When we mentioned last week that (Z) needed some extra recuperation time, due to a medical procedure, we were a little vague just in the interest of not being overly dramatic. There were many, many kind messages of support, and among those were a few readers who guessed what was going on. From that, we infer that there must be others who guessed, but did not e-mail. So, we think we should probably reveal the conclusion to the story. The procedure was a biopsy, looking for cirrhosis or cancer of the liver. (Z) is not a drinker, and has no family history of cancer, but the doctor thought it was wise to check anyhow. The results are in, and... there's no damage whatsoever. No cirrhosis, and definitely no cancer.

So, there you go. Again, many thanks for the kind and supportive messages! Those were good medicine over the weekend, when the discomfort level was still pretty high.

Minnesota Sues Trump Administration

If a prosecutor, or other officeholder, in Minneapolis is committed to the rule of law, then they are going to go all-in on trying to secure justice for the killers of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. If a prosecutor, or other officeholder, in Minneapolis is committed to the cause of advancing their own careers, then they are going to go all-in on trying to secure justice for the killers of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Whether prosecution is selfless, selfish, or both, we have always expected that this matter would be pursued with great vigor. And, by all evidences, that is what is happening.

Yesterday, Minnesota sued the Trump administration, seeking evidence from both of those two killings, as well as from the shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis. The state, represented by AG Keith Ellison, argues in its filing that information is being held back, and a cover-up is underway, and that this is all being instigated by people at "the highest levels."

We've taken the view that even the publicly available information (e.g., the videos) is likely enough to mount a case, and very possibly to secure a conviction, keeping in mind that juries like to see to it that someone pays a price when a crime is committed, and jurors have been known to be guided as much by emotion as by the law. If Minnesota can gain additional evidence through this filing, then that is gravy.

The White House may have already painted itself into a corner here, since the Department of Justice does not claim there is no evidence, but instead that the administration has no duty to share what they have with authorities in Minnesota. This is a shaky argument, at best, and federal judges are not likely to look kindly upon it. If someone in the administration destroys the evidence, that would be a federal crime. If the judges order the evidence be turned over, then "AG" Pam Bondi or anyone else who resists is likely to be found in contempt, and to be fined bigly until they take care of business.

Add it up, and we think two things: (1) Minnesota is going to get that evidence, sooner or later, and (2) This is not going away, and the officers who shot Good, Pretti and Sosa-Celis should be very, very nervous. (Z)

Alan Dershowitz Goes Off the Rails... Again

We are not sure what is going on with Alan Dershowitz, who used to be a pretty brilliant fellow. We're not talking about his move from moderately liberal Democrat to MAGA Trumper—those kinds of shifts happen sometimes. We're talking about his propensity to say utterly nonsensical stuff, stuff that is completely at odds with reality, and that is entirely unsupported by evidence. Is he just hungry for attention? Is he trying to sell books/a podcast/whatever to the MAGA faithful? Is he suffering from cognitive decline? Could be any or all of these.

Yesterday, he was at it again. Trying to execute a tortured comparison between the regime that leads Iran, and the regime that led Nazi Germany, Dershowitz decreed:

This is the most important war since 1939, since Nazi Germany. If Iran is allowed to develop nuclear bombs, [the Ayatollah] will do what Hitler did, and there will be millions and millions of deaths. Had President Trump been in charge in 1935, 1936, I think the Holocaust would have been prevented. I think he would have gone in after Nazi Germany, he would have destroyed it, the way he is destroying Nazi Iran, and the Holocaust would have been prevented.

He also said that any American who does not support the war in Iran is only doing so because they are "putting partisanship before national security."

Let's start with the utter lunacy of describing anyone you don't like and that you regard as evil as a "Nazi." It's outrageously offensive, and it's also outrageously ahistorical. The Nazis were a specific political movement with a specific philosophy who put a specific program into action. No matter how bad you think the Iranian regime is, and they are very bad indeed, they are not Nazis and they are not fascists. What they are is hardcore theocrats, which is similar to Nazism in terms of being often extreme and often violent, but is very different in terms of where authority derives from (Hint: God) and what the proper role/function of the government and the citizenry is.

Of much greater importance, however, is Dershowitz' nonsensical claim that, if the leadership had been different, the Holocaust could have been avoided. He kind of handwaves away the chronology that he's proposing, at various points making reference to the mid-1930s, the late 1930s and World War II (which is 1939-45 for Europe; 1941-45 for the U.S.). But let's examine why he is wrong, regardless of whatever phase of the war you are talking about:

1. Phase I, 1935-38: This was when Nazi Germany was at its most vulnerable (at least, until the final collapse in 1945). Adolf Hitler assumed power as chancellor and führer in summer of 1934 and promptly got to work rebuilding the German war machine, which had been severely limited by the Treaty of Versailles. If ever there was an opportunity to nip Nazism in the bud, this was it.
   
   However, there are also some insurmountable problems, both logistical and political. Among the former is the fact that the U.S. military, like all of the world's militaries, was significantly smaller and significantly weaker than it had been in the late 1910s and 1920s, thanks to the budget-cutting made necessary by the Great Depression. It is true that the German army was also smaller and weaker than it would be a year or two later, but an invasion of Germany is no small thing, and the Germans would have been overwhelmingly likely to successfully defend their homeland.
   
   Politically, it would have been near-impossible for Franklin D. Roosevelt to rally the public behind such a move, or to get Congress to sign off (and remember, back then, presidents did not tend to initiate military invasions on their own authority). In the early years of his rule, Hitler was a fairly effective leader, and American media was full of articles lauding his efforts at getting the German economy going again and getting the German people back on their feet. The crimes against Jews and other groups did not get serious until the late 1930s, and the mass killing did not start until 1940. It also does not help matters that American culture was pretty antisemitic back then, and that even if the worst parts of the Holocaust had been underway by 1936 or 1937, and even if people believed the reports were not just lies/rumors/fantasies, much of the public would not have seen saving Jews as worth the necessary expenditure of blood and treasure.
   
   
2. Phase II, 1939-41: As of 1939, Hitler was officially a warmonger and an invader of other nations; by September of 1939, he was also formally at war with the U.K. and France.
   
   FDR recognized that, sooner or later, the U.S. would probably have to enter the conflict. And he got to work right away, deploying his legendary political skills as he tried to rally public sentiment for intervention. Even then, it took him 2 years to make the sale. It also remained the case that, until late 1941, the U.S. military was pretty anemic, and the majority of Americans did not see value in rescuing Jews (or even in rescuing Europe). On the other hand, the German military was vastly stronger. A U.S. vs. Germany conflict in, say, 1940 would likely have turned very ugly for the Americans.
   
   
3. Phase III, 1942-43/44: As of the end of 1941, of course, the U.S. formally entered World War II. Once the country had properly rearmed, which it did in late 1941 and the first half of 1942, FDR had his first plausible opportunity to try to end the Holocaust.
   
   That said, you have to really bend over backwards to get to "plausible," because pursuing that goal would have been exceedingly impractical. The first problem is that the more imminent threat to the U.S., at least before 1943, was Japan, and so they got the lion's share of attention. The second problem is that once the U.S. Army was present in Europe in meaningful numbers, there were some very troublesome obstacles between Allied forces and the concentration camps, which were predominantly in Germany and Poland (with one each in what had been, and would be again, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and France).
   
   The waters around Germany and its conquered possessions were teeming with U-boats, which the Allies could not track. There were vast fortifications along much of the coast of Europe. Italy was a viable target, but the mountains in the north are nearly impassible, even if you conquer the southern two-thirds of the boot. Greece/Bulgaria were tempting, and that's where Winston Churchill wanted to go ("the soft underbelly of Europe"), but Joseph Stalin made clear that was an unacceptable threat to his sovereignty, and that if the Brits and Americans tried it, he'd stop fighting the Nazis and start fighting the U.S. and the U.K. So, FDR and Churchill chose Italy, and it was slow going, until they ran into the mountains, after which it was basically no going.
   
   
4. Phase IV, 1944-45: Here's where the real opportunity to finally end the Holocaust came. The U.S. was as strong as it ever was during World War II, the Russians were on the march and pressuring Germany from the east, and the development of radar and sonar considerably reduced the threat posed by the U-boats. All of this is what made possible the invasion of northern France in June of 1944 (the progress of the Russians also made it necessary, as FDR and Churchill rightly suspected Stalin would keep control over any territory he "liberated" from the Germans).
   
   From June 1944 to May 8, 1945 (V-E Day), FDR could have made liberating the concentration camps a higher priority than he actually did. The President, with his generals in agreement, decided that more lives would be saved, in aggregate, if the U.S. dismantled the German war machine as rapidly as was possible, rather than trying to get behind enemy lines to liberate the camps. His decision in this regard was made a little bit easier by the fact that the very worst of the concentration camps—that is to say, the death camps like Treblinka, Belzec and Auschwitz-Birkenau—were buried deep behind enemy lines (in Poland), and so would have been far more difficult to reach while German forces were still actively contesting the war.

In short, if FDR had made different choices, it might have been plausible to end the Holocaust a few months earlier, maybe even half a year earlier, although certainly at the cost of many American soldiers' lives. It is ridiculous to think that he could have ended it years earlier, much less a decade earlier. It is several orders of magnitude more ridiculous to think that Trump, who is endowed with a fraction of FDR's intelligence and his political skill, and who does not have a Congress dominated by his own political party, could have done it.

With all of this said, the purpose here is not to shred to pieces Dershowitz' dubious interpretation of history. That's just a bonus. It's really to highlight the mindset that has clearly taken hold among the MAGA war hawks—Donald Trump, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Dershowitz, etc. They have somehow persuaded themselves (or they always believed) that war is simply a matter of who has the biggest, swingingest dick, and the primary determinant of outcomes is whether or not the president has the will to actually use that dick.

If one indulges in this sort of thinking then it means, first of all, that there's no need for planning or other such annoyances. It also means that there's no need to build consensus around the war, since the leader has made his decision, and it's the duty of the people to fall in line—never mind that they might have legitimate reasons for their opposition.

Trump has already displayed this approach in his remarks about other presidents' wars. He arrogantly and ignorantly claimed that, if he'd been alive in the 1850s, he would have prevented the Civil War with his alleged dealmaking skills. He's also arrogantly and ignorantly claimed he could have done better with the Iraq War and with the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Oh, and he's also a fellow who said he could easily do better than Barack Obama did on Iran and, well, look where we are now.

This is the first time that the Trump mindset has been applied to a war that Trump is himself responsible for. He's not in the cheap seats anymore, he's front-row-center. This is why the joke we're seeing most often on social media these days (and we thank the readers who first brought it to our attention) goes like this: "What's the difference between the Vietnam War and the Iran War? Trump had a plan for getting out of Vietnam."

What is frightening is that if the people making the decisions don't get some humility, and some sense that no matter how powerful your military is there are limits to what you can do, then people will die. Lots of them. Just yesterday, Graham decreed that he would like to see the U.S. Marines invade Iran's Kharg Island: "We did Iwo Jima. We can do this. My money is always on the Marines." Undoubtedly, the Marines appreciate the well-deserved respect they are receiving here. However, Iwo Jima was one of the bloodiest battles of World War II, and it was fought well before the advent of modern missiles and drones. Graham is never going to be asked to put his life on the line, so of course he's willing to accept the risk here. But "Marines rule!" + "Well, we've done it before!" is lazy analysis, and is the kind of thinking that could lead to a bloodbath.

Surely, there has to be some adult in the room somewhere, right? Gen. Dan Caine? Secretary of State Marco Rubio? Someone? One can only hope they are able to step in and steer this situation before all the testosterone-fueled, wrong-side-of-40 bros, with their "If we can think it, we can do it" attitude, get a lot more people killed. (Z)

Things Were Interesting in Illinois

We wrote up the Illinois primaries last week, of course, because that is what we do. That said, we want to circle back, for a couple of reasons. First, we want to point out again that while it was a good night for Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL), it was a mixed result when it comes to progressives vs. centrists, with neither Democratic faction coming out on top. It was also a mixed result for big-spending super PACs, who got their preferred candidates in some races, and wasted a bunch of money in others. Of particular interest going forward is that AIPAC hid its expenditures in some races behind "shell" PACs, like "Elect Chicago Women" and "Affordable Chicago Now!" It would seem that the AIPAC brand is damaged, perhaps permanently. If people are now looking for AIPAC shells, some politicians might be leery of taking that money, for fear of damaging their campaigns.

Second, and more importantly, we got a fair number of comments from readers who know Illinois politics better than we do. We expected to run them over the weekend, but then... the weekend posts didn't happen. So, we're going to share a few of them now:

K.B. in Chicago, IL, writes: You wrote: "On the Democratic side, the voters favored the Pritzker-backed Lt. Gov. Julianna Stratton (D), who outdistanced the more lefty Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D), 40.1% to 33.2%."

This is not an accurate characterization of the race. Krishnamoorthi—who represents a somewhat swingy district in the suburbs—is widely considered a moderate. He tried to compete with Stratton with a series of anti-ICE ads, going so far as saying that he supported abolishing "Trump's ICE" (note the way this is worded means that he really wants to reform ICE), but it didn't work. Despite heavily outspending her early on and blanketing the airwaves for months, Krishnamoorthi fell far short. Stratton pulled off a surprisingly strong victory, even as Robin Kelly (who is also Black, and ran as the left-most candidate) took about a fifth of the vote.

Stratton relied on support of Pritzker, who has governed as what you might call a pragmatic progressive. The governor has been a vocal defender of immigrants in Illinois, and his criminal justice reforms have similarly made him quite popular with voters on the left. Pritzker certainly wouldn't be confused with The Squad, but he's far from a centrist.

All of these things being the case, I didn't see this race through the prism of left versus center. All of the major candidates ran pretty clearly to the left on immigration, even if Krishnamoorthi has a more moderate track record in Congress. Just as in Texas, where state Rep. James Talarico (D) won the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate as a soft-spoken white progressive Christian, the result in Illinois appears to be more about identity politics and style than strict ideology.

The same cannot be said for Illinois' 9th District, where progressive candidates took a healthy majority. An AIPAC-backed moderate received only 20% of the vote, despite a roughly $5 million infusion of negative ads against Daniel Biss and Kat Abughazaleh. The AIPAC attack ads—both online and in the mail—were relentless, and they didn't work in the 9th District.

It's also notable that the 9th has a very large Jewish community, which apparently supported pro-Palestinian-statehood Biss (who is Jewish himself) in sufficient numbers for him to win comfortably over the AIPAC-backed moderate Laura Fine. If you want to see this as a referendum on AIPAC, their candidate got 20% versus 80% for everyone else. Again, this is a district with a thriving Jewish community, which goes against the pervasive media narrative of lockstep support for Israel.

That being said, AIPAC did manage to push Melissa Bean (D) over the finish line in Krishnamoorthi's suburban seat, although it was much closer than in the 9th District. If Bean votes in lockstep with AIPAC, I imagine that she will be quite vulnerable in two years. She benefited this time around from a fragmented field, and I wouldn't be surprised if Krishnamoorthi attempts a comeback.

I also wanted to add that it's pretty telling that AIPAC was forced to use shell organizations—concealing its identity with innocuous-sounding names like "Elect Chicago Women" and "Chicago Progressive Partnership"—all but admitting that their organization is toxic. The ads didn't even mention Israel. One of their ads tried to boost a little-known progressive, hoping to siphon votes from Biss and Abughazaleh. They even put out ads accusing Abughazaleh of being insufficiently progressive.

In other words, a dark-money group meddled (and lost) in a Democratic primary using highly misleading messaging and sleazy tactics. AIPAC can't stand on its own two feet in a transparent way. Politics isn't beanball, and I get that, but this crap needs to be called out. It's exactly why voters are so cynical and apathetic. Democratic leaders need to make it clear that undemocratic meddling from right-wing billionaires is unacceptable.

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D.S. in Urbana, IL, writes: Begging to differ, there is no way Raja Krishnamoorthi is, as you wrote, "more lefty" than Julianna Stratton. Raja is definitely a centrist in his voting record, refuses to discuss universal healthcare in any meaningful way, voted to fund and thank ICE, and is heavily dependent on funding from AIPAC, AI backers, the health insurance industry, and crypto interests. He would be more conservative than Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL).

Stratton is very supportive of Medicare for All (6 of the 10 Democratic candidates supported universal healthcare), supports abolishing ICE, advocates for criminal justice reform, and is very strong on rights of women, immigrants, disabled, and the LGBTQ community. She is also the only one of the top candidates who unequivocally stated she would not vote for Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as Leader.

I think the final vote shows that Illinois voters saw through Raja's efforts to reframe himself as "progressive light."

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A.W. in Pittsburgh, PA, writes: A couple quick comments about the Illinois item: You characterized Raja Krishnamoorthi as "more lefty" than Julianna Stratton, but this is untrue. Krishnamoorthi was, in fact, the most centrist of the three major Democrats running. There are reasons why he drew a lot of support from corporate America and Republican donors, and his voting record in the House is very much that of a centrist Democrat—well to the right of Robin Kelly, the third Dem in the race. (Case in point: Krishnamoorthi, last summer, voted for a resolution "expressing gratitude" to ICE. Kelly voted against.) Meanwhile, Stratton had the endorsement of the very progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

Also, the Louisiana special election was not a D overperformance. It was a jungle primary, and the combined D and R votes basically matched the presidential result.

Last thing: To call Melissa Bean a moderate is generous. She's moderate in the same way as Joe Manchin or Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME). During her prior stint, she was one of the most conservative Democrats in the House. She will likely be on the right flank of the Democratic caucus, not in the middle.

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R.M. in Elgin, IL, writes: As a resident of Illinois I thought I would share my thoughts on the primary results from Illinois.

Lots of money was spent—around $92 million, including a major amount from Pro-Israel aligned PACs. The pro-Israel PACs had a mixed night, going 2 for 4 and losing the higher-profile races. I would get multiple mailings a day from the same candidate—so much money was being spent on TV, social media, mailings, and GOTV. I have never been offered a ride to vote in a primary before.

Good night for J.B. Pritzker, whose endorsements for U.S. senator and state comptroller were important factors in who won.

High turnout for an non-presidential year, with a large turnout of younger voters who voted for the more progressive candidates.

While a lot of emphasis was on Trump's ICE and pushing back on Americans being shot without consequences, the economy is still the number one issue. People saw Democrats bringing electric vehicle plants and jobs to Illinois, while tariffs and international military actions are resulting in everything costing more now, with Donald Trump in charge.

Thanks to everyone who wrote in to help improve on our write-up! (Z)

Things Are Interesting in Florida and North Carolina

There was a trio of special elections in Florida yesterday, plus a delayed result from North Carolina, all involving seats in the respective state legislatures. The leitmotif of the results: It's not a great time to be a member of the party in power in Washington.

The delayed result involves North Carolina Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger (R), who is described in virtually every article about the race as "The most powerful Republican in North Carolina." Not quite powerful enough, it would seem, as he has conceded to challenger Sam Page (R), who is currently Rockingham County Sheriff. It's a very red district, so Page will be elected to the seat in November.

The main issues in the election appear to have been mostly local, with Berger's efforts to bring a casino to his district a particular focal point. However, the GOP establishment went all-in on trying to save Berger's bacon, only to see him come up short (by just a handful of votes). That included an endorsement from Donald Trump, backed by several Trump-recorded robocalls. If Trump's power in North Carolina is waning, that could be important to this year's U.S. Senate election, where the Democrats have a strong candidate in former governor Roy Cooper, and the Republicans have a candidate who is closely identified with Trump in former RNC Chair Michael Whatley.

Moving on to elections that were held yesterday (the North Carolina election was 2 weeks ago), Trump suffered another black eye, this one in his own home district, Florida HD-87. Trump won that district by 9 points back in 2024, but yesterday, Democrat Emily Gregory flipped it, taking 51.1% of the vote to 48.9% for Republican Jon Maples. That is a swing of 11 points, and it's also the first time in this century a Democrat has won the district.

Incidentally, Trump did cast a vote in this one, presumably for the losing candidate. Since he's a busy fellow, he registered his preference via mail-in ballot. We are certain that we read about someone who said that mail-in voting is dishonest and encourages fraud and should not be allowed. We can't remember who that was, however; we'll have to look into it.

In the second special election, this one in Florida SD-14, there was also another flip, and it was even less expected. The general consensus was that Gregory had a good chance to flip HD-87, but that state Rep. Josie Tomkow (R) was likely to be successful in securing a promotion in SD-14, due to higher name recognition and a bigger war chest. As of Monday, the prediction market Kalshi had her at 94% to win. However, Democrat Brian Nathan, a Navy veteran and blue-collar union man, was victorious, taking 50.25% of the vote to 49.75% for Tomkow. Trump won the district by 7.5% in 2025, so that's a swing of 8 points in the direction of the Democrats.

The Republicans did get the result they wanted in the third special election, this one for HD-51, the seat Tomkow left behind to run for the state Senate. Republican Hilary Holley knocked off Democrat Edwin Pérez with room to spare, 54% to 46%. Trump won that one by 14% in 2024, so it's the smallest swing of the night, though still 6 points in favor of the Democrats.

It's yet another set of special election results that suggest momentum favors the Democrats right now. There isn't much excitement next week (runoffs in Arkansas is about it), but things will pick back up on April 7, when Georgians vote for a replacement for Marge Greene, while Wisconsinites pick a new state Supreme Court justice. (Z)

Full Court Press

When it comes to the First Amendment, the government is subject to different rules regarding restrictions on speech, dependent on the type of forum. So, for instance, in a public forum, the public's free speech rights are the greatest and the government's authority to regulate speech is very limited. In a non-public forum, the government can impose greater restrictions, but it still can't discriminate on the basis of viewpoint. And once it opens up a non-public forum to the press—like the Pentagon, for example—it can't grant or remove access arbitrarily and only to those it favors.

And yet, on October 6, 2025, the Defense Department instituted a new policy regarding the press' access to the Pentagon that was clearly meant to signal its disapproval with certain media coverage. In order to maintain their press credentials (a Pentagon Facility Alternate Credential, or PFAC), each outlet was required to sign off on new restrictions on who they could talk to and what they could report. The new policy characterized press access as a "privilege" and asserted that such access is "not a constitutionally protected right." It created new criteria for journalists to follow in order to maintain their PFAC, including prohibiting "soliciting" the disclosure of non-public information. Examples of solicitation include "direct communications with specific personnel" or "calls for tips encouraging employees to share non-public department information." A reporter could also lose their credentials if they were "reasonably determined to pose a security or safety risk" through, for example, "unprofessional conduct that might serve to disrupt Pentagon operations." The policy also prohibits soliciting something called Controlled Unclassified Information, or CUI; there are 113 categories of such information.

Many media outlets turned in their credentials instead of signing off on the new policy. That included CNN, Fox, The Washington Examiner, Newsmax and The Daily Caller. The folks that stayed are a veritable who's who of MAGA social media darlings, including Laura Loomer and Matt Gaetz, along with such hard-hitting news outlets as Project Veritas and National Pulse. Oh, and let's not forget the MyPillow guy, Mike Lindell, who said he was determined to make Trump "proud" of his coverage.

In response to these machinations, The New York Times sued on the grounds that the policy violates the First and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. And last Friday, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman of the District of Columbia agreed with the Times that the policy violates free speech rights and violates due process rights under the Fifth Amendment.

Friedman's opinion reiterated the long-standing protections of press freedoms and the dangers of "measures that would allow government to insinuate itself into the editorial rooms of this Nation's press." In a ruling on a motion for summary judgment, the judge concurred that reporters have a liberty interest in press credentials and that they can't be removed without due process. The Court also found that the policy was too vague to provide any meaningful notice as to what conduct would get the badge revoked. This, in turn, poses First Amendment problems since an overly vague policy has a chilling effect on the type of reporting journalists do. They might self-censor so that the department is "proud" of their work, like Mike Lindell is shooting for, in order to keep their credential.

The Court also found that the policy was being enforced arbitrarily. Supposedly, tip lines are prohibited, and yet an exception was made for Loomer's call for tips on her website. Similarly, James O'Keefe was granted a PFAC despite having been convicted for crimes involving trespassing and deceit, offenses that the policy states disqualifies an applicant as a safety or security risk.

Finally, the Court held that the policy discriminates on the basis of viewpoint. When the administration pointed out that conservative outlets also refused to sign off on the policy, the court said that only proved that the policy discriminates on "editorial viewpoint" and not based on political viewpoint—"whether the individual or organization is willing to publish only stories that are favorable to or spoon-fed by Department leadership." The Court concluded: "In sum, the undisputed evidence reflects the Policy's true purpose and practical effect: to weed out disfavored journalists—those who were not, in the Department's view, 'on board and willing to serve' and replace them with news entities that are. That is viewpoint discrimination, full stop."

As a remedy, the judge vacated the challenged provisions of the policy—those changes implemented by Donald Trump's Department of Defense. Thus, the plaintiffs are entitled to have their press credentials reinstated. As a final word, the judge quoted Justice Louis D. Brandeis, "Sunlight is the most powerful of all disinfectants."

So, how did DoD respond? In addition to the standard White House promise to appeal any adverse court ruling, the Pentagon has now closed reporters' physical workspace in the Pentagon—known as Correspondent's Corridor—and kicked everyone out. The reason given was "security considerations"—which is spokesperson-speak for "take your court order and shove it."

The Times immediately said it would go back to court, as this action is a violation of both the letter and spirit of the ruling. And indeed, it's hard to see this as anything but retaliatory. Perhaps DoD thought that "Well, since the judge said we can't just let in the media we like, then we won't let anyone in." But the Court also held that there are due process considerations here. The government can't act arbitrarily or for an unlawful purpose, like retaliation, in removing press access. They seem to be ignoring that part of the opinion. Like so much else with this administration, they're following an authoritarian playbook, of which transparency and a free and independent press are not a part. (L)

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