No, It's Not a Cauliflower
Plus, Elon Musk's political future
Good Morning:
ChatGPT and I went for a walk on the beach and saw some sea shells arranged in an interesting design.
Who could possibly have seen this coming?
Here’s what’s coming next:
Musk says negative things about Trump.
Trump attacks Musk as a loser.
Musk, feeling like nobody loves him, tries to get back in with the left and center, spending money and making statements to do so.
It doesn’t work.
Confidence: High.
Timeframe: Unclear.
Yesterday on #DogShirtTV, the estimable
came on the show with an agenda: he wanted to discuss Biden’s health while in office, and especially how the media are currently covering the issue. After that, we turned to my agenda, getting him and the estimable work on my plan for a #SpecialMilitaryOperation targeting Trump’s Dear Leader banner outside USDA. We are almost there:The Situation
In my “The Situation” column yesterday, I looked at the question of why the Trump administration keeps taking administrative actions that are wildly and obviously in violation of the First Amendment and getting its ass kicked in court:
So what is really going on here? I think the answer lies in an old joke involving a scorpion and a frog who both want to cross the Nile River. The scorpion proposes that the frog give him a ride on his back, since the scorpion can’t swim. The frog objects that this won’t work, as nothing prevents the scorpion from stinging him.
The scorpion responds that stinging the frog would be foolish, since the scorpion can’t swim and he would therefore drown if the frog died. The frog considers the matter and concludes that the scorpion’s logic is correct. So he lets the scorpion climb on his back and he starts swimming across the river.
Whereupon the scorpion suddenly stings him. The frog, in his dying breath, asks the scorpion, “Why?”
The scorpion, drowning himself, responds: “I just couldn’t help myself.”
The reality is that there is no rational basis for this spate of actions. These guys just can’t help themselves. The urge to dominate people and institutions and make them conform to Trump’s will is just too strong for them to resist. Even when the result is that they will lose, and lose again, and lose again. Even when they actually strengthen the instinct among their foes to push back by clarifying that legal recourse is, indeed, available. Even when they can’t possibly believe they are going to prevail.
They just can’t help themselves.
And that isn’t scary. It’s pathetic.
Today On Lawfare
Compiled by the estimable Caroline Cornett
Cybersecurity Risk From Kaspersky to TikTok
Daniel Sutherland and Jim Dempsey discuss the Trump administration’s support for a Biden-era rule restricting foreign access to Americans’ personal data. Sutherland and Dempsey highlight the United States’s efforts to manage risks emerging from foreign entities such as Kaspersky, Huawei, and TikTok, and consider how American companies must adapt to the evolving regulatory framework.
Emerging from these controversies is a set of frameworks and fora in the executive branch for addressing more systematically the geopolitical risks associated with globalized information and communications technology and services. In January 2021, in the final days of the first Trump administration, the Department of Commerce adopted a rule setting forth procedures for implementing President Trump’s 2019 Executive Order 13873, whereby the secretary of commerce can designate information and communication technology products as posing an unacceptable risk to the national security of the U.S. or the security and safety of U.S. persons. That rule was invoked for the first time by the Biden administration, when the Commerce Department issued a determination essentially banning Kaspersky from operating in the United States. Likewise, the FCC has used the process created under the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act to add Kaspersky AV software to its list of products posing a threat to U.S. national security.
How Congress Can Shape America’s Use of Economic Sanctions
Jordan Tama outlines Congress's role in shaping sanctions legislation and the challenges it faces in enforcing sanctions. Tama suggests that Congress can craft more successful sanctions regimes by considering how actors will respond and balancing the need for executive discretion with preserving congressional authority.
Several legislative design features can have great influence on the use, impact, and removal of sanctions. Among the most important is the degree of flexibility Congress provides to the president in the legislation’s implementation. Congress, for example, can mandate the use of sanctions without giving the executive any flexibility with respect to when or whether to impose the mandated sanctions. But Congress can also choose to authorize the use of sanctions without requiring the executive to take any steps. Either end of this flexibility spectrum carries clear downsides. A legislative sanctions mandate that lacks any flexibility may prevent the president from adjusting U.S. policy in response to changing conditions or using the prospect of policy change as a point of leverage in negotiations with a sanctions target. But legislation that grants the executive complete discretion makes it easy for the president to ignore the will of Congress.
Podcasts
On Lawfare Daily, Jonah Bromwich joins Anna Bower to discuss his new book “Dragon on Centre Street,” which offers a behind-the-scenes look at President Donald Trump’s trial and conviction in the New York hush money case. They talk about the trial, its legacy, and what comes next.
On Rational Security, Scott R. Anderson sits down with Alan Rozenshtein and Kevin Frazier to talk through the week’s top news stories about artificial intelligence (AI), including Trump’s decision to repeal a Biden-era rule limiting the diffusion of high-end AI technology, a provision in a House bill that would place a 10 year moratorium on state efforts to regulate AI, and a judge’s ruling that an AI’s output was not protected speech.
Videos
On May 28 at 2 p.m. ET, I sat down with Quinta Jurecic, Roger Parloff, and James Pearce to discuss the civil litigation targeting Trump’s executive actions, including updates in D.V.D. v. Department of Homeland Security, the case over the removal of immigrants to South Sudan, and a ruling in Jenner & Block v. U.S. Department of Justice.
Documents
Natalie Orpett shares a letter filed in a D.C. Circuit case that includes a military judge’s order granting a Sept. 11 defendant’s motion to suppress statements the prosecution wished to introduce on the grounds that the statements was irreconcilably tainted by his torture.
Today’s #BeastOfTheDay is a whale being cleaned:
In honor of today’s Beast, really go to town with that pumice stone.
Settling the Fruit Fly Question
has decided to settle L’Affair Drosophila by submitting it to a vote:Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Dog Shirt Daily to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
 | A guest post by
|