A Beast of True Distinction and Refinement
Who is not the #BeastOfTheDay
Good Evening:
Why, you ask, does the Elizabethan Club need to have a vault? Because it houses what its website describes as “one of the nation’s finest private collections of Elizabethan literature”:
Gifts and purchases have augmented the collection for more than a century. What began as a fine collection of early modern English literature, especially strong in Shakespeare and other Tudor and Stuart drama, has expanded to include important manuscripts and annotated books and such remarkable and evocative survivals as the “Mock Charter,” a stage prop from the entertainment Queen Elizabeth held to mark Lord Burghley’s retirement in 1591, and the Oedipus Manuscript, an Elizabethan manuscript of “A tragedy called Oedipus” intended for performance by the pupils of a grammar school.
Today on #DogShirtTV, the estimable Minna Ålander, our resident European defense expert, and I welcomed her estimable colleague Eric Adamson to discuss how Trump's betrayal of Ukraine is playing in Sweden. We talked short-term and long-term strategy in Ukraine, European defense industry, and Swedish-American Olympians.
Also, I was on a train the whole time, because its a revolution.
During tomorrow’s show, which will take place at 10:00 am Eastern time, I will also be on a train. I have no idea who will co-host and who will guest.
Today On Lawfare
Compiled by the estimable Caroline Cornett
Trump’s Dismantling of the Government Hurts Due Process
Nick Bednar explains how President Donald Trump’s attacks on agency leadership in conjunction with mass firings reduces the capacity of adjudicatory agencies—such as the Merit Systems Protection Board or Federal Labor Relations Authority—to hold meaningful hearings and respond to claims by federal employees who cannot take their cases to other venues. Bednar also discusses how Trump’s mass restructuring of the federal government and its workforce illustrates the tension between unitary executive theory and procedural due process:
The opportunity for a hearing must occur at a “meaningful time.” Employees caught in a quorum-less Merit Systems Protection Board may sit in limbo for years. At the same time, these employees must often move on with their lives, secure other employment, and begin building a new career. They cannot afford to wait for an eventual reward of back pay and the reinstatement of their job. Likewise, the lack of capacity within the Executive Office for Immigration Review raises concerns that many individuals in removal proceedings will be unable to seek relief for years. The complicated system of jurisdiction that undergirds agency adjudication weds employees to a system the Trump administration seeks to undermine and control.
Impunity or Accountability: Which Will Hurt Israel or Fuel Antisemitism?
Chile Eboe-Osuji defends the International Criminal Court (ICC) against allegations of anti-Israel bias, asserting that—to the contrary—Israel enjoys favorable treatment, and warned that the allegations will have the unintended consequence of isolating Israel in the global order. Eboe-Osuji also responds to the “false moral equivalency” objection raised by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the consent objection—which claims that the ICC lacks jurisdiction because Israel is not party to the Rome Statute—that is the basis for the anti-ICC “sanctions” bill in Congress:
The only bias that may be rightly ascribed to the ICC is bias against criminal atrocity. But experience has shown that suspects of criminal conduct—especially those with ready access or connection to systems and structures of mass communication—will boldly and selfishly hail that kind of bias as hurtful national or racial “bias” finally revealed through the legal process brought against them. It is not difficult to see how these meritless allegations of folk “bias” will pull the heartstrings of kinsfolk and friends given the “us against the enemy” bipolarity that the conflicts that animate international criminal law almost always assume. It doesn’t validate allegations of national or racial bias that are routinely leveled against the ICC.
Your Town Needs AI Experts, Not Just More GPUs
Kevin Frazier argues that in order for the United States to maintain technological dominance, the Trump administration’s upcoming artificial intelligence (AI) action plan must prioritize distributing AI expertise and literacy across America. Frazier recommends a series of short, medium, and long-term initiatives to mitigate the existing geographic disparities and build a thriving AI ecosystem:
Success in the global AI race will require both maintaining America’s leading edge in advanced AI research and ensuring that AI knowledge and capabilities are distributed widely throughout the country. As Hunt and colleagues’ research demonstrates, distance from AI hotspots currently impedes this distribution. By deliberately addressing these barriers through a comprehensive approach to AI knowledge diffusion, the AI Action Plan could help ensure that America’s AI leadership is both technologically advanced and societally sustainable.
Podcasts
In the second episode of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo’s new narrative series Escalation, co-hosts Tyler McBrien and Anastasiia Lapatina examine the high-stakes deal between the United States, Russia, and Ukraine that disarmed newly independent Ukraine in exchange for national security protection, and whether the United States has upheld the its promises:
On Lawfare Daily, Frazier sits down with Tim Fist and Arnab Datta to discuss their report on building America’s AI infrastructure, which studied the gulf between the stated goals of America’s AI leaders and the practical hurdles to realizing those ambitions:
Today’s #BeastOfTheDay is Forest the emu, seen here getting a neck scritch:
You too deserve a neck scritch. In honor of today’s Beast, go forth and obtain one. Use such means as may be required.
Today’s #BeastOfTheDay is not this silver swan, which is barred from receiving the award because it is an automaton, not an animal, but which is nevertheless a Beast worthy of recognition:
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