Déjà vu
Only 1,433 days to go...
Last week Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, who most recently served as a defense lawyer for Donald Trump, ordered the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan to drop the Eric Adams corruption case. His order backfired and prompted the resignations of seven experienced prosecutors, who quit rather than obey what they cast as an ill-advised and even unlawful directive. Charlie Sykes wrote about it in his newsletter:
I had feelings of déjà vu going back to 1973.
My college years overlapped with the Watergate scandal and, coincidentally, I was attending a college in the DC metropolitan area. Like many, I was caught up in the scandal and religiously read the Washington Post every day to learn the latest revelations.
In 1973, the Ervin hearings began and at one point I dutifully lined up to attend the hearings with a friend. It turned out to be the same day that Dick Cavett came to televise the event for his late-night TV show, so we got to see him and his crew as we were standing in line. It was also the same day, that H. R. Haldeman's lawyer pejoratively called WWII vet and Hawaiian senator, Daniel Inouye, “that little Jap” during the testimony. It was big day at the hearings, and I was there!
In short, I was all-in, reading, watching and following the events of the day.
And then I wasn’t. In September of that year, I got my first teaching job at a BIA boarding school on the Navajo reservation in Arizona. It was a long way from Gallup, NM and a much longer way from DC and the Washington Post. I read dozens of books including, what must have been every, Agatha Christie mystery during those two years I lived in the desert. I had no television, because I couldn’t afford one. The Sunday Washington Post arrived once a week by mail, four days after it was published.
My neighbor was actually doing her student teaching at the school and we bonded since we were the two youngest adults living in the compound. When her boyfriend came to visit, he was still very engaged in the outside world — the world of newspapers and TV events. He brought with him the news of the “Saturday Night Massacre.” We drove to the nearest trading post to buy a newspaper and read about the situation back in Washington DC.
As you may remember, during a single evening on Saturday, October 20, President Richard Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Special Prosecutor, Archibald Cox; Richardson refused and resigned effective immediately. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox; Ruckelshaus refused, and also resigned. Nixon then ordered the third-most-senior official at the Justice Department, Solicitor General Robert Bork, to fire Cox. Bork carried out the dismissal as Nixon asked.
In an instant, I was reengaged in the Watergate scandal and couldn’t stop talking about what was happening. When I got back into the classroom on Monday morning, I was sharing my outrage with some colleagues and must have mentioned the names, Haldeman and Ehrlichman. I’ll never forget my shock, when someone asked the question, “Who’s John Ehrlichman?”
I learned an important lesson at that moment: that as much as we would like to think otherwise, the world, and for that matter most of our country, doesn’t revolve around what is happening in Washington DC. Yes, with our ubiquitous technology, we are more connected today than we were in 1973, but there are still so many people out there, who would again ask the question, “Who’s John Ehrlichman?”
My sister and brother-in-law are traveling through India right now. Amazingly, we are able to Facetime with each other in the evenings. It’s a far cry from my 1973, once-a-week, 3-minute long distance phone call to Chicago! My sister will ask me, what’s happening in the U.S., because she says no one is really talking much about it. The folks in India have their own political issues and concerns… what happens in Washington DC is of some interest, but not of primary importance.
I’m not suggesting that we all tune out or ignore things like the resignation of seven experienced prosecutors. The alarming things that are going on are serious and will have consequential ramifications to the future of all our lives. One just needs to remember, that the majority of people in this world are more concerned about the everyday lives of their families — how are they going to house them, feed them, clothe them and keep them safe. What’s happening with Presidents Elon Musk and Donald Trump is simply a (very dangerous) sideshow.
Thought for the day in honor of his birthday…
“All the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think. The trouble is that men very often resort to all sorts of devices in order not to think, because thinking is such hard work.” ~Thomas J. Watson
What I read every day…
Quote of the day:
“If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion.
But it was never going to be me.”
~Hagen Scotten, Assistant US Attorney, Southern District of New York
What I’m reading today…
Who Will Stand Up to Trump at High Noon?
It’s so easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys, the right thing to do versus the wrong. Law and order wasn’t a cliché or a passé principle that could be kicked aside if it interfered with baser ambitions…So it’s disorienting to have the men running America, Donald Trump and Elon Musk, relish bullying people who can’t fight back and blurring lines between good and bad. They should be working for us, but we suspect they’re working for themselves…Trump and Elon are turning our values upside down. The president demands fealty, even if he is asking his followers and pawns to do something illicit or transgressive. Loyalty outweighs legality…But if we lose our values and abandon what those before us have fought for, are we the same America? Our heroes preserved the Union and liberated Europe from the Nazis. We’re supposed to be the shining city on the hill. It feels as if we’re turning our country into a crass, commercial product, making it cruel, as we maximize profits.
Justice Department’s independence is threatened as Trump’s team asserts power over cases and staff
Pam Bondi had insisted at her Senate confirmation hearing that as attorney general, her Justice Department would not “play politics.” Yet in the month since the Trump administration took over the building, a succession of actions has raised concerns the department is doing exactly that. Top officials have demanded the names of thousands of FBI agents who investigated the Capitol riot, sued a state attorney general who had won a massive fraud verdict against Donald Trump before the 2024 election, and ordered the dismissal of a criminal case against New York Mayor Eric Adams by saying the charges had handicapped the Democrat’s ability to partner in the Republican administration’s fight against illegal immigration.
The single greatest success of Donald Trump’s second term so far might be his Cabinet. … The real reason for these votes is presumably fear. Republicans have seen Trump’s taste for retribution, and they fear his supporters in primaries. The irony is that in bowing to Trump, senators may actually be defying voters’ preferences. A CBS News poll published Monday found that six in 10 GOP voters would prefer to see congressional Republicans stand up to Trump when they disagree with him. By knocking down some of the worst nominees, senators might have made the Cabinet better and served the country well. But if that wasn’t enough to persuade them, perhaps the chance for political gain could.
Home Builders Say Trump Tariffs Are Raising Construction Costs
Trump announced sweeping plans for reciprocal tariffs that could upend global trade, and the home building industry is bracing for the impact. Some builders and developers say they are beginning to feel the squeeze: They have received contracts with escalation clauses to account for increased costs; waited as their suppliers delay updated price sheets for imported goods; and received bids that are only good for two weeks when typically they would hold for two or three months. Read My Lips: Tariffs Are Taxes: the Trump tariffs are going to put upward pressure on a lot of things you need to build houses: lumber, steel, aluminum, copper, etc.
Why Isn’t Congress Doing Anything?
The GOP’s acquiescence is one more sign of how tightly Trump now controls his party. But it also reveals something fundamental about Republicans’ haphazard attempts over the past two decades to reduce the size and scope of government. For all of the party’s fulminating about the nation’s debt and deficits, Republican lawmakers have shied away from taking votes to slash spending that could prove unpopular with voters. Now they’re content to let someone else gut the government for them—and take whatever political heat comes with it.
Don’t Expect Republicans to Stop Trump’s Constitutional Chaos
To hear the likes of Miller and Musk tell it, Trump’s election—in a narrow popular vote victory the president has framed as a mandate—gives him a blank check of sorts to act in any way he sees fit. By effect, anyone who gets in his way is defying the will of the people.
The Republicans’ Underwhelming Budget
The Congressional Budget Office’s latest baseline projections show Washington running $21 trillion in budget deficits over the 2025-2034 period covered in the Republican budget proposal, pushing the federal debt held by the public from $29 trillion to $50 trillion. That rosy scenario assumes no wars, no recessions, low interest rates on the federal debt, and nearly unprecedented limits on discretionary spending.
Trump’s Disastrous DOGE Purges Are Throwing American Values to the Scrap Heap
Helping others also helps us. It’s practical. It’s tangible. A better-educated population suffers fewer diseases, experiences lower unwanted pregnancies and expands a nation’s GDP—which, in turn, creates new markets for American goods and services. Crucially, our aid also forges positive relationships with partner nations.
The Path to American Authoritarianism
Democracy survived Trump’s first term because he had no experience, plan, or team. He did not control the Republican Party when he took office in 2017, and most Republican leaders were still committed to democratic rules of the game. Trump governed with establishment Republicans and technocrats, and they largely constrained him. None of those things are true anymore. This time, Trump has made it clear that he intends to govern with loyalists. He now dominates the Republican Party, which, purged of its anti-Trump forces, now acquiesces to his authoritarian behavior.
Alaska US senators introduce bill that would again designate North America’s tallest peak as Denali
Once you see it in person and take in the majesty of its size and breathe in its cold air, you can understand why the Koyukon Athabascans referred to it as “The Great One.” This isn’t a political issue –- Alaskans from every walk of life have long been advocating for this mountain to be recognized by its true name. The bill introduced by Lisa Murkowski is cosponsored by Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, whose wife is Athabascan.
More than a dozen state attorneys general challenge Musk and DOGE’s authority
Musk’s team has roamed from agency to agency, tapping into computer systems, digging into budgets and searching for what he calls waste, fraud and abuse, while lawsuits pile up claiming President Donald Trump and DOGE are violating the law. On Thursday, Musk called for the U.S. to “delete entire agencies” from the federal government as part of his push to radically cut spending and restructure its priorities.
Trump Has Tarnished the One Major Achievement From His First Term
The real heroes in this story, though? The life-saving vaccine and the people who helped create it at warp speed and the brave nurse who volunteered to be the first to test it.
What I am watching…
Today’s illegal news…