their trust is broken
it is the nation’s chief threat
to the rule of law

Based on the NYT Opinion piece, A Malicious Chapter in the History of American Justice by David French (NYT 6-21-2026) where Mr. French writes:

When I’m in my more optimistic moments, I think we’ll look back at last year as the high-water mark of Trumpism, when the combination of arrogance after Trump’s victory and the inherent authoritarianism of the Trumpist project led to a unique period of state violence and legal corruption.

And now, my optimistic self says, the justice system is reasserting itself. The combination of personal courage, legal persistence and judicial independence is preserving due process and the American system of justice.

But optimism is no cause for complacency. Federal prosecutors in Illinois may be chastened, but Todd Blanche, the man who announced the bogus prosecution of the Broadview Six in the first place, is Trump’s nominee to replace Pam Bondi as the attorney general of the United States.

If he is confirmed, expect more vindictive prosecutions. Expect more prosecutorial misconduct. And expect more federal judges (and more American citizens) to say, along with Judge Perry in Illinois, that their trust is broken.

Why? Because the Trump administration is the nation’s chief threat to the rule of law.

According to the ever faithful Wikipedia, “The attorney general’s duties and responsibilities as the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government include overseeing the United States Department of Justice, enforcing federal laws, and providing both formal and informal legal advice and opinions to the president of the United States, the cabinet, and the heads of executive departments and agencies.”

Let’s put those thoughts togther shall we?

The Trump administration is the nation’s chief threat to the rule of law.

The Attorney General is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government.

As bizarre as it is that those two statements really exist in to the current world, I am as confounded to the point of disbelief and despair that there is a significant portion of the nation’s population that does not see any problem between the two statements.

Somewhere those founding fathers, Jim Madison and Al Hamilton and all those guys are sitting around a pool sipping beer and saying to one another, ‘… something went wrong here.”

I would say to them, our trust is broken guys, and it’s not on you.

inevitable,
immutable law, every
thing he touches … dies

It was back in 2018, in his book, Everything Trump Touches Dies: A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever (New York: Free Press, 2018), Rick Wilson wrote:

I can’t tell you everything the next two years hold, but I can tell you a few things I’ve learned on the road this year.

First, Trump inspires the worst in some people and the best in most people.

For every scumbag alt-Reich stain on the Republic, for every pipe-bomber or synagogue-shooter, he’s inspired 10,000 more people willing to be the Americans we should be: connecting, talking, knocking on doors, volunteering, and lifting people a little higher.

He’s inspired people from vastly different ideological backgrounds to try to fumble our way toward an understanding that the United States still deserves saving, and so we’ll fight out the ideological policy battles later.

The second thing I know is now approaching the status of an immutable, proven, and inevitable law: Everything Trump Touches Dies.

I didn’t really question the concept when I first heard this back in 2018.

Eight years later, the views of the Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC on life support really brought it home.

It IS 100% true!

Everything Trump Touches Dies.

And I still feel, the United States still deserves saving.

man whose idea of
principle – anything that
suits his need, pleasure

If it is Thursday, I must be turning to the NYT Opinion piece titled The Conversation, where two men, Frank Bruni a contributing NYT Opinion writer and Bret Stephens, a NYT Opinion columnist review the past week.

Mr. Bruni takes the liberal, Democratic view and Mr. Stephens take the conservative, Republican view of what went on and they discuss their views and compare and contrast.

Did I mention that Mr. Stephens is the Conservation Republican in this conversation?

According to Wikipedia, Stephens was previously a foreign affairs columnist and deputy editorial page editor at The Wall Street Journal, overseeing the editorial pages of its European and Asian editions.

From 2002 to 2004, he was editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post.

At the Wall Street Journal, Stephens won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2013.

Stephens is known for his neoconservative foreign policy views, including support for Israel and US military intervention in the Middle East.

In todays’ opinion piece titled, Trump Has Found a New Way to Fail Us, Mr. Stephens writes:

I supported the war from the outset and thought the cause was necessary and just.

But facts are stubborn things, as John Adams said. And the central fact of our time is that we are led —

I am using that verb in the loosest sense —

by a man whose idea of courage is bullying,

whose idea of honor is knavery,

whose idea of loyalty is convenience,

whose idea of patriotism is self-idolization,

and whose idea of principle is anything that suits his need and his pleasure.

Now excuse me while I throw up.

Just think if Mr. Stephens and that man currently in office weren’t on the same team?

Mr. Stephens also wrote:

But I’m struck by the way in which authoritarian pretensions and atrocious taste always seem to go hand in hand. Maybe it’s that moral ugliness tends so often to produce aesthetic ugliness. Whatever the case, the job of the next president will be to erase every vestige of Trump from the White House and any other federal property. Getting rid of Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center was only a start; I look forward to seeing the East Wing restored to exactly how it used to be.

Vance may be the only person in the administration who makes Trump look good. I mean, other than Pete Hegseth. Or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Or Howard Lutnick. Or Linda McMahon. Or, well, my point is: better an honest hypocrite than a pious opportunist.

As Mr. Bruni responded, “He may soon get a midterm comeuppance. Then the clock on his presidency starts ticking more and more loudly.”

In one of his books about Franklin D. Roosevelt (The Lion and the Fox), Historian James MacGregor Burns writes: In America, as Mr. Dooley once remarked, people build their triumphal arches out of brick so that they will have something handy to throw at the hero when he comes through.

But Mr. Burns fails to supply a citation.

I have if from my online research the Mr. Dooley (A Chicago Bartender in the late 1890s as imagined by writer Finley Peter Dunne) really said was, When ye build yer triumphal arch to yer conquerin’ hero, Hennissey, build it out of bricks so the people will have somethin’ convenient to throw at him as he passes through.”

But I cannot find a proper citation for that as well.

Still, let us repeat and heed the advice.

When we build a triumphal arch to that man currently in office, lets build it out of bricks so we will have somethin’ convenient to throw at him as he passes through

reminding the world
of its values … that seems like
a radical stance

Adapted from the article, A point of resistance’: the Normandy village that said ‘non’ to Pete Hegseth by Ashifa Kassam (The Guardian, 6/14/2026) where Ms. Kassam writes:

“I think our statement helped people to come out from the woodwork,” Richard said. “If it gave others the courage to speak up and say that they think the same, that they’re not OK with the ideology of the Trump government, that’s a good thing.”

The sentiment was echoed by [Julia , member of the Langrune en Commun, a residents’ association] Breen, who said she was proud to be part of an association that had emerged as a small “point of resistance” against those who had looked to protocol as a reason to remain silent in the face of someone who “promotes rhetoric that is bellicose, racist, supremacist and imperialist”.

She was swift to add, however, that what they had done in Langrune-sur-Mer was far from extreme. “It’s crazy that resistance today is just about reminding the world of its values,” she said. “And that doing so seems like a radical stance.”

As Edmund Burke really said, When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

Doesn’t this just sum it all up?

It’s crazy that resistance today is just about reminding the world of its values.

And that doing so seems like a radical stance.