Friday Round Up! 1/24/25

Things are not fine.

Well, here we are, five days in to the new administration, and I know what I am not going to write about today.

I’m not going to write about whether Musk did a Nazi salute — twice — because we all saw it and if you’re actually debating it then you’re already trapped in the right-wing propaganda machine.

I’m not going to write about how I felt visceral revulsion upon learning that Trump had pardoned ALL January 6 defendants, including those who viciously attacked law enforcement and those who were convicted of [checks notes] seditious conspiracy — the closest crime we have to treason — for planning to use military-style tactics and weapons to prevent the peaceful transfer of power and even assassinate members of Congress and the Vice President.

I’m not going to write about the challenge to birthright citizenship because as a Reagan-appointed judge in Seattle observed in enjoining Trump’s EO attempting to ban this right, it is “blatantly unconstitutional.” (This is the legal equivalent of “duh.”)

I’m not going to write about the billion other EOs that were issued or revoked this week because honestly I am still trying to get through all of them, and Renato and I will be dissecting them in more detail in our podcast in the coming weeks.

I’m not going to write about the confirmation of a white nationalist, alcoholic, sexual and domestic abuser who actively promotes war crimes as the Secretary of Defense, because I’m still wrapping my mind around that it went through. And I won’t write about Senator Mitch McConnell’s 11th hour change of heart, when he literally could have put an end to this entire s**tshow four years ago by convicting Trump in his second impeachment and barring him from ever holding public office again.

I’m not going to write about Trump’s revocation of secret service protection from his own former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, and Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, both of whom are assassination targets by a hostile foreign power for their role in the killing of Iranian general Qasim Soleimani, or the removal of this protection from Anthony Fauci, who is a target of violence by Trump’s lunatic followers, including his newly-freed redshirt army.

And, I’m not going to write about the 17 Inspector Generals who Trump fired in a midnight massacre last night, which eliminates any independent, internal executive branch oversight and more or less ensures that a central channel for whistleblowers no longer exists.

I’m not going to write about any of these things because today I am going to take care of my mental health by going to brunch with a friend, enjoying the Yale-Harvard basketball game this afternoon, and playing with my cat. I very much hope you, too, will find three self-care activities to do today. And then we will regroup, and rally.

Meanwhile, here is last week’s pod, about that quaint institution called the Office of the Special Counsel and what we learned from at least one volume of his report. And watch through to the end — we have a spirited debate about crypto.

ANNOUNCEMENT! I am joining

The Contrarian

!

I wanted to make this announcement a couple of weeks ago, when the publication launched, but decided to wait until I had my first piece ready to go — which will debut on Monday!

The Contrarian was founded by my friends and colleagues, Norm Eisen and Jen Rubin, to counter the increasing inability of mainstream media to provide pro-democracy content without creating false equivalencies. It will feature both political and cultural commentary in defense of democracy with multiple daily Substack columns, a YouTube channel, podcasts, and more. The Contrarian offers free content alongside its paid subscription content, so please subscribe here and follow The Contrarian on Bluesky at @contrariannews.bsky.social. (The Contrarian will not be on X or Threads.)

I will cross-post my pieces from The Contrarian on this Substack as well, so stay tuned!

Articles worth reading this week:

• My friend

  Harry Litman
  wrote this piece for his
  Talking Feds Substack
  on the parallels between Trump’s and Hitler’s pardons of their goons

• This piece by Adam Serwer in The Atlantic on whether judges will be able to hold the line on even the most obvious of legal questions, such as birthright citizenship

Upcoming events:

• TOMORROW! Wine & Fries Club Happy Hour with Special Guest, CNN Contributor Elliot Williams, Sunday, January 26, 8 p.m. Elliot has been killing it on air lately but you may not know about his ninja baking skills or the cool book he is writing…we’ll gab about both. Zoom link will be sent to Founding Members three hours ahead of the event.

• Freedom Academy Book Club, Date/Time TBA (sometime in March). I’m so excited that the Freedom Academy Book Club selection for this quarter is Breaking Twitter: Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History by Ben Mezrich. You are likely already familiar with Ben’s work, as his book, The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook was the basis for the hit movie The Social Network, and his more recent book, The Antisocial Network, was the basis for the hit movie Dumb Money. I am fortunate to get to hang with Ben and his wife, Tonya, up in Quechee, Vermont, and we are very lucky to have him join us (sometime in March) to discuss Elon, Twitter, social media, and billionaires more generally! (I am actually also reading his other book, Bitcoin Billionaires, because I’m now kind of obsessed with the rise of the broligarchs.) The Freedom Academy Book Club discussions are open to all paid subscribers and recordings of the talks are posted after in case you can’t make it live!

Here is a palate cleanser to get you through the rest of this weekend: