Given what is at risk under this administration, it’s important to savor the wins and we’ve had several of them just this week.

Matthew Petracca, the prosecutor who indicted James Comey for posting a picture of seashells that spelled out “8647” has resigned. We do not know why he resigned, but the Department of Justice has had trouble finding prosecutors willing to risk their careers on the retribution prosecutions Trump wants. Several of them have resigned rather than seek indictments they know aren’t based in law.

A judge has enjoined the Kennedy Center from shutting down AND ordered them to remove Trump’s name from the building within 14 days. The Kennedy Center is appealing the order. Like SO many other things in the past year and a half, the problem here is that the name of the Kennedy Center is set by law. And that same law means the Center cannot simply shut down for 2 years as the current Trump-appointed board is trying to do. Notably, the Kennedy Center is a MEMORIAL with the full name “The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” Since Donald Trump is the sort of person to put his own name on someone else’s memorial, the board changed it to “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” Just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? I do not know the likely outcome of the appeal, but the president issued a long rant on his social media site stating he was working to transfer the Kennedy Center to Congress. The Kennedy Center was founded by law. Trump still has a fundamental lack of understanding of what the executive branch DOES. It is not up to him whether to operate the Kennedy Center. Congress passed a law to form it and that law sets up the center to operate under the Executive Branch. It is not within the president's authority to determine whether or not to run the center.

As part of the semiquincentennial celebrations, a state fair themed series of events is taking place on the mall. This included a concert series of smaller acts, several of whom tour the state fair circuit. On Wednesday, Freedom 250, a private-public collaboration formed by Trump, announced nine of the headliners for these shows:

Martina McBride
Young MC
The Commodores
Morris Day and the Time
Bret Michaels
C&C Music Factory
Milli Vanilli
Vanilla Ice
Flo Rida

Within hours of the announcement, acts started dropping out, saying they were misled by the organization as to the nature of the event. This is my former industry, and I absolutely believe the artists here. Flo Rida, Vanilla Ice, and Milli Vanilli have all confirmed they are appearing. Everyone else has dropped out. (Freedom Williams of C&C Music Factory said both that he was dropping out but also that he might play anyways. I’m counting him as a cancellation.) They lost two thirds of the bands they announced within 48 hours of the announcement. I have never seen anything like that happen before. The president’s brand is toxic and it’s mainly people like Vanilla Ice and Kid Rock who are willing to attach their reputations to his.

And finally the big one:

In response to a brief filed by dozens of judges, the judge who oversaw Trump’s laughable $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS has re-opened the case. Trump withdrew the case so he could set up a $1.8 billion slush fund to pay off the 1/6 attackers. The case was almost certainly going to be thrown out for several reasons. The statute of limitations had expired. Trump lied about when he first learned his tax returns had leaked, conveniently changing that date to exactly two years before he filed the lawsuit which had a two year statute of limitations. However his personal lawyer publicly addressed the leak months before Trump claimed to learn about it. Secondly, the Constitution forbids any payments from the government to the president other than his salary. And lastly, in order to have a valid lawsuit, there must be a disagreement between the parties. Trump was the plaintiff AND controlled the IRS, the defendant. The judge will now be examining these issues and addressing the claim that what took place was a fraudulent case in order to justify taking billions from the treasury to give to Trump’s most violent supporters. Expect the Supreme Court and/or Congress to be involved here at some point but there’s a strong chance Trump’s attempt to steal from the treasury to pay off 1/6 convicts is going to fail.