"A boy in a sports jersey stands with smaller girls on a court and then is seen, shirtless, inside a bathroom with them. A girl in a towel shrieks in terror."

"'Abigail Spanberger is as extreme as it gets,' says the narrator of the television ad that recently began airing in Virginia. A year after Donald Trump’s presidential campaign unleashed $37 million in transgender-themed issue ads against Democratic rival Kamala Harris, Republicans are returning to the cultural flashpoint ahead of next month’s elections, including Virginia’s race for governor, and plan to highlight it again in the 2026 midterm contests. 'Where is our common sense?' Winsome Earle-Sears, Virginia’s Republican lieutenant governor, said in an interview when asked about transgender athletes competing in female sports. 'If I have to tell you that water is wet, we’ve got troubles.'"

From "Republicans Target Democrats Over Transgender Policies in This Year’s Races/Ahead of critical midterm elections, GOP revives culture war strategy used by Trump in 2024’s presidential campaign" (Wall Street Journal).

Here's that anti-Spanberger ad:

#VAGov: Dick Uihlein-funded group Restoration of America PAC is up on TV with this spot --

Female voiceover:

"Abigail Spanberger is as extreme as it gets..."

"She's apparently all in on a horrifying gender mutilation. An irreversible sterilization of children" pic.twitter.com/gD0ytXwUIn

— Medium Buying (@MediumBuying) October 14, 2025

What a terrible issue for Democrats! They can't seem to back away from it.

"I’m aware that the president of the United States likes to go on television and beg me to call and ask him for troops."

"I find this extraordinarily strange as Chicago does not want troops on our streets … I refuse to play a reality game show with Donald Trump."

Said JB Pritzker, quoted in "JB Pritzker: is the Illinois governor the Democrats’ best hope?/Clashes with Trump have boosted his profile, and while a third Illinois term looks assured, a tilt at the White House could see old scandals return to haunt him" (London Times).

We're told that Trump "continues to mock Pritzker’s bulk, posting an AI video showing him as a sumo wrestler grappling with Chris Christie, a large former Republican governor." In case you're having trouble picturing that:

pic.twitter.com/KBZz0iosQX

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2025

Isn't it amazing that the President of the United States is fooling around — and fat shaming — like that? Trump is fat too, of course. I think he fairly cheerfully admits it.

There's also this quote from Frank Luntz: "If you’re the California governor, you have to defend San Francisco. If you’re the Illinois governor, you have to defend Chicago. Democrats do not know how to talk about crime and they do not know how to lead about it, because, quite frankly, they’re seen as being in bed with the criminal and being too distant from the victim.... I actually think that Rahm Emanuel is a better representative because Chicago was better off when he was mayor.”

"The stereotype is of young men perpetually playing video games in their parents’ basements, too depressed and shut in to ask women out."

"But such exaggeration shouldn’t eclipse the broader and more subtle reality. You don’t have to be an incel to believe that the 'system' is fundamentally broken and rigged against your success... specifically homeownership.... This is, of course, a problem for all Americans — men and women alike. But, unpopular as it may be to say in some quarters of my party, the crisis affects one gender with particular potency. Like it or not, American men are still raised to believe that their role is to act as providers and protectors. And when men whose self-worth is tied up in that aspiration realize they’ll never be able to buy a home, they’re bound to feel shame and anger.... It’s not just a matter of Democrats finding our own Joe Rogan, or making better use of TikTok, or using more 'authentic' language.... [I]f Democrats want to save our democracy... we should treat first-time home buyers as their own class.... [W]e should reinstitute the Obama administration’s $8,000 homebuyer’s tax credit, triple it to reflect present market conditions and index the benefit to inflation.... [T]he Democratic Party’s success hinges on our ability to enable men, in particular, to realize that hope and ensure their own success."

Writes Rahm Emanuel, in "What’s really depressing America’s young men/The U.S. has two overlapping problems: the housing crisis and despondency in young men" (WaPo)(gift link).

Is this a special appeal to men? Clearly, Democrats want to appeal to men, but this hardly seems to crack the code. Men would feel more manly if they owned a house? Did someone give Rahm Emanuel the assignment to connect the housing shortage issue to the problem known as men?

"Buttigieg’s remarks came days after Rahm Emanuel... a potential 2028 presidential candidate, told Megyn Kelly that 'a man can’t become a woman'..."

"... a comment that directly contradicted party orthodoxy and sparked fresh divisions over how Democrats should approach transgender rights. 'I think most reasonable people would recognize that there are serious fairness issues if you just treat this as not mattering when a trans athlete wants to compete in women’s sports,' Buttigieg told NPR."

From "Pete Buttigieg weighs in on ‘fairness’ of transgender kids playing girls’ sports" (Advocate).

This gets my tag "2028 campaign." Looks like Emanuel made a significant move and Buttigieg felt obliged to react. But did Buttigieg say anything comprehensible? He also said "The approach starts with compassion, compassion for transgender people, compassion for families, especially of young people who are going through this, and also empathy for people who are not sure what all of this means for them... and just taking everybody seriously." And: "These decisions should be in the hands of sports leagues and school boards and not politicians, least of all politicians in Washington trying to use this as a political pawn."

And here's Rahm:



"So do you believe boys should be able to play in girls sports?"/"No."

"Far from draining the swamp, Trump and his administration will soon be bathing in it."

"We need to reveal the populist Trump as a plutocrat. The hypocrisy will be there in the upcoming tax legislation and slashed regulations for the powerful — all paid for by the middle class.... By returning to our roots as the voice of the middle class, we can unite both moderates and progressives in a fight against the well-heeled and well-connected."

Writes Rahm Emanuel, in "The road back to power for Democrats/It begins with messengers and messages that meet the moment" (WaPo)(free-access link).

"What Harvey Weinstein’s Overturned Conviction Means for Donald Trump’s Trial."

A good title. It's something I was trying to parse on my own yesterday.

The article is at The New Yorker, written by Ronan Farrow. Subheadline: "The legal issue behind Weinstein’s successful appeal is also at the heart of the former President’s hush-money case." The subheadline in my head was: Big man brought down by sex. Or should it be: Pile everything together and the monster will be visible?

Consider this: Farrow's book about Weinstein was called "Catch and Kill" (commission earned), and in Trump's trial, David Pecker has been testifying about the National Enquirer’s "catch and kill" scheme. 

From a CBS News story about Trump's lawyer's cross-examination of Pecker:

Pecker said he first gave Trump a heads up about a story in 1998.... [Trump's lawyer Emil] Bove had Pecker walk through negative stories that he had killed about other figures, including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tiger Woods.

Mayors of "sanctuary cities" cry out as Trump threatens to withdraw federal funding if they don't abandon their independent ways.

The NYT reports on mayors from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, New Haven, Syracuse, and Austin.*

“We’re going to defend all of our people regardless of where they come from, regardless of their immigration status,” Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York said at a news conference with other city officials.

In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel declared: “I want to be clear: We’re going to stay a sanctuary city. There is no stranger among us. Whether you’re from Poland or Pakistan, whether you’re from Ireland or India or Israel and whether you’re from Mexico or Moldova, where my grandfather came from, you are welcome in Chicago as you pursue the American dream.”

It's part of American federalism that state and local governments set their own agenda and perform their separate functions in their separate ways. Immigration is a matter that belongs to the federal government, but it can't force state and local government to do the work it wants done.

When cities are doing their own work, they don't have to load in tasks assigned by the federal government. They can choose to do so, and they can be tempted to make that choice by conditions imposed on federal spending, but those conditions need to be made clear at the point when the money is offered, so that they do have a choice.

That's the protection for federalism that the Supreme Court has built into its doctrine about the Congress's spending power. Congress is trusted to take account of the interests of state and local government when it attaches conditions to spending, which is why it has to make the conditions clear. You can't sneak up on the local government and trick it into a position where it later figures out the autonomy it has lost.

So I don't see how President Trump can go looking for spending to withdraw to bully local government officials into caving into his new policy agenda. That's not how American federalism in the present-day constitutional law doctrine works, and it's certainly nothing close to what someone who cares about the original understanding of federalism would think proper.

____________________

* Is Madison, Wisconsin a "sanctuary city"? No, but the mayor likes to say it is!

"All of us fundamentally believe that those are students. Those are also people that want to join the Armed Forces."

"They gave their name, their address, their phone number where they are. They’re trying to achieve the American dream. No fault of their own, their parents came here. They are something we should hold up and embrace. We are clear, as mayors, that these are DREAMers who are seeking the American dream, and we should embrace them rather than do a bait and switch."

Said Rahm Emanuel, explaining what he'd talked about in his private meeting with Donald Trump.

"Rahm Emanuel Must Resign/From Laquan McDonald to Homan Square, Rahm has tacitly endorsed police violence."

By the Editors of The Nation.

If he goes, who will fix it? He has the strongest motivation and capacity of anyone. Is symbolism worth more, or do you just not trust him?

"Famously vindictive, [Rahm Emanuel] alienated the local press and others, turning those who might have helped him into enemies."

"He also brought a Washington-style spin-control mindset to Chicago. In Washington, an army of apparatchiks and a compliant media lets politicians like Obama create a reality bubble. In national politics, perception is often reality. But in local government, reality is reality. The West Side isn’t Benghazi. The people who live in Chicago can walk out their front doors and see for themselves what’s going on."

From "The Fall of Rahm Emanuel/Chicago’s bullyboy mayor will never change," by Aaron M. Renn.

"The Chicago Police officer who shot and killed Ronald Johnson in 2014 will not face criminal charges...."

"... because Johnson had a gun, had resisted arrest and was running toward other cops and into a park, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez said Monday."

The video shows that Johnson was shot in the back by Hernandez. But Alvarez argued that Johnson could have easily turned around and fired at the pursuing officers...

 I'm listening to the press conference with Mayor Rahm Emanuel. He sounds defensive and uncharacteristically weak. 

"Mayor Rahm Emanuel ousted Chicago’s police superintendent on Tuesday..."

"... after the city’s police department came under fire over an officer shooting a teenager 16 times, and for resisting, for more than a year, to release of a video of the fatal shooting."

“He has become an issue, rather than dealing with the issue, and a distraction,” Mr. Emanuel said of the police chief, Garry F. McCarthy.

The mayor hired Mr. McCarthy, 56, in 2011 to take over law enforcement in a city plagued by persistent violent crime, and homicides declined during his tenure. But Chicago still has a serious problem with gang violence....

A high-rated comment at the link (to the NYT):

It will certainly be interesting to learn at what point Rahm Emanuel knew of Garry McCarthy's suppression of the video. This certainly smells like Emanuel would throw his grandmother under a bus if he thought it might salvage his political aspirations.

Why, Rahm?

Why?

I had high hopes for you. How could you not have drawn the line, said here's where I take my stand, and if I lose my election, that's nothing, I want my integrity?

"I believe this is a moment that can build bridges of understanding rather than become a barrier of misunderstanding."

Said Rahm Emanuel.

It's "fine to be passionate, but it is essential that it remain peaceful."

"Rahm Emanuel reaps the whirlwind of Democratic rule."

It's a column by George Will. I don't know why Meade just IM'd me the link to this... maybe because we've been following Rahm Emanuel and once had the notion he'd emerge as the Democratic nominee for President in 2016, but things haven't gone so swimmingly.

It is not Emanuel’s fault that Chicago’s three largest employers, after the federal government, are the public school system, the city government and Cook County’s government...

Emanuel’s task — condign punishment for any Democrat — is to salvage the blue model by making the private sector dynamic enough to generate tax revenues sufficient to fund improvident public contracts and their pension promises. ...

Maybe it's Meade's fascination with George Will. I mean, "condign"... who talks like that?!

Later in Will's column:

The world is indeed wonderfully out of joint when Emanuel, the embodiment of pugnacious progressivism, is proud, and properly so, of the booming market for downtown residences.

The man is poet.

"Out of joint" is a phrase from "Hamlet":

The time is out of joint—O cursèd spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!

"Wonderfully" is used by Will — not Will Shakespeare, George Will — as just another intensifier like "very" or "really." I think! As in: My dislocated shoulder is wonderfully painful.

"When President Obama talks up the family-friendly vibe at the White House — the nightly family dinners, the flexibility to attend school presentations and join impromptu plunges in the pool with his girls..."

"... his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, sets him straight. 'Family friendly to your family,' Mr. Emanuel counters."

So begins a July 2009 NYT article titled "Family Friendly’ White House Is Less So for Aides," which I'm reading this morning because it's quoted and linked in the article blogged in the previous post.

"For a time in recent decades, it looked like the reform examples of New York under Messrs. Giuliani and Bloomberg and the growth of cities like Houston might lead to a broader urban revitalization."

"In some places it did. But of late the progressives have been making a comeback, led by Bill de Blasio in New York and the challenge to sometime reform Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Chicago. This week’s nightmare in Baltimore shows where this leads. It’s time for a new urban renewal, this time built on the ideas of private economic development, personal responsibility, 'broken windows' policing, and education choice."

A Wall Street Journal editorial titled "The Blue-City Model/Baltimore shows how progressivism has failed urban America." (Pay-wall protected, but if you Google some text, you can go in.)

"Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Wednesday he had an 'honest, frank conversation' with Spike Lee to let the movie director know..."

"... that he doesn’t like, 'Chiraq,' the working title of Lee's coming movie on black-on-black violence based in Chicago’s crime-ridden Englewood community."

Emanuel didn’t say whether he asked Lee to change the name.... But the mayor made it clear that he had used the Hollywood pipeline provided by his brother, super-agent Ari Emanuel, to make his feelings known directly to Spike Lee. The face-to-face meeting took place in the mayor’s office prior to Wednesday’s City Council meeting....

In an apparent attempt to soften the blow of the title, "Chiraq," Lee... noted that gun violence is “not limited” to Chicago. It’s happening in Philadelphia, Baltimore and New York, where he’s from. He even talked about the derogatory name used to describe a part of Brooklyn where he’s from. He talked about how similarly insulting names applied to Philadelphia and Baltimore.

Well, apparently "Chiraq" is a great title. It's getting such high level attention. You can't buy that kind of PR. Obviously, it's also negative PR for the city, but Rahm is trying to squeeze good PR out of the bad (on the theory that Chicago isn't really that bad and even if it is, other cities are also bad... or worse).



ADDED: From a year ago: "How Chicago Became 'Chiraq'":

President Obama may have gotten our troops out of Iraq, but the gunfire in his hometown of Chicago is still earning it a searing nickname coined by young people who live there.

Chiraq.

Blaming the Jackie Robinson West Little League scandal on Rahm Emanuel.

"Mayor Rahm closed half a dozen schools in Jackie Robinson West’s part of the city, and tried to close the school, Marcus Garvey, where the founder of JRW—Joe Haley—worked. Then Chicago Public Schools cut funding for high school freshman sports, laid off a thousand teachers. CPS put forty kids in physical education classes and doesn’t even put a librarian in most of the school libraries in [the South Side district of] Auburn Gresham."

From "Gentrification Is the Real Scandal Surrounding Jackie Robinson West," in The Nation.

"Sharks Are Circling Around Hillary."

Says Eleanor Clift.

I predict Hillary does not run. I look to Rahm.