Her column is a good explainer of the nuts and bolts of the indictment — both of the three separate criminal conspiracies it contains, and the one charge it importantly doesn’t.
Jennifer Rubin’s column zooms out for some analysis of the larger post-indictment political scene. Her takeaways:
- Trump’s decision to run in 2024 was a “colossal miscalculation” and in no way protected him from prosecution.
- The GOP is now in even more of a pickle over whether to stick with their front-runner — and “be stained for a very long time.”
- Special counsel Jack Smith’s excellent work is done. Now it’s up to judge, jury and, ultimately, voters to finally renounce Trump.
First, though, she writes, “all Americans should savor a sense of relief” that there is accountability under the law.
Still, if you feel uneasy about the whole enterprise, you are not alone. As Ruth writes, “It is terrible, tragic even, that it has come to this.”
Chaser: The Editorial Board writes that an unprecedented indictment befits unprecedented abuse — and that what the charges show most of all is how dangerous a second Trump term would be.
From Interior Department Inspector General Mark Lee Greenblatt’s op-ed on the password-security lessons he learned from the exercise — all of which can be applied to the at-home computer user.
First, don’t make your password “Password-1234.” This was the most common one at the Interior Department. (I’ll give you a moment to change yours before proceeding.)
Greenblatt’s other tips could save you a lot of trouble, too. He’s an evangelist of multifactor authentication, “the gold standard for cybersecurity.” And he writes that passphrases, counterintuitively, are much harder for programs to hack than passwords are — while being easier for humans to remember.
Unless you’re meeting a secret-society mate, the phrase doesn’t have to be anything so rococo as “The black bear dances under the harvest moon.” As Greenblatt writes, “DinosaurLetterTrailChance” will do.
Chaser: In a 2021 op-ed, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand proposed the creation of a national Cyber Academy — a “West Point for technology defense.”
When Hunter Biden showed up a week ago for his plea-deal-focused Delaware court hearing, was anyone really expecting standard operating procedure?
Well, maybe Attorney General Merrick Garland, writes columnist Jason Willick, since Garland insists that the prosecuting Justice Department is entirely independent from politics.
Alas, Jason writes, “Wednesday’s hearing showed that more was afoot in the creation of this [plea] deal than standard legal give-and-take.” According to Jason’s analysis, small protections for the president’s son abound — and are sure to supercharge Republicans’ attempts both to discredit the Justice Department and implicate the elder Biden in the mess.
Of course, the party’s “bloodthirsty avidity makes it hard to tell if there’s anything” to the Hunter Biden accusations “beyond the smoke and cinders of a life destroyed,” author Joe Klein writes. But even if this is only the tale of a compassionate father and a troubled son (as Klein suspects is the case), President Biden’s behavior conveys “a permissiveness that damages his public reputation.”
Klein proposes a different way of parenting and argues it could benefit not just Hunter Biden but also the whole country.
Chaser: House Republicans would love to come after President Biden himself, in the form of an impeachment. But Paul Waldman writes that it would probably backfire.
- Trump has GOP leaders trapped, Greg Sargent writes, and new data on Fox News viewers shows why.
- The Editorial Board provides guidance for how to protect NATO from a second Trump term and his threat to withdraw the United States from the alliance.
- A grisly rape case has shaken India, contributing writer Rana Ayyub reports. Prime Minister Narendra Modi should take a stand on sexual violence.
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.
The third time’s the charm
If not with Trump indictments
Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!
