How Virginia's top court might decide Democrats' gerrymandering fate

Virginia Democrats are moving forward with plans to gerrymander their way to four more congressional seats — but they need help from the state’s top court.

After a lower court blocked Democrats’ efforts to amend the state Constitution and redraw federal congressional lines ahead of this fall’s midterm elections, the Virginia Court of Appeals requested the Virginia Supreme Court weigh in.

That puts the fate of the map — and potentially congressional control after the 2026 midterms — in the hands of a group of justices that observers say can be hard to predict.

Political and legal experts in Virginia agree the state Supreme Court is not overtly ideological, with many describing it as “small-c conservative,” leaning heavily on tradition and precedent rather than handing down ideologically right-wing rulings. And many observers say the court is wary of wading too heavily into political fights. But this time, it’s unavoidable.

“It’s kind of a state Supreme Court tradition to stay away from political matters whenever they can. They like to leave the legislating to the legislature. So this is going to be a really interesting test of that tradition,” said Carolyn Fiddler of the Democratic Attorneys General Association, who attended William & Mary Law School in Virginia and worked in state politics.

Read the rest here.

Baseball's Salary Wars Are About to Go Nuclear

Kyle Tucker

THERE IS A group of fans who are angry at baseball. There are a lot of them, and they do not exist only on social media. They are inside of group chats that talk about how much money the Los Angeles Dodgers are spending after winning the past two World Series, and they are in cities big and small that look at the Dodgers with envy masked by eye rolls and curses, and they might just want to devote more time to the game -- maybe they love the pitch clock or Shohei Ohtani or Aaron Judge or the in-person vibe or any number of things about the game today worth loving -- but they're not sure the whole thing is fair.

Owners are angry, too. Their franchise valuations aren't growing as quickly as their billionaire peers' in other sports, and they blame the system that governs Major League Baseball. They don't like it. Nearly every owner believes MLB needs a salary cap. Its presence, owners say, immediately would juice franchise values, with the labor cost essentially fixed and no more chasing Dodgers teams spending $500 million annually on players. At the same time, they say, it would provide a pathway to competitive balance, which they believe is entirely out of whack. They think a salary cap will fix everything, even if it means jeopardizing the 2027 season. "They are ready to burn the f---ing house down," one high-ranking team official said.

Read the rest here.

HT: BW

What Trump Is the Best at, Hands Down

President Trump is unrivaled in American history in one respect: None of his predecessors ever cashed in on the presidency as he has.

The Teapot Dome scandal under Warren Harding? Richard Nixon’s slush funds during Watergate? Those seem like junior high school by comparison with the present culture of corruption.

The fire hose of disclosures has been overwhelming. A Times editorial estimated conservatively that the Trump family has made more than $1.4 billion in documented gains by exploiting the second term of his presidency. (Others offer higher figures.)

And all that pales beside the latest bombshell: a $500 million secret deal backed by a government leader in the United Arab Emirates, just four days before Trump was inaugurated for his second term.

Here’s what we know.

The Wall Street Journal broke the story, reporting that on the eve of Trump’s inauguration, the Emiratis purchased 49 percent of a Trump family cryptocurrency company for $500 million. It’s difficult to see why anybody would pay so much for a fledgling company — unless the point was to enrich the Trumps.

Most of the money in effect went to the Trump family, but some found its way to the family of Steve Witkoff, a co-owner of the venture. Trump had selected Witkoff to become the United States’ special envoy to the Middle East.

Read the rest here.

Libertarians Tried to Warn You About Trump (link corrected)

Libertarians can be annoying, with our constant bellyaching about privacy and taxes, our obsession with the First Amendment and our fearmongering about jackbooted thugs.

But in light of how the past year has unfolded, consider cutting your friendly neighborhood libertarian some slack. After all, we did try to warn you.

On immigration, speech and trade, Americans are living in a libertarian’s nightmare. Masked federal officials are swarming areas far from the border, shooting American citizens and whisking away children in the name of immigration enforcement. Armed National Guardsmen walk the streets of several cities under the banner of vague emergency mandates to maintain law and order. Legal visa holders are being deported for expressing their opinions on Gaza and Charlie Kirk. Tariffs on China have been set at 10, 20, 54, 145 and 30 percent in just the last few months. The ownership of TikTok, Intel and U.S. Steel have all become matters in which the president has taken a personal interest — and threatened dire consequences if his wishes are not taken into account.

These stories represent a terrifying pattern and an undeniable vindication of the long-held libertarian view that the steady growth in the size of the federal government and executive power would lead to precisely this kind of runaway authoritarianism.

Libertarians have argued that the only way to prevent such abuses is to reduce the power of the federal government itself — abolishing unaccountable federal agencies, scaling back the administrative state, cutting spending — and to restore the balance of powers by reining in the executive. This path has generally been treated as hopelessly naïve at best, and morally suspect at worst.

Each of the major parties has pulled away from the libertarian elements of their coalitions (small-government, free-market types for the Republicans and civil libertarians for the Democrats), preferring instead the instant gratification of grasping power and wielding it as aggressively as possible for the period they hold it. Libertarian voices have gradually gone quiet in the halls of the capital — bullied into silence, primaried out or resigning in despair.

Yet it has never been more obvious that the grab-and-grow approach to power is a destructive and self-defeating way to conduct politics.

Read the rest here.

Honestly, I was somewhat surprised (pleasantly) to see something like this on the op-ed page of the NY Times. 

(Note: I just noticed that I accidentally linked the wrong page. The link has been updated. Grrr.)

The Corrupt Pardon at the Center of Trump’s UAE Windfall

As forecast in the first post in this series, let’s turn to Changpeng Zhao, known to his crypto confederates as “CZ.”

Even before the Wall Street Journal’s recent reporting on the Trump-UAE crypto enterprise in which Zhao played a vital role, we already knew some of the story: I wrote about it last autumn and our Jim Geraghty did his usual stellar reporting on the topic.

Zhao, a Chinese-born Canadian billionaire, is the founder of Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange. In 2023, he was convicted of money laundering and eventually served about four months in prison. Binance was also convicted, subjected to more than $4 billion in fines and forfeitures, and was banned from operating in the United States. Zhao pleaded guilty, and the platform accepted the severe penalties and sanctions because the government’s case was overwhelming. As the Justice Department put it, Zhao turned Binance into a covert funding channel for “terrorists, cybercriminals and child abusers.”

And yet, President Donald Trump pardoned him. While it’s not a sure thing, the pardon, in wiping out Zhao’s criminal convictions, opens the possibility that Binance could be reinstated for U.S. operations. At the very least, the pardon bolsters Zhao’s chances of qualifying to do business in other markets, where Binance still faces licensing challenges. Places such as the UAE, where Zhao now lives and enjoys warm relations with the royal family — crypto enthusiasts. It’s the country he and his hosts would like to see Binance make its global hub.

Read the rest here.

See also: The Sordid Story of Trump, the Trump–Witkoff Family Business, and the UAE

Demanding Political Loyalty, Trump's DOJ Struggles With Staffing

Chad Mizelle, a former chief of staff to Attorney General Pam Bondi, hung an online help wanted sign for federal prosecutors last weekend that perhaps explained why so many valuable Justice Department staff members have left, and why so few candidates want in.

Assistant U.S. attorneys are not typically recruited, as Mr. Mizelle sought to do, by a former federal employee who asks potential candidates to send a private message to his X account. Nor have they been asked in the past to prove political or ideological fealty.

“If you are a lawyer, are interested in being an AUSA, and support President Trump and anti-crime agenda, DM me,” wrote Mr. Mizelle, a fierce Trump supporter who remains close with Justice Department leaders and senior officials in the West Wing.

Mr. Mizelle was acting as a private citizen expressing his own views. But the post reflected the prevailing sentiment inside the department — that Mr. Trump has the right to hire only those willing to execute his agenda. It also highlighted the dynamic that appears to be contributing to the very staffing shortages Mr. Mizelle tried to address.

The intermingling of law enforcement and political goals has made the department, long a magnet for platinum legal talent, an unappealing landing spot, according to current and former officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

The number of applications is down significantly from previous years, officials said, even as Trump loyalists have publicized vacancies through official and unconventional channels. Some of those applying are generally not as qualified as those who sought the position in the recent past, they added.

A Justice Department spokesman did not respond to specific questions, but said all of the department’s actions reflected Ms. Bondi’s February 2025 memo requiring all employees to “zealously advance, protect and defend” the interests of Mr. Trump in his role as the nation’s chief executive.

The White House has exercised extraordinary control over the Justice Department, with prosecutors pressured to investigate and prosecute the president’s enemies, all in the name of reversing purported politicization under Democrats.

Applications for vacant slots in U.S. attorneys’ offices, once apolitical questionnaires, now often include requirements to weigh in on Mr. Trump’s policies.

“How would you help advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities in this role?” read one of the queries on an application for a job in the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota, whose ranks have drastically thinned after the killing of two protesters in Minneapolis spawned an exodus of prosecutors.

“Identify one or two relevant executive orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired,” reads another.

Read the rest here.

Trump wanted Dulles Airport and Penn Station named after him as condition of releasing rail tunnel funds

Trump administration officials made it known to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer that the president would release federal funds for a massive rail tunnel project connecting New York and New Jersey on the condition that two major travel hubs be renamed in his honor, according to three people with knowledge of the request.

The three people, granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive negotiation, said President Donald Trump would agree to release the funding for the Gateway project, which has been held up since October — but that his ask was that both Washington-Dulles International Airport outside Washington, and Pennsylvania Station in New York City, be renamed for the president.

Schumer declined the offer, according to two people with knowledge of the request. “There was nothing to trade,” said a person close to Schumer. “The president stopped the funding and he can restart the funding with a snap of his fingers.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Read the rest here.

Bitcoin down almost half from its highs

Bitcoin’s plunge accelerated on Thursday, as the world’s largest cryptocurrency fell more than 10% to below $66,000 in afternoon trading, a level not seen since October 2024. The moves underscore how vulnerable cryptocurrencies can be when investors turn away from risk.

The sharp drop was a reversal from late last year, when bitcoin surged to record highs above $125,000 a coin. In the four months since then, the digital currency has lost nearly half its value.

The selling comes as investors pull back from riskier assets like crypto and tech stocks, and rotate into traditional “safe haven” assets like gold.

Since bitcoin’s October peak, the gap between its performance and gold’s has widened significantly. As of Thursday afternoon, the value of bitcoin had fallen 32% since February 2025, while the value of gold has soared 70%.

This year alone, gold is up more than 14% while bitcoin is down more than 20%.

As crypto plummets, the U.S. dollar is also feeling the heat from wary investors who are rethinking where they put their assets.

Read the rest here.

Marjorie Taylor Greene: 'MAGA was a lie.'

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said President Trump’s Make American Great Again slogan was a “lie,” saying his first year back in office was focused on obliging wealthy supporters.

“I think people are realizing it was all a lie. It was a big lie for the people. What MAGA is really serving in this administration, who they’re serving, is their big donors,” Greene said in a Wednesday interview with radio personality Kim Iversen. 

“The big, big donors that donated all the money and continue to donate to the president’s PACs and donate to the 250th anniversary and are donating to the big ballroom,” she added.

The former Georgia representative recently resigned from Congress, after airing concerns over the future of health care premiums and the war in Gaza, citing fractures within the GOP and falling out with Trump and MAGA, despite years of loyal support for the president.

On Wednesday, she said the people who truly benefit from backing Trump are financial benefactors, telling Iversen: “Those are the people that get the special favors. They get the government contracts, they get the pardons, or somebody they love or one of their friends gets a pardon.”

Read the rest here.

Trump Calls on Republicans to "Nationalize" Elections

President Donald Trump said Monday that Republicans should nationalize elections, continuing to double down on false conspiracy theories about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

The suggestion — which runs contrary to the Constitution’s delegation of election administration to state governments — comes less than a week after the FBI raided an elections office outside Atlanta, seizing ballots and other voting records from the 2020 election.

“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting in at least 15 places.’ The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting,” he said during an appearance on former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino’s podcast, which he relaunched Monday.

The president repeatedly insisted that he won the 2020 election “in a landslide,” alleging without evidence that people “voted illegally” in the election. He also nodded to the FBI’s raid in Fulton County, Georgia, teasing that “you’re going to see some interesting things come out” in Georgia.

Dozens of challenges to the results of that election yielded no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud, and both a statewide audit and a recount requested by the Trump campaign verified that former President Joe Biden won the state.

Trump has intensified his efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 election in recent months, vowing in January that “people will soon be prosecuted for what they did” with regards to the election. His Justice Department has also sued roughly two dozen states, demanding access to their statewide voter registration rolls.

Trump’s latest threat to nationalize voting harkens back to a promise he made last summer to sign an executive order bringing “honesty” to the 2026 midterm elections.

“Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes,” he wrote in an August social media post. “They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.”

Read the rest here.

On a lighter note...

Folks are having a lot of fun at Florida's expense with the recent cold snap down there. 

Read the rest here.

SSPX Plans to Consecrate Bishops (again)

No surprise really. Of the four bishop's Lefebvre consecrated (illicitly under Catholic canon law) back in 1988, two have reposed, one after going off into sedevacantism and general nuttery. The two remaining are getting up there in years and the level of work for them has certainly not diminished in the last 38 years. This is going to throw a lot of gasoline (petrol for our overseas readers) on the slow burning debate over the traditional Catholic liturgical rites, and those attached to them, that Francis loathed. (The feelings were mutual.) Leo XIV had initially planned to address the red hot liturgy war at his recent consistory of Cardinals, but there wasn't enough time and so the matter was tabled for future consideration. But it was still there under the surface. Cardinal Roche disseminated an attack on the Old Rite and basically called for its formal and complete suppression, which provoked indignant rebuttals to His Eminence's frankly lame arguments. 

Now this is going to become quite possibly the first serious crisis of Leo's pontificate. Under Catholic canon law, the consecration of bishops without the sanction of the Holy See is considered an act of formal schism and carries an automatic excommunication. How will Rome and the new Pope respond? 

The formal communique of the Society of St. Pius X.

One of the world’s best universities has been captured by trans-obsessed zealots

I came to Cambridge because I wanted to learn how to think, not what to think: how to weigh arguments, test premises, spot evasions and follow a thought wherever it leads, even when it becomes uncomfortable. I did not come to be preached at, or for slogans. I expected the university – which for generations has jostled for position as the best in the world – to be a place where everything was up for discussion. Although I had long-held settled views on the sex-gender debate, they were not something I dwelt on.

That changed over the Easter holidays last year, when I attended a talk featuring the writers Julie Bindel and Helen Joyce. I met women that day who changed the course of my life. Not because they proselytised, or demanded loyalty, but because they spoke plainly, without fear. It became impossible to remain comfortably disengaged. I read Joyce’s book – Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality – and returned to Cambridge with it, as well as Kathleen Stock’s Material Girls. Both women, as well as Bindel, have been pilloried (that’s putting it mildly) for stating the truth: that biological sex and women’s rights must trump gender identity.

Back in college, I showed the books to a friend. I had been self-censoring on this subject for some time: trimming sentences and avoiding questions. I believed that a careful, private introduction to these ideas would be safe. I was wrong. Soon after, I was systematically ostracised by people I had considered close friends. Many told me they could no longer speak to me because of my views. I was branded a Terf (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) and the word was scratched into the board on my door. I was told that buying books written by bigots was morally equivalent to being one. Argument was unnecessary; association enough to convict.

Read the rest here.

Democrat wins solidly red Texas Senate seat in special election upset

Democrat and machinist union leader Taylor Rehmet won the special election Saturday to represent a solidly red Texas Senate district that President Donald Trump carried by 17 points in 2024, a stunning upset that injected a fresh and urgent sense of a panic into the GOP from the Texas Capitol to the White House heading into November’s midterm elections. 

With ballots tallied from all but a handful of voting centers, Rehmet had 57% of the vote, besting the 43% for his GOP opponent, conservative activist Leigh Wambsganss, who vastly outspent Rehmet as Republicans including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick mounted a furious funding push in a bid to tilt the election in their favor in the final days. 

Patrick, the Senate’s powerful presiding officer, had raised alarm bells about the race and urged Republicans to turn out — as did Trump, who posted three separate get-out-the-vote messages on social media in the 48 hours preceding the election.

The win will be short-lived for Rehmet, a first-time candidate who will serve out the roughly 11 months remaining in the term of Republican Kelly Hancock, who vacated the seat to become Texas’ acting comptroller. But the outcome serves as a warning shot for Republicans that will likely embolden Democrats as they angle for other red-leaning seats across Texas — and the country — in November. 

Read the rest here.

Thom Tillis Compares Noem to Dolores Umbridge, Stephen Miller to Grima Wormtongue

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) compared Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller to fictional villains on Friday, calling them both a “sycophant” as tensions rise over the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.

“A sycophant is more than just a ‘yes-man,’” Tillis wrote in a lengthy post on social platform X. “It refers to someone who acts excessively servile toward someone important in order to gain an advantage.”

He added, “They aren’t just being nice, they are using excessive flattery, often insincerely, to get what they want, whether that’s a promotion, social status or favor.”

The senator compared Miller to Grima Wormtongue from “The Lord of the Rings,” who is an adviser to a king. 

“He uses whispers and false flattery to control the King’s decisions, all while secretly serving Saruman,” the North Carolina Republican continued in his post. “He is a classic example of a sycophant who uses his position to poison a leader’s standing for his own benefit.”

Additionally, the senator compared Noem to Dolores Umbridge from “Harry Potter,” calling her a “bureaucratic sycophant.”

“She is terrifyingly sweet while she is around those she considers her superiors and she sucks up to authority to gain the power she needs to bully those ‘beneath’ her,” he said. 

Read the rest here.

The federal debt is a stealth tax on every American

In response to concerns about affordability, President Trump proposed capping interest rates on credit cards at 10 percent. But the federal government’s own credit card — the national debt — is already making life less affordable for all Americans. 

U.S. consumers paid $160 billion in credit card interest in 2024, averaging just under $1,200 per household. That’s a lot of money, but it’s only one-sixth as much as the $1.028 trillion we paid in net interest on the federal debt in fiscal 2025. 

At $7,600 per household, interest on the federal government’s debt costs more than the average household spent on retirement contributions ($1,991), gas ($2,411), healthcare ($6,197) or groceries ($6,224) in 2024. Even as housing costs have surged, federal borrowing is costing Americans the equivalent of three and a half months of mortgage or rent payments.

One might argue that Americans aren’t really paying $7,600 per household in interest each year, because taxes haven’t risen to cover those costs. That is true — for now — because the federal government is adding its interest costs to the debt, the fiscal equivalent of not even making the minimum credit card payment. 

But Americans are already paying higher interest rates on everything from home mortgages to small business loans to credit cards, because, as the Congressional Budget Office has explained, when federal borrowing increases, “the amount of funds available for private investment would decline (a phenomenon known as crowding out), and interest costs would increase.”   

Read the rest here.

Gold Corrects and Silver Crashes

What a difference a day makes. Gold off 8% and Silver down ~30%. Both still up YTD. Not terribly surprised. Both metals were basically going parabolic. But the catalyst for the bull market in precious metals remains. Trump is still going to be president for another three years. 

Goldman Sachs was right.

Last month they predicted that gold could hit $5,400 by the end of 2026. It closed today at $5,474/oz. (11 months early).

The Second Amendment Is Meaningless If the Government Can Kill You for Exercising It

What a difference four days can make. Last Tuesday, a top DOJ lawyer argued in the Supreme Court that people have a right to carry guns in public. By Saturday, another DOJ official warned: “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you.” The government went from championing gun rights to defending ICE agents’ fatal shooting of Alex Pretti. Only restraints on the use of force can stop officials from turning the Second Amendment into an excuse to kill civilians.

Read the rest here.

See also: License to Kill? The Legal Black Hole of Federal Misconduct

Hawaii’s Shocking Legal Argument Against the Second Amendment

This past Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Wolford v. Lopez, the Second Amendment case out of Hawaii in which the Aloha State is defying the Constitution and claiming it can ban concealed carry holders from all private property that is open to the public unless they have the explicit permission of the owner. Thus, you can spend a year in jail if you carry a gun that you have a license to carry onto private property that is open to the public such as a mall or a gas station where the owner is completely silent on the issue.

In other words, silence equals prison in Hawaii.

The oral arguments were full of questions, debates, and discussion of the Second Amendment and the Supreme Court’s prior holdings on this very important provision of the Bill of Rights. But what was shocking was the reliance by Hawaii’s lawyer, Neal Katyal, a distinguished Supreme Court advocate, on blatantly bigoted state laws — the infamous Black Codes — to justify Hawaii’s defiance of the Second Amendment rights of its residents.

The Black Codes were some of the first laws passed in the United States to restrict gun ownership — and they were implemented in segregationist states like Louisiana after the end of the Civil War. They had one purpose, and one purpose only: to prevent newly freed black Americans from being able to defend themselves from the threats, assaults, intimidation, and killings perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan and other white, racist segregationists.

Justice Neil Gorsuch said he was “astonished” that Hawaii would “rely very heavily on an 1865 black code law in Louisiana,” with Katyal seemingly claiming that Hawaii’s law is “a dead ringer and reason alone to affirm the judgment.” Gorsuch said he really wanted “to understand how that could be,” that Hawaii is relying on a racist, historical outlier to support its argument that its law ought to be upheld.

Katyal didn’t seem to want to answer the question, referring to a California law instead, and Gorsuch chided him saying, “Why don’t you answer the question posed? I want to understand how you think black codes should inform this Court’s decision making.” Katyal admitted, “The black codes are undoubtedly a shameful part of our history,” but then made the astounding claim, “That doesn’t at all mean that this particular [Louisiana] law is irrelevant to Second Amendment analysis.”

Gorsuch’s response to Katyal’s rambling explanation of why Hawaii was embracing the racist black codes to try to uphold Hawaii’s firearms restrictions was akin to a vampire embracing garlic. In short, suggesting that such reasoning was unfathomable, inexplicable, and harmful to Hawaii’s argument.

Read the rest here.

Gold is the New Trump Trade

https://www.axios.com/2026/01/27/trump-gold-rally-risk

Foreign Investment in the US is Collapsing

What is going on in the financial markets?

Ray Dalio warns that the monetary order is breaking down, leaving us with a terrible choice: ‘Do you print money or let a debt crisis happen?

The looming debt crisis

Gold tops $5,000 for the first time in 'breathtaking and profoundly scary' rally

Just as a quick historical note; the last time the US had a financial panic that did not center on the stock market, was way back in 1893. And it was U G L Y.