As Democrats campaign for the November midterm elections after helping kill the latest congressional effort to impeach President Donald Trump, progressive consumer advocate and four-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader this week renewed attacks on the party's leadership for abandoning their constitutional responsibility to hold the…
Page A3From§Eachthe early evening edition — 27 September 2026
THE THIRD COUNT
Called 'feeble, weak, cowardly' for not impeaching Trump, Democrats now plan a third impeachment to 'set a standard'
As it ran on the front
How many times has the Supreme Court blocked Missouri's Republican map this year? I already know the answer to that one. That doesn't happen to me often, so let me read it back anyway, off the page, just so I don't get it wrong out loud.
Three. Missouri asked the Supreme Court on September 5th to overturn the state court's block of a new map. The state's own filing called the delay a "federal-election-administration disaster." Twenty days later, on September 25th, the Supreme Court said no — again. The unsigned order noted the legislature drew a map in 2022, then drew another one in 2025, and let the 2022 lines stand for the midterms. Two days after that, on September 27th, the president posted that the Court "will just not let Missouri have an Election Victory," and that it had, in his words, "continuously, three times now," overruled what he called correct decisions. I wrote that number down. He wrote it down first.…
…(cont) So that's one three. Here's the other one, and I want to be careful how I set this next part beside it, because nobody told me to put them together — the wire did that on its own.
On September 14th, an essay ran asking why Democrats have given up on impeachment, citing polling that puts support at 84 percent among the party's own voters. Ten days after that, on September 27th, Congressman Jim Jordan predicted on the radio that Democrats will do a third impeachment if they retake the House. That same day, on the same Sunday shows, Congressman Ro Khanna — who isn't identified anywhere in what I've got as party leadership, just a member of the House — said a third impeachment would be about "setting a standard." Two different people, two different jobs in the party. I want to be fair about that before I go any further.
Now, I've got a car in the garage that needs a fan belt, and it takes three tries most cold mornings before it turns over. The mechanic charges the same on the third try as the first. He never once asked me what the number three meant to him before he wrote the bill. At the corner store the owner runs a punch card — buy nine coffees, the tenth's free — and he'll tell you exactly why ten, if you ask him. He's got a reason. I asked the wire the same question about three, and it didn't answer, because it isn't on record anywhere I can find — not the Court, which just counts to three and rules, and not the Congressman, who calls three "a standard" without saying what standard three meets that two didn't.
Oh — one more thing, since I've got my coat on already. Congressman Jordan said Democrats "say they're not going to" impeach again, "but we know they will." That's a prediction, on a Sunday radio show, about people who, on that same Sunday, hadn't announced anything yet. So here's what I keep coming back to, and then I'll let you go: is there a number written down anywhere in any of this where somebody says what three means, or is three just the number where the wire happens to have stopped counting this week?
“They spent weeks calling their own leadership "feeble, weak, cowardly" for not touching impeachment, and the minute the polling shows 84 percent of their own voters already there, it's suddenly about "setting a standard." Same week, the Supreme Court tells Missouri Republicans no for the third straight time and Trump calls the whole Court rigged. Three isn't a threshold anybody's explaining — it's just where the count stands, and we're supposed to vote in six weeks either way.”
“Look, a state legislature redrawing its own maps is bog-standard business, they do it every cycle — the courts just keep grabbing the pen. Three rejections isn't some pattern, it's three separate — okay, it's the same basic map, drawn three separate times, which, now that I say it out loud, doesn't really help the point I was making. Forget I said "pattern."”
Earlier in this story
- Court clears first Orange march since 1998; the street closes it anyway By Sal · the early bird edition, 27 September 2026
- Court revives Orange march banned since 1998, same weekend Wales marches for the exit By Sal · the noon edition, 27 September 2026
The receipts
President Trump went after the Supreme Court on Sunday for blocking a Missouri congressional map favoring Republicans. “The Supreme Court of the United States will just not let Missouri have an Election Victory. They continuously, three times now, overrule Judges who came to the correct decisions,”
With the US midterm elections less than six weeks away and Republicans' congressional majorities at risk, both GOP and Democratic leaders are discussing the possibility that a Democratic-controlled Congress could impeach President Donald Trump a historic third time. "They say they’re not going to, but we know they will—they'll do a third…
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) on Sunday said a third attempt to impeach President Trump if Democrats take control of Congress in November would be about "setting a standard" of accountability. Khanna appeared on NBC News's "Meet the Press" when he told host Kristen Welker that impeaching Trump, who he said has become "in my view,...
Although the US Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority on Friday greenlit President Donald Trump's voter purge database, it also helped deliver yet another blow to Missouri Republicans' push for a rigged congressional map. "In 2022, the Missouri Legislature enacted a redistricting map for elections to the US House of Representatives.…
The Supreme Court rejected a Trump-backed Missouri congressional map, ensuring the state will use its 2022 districts for the midterm elections.
T he chronic prevaricator and delusionist Donald J. Trump knows that the worse his outlaw actions become, the less likely the Democrats in Congress are to impeach him. The massive number of blatant, impeachable acts by the lawless, corrupt, violent, systemically racist, unstable, dangerous tyrant increases by the day.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) said on Sunday impeaching President Donald Trump for a third time would amount to “setting a standard” should Democrats retake the House of Representatives in November’s midterm elections.
· Missouri asks Supreme Court to overturn block of new congressional map before election from the morgue, 5 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.