For the last couple of days, the news has been dominated by the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ dinner Saturday night. But I’m going to just note that event without dwelling on it, because I think we all understand it. And since the shooter failed to get off a shot at the President or any other major official, his attack shouldn’t have any lasting consequences.
More significant was the election result in Virginia, where Democrats passed a redistricting map that is expected to net them four House seats in the fall election. This makes the recent gerrymandering tally just about even, or maybe gives Democrats a small advantage. The entire redistricting battle marks a major change in Democratic strategy, which used to revolve around trying to maintain good-government norms even as Republicans changed the rules around them. So this will be the focus of the first featured post, “Where the Gerrymandering Battle Stands After Virginia”, which should be out shortly.
Something I’ve been meaning to write about for a while is the process for refugees to seek asylum in the US, which has been broken for some while. This has given Trump an opening to fix the problem by breaking the rule of law, in a two-wrongs-should-make-a-right manner. Democrats wind up in a complicated position, because the previous status quo is indefensible, but dictatorship is not the right answer.
This week an appeals court rejected Trump’s asylum-limiting executive order. Ultimately, the Supreme Court will have to decide this issue, but the appellate decision gives me a hook to raise the topic. So the second featured post will discuss asylum, starting with the Holocaust-based reasons our asylum laws exist. That should be out between 10 and 11 EDT.
Finally, the weekly summary will note the WHC dinner shooting, summarize the lack of progress in the Iran War, list a few of the other court cases the Trump regime has lost recently, and cover a few other things. I’ll try to get that out by noon, but it may slip.
The Weekly Sift 