Subpoena Piñata

Quashed and Squashed, Weekend Whats

The Trump Justice Department’s subpoena armada isn’t going well. Judges aren’t just rejecting the subpoenas, they’re using the Department’s shoddy lawyering and lawlessness to force withdrawals. Government subpoenas are not getting quashed, they’re getting squashed. Here’s the latest example from the NYT(Gift Article): U.S. Withdraws Subpoenas Issued to New York Times Journalists. “Either we can quash the subpoenas, or you could withdraw the subpoenas,’ the judge told Sean Buckley, a top official in the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, who was speaking on behalf of the government. Judge Subramanian then grilled the prosecutors for the vast majority of the hourlong hearing, his demeanor at times resembling a teacher scolding his pupils. He asked few questions of The Times’s lawyers; at one point, he even apologized to one of them and promised time to respond to some of the government’s statements.” That wasn’t the administration’s only judicial pullback this week. There was also one that resulted in a headline that could only possibly exist in 2026 (or maybe 1936). Trump Administration Drops Subpoena Demanding List of Jews From Penn. Part of this story is good; judges and courts are standing up to frivolous, dangerous, or just plain insane subpoenas. But the existence of these subpoenas in the first place is a stark and dark reminder of how completely Trump has turned the Justice Department into a lawless retribution machine. Bringing charges against James Comey for taking photos of some seashells on the beach is (probably) too crazy to result in a conviction. But the fact that the case wasn’t considered too crazy to be surfaced in the first place is further evidence of how many officials have fully lost the courage of their convictions. If you think the jury is still out on that last point, consider how close the Senate is to confirming Trump’s personal lawyer as Attorney General.

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There’s a New Tariff in Town

Just when you thought you were out from under the Trump tariffs, they pull you back in. No little hurdles like a Supreme Court ruling will stop Trump from implementing his favorite way of taxing our purchases (and our patience). “The Trump administration on Friday will impose new tariffs of 10% and 12.5% on goods from 60 trading partners, including the European Union, over allegations of lax enforcement of forced labor bans, just as a temporary 10% global tariff expires.” Makes sense. Who is more concerned about the well being of workers around the globe than Donald Trump?

+ Trump accused of using forced labor as ‘convenient’ justification for tariffs. “’Today’s forced labor justification is too convenient to be taken seriously,” said Richard Neal, the top Democrat on the US House ways and means committee. ‘Forced labor is a real and pervasive problem in our supply chains and demands serious enforcement. It should never be cheapened into a pretext for a tariff policy built on dubious legal theories and personal grievances.’” (Well, as the adage goes, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes and dubious legal theories and personal grievances.”)

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Stick a Pork In It

Given the combination of our current protein obsession and increasingly high beef prices, you’d think that pork would be living high on the hog. But it turns out that consumers are not porking out and pork sellers are not bringing home the bacon. Bloomberg (Gift Article): Pork Struggles to Gain Ground Even in Middle of Protein Craze. “In a time of belt-tightening and America’s protein obsession, pork should be on a winning streak. It’s cheap compared with beef, which is climbing to record high prices, and it’s the type of clean protein consumers can’t seem to get enough of. But pork consumption per capita in the US is forecast near the lowest level in about a decade.”

+ Maybe it’s time to bring back the pork industry’s The Other White Meat ad campaign. It could be updated for the era: DEI-Free Meat That’s Not Woke.

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Weekend Whats

What to Binge: I usually find myself uninterested in TV shows that are based on an alternate history. But, since the current history is so unpleasant, I decided to give For All Mankind on Apple TV a shot. The show imagines a world where the global space race between the US and the Soviets never ended, but it’s really a story about the astronauts and their families. The cast is excellent. And it’s a story about space that doesn’t mention Elon Musk.

+ What to Book: Colson Whitehead has won two Pulitzers. That seems like a bit much for one writer, so I’m starting with the first book in his trilogy that hasn’t won a Pulitzer (yet). And it’s damn good. Check out Harlem Shuffle.

+ What to Read: Looking for a different way to choose your next read. Check out Uncovered.Ink, where you can’t judge a book by its cover. You get the opening lines, and then decide if you want to know what the book is and see the cover. Judging a book by its words? Sounds like reading Playboy for the articles. It’s so crazy it just might work. It was a dark and stormy night...

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Extra, Extra

Fit for a King: “During a recent meeting in the Oval Office, he launched into a tirade against Iranian leaders, calling them scumbags and lunatics, and unleashing a series of expletives, according to a person who heard the comments.” WSJ (Gift Article): Trump Is Losing Patience Over an Iran War With No Clear End in Sight. The question is how does he get out of the war, and how does America avoid being left in much worse shape? “The United States sought above all to deter Iran from doing two things: striking American partners in the region and disrupting maritime traffic. Is Iran now more deterred from taking these actions—or less so? The answer is clearly the latter.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The War Is Lost. Now Fix What It Broke. (We all hope that’s wrong, but it sure seems more and more right.) The decision being made now: Whether to escalate.

+ Peptide Turns: F.D.A. Panel Supports Lifting Restrictions on Four Peptides, Despite Scientists’ Objections. For a good backgrounder on this issue, check out this Newshour interviewwith The New Yorker’s Dhruv Khullar.

+ Lettuce Go: Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania ... welcome aboard. Outbreak of diarrhea-causing parasite linked to 4 more states. From The Ringer: All the Questions—and Explosive Answers—You Could Have About Diarrhea Summer. (That’s how I used to refer to sleep-away camp...)

+ A Family Chainstay: “Many have urged them to change their minds. Silicon Valley billionaires, European entrepreneurs and, most recently, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund have all approached the Amaurys with offers. Some wanted to buy all or part of the Tour for immense sums. Others, like the Saudis, wanted to make it the crown jewel of a new league, one that would tie together a bunch of races and produce a multi-month season, like football or soccer. All of these supplicants were given the same answer. Non.” Did you know one family owns the Tour de France? NYT (Gift Article): At the Tour de France, One Family Wins Every Year.

+ Bucket List: “I know a lot about the movie business, and I didn’t really know much about the bucket business. It was beyond me to really envision that there’d be a strong demand for $50 popcorn buckets.” Oh well, live and learn. Salty, Buttery, Astonishingly Lucrative: The $100 Million Market of Popcorn Buckets.

+ Over the Influence: “More than 20 students, many of them freshmen, darted around the lush grounds. All were dressed in white. Most had never met before. They scrambled into small groups to brainstorm, their quips echoing beneath palatial arches. They filmed one another with their smartphones, directing whoever was on camera at any given moment.” Welcome to the college programs turning students into influencers. I’m nostalgic for the days when all you had to do was take your kid to the dentist.

+ Home (For) James: I think the text I sent my sister this morning sums up my feelings on LeBron’s latest decision. “Happy Thank God He Didn’t Pick the Warriors Day!” LeBron picks 76ers.

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Feel Good Friday

A new guiding principle: WWWAYD: What would Weird Al Yankovic Do? ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic Turned Down Million-Dollar Offer to Perform in Saudi Arabia: “I Don’t Need to Take Any Money if It Makes Me Feel Icky.” He also told the AI industry to just beat it.

+ His doctor’s prescription for his unbearable pain seemed absurd. It worked.

+ Trekking 57 miles per day, this ultrarunner just broke the speed record on the Pacific Crest Trail.

+ 64-year-old father of 5 graduates as a nurse after studying alongside his son.

+ Small dog missing for weeks rescued while swimming in San Francisco Bay.