CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
We’ve gone so far beyond any previous level of lawfare, we’ve passed words like “historic” and reached a state of surreal parody. It seems that every single thing the President does must be battled in court. Challenge accepted.
JEFF CHILDERS
SEE COMMENT SECTION FOR TODAYS REPORT…STAND BY
I’ve covered Democrats’ platform problems since early last year. So far as I know, I was first to predict they’d face massive midterm problems, even when everyone else was forecasting historic GOP losses, crying about some Democrat winning in Two Eggs, Florida, and generally making Chicken Little look like a pie-eyed optimist. But two different items in yesterday’s cycle proved the tragicomic point better than I ever did. Let’s start with the Associated Press, which reported, “Democrats disagree over abolishing or reforming ICE at DNC meeting.” They settled the disagreement by just approving everything.
The Democratic National Committee held its big summer meetup in Austin, Texas this week. On top of midterm business, they are beginning to plan their 2028 presidential strategy, which currently revolves around eye-watering TikToks of AOC freezing her eggs. (Way TMI.) “Democrats on Saturday approved dueling messages,” AP reported, “revealing disagreement in the party ahead of the midterms.”
The line was dramatic, but it was an unforced injury. Duels have winners. But a duel, in this usage, is when both people shoot, both live, and the minutes call it a consensus.
On Thursday, the DNC’s Resolutions Committee dramatically approved a proposition calling for completely abolishing ICE. Just pull the plug! This came from the DSA wing. Literally. The member who introduced the motion was Michele Johnson— who is also a member of the Louisiana chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Then, yesterday, presumably to avoid handing the Republicans a sound bite swaddled in DSA gift wrap, the full DNC hastily approved a different resolution, this one merely calling for ICE reforms. The competing resolution was introduced by DNC Chairman Ken Martin (pictured above)— i.e., the party’s establishment wing, which is currently warring with the DSA faction.
Neither faction’s resolution was “binding,” making both votes mere gaseous expressions of unpleasant odorific vapors. Cutting through the parliamentary fog, the DNC resolved only to not resolve whether ICE should be abolished or reformed. Clear as milk, as CBS would say. The actual goal, which was achieved, was to stop critics from claiming the radical DNC wants to abolish ICE— by creating a fog of confusion.
Ironically, the pro-abolish members favorably cited the example of the INS, which was “abolished” in 2003. But that wasn’t entirely accurate. The INS was replaced in 2003. By what, you ask? By Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. So these short-bus-riders were citing the same law that created ICE, as the abolishment example. But without a positive vision, if they succeed in abolishing ICE, why won’t something worse than ICE replace it?
It’s a thornier problem than it looks. The ICE/No-ICE cockup is a compact illustration of the Democrats’ larger coalition problem. If they endorse any DSA-favored items, like abolishing ICE, they’ll turn off less radical Democrats and drive away independents. But if they don’t endorse DSA items, they’ll lose the socialists. All this baby-splitting is buying them time, but a reckoning is inevitable.
RNC Chair Joe Gruters scoffed and called it all, “political suicide.”
Maybe they can get along by agreeing together that the Orange Man is Bad. But after that, once it gets down to ruling, things start getting dicey. After all, modern progressive politics is founded on open-mindedness, respectful debate, and consensus-building, like canceling other members for 15-year-old social media posts and meeting in secret to pick the real nominee after primary voters picked the wrong one.
That was just the Democrats’ first problem. Then came this.
Yesterday, the Washington Post ran an unintentionally hilarious political obituary headlined, “Democrats abandon Senate races in deep-red states, boosting independents.” This article was the first public evidence of my most extreme prediction from last summer: I claimed Trump was aiming at the entire Democrat brand, which might die, at least in its current form. I called the stakes existential, and critics called me cuckoo. But if you thought Democrats being forced to replace two national candidates at the last minute was bad, wait till you see this.
Nebraska. Idaho. South Dakota. Alaska. In four red states so far, Democrat candidates for the U.S. Senate and House have pulled out, ghosted the ballot, and left November standing at the altar. In each state, former Democrats —white guys in ball caps, all military veterans— are now running as independents.
They are running as independents who promise they won’t caucus with Dems if they’re elected. You believe that, right? If so, you’re the only one. In fact, the whole article is about Democrats high-fiving each other for their brilliant strategy of running away and leaving a confusing mess for low-information voters to sort out.
WaPo explained the ingenious new strategy: “Democrats hope that these moderate independents will draw enough crossover support from Republicans and centrist voters who would never back a Democrat to make the races competitive.” Then WaPo asked itself the most important question of all: “What does this strategy say about the Democratic label?”
They actually put the answer in writing. Clear as day.
“The decision to drop out to help independents demonstrates the growing toxicity of the Democratic Party’s brand in many states,” WaPo explained, “according to strategists of both parties.” Growing toxicity! Growing toxicity is something you expect from asbestos, black mold, or Taco Bell lettuce— not a major U.S. political party. But the entire “brand” —the very name “democrat”— is becoming toxic ‘in many states.’
Not to beat a dead oyster farmer, but toxic isn’t a word for things you disagree with. It’s a word for things you abate. You don’t debate black mold. You get an estimate for getting rid of it.
The brand damage is apparently so bad, the Democrats aren’t even trying to fix it. Not yet. Just now, they only care about one thing: beating Republicans. With anything or anyone.
“While it is ‘crucial’ for the party to rebuild its brand in red states,” WaPo reported, “such long-term concerns are secondary to ousting Republicans.” This appeared in a quote from Neera Tanden, the former Clinton campaign advisor, Biden’s nominee to run the Office of Management and Budget, later his Domestic Policy Advisor, and now the head of a big progressive ‘think tank.’
Get that? Fixing the brand is “secondary” to “ousting Republicans.” The insider’s insider said it.
Even if their ‘independents’ lose, Democrats hope that the “races will drain Republican money that could be spent on other races.” In other words, instead of running candidates, Democrats are setting out decoys. A little money lavished on independent candidates could go a long way to forcing Republicans to invest in protecting otherwise secure seats. It’s cheaper than funding a real candidate, anyway.
In other words, their magnificent new strategy is not being on the ballot.
A handful of Democrats objected to this. Julian Beaudion, the former Democrat Senate nominee in South Dakota who recently pulled out to make space for the independent, complained to a reporter that asking Democrats to drop out “hurts state and local parties more than it does the national brand.” (He later ‘corrected’ the record; he now says he only withdrew for ‘personal reasons.’ Like he personally got an offer he couldn’t refuse.)
The party’s Senate nominee in Montana, Alani Bankhead, successfully resisted calls to drop out. “If you want to rehabilitate the brand, then you do it by rehabilitating the brand, not supporting independents,” she said in an interview, stating the obvious.
Florida got there first. What’s happening to Democrats this month already happened to them last year in the Sunshine State. In April of 2025, Jason Pizzo, who’d served as the Democrat minority leader in the state senate, pulled out and registered as an independent, becoming an even smaller minority of one.
“The Democratic Party in Florida is dead,” Jason said. He announced this obituary on the Senate floor. At that time, Jason became the third Democrat legislator to leave the Florida party in six months.
Either way, Democrats are making high-risk plays and labeling their own brand increasingly toxic to mainstream Americans. Call all this the threat from the right and the middle. But that’s not the entire landscape of blue trouble, is it?
Remember, the Democrat party is being dragged into a two-front war. From the left, they’re struggling to mollify the DSA in blue districts. From the right, they can’t even run regular Democrats anymore in red or pink districts. They need white, blue-collar guys in hunting gear, veterans who run as independents, lumberjacks, and oyster farmers. The Democrats’ current crop of candidates is so Stepford-like that the Republicans are starting to look like the party of diversity.
WaPo pointed out there isn’t a single Democrat left in the U.S. Senate from a red state. Zero diversity. Sad!
The AP story is about a national party that passed an ICE resolution and a No-ICE resolution. The WaPo story shows how deep the rot has grown. How can an incoherent party that can’t even agree on the basic issues effectively respond to a factional crisis like this?
This one hits all the beats. More arrests. More Democrats. More covid fraud. More immigration shenanigans. More accountability. Friday, NBC Boston reported, “Lawrence Mayor Brian DePeña arrested by FBI on wire fraud, money laundering charges.” Of all the cities in Massachusetts, he ran the scam out of the one with law in the name. Lawrence. Moving on.
On Friday morning, the FBI arrested Lawrence, Massachusetts Mayor Brian DePeña, 61, at his home. Lawrence is a dense, hard-edged old mill city on the Merrimack River about 25 miles north of Boston, with around 90,000 residents packed into its compact 7.4 square miles.
On Thursday evening, the IRS criminal division filed a 16-page criminal complaint charging DePeña with wire fraud and money laundering, alleging he fraudulently obtained over $1.5 million in covid small-business loans and used the proceeds to fund his campaign account, pay personal taxes, and pay off over $880,000 in high-interest mortgages on various properties he owned in Lawrence.
DePeña is a dual American and Dominican Republic citizen. He’s facing up to 30 years in prison. Yesterday, his lawyer said he isn’t stepping down. Not yet, anyway.
Two interesting observations. First, the Covid-fraud clock is still running. Federal prosecutors alleged that Mayor DePeña diverted more than $1.5 million in pandemic small-business loans from 2020 through 2022. Those allegations remind us that the pandemic’s firehose of free government money did not include legal amnesty. Years later, investigators can still reconstruct the money trail and bring charges.
Second, DePeña is just the latest in a growing chain of sitting Democrat officials pursued by local and federal agencies, now that they are no longer muzzled by the DOJ’s Washington, D.C., office, which, until Trump 2.0, usually squashed political prosecutions of Democrats. (You probably remember my recent report on the prosecution of Hawaii’s current Lt. Governor, Sylvia Luke, on bribery charges.)
More like this, please.
…………….
The Trump Administration scored another major court victory this week. On Friday, Newsweek reported, “Obama-appointed judge lets Trump strip TPS from Somalis—‘Life-altering.’” The ‘temporary’ protection for people who hail from every country on the notorious Biden list except one has now ended.
This week, Massachusetts federal judge Alison Burroughs (Obama appointee) finally lifted her stay of a Trump order that tried to revoke “temporary protected status” for Somalians as a class. Judge Burroughs reluctantly applied a recent Supreme Court ruling holding that federal judges should stop interfering in these types of immigration cases.
The Quality Learing Center could not be reached for comment.
Somalia was first designated for TPS in 1991, so a person in the earliest cohort could have been continuously covered with temporary protection for about 35 years now. Some studies put the average length of residence for TPS holders at roughly 20 years. Redefining the word ‘temporary’ to mean ‘forever’ is a terrific example of the violence progressives always do to the English language.
Regardless, following the new ruling, the official U.S. government’s message was unambiguous. “LEAVE NOW or BE DEPORTED,” the DHS tweet said. In all caps. The agency has even prepared a handy dandy self-deportation guide:
It was true that Judge Burroughs did apply the Supreme Court’s ruling. But it was also true she didn’t sound too happy about it. She smelled the bitter stench of “undisguised racism,” but the Supreme Court “somehow” won’t let her clean it up:
Amidst all that high judicial diction, Judge Burroughs just called the Supreme Court racist. She’s practically waiting for them to erect a giant burning cross on the SCOTUS plaza. I think the original trigger might have been when President Trump called Haiti a “s—hole country” and accused the locals of barbecuing Rover and Puffball. Now Judge Burroughs sees KKK-style racism everywhere.
Judge Burroughs —while she had everyone’s attention— also took the opportunity to complain about having to hear from unhappy members of the public during the period when she’d rightfully held up Somali deportations because of President Trump’s “undisguised racism.” In other words, Judge Burroughs is the real victim here:
We’ve gone so far beyond any previous level of lawfare, we’ve passed words like “historic” and reached a state of surreal parody. It seems that every single thing the President does must be battled in court. Challenge accepted.