Right To His Face
A newsletter actually filled with good cheer
“As you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale…. We’re sitting in one right now. Buckingham Palace, that you visited as well… And having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign, last several months, it’s not for sale. It won’t be for sale ever.” — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Donald Trump
Trump responded: "Never say never."
Carney was asked later what was going through his mind as he listened to Trump’s arias of grievance, fabulism, bombast, and buncombe in the Oval Office, Carney said, "I'm glad that you couldn't tell what was going through my mind."
Actually, we could. We could all tell what Carney was thinking, which was the more polite and more Canadian version of WTAF? How on earth did this addled man-child ever get here? And… serenity now, Lord.
But the important thing was that Carney sat there and told Trump to his face (in a more polite and more Canadian way) that he was a delusional crank if he thought his country was for sale. Which was never, ever, going to happen.
I would like to suggest that others — oligarchs, media moguls, fat feline lawyers, university presidents, and world leaders — follow his example.
Happy Wednesday.
I know that many of you feel overwhelmed by all of the Substack newsletters. There are a lot of claims on your time and your resources. And I get it.
So, one of things that I’ve started to do here is cross-post some of the best work out there. Subscribers have received posts from Anne Applebaum, Francis Fukuyama, Garry Kasparov, Harry Litman, Andrew Weissman, Cathy Young, Walter Olson, Adam Kinzinger, Julian Zelizer, and others.
More than 90 percent of you read everything we write and post for free — and I want to keep it that way, because you really can’t defend democracy from behind a paywall.
But I want you to know that I am deeply grateful for those of you who have become paid subscribers, because you make it possible for me to stay on this hamster wheel of crazy. I won’t promise that you won’t disagree with me from time to time, but I will promise you straight, sober, sane, (and snarky) commentary. And I hope to earn your support and convince others that what we do here has some value.
Our cup runneth over…
As you know, we tend to eschew irrational exuberance here, but I have to admit that the zone is flooded with good stuff today. Let’s start with this:
How bad was Martin? Joyce Vance counted the ways; from his racist chums and bizarre conspiracism, to his lawless bullying. Martin was, in fact, so hair-on-fire awful, that he was too much for a GOP Senate that was willing to swallow Pete Hegseth/RFK/Tulsi/Kash. Via Punchbowl:
Ed Martin’s bid to be confirmed as the top federal prosecutor in D.C. is all but dead after Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said he wouldn’t support the embattled nominee.
Tillis, who had expressed reservations about Martin’s views on the Jan. 6 attack, told reporters Tuesday he wouldn’t vote to advance Martin out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Republicans have a 12-10 majority on the panel, so Tillis’ opposition means Martin’s nomination would be deadlocked at 11-11 and couldn’t reach the Senate floor.
**
**
This is a BFD: “Newly Declassified Memo Undermines Trump Immigration Claims About Venezuela And TDA.”
Reporter Lauren Harper of the Freedom of the Press Foundation used the Freedom of Information Act to get her hands on a declassified version of an April 7 National Intelligence Council memo. It’s a doozy.
Ryan Goodman tells Andrew Weissmann: “The document directly contradicts a number of public statements, including claims in the Presidential Proclamation itself. It comes to a strong conclusion—by intelligence standards—that there is no connection between Maduro and TDA. In fact, TDA is in conflict with the Venezuelan government, reportedly engaging in fierce gun battles with government forces. So the idea that TDA is being directed by Maduro is fiction. And we’ll get into why that fiction was useful—as a legal pretext for invoking the Alien Enemies Act.”
**
Speaking of the Alien Enemies Act, another federal judge has rejected Trump’s use of the 1798 law to rendition migrants. The opinion, by Judge Alvin Hellerstein, is worth your time. Read this [I’ve removed some citations]:
This nation was founded on the “self-evident” truths “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, [and] that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Declaration of Independence.
Our Constitution embodies these truths, in a limited government of enumerated powers, in its system of checks and balances separating the executive, legislative and judicial branches, and in its guarantee that neither citizen nor alien be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” See Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 210-12 (1982) (extending these protections to aliens).
Yet, in March 2025, more than 200 aliens were removed from this country to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (“CECOT”), with faint hope of process or return. The sweep for removal is ongoing, extending to the litigants in this case and others, thwarted only by order of this and other federal courts. The destination, El Salvador, a country paid to take our aliens, is neither the country from which the aliens came, nor to which they wish to be removed.
But they are taken there, and there to remain, indefinitely, in a notoriously evil jail, unable to communicate with counsel, family or friends.
Respondents purport to act under Presidential Proclamation No. 10903, which invoked a 1798 Act of Congress, the Alien Enemies Act (“AEA”) to detain and deport suspected members of Tren de Aragua (“TdA”), a Venezuelan gang and designated foreign terrorist organization. Respondents cite only the section of the AEA that grants power to the President to “apprehend[], restrain[], secure[], and remove[]” aliens when “invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government.”
Conveniently, Respondents fail to mention another section of the AEA that imposes a “duty” on the federal courts to give a “full examination and hearing” to the Executive’s “complaint” against the alien, and to order the alien’s removal only upon “sufficient cause appearing.” Thus, under the AEA, and a recent decision of the United States Supreme Court, removal may not occur except after notice and hearing. The Court grants Petitioners’ motion for a preliminary injunction against removal.
You can read the whole opinion here.
Bonus: My Big TentUSA conversation with Ed Luce:
No, YOU are not the crazy ones, Chapter 956
Helluva lede on this NYT piece, “Trump’s Return to Power Elevates Ever Fringier Conspiracy Theories” [Gift Link]:
People who question whether the Earth is round — a fact understood by the ancient Greeks and taught to American children in elementary school — might have been political pariahs a decade ago. Now, they’re running local Republican parties in Georgia and Minnesota and seeking public office in Alabama.
FFS. But it gets worse.
A prominent far-right activist who has said, despite years of research and intelligence establishing otherwise, that the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, were an inside job by the U.S. government commemorated the 9/11 anniversary last year alongside President Trump.
And Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, pledged the agency’s support last month for a fight involving so-called chemtrails, a debunked theory that the white condensation lines streaming behind airplanes are toxic, or could even be used for nefarious purposes.
Conspiracy theories that were relegated to random and often anonymous online forums are now being championed or publicly debated by increasingly powerful people. Mr. Trump in particular has embraced, elevated and even appointed to his cabinet people promoting these theories — giving the ideas a persuasive authority and a dangerous proximity to policy.
Finally…
This is so sick.
Pro-Trump Daily Wire host Matt Walsh said he was glad Shiloh Hendrix raised over $600k after she called a child the n-word in a viral video, and dissected aspects of the video — like whether the child was really 5 years old and autistic.
Hendrix is the woman who raised over $640,000 after she was identified admitting to calling a child the n-word on a playground. In the viral video, Hendrix repeats the slur repeatedly and tells Sharmake Omar, the man who recorded the video, that the child earned the epithet by “acting like one.”…
Walsh went on to say that not only was he “glad” Hendrix raised so much, “I hope she raises a million” because he believes this was a victory in the final battle against “cancel culture.”
Her donors, he reasons, aren’t racists, they’re crusaders for free speech…
Exit take: Yeah, no. They’re racists.
**
Bonus: I’m apparently not alone in thinking that Trump is sounding kind of like a socialist these days.
Here’s Kevin Williamson in The Dispatch:
Donald Trump’s vision of the economy is classic socialism…
Trump’s view of a man at a desk moving pieces of the economy around like rooks and pawns on a chessboard is what socialism is all about—though the old tyrants in Moscow at least had the humility to assume that a committee of experts would be necessary to manage the economy according to “scientific” principles or at least the guile to pretend that they believed it, whereas Trump apparently has swallowed his own silly god-man horsepucky, being, as he is, an ass of exceptional asininity.
Wednesday dog
Back at the lake.
"People who question whether the Earth is round — a fact understood by the ancient Greeks and taught to American children in elementary school — might have been political pariahs a decade ago. Now, they’re running local Republican parties in Georgia and Minnesota and seeking public office in Alabama.
FFS. But it gets worse."
Here's a tiny bit of good news against that sh*t - Mansfield Texas (about 30 minutes from me), ousted 3 batshit crazy Republican Board of Education members, including the President and Secretary of the Board, in a special election last week! I'd like to say it's because the good folks of red-Texas have had enough, but it's more due to the fact that they couldn't be bothered to show up on a Saturday to vote. Luckily about 7-8% of the voting population did, and ousted them!
I love you, Canada! 💙🇱🇷❤️🇨🇦