As I write this, we’re in the second day of the MLB Division Series (round-of-8). My beloved Blue Jays, the #1 overall seed in the American League, have pounded the favored Yankees in each of the first two games of their best-of-five series. I am starting to dream of a Blue Jays – Brewers World Series later this month, which would be so much fun. Elsewhere, my Broncos had a stunning come-from-behind win today at the undefeated Eagles, while my eldest son’s Illini had a nice win yesterday and are once again ranked in the top 20.

So, you might think I’d feel like all was well in world. But that’s not exactly how I feel these days. There’s just so much going awry, it’s basically impossible to keep track.

Recent developments in a number of areas about which I had been blogging:

Kimmel. In a rare piece of good news, public pressure got Disney to put Jimmy Kimmel’s show back on the air within a week of them having “indefinitely suspended” him over what were really rather mild comments about the Charlie Kirk assassination. A few days after that, the two groups of ABC affiliates who led the move against Kimmel relented and put his show back on their airwaves. There has been no new news that I’ve seen over the past couple of weeks about the alleged assassin’s motivations.

H-1B. Shortly after my last post, the administration clarified that the new $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applies only to new applications, and is a one-time rather than annual fee. The first lawsuit challenging the executive order, which appears to be captioned Global Nurse Force v. Trump, was filed on Friday in the Northern District of California.

Alien Enemies Act. The 5th Circuit voted to have an en banc rehearing of its recent decision in W.M.M. v. Trump, around whether the administration can assert that the activities of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua constitute an “invasion” for purposes of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. A dissent argues that it would have been more appropriate to just let SCOTUS reach the merits of the issue as soon as possible, given that the 3-judge panel had released lengthy opinions covering both sides of the controversy. It is not yet clear when the 5th Circuit en banc will hear the case.

Military. Three different things to discuss here.

First, in a very unusual action, Secretary Hegseth summoned all U.S. generals around the world to come to a publicly announced meeting in Quantico, Virginia, for purposes of hearing speeches from both Hegseth and Trump in front of a Patton-esque flag. To the attendees’ credit, they reportedly remained stony-faced throughout, notwithstanding the overt political nature of some of the speakers’ comments. The most controversial part of Trump’s remarks was his suggestion that U.S. cities should be used as military training grounds.

Second, the administration has now made four separate military strikes against boats in the Southern Caribbean, having “now summarily killed 21 people it says were smuggling drugs as if they were not criminal suspects but enemy soldiers in a war zone” (per the NYTimes). The administration has reportedly argued to Congress that the U.S. is engaged in a “noninternational armed conflict” with certain drug cartels, justifying the military strikes. Legal pundits Marty Lederman and Ben Wittes each think that this legal argument is invalid, with Wittes going further to argue that the strikes are clearly criminal acts of murder under U.S. law. Not that Trump could ever be prosecuted for this, thanks to the SCOTUS ruling in Trump v. U.S.; but perhaps Hegseth and other officials could be, in time.

Finally, Trump continues to persist with his ambitions of sending military troops into Democratic-controlled cities, even when (unlike in Memphis) contrary to the wishes of the local governor. A week ago Trump wrote a social media post talking around “war-ravaged Portland,” much to the confusion of locals. He followed that up with an order federalizing 200 Oregon National Guard troops so that they could be sent into Portland. Local officials sued to block the move, receiving a court order preventing it. Now Trump has pivoted to deploying previously federalized California National Guard troops, to which Governor Newsom is expected to object. Meanwhile, Trump appears to be federalizing 300 Illinois National Guard troops for use in Chicago, against the wishes of Governor Pritzker.

Cook. In a rare shadow docket setback for the administration, SCOTUS has deferred the government’s application for a stay of an appellate court decision preventing Trump from firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, instead indicating that the Court will hear oral argument in Trump v. Cook in January.

In a thematically related shadow docket action, SCOTUS recently granted the administration a stay in Trump v. Slaughter, a case about Trump’s firing in March of two FTC commissioners, and scheduled that case for oral argument in December 2025. At that point the Court is widely expected to formally overrule a relevant 1935 precedent, Humphrey’s Executioner. Kagan’s dissent, joined by the other two liberals, criticized the majority for using the shadow docket “to permit what our own precedent bars,” arguing instead that the stay should have been denied until such time as Humphrey’s is actually overruled.

New York Mayoral Race. With Mamdani consistently polling in the mid-40s in the four-way, first-past-the-post mayoral race in NYC, there had been speculation in recent weeks about trying to get Mayor Adams to drop out of the race. He did finally drop out, about a week ago. Even so, prediction markets are still assessing the young socialist’s likelihood of winning the race as being in the mid-80s.

Politicization of DOJ. A couple of weeks ago, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia resigned under extreme pressure. It seems that his district had been investigating whether federal charges should be filed against former FBI Director James Comey, in connection with purported perjurious testimony Comey provided to Congress in late September of 2020. The 5-year statute of limitations for such charges was about to expire, and the U.S. Attorney had apparently concluded that no charges were warranted.

Trump apparently did not like that answer. Pressure was brought to bear, and that U.S. Attorney was replaced by a 36-year-old insurance lawyer with no prosecutorial experience, but who had been part of Trump’s legal team in the Mar-a-Lago documents case and more recently had served as a special assistant to the president. The new U.S. Attorney (who had never before been involved in a grand jury proceeding) promptly indicted Comey, days before the statute of limitations would have expired. His first court appearance will be later this week.

War Against DEI. This week the administration announced that $18 billion of federal funding for the Hudson Tunnel and Second Avenue Subway infrastructure projects in New York City were being put on hold, “to ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles.” Not to make Chicago feel left out, days later the administration put $2 billion of federal funding for the Red Line Extension project on hold “to ensure funding is not flowing based on race-based contracting.”

War Against Universities. Notwithstanding Harvard’s recent legal win, Trump asserted this week that a settlement with the university was imminent, suggesting that Harvard would pay $500 million. Days later, there has been no further news. Meanwhile, Governor Newsom suggested this week that California universities who enter into settlements with the federal government would see their state funding pulled.

Birthright Citizenship. Last week the administration petitioned SCOTUS for certiorari in Trump v. Washington, a case out of the 9th Circuit relating to the birthright citizenship executive order. By doing so, Solicitor General Sauer honored the promise he had made in the Trump v. CASA oral argument, namely that even if the administration keeps losing on this issue in each and every case, it would nonetheless seek certiorari in order to achieve a definitive nationwide answer to the controversy. Underscoring that point, days after the cert filing the administration lost a similar case in another circuit, this time the 1st Circuit.

Foreign Students and Speech. A Reagan-appointed district court judge recently ruled against the administration in a case, AAUP v. Rubio, arising out of various immigration-related actions the administration took in the spring with respect to foreign students for purportedly antisemitic speech. Summarizing the judge’s view of the case: “nothing in the text, history, or tradition of the First Amendment suggests that persons lawfully present here may be subject to adverse action based on their political speech, where that speech is primarily concerned with the actions of foreign nations with whom the United States is not at war and Congress has not made a specific determination that a specific organization threatens the violent overthrow of the government.”

Arizona By-Election. As expected, the daughter of recently deceased Democratic Representative Raul Grijalva easily won the by-election to replace her father. In principle she should provide the 218th vote for the discharge position that would force an up-or-down House vote on the release of the Epstein files. However, Speaker Johnson has repeatedly delayed the swearing-in of the newest Congresswoman. I wonder why.

Rescission. Basking in the success of his legislative rescission this summer, Trump recently attempted a so-called “pocket rescission” in which he informed Congress, less than 45 days before the end of the fiscal year, that he did not intend to spend a few billion worth of previously appropriated foreign aid funding. The legality of this type of action is questionable, and as such the pocket rescission announcement led to a SCOTUS shadow docket case called Department of State vs. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition. Predictably, at this point, the majority allowed the administration to proceed with its desired course of action (i.e., not spending the money), while taking pains to note that this was not a final ruling on the legality of that government action. It was Kagan’s turn to pen the dissent for the three liberals, writing the following in conclusion:

“[T]he standard for granting emergency relief is supposed to be stringent. The Executive has not come close to meeting it here. And the consequence of today’s grant is significant. I appreciate that the majority refrains from offering a definitive view of this dispute and the questions raised in it. But the effect of its ruling is to allow the Executive to cease obligating $4 billion in funds that Congress appropriated for foreign aid, and that will now never reach its intended recipients. Because that result conflicts with the separation of powers, I respectfully dissent.”

In addition to all of these ongoing items, we now have an important new topic: Government Shutdown.

Six months ago, a faction of moderate Democratic Senators had declined to endorse a government shutdown, perhaps fearful that a shutdown would allow Trump and his DOGE to do even more damage to the federal government than he was doing. The way things have gone since then, neither party seems particularly willing to cooperate with the other. Not that the Democrats have given a clear vision for what they seek to achieve from this shutdown, mind you, although they having been talking a lot about the Republican’s failure in OBBBA to extend the Biden-era increases to the ACA’s premium subsidies via advance premium tax credits.

At this point we’re only 5 days into the shutdown and the pain hasn’t really hit yet; we’ll see what happens, and who the populace blames.