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.

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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?

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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 →

She had no qualifications to be an ambassador, which hardly makes her an unusual choice for a prominent position in the Trump administration. Despite Trump’s routine Manafort-style denial that he barely knew who she was,* her appointment came days after Junior was photographed holding hands with his then-new squeeze, later his wife, Bettina Anderson, complete with party paid by Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev. In Trump world, getting Kimberly Guilfoyle out of the country and away from Junior is as good a reason to shuffle her off to Greece as any other.

And now she’s out. Not quite fired, even though Trump told her to resign so resign she did, she’s lost the gig after she committed two of the most egregious offenses possible in Trump world. First, she embarrassed him by her attempt to sell her purported access for a mere $100 grand. Second, she failed to offer Trump his piece of the grift. The boss always gets his piece, even if she sold cheap. Continue reading →

DC District Court Judge Ana Reyes should have known better. After what happened with Chief Judge James Boasberg, it was clear that the Trump administration was unconcerned about ignoring the orders of the court. More importantly for a judge, it was clear that the AUSAs coming before the court could not be trusted, either to tell the truth or to abide by the judge’s directions. Sure, this never rarely happened before, but it was most assuredly happening now.

And yet, Judge Reyes wanted to believe that the government wouldn’t burn her. And then the government burned her.

A federal judge on Monday excoriated the Trump administration for ripping up hundreds of mature trees at a Washington golf course over the holiday weekend, even though she had directed officials to disclose any major changes before work was started. Continue reading →

Morality is a personal matter. Priests (and priestesses) have their beliefs about it, and others turn to them for guidance. That’s the nature of religion, whether organized or informal. Sure, some moral lines are so clear and universally accepted that we can all agree, or at least we used to all be able to agree, that they cannot be crossed. Others are squishy, and people can fairly disagree about where the line should be drawn.

David French, as a conservative Christian, makes no bones about where he would draw lines. I don’t begrudge him doing so, as he’s never denied the role religion plays in his life and thinking, but I also don’t really care about where his lines are drawn. He’s not my priest and I don’t look to him for guidance on morality. But when he conflates his version of morality with the law, even if he denies that’s what he’s doing, it’s a problem. And that’s what he’s done in castigating the morality of manhood when he lays blame on the young men of the Chi Phi fraternity for failing to put a stop to the “sexual depravity.” Continue reading →

Of all the people who should be executed, few would defend Nidal Malik Hasan. But regardless of your views on capital punishment, which seemed on the verge of being mercifully ended a decade ago, turning his execution into a public spectacle as one would find in Iran, North Korea or Afghanistan, presents a turning point in the nature of the American psyche.

There is an argument that executions should be public so that those people who still feel the lust for violence and death can see the horrors of the act. If the government is going to kill people in our name, we should be able to see just how horrible it is to watch someone being executed. There is some merit to this argument, but only if the execution is seen and understood to be horrific. The problem, as is becoming pathetically clear, is that there is a cohort in America that not only won’t find executions horrible, but will also delight in them, cheer for the death of a human being, no matter how evil his act. Continue reading →