One would think that K$sh Patel, too unqualified to be deputy director but now director, could find an active agent who supported his liege within that otherwise famously progressive organization, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. After all, there must be a few of the Republicans who aren’t so RINO or conservative that they would take issue with the agenda of a president whose goal was to remake what was once the nation’s premier law enforcement agency into his personal arm of retribution.

But apparently not.

Mr. Trump, making the announcement on his social media site, said the newly installed F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, had named Mr. Bongino to the No. 2 post at the country’s most powerful law enforcement agency. The role of deputy director does not require Senate confirmation, meaning two steadfast Trump loyalists will effectively be installed at the uppermost reaches of an agency known for its tradition of independence.

Continue reading →

Did Chief Justice John Roberts anticipate that a second Trump term would not merely test the outer boundaries of executive power, but push beyond the logical extremes by which the Court decided that the president, who happens to be Trump at the moment, is freed of the shackles of prosecution because we necessarily trust the person elected by the American electorate not to be a vulgar, lying, narcissistic ignoramus?

It seems unlikely that the CJ, when deciding matters such as United States v. Trump, anticipated that he might very well send out Seal Team 6 to murder his rivals. After all, that was just a ridiculous hyped up analogy to make a point, not a serious threat that the Court needed to face, needed to address. After all, that would be crazy. Who would even consider doing such a thing? Continue reading →

In response to criticism of Trump’s flipping America’s support from UKraine to Putin, a person on twitter argued that this is what America voted for when it elected Trump. Indeed, this argument appears in response to pretty much every move Trump, or his work wife Musk, makes, that this is what America voted for.

The problem is that we elected a president, but we never held a referendum on any of the individual positions Trump took during the campaign. Even more to the point, the issue of how any goal would be accomplished was not on the table. Sure, Trump said that he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, or even before he took office, was only taken seriously by the dumbest of his MAGA faithful, but did anyone vote for Trump because he swore to abandon our allies, Ukraine and Europe, in furtherance of his unrequited bromance with Vladimir Putin? Continue reading →

Friends, it’s February 20, 2025, and I’m officially declaring war on snow. Yes, that fluffy white bastard that turns Knoxville into a scene from The Shining minus the charm of Jack Nicholson chasing me with an axe. I’ve had it. Done. Finito. If I see one more snowflake drift down like it’s auditioning for a Hallmark movie, I’m going to lose what’s left of my mind, and trust me, there ain’t much left after the Girl Scout cookie season gauntlet.

Let’s set the stage. It’s East Tennessee, where winter usually means a light dusting of frost that melts by noon and leaves us free to argue about college football in peace. But no, not this week. This week, Mother Nature decided to cosplay as Elsa from Frozen and dump YET MORE snow on my driveway, my car, and my soul. Continue reading →

Having already raised the issues with the effort to overrule Humphrey’s Executor, fundamentally shift the mechanisms of government such that the independent boards and agencies created by Congress and placed under the Executive Branch’s umbrella will no longer be independent but serve the whims of the president, the next shoe has fallen.

The Trump administration told Congress on Thursday that it believed President Trump had the constitutional power to summarily fire administrative law judges at will, despite a statute that protects such officials from being removed without a cause like misconduct. Continue reading →

There were two amici who sought a say in the matter, which otherwise included a defendant and the government, by Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove III. Judge Dale Ho has yet to permit the amici to appear, but without them, there would be no evidence proffered in the case other than the mutual love from New York City’s trustworthy Mayor Eric Adams and Trump’s January 6 bestie, Emil Bove.

Remember that Fox News exchange with ICE head Tom Homan, where he reminds Adams that he will be in his office, “up his butt,” if Adams doesn’t keep his agreement? It’s not in evidence. At least not yet. The Danielle Sassoon letter? Not in evidence. The Bove memo to Sassoon? Not in evidence. The Hagen Scotten letter? Not in evidence. Why? Because there were only two parties in the well, Adams and the government, and it was in neither’s interest to proffer them to Judge Ho. Continue reading →

Imagine President Ronald Reagan saying, “Mr. Gorbachev, build that wall.” Crazy, right? And yet here we are, a president indulging in obvious lies while abandoning America’s allies and ending the isolation of Russia imposed for invading a neighboring sovereign nation, and his MAGA faithful swoon with adoration. In the course of a day, Trump has not only forsaken NATO and Ukraine, but decided to become the fifth member of the Gang of Four, Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.

Even as American and Russian negotiators sat down together on Tuesday for the first time since Moscow’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago, Mr. Trump has signaled that he is willing to abandon America’s allies to make common cause with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Continue reading →

There are only three branches of government, despite what the bureaucracy believes, and that’s a problem. In the 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor, the Supreme Court carved out an exception to the president’s power to remove executive branch officials where the congressionally created position was intended to be independent of the president because it exercised quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative authority. Sure, it was listed under the executive branch of government as the catchall for commissions and agencies that didn’t fit in elsewhere, but they were hybrids such that the president could not fire officials at will.

Head of the Office of Special Counsel, Hampton Dellinger, son of renowned former solicitor general and SJ reader, Walter Dellinger, is putting the vitality of Humphrey’s Executor to the test. Continue reading →

A bastardization of a quote by Napoléon, perhaps, but just as useful for any politician, anarchist, psychotic or flaming nutjob who wraps himself in faux virtue as an excuse for whatever crimes he commits.

He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2025

There are any number of other quotes by people of far greater virtue than Napoléon worth considering. Take Montesquieu, for example. Continue reading →

The AP Stylebook has long been a bible of journalism, the “definitive source,” for largely pragmatic reasons. No newspaper could have a reporter everywhere news arose, and so news services, the Associated Press and United Press International (before it imploded) provided reports that newspapers would publish. To maintain consistency in word usage, spelling and choice, newspapers followed the AP’s guidance. It was rarely controversial, until now.

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The body of water has shared borders between the U.S. and Mexico. Trump’s order only carries authority within the United States. Mexico, as well as other countries and international bodies, do not have to recognize the name change. Continue reading →