Last Thursday ought to have been the end of the October 2025 SCOTUS term, but as has often been true in recent years there were several decisions not yet issued by the date. Four were released this morning, and perhaps the remaining four outstanding will come tomorrow. This morning’s batch included three cases I’ve been following.

First, the Court ruled 6-3 in Trump v. Slaughter to overrule its 1935 precedent in Humphrey’s Executor. The existing law governing the Federal Trade Commission calls for the President to nominate the FTC’s members but then specifies that, once an FTC Commissioner has been appointed, they can only be removed before the end of their 7-year term “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” Notwithstanding that statute, Trump had removed Commissioners Slaughter and Bedoya without alleging those preconditions has been met, instead asserting general Presidential authority to remove executive officers. Today’s ruling, in overturning Humphrey’s Executor, asserts that Congressional restrictions on the President’s ability to remove a Commissioner are unconstitutional, violating the separation of powers.

This result is far from unexpected, but it saddens me. At my core, I am a technocrat: I think the best form of government involves heavy reliance on experts insulated from both political winds and pecuniary motivations. To the extent we ever had anything even close to that model in this country, it has been degrading throughout my lifetime, with an acceleration in recent years and a rapid acceleration during the second Trump term. Slaughter is yet another example of the movement away from what in my view constitutes the ideal of “good government”.

It was likely not coincidental that Slaughter was released on the same day as the SCOTUS opinion in Trump v. Cook, a rare occurrence where the Court decided to hold oral arguments on a case from its shadow docket. Recall that Cook arose from Trump’s effort to use unproven allegations of mortgage fraud, predating Lisa Cook’s appointment to the Federal Reserve, as grounds for firing Governor Cook “for cause,” which is what the relevant statute indicates is the only reason why a President can remove a Governor before the end of their 14-year term. While the issues in Cook are similar to those in Slaughter, the difference is that the Federal Reserve Board is traditionally viewed as possessing a level of independence from the President that the FTC and other multi-member commissions do not.

In a 5-4 opinion, Roberts (joined by Kavanaugh and the liberals) ruled today that the stay granted by a lower court to prevent Cook’s firing should remain in place while litigation continues. The Court majority asserts that the meaning of “for cause” is neither as broad as Trump asserted, nor as narrow as Cook argued. They also ruled that Cook was required to be given a meaningful opportunity to respond to the allegations before being fired over them, which did not occur. As such, the ultimate fate of Governor Cook remains up in the air, but at least she will remain in place on the FRB while further activity continues.

Roberts’ majority opinion in Cook does not mention his majority opinion in Slaughter at all, but that case is addressed in both a solo concurrence by Kavanaugh and a solo dissent by Thomas. Thomas argues that Slaughter should govern here, and that placing a restriction on the President’s ability to remove an FRB Governor is a violation of the separation of powers. Kavanaugh, by contrast, writes: “In my view, in light of…historical practice and precedent, the Federal Reserve may continue as an independent agency after Slaughter. If the Federal Reserve’s for-cause removal protections are to be eliminated, that change must occur through the legislative process.”

The day’s third SCOTUS decision of interest came from Justice Barrett. In a 5-4 opinion in Watson v. RNC, joined by Roberts and the 3 liberals, she held that a Mississippi statute allowing mail-in ballots postmarked by election day to be counted if they arrive within 5 days of election day does not violate federal law. The legal question at hand boils down to whether a federal statute prescribing “election day” refers to when ballots must be cast or also when they must be received; per the majority, it refers only to when they must be cast. If the other view had prevailed, that could have injected further operational uncertainty into this fall’s elections.

That leaves the birthright citizenship case Barbara as the main piece of news on tap for tomorrow. However I should also mention that, last week, the usual 6-3 majority ruled in favor of the government in the case now styled Mullin v. Doe about the revocation of Temporary Protected Status for Syrians and Haitians. I’m not convinced Alito’s ruling is wrong, actually; as heinous as the administration’s actions to unwind TPS programs are, they probably have the legal right to do them. Finally, in other SCOTUS news, today they declined to grant certiorari in Trump’s appeal of the Carroll II defamation case.

Turning to Iran: Despite the touted Memorandum of Understanding, and a resulting decline in oil prices (now back down to pre-war levels) and U.S. gas prices (today at $3.86, down from a high around $4.50 but above pre-war levels of around $3.00), there have been military skirmishes by both sides in recent days. Bill Kristol, writing this morning for The Bulwark:

“This military tit-for-tatting happened amidst a cacophony of competing understandings of the much-heralded memorandum of understanding signed two weeks ago. It turns out that an agreement that Iran would “make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels” is subject to very different interpretations of “arrangements” and “best efforts.” The United States thinks “safe passage” should mean free passage. Iran thinks that if Iran can “make arrangements” it’s allowed to . . . make arrangements. Who could have known there would be disagreement on this point?

But the bottom line is that this is what a messy but unacknowledged surrender by the United States of America to the Islamic Republic of Iran looks like. And this is probably what the New Normal will look like. It will consist of on-and-off military tit-for-tats; endless diplomatic squabbling and propagandizing; a Strait of Hormuz that is quasi-open but not reliably so, and is mostly so at Iranian sufferance; no resolution with regard to Iran’s nuclear program; and at the end of the day an Iranian regime that is emboldened, American allies that are uncertain and dispirited, and a United States that is unable to exert its power or will decisively.”

In political news, last Tuesday was the New York primaries. The race of greatest interest to me was the Democratic primary in Manhattan, the 12th district, where Nadler’s retirement after 17 terms created an open seat. National attention early in the race had been focused on two candidates: 33-year-old Jack Schlossberg. a grandson of JFK who’d received an early endorsement from Pelosi; and ex-Republican George Conway, who focused singularly on his desire to see Trump impeached and vowed to serve only one term. In the end those two combined to receive only 17% of the vote, with Conway finishing 5th in what was supposedly a four-man race. The winner, Assemblyman Micah Lasher, was Nadler’s preferred successor. But the real news out of these primaries came from 3 other NYC-area seats, where candidates backed by Mayor Mamdani won, in two cases unseating more moderate incumbents, and in all cases reflecting an ascendancy in New York Democratic politics of pro-Palestinian over pro-Israeli views.

There have been a number of recent actions of interest in lower Federal courts:

• In a case called League of Women Voters vs. DHS, last week a federal judge in D.C. (Sooknanan) issued summary judgment to prevent the administration from taking various actions related to Executive Order 14248 from March 2025, “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” The main thrust of the ruling is that it will prevent the administration from letting states use a federal citizenship database to screen their voter rolls. On the one hand, I happen to believe that the federal government should possess a comprehensive (and accurate!) citizenship database, and that such a database should be used for various purposes; so as a policy matter, I tend to agree with what the administration was seeking to accomplish. On the other hand, I think the ruling amply establishes that what the administration actually did was contrary to three different laws, and my foremost interest is in the rule of law.
• A couple of days later, a federal judge in Massachusetts (Casper) ruled that various other aspects of Executive Order 14248 were unconstitutional, in a case called California v. Trump.
• A year after EO 14248, Trump issued Executive Order 14399, “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections”, which purported to create a host of new requirements relating to the use of the U.S. Postal Service to transmit ballots. This week a different federal judge in Masschusetts (Tawlani), in a different case also called California v. Trump, struck down various aspects of EO 14399. (So to recap: We have already had two different Oregon v. Trump cases on tariffs, and now we have two different California v. Trump cases on election ‘integrity’. Maybe the blue states could more comprehensively rotate who takes the lead plaintiff role on which cases, to avoid confusion?)
• Starting in March 2025 there have been ongoing controversies, under the adjudication of a federal judge named Boasberg, about deportation actions taken by the administration. This had led to a SCOTUS shadow docket case in May 2025, J.G.G. v. Trump. It also led to Boasberg finding probable cause to pursue contempt of court cases against administration officials. The judge’s ability to move forward with that was forestalled for several months by the D.C. Circuit Court, and thereafter was administratively stayed in light of the administration’s request for a writ of mandamus to stop the proceeding. In the case now known as In re Trump, earlier this year a 2-1 panel of the D.C. Circuit granted the writ of mandamus. However, last week the full D.C. Circuit en banc agreed to hear the case in late September, resuscitating the possibility that the contempt case will go forward.

Finally, turning back to the legislative arena: Last week veto-proof majorities in both houses had passed a housing bill, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. It was supposed to have been signed last Wednesday. Two hours before the scheduled signing ceremony, Trump pulled the rug out, saying he would not sign it until Congress passed his voting ‘reform’ bill, the SAVE America Act, consistent with his earlier threat that he would not sign any domestic legislation until the voting bill (for which there still do not appear to be 50 Republican Senate votes, let alone 60) passes. Trump also downplayed the significance of the housing bill, whose provisions seem unlikely to have an immediate effect on housing costs. Today Speaker Johnson formally sent the housing bill to Trump anyways, starting the clock on Trump’s window to sign or veto it. If Trump does nothing, the bill will become law without his signature, around July 10th.

World Cup fever is sweeping North America. Today marks the end of the first set of pool play games, and so far we’ve seen a brace from American striker Folarin Bolagun (who would not be a U.S. citizen under the Trump administration’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment) in a 4-1 win over Paraguay, as well as a hat trick from Messi, braces from Mbappe and Haaland and Kane, and a remarkable scoreless draw between Spain and Cape Verde (which apparently cost one person $1 million on the prediction markets). Despite the ridiculous cost of tickets and the general unease in the world about the U.S. these days, crowds have been large and vigorous. The newly expanded 48-team format has led to a schedule where most days feature 4 games, spaced 3 hours apart, making for a continuous viewing experience. So far it’s been a triumph.

As foreshadowed, on Sunday (or Monday, depending on your timezone) the U.S. and Iran announced their intention to sign a memorandum of understanding this coming Friday in Geneva. However, apparently the MOU was instead signed by both countries’ presidents late today, with Trump’s signature coming while eating at Versailles with French President Macron following the conclusion of this week’s G-7 meeting.

What is in the MOU? It was read aloud to reporters today, but the text has not yet been officially released. What is known about it does not sound very promising, to be honest. For one thing, it calls for the immediate waiver of U.S. sanctions to allow Iran to export oil; legal scholar Jack Goldsmith observes that the executive probably can’t do this without Congressional approval, under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Act of 2015, but of course Trump constantly reminds me of Steve Goodman’s turn of phrase “little care I for the law”.

Tomorrow is a scheduled SCOTUS opinions release day, so we’ll see if anything particularly interesting emerges.

Some legal news from last month that I missed relates to AHA v. Trump, a case filed in April in connection with the administration’s newfound legal opinion that the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional. A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction, requiring various federal defendants other than the President and Vice-President to not comply with the new legal opinion and associated new records retention guidance. The judge apparently felt that it was unclear as to whether the judiciary could enjoin Trump and Vance, and that it would be sufficient to enjoin all of their subordinates.

There was a runoff primary in Georgia last night, for both Governor and Senate. The sitting Lieutenant Governor, Bert Jones, had been endorsed by Trump and had a plurality in the April primary, but was defeated in the runoff by self-funding billionaire (and alleged tax cheat) Rick Jackson. Jackson will go on to face former Atlanta mayor (and potential 2020 vice-presidential candidate) Keisha Lance Bottoms. Trump went 1-for-2 in endorsements, however, as Rep. Mike Collins advanced to face Sen. Ossoff over an opponent (Derek Dooley) endorsed by outgoing Governor Brian Kemp.

Finally, I tend not to blog about legislation that has no chance of being enacted, but I am fascinated by Senator Sanders’ announcement that he is about to introduce a bill called the American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, under which all major U.S. AI companies would be required to give 50% stock, together with voting rights and board seats, to a new government-controlled fund. This is precisely the type of bold public policy thinking that we need.

Uncertainty over the Iran stalemate has been the major news of the week, as we oscillate between suggestions that an agreement is imminent and reports that a resumption of hostilities is imminent. The first paragraph of today’s Bloomberg story reads: “President Donald Trump said an interim deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the conflict with Iran would be signed on Sunday, a claim contradicted by Iran as the two sides still differ over key points, including management of the waterway and payments to the Islamic Republic.” Earlier this week CNN published an analysis indicating that Trump had claimed an Iran deal was right around the corner at least 38 different times.

Yesterday the D.C. Circuit turned down the request for a stay of the recent order in Beatty v. Trump that Trump’s name be removed from the facade of the Kennedy Center. With yesterday being the deadline for compliance with the order, the Kennedy Center asserts that the name has been removed; however, in light of barricades and visual barriers that were hastily erected while the removal work was purportedly being performed, the public cannot tell at this point whether or not that is actually true.

Also yesterday, a federal judge in Massachusetts granted a request for a preliminary injunction in a case called National Parks Conservation Association vs. Department of the Interior. This case is an outgrowth of an executive order from March 2025 with the Orwellian name “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”, and specifically the portion requiring the Secretary of the Interior to “take action, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to ensure that all public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties within the Department of the Interior’s jurisdiction do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times), and instead focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people”.

In response to this executive order, the National Parks Service has removed a host of interpretive materials relating to such topics as climate change, civil rights, slavery, immigration, labor, women’s suffrage, and Indigenous communities. In granting the request for a preliminary injunction, the judge agreed that these actions were arbitrary and capricious, and likely in violation of three different relevant laws. As a result, the judge has given the administration 21 calendar days — a window that expires right before the 250th anniversary of the country — to reinstall all interpretive materials that had been removed under the executive order.

As the opinion in NPCA v. Interior puts it: “A unilateral, unreasoned, and lawless Executive Order of a President cannot be the sole justification for an agency’s actions, lest the country be prepared to entrust its future to the whims of a single individual.” But I also thought the following passage from the opinion was particularly eloquent:

“The great irony of this case is that Defendants, and the Executive Order they purport to faithfully execute, decry the existing interpretive materials at National Parks as a “concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.” Yet, the Government’s actions do exactly what they profess to counteract, dismantling objective historic truths and permanently damaging public memory. Behind the incendiary rhetoric lies little substance, lacking even a remote amount of scientific rigor, facts, legal authority, or discernible reasoning. Our democracy and system of governance demand more from the Executive. Agencies must grapple with important facts and considerations, respect the limits of statutory authority, provide reasoned justifications for their actions, and, above all else, follow the law. That was not done here.”

In other judicial news, this week the Federal Circuit granted the administration’s request for a stay pending appeal of the CIT’s ruling in the Section 122 tariffs case, still styled Oregon v. Trump. This suggests that the Federal Circuit is not convinced of the validity of plaintiffs’ arguments that the preconditions to apply Section 122 cannot be met in a world without fixed exchange rates. The SCOTUS term is now down to its last two weeks but we’re still awaiting decisions in Cook, Slaughter, and Barbara as well as a potentially impactful election law case, Watson v. RNC.

There were some primaries this week, but nothing particularly interesting. For months it had been expected that last Tuesday’s Maine Democratic Senate primary would be a blockbuster, after mainstream party leaders had recruited 78-year-old Governor Janet Mills as an alternative to 41-year-old progressive Graham Platner, a veteran and oyster farmer with considerable personal baggage but a lot of momentum. However, Mills dropped out six weeks ago. The Platner-Collins matchup in the general will be one of this fall’s most interesting races.

Finally, this week Trump signed the Secure America Act, resolving the controversy over ICE and CBP funding that led to the government shutdown in April. This seemingly marks the first time that the budget reconciliation process has been used as an alternative to the usual appropriations process, which could have interesting long-term implications. The bill, which provides funding for these subagencies through the end of Trump’s term, passed 52-47 in the Senate (with Murkowski the only Republican defector) and 214-212 in the House.

The California jungle primaries were six days ago, but in light of the state’s heavy reliance on mail-in voting, it has taken until today for there to be clarity on the two marquee races.

For Governor, after Eric Swalwell’s implosion, Xavier Becerra managed to come out of the pack to be the Democratic frontrunner. and it’s been pretty clear since election night that he would be one of the two candidates in the general. The leader on election night was British-born Republican Steve Hilton, one of only two prominent Republicans on the 61-person ballot, versus five prominent Democrats. However, election watchers had warned of a “red mirage” in this year’s California returns, as Republicans were more likely to vote in person rather than by mail and, to the extent they voted by mail, were deemed more likely to have submitted their votes early. (The theory is that Democrats were waiting for the dust to settle in order to figure out how to cast their vote so as to avoid the potential debacle of having both Republican candidates advance.) As such, Becerra ultimately passed Hilton, and until today there was some hope that billionaire Tom Steyer, who spent close to $200 million of his own money, could also surpass Hilton. As such, California seems poised to have a Latino governor for the first time since 1875.

The other main race was for L.A. mayor, which was really a three-way race between the incumbent Karen Bass, a Republican former reality TV star named Spencer Pratt, and a younger progressive councilwoman named Nithya Raman. It took five days for Raman to overtake Pratt for second, and one further day for her lead to look insurmountable. This sets up an interesting battle of older Black moderate versus younger South Asian progressive.

A particularly interesting Congressional primary was the California 6th, near Sacramento. As a result of Proposition 50, both the 6th and 3rd are now expected to be safe blue seats, even though previously one was blue and one was red. The incumbent Democrat in the 6th decided to instead run in the 3rd, while the incumbent in the 3rd — Kevin Kiley, who was elected as a Republican but became an independent in March — decided to run in the 6th. As such, the ballot in the 6th consists of a sitting independent Congressman, one Republican, and several Democrats. The nominal Republican on the ballot, a man named Michael Stansfield, did not have a campaign website, lawn signs, or ads. However, as the only person on the ballot with an “R” next to his name, coming out of election night he was poised to advance together with Rep. Kiley, which would have been disastrous for Democrats who were counting on flipping this seat. Several days later, however, Stansfield has slipped to 3rd behind one of the Democrats, former State Senator Richard Pan, who would be the favorite to win in the fall assuming he makes the general.

A few assorted developments on other fronts:

Kennedy Center. Congresswoman Joyce Beatty (D-OH), an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees, had sued over three issues relating to Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center: the Board’s decision to strip her and other ex officio trustees of their voting rights; the Board’s decision to append Trump’s name to the Center in violation of federal law; and the Board’s decisionmaking process around the announced two-year closure of the Center for major renovations effective in July 2026. Last week a federal judge ruled largely in the Congresswoman’s favor in Beatty v. Trump, ruling that: the name must be changed back; the ex officio trustees must be allowed to vote; and the process by which the Board reached the decision to close the Center for two years was faulty. Trump promptly threw a hissy fit.

East Wing Ballroom. Last week the D.C. Circuit heard oral arguments in the administration’s appeal of the preliminary injunction granted two months ago in National Trust for Historic Preservation v. National Park Service, a case challenging Trump’s actions to tear down the East Wing of the White House to build a ballroom (on top of a new bunker). The administration’s position appears to be that no court can review the administration’s actions in this matter, or similar hypothetical matters such as tearing down the Statue of Liberty.

Anti-Weaponization Fund. In an unexpected development, the judge who had been assigned Trump’s now-“settled” lawsuit against the IRS has called for a hearing this week around the legality of the so-called $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund” created as part of the “settlement”. The administration has suggested that the fund itself may not come to pass, but the agreement to give Trump immunity from tax audits remains intact for now. In not-unrelated news, Trump recently announced his intention to nominate Acting AG Blanche as the permanent replacement for Bondi; I have doubts as to whether that nomination is viable.

H-1B Reform. A federal judge today, in a case known as California v. Mullin, struck down the $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas that the administration imposed back in September. Interestingly to me, the decision relies heavily on the landmark ACA SCOTUS case, NFIB v. Sebelius, in concluding that this $100,000 “fee” is properly thought of as a “tax” and hence that the President lacked the authority to impose it.

Tariffs. Three different things going on. First, the administration has belatedly decided it will appeal, to the Federal Circuit, the Court of International Trade’s order requiring universal refunds of the tariffs that SCOTUS found unlawful in Learning Resources, even though it had already started the administrative process of complying with that order. Second, we’re still waiting for Federal Circuit action on the more recent CIT ruling regarding the Section 122 tariffs. Third, citing authority under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, the administration has recently proposed new tariffs on 60 economies including Canada, China, the E.U., Japan, and the U.K., on the grounds that these economies have “failed to effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor”. Unlike the Section 122 tariffs, which are time-limited, the authority to enact Section 301 tariffs is open-ended, but it requires investigations by the United States Trade Representative as a prerequisite.

The subhead of today’s NYT article on Iran reads: “The American blockade and Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz have created a stalemate that is neither peace nor raging conflict, with both sides attempting economic strangulation on the water.” All week, both sides have seemed to be stumbling towards some sort of de-escalation agreement, but no tangible news yet.

On Tuesday the Trump primary coattails remained strong as Texas Attorney General Paxton soundly defeated Senator Cornyn in the primary runoff. Cornyn went from 42.0% in a three-way race to only 36.2% head-to-head. With Paxton now the nominee against the Democrats’ Talarico, there is an increasing amount of optimism that the Democrats might be able to overcome a very difficult map to retake Senate control. Getting to 50 would require holding Georgia and New Hampshire while flipping seats in Maine, North Carolina, and at least one of Alaska and Ohio; getting beyond 50 would require inroads in states like Iowa, Nebraska, and/or Texas.

There’s talk today that Trump is seeking to have the U.S. start issuing a $250 bill in light of the 250th anniversary, with Trump’s picture on it. This would require legislation, which seems unlikely to pass. Since the target market for a $250 bill would (like the now-discontinued 500 Euro bill) largely be criminals, I’m actually okay with putting Trump’s picture on it.

The main piece of news from the past month that I didn’t get to in my previous post involves the lawsuit Trump had previously filed against the IRS, seeking $10 billion in damages over the fact that during his first term an IRS contractor was able to leak Trump’s tax returns. A federal judge had expressed skepticism as to whether there was really an adversarial situation here that the courts could address, given that Trump was suing an agency that, under the unitary executive theory, he controls. Before the judge could rule on that, the government announced that it was settling the lawsuit, under terms that are insanely favorable to Trump. First and foremost, the settlement purports to permanently resolve in Trump’s favor all open IRS audits involving him and his family. In addition, the settlement would create a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund”, run by people the Attorney General appoints, creating “a process for victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress.” “Victims” like, you know, the January 6th rioters. Or, perhaps the Trumps themselves. Of all the things that have happened in the second Trump administration, this may actually be the very worst.

It’s Memorial Day today, as we remember all Americans who died for their country in military action, but especially this year the 13 dead from Operation Epic Fury.

Has been a long while since I felt like blogging, so as usual there seems like too much news to get caught up on. Still, one must try:

Iran. For weeks it has felt like we have been in a stalemate: no further overt acts of war, but yet the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed to traffic. Superficially, the government asserts that Operation Epic Fury ended long before reaching the 60-day threshold on May 1st, obviating any need for Congressional approval of continued action under the War Powers Resolution. On the other hand, U.S. naval forces have remained involved in a blockade of the Strait, which is generally viewed as an act of war.

Both houses of Congress continue to vote periodically on resolutions to cease all hostilities in Iran. The last House vote, on May 14th, only failed on a 212-212 tie. The last Senate vote, on May 19th, to advance the resolution actually passed 50-47; the House was scheduled to vote again on May 22nd, but as it became clear that Speaker Johnson no longer had the votes to defeat it, the Speaker instead sent the House home early for the holiday weekend.

Over the weekend news has come out that a deal to end the war may be near; however, it is unclear to what extent this is real or wishful thinking. It seems clear that Trump wishes to be done with Iran, perhaps so that he can turn his attention to Cuba. It also seems clear that whatever resolution is reachable at this point may be more detrimental to U.S. interests than the status quo ante. Paul Krugman, writing today:

“In my view there are four main reasons why Trump’s Iran “excursion” is ending in humiliation. First, this was a fundamentally unwinnable war. Once the initial decapitation strikes against Iran’s leadership left the regime’s hold on power intact, Operation Epic Fury became an attempt to end Iran’s threat to world oil supplies by suppressing its missiles and drones with air power. Unfortunately…such campaigns have never worked. … Chasing down mobile launchers, especially in an era of cheap, abundant drones and in a huge, mountainous country like Iran, is an impossible game of whack-a-mole. … Second, painful as this is to recognize, the U.S. military, after decades of unchallenged dominance, appears to have lost much of its edge. … That said, the Trump administration has made the degradation of the military much worse. [Secretary Hegseth] has carried out an unprecedented purge of military officers with impeccable reputations… [replacing] them with political loyalists… The officers who survived the purge got the message. Under Hegseth, official accounts of the war’s progress have been a stream of bombastic claims of victory and ludicrously rosy depictions of the situation on the battlefield. … It’s…likely that Hegseth and Trump have also been receiving false, optimistic reports, because nobody in the military dares to tell them the uncomfortable truth. … Finally, success in modern war depends crucially on out-thinking one’s enemies. But MAGA is all about deprecating hard thinking and valorizing belligerent ignorance. … [Should America] accept a deal that leaves us clearly worse off than we were before the war? … It’s better to accept a bad deal, one that leaves America much weaker than it was a few months ago, than to double down on a failed war. Time is not on our side; looming shortages of critical weapons, the imminent exhaustion of world oil inventories, and the lost support of our allies and the American public mean that this war needs to end soon.”

On the “support of the American public” point, in a mid-May New York Times poll 64% said going to war with Iran was the wrong decision, versus 30% who said it was the right decision; among independents, the margin was 73-21.

Redistricting. The Virginia referendum to allow immediate redistricting of its Congressional seats in a manner that would favor Democrats passed narrowly, 51.7 – 48.3. At that point, it looked like the Republican-instigated wave of mid-decennial redistricting was likely to be a wash nationally for the 2026 elections.

However, days later the Supreme Court of Virginia overturned the results of the referendum on a 4-3 vote, arguing that proper process to conduct the referendum was not followed. Shortly after that, SCOTUS released its 6-3 opinion in Louisiana v. Callais, a Voting Rights Act case; a major effect of the ruling is that going forward it will become vastly more difficult for plaintiffs to use Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to challenge legislative districting decision that are intended to dilute the Democratic vote but have the effect of diluting the Black vote in light of the heavy Black support for Democrats. As a result, while the existing maps in many Southern states had created majority-minority districts in order to comply with the previous judicial interpretation of Section 2, it may now be far more possible than before to “crack” the urban vote in many Southern states to the benefit of the Republicans. To what extent that can be accomplished in time for this November remains unclear.

In response, some Democrats are starting to advocate for even more radical redistricting plans in states like Illinois and Minnesota, although it’s unclear how practical this is. And of course this whole thing is terribly corrosive for the country as a whole; I would like to see a uniform national standard for the construction of congressional districts, but in the absence of that, unilateral disarmament is a losing strategy.

Primaries. The Texas Senate Republican primary runoff is coming up soon, and Trump recently endorsed Paxton over incumbent Senator Cornyn. Trump’s coattails remain significant in Republican primaries, even as his overall numbers fade. Recently, he successfully primaried out several Indiana state senators who had opposed redistricting plans in that state, as well as Rep. Massie of Kentucky and Senator Cassidy of Louisiana.

Tariffs. The Court of International Trade, by a 2-1 margin, granted the sought preliminary injunction against the Section 122 tariffs in Oregon v. Trump. However, the CIT actually dismissed Oregon and most other state plaintiffs from the case, leaving Washington and a couple of private plaintiffs; and the CIT restricted relief in the case to the remaining plaintiffs, rather than putting a more generalized stop to the tariffs. More recently, in the case now styled Washington v. Trump, the CIT denied a stay of its decision pending the administration’s appeal to the Federal Circuit.

That’s all I have the time for right now. Will try to get back into the swing of blogging again now that summer is here.

A week ago today, VP Vance led the U.S. delegation for 21 hours of direct talks with Iran, in the Pakistani city of Islamabad. Those talks were not particularly fruitful. Right now we’re nearing the end of the original two-week ceasefire, and things remain fragile. Although, for some reason the U.S. stock market has been strong over the past 3 weeks, and is now back in the black for 2026.

Paul Krugman had an article today that I think nicely summarizes the state of the war:

“It’s been clear for a while that the United States has basically lost this war. The goal was to achieve regime change, possibly to take Iran’s uranium. Neither of those is going to happen. The Iranian regime is harder line than it was before. Iran has ended up strengthened because it has demonstrated its ability to shut off traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. No way the United States, even under current management, is going to commit ground troops to attempt to really do in Iran’s nuclear program on a sustained basis.

So the indicated strategy was essentially to give up, but claim that something wonderful was accomplished, and that’s certainly something that Trump is good at doing. But he hasn’t been able to pull it off, I think because he is incapable of facing reality. … [T]he U.S. just found out the limits to its power, and they turn out to be closer to our goal than they are to the Iranians’ goal. So we basically have to cut our losses by making a deal that leaves the Iranians with some stuff that they didn’t have before.

He can’t seem to do that. … [W]e are led by people who not only can’t plan a war right, they can’t even successfully execute a surrender. And that’s a really bad omen, not just for the Iran conflict, but for everything else.”

There was a by-election this week in Governor Sherrill’s old seat, the New Jersey 11th. This is a moderate suburban district that Harris won 53-44 in 2024 and in which Sherrill had won re-election 57-41 in 2024. However the victor in the recent open Democratic primary was Analilia Mejia, from the progressive wing of the party. As such many were interested in seeing whether Mejia would be able to continue the recent trend of Democratic margin expansion in by-elections, or whether instead the pendulum would swing back the other way due to her being “too progressive” for her district. She won 60-40, which is being viewed in some circles as a sign that the Democrats can afford to nominate progressives in a broader array of districts.

Two Congressmen resigned this week over sex scandals. The scandal involving Tony Gonzales (R-TX) had been percolating for a long time, so much so that he lost his primary several weeks ago over it. By contrast, the scandal involving Eric Swalwell (D-CA) only broke into the public eye mere days before he fell on his sword. With these resignations, once Mejia is seated the Republican majority will be 218-214.

However the larger impact of Swalwell’s sudden implosion is on the upcoming California gubernatorial race. With Governor Newsom term-limited and Kamala Harris having declined to run, the jungle primary scheduled for early June is wide open. Swalwell had been one of the leading Democratic candidates in a field featuring billionaire and 2020 Presidential gadfly Tom Steyer, former Congresswoman and failed 2024 Senate primary candidate Katie Porter, former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, former L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and other minor players. Swalwell’s departure from that race may make it more likely that one candidate from each party will advance to the general; based on recent polling, there was increasing concern among Democrats that without consolidation of the field, the top two vote-getters in the primary could be the two main Republican candidates, even if as a whole the Democratic candidates were to receive as much as 60% of the primary vote.

In world politics, last Sunday Hungarian PM Orban decisively lost the election and is out of power after 16 years; encouragingly, he conceded the evening of the election. Earlier in the week VP Vance had been in Hungary, campaigning for Orban. Open American intervention in another country’s election is unusual enough, but even moreso when it’s in support of the candidate also supported by Russia. It will be very interesting to see the extent to which new Hungarian PM Magyar, a former member of Orban’s party who created his own opposition movement, will encounter difficulties in undoing the damage to institutions wrought by Orban’s authoritarian tendencies. Closer to home, Canadian PM Carney finally has a majority government to work with, after winning three by-elections last week in the wake of having convinced a handful of MPs from parties to both his left and right to cross the floor and join the Liberals.

The Court of International Trade recently had its oral arguments in the Section 122 tariffs case, Oregon v. Trump. From what I have read, the judges seriously engaged with plaintiffs’ arguments on the obsolescence of Section 122 in a world with floating exchange rates. While the invocation of Section 122 tariffs is by law limited to 150 days, I hope that the judges do not use that as an excuse to run out the clock here, but instead provide clear guidance on the meaning of the law. In other tariff news, on Monday the federal government will launch its new system under which importers of record can request refunds of the IEEPA tariffs that were deemed illegal in Learning Resources v. Trump.

TACO Tuesday arrived less than an hour after my last post, with the announcement of a two-week ceasefire between Iran and the U.S., mediated by Pakistan, to be accompanied by the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

The markets loved that news. The price of a barrel of Brent Crude, around $110 prior to the announcement, immediately dipped below $95. U.S. stock markets were up almost 3% today, and emerging markets were generally up more than that.

But, what exactly is the present situation? More than 24 hours later, the Strait does not appear to be open and, as Bloomberg put it, “a series of conflicting statements — and actions — since the announcement suggests fundamental differences remain, making the truce even more fragile.” VP Vance is currently expected to lead the U.S. side of negotiations with the Iranians this weekend in Pakistan.

And while the last 36 hours obviously could have gone far worse, are we in a good place? Former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger doesn’t think so:

“if this ceasefire holds, the United States lost. Not “didn’t fully win.” Not “achieved mixed results.” Lost. And the victory laps being run out of the White House today — the Truth Social posts, Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon podium declaring “Operation Epic Fury” a “historic victory” — are the kind of performance that would embarrass any serious military strategist, and that should embarrass every American who’s been paying attention.”

Or, as a headline in The Atlantic put it: “Trump’s Iran Deal Gives Him Nothing He Wanted”, with the sub-head “U.S. declarations of victory ring hollow”.

In other news, the result in last night’s runoff by-election in the safe Republican seat of the Georgia 14th was a 56-44 victory for the Trump-endorsed candidate. By comparison: a few weeks ago in the jungle Democrats collectively got 40% of the vote; a year-and-a-half ago the same Democratic candidate lost to MTG, 64-36; and in that same election, Trump beat Harris 68-31.

There was also a Wisconsin Supreme Court election last night, the third such election in the past three years. The previous two elections were national news, as in both cases the winning side would garner a 4-3 majority. This election attracted much less attention and spending, however, as majority control of the court was not in play. Nonetheless, after winning the 2023 election 55-44 and winning the 2025 election 55-45, last night the “Democratic” candidate (technically these elections are non-partisan) won 60-40. As such, both the Georgia and Wisconsin results last night suggest a strengthening wind at the Democrats’ back going into this fall.

On the legal front, yesterday plaintiffs filed their reply brief with the Court of International Trade in the Section 122 tariffs case, Oregon v. Trump, with respect to their request for summary judgment. Today a bipartisan group of economists with history in government service filed an amicus brief supporting plaintiffs. I find the plaintiffs’ arguments extremely compelling, to be honest. Oral argument at the CIT is on Friday.

Finally, several days ago it was announced that the administration had issued a legal opinion to the effect that the Presidential Records Act — the focal point of the Mar-a-Lago documents case — is unconstitutional, notwithstanding the 1977 SCOTUS decision in Nixon v. GSA. This week the American Historical Association filed suit in federal court, so AHA v. Trump will be another fun one to watch.

These are tenuous times, warranting a brief unscheduled post.

I’m writing this around dinner hour on a Tuesday, two days after Easter. As the country woke up on the morning of Easter Sunday, the following unbelievable social media post from President Trump was in the news:

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Yesterday he set 8pm Eastern Time today as the deadline for Iran to comply, although this afternoon there has been talk that Pakistan is attempting to broker a two-week extension. Today Trump reiterated that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” in the absence of a deal.

Assuming he goes through with it, rather than giving us another TACO Tuesday, we would appear to be talking about something on the spectrum of war crimes (attacking civilian infrastructure) to wholesale genocide, possibly with the use of tactical nukes sprinkled in. Fun times.

Congress remains out of session. There have been calls today from dozens of prominent Democrats that the Cabinet needs to invoke the 25th Amendment. But not just Democrats: former Trump-aligned types such as ex-Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Anthony Scaramucci, Candace Owens have talked about the 25th Amendment today.

Speaking of MTG, today is the runoff by-election for her old seat between a Trump-endorsed Republican and a Democrat, the two survivors from a recent jungle by-election. Collectively the Republicans outpolled the Democracts 60-40 in the jungle, but it will be interesting to see what happens today. The Democratic candidate, Shawn Harris, is a Black retired general who lost 64-36 to MTG in 2024.

Yesterday Trump became the first sitting President to ever attend a SCOTUS oral argument, sitting through Solicitor General Sauer’s defense of the birthright citizenship executive order in Trump v. Barbara. The general consensus is that the arguments went better than expected for the administration, but not well enough to lead to a win. It is possible that SG Sauer created enough doubt on the constitutional issues that the Court will decide it doesn’t need to reach those issues and instead resolve the case against on statutory grounds; that would leave the door open for potential future legislative and/or executive action to modify the long-standing conception of when and how citizenship attaches.

One interesting thing about this case is that it has inverted the usual political views on textualism versus living constitutionalism. Concepts like illegal immigration and birth tourism were unthinkable in the 1860s, so there is something to be said for the notion that the 14th Amendment should be interpreted in a manner that produces reasonable results applied to more modern fact patterns, rather than slavishly focusing on the original meaning of the words used at the time. But it’s pretty funny to see Justice Alito pounding the drum the loudest in favor of a living constitution argument, and the ACLU leading the argument in favor of a purely textualist analysis. But, as Chief Justice Roberts said, to laughter: “Well, it’s a new world, [but] it’s the same Constitution.”

Trump’s address to the nation last night, his first live address on the Iran war (he had released a taped video message on the first day of the war), lasted 19 minutes but covered no meaningful ground. Representative headlines this morning included The Atlantic’s “Maybe Trump Should Not Have Given This Speech,” Politico’s “‘What The Hell Did He Just Say?’ GOP Iran Worries Build After Trump Speech”, and the L.A. Times’ “Trump Speech on Iran War and Recent Remarks on Oil, NATO, Daycare Costs Land With a Thud.” The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate, which was at $67 when the war started, went from $98 before the speech to $112 as I write this, 24 hours later.

In Nate Silver’s approval rating poll average, Trump has just fallen below 40% for the first time in his second term.

Speaker Johnson now seems willing to entertain the Senate-passed compromise to fund the less controversial parts of DHS, although Republicans are now talking about a two-track approach in which the Senate would start working on trying to use budget reconciliation to fund ICE and CBP rather than engage meaningfully with Democratic demands for ICE reforms.

Finally, the big news of the day is that Trump has fired Attorney General Bondi, after trial balloons to that effect were widely floated yesterday. The left loathed her for treating the DOJ like Trump’s personal law firm, while the right ripped into her over how she has managed the Epstein files. While Todd Blanche has been named interim AG, the rumor is that Trump is considering nominating his EPA Administrator, Lee Zeldin, as Bondi’s permanent replacement.