Why Was There No Dog Shirt Yesterday?
The reason is simple
Good Morning:
I know what you’re wondering. You’re wondering: Why was there no #DogShirtDaily yesterday morning.
You’re thinking: I woke up. I sleepily reached for my phone expecting an email with a dog shirt. And it didn’t show up. I cried and cried—but mostly I just wondered: Does Ben still care? Has he been hauled away by the United States Park Service Police?Then I tuned in for #DogShirtTV yesterday and he seemed okay. And he didn’t even make reference to his neglect of me. And I wondered: What did I do? Is it just me or did nobody get a dog shirt yesterday.
Well, folks, put your minds at ease. The explanation is simple: I forgot.
I woke up all ready to send the post, the bones of which
had duly prepared. And I realized I didn’t have a good morning image. I muddled around for one briefly. And then I had #DogShirtTV, and then I had my morning editorial meeting, and then—all of a sudden—the day had begun. And before I knew it, @EJWittes was texting me in the early evening inquiring about what had happened to the dog shirt.Here then, a consolidated dog shirt for the past two days.
Tuesday on #DogShirtTV, we had a genuinely revolutionary show. Regular morning shows have guests and agendas, but yesterday I showed up with no guest and no agenda and lo and behold! A guest appeared out of the Greek Chorus with an agenda of her own.
The estimable Carol Tsang has apparently been holding onto a quibble with me over my characterization of Tokugawa Japan as totalitarian, and decided to join the show to disagree. Turns out she’s a retired professor of Japanese history, and she had lots to say about repression and resistance in the Tokugawa period:
Yesterday on #DogShirtTV, the show was only modestly less revolutionary, albeit differently so. Instead of having a topic and guest appear from out of left field, we just covered all of our usual topics in one show. The estimable
, the estimable John Hawkinson and I covered home renovation, Canadian politics, AI shenanigans, tariffs, the cactus, and so much more:The Situation
In Monday’s “The Situation” column, I discuss the forced resignation of my friend Michael Feinberg from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and ponder who or what will hold Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino accountable to the law:
And that leaves a bit of a problem: the exercise of arbitrary power by the leadership of the people who wield guns on behalf of the executive branch domestically with no mechanism of accountability for their flagrant abuses of power. Note that neither Bongino nor the FBI has bothered to deny Feinberg’s claims. Note also that nobody at the Bureau has dared to make the argument that it is lawful or appropriate for the deputy FBI director to make personnel decisions based on who someone’s personal friends are—much less to collect such information in the first place.
And in yesterday’s “The Situation” column, I discuss the decision by the Justice Department to open an “investigation” of John Brennan and James Comey based on the so-called “tradecraft review” at CIA called up by the not-at-all-estimable John Ratcliffe:
When the CIA conducts a completely inexplicable tradecraft review over an eight year old document at the director’s specific insistence; when he then grossly mischaracterizes that investigation’s conclusion in announcing it in a fashion that literally anyone can detect merely by reading the underlying material; when the Justice Department then immediately discloses a criminal referral and declares that it has opened an investigation of the matter, notwithstanding presumably prohibitive statute of limitations issues; and when all of this relates to a matter, and two individuals, that happen to be a personal obsession of the President of United States, a certain skepticism is in order.
So let me be blunt: I don’t believe there is an investigation—not a real one, anyway.
There is an announcement of an investigation. There may be a paper investigation that gets closed quickly because there’s no evidence that anyone committed any sort of crime, the statute of limitations of which would have run anyway. There may be a decision not to close anything and to feed occasional further stories to Fox News or like-minded news outlets because having an investigation open—like opening it in the first place—is politically useful.
But an actual investigation? Come talk to me when a grand jury issues a subpoena or hears from a witness. Come talk to me when an actual agent is deployed to make an actual inquiry of someone.
Until then, I’m going to assume that the Fox News story announcing the investigation is the investigation—and that the Situation continues tomorrow.
Recently on Lawfare
Compiled by the estimable Mary Ford
Lessons From 1955: A Framework for Navigating Technological Change
Kevin Frazier looks back at a 1955 congressional report on automation and argues that the report provides a robust blueprint for artificial intelligence governance.
What makes the 1955 report extraordinary is not merely its prescience but its comprehensive framework for technological governance. Rather than focusing narrowly on the technology itself, the committee examined automation’s implications across multiple dimensions: economic growth, employment patterns, educational systems, community development, government responsibility, and social cohesion. Their 11 recommendations (condensed to seven here given overlapping themes among them) offer a clear guide to adaptive governance—tech-agnostic principles that address the fundamental challenges of managing changes brought on by innovation.
Public Opinion Won’t Protect the Courts
Andrew O’Donohue, citing evidence from other democracies such as Mexico and Türkiye, explains that public opinion is insufficient in safeguarding the judiciary from executive overreach and that societal mobilization is a more powerful protector.
Two key dynamics explain why public opinion is usually insufficient protection for the courts. The first is that even when voters value democratic principles like checks and balances, they usually care more about concrete policy issues, such as immigration, crime, or the economy. Most citizens are policy voters first and democracy voters second.
Retconning ‘Russiagate’
Renee DiResta revisits the results of the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on Russian election interference, arguing that CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s response to a recently released Tradecraft Review of the ICA report presents a not-so-subtle rewrite of historical narrative.
Notably, however, the new review did not dispute the conclusion itself: That the Russians had favored the election of Donald Trump was not in question, nor was the judgment that they aspired to help. The Tradecraft Review was a process critique, not a substantive refutation.
Still, the release was immediately spun as exactly that. CIA Director John Ratcliffe gave an exclusive to the New York Post, which packaged a tradecraft audit that reassessed a confidence level as proof that the 2016 ICA was a “politically corrupted” hit job designed to “screw Trump.”
A Return to In-House Weapons Development
Nicholas Weaver argues that it is time for the United States or another Western ally to revive in-sourced weapon development. Weaver examines the major roadblocks to efficient weapons development as well as the main points of the “Springfield Dronery,” a plan for a government-led operation focused on the development of low-cost, tightly integrated small drones.
It is time for the U.S. or another major Western country—such as a member of NATO or Five Eyes, South Korea, Japan, or Taiwan—to bring back the tradition of in-sourced weapons development. Below, I consider the “Springfield Dronery”—dedicated to developing, advancing, and producing small drones in a tightly integrated, low-cost, explicitly government-led operation.
Podcasts
On Tuesday’s Lawfare Daily, Michael Feinberg joins me to discuss his career, his decision to resign from the FBI, and the current climate inside the Bureau.
On yesterday’s Lawfare Daily, Alan Rozenshtein is joined by Ashley Deeks, Class of 1948 Professor of Scholarly Research in Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, to discuss her most recent book, “The Double Black Box: National Security, Artificial Intelligence, and the Struggle for Democratic Accountability” and the use of AI in the national security space.
On Rational Security, Scott Anderson sits down with Molly Reynolds and Rozenshtein to talk through the contents of President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” that was passed last week, letters the Justice Department sent to major American tech companies over the extension of the TikTok ban, and the Supreme Court decision in CASA v. DHS.
Videos
On Tuesday, I sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower and Roger Parloff to take stock of updates in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case, the July 7 hearing in the case, and more.
Today’s #BeastOfTheDay is a turtle named Gary, seen here fucking it all up:
In honor of today’s Beast, don’t give up your seat to an elderly or disabled person next time you’re on the bus. Instead, endeavor to knock at least three other passengers out of their seats.
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