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The Bitch Is Back

Recall the chorus to the classic 1974 Elton John track:

I'm a bitch, I'm a bitch, oh, the bitch is back
Stone-cold sober, as a matter of fact
I can bitch, I can bitch 'cause I'm better than you
It's the way that I move, the things that I do, oh-oh-oh

Yesterday, with the Senate having passed the temporary budget bill, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced that the House will reconvene after nearly 7 weeks of recess. Readers can decide for themselves which person, group, entity or circumstance the headline might describe. We suspect different readers will reach different conclusions.

In any event, Johnson has had a pretty easy time of it while the House was out of town. He did his daily Baghdad Bob-style press conference in which the Democrats were invariably blamed not only for the shutdown, but for pretty much every other ill that has faced human societies, at least as far back as the Bubonic Plague. Then, it was time for his daily devotion—he headed over to the White House to kiss whatever part of Donald Trump was on the schedule for that day. Then, Johnson's time was his own.

Now, however, the Speaker is going to have to earn his paycheck. He's got a list of upcoming headaches that he will have to deal with. In roughly chronological order:

They used to have commercials about a "Maalox Moment." Well, Johnson's about to have a Maalox Month. Or two. Or maybe three. (Z)

The 2025 Election: Post Mortem, Part VI--Trumponomics

Donald Trump knows he's got a problem. To a large extent, other than the fat tax cut for rich people, most of what he's done so far in his second term has been stuff that fits vaguely within the realm of foreign policy. Tariffs. Sinking Venezuelan boats. Bringing a still-fragile peace to Israel. Flip-flopping back and forth on Ukraine. Flip-flopping back and forth on China. Flip-flopping back and forth on North Korea. Flip... well, OK, you get the idea.

As it turns out, and as we saw last week, that's not getting it done as far as voters are concerned. If you run for president on kitchen table issues, and you promise to bring down prices, it turns out that voters expect you to focus on kitchen table issues, and to bring down prices. Who knew? Those voters are so damn unfair! In public, Trump has been throwing temper tantrums about the economy, decreeing that inflation is fake news, and a scam being perpetrated by the Democrats. There are some things where Trump's reality-distortion field works well, but this is not one of them. People notice that they paid $7/pound for coffee in January and now they are paying over $9/pound. People notice that the price of a combo meal at McDonald's is up to $15. People notice that a pound of steak cost a little less than $12 in January, and now it's a little more than $14. This is not an invention of the Democratic propaganda machine (which, even if it exists, is pretty anemic).

Behind the scenes, there is less posturing, and much more nervousness. Several White House insiders, under condition of anonymity, spoke to Politico and said that everyone is trying to get Trump to shift his focus to domestic matters, and in particular to cost-of-living issues. "The President hasn't talked about the cost of living in months," said one of them. "People are still hurting financially and they want to know the White House is paying attention and trying to fix the problem as quickly as possible."

There are plenty of people who don't work in the White House who are also trying to get Trump to re-focus. He's currently feuding with, of all people, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). She's been talking like the populist that she actually is, and has been complaining about the health care subsidies, the SNAP funding, and the Epstein files. Trump, who expects absolute loyalty, is not happy about Greene's apostasy, and told reporters: "Nice woman. But I don't know what happened, she's lost her way, I think." He also accused her of putting on "an act." Pro tip, Mr. President: You're thinking of Reps. Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY). They are the ones who are putting on an act.

Similarly, Federalist co-founder Sean Davis has been very MAGA over the last decade. But yesterday, he posted a scorching-hot rebuke of Trump and the GOP to eX-Twitter. Here's the message:

I don't know who is advising congressional Republicans on strategy right now, but it is whoever it is [sic] has an IQ barely approaching room temperature.

Republicans right now have no accomplishments, no plans, and no vision. Why on earth would anyone be excited to go vote for them 12 months [sic] right now?

Trump needs to ditch the foreign policy crap and focus all his attention on the domestic economy, which is still not working for the majority of people. Right now he looks weak and rudderless. Be mad all you want, but it's the truth.

Newly minted college grads can't find work and are saddled with debt. Where is their path to the American dream right now? Who is giving them a vision of a future worth fighting for?

You cannot have a viable country or future when half your country and all its young people are locked out of the economy and locked out of ever owning a home or much of anything beyond next month's streaming subscription.

Does anyone in Washington care about this? Anyone at all?

Republicans had better wake up, because right now their nightmare is only beginning if they don't start making massive changes.

Read that over again, and note that it basically could have come from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). The Senator does not resort to silly references to IQ to make his points, and he's not in the habit of framing his remarks as advice for Republicans. But beyond that, it's pretty Bernie-esque.

Trump seems to be aware that he and his party have a problem, and in response, he's tossed out some... ideas? Three of them, in fact. Here's a rundown:

Health care: Yet again, Trump is talking about repealing Obamacare. In contrast to (most of) the other times, he does have a vague idea as to a replacement. It's not his idea, though, it's an idea that Republicans (like Paul Ryan) have been pushing for years. Here's Trump, on his diseased social media platform, explaining:
Democrats claim to be working for "the little guy," and driving down your Health Insurance, but the OBAMACARE SCAM goes STRAIGHT TO THEIR BEST FRIENDS IN THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY. THEY ARE MAKING A "KILLING," while Health Coverage only gets WORSE. If Democrats get their way again, they're in for another HUGE Payday at the expense of the American People. NO DEAL! Republicans should give money DIRECTLY to your personal HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNTS that I expanded in our GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Trump and some of his acolytes have also been spreading the notion that Barack Obama personally earns royalties from Obamacare plans. This, of course, is a baldfaced lie.

There are two problems with the Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). The first (and Trump might very well be aware of this) is that they are a very regressive benefit. Study after study has shown that people who are wealthy tend to have the extra cash to put into the accounts, and thus to derive the benefits. People who are not wealthy, and in particular people of color, often do not. Trump seems to vaguely be suggesting that the government could put money into the accounts, but the money the government spends on Obamacare (about $100 billion a year) would be nowhere near enough to cover Americans' annual not-covered-by-health-insurance health care costs (about $500 billion a year). Also, the whole point of all of Trump's tax-cut bill was to cut the government's expenses, not to simply move money around.

The second problem with the HSAs is that they have a snowball's chance in hell of getting through Congress. Freedom Caucusers in the House would scream about the price tag. Democrats in the House would scream about the regressive nature of the plan. And if the measure somehow got to the Senate (or if it originated in the Senate), it would die at the hands of the filibuster. Heck, a filibuster might not even be necessary, because there likely aren't 50 Republican votes for the scheme.

50-Year Mortgages: A second idea that Trump has tossed out, and this appears to be new for him, is that banks should start offering 50-year mortgages. The idea here is that if you spread your payments over 50 years, then you pay less each month, and home ownership becomes more affordable.

This is such a bad idea it's hard to believe Trump could propose it with a straight face. Does he honestly not understand the numbers here? Or does he understand all-too-well, such that this is actually a backdoor attempt to enrich his donors? Either seems possible. In any event, a 50-year mortgage does not reduce house payments all that much. At the moment, with a house of average cost for the United States (a little over $400,000) and a 30-year mortgage with the average interest rate (a little over 6%), and a standard 20% down payment, the monthly bill is $2,056. If you extend the term to 50 years, the payment drops to $1,823. That's $233 less.

Now, $233 is not nothing. But it's not enough to be a difference-maker for most people. Meanwhile, because payments would be made over 50 years rather than 30, the cost of paying off the mortgage would basically double, from about $350,000 to about $700,000. And that's assuming the same interest rate; since a 50-year mortgage is riskier, the interest rate would almost certainly be higher, which could easily push the final cost to something like $900,000. Oh, and the owner of the house would not build up meaningful equity for decades, meaning it would be difficult-to-impossible to move to a different house. A very disciplined person who manages to scrape together a 20% down payment at age 25 could be tied down to the same house until they are eligible for Social Security. Oh, and on top of all of this, 50-year mortgages are currently not eligible for backing from Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, so banks won't touch them with a 50-foot pole. And, like the HSAs, there's no way a bill changing the law would ever get through Congress.

Tariff Dividends: The HSAs were Saturday's idea. The 50-year mortgages were Sunday's idea. Monday's idea was the most outlandish of all, perhaps; Trump suggested that his administration might start giving out $2,000 "tariff dividends" to all Americans, thanks to all the money that's coming in.

When it comes to the problems with this idea, we hardly know where to start. How about with the observation that if the money is going to be redistributed, then what was the point of the tariffs in the first place? Does Trump still not understand that the money is coming from American pockets (largely) and not from foreign countries?

The math also does not add up. Thus far, the U.S. has collected about $200 billion in tariff revenue. The cost of giving every adult a $2,000 check would be about $350 billion. Trump said he would exclude wealthy people, but even if you make the cutoff $100,000 in income a year (solidly middle-class), the price tag would still be $300 billion. And let us not forget that Trump keeps spending this same exact money in other ways; he's also pledged to use it to reduce the national debt, and also to cover the money for the HSAs.

Oh, and the other branches of government might have something to say about the matter as well. While Trump is treating the tariff money as his own personal piggy bank/slush fund, it's not, and Congress has to approve any use of those funds. Maybe they stand up to him here, if he tries to start cutting checks. On top of that, the Supreme Court appears ready to strike down the authority Trump used to impose about half the tariffs. If $100 billion or so suddenly has to be refunded to importers and other businesses, and that $100 billion has already been handed out in the form of "tariff dividends," then what?

We will also point out: The U.S. has had a fair bit of recent experience with these sorts of mass payments. And they have all proven to be inflationary. Not the best thing when people are already upset about inflation.

In short, it is clear that Trump realizes he's got a problem on his hands. It is equally clear—and we're going to be blunt here—that he hasn't the slightest idea what to do about it. He's never known what to do, and there's no reason to think he'll ever know what to do. There is an irony that a fellow elected as the "businessman president" might well know less about economics and finance than any of the 44 men who preceded him in his high office. Even the Andrews, Jackson and Johnson, who were about as ignorant of macroeconomics as any president not named Trump, would not entertain these ridiculous "simple fix" fantasies. (Z)

It's OK to Be Gay (Married), at Least for Now

On Monday morning, the Supreme Court released its order list of cases they were considering as to whether or not to grant cert. On the denial list was Davis v. Ermold. Kim Davis is a former county clerk from Kentucky. When the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, she became a national figure when she decided that her county would continue refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. One couple sued her for using her government position to deny their civil rights.

In the lower court, she insisted that she was not arguing that Obergefell, the case legalizing same-sex marriage, should be overturned, and that she was merely exercising her First Amendment right to freedom of religion. But then she lost in both the district court and court of appeal. By the time she got to the Supreme Court, she had changed her tune and decided that overruling Obergefell would get her out of this jam.

Not so much, as it turns out. There were no public dissents from the order, so we don't know why the Court denied the petition. But the plaintiffs' response to the cert petition argues that she can't win even if Obergefell was reversed. The reason is that, at the time Davis instructed her employees not to issue marriage licenses, it was the law—one can't undo an illegal act even if the law they violated gets repealed years later. Moreover, as we note, she claims she was following her religious beliefs. That may have been valid if she simply refused to issue a license herself. But she went further and wouldn't let anyone in the office issue one. Her religious beliefs don't allow her to dictate the law for the county. So, Davis can be held liable for her actions, and she has to pay $100,000 in damages as well as $260,000 in attorney's fees to the couple. There's a lesson in there somewhere for all the Trump crusaders currently taking the law into their own hands.

Back in August, when the news first broke that Davis was trying to get before the Supreme Court and we wrote that up, we got a couple of instructive e-mails from readers, which we filed away for a rainy day. It's not actually raining right now, at least not in Los Angeles (though it is EXTREMELY foggy), but it would seem that if we're ever going to run those messages, now is the time. Here, to start, is K.B. in Hartford, CT, explaining why Davis' case was very weak, and predicting (correctly, obviously) that she would never get a hearing before SCOTUS:

Like a pimple on prom night, Kim Davis has popped up again as she tries to persuade SCOTUS to reverse Obergefell, which held, for those emerging from a long nap, that same-sex couples have a fundamental right to marry under the federal Constitution. Davis is causing a lot of unnecessary consternation, which is unfortunately distracting from the real dangers this Court poses to LGBTQ people.

If you're going to bring a test case, it helps to have a sympathetic litigant—say, an elderly widow who had to pay hundreds of thousand dollars in estate taxes because the government wouldn't recognize her marriage. Davis is not that, to say the least. Her lecturing on the sanctity of marriage is a little hard to take, given her history with the institution. She has been married four times and the births of some of her children don't align with the marriage to their father. (I think her third husband is the father for some of her children born when she was married to her first husband. You really need a flow chart.) Having a standard bearer that is low-hanging fruit when it comes to getting dragged on social media is not the best option, even if sometimes you have to play the hand you're dealt.

She's also not terribly sympathetic as a legal matter, as she basically told the Court to fu** off in 2015 and now wants the Court's help. Judges are not particularly fond of helping litigants who won't comply with the Court's rulings, even if they dissented from the ruling in question.

The only way Davis gets out of paying the $360k is for five justices to say that Obergefell was wrong at the time it was decided, that same-sex couples never had the right to marry, and therefore she did not violate anyone's constitutional rights. Boy howdy, that's a stretch. Since literally hundreds of thousands of same-sex couples married in reliance on Obergefell, those marriages would be vulnerable to challenges. Those couples have made financial decisions, formed families, perhaps gotten divorced and had their property divided. Fulfilling Davis's dream of cough, cough restoring the sanctity of marriage would open Pandora's box. I can't see five justices going there.

Even if the Court overruled Obergefell going forward, that hardly ends marriage equality. A good number of states recognize marriage for same-sex couples as a matter of state law and those laws would remain valid. The bipartisan federal Respect for Marriage Act, which requires the federal government and states to recognize marriages that were valid where performed, would allow couples from states like Alabama to go to LGBTQ-friendly states to get married and return home as a married couple, much to the locals' dismay.

Yes, SCOTUS overruled Roe v. Wade rather aggressively, but Associate Justice Samuel Alito twice expressly limited the decision to abortion, which was the price he paid to get five votes. Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh more or less confirmed this with his concurrence emphasizing the limited reach of Dobbs. Marriage is different because of the widespread reliance on Obergefell.

What LGBTQ folks and their friends should be worried about is broad carve-outs from public accommodation laws for religious beliefs and overturning bans on conversion "therapy" for minors. There may be other issues as well, but revisiting Obergefell is unlikely to be one of them.

So, just because one very weak defendant took a defeat in her very weak case, that hardly means this is over. Slate's Mark Joseph Stern made the same observation yesterday, in a piece headlined "The Real Reason Kim Davis Never Stood a Chance at the Supreme Court."

In our piece back in August, meanwhile, we wrote a little about the politics of reversing Obergefell:

If the Court reversed Obergefell next June, it would cause a stir but probably not nearly as big as the Dobbs decision reversing Roe v. Wade because many fewer people are potentially affected and probably a majority of those are already voting for Democrats. Still, if the Democrats campaigned in part on the idea that the Supreme Court is running amok and has lost all interest in the Constitution and just rules based on their personal views, it could swing some independents.

Reader D.E. in Lancaster, PA, wrote in to push back on that a bit, and to talk about how anti-LGBTQ activism/jurisprudence might well remain a part of the future of the GOP, though overturning Obergefell is unlikely, even if a stronger case than the one from Davis is brought:

I'm not going to say you were wrong when you said, "If the Court reverses Obergefell next June, it would cause a stir but probably not nearly as big as the Dobbs decision," but I will say I don't think you thought that statement completely through.

For one thing, I'm highly skeptical that the Court will take this particular case up. We have to remember that Kim Davis defied the Supreme Court decision and many lower court rulings to get into the place she is now. While some judges—ahem, Alito and Thomas, ahem—might agree with her that it's a bad ruling, I don't think they want to put a stamp of approval on a low-level county clerk openly defying the courts. It sets a dangerous precedent, that if they were to overthrow gay marriage that another county clerk could defy their ruling and just wait until the makeup of the Court changes. Also, Davis is not the ideal spokesperson for traditional marriage, in that she is on her fourth marriage and had children by husband #3 while still married to husband #1. I would normally not care about her personal life, but she was the one who decided to set herself up as the arbiter of which marriages are legitimate, and you can bet it will be brought up, probably not in the Court, but in the media.

If the Court were to decide to take her case, or some other future one, I see four possible outcomes: (1) the Court does what it often does and punts the case back down to a lower court based on a technicality; (2) the Court affirms Obergefell, which is not completely outside the realms of possibility; (3) the Court rules that all gay marriage is illegal, both in the past and in the future, which brings a whole train of difficulties along with it or (4) the Court rules that going forward, gay marriage is illegal but that those marriages in the interim are still valid, which also brings a whole set of problems with it. I'll explain those problems for the last two options in a minute.

Let's first consider Dobbs and the abortion issue. While they might be the Supreme Court, they are not the level of Supreme that all the abortions that took place between Roe and Dobbs were somehow undone. At one time, the pro-life party tried to move away from the aborted-fetus-in-the-trash-can shock photos and started having ads where mothers showed their live children that they say they had at one time considered aborting. These ads, I think, had mixed results because while one could sympathize with one person's past choices, what they were asking was to use choice as a reason for taking away other people's freedom of choice. I also found them dubious in that the only person who would admit that they thought about aborting their live child would have to be a fanatic or at least a really, really cruel parent. Abortions are events of finite duration, and while women often deal with these personal decisions for the rest of their lives, they are not in a continual state of having an abortion. Additionally, abortions are very private affairs, sometimes only known by a couple of individuals. They take place during times that the women who have them would rather not dwell on, sometimes as repercussions of horrible violence. Even the strongest of pro-choice advocates are often reluctant to talk about their abortions, and even for the few strong enough to face the onslaught of criticism, their words are often laced with regret, shame and recrimination. There are also no legal obligations owed to an aborted fetus.

In other words, abortions are everything gay marriage is not; and their only common factor is being opposed by religious fundamentalists. Marriages, whether straight or gay, are often very public affairs, with families, friends and acquaintances all joining in on the celebration. Marriages are the high points of a person's life, and even if they are subsequently divorced, the joy they felt on that day comes through. If gay marriage is overturned, you can guarantee that a lot of people will be talking about the love and the joy they felt on the day they were "married." They will be vocal testaments that the judges were not only wrong but cruel. This might seem harsh, but since Dobbs, not a single aborted fetus has held an interview saying if they had lived they would have been the next Mother Teresa or the next Albert Einstein.

Then there are the hugely complicated legal issues that will follow if Obergefell is overturned. If the Court decides to make all gay marriage illegal—past, present and future—then what happens to legal proceedings that have already taken place, like adoptions and divorces? Could the relatives of an adopted child now sue since the child was placed into the stability of a married family home? In matter of divorces, what if the person who was paying alimony or child support sues to get those monies returned since they were given out "illegally." Could the relatives of a dead person sue a hospital because their wishes regarding life support were ignored, as the hospital listened to the person's then-spouse? Or how about benefits—federal, state and private? What happens to a surviving retired gay spouse who is counting on Social Security survivor's benefits? Do they get cut off? How about private insurance companies, which love finding loopholes in policies? Could they deny claims or try to claw back those already processed? What about joint tax returns that claim a marriage deduction? Since gay marriage is an ongoing state of being, what is the point that the Courts are going to decide it ceases to exist? There's probably a hundred more messy examples that kind of ruling will bring.

Alternatively, let's say the Court decides to keep the interim gay marriages legal. Beyond cutting their own arguments as to why it should be illegal off at the knees, this brings up a host of other legal problems. To have some gay marriages legal and some not will create different sets of rules for governments and businesses. It would bring up the ghost of separate but equal, and would really lead to areas that even some of the conservative justices don't want to go. Can the Justices make a ruling that gives the ax to Obergefell but leaves Loving invincible, as Thomas would like, or can he even take for granted that the other conservative justices would not like to give that ruling another look? Because marriages can last up to 50+ years, there will be a hell of a long time with living examples who are eager to speak out that SCOTUS got their ruling horribly wrong. Yes, Alito and Thomas don't care, but the other four conservatives just might. I would add that Thomas and Alito have to be thinking of retirement and the window to replace themselves with a similar conservative ideologue might be slowly closing. Three of the four remaining right-wing justices have lengthy careers still left and the fourth makes a lot of noise about ensuring the legitimacy of the Court.

I could be wrong, but I don't think this Court is ready to stir up this hornets' nest. I think the outcome would have more blowback than they really want to deal with. And to turn your statement around, the people who hate gay marriage already vote Republican.

One last thing: By the time the Dobbs decision was handed down, Roe had already suffered death by a thousand cuts. Between age restrictions, parental notification, limiting the time an abortion could be performed, banning certain types of abortions, access to clinics, regulations and certification hurdles for clinics, restricting information that doctors could tell their patients and the various funding issues, it gave Dobbs a sense of inevitability. Yes, there have been the cake decorator and "web designer" rulings but neither actually affected the nature of the marriage, only how the marriage could be celebrated, and the former was decided on a technicality. There is no Planned Parenthood of gay marriage. No shock photos of a ruined straight marriage in a trash can that can be paraded around. There are no gay marriage clinics that Republicans can restrict access to. There is little direct government funding that goes to gay marriage. A beheading of Obergefell would be sudden and traumatic, and would be harder for the Judges to justify.

Thanks to both of you for your assessments! (L & Z)

Bonnie Watson Coleman to Retire

Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) has been a mainstay of New Jersey Democratic politics for a good long time. She was a member of the state Assembly, eventually rising to become majority leader. She was chair of the state Democratic organ, and also worked for a long time as a member of the New Jersey State Division on Civil Rights. Since 2015, she's represented NJ-12 in the House of Representatives. That means she's currently serving her sixth term.

Despite having joined the octogenarian club in February, Watson Coleman has remained very hands-on, and a leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, in both word and deed. For example, she was one of three members involved in a confrontation with ICE at a detention facility back in May; that confrontation resulted in Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) being arrested. Nonetheless, after more than five decades in public service, Watson Coleman has decided that now is the time to stand down, and announced yesterday that she will not run for another term.

NJ-12 is very blue, at D+13. That's a tall climb for the minority party under the best of circumstances. And given what happened in the Garden State last week, it's essentially inconceivable that the seat will flip. The only question is which Democrat will succeed Watson Coleman. Unlike some members (ahem, Chuy Garcia), Watson Coleman did not manipulate the system to make sure that her preferred successor would replace her. So, while there was only one person in the race as of yesterday (an unknown: fitness studio owner Kyle Little), it's going to get crowded very quickly. Somerset County Commissioner Director Shanel Y. Robinson and East Brunswick Mayor Brad Cohen have already announced that they'll have their paperwork filed in short order. There are at least half a dozen others who might jump in. These would-be members are not well-known names, but they all have served in local or state office, and they all have connections within the New Jersey Democratic Party.

Many Democratic voters want the party's Congressional delegation to get younger, and they are getting at least some of what they want. That could just be good luck, but we doubt it. Yes, a member in their eighties is more likely to retire than a member in their seventies, who is more likely to retire than a member in their sixties. So of course the older members are going to dominate the retirements list. Still, our gut tells us that there are some members that, but for the youth movement, would not be heading for the exit. Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) leaps to mind here.

And as long as we are on the subject of Pelosi, and the game of musical chairs underway in her district (CA-11), one prominent possibility took their name out of the running yesterday. That would be Christine Pelosi, Nancy's daughter, who said she'll run for the state Senate instead. That's called taking the bird in the hand, rather than going after the two in the bush. With that last name, and with her mother's political network at her back, Christine will have a very good chance at winning a state Senate election. On the other hand, the competition for that House seat is going to be fierce, since it's basically a job for life. Up against five or six or seven other people, Christine Pelosi might have a rough time, especially given the dynastic undertones of such a campaign, not to mention the fact that her age (60 by Election Day next year) is not exactly compatible with "youth movement."

It's November, and we've already got 45 House retirements, which is about the average for a cycle these days. And there is still plenty of time for that number to climb higher. Meanwhile, the majority of the retirements are coming from the side of the aisle that is likely to take control of the House in 2027 (25 D, 21 R). That's not usually how it works, and it's another sign that some Democrats are stepping down because this is a good time to pass the baton, and not necessarily because they personally want to do so. (Z)


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