Pam Bondi degraded, dismantled, and demoralized the Justice Department, securing her spot (until her replacement gets rolling) as the worst attorney general in recent memory. But, alas, she wasn’t bad enough. So the president is bailing on Bondi and has told Pam to scram. Is there no justice? All that corruption, all that damage to the department and her own reputation in the name of loyalty—and what did it get her? A one-way ticket to eternal Pamnation. What were her faults? In the eyes of the president, even after using up enough black redacting ink to fill the Capitol Reflecting Pool, she wasn’t protective enough of Trump when it came to the Epstein files, she wasn’t effective enough when it came to securing “indictments of people he referred to as ‘scum’ during a speech in the department’s Great Hall about a year ago,” and she wasn’t very good at communicating on TV (and we can’t have the greatest crime of all being committed by the nation’s top lawyer). NYT (Gift Article): Trump Fires Pam Bondi as Attorney General. Like many before her, Pam Bondi soiled her reputation and sold her soul for the promise of a payment to be made later by a guy famous for never paying his bills. Todd Blanche will temporarily take over for Bondi until Trump appoints a replacement. The only thing we can be more sure of than loyalty to Trump being unrequited is replacements being worse than their predecessors. After all, in 2026, the only law that really has any standing is Murphy’s Law. 2Rocket Man and Talk-It Man“His address did not come across as a wartime speech but instead was a disjointed series of complaints, brags, and exaggerations (along with a few outright lies) delivered by a man who looked and sounded tired. After his 19 minutes on the air—brisk by Trump’s standards—Americans could be forgiven for being even more concerned now than they were only a few days ago.” Tom Nichols: Maybe Trump Should Not Have Given This Speech. 3A Crisis of Biblical Proportions“When they prayed on the Sunday after Valentine’s Day, as on other Sundays, most of the women at King’s Way Reformed Church in the old mining town of Prescott, Ariz., wore dainty kerchiefs knotted over their hair to show devotion to God. Marybelle East, 36, wore hers all the time, she said — seven days a week — ‘for him to see that I submit to his authority.’ Her husband’s authority, that is. Her head scarf is a physical reminder of biblical patriarchy, the kind of marriage the church preaches. ‘It keeps me from running my mouth,’ she said. To her and the other women, patriarchy also means ceding their political voices to their husbands. They believe America would be better off if women could not vote.” NYT (Gift Article): The Women Who Believe Women Should Lose the Right to Vote. “If a decade ago the idea was just another extreme provocation, today it is gaining adherents beyond the fringe.” 4The Cig is Up“Smoking in the United States, at least according to official surveys, has plummeted to an historic low. Just 9.8 percent of Americans smoked in 2024, according to a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, down from 10.8 percent the year before.” But you wouldn’t know that cigarettes were losing their cool by watching TV and movies. And you probably wouldn’t know it by hanging around in Hollywood. The Ankler: Cigarettes Get a Sequel: Hollywood’s ‘Cool’ Bad Habit Is Back. 5Extra, ExtraIn Fact It’s a Blast: “A towering orange-and-white NASA rocket blasted off from Florida on Wednesday evening, lifting four astronauts toward space and transporting spectators’ imaginations to a future in which Americans may again set foot on the moon ... ‘We have a beautiful moonrise and we’re headed right at it,” said Reid Wiseman, the NASA astronaut who is the commander of the mission.’” Artemis II Successfully Kicks Off 10-Day Lunar Mission. Here’s a look at the launch in photos, and from a pretty enthusiastic group watching from nearby. To follow along, you can watch NASA’s Artemis II Live Mission Coverage. |