Ed. Note: As much as I wanted to write about RFK Jr.’s inane decision to cancel almost $500 million in vaccine contracts, I realized that I was no more qualified to challenge his action than he was to take it. Instead, I have asked an academic who is exceptionally well qualified to address the mess. This academic has chosen to stay anonymous for obvious reasons, but I very much appreciate his effort here.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy announced his decision to end 500 million dollars’ worth of development contracts covering 22 projects on vaccines using messenger RNA (mRNA). This is a decision that will result in many unnecessary deaths, especially when (not if) the next pandemic arrives. Former Surgeon General Jerome Adams stated, “this move is going to cost lives. University of Minnesota Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm said, “I don’t think I’ve seen a more dangerous decision in public health in my 50 years in the business.” Continue reading →

There have been merely a handful of trade deals announced, none of which have been reduced to serious writings and most of which are characterized by the other side as conceptual frameworks rather than actual deals. But that hasn’t stopped Trump from announcing that he’s made fabulous deals, including the one with the European Union which includes, according to him, $600,000,000,000 to be spent anyway he wants.

There might be a problem or two with Trump’s grasp of the deal. Continue reading →

Most people can agree that gerrymandering is wrong, whether done by the Democrats or Republicans, as it is designed to undermine the will of the voters. But it’s been done by both Dems and Reps to gain an improper advantage. We’re long past the question of who started it or who is more at fault. It’s wrong, and yet both parties have employed it.

But now that Trump has ordered his Texas minions to redistrict to add five House seats to the Republican roster to bolster the Republican majority in the House and stave off the potential midterm backlash against him, the Democrats in the Texas lege have taken to the wind, having no ability to prevent the Republicans from doing Trump’s bidding. Continue reading →

The flip side of grievances filed against the useful idiots who have chosen to remain in Trump’s Justice Department at the risk of their integrity was Attorney General Pam Bondi’s grievance against Chief Judge James Boasberg based upon his raising the concern that the Trump administration will not abide by the orders of the Court. As former District Court Judge Nancy Gertner and Georgetown Law Prof Steve Vladeck write, it’s preposterous.

Last week, in a post on social media, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the Justice Department filed a misconduct complaint against James Boasberg, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in Washington, claiming he made “improper public comments about President Trump” and his administration.

At least he didn’t provide unemployment statistics that made Trump look bad, but then, Trump can’t fire Judge Boasberg for telling the unpleasant truth either. Continue reading →

Let’s get this out of the way: Twisted Metal, Peacock’s attempt to turn a 90s PlayStation car-smashing game into a TV show, is the kind of thing you’d expect from a streaming service desperate to justify its existence. It’s loud, it’s bloody, it’s got Anthony Mackie driving a beat-up Subaru with a “Got Milk?” sticker, and it’s trying so hard to be cool that you can practically hear the executives sweating through their Zoom calls.

But does it work? Spoiler: not really, but it’s not a total wreck either.

The premise is simple enough—think Mad Max meets The Last of Us, but with the depth of a kiddie pool. It’s 2002, the internet’s gone kaput thanks to a Y2K virus (remember those?), and America’s a wasteland of walled cities and roving lunatics. Mackie plays John Doe, a motormouthed “milkman” who delivers packages across this hellscape for a shot at a cushy life in New San Francisco. He’s joined by Quiet (Stephanie Beatriz), a carjacker with a vendetta, and they bicker their way through a dystopia filled with psychos like Sweet Tooth, a clown-masked nutcase voiced by Will Arnett and bodied by wrestler Joe Seanoa. The plot’s a delivery quest with a side of vehicular carnage, culminating in a tease of the game’s iconic demolition derby tournament. Continue reading →

With a few notable exceptions, grieving unethical prosecutors has been a fool’s errand. It’s not that they haven’t done things to violate the rules of professional responsibility and worthy of discipline, but neither judges nor disciplinary committees have shown the fortitude to take them to task for their failings. Is that about to change?

A legal watchdog group accused three Justice Department lawyers of professional misconduct on Thursday, saying they had made false statements to a federal judge in a high-profile case challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

It’s bad enough that long-time former AUSA Erez Reuveni spilled the beans on Emil Bove, then number 3 at Justice and now Hizzoner, instructing lawyers to refuse to comply with court orders, offering a simple “fuck you” if necessary. But for the three assistants involved in the CFPB challenge, the representations to the court fly in the face of documentary evidence that they lied through their teeth. Continue reading →

Picture the director of the FBI, K$sh Patel, alone wandering dark hallways, finding locked doors in long forgotten corridors of the Hoover building, stumbling onto a room, a SCIF, filled with cobwebs and the stench of conspiracy. He flips on the light switch and there, in bags meant to be burned by the malevolent but inexplicably intact, he finds papers.

Thousands of pages of papers, and upon reading page after page, realizes that he’s stumbled onto the treasure trove of proof of President Obama’s 2016 Russia conspiracy, plus a secret confidential “annex” to the Durham report created years later, to damage poor Donald Trump’s effort to make America great again by tainting him with the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax!

How fortuitous to make this finding, just as angry mobs chanting Epstein surround the White House. Who cares about boring Jeffrey and his stealing little girls from Trump when here it is, proof of Obama’s “treason”! Treason, says Tulsi. Treason, says K$sh. Treason, says Ratcliffe. Treason, says Bondi. Treason. And definitely not Epstein. Continue reading →

Chuck Grassley, the Republican Senator from Iowa has been around for a long time. A very long time. He was born in 1933, and was first elected to the House in 1975 and the Senate in 1981. Even though he’s a spry 91 years of age, he is, quite clearly, 91 years of age. His career in the Senate, and particularly on the Judiciary Committee, has been notable, both for his occasional support for criminal law reforms as well as being the champion of whistleblowers.

Why, then, has Chuck Grassley chosen to drop to his knees and become a Trump acolyte?

Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, has been known for decades as a champion of whistle-blowers. But critics say he has retreated from his signature issue, smoothing a path for a Trump loyalist who was confirmed on Tuesday to a lifetime appointment on the federal bench. Continue reading →

In yet another broken norm, the shenanigans employed by Attorney General Pam Bondi to put the most loyal and least qualified person behind the desk of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey have given rise to a problem. Who has the authority to prosecute criminal cases in the district?

Federal court proceedings throughout New Jersey were abruptly canceled on Monday because of uncertainty over whether Alina Habba had the authority to serve as acting U.S. attorney — a title she was given last week as her interim appointment as the state’s top federal prosecutor was about to expire.

Continue reading →

There are two songwriters whose works regularly run through my mind as I read the news and think about the things happening in the world. The first, Phil Ochs, took his own life in 1976. The second died on July 26th at the age of 97. His satire was stunning, then and now.

It wasn’t just the classics like National Brotherhood Week, but even his lesser-known pieces, like the Hunting Song. Continue reading →