So much to talk about… This is what I get for not carving out time to blog on a daily basis.

We’ll start with Iran: On Monday there was a brief and somewhat performative attack by Iran on a U.S. base in Qatar. I say ‘performative’ because the Iranians tipped the Qataris off about it in advance, and as a result there were no casualties. After that, Trump claimed that Iran and Israel have agreed to a ceasefire, although the situation remains somewhat tenuous–enough so that Trump complained on Tuesday that the two countries “have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.” Yes folks, that’s the President of the United States, dropping the f-bomb during a press availability (this was not a hot mike situation).

There has also been some debate over how effective last weekend’s U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear capability actually was. On Tuesday the NYTimes reported that a classified DIA assessment asserted that the bombing “set back the country’s nuclear program by only a few months.” Consistent with his worldview that everything is either a total success or a complete failure, Trump continues to insist that there was “total obliteration” of the facilities and decries any reporting to the contrary as, you guessed it, fake news.

Moving from Iran to Tehrangeles: Yesterday Judge Breyer ruled that the Newsom v. Trump case, regarding the federalization of the California National Guard, could continue at the district court level notwithstanding the recent 9th Circuit ruling overturning his temporary restraining order. He also rejected the administration’s desire to transfer the case out of the Northern District (where the state government sits) and into the Central District of California (which, confusingly, is where L.A. sits). The next step in the case will be expedited discovery on the question of whether the federalized National Guard has taken actions in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.

Now moving from West Coast to East Coast: I had not previously talked about the fact that on Tuesday there was a Democratic primary for the mayor of New York City. Recall that Eric Adams, the current mayor, was elected as a Democrat but had been indicted on federal corruption charges in September 2024, causing most of the Democratic establishment to call for his resignation. As such Adams dropped out of the Democratic primary in early April, but is expected to run for re-election this fall as an independent.

With the moderate incumbent out of the primary, the favorite to win was another moderate, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who had resigned as governor in 2021 due to sexual harassment allegations. Importantly, in NYC the Democratic primary for mayor uses ranked choice voting, although the general election does not. As such several candidates entered the race to Cuomo’s left, and many of them entered into cross-endorsement agreements, trying to tell their supporters who they should rank downballot. An organized initiative even emerged called DREAM: Don’t Rank Evil Andrew for Mayor.

Out of this environment, a leftist candidate for mayor emerged: a previously obscure State Assemblyman named Zohran Mamdami. Born in Uganda on my 20th birthday, the charismatic Mamdami — a Muslim, and an avowed socialist — started the primary campaign at 1% in the polls but by election day had established himself as the clearest threat to Cuomo. (Hmm, charismatic young State-level politician of color with a funny name, starts from nowhere in the polls against multiple competitors, but manages to come out of the pack – where have I seen this before?) Going into Tuesday, the conventional wisdom was that Cuomo would almost certainly win a plurality, but not a majority, of the first choice votes and then we would need to wait one week to find out whether ranked choice re-allocations were enough to put Mamdami over the top.

Well, it turned out we didn’t have to wait. Shockingly, it was Mamdami who won a convincing plurality of the first choice votes, 43.5% to Cuomo’s 36.4%. That was enough, in light of the cross-endorsement agreements, to convince Cuomo to concede on election night, although Mamdami’s victory won’t be official until next week. Having said that, Cuomo had already formed his own Fight and Deliver Party in order to give him access to the general election ballot irrespective of the results of the Democratic party, but it is possible he will decide to drop out.

As such we don’t know at this point if Mamdami will be facing a four-way race (against Adams, the Republican candidate, and another independent candidate already endorsed by former Governer Paterson) or a five-way race (adding Cuomo); and with no ranked choice in the general, who knows how that will play out. Even so, the magnitude of Mamdami’s victory is a shock, and is expected to have significant reverberations on Democratic politics far beyond the five boroughs.

Moving from NYC to D.C.: The Senate is continuing to struggle with getting its version of OBBBA to the floor for a vote. The Senate Parliamentarian continues to issue rulings that various aspects of the bill do not quality for inclusion in a budget reconciliation bill exempt from the filibuster and thus requiring only 51 votes for passage. The list of bill components that have reportedly been nixed by the Parliamentarian is getting rather long, and I am having some trouble believing that what’s left over of this bill could pass either chamber at this point. On the other hand, the price of inaction is the expiry of the TCJA’s tax cuts in 2026, and there is probably not a single elected Republican who wants to see that happen.

Finally we move from Capitol Hill across the street to 1 First Street NE. Today SCOTUS announced that tomorrow will indeed be the last day of opinions for cased argued in October Term 2024, which means that we should finally learn the outcome of the birthright citizenship case, Trump v. CASA. Three days ago we did also get action from SCOTUS on the controversy regarding third-country removals of migrants, in a case that came to the top court under the caption DHS v. D.V.D. But given how long this post is already, I’m going to save a discussion of that case for tomorrow’s post.