Sunrise — 6:14, 6:25.

Write about anything you want in the comments.

"The same basic separation-of-powers principles that counsel against a court maintaining a prosecution over the executive's objection support dismissal with prejudice here."

"The executive's unilateral option for ending a prosecution—namely, a pardon—more closely resembles a dismissal with prejudice. And the executive's undoubted power to decline to initiate a prosecution leaves a citizen's liberty untouched. But a dismissal without prejudice creates a palpable sense that the prosecution outlined in the indictment and approved by a grand jury could be renewed, a prospect that hangs like the proverbial Sword of Damocles over the accused. Such an ongoing prospect of re-indictment is particularly problematic when it comes to the sensitive task of prosecuting public officials. There is an inherent risk that once an indictment has been procured, the prospect of re-indictment could create the appearance, if not the reality, that the actions of a public official are being driven by concerns about staying in the good graces of the federal executive, rather than the best interests of his constituents.... Dismissal with prejudice avoids those concerns and promotes another important separation-of-powers virtue— namely, accountability."

So writes Paul D. Clement, responding — at the request of the judge — to the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss charges against Eric Adams.

Here's the full text of Clement's response.

Here's the NYT article about it: "Lawyer Appointed in Adams Case Says Charges Should Be Dropped/Paul D. Clement also said a judge should not allow the Trump administration to use the court’s authority to compel Mr. Adams’s support in the White House’s mass deportation efforts."

"Tell me about the social media meme that's just different images of JD Vance."

For the annals of Things I Asked Grok.

From the answer: "This phenomenon has gained massive traction as of early March 2025.... The meme trend kicked off in earnest around October 2024, when an X user posted an edited image of Vance with slightly rounder cheeks, captioning it, 'For every 100 likes, I will turn J.D. Vance into a progressively apple-cheeked baby.'... What’s notable is the meme’s bipartisan appeal.... Vance himself has weighed in.... As of today, March 8, 2025, the JD Vance meme shows no signs of fading...."

pic.twitter.com/rPloNGHLej

— JD Vance (@JDVance) March 8, 2025

ADDED: That image relies on the Leonardo DiCaprio "Pointing Meme":

Mike Snowplowski, Sno'diggity, Snowceratops, Anne Pathaway, Princess Sleigha, and Plower to the People.

In what was a democratic process, the city of Madison has named 6 of its snowplows.

"Literally mutilating animals. Mutilating animals in demented studies that are like the worst thing you could possibly imagine from a horror show...."

"Some really some psychotic stuff that happens. So yeah, I mean the, I guess the, the, the, the real threat here is to the bureaucracy. So like, you probably saw like, you know, let's say, like, Trump as a threat to our democracy, which is ironic since he was elected with the majority of the, you know, popular vote. They, they started saying I was a threat to democracy. But if you, if you just replace threat to democracy with threat to bureaucracy, it makes total sense. Right. So, I mean, the reality is that our elected officials have very, very little power relative to the bureaucracy until DOGE. So DOGE is a threat to the bureaucracy. It's the first threat to the bureaucracy. Normally the bureaucracy eats revolutions for breakfast. This is the first time that they're not, that the revolution might actually succeed. That we could restore power to the people instead of power to the bureaucracy."

Said Elon Musk, on the Joe Rogan podcast last week.

I was re-listening to that because the part about "mutilating animals" and "the worst thing you can possibly imagine from a horror show" got quoted in this new article at Yahoo News, "Trump said the US spent $8m on transgender mice – he was right."

In his big speech last Tuesday, Trump spoke of "$8 million for making mice transgender," and anti-Trump media called him out, but a fact-check of the fact-check seems to have established that Trump got it right.

Sunrise — 6:32.

And here's a photo of the sun at 4:11 PM today:

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"The actor Gene Hackman died from heart disease at his home in New Mexico, most likely a week after his wife, Betsy Arakawa, died from the effects of hantavirus..."

"... a disease linked to rodents that can cause respiratory failure in rare cases, the authorities said on Friday. The revelation that the famous and reclusive couple had died of natural causes put to rest much of the speculation that followed the discovery of their bodies on Feb. 26. But it also raised new questions about the state of mind of Mr. Hackman, who investigators said had severe Alzheimer’s disease, and why the couple was not discovered sooner...."

The NYT reports.

Terribly sad to think of him, suffering from dementia and alone in the house with his wife's dead body. Had she been shouldering the entire responsibility to care for him, with no one backing her up, so that she could die and he would be helpless and no one would notice for a week?

"Mr. Musk, who wore a suit and tie to Thursday’s meeting instead of his usual T-shirt after Mr. Trump publicly ribbed him about his sloppy appearance..."

"... defended himself by saying that he had three companies with a market cap of tens of billions of dollars, and that his results spoke for themselves. But he was soon clashing with members of the cabinet. ... Mr. Musk and the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, went back and forth about the state of the Federal Aviation Administration’s equipment for tracking airplanes and what kind of fix was needed.... Mr. Duffy said the young staff of Mr. Musk’s team was trying to lay off air traffic controllers. What am I supposed to do? Mr. Duffy said. I have multiple plane crashes to deal with now, and your people want me to fire air traffic controllers? Mr. Musk told Mr. Duffy that his assertion was a 'lie.' Mr. Duffy insisted it was not; he had heard it from them directly. Mr. Musk, asking who had been fired, said: Give me their names. Tell me their names. Mr. Duffy said there were not any names, because he had stopped them from being fired.... In a post on X on Friday, Mr. Duffy praised Mr. Trump and the work Mr. Musk’s team is doing and said it was an effective cabinet meeting.... Mr. Musk, who later claimed on X that the cabinet meeting was 'very productive,' seemed far less enthused inside the room...."

I'm reading "Inside the Explosive Meeting Where Trump Officials Clashed With Elon Musk/Simmering anger at the billionaire’s unchecked power spilled out in a remarkable Cabinet Room meeting. The president quickly moved to rein in Mr. Musk" (NYT).

"The corruption needs to be immediately defunded. The F.B.I. should no longer exist as it’s constituted now."

"The mission should be divvied up. The money should be divvied up amongst other agencies that take the oath to their country seriously.”

Said Dan Bongino, in a 2023 podcast, quoted in "How Dan Bongino Would Run the F.B.I., According to Dan Bongino/The newly appointed deputy director of the F.B.I. has a long history of criticizing the bureau and its leadership. He has promised 'dramatic change'" (NYT).

Note: "The job, which does not require Senate confirmation, has traditionally been filled by a senior agent with vast operational experience and a deep understanding of how the bureau’s various divisions work. The last two deputy directors together had more than 35 years of experience before they assumed the role. Mr. Bongino served as a police officer and a U.S. Secret Service agent years ago, but has no experience with the F.B.I."

"The Trump administration is discussing pulling hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts and grant commitments to Columbia University..."

"... as part of the government’s efforts to penalize schools it believes aren’t doing enough to combat antisemitism. The Ivy League school has come under scrutiny by the Trump administration for an alleged failure to protect Jewish students.... A person with knowledge of the discussions said the university will have a 30-day review period to address the government’s concerns and potentially reinstate the contracts.... Columbia drew especially heated criticism from some alumni for what they perceived as the university’s tepid response...."

From "Trump Administration Weighs Pulling Hundreds of Millions in Federal Funds From Columbia/Move would target the Ivy League school over allegations of antisemitism" (Wall Street Journal).

"There's only so much he can do."

Remember when the left kept perpetuating the lie that “there's only so much Biden can do”about the border crisis? pic.twitter.com/HePFhZdLbL

— Lucy (@TheLucyShow1) March 6, 2025

To be fair, it's possible that the things Trump is doing to shut the border are things a court will one day tell him he actually can't do. For now, he's doing it anyway. Those who want to preserve their dignity after leaning hard into "There's only so much he can do" have a big stake in the litigation. We're still in the middle of things.

And here's the key line from Trump's March 4, 2025 address to Congress: "The media and our friends in the Democrat party kept saying we needed new legislation, we must have legislation to secure the border. But it turned out that all we really needed was a new President."

If the President wants to do something, he'll push the boundaries of power. If he doesn't, he'll see those boundaries where they justify his inaction. 

"I didn’t leave my England behind — I left somebody else’s idea of England."

Said Cyning Meadowcroft, quoted in "Briton builds medieval banqueting hall in rural Wyoming/Cyning Meadowcroft used the historical — and characteristically English — cruck carpentry method to build one of the tallest such structures in the world" (London Times).

Cruck construction dates back at least to the 13th century and refers to the use of naturally curved timber split in two to form an arch which supports the structure....

Meadowcroft, 59, a carpenter by trade, originally from Birmingham, has spent more than two decades erecting Angelcynn Heall west of the state capital Cheyenne for the “preservation of my culture.”

He likened his long-running project to historical resistance by the English to various invading forces: “If you’re locked up, if you’re dead, you haven’t beaten a system. But if you survive and you have something to leave behind, you’ve beaten it.”...

"A jailed Iranian musician who encouraged women to remove their hijabs has been flogged 74 times...."

"Mehdi Yarrahi’s sentence has now been completed after he was imprisoned in 2023... He had been detained days after he released the song Roosarito, which means 'Your Headscarf' in Farsi...."

From "Iranian musician flogged 74 times for hijab protest song/Mehdi Yarrahi was jailed and lashed for encouraging women to remove their veils, as the Islamic regime cracks down on artists and intellectuals" (London Times).

You can listen to "Roosarito," here, on YouTube.

Here's a word-for-word translation. Excerpt:

The cloudy sky feels blue facing you

Untie your hair, so that they drown in its waves
Pull back the curtain so that the sky feels delighted
You are the sun, so it is impossible that the night falls

No wonder the government is terrified. 

"[Juan] Hamilton became the handyman, assistant and friend of [Georgia] O’Keeffe when he was 27 and she was 85."

"He worked and travelled with her for the next 14 years, helping her to paint again as her eyesight was failing, to mount exhibitions and to publish an acclaimed book about her life and work. But it was also noted by neighbours in New Mexico that he was tall, dark and handsome. O’Keeffe’s former agent, Doris Bry, noticed that he was invited to accompany O’Keeffe on a trip to Morocco, apparently in her stead and later filed a lawsuit alleging that he was interfering in her business relationship with the artist. And after O’Keeffe died in 1986, without children, her surviving relatives noticed that he had been made the sole beneficiary of her $70 million estate and filed a suit, later settled out of court...."

From "Juan Hamilton, Georgia O’Keeffe’s caretaker and friend, dies aged 79/The artist’s assistant inherited her entire estate when she died in 1986, but her relatives sued him and they settled out of court" (London Times).

"President Trump has clipped the wings of Elon Musk by putting the cabinet in charge of federal firings after mounting complaints about the billionaire’s indiscriminate approach to cost-cutting."

"Trump told a meeting of his top team that it was time for the 'scalpel rather than the hatchet' after an outcry from voters, including in Republican districts, about the wave of sackings carried out by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge). This is the first time Trump has acted to rein in the X and SpaceX entrepreneur, who has built a far-reaching power base at the president’s side — cemented by unrivalled access to his home and inner circle — prompting Democrat complaints of a plutocratic takeover of the US government."

From "Trump reins in Musk after Doge sacking spree upsets rivals and allies/The president is putting his cabinet in charge of federal firings after voters complain about Elon Musk’s cost-cutting layoffs" (London Times).

This is not the first time that the Trump administration has taken the position that Musk only gives advice and does not take the actions he's recommending. His lawyer argued it in court last week — blogged here.

But I'm glad to see Trump clarifying the lines of power. And, as I've said a few times, there needs to be more respect and empathy for the ordinary employees whose livelihood is threatened. I wrote this on February 23rd:

"Late last year, Arthur Juliani, a 32-year-old research scientist at the Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies, was decidedly not taking ibogaine..."

"... but was ingesting something similar. He had obtained tabernanthalog, a research molecule designed to mimic ibogaine’s chemical structure and potential effects on neuroplasticity, but not cause any hallucinations. About 45 minutes after he swallowed his dose, Juliani started to feel a kind of 'spacious attention,' he told me. On a walk outside, he found that anywhere he looked appeared like a 'perfectly framed photograph, distinct and standing on its own.' When he went home for lunch, he ate a bell pepper 'in the slowest and most intentional manner I had ever eaten a vegetable in my life.'... If novel psychedelics and 'pseudo-delics' tickle brain receptors in a way that changes people’s subjective experience... can one confidently say that the people who take them aren’t tripping? As the pursuit of non-hallucinogenic psychedelics advances, the definition of a trip as something induced by a discrete set of substances is set to evolve alongside them. These days, the hottest new psychedelic drugs might be the ones that feel as close to nothing as possible...."

From "Tripping on Nothing New, non-hallucinogenic versions of psychedelics are blurring the boundaries of the drug trip" (The Atlantic).

My first reaction: We're just talking about paying attention. Why can't you find a way to pay attention on your own, using the natural resources of your magnificent human body? Why add drugs? Americans and their pills. Just stop!

My second reaction: This is the diet drug we've been waiting for! It will make you eat a vegetable — one vegetable! — slowly and with pleasure. This too, one might do without drugs — recall Fletcherism — but these are people who are already resorting to worse drugs, and — who knows? — at some point maybe you could internalize the capacity to call any vegetable and respond with cosmic joy.

My third reaction: This is how "they" turn us into the bleak, insignificant half-humans of the future: You will do nothing and you will be happy. (See "Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better")