "

We entirely believe the newspaper's reporting. While the Washington Times is usually pro-Trump, what it really is, in the end, is neocon. So, there is pretty much nothing the staff loves more than the military. Meanwhile, general officers are not going to go on the record with their opinions, as they have spent decades embracing the very important notion that the military is above politics. At the same time, nobody who rises to that high rank is shy about speaking their mind, especially when they are cranky. The exact way we would expect them to manage these two competing impulses, particularly if they want to communicate to the White House and the GOP that Hegseth needs to go, would be to speak off the record to the preeminent conservative publication in D.C., and that's the Washington Times.

In any case, congratulations to the Secretary on his new policy designed to muzzle the press and stifle negative reporting about him and his leadership of the Pentagon. That policy is clearly working very well. (Z)

Putting the "Con" in Conservative, Part III: That's a Nice Government You've Got There...

There may not be much we can do about the corruption that runs deep in the federal government these days. But at least we can document it, and expose it to a little bit of sunlight. So, let's start by adding this to this series of items:

• Putting the "Con" in Conservative, Part I: Kristi Noem
• Putting the "Con" in Conservative, Part II: Trump Is Going to Create a Space for His Balls, Damn It

In the second item yesterday, we wrote that even if we focus on all the "corruption" items that have become backlogged, "it will take a good while to get through them all. And that assumes no more corrupt behavior from the administration in the interim. Not a good bet, to say the least." We wish that the administration could have at least waited a day or two to prove us right, but... not so much. Sigh.

The latest—and we're moving it to the front of the line, because it's just so bad—is that Donald Trump has become focused on something that he mentioned in passing several months ago. In short, he has bought completely into the fantasy that not only were the federal investigations of him illegal, but that he was seriously damaged as a result. So, he plans to sue the Department of Justice, to the tune of $230 million. Of course, the DoJ is now populated by Trump flunkies, who have it within their power to say: "Well, gee! He's got such a strong case, guess we better settle." In fact, the person who would likely be the final decider is Deputy AG Todd Blanche, who previously served as... Trump's personal attorney.

Could there be any clearer example of racketeering than this? It's like an old Mafia protection racket: "Nice government you've got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it." And really, it's worse than the Mafia. If Don Corleone advises the owner of the local laundromat that he better pay up, at least it's a tough decision, because he has to weigh the risk of retaliation versus the value of the protection money. But in the case of Blanche or AG Pam Bondi or any of the other fawning lackeys, they don't give a damn. It's not their $230 million that Don Trump is demanding, after all.

Assuming Trump actually moves forward with this, and assuming everything goes according to plan, then he will have found a way to effectively turn the U.S. Treasury into his own personal bank account. After all, if the people deciding whether or not he was "damaged" don't actually care if he's been damaged, he can go back to that well again and again and again. For example, let's say that Fed Chair Jerome Powell is doing an interview, and says that he's not sure that cryptocurrency has a long-term future. Trump could declare that he and his interests have been damaged to the tune of, say, $5 billion, and he wants payment immediately from the Treasury Department. Would Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent say "no"? We're skeptical. And even if Trump does run into a "no" or two, he can concoct a way to make one of the departments run by absolute lackeys—DHS, Justice, State, Education, etc.—"liable."

We can only think of three ways that such a scheme might be prevented (and that's with us grasping at straws). Congress could step in and say "no," up to and including impeachment. This is obviously very unlikely; congressional Republicans will sometimes stand up to one of Trump's nominees, but they don't stand up to him directly. Still, it would be such an egregious fraud against the government and the American people, maybe there would be a dozen or so of them in each chamber for whom it would be too much.

Second, we have no doubt that the MAGA True Believers would be perfectly fine with this, because they believe he really was victimized, and so they believe he really is entitled to damages. But that's only 30% or so of the voting public. Wouldn't pretty much everyone else be horrified by this if Trump tried it? That alone could put tremendous pressure on the members of Congress. And even if they aren't willing to impeach and/or convict, they might become unwilling to act on any of his other demands. Meanwhile, it could end up creating the conditions for a midterm blue tsunami.

Finally, while Trump may never be prosecuted for his crimes, his underlings might be less fortunate. If they help him with his racketeering, they could end up losing their law licenses (if they have them), or they could end up facing state-level criminal charges. Undoubtedly, Trump is going to hand out preemptive pardons like candy before he leaves office, but those won't help with bar hearings or state-level charges. And a clever state AG might well be able to find a way to make a case for jurisdiction (for example, "10% of the tax dollars you gave to Trump were paid by Californians!").

The Donald is feeling absolutely bulletproof these days, and is acting on that in service of the thing he cares most about: money. Perhaps he should read (the picture book version of) the story of King Midas. Maybe it will serve as a cautionary tale. Of course, in Midas' case, the gold was real. (Z)

There's Something Happening Here: The No Kings Protests, Part IV

Some more No Kings reports and images:

J.S. in York, PA, writes: I could not attend, we were busy on a family trip. Apropos, we went to Colonial Williamsburg. I think what is most striking about these protests is that it is not just big cities. I live in South Central Pennsylvania. We have York, Harrisburg, Lancaster, Hanover, etc., that all had strong blue showings, despite the rural nature. But even here, sometimes you feel alone. I cannot imagine what it is like in some of the more rural parts of the state.

I think these events have a twofold importance. One, they show that you are not alone. I have long postulated that we need to STOP thinking of states as red and blue, but all different shades of purple. There were more Trump voters in California than Texas, I believe, more Harris voters in Texas than New York, and so on and so forth. And two, it's important to show those that are of the other persuasion that no, not all of their neighbors agree with them. Which is fine. They have spent so long appropriating "We the People" and the American flag. Which irritates me. A lot.

Just because they think they are patriots doesn't mean it's not my country, too. Seeing these protests can serve as that reminder. Maybe. Hopefully...

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B.B. from Newtown, PA, writes: My wife and I are traveling in an RV with our little dog on a trip from Philadelphia to Detroit (for a family function) and then down to Key Largo and up the coast again to be home by Thanksgiving. We were lucky enough to be traveling through Tallahassee, FL, on the day of the No Kings protests and enthusiastically joined in.

I read the crowd was only about 3,500 people, but from my vantage point, a ways off from the center of the crowd, I would say it was a lot closer to 10,000. It was certainly a friendly and animated crowd. The protest was directly in front of the Florida Capitol building along a four-lane road and we were barraged by a constant stream of supporting honking cars along with plenty of thumbs up from the passers by. I wonder if I have suffered some hearing loss from the relentless blaring!

The protesters skewed older, though with fair representation from Millennials and the odd Gen-Zer, but the crowd was very white with little diversity in a region of the country that is very diverse. However, many if not most of the supporting honking cars passing by on Monroe Street were filled with Black occupants. My wife and I had just come from touring civil rights museums in Birmingham, AL, and Montgomery, AL, which prominently featured images of Black protesters taking to the streets to highlight injustice. One would think that the tradition of shouting from the rooftops, or at least the sidewalks, would bring many Black Americans along with all us white folks out on a pleasant Saturday morning. That was not the case. Nor was this the case during the June No Kings protest we attended in Philadelphia.

Judging by the car honking (and I am still hearing it in my sleep), Black Americans support the resistance, but not on the street. My question is, what is keeping them from joining in, and in droves? Is there something we can do to make protesting more open, attractive, and safe for a wider community?

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R.B. in Chaska, MN, writes: We were out of town for the long weekend (a 5-day holiday with no school) so we went to No Kings in Peoria, IL, and found a HUGE crowd. Color me impressed, Peoria. People were friendly and the atmosphere was enthusiastic. Anyways, I thought you might get a laugh out of this guy's NSFW sign:

That made my day. By the way, do dogs count towards the total for attendance? They should. Huskies twice.

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J.L. in Lutherville, MD, writes: I had several options of nearby events. I decided on the closest one so I could walk. It was a sign wave on an overpass above I-83. There were about 400 people there. On my walk both to and from I passed other people with signs and we all cheered each other.

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E.G.G.-C. in Syracuse, NY, writes: View from Syracuse. The rally was held next to an abandoned mall. And its parking lot was packed!

We'll certainly keep this going through the end of the week. And we have a lot of these, so maybe we'll keep going even beyond that. (Z)

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