Cannon fires another judicial salute in gratitude to Trump.
To recap: On August 8, 2022, the FBI executed a search warrant and lawfully removed from Trump’s possession stuff that doesn’t belong to him. He ran to Judge Cannon, an appointee of his, and got her to appoint a Special Master to scour that stuff for things that the FBI shouldn’t see/have or should return […]
Judges, too, have career aspirations.
DOJ has rightly appealed Trumper Judge Cannon’s incoherent Order in favor of Trump in his manufactured dispute over government-owned [sic] documents the FBI retrieved from his home. In normal (read, non-Trump-related) circumstances, the qualification of Cannon as a “Trumper” judge would be inappropriate and (probably) unjust. But her decision, including its hints of the resentment […]
Why is ignorance preferred?
The United States of Ignorance continues to thrive. The volume of sludge produced and consumed by the minute may have something to do with that. It’s the downside to the First Amendment which, for more than 200 years, has remained mute on what would be a most useful precondition: thine opinion on important public matters […]
Corrupt or Dim? You choose.
Give Judge Cannon credit for boldness in so transparently lending Trump, bestower of her sinecure, a hand with his most recent legal troubles related to pilfering government documents. Of course, that credit may be undue, a mistaken assumption of cleverness that doesn’t really exist. The casual observer faces the usual struggle: is he witness to […]
The same, yet different … for now
A friend writes to offer an article by Christian Esch, a German journalist, about how Russia’s assault on Ukraine has changed Moscow as came to know it over more than a decade of reporting from there. The change has not been for the better. Sensible people in press and media have left the country or […]
What took so long?
In May 2021, four months after the end of his presidency, the National Archives and Records Administration asked him to return materials that Trump had hauled to Mar-a-Lago, but which are owned by the public and administered by the US Government. Only in February 2022, after nine months of unsuccessful negotiation [sic] with Trump’s people, […]
What’s the big legal deal about executing a search warrant on a former president?
Jack Goldsmith, Deputy AG under George W. Bush, worries about Garland’s “using criminal process against former President Trump”. In support, he cites “sensible” commentators (George Will, Damon Linker, David Brooks) who believe that Garland “made a mistake, perhaps a disastrous one, in executing the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago”. In particular, he quotes Will’s concern with […]
Pence: What if…?
Mike Pence — the reactionary religious fundamentalist, white nationalist, and former resident at Observatory Circle under Vandal-in-Chief (ViC) — wants to lead the world’s superpower and its 330 million people. About half of those people prefer the republic’s immolation to a government that strives for the greater good. It’s true that, in contrast to his […]
The Return of Trump and the Ménage à Trois
The remarkable Dan Froomkin speculates about media’s wanting Trump to run—and win—in 2024. He concludes: “I don’t think the mainstream media really wants Trump to win again. But I have a hard time explaining its behavior in any other way.” This mistakenly credits media with a sense of responsibility to the public. Froomkin admirably believes […]
Trapped in the Past: #2
Which is worse: to be governed by a decent man who sees a country that no longer exists, or by a thug who sees it all to clearly and aims to extract from it every possible personal advantage? Cheery illusion-based optimism or clear-as-cut-glass reality? Stay with the former and the latter will prevail. On January […]
Time to Disavow Biden
There was a time when my support for Joe Biden extended beyond the need to find someone, anyone, half-decent and honest to replace the walking, scheming, immoral and unprincipled catastrophe that is Trump, to the hope that the new president would deliver both a reckoning to those who did damage and a hard push to […]
The Washington Post to Garland Critics: Back off!
The Washington Post (with The New York Times lord protectors of whoever is in power) chastises Garland critics — “armchair quarterbacks” — not enamored of what appears to be a less than robust approach to the January 6 prosecutions. “The volume on these complaints is cranked way up — and it needs to stop.” Well, then. […]
Merrick Garland: All Attorney, No General
He’ll never admit it publicly, but when President Biden looks up the street toward DOJ, he sees Garland, all attorney, no general. Nine months in, the hope 81 million had in DOJ’s prosecuting the head of the Trump criminal enterprise for obstructing justice and fomenting insurrection is dead. Like Lincoln’s McClellan, Garland is about his […]
South Carolina Spit Shine
The Washington Post has just told us that, on January 6, Gamecock Graham, the Palmetto State’s cheap imitation of a US senator, urged the Senate’s sergeant-at-arms to “Take back the Senate! You’ve got guns. Use them! … What are you doing? … We give you guns for a reason — use them.” He said this as […]
Theocrats’ Obsession With Religion and Sex
Six reactionary hearts at One First Street in Washington beat faster this week. The new term offers them the arousing chance to exercise, in the name of half the country, American society’s obsession with religion and sex which, intertwined since the Republic was founded, is at the core of the perpetual “culture wars”. The Supreme […]