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.