Good Evening:
This image hangs on a giant banner in Riga, Latvia, on the exterior wall of a museum immediately across the street from the Russian embassy in that city.
I cannot confirm or deny that I have written to the artist asking for permission to use it in my next projection operation.
For those of you who missed #DogShirtTV the other day, first of all, shame on you! You should never miss an episode.
Second, and more importantly, the Greek Chorus discussed how to help keep the estimable
and her family warm as power outages worsen in Kiev. We decided collectively to buy her a generator and a Starlink. You can contribute, if you like, on Venmo or by PayPaling to this address: benjamin.wittes@gmail.com. The following QR Codes will also take you where you need to go:Venmo:
PayPal:
#YourMusicOfTheDay: Operation Brahms
Today’s Brahms offering is the lovely song cycle, Lieder Und Romanzen, Op. 14. It has eight songs, sung here by the great German Baritone Dietrich Fischer-Diskau. I have not read the poems. Between the speech I gave this week, the Valeriia Vovk concert, my column, and some other stuff, I have been a bit under the gun. That said, I plan to spend some quality time with these songs over the next few days.
I made a playlist of the full song list here.
Tuesday on #DogShirtTV, as mentioned above, the Greek Chorus and I discussed how to heat Nastya’s house in the face of Ukrainian winter and Russian-inflicted power outages. Then we talked about the hurricane about to hit Jamaica and what—if anything—we can do about it.
Yesterday on #DogShirtTV, the estimable
and the estimable Mike Feinberg took over the show for the first day of a three day horror film festival. Because why not?They did it again today.
The Situation
In yesterday’s “The Situation” column, which is a long essay adapted from my speech at North Carolina State University this week, I discuss how freedom has increased for some while declining sharply for others over the past year of Trump’s presidency. I explain why I believe the freedoms now under attack are more important to a democratic society than the freedoms on the rise, then offer advice on how to “choose” freedom in the face of authoritarian power:
The topic at hand is how much less free we are today than we were collectively a year ago. So let’s start by unpacking two assumptions embedded in the question.
The first assumption is that we are at least somewhat less free, and that we are measuring how much so we are. Let’s acknowledge that there are people who dispute this premise, who feel more free than they did a year ago. They are not wrong. We shouldn’t assume that the sign attached to our particular freedom variable is negative. We should, rather, do a little bit of calculation both as to what the coefficient is in front of that freedom variable and as to what the sign in front of that coefficient is.
The second assumption in the question lies in that pesky word “we.” “We the people,” at least if one is being honest, do not have a common experience of freedom’s rise or fall under The Situation. Some people are more free. Some people are less free. Most people are roughly equivalently free because their day-to-day lives just don’t involve the sorts of activities that The Situation implicates. When one says “we” in this context, therefore, one is cheating just a little bit—mashing together a whole lot of different people’s experiences, focusing on the people whose freedom one cares about most, and imputing to us all the increased or decreased freedom experienced by those people.
Recently On Lawfare
Compiled by the estimable Isabel Arroyo
Trump’s Demolition Derby
Molly Roberts assesses the president’s authority to tear down the White House East Wing and replace it with a privately funded ballroom. Roberts describes the administration’s legal justification for the demolition, the authorities that traditionally oversee White House construction and renovation, and how private donations to fund the ballroom’s construction skirt the restrictions of the Appropriations Clause and the Antideficiency Act.
The demise of historic preservation protections may not seem like the worst blow democracy has suffered of late. But the manner in which the White House has side-stepped rules and norms by coopting the relevant portion of the government, all in order to facilitate a presidential whim, should be familiar to anyone tracking graver harms.
Navigating Crises With a Lower Bar to Nuclear War
Andrew Facini details how tactical nuclear weapons significantly raise the risks of global nuclear conflict. Facini—using the May 10 near-nuclear escalation between India and Pakistan as a case study—outlines short-term steps governments can take to lower the odds of nuclear war.
By the early evening, long-standing “red lines” had been crossed, and the uneasy bounds of the relationship between Islamabad and New Delhi seemed to be crumbling. It was the most intense direct fighting between any two nuclear-armed states in history. Fortunately, behind-the-scenes diplomacy, a well-timed bilateral pause, and a healthy dose of luck produced a fragile ceasefire—a meaningful step back from the brink.
But a disconcerting question looms: How can two countries slide from limited conventional skirmishes to nuclear signaling in a single afternoon? While the proximate answers lie in the long histories and dynamics between the two rivals, a critical accelerant is found in the presence of—and reliance on—so-called tactical nuclear weapons.
A Primer on FBI Personnel Disputes
Peyton Baker examines the unique internal processes by which Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel can contest dismissals, explaining how policies intended to shield sensitive personnel decisions from the public are now facilitating the politicized dismissal of the bureau’s highest-ranking career staff.
This paradox reveals a deeper tension in the FBI’s disciplinary framework. Congress designed the bureau’s system to preserve operational independence and keep sensitive matters out of public litigation while retaining control within the Justice Department. Yet the same insularity that shields the bureau from outside interference weakens the procedural guardrails that protect its career leadership from politicized removal.
Two immediate issues follow. First, the meaning of “for cause” inside an agency with no external review is slippery. In most of government, that standard is enforced through MSPB or judicial oversight. Within the FBI, it is interpreted by the same officials who implement it. That structure leaves no neutral forum to determine whether a dismissal truly met the statutory threshold.
Podcasts
On Tuesday’s Lawfare Daily, Justin Sherman sits down with Sarah Powazek and Michael Razeeq to discuss the cyber threats facing states and the possible role of state cyber corps and volunteer programs in addressing those threats. They also examine the process of establishing a cyber corps, the impact of federal workforce and spending cuts on states’ cybersecurity, and what state and federal actions might improve states’ cyber postures.
On Scaling Laws, Brett Goldstein, Brett Benson, and Renée DiResta join Alan Rozenshtein to discuss the increasing sophistication of AI-powered influence campaigns, GoLaxy’s “Smart Propaganda System” and links to Chinese intelligence, and the difficulties of detecting influence operations.
On yesterday’s Lawfare Daily, Katsiaryna Shmatsina sits down with Gabrielius Landsbergis and Vytis Jurkonis to discuss Lithuania’s response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Lithuania’s path from Soviet occupation to independence and NATO membership, and the past and future of U.S.-Lithuania relations.
Today’s #BeastOfTheDay is the dolphin, seen here learning to do cartwheels:
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