Legal News, Part I: John Roberts Won't Permit This (We Hope)

Donald Trump and his minions continue to spend a lot of time in court. And, as a result, the losses keep piling up. However, there is one case that is currently at the center of the Trump legal universe, namely the one that involves the flights to El Salvador, and is being overseen by Judge James Boasberg. Everyone's watching that case, because it's the one where the administration has come closest to open defiance.

That defiance continued yesterday, as the White House is not only failing to provide the information that Boasberg demanded, it is also peppering its filings with insulting language, accusing the judge of creating a "picayune dispute over the micromanagement of immaterial factfinding" and engaging in "unnecessary judicial fishing expeditions." To say this is out of the ordinary would be an understatement. And Boasberg is not pleased. He issued a brief order yesterday in which he characterized the information provided by the administration as "woefully insufficient" and laid out a strict calendar for compliance, with the first deadline arriving at 10:00 a.m. ET today.

There's no way to know how this will play out until it actually does, but Politico did speak with Shira Scheindlin, a retired federal judge who spent 22 years on the bench. Trump, of course, is beyond the reach of any judge, except the 100 judges in the Senate, roughly 53 of whom have no interest in exercising that power. However, the lawyers who are toting Trump's water are a different matter, and are definitely within reach.

If the folks who appear in Boasberg's court, or any other, do not abide by judicial orders, or perjure themselves, they could face criminal contempt proceedings. However, as Scheindlin points out, when we're talking federal court, responsibility for prosecuting such charges rests with AG Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice. Clearly, given how thoroughly Trump has corrupted the DoJ, that's a nonstarter. A judge could try to appoint a special prosecutor, but that opens many cans of worms, and probably wouldn't fly.

On the other hand, civil contempt is entirely possible. Civil contempt can be punished in three different ways. The first is jail time, which would certainly hurt those lawyers who end up behind bars, even if it's only for a few days or weeks. The second is fines, which can pile up quickly, and would probably hurt even more. And the third is referral to the bar for discipline, including loss of license, which would probably hurt the most. Truth be told, we've been a little surprised about how reckless some of the government's lawyers have been. Bar courts tend to be very unforgiving of professional misconduct, and Trump cannot pardon "I lost my Bar card."

Also worth keeping in mind is something we mentioned yesterday, but that is probably worth dwelling on a bit more: Chief Justice John Roberts' statement, in response to Republican calls for Boasberg to be impeached, that "For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose."

It's only two sentences (and that is indeed the entire statement), but it's a pretty clear warning to Trump and his underlings not to push their luck. Roberts rarely speaks out like this (and the last time he did it, it was also a warning to Trump in response to his attacks on the judiciary, back in 2018). He also has very little patience with attacks on the judicial branch, and has made his views clear in both his rulings and his annual addresses on the state of the judiciary.

And in Boasberg—obviously, not by choice—Team Trump has ended up with a particularly lousy target for their shenanigans. First, he's a veteran jurist with a stellar résumé. Second, he was appointed to various levels of the judiciary by both George W. Bush (first appointment) and Barack Obama (second appointment), so it can hardly be claimed he's a radical leftist. Third, Roberts has been an admirer for years, and has appointed Boasberg to several special posts, most obviously chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. And finally, the icing on the cake, as it were: Boasberg's college roommate was... Brett Kavanaugh.

The White House has most certainly been attempting to create the ridiculous narrative/precedent that the only court decision that actually "counts" is one from the Supreme Court. And the administration is making that argument, in part, because it buys them time to ignore lower courts and, in part, because they like their odds with a 6-3 conservative Court. But if Trump and his acolytes decide to take their battle with Boasberg all the way to the top, they are likely to find at least two conservative justices who are decidedly unfriendly to the administration's case. (Z)

Legal News, Part II: Paul, Weiss Makes the Best of a Weak Hand?

We would suggest that the above item gives some hope that, in the end, the guardrails will hold, and the system will ultimately work as it should. This item, by contrast, not so much.

As we noted earlier this week, the Trump administration put yet another white-shoe law firm in its crosshairs, namely Paul, Weiss. The problem, in this case, was that FORMER partner Mark Pomerantz was one of the lawyers involved in investigating and prosecuting Trump's porn-star payments, the ones that made him into a convicted felon.

In a corrupt-as-it-gets example of score-settling, Trump issued an executive order stripping the lawyers at Paul, Weiss of their security clearances, significantly limiting the firm's ability to work on federal cases. He also prohibited the firm's lawyers from interacting with federal employees or entering federal buildings (like, say, federal courthouses). The latter two provisions are probably unconstitutional but, of course, it takes a long time to resolve such issues. And time is money, particularly when there are 1,000 lawyers and their support staff on the payroll. Just this week, at least seven clients left the firm in response to Trump's order.

Under these circumstances, Paul, Weiss decided that a surrender was called for. In order to get Trump to cancel his executive order, the firm formally apologized for the "wrongdoing" of Pomerantz. It also agreed to end any DEI efforts currently underway. And finally, Paul, Weiss will do pro bono work for the government—$40 million worth.

It is not clear what the nature of this pro bono work will be. According to the press release, it will be related to "combating antisemitism" and "assisting veterans." But when this administration says it is "combating antisemitism," that's basically a load of garbage (see below for more), so it's hard to know what we're really talking about here. We also wonder if there will be some sort of malicious compliance, like the firm doing 40 hours of work, at an announced rate of $1 million/hour. Alternatively, lawyers are already strongly encouraged/required (depending on the state) to do some amount of pro bono work every year (usually 25-50 hours). If you take 50 hours, multiply it by 1,000 lawyers, and then multiply that by, say, $1,000-hour (which is pretty cheap for white-shoe-level representation), then you end up with $50 million. So, maybe Paul, Weiss will do the same amount of pro bono work it usually does, and will just say it's "for the government."

Whatever is going on, and however much of a concession that $40 million in legal work really is, this whole situation stinks to high heaven. If a 1,000-person law firm is somehow responsible for every case its staff works on while a part of the firm, and before joining the firm, and after leaving the firm, then that's entirely untenable (especially since part of being a lawyer is sometimes handling cases you don't agree with). And if a president can wave his pen around, and force a firm to eat both dirt and as much as eight figures in free legal work, that's also untenable.

Unfortunately, we don't see any way to address this new power that Trump has discovered for himself (and note, he's already gone after a couple of other firms, while there are another 20 or so who are potentially in the on-deck circle). If Paul, Weiss wanted to go to court and sue, they could probably win, but filing such a suit would run entirely contrary to the purpose for which they settled. Congress might be able to come up with a law that prohibits this kind of blackmail, but it's hard to know what that would look like, and besides, there's no way THIS Congress tries to do anything about this kind of corrupt behavior. Impeachment and removal would also be appropriate, but of course, that's not happening, either. All in all, it's pretty grim. (Z)

We Don't Need No Education: Antisemitism Was Just a Red Herring

In case you are wondering: Yes, that headline is indeed a reference to the movie Clue.

We've been trying to get to this for over a week, and now we've just got to bite the bullet and get 'er done, because events are moving fast. The Trump administration is working to upend the entire educational system, with an emphasis on higher education. Here's a rundown of the biggest storylines:

• De-Funding: Although Donald Trump is not terribly bright, he's got some very sharp and very conservative people working for him who are quite good at identifying the weak spots in the system. And if the goal is to stick it to universities, especially prominent ones, the weak spot is federal funding. He has a lot of power to turn off the money spigot (at least while he commands a federal apparatus that is more than willing to disregard the law). And so, that is what he's begun doing.
  
  Most notably, last week Trump said that he would cancel $400 million in grants and contracts that have already been approved and signed with Columbia University. The nominal reason Trump is giving is that he feels Columbia did not do enough to squelch antisemitism on campus during the pro-Palestinian demonstrations last year.
  
  And while Columbia is the first university to take incoming fire, it won't be the last. Another 60 universities have been warned that they are being investigated for not doing enough about antisemitism, while 45 more are under the microscope because of diversity-related programs, at least seven schools are the subject of discrimination probes because of their use of affirmative action, while Penn, several schools in Maine, and possibly other institutions are in trouble because they allowed trans women to compete in women's sports. Yesterday, in fact, the administration yanked $175 million in funding from Penn "over its policies forcing women to compete with men in sports."
  
  In some cases, the attacks on universities are indirect, and yet just as damaging. For example, the virtual elimination of USAID has cost Johns Hopkins $800 million in existing contracts. Poof. They are suddenly gone. The Bloomberg School of Public Health is now being forced to lay off almost 2,000 employees in 44 countries, including about 250 in the U.S., the largest job cut in university history. Johns Hopkins employs 150,000 people worldwide and is the largest employer in Maryland.
  
  The university ran programs all over the world to care for mothers and infants, provide clean drinking water, and offer life-saving care in many countries. It also ran 80 different research institutes focusing on maternal health, Alzheimer's disease, and gun violence. In a flash, all of that is gone.
  
  
• We Surrender...: None of this yanking of funds is legal; there is a procedure for cutting off federal grants, and it requires a fair bit of due process, not to mention some actual malfeasance. The legal term here is "breach of contract." Once a university has signed a contract to do certain work, the university is obligated to do the work and the government is obligated to pay for it. The president has no authority to cancel any contracts just because he wants to. It is not for him to decide how much action to combat antisemitism is enough, nor to dictate other university policies. And again, he has no legal authority to cancel existing contracts, most of which have nothing to do with the protests.
  
  The executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, Donna Lieberman, called the move an unconstitutional government effort "to coerce colleges and universities into censoring student speech and advocacy that isn't MAGA-approved, like criticizing Israel or supporting Palestinian rights."
  
  The problem here, not unlike the one faced by Paul, Weiss (see above) is that even if the law is on the universities' side, it takes a long time and a lot of money to fight a lawsuit against the federal government, and that's before you consider the risk of ending up before a Trumpy judge. Further, every person in academia knows that money that is budgeted for, say, FY 2024-25, and is not spent in FY 2024-25, tends to disappear into the ether, forever. In other words, a university could spend multiple years and tens of millions of dollars to win a lawsuit, only to lose out on hundreds of millions in funding while the suit is underway. That would be a rather Pyrrhic victory.
  
  This being the case, it's not surprising (even if it's disappointing) that Columbia capitulated yesterday, in utterly humiliating fashion. Given until the end of business yesterday to make a decision, the university's leadership agreed, among other things, to: (1) complete disciplinary proceedings against some of the protesters; (2) formalize a definition for antisemitism; (3) overhaul its admissions policies; (4) place its Middle East, South Asian and African Studies departments under "academic receivership;" (5) grant the university police more power to "control" protesters and (6) forbid people from wearing masks on campus unless they wear an ID badge with their name on it.
  
  
• ...But We Don't: While Columbia has effected a complete and unconditional surrender, not all universities are following suit. Last month, the utterly lawless Ed Martin, who is Acting U.S. Attorney for Washington, DC, and who expects to get the job permanently, decided to do some freelancing. So, he sent an absolutely bananas letter to William M. Treanor, Dean of the Georgetown Law School. Here's the key portion:

  It has come to my attention reliably that Georgetown Law School continues to teach and promote DEI. This is unacceptable. I have begun an inquiry into this and would welcome your response to the following questions:
  
  First, have you eliminated all DEI from your school and its curriculum?
  
  Second, if DEl is found in your courses or teaching in anyway [sic], will you move swiftly to remove it?
  
  At this time, you should know that no applicant for our fellows program, our summer internship, or employment in our office who is a student or affiliated with a law school or university that continues to teach and utilize DEI will be considered.

  Presumably, it goes without saying that dictating university curriculum is not Martin's job, any more than it's Treanor's job to tell Martin what cases to prosecute. It would also appear that Martin missed the day in law school where they taught the First Amendment, as he's violating both the university's and potential applicants' rights to free speech with his threats. Remember, this is the U.S. Attorney of the most powerful prosecutor's office in the country. And he's using his position for political purposes to threaten and intimidate universities. He should be disbarred or subject to disciplinary action and, in fact, Senate Democrats have called for that very result.
  
  Meanwhile, Treanor, who has been dean for 15 years and is regarded as one of the country's most influential educators, did not mince words in his response. He reminded Martin that the federal government cannot dictate a university's curriculum and that his threats violate the Jesuit school's first amendment rights of religious freedom. He also wondered if Martin, a practicing Catholic, really meant to threaten a "Catholic and Jesuit institution" whose religious mission is to encourage discourse among "people of different faiths, cultures and beliefs."
  
  It's worth reading the entire letter. Note that Treanor does not mention any specifics about Georgetown's curriculum or what may or may not constitute "DEI." Instead, he tells Martin that the federal government has no business telling its faculty what they can or cannot teach and that future employment cannot be withheld based on those demands. Oh, and did he mention that Georgetown is a storied institution in the "Jesuit and Catholic tradition"? Uh-oh, "DEI" meets religious freedom—you can practically hear Justices Samuel Alito's and Clarence Thomas' heads exploding. Treanor closed with a demand of his own: "We look forward to your confirming that any Georgetown-affiliated candidates for employment with your office will receive full and fair consideration." The implication here is that Georgetown Law might just know a lawyer or two, and might just file a suit or two if Martin decides to ignore the Constitution.
  
  One can only hope that other universities and financial institutions (looking at you Citibank) will take notice as to how to stand up to would-be authoritarians. That said, when hundreds of millions of dollars are on the line... well, the Columbia approach is probably going to be more common than the Georgetown approach. Sigh.
  
  
• Deportations: Another pressure point, beyond the federal funds, is foreign-born students and faculty. They tend not to have the resources to resist the federal government, whether that means money to hire lawyers, or maybe family to support them. The ones targeted by the Trump administration tend to be brown-skinned, and endowed with Spanish or Arabic names, which allows the White House to slur them as terrorists, gang members, invaders, etc. And some of them actually are in violation of the law, particularly if they are undocumented. We already had an item this week about Mahmoud Khalil, a grad student at Columbia who is currently being detained by ICE, and Rasha Alawieh, a professor at Brown who has already been deported. Since then, the administration has gone after Badar Khan Suri, a researcher at Georgetown, Ranjani Srinivasan, a doctoral student at Columbia, and Leqaa Kordia, an undergrad at Columbia. This list is probably not comprehensive; the administration is working hard to "disappear" people, and folks who don't have a lawyer or family might struggle to make it known that they have been arrested.
  
  (Z), incidentally, can give a little bit of firsthand information here. A couple of California universities have already had some ICE activity, and the faculty and staff at the rest are being trained as to how to proceed should ICE show up in their classrooms or at their offices. In particular, at UCLA, which had protests almost as high-profile as those at Columbia, it's seen as inevitable that the Trump administration is coming, probably sooner rather than later. And both campuses at which (Z) teaches have had instances of people not affiliated with the school prowling around and taking photos of students and of professors' offices. If you load up the blog one day and learn that (Z) was unable to complete that day's work by virtue of being in jail, it will almost certainly because he punched an ICE agent who illegally entered his classroom. Or, possibly, a snitch.
  
  
• The Department of Education: Conservatives have long hated the Department of Education, which was created on Oct. 17, 1979, when Jimmy Carter signed the act that Congress passed to establish it. They didn't like the idea that the federal government had the power to tell red states that they couldn't discriminate against LGBTQ+ students and had to make some accommodations for students with disabilities. It also meant that "segregation academies" and teaching only "creation theory" rather than evolution, might get some federal blowback. All in all, better to let (conservative) parents run the schools. Yesterday, Donald Trump signed an XO ordering Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to take "all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the States." This is after the DoEd already laid off half its workers. To formally abolish the Department, Congress must pass a law saying so. Very few Republicans in Congress want to go on the record opposing education, so de facto making it impossible for the Department to function will have to do.
  
  Some of the programs, such as Pell Grants, are probably too popular to kill, so they might be moved to other departments. It will be up to McMahon to figure out which programs are worth salvaging and find them a new home. And there is danger of a real backlash here. Most voters don't have a clue what the DoEd does. In 2026, Democrats could run on "Republicans want to abolish the public schools and replace them with private and religious schools." That is probably actually true, but slightly misleading, since abolishing the Department of Education doesn't do that. Still, voter ignorance could help the Democrats if they want to run with this.

Again, a lot of this, especially the attacks on universities, is being sold as combating antisemitism. And when we hear or read that, we're reminded of an old line from the actor Gary Cooper: "It's so phony. Nobody believes it." Cooper was actually talking about the John Wayne movie Rio Bravo, but it also holds here. Trump's administration is too full of people who are Nazi-curious, or just straight Nazi, for anyone to believe that the President cares about antisemitism. Further, the campus crackdown does little to foster an environment where people can think carefully and critically about these sorts of complex issues. This piece, written by Joel Swanson, a professor of Jewish Studies at Sarah Lawrence College, and headlined "What Are We Allowed to Say? How Trump's Department of Education has made it harder for me to teach Jewish Studies" is instructive on that point.

To the extent that Trump's campus crusade has anything to do with Judaism, it's about Israel. And specifically, it's about persuading evangelicals that the administration is fighting hard for Israel, and fighting hard against Israel's alleged terrorist enemies.

That said, the Israel element is a fringe benefit for Trump. Looming much larger is the opportunity to lash out at the educational system in general. As Politico's Irie Sentner points out, quite rightly, Republicans have hated universities for years. It's not a secret that the red team feels that way; J.D. Vance has said numerous times that "universities are the enemy" (apparently forgetting that he is himself the holder of two degrees).

These days, noncollege voters, especially noncollege white men, are one of the core constituencies of the GOP. And those voters particularly loathe both universities and those who are university educated. In some cases, it's from a sense of inferiority. In others, it's resentment about opportunities that [voter X] never got. In some cases, there are other dynamics in play. It does not help that university faculty and administration skew pretty liberal, in general (although the extent has been overstated, and their ability to impose that on their students has been WAY overstated). It also does not help that when a student enrolls at university, they are exposed to a lot of different worldviews and a lot of different cultures. This tends to change a person, and not usually in a MAGA direction. Also, universities teach reason and use of evidence, which is pretty much the polar opposite of "faith." And so, universities are perceived by those on the right as anti-religion. This despite the fact that there are plenty of people who are able to reconcile faith with reason, and to find a place for both in their lives.

In short, despite the administration's claims to the contrary, this is not "Fighting Antisemitism v1.0," it's really "Culture Wars, v.4553.96." And Trump is more than happy to lean into this particular crusade. He views students and professors as the enemy because they are not poorly educated and aren't inclined to bow down and worship him. Aspiring autocrats all try to destroy or silence all other power centers in their countries. This includes the legislative branch of the government, the media, law firms, universities, and the courts. So far, Trump is working hard on the first four. The courts may be tougher, but the rubber won't hit the road until the Supreme Court gets a case he really, really cares about and he announces in advance what decision he expects and what he will do if he doesn't get it.

If Trump is able to seriously damage the nation's top universities, Chinese President Xi Jinping will be thrilled. If colleges aren't educating the best students and doing groundbreaking research, it would be much easier for China to surpass the U.S. in numerous fields. If Xi is smart, he could award Trump the Medal of the Republic, the highest honor for service to China, and Trump would surely gratefully accept it. (Z & V & L)

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Goodbye, Blue Sky

For last week's theme, we gave the Friday hint that there was supposed to be an item with the headline "Today's Crazypants Roundup: We Don't Need No Education." That's actually the item that appears immediately above this one. On Saturday, we added: "If you are still working on the headline theme, the key is a particular rock band. And while we can't exactly give you their name, we can tell you, "The band is just fantastic, that is really what [we] think.'" And now, the solution, from reader L.M. in Ottawa, ON, Canada:

They are all lyrics from Pink Floyd's The Wall:

• On the Hill: Don't Give in... Without a Fight?—"Hey You"
• Judges to Trump: The Evidence Before the Court Is Incontrovertible—"The Trial"
• Captain Canuck: I Am Just a New Boy, Stranger in This Town—"Young Lust"
• I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Have I Been Guilty All This Time?—"Stop"
• This Week in Schadenfreude: I've Got Wild Staring Eyes—"Nobody's Home"
• This Week in Freudenfreude: Some Sunny Day—"Vera"

"We Don't Need No Education" is from a song that is not only the most famous one on the album (probably), but is Pink Floyd's only #1 single in the U.S.: "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)." And "The band is just fantastic, that is really what [we] think," is a slightly paraphrased lyric from "Have a Cigar," which is on one of the band's other albums, namely Wish You Were Here. "Goodbye Blue Sky," from the headline of this item, is from the song of the same name.

Here are the first 50 readers to get it right:

S.F. in Hutto, TX R.J.L. in Columbus IN W.A. in Red Lion, PA l.B. in Iowa City, IA S.J.S. in Mount Holly, NJ M.W. in Northbrook, IL J.D. in Indianapolis, IN B.P. in Salt Lake City, UT J.W. in London, England, UK A.T. in Elkton, MD L.M. in Ottawa D.P. in San Jose, CA D.G. in Lac Brome, QC, Canada J.M. in Somerville, MA J.A. in Denver, CO J.R. in Austin, TX F.W. in Nijmegen, The Netherlands K.W. in Manhattan, KS D.L. in Uslar, Germany M.S. in New York City, NY C.K. in Aston, PA P.C. in Vero Beach, FL R.S. in Landing, NJ R.P.E.H. in London, England, UK C.E. in San Francisco, CA

M.A. in Boston, MA C.B. in Lakeville, MN M.L. in Iowa City, IA D.L. in Plumas County, CA J.Z. in Baltimore, MD R.M. in Concord, NH S.J.V. in New York City, NY M.H. in Ottawa, ON, Canada S.F. in Pemberton Borough, NJ É. óhA. in Dublin, Ireland B.D.M. in Tempe, AZ J.A.W. in Queens, NY N.M. in Medford, OR J.M.R. in Muncie, IN N.G. in San Jose, CA P.H. in Williamston, MI M.S. in Penndel, PA K.D. in Alkmaar, The Netherlands A.M. in Brookhaven, PA J.G.B. in Natick, MA T.K. in Kirkwood, MO S.G. in Durham, NC K.H. in Maryville, TN J.P.M. in Eagle Mills, NY M T. In Wheat Ridge, CO

This one was either popular, or on the easy side, or both. The 50th correct response was received at 6:39 a.m. PT on Friday. So, about 2 hours after the posting went live.

As to this week's theme, it's in the Trivial Pursuit category Science, and it relies on one word per headline. As to a hint, we have probably mentioned before that there is usually one headline that inspires the theme, and the rest we work out from there. Once you figure out this week's theme, you would very likely assume that it was the Freudenfreude headline/item that was the inspiration, but that is not the case. In fact, for the second week in a row, the inspiration was a headline that isn't going to end up running, due to lack of time. Had we more time, there would have been a companion to the item above, with the headline: "We Don't Need No Education, Part II: The Trump Administration Is Re-Whiting History."

If you have a guess, send it to comments@electoral-vote.com, with subject "March 21 Headlines." (Z)

This Week in Schadenfreude: What a Wahoo

We are not sure we've ever had more readers suggest a particular story for "This Week in Schadenfreude" than we had for this item. Thanks to the multiple dozens of folks who sent this story in!

The target of schadenfreude here is Republican Justin Eichorn, who is clearly a very upstanding fellow. In his capacity as a state senator in Minnesota, he introduced an absolutely ridiculous show bill, one that would ostensibly have classified "Trump Derangement Syndrome" as a mental illness under state law. Here's the text of the measure:

'Trump Derangement Syndrome' means the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump. Symptoms may include Trump-induced general hysteria, which produces an inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology in President Donald J. Trump's behavior.

Even if the bill had become law, which was never going to happen given that the state Senate and the governor's mansion are both controlled by the Democrats, it's hard to understand how this could possibly have been relevant. Last we checked, the Minnesota state constitution and the DSM-V are different documents.

Still, after submitting the bill, Eichorn was clearly feeling pretty proud of himself, and was in a mood to celebrate. So, the married father of four hopped online, and resumed the conversation he'd been having with a 17-year-old girl. "I saw your post and [sic] chance you are still available tonight?" he asked. Later, he followed that up with "What's a guy gota [sic] do to get with the hottest girl online tonight." If there's anything worse than a total and complete lech, it's a total and complete lech with bad grammar.

Having made his arrangements, Eichorn headed out with $129 and a single prophylactic in his pocket. He must be pretty low on mojo. And he's also low on luck, because the 17-year-old girl he was conversing with was actually an undercover police detective. Oops!

All of this went down on Monday, and since then, things have gone downhill for Eichorn, to say the least. He was arrested, of course, and is still in prison as of this writing. His colleagues warned him they were going to expel him, so he decided to save face and resign (making a 34D, 33R state Senate into 34D, 32R until a special election can be held). And there are reports that the former senator's wife is going to file for divorce. Good enough for an obnoxious Trump cultist and aspiring procurer of underage sexual partners. Would 'twere Matt Gaetz lived in Minnesota... (Z & V)

This Week in Freudenfreude: See a Pike, Open the Dike

This is an entirely minor thing, and yet it's an example of the good that government can do with a little creativity and a little support from the general public. Such examples are useful to keep in mind these days, given the philosophy currently in vogue in Washington.

The story begins with a moat (Stadsbuitengracht) in Utrecht that is connected to a river (the Vecht) by a 95-meter lock called the Weerdsluis. The lock has been around, in some form, for more than 700 years, and has existed in its current form for more than 200 years. In fact, it is now a national monument. Clearly, the setup works pretty well for humans.

What it doesn't work so well for is the fish who swim upstream to spawn. While it is true that the lock opens and closes occasionally, it's not especially frequent, especially at this time of year. So, there was a problem with large numbers of fish congregating at the entryway, leaving them vulnerable to predators. Naturally, if a disproportionate number of fish who are about to reproduce are eaten before they can do so, that's problematic for the various fish species, and for the ecosystem.

Seeing the problem, a pair of ecologists—Anne Nijs and Mark van Heukelum—started working with the local government on a solution. And what they came up with is a website called The Fish Doorbell. The site has a webcam, underwater, that allows anyone around the world to monitor the water outside the lock. And, during daylight hours, there is a button that users can push to alert the lock keeper to open the gates and let the fish through. If you don't want to click through, or you're reading during nighttime for the Dutch, here's what it looks like:

There's also educational material for students, as well as a checklist for people to keep track of which species they've seen on the webcam.

By any measure, The Fish Doorbell has been a resounding success. It's now in its fifth year of operation, and has attracted millions of users from around the world in each of the five years (despite the fact that it only operates during spawning season). Last year, more than 9 million people logged in, and this year the webcam-keepers expect to surpass 10 million. It's a clear case where government is the solution, not the problem. Sorry, St. Ronnie of Reagan (and Elon Musk).

Have a good weekend, all! (Z)

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