On the menu today: Free marketeers have good reason to cheer, or at least sigh with relief, with Milei’s party doing well in the Argentinian midterm elections. What’s more, the result is good news for the Argentinian peso; the Trump administration accumulated $20 billion in Argentinian pesos earlier this month. Elsewhere, the nation’s air traffic controllers are starting to stay home sick, which may push lawmakers to find a resolution to the ongoing government shutdown. Finally, more people tell CNN that years ago, Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner had described his tattoo as “a Nazi-style design.”
Hip, Hip, Milei!
In the middle of the month, this newsletter explained why the Trump administration traded $20 billion in U.S. dollars for the equivalent amount in Argentinian pesos. The Argentinian currency, which had already lost a lot of its value, was dropping perilously over fears President Javier Milei’s party might lose the midterm elections and the country would revert to its previous reckless big-spending habits. The currency trade, spearheaded by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, represented an economic lifeline to Argentina and a metaphorical bet that Milei’s party would do well in the midterms, and keep the country on a smaller-government, more free-market-oriented path.
Secretary Bessent, collect your winnings. From the Wall Street Journal:
With nearly 99 percent of votes counted, Milei’s Freedom Advances party won almost 41 percent of the national vote, more than doubling its representation in Congress. That means his party and allies secured at least one-third of the seats in both chambers — the critical threshold that allows Milei to preserve his veto power and defend his sweeping decrees.
The result, stronger than most polls had predicted, gives Milei fresh political momentum after months of unrest over deep spending cuts and a grinding recession last year. It also shores up his standing with Washington and the International Monetary Fund, which have tied future financial support to the survival of his austerity experiment. Market analysts expect Argentine bonds and the peso to rally when trading opens Monday, reflecting relief that Milei still has political traction after taking office two years ago.
Our Andrew Stuttaford observes, “Much of what Milei has achieved up until now has been through his exercise of emergency powers. His ability to do that was coming to an end. Now he is much better placed to defend the reforms he has put in place, therefore giving them more time to take root.” But he warns, “decades of misgovernment are not reversed quickly.”
A Sign the Federal Government Shutdown Is Coming in for a Landing
We might as well amend the Constitution to make it official: A federal government shutdown remains in place until the nation’s air traffic controllers get tired of it and stop showing up to work.
Back in 2019, the federal government shutdown had dragged on to record length, 35 days. But on January 24, six air traffic controllers called in sick in Leesburg, Va., and four in Jacksonville, Fla. They, like the nation’s air traffic controllers today, had been working without pay. With the lack of manpower, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered a ground stop at LaGuardia Airport in New York City. Later that day, President Trump announced from the White House Rose Garden that Democrats and Republicans had a deal to reopen the government, and that night, the House and Senate passed legislation to end the shutdown.
Nick Daniels, the president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, insisted afterwards that the narrative that the controllers forced lawmakers to compromise was false. And no doubt, other factors were at work, but a full ground stop at one of the country’s busiest airports is the sort of thing that makes people sit up and take notice. People get nervous when they hear about air traffic control problems. According to a January survey, 52 percent of Americans had taken a commercial flight in the past year, and 86 percent of Americans had done so in their lifetime.
Yesterday, the problem of air traffic staffing shortages reemerged. “Flights departing for Los Angeles International Airport were halted briefly due to a staffing shortage at a Southern California air traffic facility, the Federal Aviation Administration said Sunday, when the agency also reported staffing-related delays in Chicago, Washington and Newark, New Jersey. . . . The FAA said planes headed for Los Angeles were held at their originating airports starting at 11:42 a.m. Eastern time, and the agency lifted the ground stop at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, speaking on Capitol Hill Friday, said of air traffic controllers, “They’re angry. I’ve gone to a number of different towers over the course of the last week to ten days. They’re frustrated. They’re frustrated that . . . Congress is focused, at least in the Senate, on paying for health-care benefits for illegals as opposed to paying their paychecks for the great work that they provide to the American people. That makes them angry.” Whether or not air traffic controllers are as unified in their political perspectives as Duffy contends, it’s easy to believe that they are growing increasingly irked with working their challenging jobs and being told they’ll get paid for it on some unspecified day in the future. Federal workers accumulate sick leave over time, and “there is no limitation on the amount of accrued or accumulated sick leave that an employee can use for his or her own personal medical needs.”
As noted, many Americans don’t notice a federal government shutdown or find it a mild frustration at most, and coverage of this current shutdown seemed to drop out of the news cycle surprisingly quickly. But people notice when planes stop flying out of major airports. Americans want air traffic controllers to feel nice and calm and attentive when they’re staring at their screens and trying to make sure no little moving dots run into each other.
Speaking of federal employees with life and death duties, right now, FBI agents are getting paid, and in the Department of Homeland Security:
More than 70,000 federal law enforcement officials — including employees from Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Secret Service, as well as federal air marshals and other “critical mission areas” will be paid for all hours worked during the shutdown.
[Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi ] Noem wrote that these federal law enforcement employees will receive a “super check” by Oct. 22 that covers shutdown days already worked without pay, their overtime and their next pay period.
And the troops are getting paid . . . for now. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, on CBS News’ Face the Nation, yesterday said, “We were able to pay the military employees from excess funds at the Pentagon [in the] middle of this month. I think we’ll be able to pay them beginning in November. But by November 15, our troops and service members, who are willing to risk their lives, aren’t going to be able to get paid. What an embarrassment.”
Nazi Hunting, Continued
CNN:
A KFile investigation has uncovered mounting evidence that [Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham] Platner — a Marine veteran — was aware of and defended the use of Nazi symbolism that had come to be embraced by some members of the military.
In one thread from 2019, Platner weighed in on a conversation about the “Totenkopf” — the skull-and-crossbones emblem worn by Nazi SS units that his own tattoo would later draw scrutiny for resembling — to note that many US service members had adopted similar imagery, such as the Punisher skull used by some Navy SEALs.
Using his longtime Reddit handle P-Hustle, the former Marine infantryman and future Democratic Senate hopeful also argued in a 2020 online discussion that “SS” lightning-bolt tattoos were a “culture” marker within Marine Scout Sniper units, not an expression of White supremacist ideology.
When commenters in the 2020 thread described the lightning bolts as a Nazi or racist symbol, Platner dismissed the criticism, writing that outsiders “have no idea what they’re talking about” and added, “I will be sure to inform the Black guys I know with bolts that they’re Nazis now.”
See, this guy sure seems up to speed on Nazi symbols, which makes his “I never realized it was the logo of the SS” excuse sound less plausible. But there’s more:
CNN also spoke with an acquaintance of Platner from more than a decade ago who said Platner spoke about his tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol. A second person told CNN that they learned of the tattoo years ago from the acquaintance, who told them that Platner had described it as a Nazi-style design.
CNN also reviewed a text chain between the acquaintance and another person discussing Platner’s Nazi-like tattoo several months ago, before the story became public.
Platner’s campaign declined to comment for this story.
Remember, Platner’s explanation is that he had no idea it was a Nazi symbol until he heard about opposition research groups digging into his history earlier this month.
A quick thought on the Platner defenders: Before August, almost no one outside the state of Maine had ever heard of Platner, unless you knew him personally or really kept up on issues related to the harbormaster of Sullivan, Maine. In the world of U.S. politics, he metaphorically just showed up yesterday, and all he did was show up and say things that progressives liked to hear.
And just from that, within two months, there are people running to the ramparts to defend this guy, and insisting that getting a SS Totenkopf tattoo and keeping it for 18 years isn’t worth the public’s concern. The far left publication Jacobin wrote a whole article about how Platner is a victim of “cancel culture.” Cancel culture has run rampant over American political culture from sea to shining sea for at least a decade, but the far lefties only recognize that it’s wrong, now, when a guy that they like, who has a Nazi tattoo, might not win a Democratic Senate primary.
If you revealed that you had a Nazi tattoo for nearly two decades, how would your friends and family react? My guess is that they’d probably still love you, but they’d be shocked, appalled, disappointed, bewildered, and angry. They’d have a lot of questions. They would want an explanation that made sense — more than, “I’m a military history buff who just never recognized that the skull-and-crossbones on my chest that I saw in the mirror each morning was the same design used by the SS. Oh, and please don’t pay attention to the people saying that I described it years ago, accurately, as a Totenkopf tattoo.”
These progressives? As far as we can tell, they didn’t even blink. They jumped out to argue that this was no big deal, and that Platner was being unfairly smeared, immediately.
They’re showing absolute, unblinking loyalty to a complete stranger, the kind of loyalty that your loved ones might not show you without a decent explanation.
Oh, and one other note. The Platner defenders argue that Governor Janet Mills should not be the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate next year because she is too old; she would be 79 when she took the oath of office and 85 when she finished her term. And that is indeed quite old. But among all 50 states, Maine has the oldest average age at 44.8, as of 2023. If there’s any state where a candidate’s age probably won’t matter as much, it’s probably Maine.
And Mills, no doubt, has her fans among the state’s Democrats. Here’s how one impassioned progressive praised her at a March 1 rally in Ellsworth, Maine:
Governor Mills displayed great courage when she defended Maine’s laws to Donald Trump’s face. Senator Angus King has done us proud by making it clear he sees the crisis we’re facing. These actions from Mills and King honor Maine’s rich history of fighting for what is right. Mainers have fought courageously for democracy and justice in battles — from the battles against slavery to rebuking McCarthyism.
That speaker was . . . Graham Platner.
ADDENDA: Hey, did you guys know the NFL season was reinstated yesterday? For the past seven weeks, I thought it was canceled.
Keeping up with a headline from a previous edition of this newsletter, on Thursday, President Trump talked about his pardon of Changpeng Zhao:
Q: Today, you pardoned the founder of Binance. Can you explain why you chose to pardon him? And did it have anything to do with his involvement and your family’s—
Trump: Which one — who’s that?
Q: The founder of Binance. He has an involvement in your own family’s crypto business.
Trump: Oh, the recent one, yes. The — uh, I believe we’re talking about the same person because I do pardon a lot of people. I don’t know. He was recommended by a lot of people. A lot of people say that — are you talking about the crypto person?
Q: Yes.
Trump: Uh, a lot of people say that he wasn’t guilty of anything. He served four months in jail, and they say that he was not guilty of anything. That what he did —
Q: He admitted—
Trump: Well, you don’t know much about crypto. You know nothing — you. Know nothing about nothing, you’re fake news. But let me just tell you that he was — somebody that, as I was told, I don’t know him. I don’t believe I’ve ever met him. But I’ve been told by a lot of support, he had a lot of support. And they said that what he did is not even a crime. It wasn’t a crime. That he was persecuted by the Biden administration. Uh, and so I gave him a pardon at the request of a lot of very good people.
One of the persons who did not say Changpeng Zhao wasn’t guilty of anything was Changpeng Zhao, who pled guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program as required by the 1970 Bank Secrecy Act.
Have you noticed how frequently President Trump attributes his decisions to the advice of “a lot of people,” and then never names any of those other people?