Over two weeks ago, on September 23rd, Adelita Grijalva won a special election for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, in Arizona's seventh congressional district. She won handily -- by a whopping 39 percent margin -- so the results aren't being contested or undergoing recounts or anything of that nature. She won, plain and simple. It was an emotional victory for her because she will be taking the seat vacated by the death of her father Raúl earlier this year. But she still hasn't been sworn in. She is still just "Representative-Elect Grijalva."

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The mayor of Portland and the governor of Oregon are (so far) doing a pretty good job of pushing back against Donald Trump's attempted invasion of the city by soldiers. The state has sued Trump in court and has already won two injunctions preventing the deployment of troops. The first barred Trump from using the Oregon National Guard in the city, and the second was necessary because Trump decided to attempt an end-around play by deploying the California National Guard instead. The judge -- a Trump appointee, by the way -- was not amused, and her second injunction barred Trump from using any National Guard troops from any state in Portland. The judge's rulings were pretty scathing, pointing out that Trump's insistence that there is some sort of insurrection happening in Portland is completely divorced from the reality on the ground.

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As the government shutdown enters its second week, Democrats appear to have the upper hand. It's not an overwhelming advantage, but it does seem like the Republicans are losing the battle for public opinion. This strengthens the Democrats' position -- for the time being. Public opinion is a fickle thing and could easily shift as the impacts of the shutdown become more widely felt, but for now Democrats seem to be the ones winning the battle for hearts and minds.

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Normally, on a Friday following the end of a month, we would all be talking about the new jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics right about now. We can't do that today, because the report didn't appear on schedule. This was due to the government being shut down, of course.

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Donald Trump has apparently realized he's going to have to bail out American farmers who have been hit hard by his tariffs and other economic policies. And, true to form, he's going to try to do it without getting Congress to approve the funding, according to an article in Politico today:

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So the shutdown has now begun. The blame game is being played by both sides. The news will be full of which government services have been halted, and which are still running (by employees who are not getting paid). And nobody knows when it is going to end, as both sides seem fairly dug in, at this point.

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At the cost of untold millions of dollars, all the top generals and admirals in the United States military flew in from around the world to attend a meeting in Virginia today -- all so they could hear that there will henceforth be no more "fat generals" and that the military will be going to war against American cities. I wish that was some sort of bad joke, but sadly it is not.

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Eric Adams, the current mayor of New York City, ended his Democrat-turned-independent re-election campaign this weekend. This has scrambled the race somewhat, but only at the margins. Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, has such a big lead over the two remaining major candidates that even if one of them dropped out Mamdani would still be the frontrunner, possibly by double digits.

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The United States of America now seems to have officially become a banana republic. That's really the only conclusion one can draw, after the events of the past week (and the past eight months, for good measure).

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Donald Trump, true to form, just rolled out a surprise new federal policy -- which then caused immediate chaos for those affected by it. There was no warning and it took effect almost before the ink was dry, which created the immediacy. The White House then had to go through several iterations of what exactly it all was going to mean before that immediate chaos subsided somewhat. But the long-term effects of Trump's new H-1B visa policy could end up being rather significant. This could wind up being good news, but it could also wind up being no more than chaotic and counterproductive to Trump's own goals.

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