….well, my own personal fiscal year-end, that is.

Sticking with the “summary of developments” approach from my last post, almost two weeks ago:

Government Shutdown. It’s still going on, with no end in sight. Pain is starting to be felt, in the form of missed paychecks.

The administration has started to issue reduction-in-force notices during the shutdown, affecting thousands of employees across dozens of agencies. A lawsuit had been filed in the Northern District of California, AFGE vs. OMB, to prevent these layoffs. That suit was transferred to Judge Illston, who had been handling the related lawsuit (AFGE vs. Trump) around DOGE-related workforce reductions. Two days ago Illston issued a temporary restraining order to prevent these layoffs, and today she expanded the scope of that TRO.

Military in Cities. Shortly after my last post, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Oregon ruled against the administration’s efforts to sidestep her previous ruling (against the deployment of federalized California National Guard to Portland) by instead deploying federalized Texas National Guard to defend an ICE facility in Portland. Since then, there has been a 9th Circuit oral argument on the administration’s efforts to overturn Judge Immergut’s ruling. The 3-judge panel included two Trump appointees, and the oral argument seemed to go well for the government; however, 8 days have now passed with no ruling from the 9th Circuit.

Meanwhile in Chicago, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against the administration’s desire to federalize the Illinois National Guard to defend an ICE facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview. Although this case started later than the Portland case, here the 7th Circuit has already issued its opinion upholding the TRO.

There is a federal statute that, among things, permits the President to federalize the National Guard if “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States,” in order to “suppress the rebellion.” As such a major issue in both Oregon v. Trump and Illinois v. Trump is whether the administration’s determination that there is the requisite “danger of a rebellion” in Portland and Chicago is subject to judicial review, and if so whether there actually is such danger at the present time. To that latter point, the unanimous per curiam opinion authored by the 3-judge 7th Circuit panel in Illinois v. Trump spoke eloquently:

“Political opposition is not rebellion. A protest does not become a rebellion merely because the protestors advocate for myriad legal or policy changes, are well organized, call for significant changes to the structure of the U.S. government, use civil disobedience as a form of protest, or exercise their Second Amendment right to carry firearms as the law currently allows. Nor does a protest become a rebellion merely because of sporadic and isolated incidents of unlawful activity or even violence committed by rogue participants in the protest. … The spirited, sustained, and occasionally violent actions of demonstrators in protest of the federal government’s immigration policies and actions, without more, does not give rise to a danger of rebellion against the government’s authority.”

War Against Anti-Corruption. Today President Trump commuted the sentence of former Republican Congressman George Santos. He had served less than 3 months of an 87-month sentence for fraud, after having pled guilty in August 2024.

Politicization of DOJ. In my last post I noted the recent departure of the U.S. District Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, apparently over his unwillingness to pursue cases against political enemies of President Trump. His replacement, after having indicted former FBI Director Comey on paper-thin charges of perjury, has now indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James on paper-thin charges of mortgage fraud. And we all know, thanks to a public Truth Social post that Trump made but apparently had intended as a private direct message to Attorney General Bondi, that these indictments were directed by the President.

More recently, charges of mishandling classified information have been brought against Trump’s former National Security Advisor, John Bolton. There may be more merit to the Bolton indictment than is present in the Comey or James indictments. Nevertheless, this action is pretty rich coming from the administration of a President who objected vociferously to the charges brought against him in the Mar-A-Lago documents case, the allegations from which appear more substantive than the allegations against Bolton.

Demonization of Political Opponents. Tomorrow is the 2nd scheduled series of “No Kings Day” protests against President Trump in communities throughout the country, following up on a successful day of protests four months ago. Republicans have attempted to prebut tomorrow’s protests by making ridiculous allegations about the participants. Speaker Johnson referred to the No Kings Day protests as “hate America rallies,” while the White House Press Secretary recently said that “the Democrat Party’s main constituency are made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens and violent criminals.”

War on Free Press. Defense Secretary Hegseth recently announced a new series of rules that would apply to journalists embedded in the Pentagon. In response, almost all news organizations linked arms and turned in their Pentagon press passes, the only exception being ultra-right-wing TV channel One America News.