Valerie Plame is running for Congress. She has a great ad.
Recent Bluessky Posts- Jotwell Corporate: Andrew F. Tuch, Private Equity, Retail Investors, and Litigation Risk, JOTWELL (May 20, 2026) (reviewing Ludovic Phalippou & William J. Magnuson, Private Equity, Public Capital, and Litigation Risk, available at SSRN (Nov. 14, 2025)), corp.jotwell.com/private-equi.... May 20, 2026 Jotwell
- Trump has figured out the secret to getting away with astounding criminality: In modern politics it's not the crime that gets you, it's the cover-up. Other than the #epstein files, MAGA doesn't do cover-ups; all the financial thieving is loud and proud. May 20, 2026 Michael Froomkin
- Any DOJ settlement that gives the President a dollar -- or a direct material benefit -- is a plain-as-day violation of the Presidential Emoluments Clause: "The President shall not receive ... any other Emolument from the United States, or any of [the states]." Art II, S.1, cl. 7. May 20, 2026 Jed H. Shugerman
- It cannot bind, because you cannot rely to your detriment on a promise you make to yourself. The document itself is an unconstitutional violation of the presidential oath. May 19, 2026 James Grimmelmann
- Historian here this is literally about gutting the Reconstruction amendments especially the consequential 14th amendment piece by piece. May 19, 2026 Manisha Sinha
And you like the CIA
Not especially. There are actually 2 CIA’s: the ‘light side’ and the ‘dark side’. The light side does analysis. I had huge problems with the light side in the cold war, because I thought their analysis of the USSR’s capabilities was wildly wrong, and because I thought they were illegally spying in the US and on some US persons abroad (some of it was not illegal). Generally I’m not real impressed with the ideological assumptions that (as far as we know) shade the work today, although there are exceptions eg global warming. There’s also an issue with duplication among the US’s many, many, many, many, many spy agencies of which the CIA is perhaps only the visible part of a big iceberg. And let’s not forget the domestic spying, although here right now the NSA’ electronic domestic recording policies seem to be the biggest issue.
All this pales in the face of my dislike of one part of he dark side, the folks who do the spying and run the secret wars. But let us distinguish between the two: I do think the US needs spies; it is a dangerous world — and Plame was a spy. Spying, novels tell us, is a trade for patriots and rogues. In either case, I think it’s evil in most cases to hang them out to dry as Cheney did to Plame. I can can conceive of exceptions to this rule, but none are relevant to Plame, who seems very clearly to be, and have, been a patriot.
The problem is the secret wars. I think they are usually immoral and almost always illegal. (We do get local fig leaves sometimes). That’s the part of the CIA that needs to be cut back to almost zero.