Trump’s erstwhile lawyer, Attorney General Todd Blanche, made the ignominious statement that he would never “improperly” interfere in the midterm elections. This happened on a Thursday.

But if Trump says interfere, then it can’t be improper. After all, Blanche works for Trump, and proper is whatever Trump says it is. On Friday, Blanche proved both this point and that t\his statement the day before, that he couldn’t preclude some theoretical future possibility that he would be compelled to interfere was a lie. That next day, Blanche’s Department interfered. Continue reading →

Ed. Note: This is Part 3 of the adventure. You can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

A grizzled veteran of many a war sat in a rocking chair. Pushing into his sixties, the white-haired man with a white beard lit a cigar as his nieces and nephews sat around him.

“Uncle Jim, it’s almost Halloween,” one little girl said.

“Why yes, Brittany, it is. Why do you bring that up?” Uncle Jim said as he took a few puffs from his cigar.

“Could you tell us a scary story tonight for Halloween?” Brittany implored. The other children erupted in cheers and pleas for Uncle Jim to spin one of his signature scary yarns. Continue reading →

It wasn’t just the hypocrisy of using a family member to attack a candidate or nominee for office. That happened with Hegseth and RFK, Jr., and was roundly condemned by Trump and his MAGA faithful. Family is out of bounds, it was screamed. But as happens without shame these days, the tables turned and the script was flipped when Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy created an attack ad featuring his opponent, Amy Acton’s mother.

Under other circumstances, there might have been a fair debate over whether this was a fair attack in the dirty world of politics in the current climate. But these circumstances weren’t “other.” These circumstances were singularly despicable.

The spot from Mr. Ramaswamy’s campaign began circulating on social media this week and airing Thursday on television. In it, Donna Arthur, Dr. Acton’s birth mother, calls her daughter a “liar” and says that she fabricated stories about her difficult childhood. Continue reading →

That the president and his administration maintain a tenuous relationship with the media is not a bad thing. The press isn’t supposed to be his propaganda outlet, and the media challenging, and sometimes attacking, the government by publishing articles that call his integrity, veracity and propriety into question is pretty much the point. Whether you want to characterize it as “speaking truth to power” or “just the facts, ma’am,” the press is not supposed to be the president’s friend.

Then again, it’s not supposed to be the president’s enemy either.

For a while, the media eschewed journalism in favor of what it delightfully called “moral clarity,” which was essentially yellow journalism directed at damaging Trump, facts be damned. This was all too prevalent during his first term, where nothing he could say or do wouldn’t be twisted into some catastrophically wrongful act. Ironically, there were more than enough legitimately bad acts to criticize, but that didn’t stop the media from turning every act, no matter how anodyne or banal, into a federal offense. Continue reading →

The New York Times story draws a line between the new gig and clemency granted by Trump to Venezuelan billionaire banker Julio Herrera Velutini. Given the cottage industry that’s grown up among Trump’s circle of friends and those seeking his mercy, it would hardly come as a surprise. Yet, there is no evidence that the former caused the latter. Correlation does not imply causation.

That doesn’t make the odor emitting from the gig any less unpleasant.

Then the Herrera family hired Alina Habba, who had been one of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers and at the time was an adviser at the Justice Department. They offered her $10 million a year for four years along with a range of bonuses. In total, including bonuses, she was guaranteed more than $50 million over four years, according to interviews and documents obtained by The New York Times.

Continue reading →

You never quite know who you might meet on a dating app. Perhaps someone attractive, with similar interests and a compatible background. Perhaps someone who will make your life miserable and do you grave harm. After all, you might meet someone like Kailan Wang, who was sentenced to one year imprisonment and three years supervised release for cyberstalking and harassment.

Per the government’s statement, Wang had issues.

A Utah County woman was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment [EV: and thee (sic) years of probation (supervised release)] today for cyberstalking two male victims she met on online dating platforms and became obsessed with them…. Continue reading →

It wasn’t an actual plan, the government claimed before the court as more than 400 trees were cut down over the weekend despite Judge Ana Reyes telling the government not to take action without providing the court and plaintiffs advance warning. Then came the twit* via Truth Social. What’s a judge to do?

Continue reading →

Ed. Note: This is Part 2 of the adventure. Part 1 can be found here.

Sheriff Roy Templeton snickered wildly at the latest Bridget Phetasy column in “The Spectator” when he heard a knock at the door of his residence.

Mud Lick’s top law enforcement officer answered the door. It was as he expected. “The Corsican Brothers” were two former dopers the Sheriff arrested once named Pedro and Dave. No one actually believed they were related by blood, but the two had a head for business and Sheriff Roy liked seeing the two men succeed beyond their drug using days.

“Gentlemen,” the Sheriff said in greeting. “I’ve been expecting you. You’re here for the asbestos testing, right?”

“Sure thing, Sheriff, man,” said Dave. Pedro nodded eagerly. Continue reading →

In the past few days, the United States stopped sharing intelligence about Russian attacks with Ukraine. The military throttled StarShield so Ukraine’s drones are directionless. Ukraine has run out of Patriot interceptors to defend itself against Russian attacks. Announced an “agreed” energy ceasefire no one agreed to, but Ukraine complied with, only to have its energy infrastructure come under massive Russian attacks.

Trump announced that it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president because Zelenskyy wasn’t willing to surrender to Putin to please Trump. Lifted oil sanctions and agreed to purchase 300,000 metric tons of oil, not enough to make a dent in diesel prices but enough to help fund Putin’s war against Ukraine. Continue reading →

An email came across the other day from the libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute, inviting me to compete in an essay contest with some fairly significant financial prizes.

Vision for Liberty Award

Dear Mr. Greenfield,

The Cato Institute is launching the Vision for Liberty Award, which will pay $50,000, $25,000, and $12,500 to the three best written cases for individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace. Total winnings sum to $87,500. Submissions open March 1, 2027, which means you have months, starting now, to think, research, and write your best work before the contest window even opens.

Here’s the prompt: Continue reading →