I'm probably not assuming a lot but I think liberals and even centrists would be on very solid ground to contemptuously laugh and disregard every person to the right who ever mentions originalism again if SCOTUS just does the equivalent of ripping off the mask and cackling "you fools, it wasn't principle, it was just will to power all along!"

As Lee is obliquely pointing out, Saul, there's a corollary to your "Defeating Trump is Important!" exclamation. A LOT of the DEI gestures and habits are -not- substantive positions but rather symbolic ticks and a lot of the constituencies DEI helps are not vulnerable, marginalized people who DEI helps or protects. A lot of the DEI beneficiaries (I dare to say most of them even) are wealthy academics, over credentialed consultants and fashionable wealthy capitalists using DEI's precepts for cover, profit or prestige.

If defeating Trump is important (and I agree it emphatically is) then is not discarding the superfluous, useless or posturing fashions of DEI not a very small price to pay to advance the goal of defeating Trump?

I emphasize, before some DEI advocate rushes to hide behind the disadvantaged and marginal, that everyone agrees that a lot of DEI can be discarded without hurting the powerless, marginal or disadvantaged. Wouldn't discarding the DEI faff not be a small price to pay to defeat Trump? It's not like Barro is being vague here- he points to very definite material policies DEI ushered in and how they're HATED by minorities that DEI claims to be protecting.

Well yes, between Trump ineptitude and thermostatic reaction the Dems could realistically swing back quite easily without changing a lot. Personally I'd prefer that they take somewhat more agency in the matter and go for more than a mere thermostatic win.

As for Pete- I agree with your analysis, the problem is I'm not sure where in his laudable characteristics we find a mass voting constituency and he'd very badly need one if the tack he takes is one that, even gently, questions the mores and ticks of the activist/elitist left set.

I still have a warm spot for Pete but I'm not certain how he goes forward. There's talk about him carpetbagging into a Michigan Senate seat and that'd be something, I suppose, and that's better than nothing. Still his mayoral backgrounds and his acceptable but not remarkable stint in the administration is a narrow base to build a national career on. I certainly wish him well.

Well I certainly am not tired of you talking about your opinion on the matter.

Yes I think you and he are sortof saying the same thing. It's kind of moved into being basically just a common language and reflex for almost the whole fashionable activist set.

An interesting analysis from Josh Barro about the real costs of DEI thought among the Dems. I think he is being a bit overwrought on it but I don't know that I strongly disagree either.

https://www.joshbarro.com/p/democrats-need-their-own-dei-purge/comments

Seems like, if that happens, originalism will be toast right along with it and considering that originalism has been the banner of pretty much all right wing judicial philosophy for my entire adult life (or longer) that'll be something the right will miss pretty fiercely when the worm turns again. Unless, of course, they honestly think they can rig it so they never lose an election again.

I sure as heck hope she does something about Adams.

Sure, and that's an argument for the courts which, most likely, Trump will viscously lose because whatever argument one might make about federal funds being used for transportation giving them a say it's unlikely that Trump writing 'repeal it" on a napkin and tweeting it out is the acceptable method to throw that weight around. When it's an unambiguously good program and a strong legal case I think the preponderance of the advantage is in fighting for it.

The legality of this strikes me as black and white and unambiguously outside Don's authority. Your political analysis strikes me as debatable- yes maybe some people who made the tradeoffs and took transit instead will be delighted by this. It's also possible that an equal number of people who enjoyed the noticeably reduced congestion will be less pleased. Could be that this'll please more people than it displeases but, to be blunt, Don isn't winning New Jersey or New York state even if he makes some of their upstaters happy two years away from the next election. Whereas the Dems saying "fish you, that's illegal" strikes me as useful for their sides moral in a way that could snowball forward towards the election. I don't think pre-emptive obedience is going to be helpful.

And that's without touching on Trump declaring himself King. Maybe a few libertarians and righties actually would care about that. Lol I know, sorry, couldn't help but try the joke. Snerk.

What the heck happened? Did Hochul get abducted and replaced with a pod person? Is there some way to make sure the real one doesn't come back?

Yup, like I said -Monkey's paw- wish, a wish granted in a manner that makes the wisher regret ever having voiced it.

I agree entirely. Heck, Elons' Muskrats are like a monkeys paw wish granted to small government libertarians. Not only will a lot of what he's trying to pull likely fail in court- if/when he fishes up something important it's the small government libertarian banner he's waving so that's what the public will associate with this fiasco. And even if, by some miracle, the Muskrats manage not to stumble across one of the several major electrified rails buried in the stuff they're blithely rummaging through- everything they're doing will be reversible with the stroke of a pen and every minion they install will be dismissible in the same way they were installed.

Ironically, I feel that McConnells' strategy for Obama would be way more useful if used by us against Trump.

It seems to me that the Trumpian strategy, such as it is, is shambling into view now and it is, well, rather underwhelming as far as I can see.

"Same old, same old" seems to be the core of it. The GOP in congress is trying to slash spending on the poor then give tax cuts to the wealthy that eat up any such savings twice over. All while yapping disingenuously about the perils of debt.

The Trumpian innovations to this time dishonored republican strategy appear to be mostly vestigial:
-DOGE is going to barge around breaking things and making a great deal of noise in domestic matters.
-Trump is going to barge around breaking things and making a great deal of noise on foreign policy and trade matters.

For DOGE the point, if there is one at all, is to generate a lot of red meat for the base and then just mumble quietly and forget it all happened when the courts reverse it. There's definitely a degree of experimentation here: how much can court orders be ignored? How much damage can be made irreversible before the courts weigh in? How much red meat can be found that will please the base or even turn the heads of the low info voters (odds look good that the answer to the latter is "not much").

For the Trump stuff, who the fish knows. Is he just a puppet of the Chinese and Putin? Does he have any follow through at all? If he keeps cranking up the uncertainty what's he going to do when the market tanks (a note: keep hiking the uncertainty and the market -will- tank eventually. More even than freeeeeeedom, markets crave stability and predictability)?

For the opposition I have a grab bag of thoughts:
-Delegate: All this DOGE nonsense is likely illegal. The Dems don't have to directly litigate each matter. Every one of these arbitrary nonsensical cuts gores various peoples oxen- let them each litigate. The "Shock and Awe" idea is to overwhelm the Dems but the Dems don't have to personally engage each of these attacks. No amount of Shock and Awe will distract each disparate group of folks who're being screwed and they all have lawyers.
-The McConnell precedent seems both just and judicious at this point. Oppose. Ignore collegiality. The GOP is going to slink up to the Dems behind the scene and snivel "Oh we hate what Trump is doing, we hate these cuts, sign on to our tax cuts and we'll decrease the spending cuts by, oh, *eyelash flutter* maybe half? Then we don't have to be held hostage by the conflicting wings of our own contradictory mandates." Refuse. If the GOP wants to make these policies law make them do it with their own members alone. They have the power to do so in strictly numerical terms. Make them do it themselves. Absolutely no bipartisan cover.
-The preponderance of probability suggests that polite unyielding refusal will make the GOP push collapse. If it does then be ready to offer votes for a wildly different policy: Cage DOGE, muzzle Trump, either continue current funding/taxing levels or, if you really want to tackle the deficit then take all tax cuts off the table and add tax hikes instead. The deficit is actually a problem and a serious bipartisan effort to tackle it would be well timed in the economic cycle and would, strategically, be a good thing to do under a Republican President and trifecta.
-In the very unlikely event the GOP stands firm, slashes spending on the poor massively and cuts taxes then the next thing to do is filibuster. The Dems can't filibuster the tax cuts and spending cuts directly- no. But these cuts will absolutely crush, with both booted feet, huge right wing constituencies. Farmers. Rural voters. Business folk. There will be screaming. The normal Trump MO is to do something that hurts everyone and then rush targeted bailouts to favored constituencies. When his trade wars fished over farmers he rushed bailouts to them. In this scenario reconciliation will have been used up for the cuts. Block and filibuster every attempt at the bailouts Trump will inevitably try and reach for to soothe the people he's fished. Don't let him. Make them own this. And if they axe the filibuster to do it? Good riddance.

That's a curious new assertion- that Ukraine isn't getting the aid and it's being siphoned off elsewhere?

Part of the quandary is that, contra what the Trumpkins say, Putin has given no concrete indication he's interested in even stopping the war on terms that Trump is suggesting (an essential draw). He's still demanding a demilitarized Ukraine which, of course, the Ukrainians would never, ever, agree to even under threat of America cutting off all aid.

Which, obviously, they won't do.

Yup, the joke of course being that Neocons have so beclowned themselves they don't bring any voters of significant numbers- so they're basically libertarians now. The Dems definitely wasted their effort trying to tout neocons support. I can see why they tried, of course, Haley showed such alluring numbers prior to bending the knee- it'd have only taken a fraction of those voters to work and, if it'd worked it, would have been so easy in coalition and policy terms but it didn't work. The lesson: don't listen to neocons, don't waste time on them.

Well let me turn it around- Obama was horrible? Why is it that moderate Republicans didn't vote for him. Oh, wait, some of them did vote for him which is why he beat Romneybot quite decisively.

And the base question remains ludicrous. And, yes, from a liberal standard Romney was the same semi-neocon, blatant republitarian motherfisher that ran the country into a ditch for eight years from 2000 to 2008. I mean, the a-historicness of the whole premise is somewhat insane- these guys drove you our of being a fishing libertarian- they were so bad, but after 4 years of Obama suddenly it would be incumbent on liberals to support Mitt fishin Romney of the House of vulture capitalists because if liberals didn't, ohhh the right will coalesce behind someone worse!

Jay, a point of order, what you're describing: "vote for our horrible guy or we'll nominate someone worse" is not compromise, that'd be what is more commonly known as extortion.

Okay, let's hear it. Name, let's say, five major things you vehemently disagree with the neocons about. Only one of them is allowed to be Trump related and at least two need to be about the Bush Era, 2000-2008.

Agreed entirely which was why I inquired in the first place.

I think the only way Iraq is the answer is if they didn't invade in the first place.