I'm a little confused at what "the approach the Democrats are taking" is supposed to be in pf's first paragraph. It reads like it means the vote taken by Schumer and others close, but I think the position taken by 100% of House Dems and 80% of Senate Dems is more accurately described as the Democratic approach.

I agree all the options were bad, but the fact that federal worker unions were also opposing the CR suggests the especial disutility of applying the "shoot hostages" analogy to everything.

I didn't like Schumer much before anyway.

And I've been bracing for a Fetterman betrayal for a couple of months now.

Every one of these critiques is quite clear and even expansive on the many terrible drawbacks of a shutdown. I'm still waiting to read one of them for making a convincing case for "do nothing" The "best" one thus far is Chuckie Cheese saying the Republican Senator in shorts on the bike next to him in the Senate gym says he doesn't like Trump either.

I don't want to frame it as "we must do something, this is something, therefore we must do this," but the best concrete argument I think is "yes, a shutdown is bad, but it's defined, understood, usually ends within a few weeks, and most importantly is our only form of leverage against the current lawless cuts that are unemploying vast numbers of people and ending programs and capability permanently, killing millions worldwide, and which if we throw away this leverage to limit with the power of the purse, there is literally no end in sight, everyone will be at Trump and Musk's mercy as long as Trump is in office, regardless of midterms, regardless of anything, and that will be far worse." And again, federal unions seem to agree with this. (Judicial leverage is not dead but seems to be hanging by a thread and Congress has little to do with it atm.)

Accomplishing something substantive may be impossible at the moment, but cooperating in the adversary's depraved plans for fear that the adversary will say that you cooperated in his depraved plans is stupid.

Also if Trump/Musk wanted a shutdown like Schumer was saying they were doing a pretty bad job toward it. Trump threatened the one House defector with primarying!

Finally, one of the things Schumer justified his vote with was that he horse-traded a reversal of the big DC cuts. To his credit, that did pass the Senate the same day (by voice vote apparently); he can make some deals in the Senate. But how on earth does he expect going to hold Mike Johnson to that deal? If the House doesn't concur next week, he'll also be exposed as a piss-poor negotiator.

Cosign 6. To me, the thing is we're already in a wildcat shutdown so the question is really: do we implicitly validate the lawlessness by acquiescing to passage or do we take a principled stand? The hostages are getting hurt either way

I don't think "we will vote for a clean CR and filibuster a partisan CR" is such a hard position to defend. "We didn't want to shut down the government but Rs wanted to eviscerate DC's local government and that's not fair play. We're here and ready whenever Trump and Elon want to stop playing games." I don't think it's impossible Rs would have eventually agreed to an actually-clean CR.

(Does anybody know if the poison pill about the president's tariff power was real and made it into the final bill?)

On the broader issue, it's now 100% clear that Schumer does not understand we are in "put your bodies upon the gears" land now. What is going on is completely anti-constitutional and it's not going to be turned back by a gentlemen's agreement in the Senate gym.

10.3: I'm not wonky enough to fully unwind this but it looks like that provision was not in the CR but in a House resolution preliminary to the CR (https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-resolution/211/text).

I'm really divided on this one. I think refusing to continue funding when the executive branch is illegally cancelling things that have been funded is a very reasonable stance. No $ until the lawbreaking stops, as @tpmjosh has said.

But the other two sides of this I'm not sure about. Could the dems be made to own the shutdown while the executive goes even wilder? Does it just give the trump administration what it wants, permission to shut everything down? Does shutdown highlight all the terrible things that are happening and keep it in the public's mind more for political advantage? I feel like I don't understand the political and media dynamics well enough.

5.last shows how far we've come because Senators used to brag about reaching across the aisle by swimming naked with their opponents in the Senate pool.

6.last- The judicial thread might have just broken, since they're openly defying the court order not to deport people under the Alien Enemies act, including Rubio retweeting the President of El Salvador mocking the judge.

> Does it just give the trump administration what it wants, permission to shut everything down?

This is the key question. Who even knows at this point, but I do think this is what Schumer was worried about, and it's a reasonable concern.

Umass rescinds phd admissions in biomed programs: https://www.boston.com/news/health/2025/03/14/umass-chan-medical-school-rescinds-dozens-of-offers-amid-funding-uncertainty/

The article says that Harvard, Upenn, and others are curtailing admissions and cutting waitlists.

When are universities going to band together? To speak with a strong common voice?

1. That's always an important question that gets insufficient attention. The post was specifically about the 20% of the Senate, but I also agree with the House Democrats and the 80% of the Senate. People ought to be raising hell with Schumer. And he needs to take one for the team. If AOC rides this issue to a Democratic Senate nomination vs Schumer, that's fine with me. But the House and Senate are not the entirety of the Democratic Party. The Dem voters and non-voters -- they fucked up and brought us here. You're not going to get a better result until you deal with those Democrats, and that's what Schumer did here.

7. Factuality doesn't always matter, but in this case I think it does. It isn't that the villains will say that the Dems are cooperating with their depravity. It's that the Dems will actually be cooperating. And in fact, the Republicans were saying, and would continue to say, the reverse. "The Democrats are courting catastrophe." The Republicans were happy either way. They would either get what they wanted, or they would let the Dems take the bullet. It was win-win for them and lose-lose for the Dems. Smart decisions about losing aren't going to win you a lot of fans, but they are still necessary.

11. "Bodies in the gears of the machine" is pretty much the Trump platform.

I think the big disagreement here is that people think there was something to be gained for the Dems. The Republicans would absolutely have called the Dems bluff on this. Can anyone picture Trump backing down? Or the Republican Congress defying Trump in order to do the right thing? I can't.

I don't think there was an obvious answer to whether yes or no was the better vote on the merits, but there's a very clear case that Schumer let the House Democrats walk the plank. We will never know which would have been the better outcome, regardless of which one was taken. They look about equally shit options to me, but man do the Senate Democrats need somebody in charge who will at least strategize with the other chamber.

I agree with 18; with the caveat that I don't have great confidence in my read of the political calculations.

I don't understand 19. The hope in the house was that Democrats would stick together and Republicans wouldn't be able to whip a majority vote. When that failed there weren't good options, but I don't see how that means the Senate Dems hurt the house Democrats.

Well, don't take my word for it.

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/13/nx-s1-5327600/house-democrats-outrage-spending

I know they house Democrats are upset -- because they take the position that a better outcome would be possible if the Senate had filibustered.

But when you say "walk the plank" I took that as meaning something like getting BTU'd; forcing them to unnecessarily take a politically costly vote. But that isn't what they are saying in that article.

"Our job is to think long-term on behalf of the American people, and you were not thinking about how do we control this man who will take every inch of power possible," she said. "Congress is supposed to do its job and make decisions about where money gets spent. That's our job, Senator."

The real question is whether this statement is correct:

"A shutdown is not inevitable," she said. "We can pass a 30-day clean extension to allow Republicans to negotiate with Democrats in order for us to have a functioning government."

Would the Republicans vote for a 30-day clean extension? I don't think they would. I believe House Dems have a better sense of the politics than I do but, I'm a little cautious about taking that as a statement of fact because they're saying exactly what the base wants to hear.

17: When are universities going to band together? To speak with a strong common voice?

Never.

That's today's episode of "Ask a Germanist How Bad Things Can Get."

Less pessimistically, if we are very lucky, one or two prominent ones will take a stand and actually succeed. But looking at what German university rectors did in 1933 and the first couple of years afterward will not fill you with hope.

Another deportation court order openly defied:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/us/brown-university-rasha-alawieh-professor-deported.html
Confusingly she works at Brown and her lawyer's name is Brown so there are a lot of "Brown said" quotes (obviously all the lawyer, they would attribute university statements to a spokesperson)

One of the better defenses I've read of Schumer is that he's such a pathetic, risk-averse, conflict-averse, loser, who is almost completely insulated from the real effects of the administration's cuts, who has repeatedly failed to recognize the threat of authoritarianism from the right, who is totally lacking in any leadership qualities outside of narrow bureaucratic maneuvering within his own party, and who has utterly failed over the past couple of months to prepare for this moment, that while there are possible worlds where Democratic opposition to the CR could have been effective in at least disrupting the administration's hostile takeover of the government while building popular sentiment in opposition, none of those worlds include Schumer in a leadership position.

In this argument, avoiding a shutdown means limiting the damage Schumer could do as someone likely to cave to every new demand presented to him as the only way to avoid some larger crisis that would inevitably lead him to fail once again.

The affirmative case for a shutdown has always been, "We must do something ..." but it's unusual for anyone to even try to articulate a not-worse outcome from a shutdown. Yawnoc took a shot at it here in 10, but I want a little more color. The Dems say, "We want things or we will shut down the goverment." The Reps say, "Fuck you. We will give you no things. Shutting down the government has created bad outcomes. You must accept that you can't blackmail decent Americans to accept your radical leftist agenda, despite the damage you are doing. You must open the government back up so that any cuts can be made in a responsible manner."

The Democrats' next move is ... what? They cave! What else is possible? We get the same result, with the exact same people talking about how the Dems can't do strategy.

Is there another plausible narrative?

The affirmative case for a shutdown has always been, "We must do something ..." but it's unusual for anyone to even try to articulate a not-worse outcome from a shutdown. Yawnoc took a shot at it here in 10, but I want a little more color. The Dems say, "We want things or we will shut down the goverment." The Reps say, "Fuck you. We will give you no things. Shutting down the government has created bad outcomes. You must accept that you can't blackmail decent Americans to accept your radical leftist agenda, despite the damage you are doing. You must open the government back up so that any cuts can be made in a responsible manner."

The Democrats' next move is ... what? They cave! What else is possible? We get the same result, with the exact same people talking about how the Dems can't do strategy.

Is there another plausible narrative?

I'm 100% with "both options really bad" to the extent that I don't really have an opinion- I agree that it just seems like a guess based on hypotheticals and counterfactuals and there's no way to know what the better choice would have been.

I have seen claims that Schumer explicitly agreed to oppose the CR and that the House vote was based on that, and that that is why the House is so mad about it. Dunno if that's true or not and I can't remember where I saw it.

I also saw an argument that Trump tweeted a "Thanks Chuck good job" thing at Schumer before the Senate vote happened, with a claim that this was an attempt to goad him into opposing it, because Trump wanted the government to shut down. That seems like wilier planning than Trump is really capable of but maybe? I think if it is the case that Trump wanted a shutdown, then it is also the case that passing the CR was correct, just based on opposing Trump seems more important than opposing the rest of the Rs. But none of that has any actual falsifiable basis in reality, as far as I can tell.

The affirmative case for a no vote on cloture isn't some flight of fantasy hail mary but if you frame a no on cloture as exactly the equivalent of a vote for shutdown then you've already foreclosed on even thinking about other options. You're not even discussing what options are possible when you ask the question like that because forming the question as "what's the case for a shutdown?" and treating all answers dismissively isn't asking a question at all, it's making an argument in favor of voting for cloture.

The Reps say, "Fuck you. We will give you no things. Shutting down the government has created bad outcomes. You must accept that you can't blackmail decent Americans to accept your radical leftist agenda, despite the damage you are doing. You must open the government back up so that any cuts can be made in a responsible manner."

This sounds a lot more disciplined than most national Republicans are capable of these days.

Wasn't it? I thought the House had left and wouldn't be back in session before the deadline

31->29

18.4 "Can anyone picture Trump backing down?" I can. Doesn't he back down twice every week on tarriffs? When people push back, he backs down, because he's just posturing for attention half the time anyway. I also don't see Republicans successfully pinning the blame for a shutdown on Democrats. Republicans own shutdowns generally, and I don't know that "but this was a case where democrats didn't support a continuing resolution" is going to break through to Joe Apolitical. I was hoping PF's arguments would convince me that what just happened wasn't total shit, but unfortunately I'm not there yet.

To me its a signalling problem. Merits of shutting down vs not shutting down the government aside, Schumer has signaled that Senate Democrats are prepared to spend the next two years rolling over for whatever Trump wants. The only to unfuck that chicken if for him to be replaced.

Say it with me: "Senate Minority Leader Elizabeth Warren"

Schumer thought "no on CR, yes on cloture," was an acceptable ass-covering compromise position but base Dems aren't falling for that shit anymore.

Everybody seems to forget that the positions in previous shutdown (and debt limit) showdowns has always been: Dems for the status quo, Rs for spending cuts. And the positions in this showdown were... Dems for the status quo, Rs for spending cuts. The only differences now are (a) where in the system the CR is getting jammed up (the Senate instead of the House or on the President's desk), (b) Elon Musk is already the incredibly unpopular face of incredibly unpopular extralegal budget cuts. I don't know who would have caved if the shutdown happened but I don't think it's totally magical thinking to hope that the Rs would eventually settle for the status quo. (The status quo is they are getting extralegal anti-constitutional budget cuts!)

I'll say this for Schumer: the only realistic way out of this crisis is for a handful of Congressional Republicans to grow spines. I don't think it's going to happen, but I guess I'm glad he'll keep trying.

The biggest thing to me is, if a shutdown is so great for Republicans, why didn't they let it happen? They were much more in lockstep in the House than usual. They could have made a desultory effort and then blamed Democrats when it failed. They marshalled all their forces for the CR. I don't get why it's naive to think that the CR was good for them for that reason.

They were much more in lockstep in the House than usual.

It was widely assumed that they were going to quarrel like they did when Biden was president, but now they are all subservient to the same big boss so they've fallen in line.

This argument seems sound: The cutting and firing will continue with or without a CR, but you need a CR to pass a budget (which only requires 50 votes to pass) so you have to use whatever leverage you do have over the CR to extract any possible concessions.

38: What leverage do the Dems get from stopping this bill? Chakrabarti is correct that in the short to medium term, it makes no difference to the Republicans. Do we think that in the short term refusal to pass the bill will make no difference to Democrats -- either officeholders or the general public? Does anyone think that the Dems and their public can shut down the government fo two years without blame accrusing to the Democrats? And when the Dems do cave, will Spike be saying, "Oh, well, at least they tried"?

36: The Republicans are served by a shutdown in a particular set of circumstances and have created those circumstances. If the shutdown happens because the nuts in the House won't pass a bill, that's bad for them. If it happens because of Democratic instransigence, that's not bad for them.

33: People underestimate the fantastic persuasive power of bullshit. There is no way, looking at the actual actions of Trump, that you can say Trump backed down on tariffs. And his refusal to back down on a genuinely outrageous and unprofitable move has been costly to core constituencies. You should examine how Trump's nonsense talk permits you to impose your own preferred narrative on his actions.

30: National Republicans do what Trump tells them to do, by and large. Maybe there would be a discipline issue if the Dems have some leverage, but all the Dems can do is take credit for the shutdown. That's not leverage.

Schumer operates in this discussion as a synechdoche for the Democratic officeholders in general -- but we sometimes forget that. My guess is, there is no scenario where the Democratic officeholders don't cave in the end. What Schumer did was give a chunk of his caucus cover to vote against cloture. But beyond those who voted with him, there were plenty of others ready to cave if it had been required because they don't really have any choice.

And again, I don't particularly mind if Chakrabarti or others make political hay out of this. It's fine with me if he or AOC are able to demagogue this stuff.

"Can anyone picture Trump backing down?" I can. Doesn't he back down twice every week on tariffs? When people push back, he backs down, because he's just posturing for attention half the time anyway.

This is very true and important to remember!

I mean, he literally wrote a book about how the key to his success is massive amounts of backing down. You go into a negotiation, you make an outrageous opening demand, the other side gets annoyed, then you compromise - in other words, you back down from your initial demand to reach something that the other side is just about willing to agree to.

41: Trump has never literally written a book. At some point in his life he may literally have read a book, but I'm skeptical.

Good point. A book was written with his name on it.

He's definitely read parts of at least one book, and that book is "My New Order", a collection of the speeches of, er, (Hans Liebkind voice) "you know who".

The biggest thing to me is, if a shutdown is so great for Republicans, why didn't they let it happen? They were much more in lockstep in the House than usual.

I am, like pf in the OP, somewhat playing Devil's advocate here. But I think there are two obvious possible answers to that question. The first, as pf says, is that they don't want a shutdown for which they would be blamed; but they think that a shutdown prompted by a filibuster in the Senate would be costly for Democrats. The second possibility is that right now they have momentum and things are going well for them* and they don't want "Republicans in disarray" stories. It's possible that a shutdown would work well for them, but their first preference is to not take the risk.

* This will not last forever. I strongly believe that at some point Trump will look like a lame duck president, and Republicans will be looking for the next horse to ride.

Sexually speaking.

Speaking of animals, why is my coworker so sad that her cat went to Canada?

Maybe just because the cat seemed really too sick to travel.

Hans Liebkind? Franz Liebkind, you fool.

My Canadian pussycat.

Maybe the cat was leaving Canada? I guess the Rainbow Bridge goes both ways.

And when the Dems do cave, will Spike be saying, "Oh, well, at least they tried"?

I sure fucking wish they would at least try. Some semblance of a plan would be nice. We're going to need a new one now that egg prices have receded.

* This will not last forever. I strongly believe that at some point Trump will look like a lame duck president, and Republicans will be looking for the next horse to ride.

Unless Trump is literally incapacitated, I don't think this is remotely possible. We're more likely to learn that allowing a third term Trump is the only way to avoid a shutdown and we wouldn't want a shutdown, would we? That would prevent the courts from sternly criticizing the government lawyers who, when asked if Trump is president in violation of the 22nd Amendment, tell the court the real president is someone on vacation in the 51st state, Canada. But maybe this time the judge will sanction the lawyer so bad that they narrowly avoid taking control of the DC bar.

I recently realized that if Trump can run for a third term, so can Obama.

The odds of any given 78-year-old becoming incapacitated during the next four years is pretty significant, though.

I honestly cannot imagine that he'll finish this term. I don't know whether it'll be his health, or a coup by Vance backed by the oligarchs, or popular revolt or assassination. But I just can't believe he'll last four years.

He handpicked a cabinet too corrupt to care, as long as the heart still beats.

Thiel can buy them too!

I'm pretty mad at Schumer. NYT article nd the new book on antisemitism annoy me too. Like, Elon Musk's cuts to US AID will kill more people than the Holocaust. I actually am intrigued by Peter Beinart's book. "Being Jewish after the destruction of Gaza." I haven't read it, but I watched some interviews. I need to read it.

Al Franken's been pretty big on how people who have concerns about the existence of Israel are antisemitic, and I think he was moved while interviewing Beinart. I also saw him interviewed by a Palestinian professor from U Mass. My point is that I think Schumer is stuck and deluding himself that Republicans can be reasonable. I think we need a new leader.

Codifying MUSK's authority is endorsing lawlessness and giving up their Article I powers.

The odds of any given 78-year-old becoming incapacitated during the next four years is pretty significant, though.

ISTR running the numbers back in 2016 and finding he's actuarially set to live to 88. And given he's survived eight years since I did that, the number will have gone up.
(checks)
Yep, 89, assuming he's not taking recreational drugs.

And really he would have to be pretty incapacitated for his court to admit it.

34: Even Patti Murray.

Well, seems like Judge Boasberg is the Rubicon. Either he starts the process toward jailing DOJ and DHS officials for contempt, albeit with appeals, or the court system is now a fig leaf and outrages against law will slowly increase.

That is very scary.

Anyone know anything about Boasberg's background that might indicate how he's likely to handle this?

Served on FISA Court appointed by Roberts. Yale (Skull & Bones) and Yale Law. Appointed to DC superior Court by GWB (at EH Norton's recommendation), then to district court by Obama.

Good thing the budget passed and the government is open for both courts and flights! Just the best possible outcome we could have hoped for.

Maybe we should have elected that nice lady with the emails.

I don't know, I get economically anxious just thinking about her.

Kinda surprised that Khalil is still in the country. I guess it's hard to predict anything about this administration, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of logic in which court orders they follow, which ones they'll say they'll follow and then don't, and which ones they just disregard.

Apparently Boasberg used to be a high level DEA agent too.

69. The goal is maximum screen time for unpleasant foreigners, there is no actual policy. America-hating muslims and their deluded defenders should be allowed to talk as much as they want from confinement. That way everyone watching can stay focused on the essential question, pick a side.

From Rolling Stone:

"Multiple senior GOP sources in both chambers on the Hill and within the Trump administration were quick to blab to Rolling Stone about how thrilled they were at Schumer's willingness to cave -- because they now believe they can get away with the same tactics in the next funding showdown and exclude Democrats from the process. "

68: I think when that happens you're supposed to slow down and go through baseball stats in your head.

Bob Nutting would be a good name for a baseball team owner in that case. But in real life, not so much.

This
https://othermeans.io/p/going-down-swinging

Just some incredible shit in DOJ filings on the Venezuelan thing. No real negative info the individuals? Enhances our case!

"[T]he lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose. It demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.

Bold, piping hot take: 75 is interesting in its focus on using hopeless struggle to create images and narratives, because to me, the single most pervasive issue right now seems to be that liberals believe that only conservatives can meaningfully control images and narratives. This is both because conservative content has an edge in the current media universe, and also because liberals won't take their own side in an argument (exhibit A here might be Newsom, although honestly I haven't sat down and watched that shit). I think there's real concern about doubling that moral loss with actual political losses. All across the national landscape, liberals are really, really interested in considering the possibility that Trump might be right and they might be wrong about key things. The trouble seems to be that, in general, they can't make themselves lean into either side.

I guess I'm in the no good options camp. Fear of and voting for the Orange Menace papers over the gaping divisions in the Republican coalition. There's a more institutionalist faction, that's where most of the congressional folks are, but there's also a bunch of nihilists in and adjacent to the Executive. How wild would Musk and his minions run in the event of a shutdown? I just don't think we can know. Right now, federal employees fired by Musk are getting reinstated, temporarily at least. (For many of them, reinstatement is going to stick: it's a lot of work to do individual personnel actions, as opposed to the mass actions they did.) Shutdown kills that. What sorts of appropriative powers would the somehow White House assume? I don't think prior shutdowns are a reliable guide to what this shutdown would have been.

Nonetheless, caving so performatively is a bad look.

|| I thought this was pretty good. https://verdict.justia.com/2025/03/18/guantanamo-and-the-performative-president |>

77 The major media outlets *are* in the hands of anti-Democratic forces.

78 they're running pretty wild now, shutting down an independent 501c3 organization (where does this end?), installing compromised satellite communications equipment in the WH, that's just the past day or two

76: The judge here is in a very Schumer-like position. If he issues contempt rulings that Trump et al. ignore we are well and truly fucked. E.g. I don't think there's any chance the US Marshals take anybody into custody, not even a symbolic line attorney.

Speaking of the Marshals, what's going on with DC law enforcement aiding and abetting the DOGE break-ins?!

81: One possibly relevant piece of information is that some of Musk's goons have apparently been "deputized" as Marshals? No idea how official or correct that is. Or if they are involved in these particular matters.

78 is what I was trying to say in 19.

82: Reporting from yesterday is that the DC police were involved. I don't see how real police officers get to, "I'm going to coerce you to give this stranger access to your property with no court order," no matter how red-pilled they may be. And I don't see how the security guards let them (or Musk's goons) in, short of illegitimate threats of violence.

84: The DC police are more institutionally responsive to the federal government than most PDs, right? Since Congress can take away DC's autonomy at any time, and is presently monkeying with it in any number of ways.

Possibly big news: Roberts issued a statement against Trump calling for the impeachment of judges (presumably Boasberg). I haven't found the text yet.

Apparently only emailed out to certain reporters. On Bloomberg but behind paywall. Per @mjsdc.bsky.social:

For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.

The media are doing a bang up job on the Trump-Putin call. NYT may have the wirst take:

Trump Discussion With Putin to Focus on What Ukraine Will Lose
In an echo of the Yalta Conference in 1945, the American and Russian leaders will talk on Tuesday about who gets what in the process of ending the war in Ukraine.

"Echo" is doing a *lot* of work there.

Later in the article:

No historical analogy to a previous era is exact, of course, and the negotiation to end the war in Ukraine has many differences from the conditions in the depths of the winter of 1945, when it was clear that Nazi Germany would soon lose.

Gee, dya think? For instance, who is actually in the freaking conversation

80 Yes, but it can't get any worse counts among the most famous of last words.

The current narrative out there in the culture is that Musk has grossly overstepped. People aren't paying as close attention to the architects of Project 2025, but there's a reason Trump disavowed it during the campaign, and this is all going to catch up with institutional Republicans.

Schumer may have been mistaken about which bitter pill to swallow. But every minute that people opposed to Trump spend talking about Schumer is a minute they're not talking about Musk. The general conversation has to always be about Trump and overreach, and never about Democratic infighting, which fires up 10% of the Democratic coalition (or 30%, I don't care) and leaves everyone else bored or demoralized.

I thought this was pretty good. https://verdict.justia.com/2025/03/18/guantanamo-and-the-performative-president

That is good, thank you.

87 is extraordinary, but I can see the analogy.

The US in 2025 is the US in 1945.
Russia in 2025 is the USSR in 1945.
Ukraine in 2025 is Germany in 1945.
The US and the USSR were allies in 1945; the US and Russia are allies in 2025.
The USSR was doing most of the ground fighting against Germany in 1945, but US support for the Soviet war effort was hugely valuable; Russia is doing most of the ground fighting against Ukraine in 2025, but US support for the Russian war effort is hugely valuable.
The US and the USSR carved up Europe into spheres of influence without consulting the locals in 1945; the US and Russia will carve up Ukraine (and maybe other European countries too, I can't imagine the Baltics and Poland won't come up) into spheres of influence without consulting the locals in 2025.

For reasons, I was recently at an Estonian independence day celebration at a cultural center in Los Angeles, and one of the visiting dignitaries (I think Latvian) was very explicit about "echoes" of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

Molotov-Ribbentrop may be too modern for the Trump admin. Maybe the first* partition of Poland?

*Or third, if they get rid of Ukraine altogether.

That Schumer interview with Chris Hayes - he's clearly not up to the moment, not a wartime consigliere, he's got to go.

81, 82: It's worse than that.

"Yesterday I noted that when DOGE showed up on Monday at the USIP offices, they came with what appeared to be private security in addition to FBI agents. It turns out that those private security people were USIP's own security contractors, only they'd switched sides to DOGE. That contractor is called 'Inter-Con.' Realizing that DOGE might try to suborn Inter-Con, the USIP's head of security had already canceled Inter-Con's contract and that cancelation had been acknowledged. USIP was able to close out Inter-Con's swipe badges, but there was one physical key they had not been able to get possession of yet. That key was in the hands of Kevin Simpson, the Inter-Con account manager for USIP. It was that physical key, which Simpson brought to the offices on Monday, which allowed DOGE to get into the building. Once they made entry they immediately made for the gun safe and took possession of the premises. DC Metro Police were also soon on the scene and ordered the incumbent staff to leave.

Now, why did Inter-Con switch sides? Why did they continue acting as security contractors after their contract had been terminated? According to the sworn declaration of the USIP head of security Colin O'Brien, Derick Hanna, Vice President of Inter-Con, told O'Brien that 'DOGE threatened to cancel every federal contract Inter-Con held if they did not come to the USIP building and let Kenneth Jackson [the purported new head of the Institute] inside.'

How big a threat was that? According to USASpending, Inter-Con has $209 million in government contractors currently. So it sounds like DOGE made them an offer they couldn't refuse."

24, Marshall has made his decision. Now ler him enforce it.