Good Evening:
I don’t know about you, but I’m all dolled up for the start of the confirmation hearings this week:
This morning on #DogShirtTV, I had the estimable Holly Berkley Fletcher—former CIA Africa analyst and “bizarre,” for so Elon Musk calls her, video maker—brief me on the situation in Sudan, which has recently been declared a genocide by the U.S. government.
She also brought the talking cactus, though, so it wasn’t all doom and gloom:
Today On Lawfare
Donald Trump and the Department of Justice
Bob Bauer reflects on voters’ seeming indifference to the Department of Justice’s now-defunct cases against president-elect Donald Trump, and discusses the “extraordinary steps Trump is taking to make the Justice Department his own”:
This important issue will engage us for a long time to come. It can also be put in different terms—ones presumably acceptable to even those commentators who are generally more sympathetic to Trump than Jurecic, or who would not agree that his voters must have cared little about rule of law values because they declined to find the criminal prosecutions to be a “deal-breaker.” One possible version: How could a presidential candidate widely denounced at the time for his conduct on and in relation Jan. 6, even by his own party’s leadership, and who was then prosecuted for it, escape decisive political consequences and win a second term?
Contested Memories and the Social Construction of the Term ‘Post-Soviet’
Erica Resende explains how use of the term “post-Soviet” negatively impacts Central and Eastern European states by undermining their political and social transformation since 1991 and legitimizing Russian imperialism:
Because of CEE’s history as part of the Soviet Union, the EU often constructs the region as backward, unmodern, and undemocratic, and it becomes a reference point for what is and is not included in Western Europe’s own “Europeanness.” Estonian political scientist Maria Mälksoo once labeled this the “in-betweenness of CEE,” which refers to the sense that CEE is constructed as an “almost the same but not quite” other to Europe. “Post-Soviet” nostalgia only emphasizes the lower, subaltern position that CEE states occupy in the view of Western European states.
Cutting North Korea’s Access to Chinese-Controlled African Uranium
Jayita Sakar explains how North Korea procures Namibian uranium for use in nuclear weapons development through its relationships with China and Russia. She argues that the incoming Trump administration should make putting a stop to this a diplomatic priority:
The uranium links between China and North Korea through Namibia have important ramifications for both U.S. nonproliferation goals and the future of the U.S. geostrategic position in Africa. Since a Russian veto in March 2024 ended the tenure of the UN POE, there is currently no clear global institutional mechanism to deal with sanctions compliance vis-a-vis North Korea. This increases the onus of individual governments to conduct due diligence. Due diligence is, however, made very difficult by the global nature of North Korea’s efforts to evade sanctions, which target jurisdictions around the world that have limited sanctions implementation infrastructure or capacity. Namibia’s plentiful natural resources, weak institutions, low levels of armed conflict, and active business community make it particularly susceptible to these sanctions-evading activities.
Podcasts
Kevin Frazier sits down with Alan Rozenshtein and Ramya Krishnan to dissect the Supreme Court oral arguments over the legislation poised to ban TikTok, the arguments made by each party, and how the Court might rule.
Today’s #BeastOfTheDay is the pelican, seen here being put in time-out for eating a baby. We here at Dog Shirt Daily support pelicans in their baby-eating activities and encourage them to commit whatever other atrocities cross their minds.
Remember, if a pelican eats your baby, that’s on you. You were the one who let your baby near a pelican:
Pelicans turn out to be not very age-discrimating in their dietary choices. Check out this video of a pelican eating a man’s face for the crime of filming it without permission. It’s one way to protect your privacy rights. If someone tries to film you without your consent, devour him:
As our final celebration of the pelican, please enjoy this poem about today’s #BeastOfTheDay, often attributed to Ogden Nash, but apparently falsely so:
A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican.
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week,
But I’m damned if I see how the helican.
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