Good Evening:
So which is worse? Donald Trump’s being president or having COVID? For so many reasons, I say: bring on the COVID. Consider:
Neither the COVID-19 virus nor Donald Trump is capable of swearing the oath of office meaningfully. But the COVID virus, at least, didn’t fake it.
There is a vaccine for the COVID virus. There is none for the Trump presidency.
Because I am up-to-date on my vaccinations, symptoms of COVID are so far mild.
Symptoms of Trump being president so far? Not so mild.
My COVID infection will take about a week to go away.
Our second case of the Trump presidency will take four years less one week to go away.
The COVID virus may infect Greenland and Canada but it won’t annex them.
COVID virus doesn’t make me nauseous.
I don’t have to watch the Kash Patel hearing this week because of the COVID virus.
I don’t have to watch the Tulsi Gabbard hearing this week because of the COVID virus.
I don’t have to watch the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hearing this week because of the COVID virus.
If my COVID gets really bad, I can take antivirals. When the second Trump presidency gets really bad, I have to count on Republicans.
The COVID virus won’t sell out Ukraine.
I am not planning to cancel any #DogShirtTV episodes this week—at least not at this time. But dog shirts might be shorter than usual and I will be banking on co-hosts a lot.
Friday on #DogShirtTV saw the triumphant return of the estimable Kate Klonick.
She brought along the estimable Margo Williams to tell us about Red Note, the hot new Tik Tok alternative. It’s Tik Tok, but more controlled by the Chinese government.
Yay?
Also, the estimable John Hawkinson gave me advice on cutting tile. For the record, I did not try at home the experiment he and I discussed, and neither should you:
Friday On Lawfare
What Do Trump’s Weaponization and Censorship Executive Orders Actually Do?
Quinta Jurecic breaks down President Donald Trump’s executive orders purporting to end censorship and the weaponization of the federal government. Jurecic explains that although the orders compel reviews and investigations into the Biden administration, the scope and manner of any such actions are unclear:
So, in sum, the two orders establish that there will be investigations, but leave open the questions of what kind of investigations, what will be investigated, how long this will take, and what the consequences might be. It is difficult to draw firm conclusions as to what to expect. Whether this ambiguity is intentional or the result of sloppiness or disagreement within Trump’s team, it has at least one immediate advantage as far as the president is concerned: generating fear among the broad universe of potential subjects of those investigations.
The Need for Tech Regulation Beyond U.S.-China Rivalry
Kenton Thibault outlines how the United States’s reactive approach to technology regulation—driven by a focus on Chinese security risks—is unconducive to developing an effective policy regime that engages a wide range of stakeholders and achieves domestic innovation goals:
However, absent a complementary approach that considers what Americans want their broader technology ecosystem to look like, these measures—which are narrowly crafted to address specific national security concerns largely limited to one problematic end user—will fail to adequately address systemic national security problems. The U.S. is long overdue for a conversation about what a more comprehensive and proactive tech strategy should look like. This should include an emphasis on transparency, disaggregating monolithic terms like “AI,” safeguarding Americans’ domestic data privacy and security, multistakeholder collaboration, and a clear articulation of what the U.S. can offer the world in AI technologies rather than what it aims to prevent. Such a strategy would enhance resilience against exploitation not just from China, but from a range of threat actors, strengthening U.S. security in the long term.
Reconstruction and the Pursuit of ‘Loyal’ Governance
In a review of “Punish Treason, Reward Loyalty: The Forgotten Goals of Constitutional Reform After the Civil War,” Pamela Brandwein evaluates author Mark A. Graber’s argument that Republican framers of the Fourteenth Amendment were indifferent to rights and instead sought to secure political power via constitutional design.
A recurring pattern in “Punish Treason, Reward Loyalty” is the framing of binary, “this/not that” assertions: Republican framers were structure-centered, not rights-centered; what mattered were Sections 2, 3, and 4, not Section 1; the framers privileged loyalty, not racial equality; they empowered Congress, not courts; constitutions work by designing institutions, not by constraining government.
These binary assertions outrun the evidence. The sequences noted above and attention to equality as a historical concept suggest that these are “both/and” matters.
Podcasts
On Lawfare Daily, Aram Gavoor joins Kevin Frazier to discuss the Trump administration’s actions on artificial intelligence (AI policy) so far, including rescinding the Biden administration’s 2023 executive order on AI and the recently announced Stargate Project.
Documents
Natalie Orpett shares a presidential action granting the highest level interim security clearances—without full investigations—to certain individuals hired to work in the Executive Office of the President.
Today’s #BeastOfTheDay is this baby goat, which we honor for its persistence in the face of an immovable foe:
Sometimes, it seems as though our enemies are completely undaunted by our attacks. Be like the goat. Do not despair. Keep headbutting. They’ll have to move eventually if we just keep headbutting.
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