Was it a security blanket?

Nope. Acting USA’s are inferior officers who may be appointed by courts. The power to remove inferior officers follows the power to appoint. Only the judges can fire whom they appoint. U.S. Attorney Chosen to Replace Trump Pick Is Quickly Fired by White House www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/n...

And here's more from -- checks notes -- Fox News: www.foxnews.com/politics/us-...

Amidst your outrage at this Administration's arrogance, cruelty, mendacity, please do not neglect to notice it's mind-blowing incompetence. www.cnn.com/2026/02/11/u...

When you're even more innocent than a ham sandwich . . .

This is simultaneously a constitutional outrage and a complete waste of taxpayer money, not unlike the indefensible effort to get indictments against members of Congress for uttering truthful statements about the military's obligation to follow the law. www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

First, it's a Super Bowl halftime party in Spanish. Next thing you know, we'll be expected to enjoy opera sung in Italian.

This will happen right after the investigations of Thomas and Alito for taking gifts from right-wing billionaires www.huffpost.com/entry/ketanj...

Turns out the surge at the border started before Biden and receded before Trump 2.0. And the shifts happen too early to support a theory that migrants were anticipating a change in the next election. Fact Checking the “Success” of Trump Border Patrol Policies at www.justsecurity.org/130422/fact-...

Something about the Fed seems to put the Roberts Court in a pragmatic mood. I wish it were equally attentive to the institutional dangers of applying its unitary executive narrative to the rest of government. Today's @washingtonmonthly.com essay: washingtonmonthly.com/2026/02/03/t...

"Abolish ICE!" is not an incendiary formulation. ICE itself resulted from the "abolition" in 2002 of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the Justice Department. Creating a new structure with new personnel and new rules to enforce immigration law is imperative in light of ICE lawlessness.

Has FIFA yet announced that its new Best Picture Award goes to “Melania?”

There should be new legislation on civil liability for federal officers who violate constitutional rights and establishing operational limits for the proper enforcement of immigration law.

It what he was “calling for.” I am calling for a vast reduction in income inequality, higher marginal tax rates for the top 1% of earners, higher quality free education for all children regardless of zip code, foundation support for first-rate local news reporting in every county in America, …

It would be enough to stop third party spoilers if all elections required a 50+% of the vote to be named the winner, whether through ranked choice or a runoff. We could have a multiparty system without losing majority rule.

Many a sixth-grade mean girl has thought to create a “club” primarily for the fun of telling some brighter kid, “You can’t be a member!” But no one before called their club the Board of Peace.

But it also explains his uninterest in literature, medicine, and economics . . .

Looked at in the context of a month's headlines, one might conclude that, in going after Powell, Trump is trying to preserve his dominance on every front with uses of force--military, economic, and legal--that may actually be highlighting, rather than obscuring his increasing political weakness.

Add: Kneecapping federal agencies. Defunding science research. Squandering decades of effort building international goodwill.

Any such funds would be controlled by Congress, not by Trump.

Could our Congressional leaders get beyond, "We're upset because not consulted" process objections and coalesce around something meaningful, e.g., "No funds in any appropriation may be used for the purpose of pursuing the acquisition of Greenland, whether through military or other means."

Trump reportedly said Melania has criticized two of bits of his shtick as unpresidential, one if which is his damcing at rallies. “Can you imagine,” he quotes her as saying, “FDR dancing?” Does either one know FDR had polio? www.newsweek.com/trump-melani...

Of course, he knew what he was doing. He didn't have the backbone to do what he knew was right.

Trump promised MAGA Epstein transparency and not to start wars. It’s staggering how far he’ll go in breaking the second promise to avoid keeping the first.

Remember when Secretary of State Cyrus Vance felt compelled to resign from the Carter Administration because he disagreed with the decision to try invading Iran to recapture the U.S. and Canadian hostages? Any word on DNI Gabbard's plans?

I'm old enough to remember when presidents had to at least pretend that unlawful military adventurism was necessary to defend democracy or relieve a humanitarian crisis.

My July Washington Monthly essay on the bipartisan embrace of presidential unilateralism in deploying military force explains how political practice has eviscerated the Framers' emphasis on interbranch deliberation as a constitutional precondition for warmaking. washingtonmonthly.com/2025/07/03/t...

Maduro may have enough cash to buy a pardon.

Too often forgotten that, with regard to federal office, the pre-Bill of Rights Constitution provided: "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." The NY Const. also prohibits any test other than the oath to hold public office.

A modest proposal for how the justices can do the right thing and be true to themselves as they decide the fate of independent agencies. From @petermshane.bsky.social: washingtonmonthly.com/2026/01/02/s...

Not that I'm expecting it, but I explain in Washington Monthly why upholding Congress's power to create independent multimember agencies could coexist with the Roberts Court's other holdings on POTUS removal power and would enhance the Court's legitimacy. washingtonmonthly.com/2026/01/02/s...

Next Dem POTUS to-do list: 1. Abolish ICE 2. Redesign East Wing and de-brothel-ize White House decor 3. So much else

Congress’s first appropriation to run the government in 1789 was $639,000 — between $23-24 million in current dollars. Lest those resources be used to support tyranny, the people had erected a complex system of checks and balances. A 2025 billionaire controls over 42 times those resources unchecked.

SCOTUS has let stand the bar to Trump's use of the National Guard for law enforcement in Illinois. As I mentioned recently in Washington Monthly, the Court has an easier time policing Trump's overreading of statutes than his simply disobeying or ignoring them. www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

Who knew this was a cognitive test??

Searching for Trump yields 0 items. Searching for Clinton: 109.

DOJ Epstein Library says: "Due to technical limitations and the format of certain materials (e.g., handwritten text), portions of these documents may not be electronically searchable or may produce unreliable search results." Searches for "Trump" or "Wexner" yield 0 results. www.justice.gov/epstein

Would Caroline Kennedy or some sponsor of the Center have standing to challenge this abomination? Trump Administration Live Updates: Kennedy Center Adds Trump’s Name to Facade www.nytimes.com/live/2025/12...

I’ve seen originalist analyses less persuasive than this one!

Perhaps fitting this season of year-end wrap-ups, I published an essay in Washington Monthly trying to sum up how the Roberts Court throughout 2025 has been enabling Trump’s assault on the constitutionally intended distribution of powers among Congress, the executive, and the courts.

I will be so proud to call him my mayor.

Not to be outdone in the font wars, the Department of Education will be switching to Nineteenth Century Schoolbook.

Right-wing GOPers will unite with Democrats when their interests converge. Indiana GOP legislators are aware how Democrats are overperforming in solidly pro-Trump districts and don't want to gerrymander their "safe" districts into somewhat less safe districts. Good for them, but not Mandela-level.

1/3 In its untiring effort to kill the U.S. tourism industry, HHS has formally asked OMB to approve to expanding the info collected when tourists from visa-waiver countries, a/k/a, allies, seek tourist visas for the U.S. Public comment is urgent. public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-22461.pdf

"It really doesn't make sense" to have Trump be president either, but there we are.

All the more nuts because, textually, Scalia is obviously wrong. Article II explicitly gives the Senate a share in executive appointment and treaty-making power. So the vesting clause cannot possibly encompass all executive power. There was much to be said at yesterday’s argument that just wasn’t.

1/2 There is no stupider objection to upholding agency independence than it will open the floodgates to converting cabinet level departments to independent agencies. No such flood rose in the last 90 years! If we're looking for trickles, the functions of the independent Civil Aeronautics Board were

Better than a unanimous, philosophically diverse court with some of the heaviest-weight Justices ever, and packaged in a “history” of the Founding that is willfully fictitious.

The Internet just fed me this joke: A Jewish teen is at his uncle's funeral. As the rabbi is about to begin a eulogy, the teen walks up and asks, "Rabbi, do you know the wi-fi password for the cemetery?" Aghast, the Rabbi shouts: "SHOW SOME RESPECT FOR THE DEAD!" The teen replies: "So, all caps?"

Calling the lethal strike on men clinging to the capsized remains of a boat a “war crime” implicitly accepts the framing that the U.S. is legitimately engaged in war. We are not. It was murder.