Week 42
By 
Last night ended in a cliff-hanger that won’t be resolved until at least next week: Will the Supreme Court tell Donald Trump that he must do the decent, moral, lawful thing and send out the reserve to SNAP recipients or will they agree that starving children is part of Trump’s responsibilities under Article II of the Constitution? Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson seems to have done as well as she could in her shadow docket decision. Steve Vladek gives the best explanation I’ve seen.
Chuck Schumer gave the Republicans in the Senate a chance to own all that and more, and the Repubicans took it!
Mike Johnson, meanwhile, has been keeping the House out of session, which gives Trump and others what they want. It’s probably about the Epstein Files, but it does a lot more too. He refuses to swear in Adelita Grijalva, who was elected to represent Arizona’s 7th Congressional district. He also has consistently disavowed any knowledge of any governmental actions, which this week people began to mock.
The Supreme Court also heard the case against Trump’s tariffs and seemed slightly favorable to that case. Neil Gorsuch observed that if Trump could take that power from Congress, he could take any power. Maybe they’re starting to get it.
Trump’s boy Pete Hegseth killed another several fishermen by bombing their boats off South America. As far as I can see, this is also an immoral and illegal action.
Tuesday’s election was a win practically across the board for the Democrats. The supposedly now-Trumpian Hispanic vote came back to the Democrats, and a couple of women, who those white-boy pundits said were no longer to be Democratic candidates, won governorships. Another, further encumbered by being Muslim, became Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. I saw a list of Republicans who had won, down to lower state levela, and it was something like five people. I liked this summary.
Zohran Mamdani is now mayor-elect of New York City. That’s cool.
Sandwich Guy was acquitted. ICE and Border Patrol have been trying to make propaganda for Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller, and they wind up facing twerking frogs and unable to convict a person who threw a Subway sandwich at them. The trial was delightful. The poor sad CBP guy told his affecting tale: “I could smell the mustard and onions.” But it failed to move the jury.
Follow the court-watchers for the details of the lawsuits. Chris Geidner (LawDork, Bluesky), Roger Parloff (Lawfare, Bluesky), and the Just Security tracker.
As usual, keep it to things that have actually happened, not hypotheticals. What is actually happening is bad enough.
Caring for yourself and loved ones is resistance too. Post your pets. I am in a temporary situation now, using my laptop instead of my desktop, and the ats have learned that they can get my attention by sitting or walking between me and the keyboard. Taking my seat when I get up also works.
166 more weeks to go. What are you doing?
Previous weeks: Week 10, Week 20, Week 30, Week 40, Week 41