Judge Abandons Integrity for Trump and Spanking Returns in Schools
NBA's John Wall on Mental Health, A Dour "Rings of Power," AI Wins Art Prize, and More
This week’s news stories are much less about politics and more about popular culture. For me, pop culture is a greater predictor than politics of where society is heading and what its values are. Politics is the wave crashing on the beach, but pop culture is that swell out in the ocean that is building and building as it heads toward the shore.
‘Deeply Problematic’: Experts Question Judge’s Intervention in Trump Inquiry (The New York Times)
Summary: A judge appointed by Trump granted him his request that interferes with the investigation into his pilfering of 11,000 government documents, including Top Secret files. Law professor at University of Texas Stephen I. Vladeck called the ruling “an unprecedented intervention by a federal district judge into the middle of an ongoing federal criminal and national security investigation.”
My Take: Most legal experts agree that this ruling was unprecedented. Why wouldn’t the judge recuse herself from a case involving the person who gave her the job? That would be what anyone with professional and personal integrity would do. But integrity and judges appointed—or nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court—by Trump do not seem to go together. (For a thorough analysis, read Heather Cox Richardson’s Substack newsletter from today.)