Previous | Next | Senate races | Menu
New polls:
Dem pickups: (None)
GOP pickups: (None)
Trump Is Batting .075
Back when pitchers used to bat in major league baseball (before 1973 in the American League and before 2022 in the National League), the vast majority were not champion hitters because they spent all their practice time pitching, whereas, say, catchers didn't spend all their practice time catching. The average batting average for NL pitchers in 2021 was .108, which means they were out about 89% of the time. Donald Trump's batting average in court is even worse. It is .075.
Politico has a running tally of all court cases against Trump's mass detention policy. We have put the data in a .csv file so you can download it and analyze it in various ways. The spreadsheet does not contain hyperlinks to the court rulings, so you have to go to the Politico article to see them.
Here are a few factoids for you. Of the 411 cases so far, Trump has won 31 of them and lost 380. Of the 31 winners, 23 of the judges were Trump appointees, two were Barack Obama appointees, two were George W. Bush appointees, and two were Ronald Reagan appointees. There was one George H.W. Bush and one Joe Biden win. So of his wins, 74% came from the home team. So Trump is doing pretty well with his own judges, right? Not so. Here are the percentages by president:
| Appointing President | Rulings | Trump wins | Pct. |
| Donald Trump | 68 | 23 | 34% |
| Ronald Reagan | 9 | 2 | 22% |
| George H.W. Bush | 8 | 1 | 13% |
| George W. Bush | 45 | 2 | 4% |
| Barack Obama | 118 | 2 | 2% |
| Joe Biden | 124 | 1 | 1% |
| Bill Clinton | 39 | 0 | 0% |
So the winner is Trump or Clinton, depending on which way you are counting. Now let us add up the totals by party. Here are the sums:
| Party | Rulings | Trump wins | Pct. |
| Republican | 131 | 28 | 21% |
| Democratic | 280 | 3 | 1% |
As you can see, partisanship plays a pretty limited role here. All judges are sworn to uphold the same Constitution and the same laws so no matter who the judge is, you generally get the same result, independent of the party of the president who nominated the judge (outside of the occasional Neomi Rao or Trevor McFadden). Yessiree. Again, you can download the spreadsheet and score things by state and other ways if you like. (V)
Epstein Buddy Leslie Wexner Testified before a House Committee in Camera Yesterday
Retail billionaire and friend-of-Epstein Leslie Wexner testified before the House Oversight Committee yesterday. At one time, Wexner controlled The Limited, Victoria's Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch, PINK, and Bath & Body Works. He had an intimate and complicated relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. His name appears hundreds of times in the Epstein files, once as a co-conspirator. He has admitted traveling to Epstein's private island. Virginia Giuffre said that she was trafficked to Wexner. Unfortunately, she is no longer around to testify under oath about this. Wexner, not surprisingly, denies it. However, this undated photo suggests that he was very friendly with some woman or girl and Epstein at one point.
Wexner issued a statement before his testimony admitting that he was "naive, foolish, and gullible to put any trust in Jeffrey Epstein." Boy, is that ever true. He trusted Epstein so much that he allowed Epstein to manage his vast fortune. Epstein grabbed the chance and helped himself to hundreds of millions of dollars of it. When Wexner found out that he had been fleeced, why didn't he go to the FBI? Epstein was known to be an avid photographer and videographer. Could it be that Epstein had a wee bit of kompromat on Wexner that might just leak out if Wexner sued him? We have no idea.
The deposition took place in New Albany, OH, where Wexner lives. The panel's chairman, Rep. James Comer (R-KY), was absent due to major oral surgery that had been previously scheduled. One can only hope the procedure involved sewing his mouth shut. None of the Republicans on the Oversight Committee attended. Maybe they were having unscheduled oral surgery. Afterwards, Democrats on the panel began telling what they heard from Wexner. It wasn't much. The ranking member, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), said that Wexner denied everything and showed no remorse. No doubt his lawyers suggested that approach. Wexner also denied that he and Epstein were close friends, despite the fact that Ghislaine Maxwell once described Wexner as Epstein's closest friend. Maxwell's version makes sense, as Wexner is a multibillionaire, the kind of person Epstein loved being around. Garcia didn't believe anything Wexner said. Garcia: "There is no single person that was more involved with providing Jeffrey Epstein with the financial support to commit his crimes than Les Wexner."
What is noteworthy is that Wexner said he had not been interviewed by the DoJ or FBI, despite his name being present in the Epstein files hundreds of times. Seems odd to us. He also said that he was only present on Epstein's island once and Epstein never presented him with women. He didn't mention anything about girls, though.
Fox "News" (!) is reporting that Robert Morosky, a former executive at Wexner's company, said he had information about Wexner's private jet being used to transport young girls from Mexico to the U.S. This information appears in an FBI memo that was part of the most recent Epstein dump. But the FBI never followed up and so never asked Morosky what he knew, even though the memo said Morosky was prepared to talk if the FBI simply called him, which it didn't. Incompetence or cover-up? Inquiring minds want to know.
Wexner is 88 now. There is probably a lot of evidence against him in the unredacted files and Maxwell is surely a witness against him, albeit unreliable but maybe enough to convince a jury. Giuffre's parents and friends might remember what Virginia told them years ago. He probably does not want to spend his remaining years in prison with $10 billion in the bank. That doesn't buy him a business-class cell and he can't take it with him. If the government really wants to get the truth out, it could offer him a plea deal: Spill all the beans and you get a mind-boggling fine but no prison time. He might take it and the money could go to the victims. Does it really matter to him if each of four kids inherits a mere $500 million instead of $1 billion? They are not going to be eating dog food either way. He probably knows some of the other people who were on the island when he was there. We doubt the government will make him an offer, though, because Trump is in the business of protecting the perps, not the victims. (V)
Poll: The Powerful Are Rarely Held Accountable
After the latest tranche of Epstein files were released, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that 86% of American adults agree that powerful people are rarely held accountable for their misdeeds. There wasn't much difference between Democrats and Republicans on agreement, just on intensity:
The poll also showed that 77% of respondents felt that the Epstein files have lowered their trust in government. In other words, a large percentage of the population thinks the government is lying to the people about Epstein and is trying to cover it up. This strongly suggests that the issue is not about to go away soon, no matter how many times Donald Trump or Pam Bondi says: "Nothing to see here. Move on."
While supporters of both parties distrust the government and think it is lying, they differ on what to do next. When presented with the statement "It's time for the country to move on from talking about the Epstein files," 67% of Republicans and 21% of Democrats agreed. That also certainly means there is a market for more about Epstein. It probably also means that a bunch of people, particularly Republicans, have figured out that if everything comes out, it's going to hurt more Republicans than Democrats. (V)
Republicans Are Working on Ways to Limit Absentee Voting
Donald Trump has again called for banning all absentee ballots, but his proposal is getting a lukewarm reception in the House because many Republicans, especially in Florida, depend heavily on absentee votes to get elected. Still, Republicans have the feeling that unless they rig the game fast, they are going to get swamped in November. So they have to do something or drown in the tide.
The SAVE Act, which requires voter ID and other things Republicans want, passed the House last week but will be filibustered to death in the Senate. Consequently, House Republicans are looking for other ways to win (other than doing something absurd, like supporting policies the voters want). One idea floating around is to require voter ID for registering, but not for actually voting. Another one popular with Republicans is to ban what they call "ballot harvesting." Currently, people in hospitals and nursing homes request and fill out absentee ballots, then a staff member collects and brings them all to the board of elections. Also, many Native Americans live on reservations dozens of miles from their polling place, so they request absentee ballots and one tribal member brings all the ballots to the polling place. These are examples of ballot harvesting the Republicans want to ban.
Another idea the Republicans are chewing over is banning states from automatically mailing ballots to every registered voter. There are eight states that do this: Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Vermont. Oddly enough, six are deep blue states, one is a swing state, and only one is a red state, so a ban would mostly hit blue states and depress turnout there. However, it is not entirely clear which party would benefit from a ban. For example, there are three competitive House districts in Washington, one in Oregon, and maybe even a couple in California post-Prop. 50. When Republicans get ballots at home, many of them fill them in and return them because it is easy. If they had to request one, some of them wouldn't bother because the state as a whole is very blue and they may think it is not worth the trouble, not realizing that their district is actually competitive.
Some Republicans, like Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), think all this posturing is pointless because anything House Republicans dream up will be filibustered in the Senate. Lawler thinks that Republicans should put all their effort into getting Republicans to the polls during early voting or on Election Day. (V)
Hegseth Is Now Targeting Elite Universities
Secretary of Defense War Pete Hegseth loves cosplaying as Tough Guy. His latest target is woke elite
universities. After all, the culture war is a war where he can lead the troops. He is
threatening
to pull tuition assistance from service members at universities he views as biased against the armed forces.
This move is setting off alarm bells in military and academic circles. People are worried about cutting off a key pipeline of future officers. After all, Hegseth's view of a true warrior is a grunt in a trench shooting at enemy grunts in a trench 100 yards away. The concept that a second lieutenant who has a master's in computer science and is writing the code to have a drone autonomously do reconnaissance on some far-away target could be a very useful soldier is foreign to the Secretary.
Harvard is a primary target. Hegseth has said, without any evidence, "too many faculty members openly loathe our military," adding, "For too long, this department has sent our best and brightest officers to Harvard, hoping the university would better understand and appreciate our warrior class. Instead, too many of our officers came back looking too much like Harvard, heads full of globalist and radical ideologies that do not improve our fighting ranks."
Hegseth has instructed the military branches to evaluate all graduate programs at top-tier institutions to see if they should be put on his black list. The Army has already drawn up a list of 34 schools that have a moderate-to-high risk of being banned. These include the University of Pennsylvania (where Donald Trump graduated), Yale (where J.D. Vance studied law) and Princeton (Hegseth's own alma mater).
At most of these schools, there isn't really much opposition to soldiers as such. The opposition is to civilian leaders—such as Hegseth—who order attacks on countries whose leaders they don't like or just because they think they can get away with it. Having America's soldiers get second-rate educations, boy that will teach China a lesson. Chinese President Xi Jinping is probably asking his foreign minister: "Could you please explain to me why the Americans are intentionally weakening their own military? Is Hegseth one of our assets? I don't understand."
The Hill is a center-right publication, at least on opinion content, and presumably its readers lean at least somewhat to the right. There was a reader survey about the article cited above and 89% of the readers strongly oppose Hegseth's brainchild, with only 6% strongly supporting it. He definitely thinks outside the box. (V)
Axios: Trump Is Getting Ready for a Major War with Iran
Yesterday, Axios had an article saying that the Trump administration is very close to a war with Iran. It would not be a pin-prick operation like in Venezuela, but a long, drawn-out war with the goal of at least destabilizing, if not replacing, the current regime. This would not be the first time the U.S. has interfered in Iran with the goal of regime change. In 1953, the CIA overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh after he nationalized the Iranian oil industry.
Why might Trump be getting ready to hit Iran? A key reason is that the talks with Iran are going badly. Fundamentally, Iran wants to build nuclear weapons and Trump doesn't want Iran to do that. What a compromise might be is not clear. Maybe, Iran gets to build only half as many nuclear weapons as it wants to? Probably will not fly with Trump. The U.S. negotiating team consists of those experienced diplomats Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. J.D. Vance told Fox News that the talks went well in some ways but "in other ways it was very clear that the president has set some red lines that the Iranians are not yet willing to actually acknowledge and work through." Like the part about their not having nuclear weapons. Some sources have said that Trump is getting fed up with Iran's stalling.
It could also be that preparing for an actual war with Iran by deploying forces in the region might make the ayatollahs nervous. They know that Trump is unpredictable and has already hit Iran once, so his doing it again is a real possibility they have to consider, especially if the new goal is regime change. So maybe the war preparation is just a stunt to rev up the pressure. But maybe not.
Pete Hegseth is great at telling generals they are too fat and pistol-whipping universities (see previous item). If war came to Iran, we might find out whether he is also good at fighting actual wars. Of course, the Joint Chiefs might just agree to everything he said and then quietly ignore his orders and do everything the way they think is best and let him take credit for it, even if they were in fact flouting his direct orders.
It is likely that Israel would join in the campaign. Intelligence from Mossad could be invaluable in picking targets and possibly for on-the-ground campaigns. A dramatic win (or loss) could shake up the unstable region with unforeseen consequences. Suppose Iran, knowing that it cannot defeat F-35s, decided to fight back by attacking within the U.S. to influence public opinion. Suppose they were able to capture a few hostages. What would Trump do then and would it work well under the direction of that brilliant military strategist Pete Hegseth? Good questions. (V)
Trump Is at Odds with Republican State Legislators over Data Centers
Donald Trump is in bed with nearly all the CEOs of the big tech companies that want to push AI for all it is worth. That means building lots and lots of big data centers to handle the computing load. The trouble is that the vast majority of Americans do not want this because they oppose AI to start with (jobs, privacy) and also oppose data centers for any purpose (noise, property values, water and electricity usage). They have made this clear to their local, state, and federal representatives, who have generally gotten the message. Some states are even working on legislation to ban the construction of new data centers. Oklahoma state Sen. Kendal Sacchieri (R) has filed a bill to put a 3-year pause on building new data centers in Oklahoma. She has gotten a tremendous amount of support from within and without her district and expects that other senators have, too. This development is going to put some Republicans up in 2026 at odds with Trump. Oppose him and incur his wrath, support him and incur the voters' wrath. What's a Republican politician to do?
No state has enacted a statewide moratorium on construction yet, but Republicans have proposed bans in Georgia, Maryland, New York, Vermont, and Virginia so far, with more in the works. Some Republican governors, including Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), have voiced support for restricting data centers in their states. This means that DeSantis and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) are on the same page here. That doesn't happen a lot. Enjoy it while you can.
Needless to say, with Trump backing the billionaires and in favor of more data centers, this gives the Democrats an opening to attack him. It has to be done carefully, focusing on harms that people understand, like: "The Republicans support AI so your company can replace you with an AI bot and raise your utility bill in the process."
One approach some Republicans are taking is to support bills that merely require data centers to pay for their own power. The accounting here is complicated. They can pay for the megawatts they consume, but delivering those megawatts may require massive (and expensive) upgrades to generation and transmission facilities whose cost cannot be easily calculated and allocated to each watt produced. If people's bills go up, they are going to blame AI, no matter how many accountants the Republicans charter to explain how the rising bills are not really the fault of AI. (V)
Billionaires Gone Wild
That is the headline of Paul Krugman's column yesterday in which he shows that billionaires are taking over the country and how they are doing it. Now, money has always talked in politics, but never this loudly, not even in the gilded age when billionaires like John D. Rockefeller roamed the land. Krugman's column draws heavily on this report from Americans for Tax Fairness.
Rich people owning media companies and using that for political ends was common in the 19th century. Media meant newspapers then, and newspaper barons like Horace Greeley, William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer, and E.W. Scripps certainly used their papers to sway public opinion their way. Now it is Jeff Bezos (owns The Washington Post), David Ellison (owns CBS, trying to get CNN), Elon Musk (owns eX-Twitter), and others.
As a result of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, billionaires can spend as much as they want trying to buy elections, as long as they have a fig leaf of having their super PACs not openly coordinate with campaigns (although even that is under fire now). Here is a chart Krugman presents about the relative contributions of billionaires to campaigns before and after Citizens United:
A small part of the increase since 2010 is due to the larger number of billionaires (was 404, is now 748) but not all are politically active. The main driver is that wealth is now more concentrated in a smaller percentage of the population than ever before. The billionaires represent the top 0.0002% of the population, so it is not the top 1% or even the top 0.1%. It is the top 1/50th of the top 1%.
And the billionaires are more willing to throw their money around than ever before. First, the more money you have, the bigger the payout. If someone with $300 billion can spend $1 billion and see his assets go up 1%, it is a good deal. This provides plenty of motivation for the very top to spend generously. Second, there are some people with so much money that they can buy anything. Musk spent $44 billion he found under his couch cushions to buy eX-Twitter and didn't miss it. Twenty years ago nobody had that kind of money available to throw away on politics. Third, billionaires carefully spend money in ways to change the rules to make people with money get even more power. Investments in the Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society resulted in Supreme Court justices who voted to eliminate all limits on what plutocrats could spend on elections and policy.
Some billionaires use their power to make yet more money, although it is hard to imagine what someone with $100 billion wants to buy that requires another $100 billion. It is simply a game to them, with bragging rights as you move up the Forbes list of billionaires. Other billionaires want to use their money to show and encourage their values. When Musk bought eX-Twitter, he didn't do that because he expected it to be worth $88 billion in a few years. He did it because he wanted to provide a safe space for white supremacists and Nazis. Sheldon and Miriam Adelson have given hundreds of millions of dollars to Republicans because they expect them to support Israel in return. (V)
Talarico Raised $2.5 Million by Not Being on Stephen Colbert's Show
Sometimes political candidates can rake in a lot of donations by appearing on some top-rated television show. Yesterday, we noted that Stephen Colbert wanted Texas Senate candidate James Talarico on his show but CBS' top brass (with urging from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr) vetoed it. Poor Talarico. He missed his 15 minutes of network TV fame. However, as a consolation prize, he raked in $2.5 million after appearing in the YouTube video of the show, where he was not censored. That is a lot of money to spend in the 12 days before the primary. The YouTube video has now been viewed 5 million times, almost double Colbert's regular audience.
Talarico criticized CBS management. He said, "I don't think it did anything to assuage the concerns that they were pressured by the most powerful man in the country to change their broadcast. And that should be alarming to all of us, whether we're Democrats, Independents or Republicans." Talarico also called CBS' decision "the most dangerous kind of cancel culture."
The timing was good for Talarico. Early voting began in Texas on Tuesday and will run until Feb. 27. Then it stops. Primary Day is March 3. (V)
Redistricting '28 Has Started
You thought that as soon as Missouri and Virginia hold referendums and Florida tears up its map, we would be done with midcycle regerrymandering? Wrong! Action has started in Colorado for a new map for 2028. This is a good place for Democrats to start. The state is very blue, yet the congressional delegation is 4D, 4R. With some magical mapmaking, that could be transformed into 7D, 1R.
The reason the map is even is that it was made by an independent commission. A Democratic-allied group is now working on a ballot initiative that would take map-making power back from the commission and hand it back to the Democratic legislature for 2028 and 2030. The group, called "Coloradans for a Level Playing Field," is framing the action as a response to Texas, Missouri, and other states redrawing their maps mid-cycle. A spokesman for the group said nobody wanted this, but the other guys started it.
The group will need to gather 125,000 signatures before Aug. 3 to get it on the Nov. 2026 ballot. It is expected to get funding from the House Majority PAC and other groups. New York may also join the gerrymandering circus for 2028.
If the Supreme Court kills off the VRA, a dozen Southern states may try to redraw their maps, but depending on the timing may not be able to do it in time for the 2026 elections.
The end game of all this is the Electoral College in the House. All states will have a winner-take-all congressional delegation. If the Republicans control the trifecta in a state, all the House seats will be redrawn to be Republican. If the Democrats control the trifecta, they will get all the House seats. Only in the six states with split power will there be split delegations. This is probably not what the founders had in mind. On the other hand, this may so infuriate the voters as to force actual change. (V)
Previous | Next
Main page for smartphones