WaPo editorial board has knelt, but Opinion page still publishes some solid criticisms of Trump's misdeeds. This is one. wapo.st/46u5tpV

What's crazier is that you can be assured that no one in US military wants this airbase back while Taliban in power. Absent reoccupation of whole country - which would mean return to forever war - it wld be a perpetual security liability. Absolutely barking mad.

Horrors of Trump II are so numerous that one is numbed. But as an old DOJ guy, this may be worst outrage so far. As reported, this is lay-down, old-fashioned, stack-of-greenbacks bribery conspiracy. No subtlety. No observable defense. But he's Trump's immigration mouthpiece. So DOJ shut it down.

😂🤣😂

It's important to remember when GOP Reps and Sens are yelling about the 'violent left' that they routinely tell reporters and colleagues how theyre afraid to do this or that because their own supporters routinely threaten violence agains them.

Yesterday, a late-night show vanished with a simple directive from 2 of the largest media companies you’ve never heard of (Nexstar & Sinclair), backed by the FCC. That’s not “the market at work.” It’s concentrated corporate power cooperating with an authoritarian. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/b...

This is the step back into an ineffective & overly punitive criminal justice system we don‘t need. There are evidence-based ways that help reduce crime, treating 14-year-olds as adults isn‘t among them. Any educator—and parent—knows 14-yr-olds don’t reason or react the same way as adults.

No notes

1/2After long hesitation, I cancelled my Wash Post subscription today. Firing of Karen Attiah for some pretty anodyne posts here abt Kirk death was last straw. While news division remains valuable, opinion page has become pablum mixed w/ Trumpist apologetics. A newspaper that reflexively genuflects

Cartoon by @macltoons.bsky.social.

There is a throughline between Texas A&M's embarrassing response to a student's complaint and a certain newspaper's "who's to say who signed it" article. www.pbump.net/o/the-climat...

1/2 As someone who has used handwriting experts in trials, I note that honest handwriting "experts" are VERY unlikely to be able to form conclusive opinion in case w/ one very short questioned sample where, if it were fake, someone was carefully & consciously trying to imitate another's handwriting.

With every day that passes it becomes clearer that J. Jackson was right in saying that only SCOTUS rules are that there are no rules except that T administration always wins. Only possible solution is Dem trifecta in 2028 and immediate expansion of SCOTUS. Otherwise this is forever.

I disagree. To be what Vance now publicly is required that he be the same before. There was no transformation. No "conscious decision" to change. No person who was of genuinely good character in the first place could have made such a decision. This is mere exposure of the rot there all along.

Most troubling part of story, if true, is not killing civilians who might have been NK soldiers. Scary part is how obscenely risky this was: risk of capture & of grounding US nuclear sub in shallow waters near NK coast. Either wld have provoked major crisis. To plant listening device. Cowboys...

The “problem” with vaccines? They so effective at preventing deaths that they create generations of people that question whether disease was a problem in the first place because they have never experienced the horrors of a world without vaccines.

Sweden has something quite similar, primarily for sports equipment. You can go to your local outlet and borrow bikes, skis, fishing poles, backpacks, soccer balls, you name it. All for free. It's terrific. Much to be said for democratic socialism.

1/ I worked at DoD. I literally cannot imagine lawyers coming up with a legal basis for lethal strike of suspected Venezuelan drug boat. Hard to see how this would not be "murder" or war crime under international law that DoD considers applicable. Read expert analysis by @bcfinucane.bsky.social⤵️

Understand what gov't is claiming right to do. Take away the "alleged." Assume US military stops vessel & finds drugs aboard. If what US did w/ moving boat is legal, then it would be equally legal to line up crew of stopped boat, shoot them all in head, then blow up boat. For drug crime. No.

I was AUSA in Miami & prosecuted cases involving boats just like this. Using video just like this. Unless occupants opened fire on US military or law enforcement vessel, hard to see how this isn't murder. Wld be happy to hear from anyone w/ specialized knowledge of maritime law w/ contrary view.

I hope you understand that if you show up at a hospital with an infection no one has ever seen before that the US had somewhere you could call. That place would answer, offer testing you can’t get anywhere else and come visit you to solve if necessary.

Fifty-one of the 85 Federalist papers were written by a guy born in Nevis.

BREAKING: Social Security Administration chief data officer and whistle-blower Charles Borges has resigned after bombshell report that SSA put highly-sensitive data at risk. He sent out an email to colleagues moments ago. Here is the text of his email shared with me:

1/2 Denigrating Lee's military talents is both fruitless & beside pnt. Lee made mistakes, but w/out him Confederacy would have been defeated far more quickly. He was not only revered by his own men but so feared by Union that when Grant took over Army of Potomac he had to admonish his new...

As long as guns are easily available to crazy people, mass killings directed at so-called soft targets will continue. This is a fact. Countries where it's more difficult for crazy people to obtain guns have less shootings. This is also a fact. Do with these facts as you will.

This isn't just a political claim, it's an empirical one. If "the problem is not guns" then we shouldn't see any correlation between gun ownership and oh wait platform.vox.com/wp-content/u...

Remember when COVID vaccines were first available? Remember how they saved lives and helped us move toward normalcy? Remember how relieved and grateful we were? Remember how amazing our healthcare workers were? Remember how science rescued us?

In which I express some doubt that Trump will try to use military in big blue cities (like St Louis and Kansas City) in deep red states (like Missouri). www.kansascity.com/news/politic...

Thx to Lou Jacobson of Politifact for including me in this explainer on the effort to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook. www.politifact.com/article/2025...

On effort to fire Fed member Cook 'for cause' - "Unless judges are willing to impose some minimal process, some standard of misconduct seriousness, and some evidentiary standard, the ‘for cause’ requirement becomes illusory," Bowman said. www.politifact.com/article/2025...

Very true. But problem is that, as I know from personal experience, non-urban Fox News consumers have long since been brainwashed into believing every big city is a violent hellhole. They really believe this stuff, and have for years.

3 no-true-bills is utterly unheard of. But even more revealing of what DC's USAO has now become is fact that, despite three failures showing they have a garbage case, they are so determined to charge this woman that they direct-file a misdemeanor information requiring no citizen ratification.

Once again raising question of who DOJ is getting to write this junk. In my time in DOJ, I would have been embarrassed (to say the very least) if anyone in any office in which I served tried to base the dangerousness prong of a pretrial detention request on something this silly.

"Whatever comes of the FBI raid on Bolton, legally speaking, there is a certain awful predictability to it," writes @sbg1.bsky.social. "In his first months back in office, Trump has made clear that his vengeful threats were not simply campaign-season bluster." www.newyorker.com/news/letter-...

1/ Judge in Habba ruling "Manipulation of official appointments had long been one of the American revolutionary generation’s greatest grievances against executive power, because the power of appointment to offices was deemed 'the most insidious and powerful weapon of eighteenth century despotism'"

May this portion of the dissent by Ketanji Brown Jackson haunt John Roberts forever and be the final word on his tenure as Chief Justice.

A beautiful stormbeach Goniatite fossil, polished by Atlantic waves. County Clare, Ireland.

Every tech update now is like: "Great news, the word processor you've relied on for twenty years has learned to juggle! Is it good at it? No! Does it help in any way? Of course not! Has it made it insufferable to use? Oh, absolutely."

I've read many articles debunking the supposed link between vaccines and autism, but this might be the best one. @unbiasedscipod.bsky.social uses excellent graphics to clearly break down the deceptive tactics behind the myth, helping readers recognize flawed scientific reasoning when they see it.

UK privatization of its wonderful national rail system is up there w/ Brexit & degradation of NHS as country's 3 biggest own-goals. When I first went there almost 50 yrs ago, rail system was inexpensive, reliable & reached virtually every hamlet in the country. It's now none of those things.

An excellent letter. Well worth a read. As a legal historian, I'm especially tickled by the reference to the undeniable fact that it was the intransigence of colonial Boston in the face of royal & parliamentary overreach that precipitated the first clashes of the American Revolution.

That is, I think, the plan of many close to Trump. As for rest of Rs, 2 other factors at work. First, they aren't thinking beyond current moment, which requires mute cowering acquiescence to stay in office. Second, perversely they rely on Ds, as rule of law party, to keep playing by old rules.

"As flaccid as a boned fish, Donald Trump crumpled quicker than even Vladimir Putin probably anticipated," George F. Will writes. wapo.st/3HrXW2F

Washington's homicide rate is the 11th highest among large US cities, but eight of the 10 with higher rates are in red states — Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee, Ohio and Louisiana. Trump has not sent National Guard to any of them. @russcontreras.bsky.social www.axios.com/2025/08/15/h...

Excellent scholarly analysis by @andrewkent.bsky.social of Trump's invocation of Alien Enemies Act. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Good. But have you filed an action asking that a court order you to be admitted, as required by the statute? If not, why not?