Why Is There No News?

I check Real Clear Politics twice a day for a take on the conventional wisdom. What's odd today is that nowhere in the list of headlines does the word "shutdown" appear. On the other hand, near the top of the list, there are two big think pieces on the No Kings demonstrations, which appear to be among the biggest non-events in history. But isn't the current government shutdown a much bigger dog that isn't barking?

Curious, I asked Chrome AI mode, "How is trump polling in the shutdown?" Normally, "AI" prefaces its response with a couple of paragraphs to let me know the correct way to think about the question, but this morning, it just listed a bunch of headline links without comment:

Newsweek: Donald Trump Is Winning the Government Shutdown, Polls Suggest
Reuters: Trump's approval edges up despite Americans blaming Republicans for shutdown
The Hill: Trump approval ticks up despite GOP shutdown blame: Survey
CNN: Could Democrats win the shutdown standoff? They’re still winning the blame game
PBS: Who’s winning the blame game over the shutdown? Here’s what a new AP-NORC poll shows

The PBS link, which we may assume is one of the most liberal, is hardly optimistic:

Roughly 6 in 10 Americans say President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of responsibility for the shutdown, while 54% say the same about Democrats in Congress, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. At least three-quarters of Americans believe each deserves at least a “moderate” share of blame, underscoring that no one is successfully evading responsibility.

It looks like any take that the Democrats are "winning the blame game" even if Trump's popularity is rising is optiimistic indeed. The consensus of even liberal commentators is that the polling is a "jump ball". But only a little over half of US adults think the shutdown is a big deal at all:

The poll finds that 54% of U.S. adults call the shutdown a “major issue,” with just 11% saying it is “not a problem at all.” Democrats are most likely, at 69%, to see it as a major problem, but 59% of independents and 37% of Republicans feel the same way.

I decided to take a look at the paradigmatic shutdown, the pair of closures led by Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1995-96. According to Wikipedia,

As a result of conflicts between Democratic President Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress over funding for education, the environment, and public health in the 1996 federal budget, the United States federal government shut down from November 14 through November 19, 1995, and from December 16, 1995, to January 6, 1996, for 5 and 21 days, respectively. Republicans also threatened not to raise the debt ceiling.

. . . Polling generally showed that most respondents blamed congressional Republicans for the shutdowns, and Clinton's handling of the shutdowns may have bolstered his ultimately successful campaign in the 1996 presidential election. The second of the two shutdowns was the longest government shutdown in U.S. history until the 2018–2019 government shutdown surpassed it in January 2019.

. . . A 1995 ABC News poll had Republicans receiving the brunt of the blame with 46% of respondents compared to the 27% that blamed Clinton. Clinton's Gallup approval rating stood at 51% in the early days of the December shutdown, but fell significantly to 42% as it progressed into January. Once the shutdown had ended, however, his Gallup approval ratings rose to their highest since his election.

However, the overall political impact of the shutdown is harder to gauge. Its impact on the 1996 election, especially in Congress, was counterintuitive:

The shutdown also influenced the 1996 Presidential election. Bob Dole, the Senate Majority Leader, was running for president in 1996. Due to his need to campaign, Dole wanted to solve the budget crisis in January 1996 despite the willingness of other Republicans to continue the shutdown unless their demands were met. In particular, as Gingrich and Dole had been seen as potential rivals for the 1996 Presidential nomination, they had a tense working relationship.

. . . Gingrich stated that the first re-election of a Republican [House] majority since 1928 was due in part to the Republican Party's hard line on the budget. The Republican Party had a net loss of eight seats in the House in the 1996 elections but retained a 227-206-seat majority in the upcoming.

Dole lost the 1996 election, at least in part because he ran on the idea that his canmpaign was a "last mission for the greatest generation", which inevitably contrasted his age with the younger and comprehensively more vigorous Clinton. Dole certainly played to type two years later as the national spokesman for Viagra, which Clinton presumably didn't need -- this may have been the unspoken underlying issue of the campaign. It's also hard to argue with the implicit contrast with Gingrich's congrressional strategy in the election, where Dole stood for compromise while Gingrich continued a hard line. Republicans lost the presidency, while they held onto Congress.

A reasonable assessment that might be made across the 1995-96 and the 2025 shutdowns is that over the long term, energetic hardliners succeed electorally, while figures who seem namby-pamby or perhaps past their sell-by date don't. Right now, Trump is the energetic hardliner despite his age, while Schumer is as old as Dole was in 1996 and has the aura of letting women like AOC boss him around, while nobody's complaining that Schumer is too hot to trot. Gennifer Flowers and Paula Jones didn't hurt Clinton in 1996, any more than Stormy Daniels and E Jean Carroll hurt Trump in 2024, which is to say that the ladies all subliminally worked to Clinton's and Trump's benefit, even in the context of shutdowns. But one of the few efforts I've seen to explain the current alignment omits these factors:

During the 2018-2019 government shutdown (the longest federal shutdown in US history lasting 35 days), Donald Trump's first term administration was ill prepared for the tactics used by the establishment media, Democrats and even saboteurs within his own cabinet. The narrative spin was highly effective in painting Trump as the villain, subverting his efforts to achieve lasting security at the southern border.

The 2018 shutdown hinged largely on the fight between Republicans and Democrats over funding for a border wall that would ensure far lower illegal immigration numbers well after Trump left office. The construction cost of $5.7 billion seems like a pittance compared to the projected cost of $350 billion to deport alien migrants over four years.

Seen from this perspective, I would say the problem in 2018-19 was that the issue was too specific and not couched in bigger terms. In 2025, the issue isn't budgetary line items, the issue is Trump vs Schumer, just as after the 1995-1996 shutdowns, the issue became Clinton vs Dole. I think in both cases, the outcome will favor the higher-profile, more energetic figure. Dole lost to Clinton in 1996, but Gingrich won as well. Something like that dynamic is happening now.

So of course, there's no news about it.

More On Trump's Shutdown Strategy

I'm seeing very little commentary on the shutdown that takes into account what we've been learning about Trump. First, as we've seen with the Hanas deal, little pieces of an overall strategy fall into place over a period of months. The June B-2 raid on Iran's nuclear facilities was seen as an isolated episode that was maybe even ineffective. By October, it began to be recognized that it was a big enoujgh blow to Iranian power and prestige that Iran's neighbors could agree to pressure Iran's client Hamas into a peace deal.

By the same token, the shutdown is just one part of an overall domestic strategy to break down the current structure of the Democrat party. Several things are working to his advantage: Democrat leadership figures are simply aging out: Nancy Pelosi is 85, already retired as Speaker, still retaining her House seat, but increasingly frail. Bernie Sanders is 84, still vocal only because there are no credible younger replacements who aren't jokes, but the calendar is the calendar.

The other major leadership figure still in office is Schumer, a decade younger at 74, but so likely to be defeated in the 2028 primary cycle that he's already a lame duck, with no heir apparent. Trump is acutely aware of this:

“The Democrats have no leader. They remind me of Somalia,” Trump said.

“I don’t, I just don’t know if Schumer has any power anymore. I look at your, your leadership. I don’t know who to speak to.”

Trump has repeatedly claimed Schumer fears a 2028 primary challenge by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), saying: “Schumer is petrified of the primary because he’s not going to win, probably against anybody.”

Most important, Schumer isn't holding the party together in a coherent shutdown strategy, because he can't. One problem is a putative consensus among Democrats that the Republicans should agree to extension of Affordable Care Act premium subsidies, but there's no real assurance that that would be enough, and the specifics of what Democrats might accept have never been clear:

Democrats say they're fighting to restore Medicaid benefits that were cut in President Donald Trump's "Big Beautiful" tax and budget bill, which he signed into law in July.

The morning after the shutdown began, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, told MSNBC that Democrats are not in any way asking for health care for people in the country without legal status.

. . . The new law restricts eligibility only to U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, i.e. green card holders and certain Cuban and Haitian immigrants.

. . . Democrats want to reverse many of the health care-related provisions included in the new act to keep more Americans, and some lawful immigrants, eligible for Medicaid. They say the shutdown is over preserving healthcare access, and there is no proposal to provide free health care to people living in the country illegally.

So the real dispute isn't over premiums, it involves what additional groups, mainly involving one or another class of migrants, can be added to Medicaid. The question is whether a simple agreement to negotiate continued ACA premium subsidies alone in return for reopening the government would bring enough Democrats around to reach 60 votes, or whether other concessions would be needed.

It's plain that Trump currently sees no urgency in even starting any such negotiation. Ed Kilgore writes in New York Magazine,

Nearly three weeks into the current federal-government shutdown, Democrats have made it clear that their principal — and, perhaps, their sole — demand for cooperating to end it is a commitment to move some sort of bipartisan extension of the Obamacare premium subsidies, due to expire at the end of the year. They may be willing to accept half a loaf, like an ironclad commitment for a vote on a specific measure, or a Trump commitment to back some kind of remedy for an impending health-insurance-price spike that worries Republicans, too.

Kilgore refers to "Democrats" as though they're a single group, but they aren't. At The Hill,

Democratic senators acknowledge a handful of their colleagues would love to end the tense standoff over federal funding, but they say those members are worried a liberal backlash could end their political careers.

“Are there enough Democrats to join Republicans to reopen the government? Not in the near term,” said the Democratic senator who requested anonymity. “There is no bipartisan conversation that’s anything but bulls‑‑‑.”

This is what Trump understands; there's nobody who can shepherd the Democrats into a single group that will negotiate realistically with Republicans, and the moderates are terrified of the leftists. Put another way, Zohran Mamdani and AOC are the de facto leadership of the Democrats, with veto power over any consensus. But neither can they assemble a national majority on their own.

It's also worth remembering that Trump takes a multifaceted approach to solving any problem. The shutdown right now applies to congressional Democrats, but he isn't concentrating just on congressional Demnocrats. He's clearly also taking aim at big-city and blue-state Democrat machines via his parallel crime fighing efforts, sending DHS, ICE, FBI, and the National Guard into places like Chicago, Portland, and San Francisco.

But he isn't stopping there. The military attacks on drug smuggling boats and submarines coming from Venezuela and Colombia are intended to turn off the money spigot that uses drugs to fund the big-city machines. Meanwhile, potential crises loom if the shutdown contines into November, but Trump is deliberately preoccupied with foreign policy:

President Donald Trump — mostly checked out during the standoff — leaves Friday for Asia after spending the weekend at his Palm Beach, Fla., home. The White House feels as if it’s winning the political fight. So if Congress wants to get Trump’s attention, this is the moment to do so.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has been practically begging Trump to get involved in negotiating a deal to extend the enhanced Obamacare premium subsidies. Trump, though, has easily resisted these calls and is letting Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune run the shutdown strategy.

. . . If Democrats are willing to accept a political victory without a policy win, this is a critical moment for Schumer to figure out what this looks like — and how he shields himself from inevitable criticism from the left. What does Schumer demand in exchange for Democratic votes to reopen the government? Is it a vote on extending the subsidies? Will Schumer cut loose some moderates and retiring Democrats? How does he message this publicly?

In other words, Schumer is hoping the potential fallout from a continuing shutdown will lead Trump to rescue him from his own leadership dilemma by opening negotiations. But why should Trump do Schumer any favors? And if he opens negotiations, won't that simply give the left more opportunities to pressure Schumer to try to get more concessions from Trump? Trump has nothing to lose by letting the shutdown continue, and a lot to lose by rescuing Schumer:

It’s day 20 of the Schumer Shutdown, and Donald Trump is winning. Don’t take my word for it—CNN is admitting that this Democrat-led fiasco has done nothing to hurt the president’s approval. In fact, Trump’s approval has increased. CNN’s Harry Enten broke down the numbers. In terms of ‘blame,’ even the networks data cruncher said, “it’s a different world’ for the better for the Trump White House.

The end result of this particular phase in the overall war will likely be continued diminished prestige for Schumer, but the unlikelihood that any serious change in Democrat congressional leadership will emerge. But we need to keep io mind that this is just part of a bigger strategy.

Nancy Pelosi Has Gone Blonde!

BREAKING: Nancy Pelosi SNAPS at OUR Reporter - Points in Her Face and Hurls Insults

When our reporter pressed @SpeakerPelosi on why she refused National Guard support on January 6th, she lost it - pointing in her face, yelling “Shut up,” and accusing her of pushing “Republican… pic.twitter.com/nXxKJaq6Gz

— LindellTV (@RealLindellTV) October 15, 2025

Speaker Emerita Pelosi's "Shut up!" outburst against a reporter got a great deal of attention last week, but what struck me was how well it reflected the detective Philip Marlowe's remark, "From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away." In the clip above, with the well-tended hair framing sunglasses, she very briefly looks much younger, until she turns and angrily croaks, revealing every one of her 85 years.

The other thing I noticed was that she now has blonde highlights in her hair. This seems to be new, along with the sunglasses. I asked Chrome AI mode, "Does Nancy Pelosi often wear sunglasses?" and it answered,

While Nancy Pelosi does wear sunglasses, particularly when outside, the idea that she "often" wears them likely stems from a few highly publicized and memorable instances rather than being a regular habit.

But the examples it then gives are from 2015 and 2018, which reinforces in my mind that she's had a makeover. I get the same feeling from the video clip below; her hair is lighter there, too.

No Crown. #NoKings! pic.twitter.com/5NWMAVLLzh

— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) October 18, 2025

But the main thing she's doing is reprising what she must feel is the high point of her career, when she tore up Trump's State of the Union speech on February 4, 2020, immediately after he finished delivering it to a joint session of Congress. The problem was that in that case, she was tearing up a whole program, and indeed, announcing her intent to tear up Trump himself; whereas more than five years later, Trump is back, she's turned old and frail, and all she can manage to tear up is a little paper crown that has nothing to do with Trump.

And what must really rankle is Trump's remarks to Maria Bartiromo in yesterday's interview:

Well, look, the Democrats are kamikazes right now. They're kamikaze pilots right now. They have nothing going. They have no future. They have incompetent candidates. I mean, I looked at Crockett, Jasmine Crockett. She's a low -- very low- I.Q. person. She's polling OK in the Democrat Party. I can't even believe it. AOC is -- I watched her the other day.

He's mentioning Jasmine Crockett and AOC as the current leading lights of the Democrats -- Nancy Pelosi isn't even worth bringing up. She's 2020's news.

But they're still talking about Trump. Can you imagine what that's doing to her?

The Strangely Inchoate No Kings Protests

A headline at Breitbart: Boomers Be Wildin’! Furries and Geriatrics Take Over D.C. During ‘No Kings’ Protest:

The “No Kings” protests have returned, and with that the Democrat geriatrics have as well, but this time with furries alongside in the trenches!

Then there's this tweet from Marion, NC:

This is the "No Kings" protest in Marion NC, about a 30 minute drive from Asheville NC.

The crowd that showed up is BEYOND PARODY at this point...

...literally every single person at this protest is retired and white

Honestly, I've never seen anything like it. pic.twitter.com/fqSU8pOGUR

— Matt Van Swol (@matt_vanswol) October 18, 2025

This story at Colorado Public Radio suggests the furries at the Portland protests have caught on with the public at large:

Thousands of Coloradans gathered in cities large and small on Saturday to voice their opposition to the Trump administration as part of a nationwide network of protests called “No Kings.” The name is in reference to what organizers say are the president’s authoritarian actions.

This was the second such protest this year. This time, however, many came out in droves with inflatable costumes, a tactic that started in Portland during recent immigration raids.

But here's part of the abstract of a medical article at the National Library of Medicine:

If some furries are sexually motivated, they may be motivated by an erotic target identity inversion (ETII): sexual arousal by the fantasy of being the same kinds of individuals to whom they are sexually attracted. Furries with ETIIs would experience both sexual attraction to anthropomorphic animals and sexual arousal by fantasizing about being anthropomorphic animals, because they often change their appearance and behavior to become more like anthropomorphic animals. We surveyed 334 male furries recruited from the Internet about their sexual orientation, sexual motivation, and sexual interests. A large majority of our sample reported non-heterosexual identities (84%) and some degree of sexual motivation for being furries (99%). Male furries also tended to report a pattern of sexual interests consistent with an ETII involving anthropomorphic animals. Both sexual attraction to anthropomorphic animals and sexual arousal by fantasizing about being anthropomorphic animals were nearly universal.

Not that there's anything wrong with that -- the abstract concludes,

This sexual motivation and these unusual sexual interests do not justify discrimination or stigmatization.

As I've noted here, the YouTube pop psychologist Dr Todd Grande has assured us that only a small subset of furries has sex with each other in animal suits -- but the size of this small subset, according to the study at the link, is maybe 99%. Oddly, the study focused on 334 male furries, among whom 84% appear to have identified as LGBTQ+. Er, are there any female furries? Seems like a good question, but the study doesn't answer. But I asked Chrome AI mode, "Are most furries male?" It answered,

Yes, available research shows that the furry fandom is predominantly male. Survey data from Furscience, the leading research group on the fandom, has consistently found a significant gender disparity, though the exact numbers vary slightly depending on the specific study and year.

. . . The most cited studies and surveys suggest that approximately two-thirds or more of the furry community identifies as male. For example, a 2020 Furscience study indicated 65.7% of respondents identified as male. Other surveys conducted over the years have reported figures ranging from 65% to over 80%.

A writer at Red State comments on the other major presence at the No Kings rallies, the Boomers:

I have become more and more convinced that for the Boomers, this is the replacement for the rock concerts they can no longer be a part of. It's kind of like when they said, Hey, remember Woodstock? I was there! Now they boast, You coming to the "No Kings" rally? Great! I'll meet you after at Denny's for the senior special!

But here's a crossover:

On the other hand, this commenter strongly suggests the seniors at the rallies were paid:

🚨 LMAO! No Kings is FLOPPING NATIONWIDE - scenes of protestors DESERTING their posts after their paid time was up.

New York State: "They're gone! They're ALL gone. The No Kings protest is over. Just like that. They've all cleared out."pic.twitter.com/ssuyrLbLjo

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 18, 2025

More from PJ Media:

I’m also seeing reports from folks on the ground that many were well-rewarded for their efforts, with most reports indicating $300 to $500 for the day. I’ll leave to others the task of documenting where, exactly, that money came from and, for that matter, how the tax situation was handled. It should be noted that not all of them were paid.

All we can conclude for now is that the consitituencies of the No Kings rallies seem fairly limited, and they probably aren't compatible. The furries seem to be exploiting an opportunity to make their deviance publicly acceptable -- at least they aren't parading almost naked in leather gear. It just isn't clear what the seniors want, other than an opportunity for a brief outing on a pleasant fall day. But as Arianna Huffington said more than a generation ago, "Leading a revolution means more than borrowing a bottle of Grecian Formula."

What's Trump's Shutdown Strategy?

A point I've been making about Trump, especially in his second term, is that he isn't the implulsive, ego-driven guy the legacy media wants to make him, although I haven't seen even any alt media making a serious effort to portray him as an astute strategist. But clearly a bull-in-the-china-shop disrupter couldn't have worked out this past week's Gaza deal -- and let's recognize that he's also been eager to share credit for that with Secretary Rubio and his personal emissaries. This isn't a comic-book narcissist.

But if there's method to the madness, what's his strategy for the shutdown? He seems over the past several weeks to have been concentrating on foreign policy; after the Gaza deal, he seems to have been renewing focus on Ukraine, while raising the level of harassment against Maduro in Venezuela. Over the same period, he's had little to say about the shutdown, other than consistently calling the Democrats "deranged" every few days since before it began. He seems happy enough to let Speaker Johnson make most of the public comment. As of yesterday, he added slightly more:

In clips that aired Friday from Trump's interview with Fox Business's Maria Bartiromo, President Trump was asked about the ongoing closure of the government by the Democrats and if he thought that this weekend's "No Kings" rally planned by leftists in Washington, D.C., and across the country was the reason Democrats had refused to reopen the government.

Trump shook his head no and explained that the shutdown was happening because Schumer is trying to hang on to his failing political career.

"Chuck is at the end of the line," Trump said. "He's being beaten by everybody that they poll against him. And you know what he did is he did the right thing a couple of years ago on something like this. And he got hurt by his party. "

"I don't think it matters to him," he added. "He's just so dead that he will do anything. I think they could just stay out forever, to be honest with you."

On one hand, Trump doesn't seem particularly perturbed at the idea of the shutdown lasting "forever", although I suspect it's because he's confident it won't. His move to use unspent funds to pay the miitary on October 15 relieved a pressure point on the administration, but a new one now looms if other federal workers, including air traffic controllers and TSA, go unpaid through Thanksgiving.

“As TSA agents and air traffic controllers show up without pay, Democrats brag they won’t budge until planes fall out of the sky,” said Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.), the GOP conference chair. “Really? Seriously?”

. . . “Airports will be flooded with flight cancellations and delays amid the busiest time to travel all year, and the list goes on and on,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer said alongside Speaker Mike Johnson at a news conference Tuesday, calling on Democrats to “reopen our government.”'

The polls appear to be moving:

Just last week, the blame gap stood at 11 points, with 39% of Americans pointing fingers at President Trump and Republicans, while 33% blamed Democrats. Now that gap has shrunk to just 6 points, with Democrats holding steady at 33% but losing ground as fewer voters are willing to split the blame equally between both parties. That number dropped from 23% to 20% in a single week.

Via Axios:

In his first term, President Trump was highly sensitive to being blamed for a shutdown, and there has been an undercurrent of bipartisan belief that he will try to get a deal from Democrats this time.

But so far, Trump has displayed none of the concerns or worry he had in 2018-2019, during the longest shutdown of 35 days.

This seems to be borne out by his seeming imperturbability at the prospect of the shutdown lasting "forever". As he appears to see it, Schumer isn't thinking strategically, he's just fighting a losing battle to prolong his career. Axios contiinues,

44% in the internal White House polling blame the shutdown on President Trump and the GOP-led Congress. 38% blame Democrats.

But public opinion has shifted a net of seven percentage points against Democrats. Two weeks ago, Democrats had a 13-point advantage on who was to blame. Now that lead has been cut by more than half.

The trend line of the White House's polling numbers are consistent with YouGov/Economist surveys that showed Democrats taking more blame as the shutdown grinds on.

Yesterday's headline at The Daily Beast: How Trump Broke Congress in Just Nine Months. The subhead: The government shutdown is just the tip of the iceberg of the dysfunction in Washington, DC.

As for a president so keen to tout his peacemaking skills overseas, he has not lifted a finger to facilitate an end to the standoff, and in many instances, eagerly stoked the political battle raging just down the road on Capitol Hill as his top officials look at ways to consolidate his power in Washington, DC, further.

I asked Chrome AI mode, "Is The Daily Beast left-wing?" and it replied,

Based on analyses by media watchdogs and other observers, The Daily Beast is generally considered left-leaning or liberal, particularly in its commentary and opinion content. While the outlet describes its news reporting as "non-partisan but not neutral," its liberal bias is a widely noted characteristic.

In other words, the left is starting to worry that Trump is going to win this. Because, of course, he's impulsive and ego-driven.

Pritzker Hinky?

Yesterday it was reported,

Billionaire Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker raked it in big in 2024, including more than $1 million while gambling in Las Vegas.

A new tax filing released by Pritzker’s campaign on Wednesday, Oct. 14, shows the Democratic governor and his wife, MK, reporting about $10.7 million in adjusted gross income, according to the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times and NBC News.

The filing also indicated that $1.4 million reportedly came from the Hyatt Hotels Corp. heir winning blackjack at a Las Vegas casino.

. . . “I went on vacation with my wife, with some friends,” he said. “I was incredibly lucky. You have to be to end up ahead, frankly, going to a casino anywhere — it was in Las Vegas — and I like to play cards,”

His campaign said the governor will be donating his winnings to charity.

Several things jump out at me here. I'm not a tax expert; all I know about taxes is that my wife takes everything to an accountant before April 15 each year. But what has me scratching my head is that Pritzker won the $1.4 million in 2024, but here we are in 2025, and his campaign says he "will be donating" the money to charity. This reminds me of the Amber Heard dodge: it came out in the Johnny Depp defamation trial that she "pledged" to donate her $7 million divorce settlement to charity. However, a pledge is just a non-binding promise, and she never actually donated the amount, saying she just used the words "pledge" and "donate" synonymously.

So I have a certain sense of weasel-wording from Pritzker here. More suspicious is the social media reaction to the news of his blackjack win reported in this post at Gateway Pundit, in which observers thought this must be a way to launder kickbacks and similar payments. I asked Chrome AI mode, "How unusual is it to win $1.4 million in blackjack?" but didn't mention Pritzker. Oddly, "AI" immediately read my mind and already knew the question was about Pritzker:

Winning $1.4 million in blackjack is extremely unusual and almost certainly the result of a high-stakes, short-term lucky streak, rather than a prolonged session of consistent winnings. While blackjack has some of the best odds in a casino, the house edge makes such a massive net win highly improbable over the long term.

. . . Such a large win typically occurs with very large bets placed at high-roller tables, which require a substantial bankroll. A high-roller, such as Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, who won $1.4 million in Las Vegas, could place wagers as high as $100,000 on a single hand. This makes it possible to accumulate huge wins in a short period.

Here's the problem I see, or at least think I see. Nothing gets by casino security; there are cameras everywhere and agents to back them up on the floor. The Governor of Illinois, J B Pritzker, doesn't just wander into a casino off the street. His security guys coordinate with the casino's security guys. The casino is perfectly aware of Pritzker's every move, they know what table he's playing. They likely know every bet he makes in real time. Nothing involving J B Pritzker is going to be a surprise, especially not a $1.4 million win. I don't need to be Philip Marlowe to figure that one out.

"AI" is telling me this is just blind luck, a whale of the sort that's comped suites, gourmet meals, expensive booze, trips on private jets because he always loses suddenly wins big time. But "AI" goes on to tell me that not only is Pritzker real, real lucky, he's real, real smart on top of it:

A key factor in realizing a large net win is having the discipline to stop playing while ahead. As Pritzker also observed, many players who go on a winning streak will keep playing until they lose everything they have won. Ending a session after a big win locks in the profit.

According to Wikipedia, Pritzker's estimated net worth is $3.9 billion. $1.4 million should be chump change to the guy. So the received version of this story would be, "Wow, what a night! Never had such fun in my life! This win will really be great for the Holocaust Museum's new wing! I'll tell my lawyers to transfer %1.4 million to the museum tomorrow morning!" Except that's not what happened. If his campaign has this right, he still hasn't donated the money, at least a year later.

And here's another odd bit: in his televised remarks on his big win, he urged people to come gamble in Illinois casinos -- but he went to Vegas instead. I doubt if any Illinois casino can comp at his level. Or maybe nobody in Illinois casinos has the resources to launder money at the national Democrat level.

Still suspicious, I asked Chrome AI mode, again without mentioning Pritzker, "Are there any surprises when $1.4 million is involved?" Boy, is AI something -- it read my mind once again!

Surprises with a $1.4 million windfall typically relate to the financial, legal, and personal complexities that arise from managing a large, unexpected sum of money. Recent events, like Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker's $1.4 million blackjack win, highlight how such windfalls can attract intense public scrutiny and require thoughtful handling.

To a guy with a net worth of #3.9 billion, $1.4 million ought to be chump change, just a lucky night at the casino, but apparently it isn't, or it would already have been donated. Pritzker is a strange character. Short, fat, and Jewish, his chances of being elected to the presidency as a Democrat are close to nil, but he continues that vanity project while denouncing Trump with increasingly unhinged rhetoric. I don't rule out that he's nervous about too much federal law enforcement getting a little too nosy around Chicago.

Looking More Closely At Mikie Sherrill's Involvement In The Naval Academy Cheating Scandal

Late last month, information leaked that Mikie Sherrill, a US congresswoman and candidate for New Jersey governor, had been somehow caught up in the 1994 Naval Academy cheating scandal, which I've discussed here. Her original version as of September 25 was this:

"There was a test at the school that was stolen," Sherrill said. "I did not realize it was stolen. I took the test... afterwards I knew what the rumor mill was... I didn't come forward with that information."

No documents released or obtained by news outlets have shown that Sherrill was involved in the cheating, but because she did not report her classmates, she was not permitted to walk at graduation.

However, on October 9, she appeared to modify this story, indicating that she had in fact spoken to inveatigators:

“There were hundreds of people in my class that spoke to investigators. When I did, I told them what I knew,” she told reporters after her second debate when asked about her explanation.

. . . Sherrill has refused to release her full disciplinary record, which would paint a fuller picture of what happened.

A source who was involved in the Naval Academy’s investigation into the cheating scandal also expressed skepticism about Sherrill’s version of events, saying, “There would have to be more” to the story based on the punishment she received.

But this slight change leaves much more unsaid. This substack essay goes into greater detail about the actual wording of the Naval Academy honor code, the Inspector General's investigation of the cheating, and what it implies about Sherrill's potential violation:

The investigation was complicated and lengthened by the decisions of many midshipmen not to cooperate and even to lie to investigators. It concluded on January 20, 1994, with a 30-page Report of Investigation. The Report notes numerous instances where midshipmen refused to answer questions either because they wanted to protect themselves or because they did not want to “bilge” their classmates by giving truthful answers about the cheating.

. . . The IG’s Report details how some midshipmen lied repeatedly to investigators, even when under oath. Others retained attorneys who advised them to “plead the Fifth” by refusing to answer questions, even after the Academy Superintendent dropped a criminal investigation and granted them immunity from criminal charges. The IG also found “much evidence that midshipmen conspired to conceal their involvement” in the cheating scandal, including efforts “to coordinate and perfect the testimony they would give.”

. . . Sherrill claims that she was disciplined by not being allowed to walk and not being listed in the graduation program because she did not “turn in” classmates who were implicated in cheating. However, as shown below, her story does not ‘hold water.’

An important distinction between the honor systems at the Naval Academy and those at West Point and the Air Force Academy is that the USNA Honor Concept does not contain a non-toleration clause as do the other academies’ Honor Codes. The latter state simply, “A cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those who do.” Under that last clause, a cadet’s failure to turn in another cadet is treated as an honor violation and is punished just as severely as the original violation. But in the absence of such a non-toleration clause, USNA midshipmen are not required to turn in others for honor violations, and USNA does not punish a refusal to do so as a violation of the Honor Concept. And consistent with the lack of a non-toleration clause, midshipmen are not punished for refusing to turn in their classmates.

. . . Given the USNA policy of not punishing midshipmen who refused to inform on others who may have committed honor violations, Sherrill’s repeated story that she was punished for not turning in her classmates cannot be true.

So this makes her September 25 statement that her honor violation was not turning in classmates questionable. But what about her October 9 statement that she did in fact talk to investigators? The substack goes on,

So, we know that Sherrill was disciplined for something related to the theft of the EE 311 exam, but we still do not know what. But we do know that it was not for failing to turn in classmates. Based upon the IG report, however, we cannot rule out that she was “punished for lying to Naval investigators.”

A 1994 classmate of Sherrill's and former Navy officer, Brent Sadler, is quoted in the New York Post story linked above:

He believes that her public admission about not coming forward with information she knew about the cheating scandal sounds like a violation of the honor concept.

Besides expulsion, the way to rectify that is a corrective program known as honor remediation, which includes tasks such as writing papers reflecting on their transgressions.

“Some of the things they had to do that I remember is that they had to write a letter … to the [academy] superintendent [saying ‘I am] very sorry …. I’ve learned my lesson,'” the investigative source recounted of how remediation worked. “Which is really horses—.”

Sherrill has a 254-day gap after graduation, during which she remained at Annapolis.

. . . “It doesn’t make any sense to me,” Sadler said when asked about how Sherrill could’ve been barred from walking and not faced further discipline.

“There was only one group of folks associated with the double E scandal that didn’t graduate … but then got the commission later, and their degree later … and that was for this remediation, this honor code remediation.”

So it sounds as though Sherrill's original explanation for her violation, that she didn't rat on her classmates, is improbable at best. The actual circumstances under which she didn't walk with her classmates to receive her diploma are also unclear; a gap of eight months before she actually received her diploma and commission after the rest of her class isn't mentioned or explained anywhere else, and a reasonable inference would be that her actual violation was much more serious and could only be resolved via a remediation program.

Polling data suggests that Sherrill still leads Republican Ciattarelli in the runup to the election, although her lead is shrinking. It's difficult to say whether the Naval Academy scandal is any part of this effect, since other questions surround her, especially the fact that she and her husband have enriched themselves since her election to congress.