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.