As far as annual meteor showers are concerned, 2025 has saved the best for last. This year’s Geminids are not to be missed

One of the great pleasures of my life is a bacon double cheeseburger. The simpler the better. Meat, cheese, a good pickle, a lug of ketchup and some sizzling bacon. There's nothing particularly refined about it. And there's not much I'd choose to eat instead of it, whether I can get one from McDonalds, Burger King or a corner diner.

I'll say it plainly: I do not consider myself a connoisseur of anything. I am neither an epicure nor an aesthete. I like the things I like, and I like 'em simple and (where possible) I like 'em cheap.

Connoisseurship is widely understood to be a good thing: we call it a mark of sophistication - a form of self-improvement that deepens your relationship with beauty and pleasure.

I think this is almost exactly backwards.

In fact, I've started to believe that developing "refined taste" is one of the most reliable ways to make yourself worse off.

Let me explain.

Someone decides to "get into" wine, coffee, whiskey, or any other domain where refined taste is possible // encouraged. They read books, subscribe to newsletters, join clubs, and begin paying attention to what they're consuming instead of just consuming it.

Within a couple of years they have developed what they proudly call "a palate."

They have also, if they're being honest, stopped enjoying approximately 90% of the options available at normal human price points.

The cheap stuff they used to consume happily now tastes "thin" or "unbalanced" or possesses some technical flaw that their newly trained senses cannot ignore.

And yes, the wine expert experiences rapture at a great Burgundy that the casual drinker can never access. The trained musician hears structure and beauty in a symphony that the untrained ear misses entirely.

But I think we massively underestimate the costs and overestimate the benefits.

You spend enormous amounts of time and mental energy developing your discernment; you read, you practice, you compare, you discuss. This is time you could have spent doing almost anything else, including simply enjoying the thing you're trying to become expert at.

Simply: the aspiring coffee connoisseur who spends 200 hours learning to distinguish processing methods could have spent those 200 hours just drinking coffee and enjoying the hell out of it.

Then, once you've developed your refined taste, you've created an expensive new preference for yourself. Where before you were satisfied with a $12 bottle of wine or a $3 cup of coffee, you now need a $60 bottle or an $8 pour from a specialty roaster to achieve the same level of satisfaction.

You've shifted your hedonic baseline upward without actually capturing any more total pleasure from the experience. You are, in almost every way, worse off.

The casual coffee drinker has expectations that hover somewhere around "hot, contains caffeine." Almost every cup of coffee clears this bar.

The connoisseur has expectations calibrated to the best coffee they've ever encountered, which means almost every cup falls short.

You've traded a world where 90% of coffee is acceptable for a world where 10% of coffee is acceptable. This is not an improvement.

So why do people keep attempting to leap into the connoisseur category?

It's not a complicated question to answer.

Refined taste is a form of social currency. When you can discourse knowledgeably about single-origin chocolate or Japanese denim, you're signaling membership in a particular, educated, cultured, upper-middle-class tribe. You're demonstrating that you have the leisure time to develop these refined preferences, the disposable income to indulge them, and the social connections to learn the right vocabulary and opinions.

Connoisseur-ship is, basically, a very elaborate and expensive form of peacocking.

Which would be fine, I suppose, if people were honest about it. We pretend the acquisition of refined taste is a form of self-improvement. But what if it's mostly just competitive consumption?

Imagine you could take a pill that would give you all the functional benefits of the improvement without the social signaling value. Would you still want it?

If you could take a pill that would make cheap wine taste exactly as good to you as expensive wine, would you take it?

I think most honest people would say yes. The expensive wine doesn't actually contain more hedonic value; you've simply trained yourself to require more expensive inputs to achieve the same output. The pill would be pure upside.

But I think there are more than a few professed connoisseurs who would find the idea repulsive.

I'll admit: there really is something wonderful about understanding a complex domain, about being able to perceive distinctions that others miss, about having the vocabulary to articulate your experiences precisely. I don't want to deny this entirely.

But the joy of mastery is portable; it doesn't need to attach itself to consumption goods that will raise your cost of living and narrow your sources of pleasure.

If you want to develop deep expertise in something, develop it in something that won't make you more expensive to satisfy.

Become a connoisseur of free things: sunsets, birdsong, public domain blues recordings, the way light filters through leaves.

Or become expert in something productive, where your refined judgment actually creates value rather than just consuming it. Learn to distinguish good code from great code, or compelling prose from merely competent prose, and you've developed expertise that pays dividends rather than extracting them.

The trap of connoisseur-ship is that it disguises consumption as cultivation. You end up poorer in money and narrower in the range of things that can make you happy, but you get to feel like you've achieved something meaningful.

The lesson here is simple: be very careful about what you let yourself get good at noticing. Every distinction you learn to perceive is a new way for the world to fail your standards.

The critic's eye is a curse. Better to stay a little ignorant, a little undiscerning, a little easier to please. The man who can enjoy an Aldi wine and a fast food burger has access to pleasures that the refined palate has permanently foreclosed.

That kind of effortless enjoyment is worth protecting.

If you're young, or if you've somehow preserved your capacity for unselfconscious enjoyment, guard it fiercely.

Refined taste looks like elevation from the outside, and even on the inside it can feel like expanding. But it's actually a narrowing. Every palate you develop is a menu shrinking.

The happiest readers I know haven't built an identity around Proust. The happiest drinkers I know cannot distinguish a Burgundy from a Bordeaux. The happiest programmers I know use whatever works without agonizing about whether something might work better.

They are richer in experience than any connoisseur, even if their experiences are individually less exquisite. They read whatever looks interesting at the airport bookstore. They drink whatever their hosts are serving. They use whichever tool loads fastest.

The enthusiast might not be as refined as the connoisseur. But they have a good deal more fun.

Long ago, probably in a long-forgotten hotel room, I watched a 1974 movie called The Internecine Project — now available, as you’ll see if you follow the hyperlink, on YouTube. In truth, it’s a pretty bad movie. But what made it memorable was the unusual nature of the villain, played by James Coburn: An evil, murderous chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Yes, you read that correctly – an evil, murderous chair of the CEA.

In the opening scene, Coburn is on a talk show, being quizzed about the high rate of inflation. He responds that people shouldn’t be upset about rising prices, because their incomes are rising even faster. Presumably the scriptwriters intended this to show how smarmy and cynical he is.

And that’s why Donald Trump won the 2024 election. No, Democrats didn’t lose because they use big words, or advocate for open borders, or talk too much about trans rights. None of those things actually happened to any significant degree, regardless of what Trump or the self-defeating wing of the Democratic Party says. They lost because Americans were angry about higher prices and not mollified by the fact that most people’s wages had risen more than overall consumer prices. In this coming Sunday’s primer, I’ll talk more about the underlying economics of the affordability issue, and in the following primer I’ll talk about specific strategies for Democrats to adopt to address it.

But what I want to focus on today is the politics of affordability. As current polls show, swing voters are increasingly blaming Trump, rather than Biden, for the cost of living. And the public’s ire is likely to get worse for the Republicans as time goes on.

In the summer of 2024, as Trump was lagging in the polls behind Kamala Harris, he began to repeatedly and explicitly promise not simply to reduce inflation but to deliver large declines in consumer prices: “Starting the day I take the oath of office, I will rapidly drive prices down.” Although economists warned that there was no way he could deliver on those promises, enough voters believed him to swing the election.

Now that Trump has in fact utterly failed to deliver, those voters — especially those Black and Latino voters who believed him — have swung back to the Democrats with a vengeance:

Trump is handling this reversal with his usual style and grace: in the past few days he has repeatedly called affordability a “hoax” and a “con job.” According to Axios, he’s planning a nationwide retribution tour to convince voters that things are going great and that they’re wrong to be so down on the economy. Democratic strategists must be rubbing their hands with glee.

And if you are one of those Republicans reconsidering your future career options, know that things are going to get worse. A lot worse.

Lately I’ve been revisiting the work of the political scientist Suzanne Mettler. Mettler asked why so many people who are dependent on government social programs vote for conservatives who want to slash those programs. She focused in particular on Kentucky, where 28 percent of the population is covered by Medicaid, yet which gave Trump a more than 30 point margin last year.

My quick summary of Mettler’s analysis emphasizes two points. First, many people who benefit from government social programs don’t actually think of them as social programs. This is true not only for implicit aid like the tax exemptions for mortgage interest payments and employer-provided health insurance, but also for explicit aid programs like Medicare and Social Security. What Mettler documented is that many people who depend on government benefits don’t consider them “benefits” but rather something they’ve earned.

Second, Mettler documented that recipients of means-tested government benefits such as Medicaid and food stamps are relatively poor, less educated, and often fail to vote.

I will add a third point: Most Americans aren’t close followers of policy debates. Telling them how an election promise is likely to affect their future benefits simply doesn’t register for most people. Instead, there has be a clear demonstration of the policy change before it is made real to them. Take the example of Obamacare, which was famously unpopular before it went into effect. But once people experienced the benefits of Obamacare it went on to garner very strong public support. Furthermore, most people don’t mobilize in support of popular programs until it’s very obvious that they’re under imminent threat. Trump’s anti-Obamacare rhetoric during the 2016 campaign didn’t appear to hurt him, but his actual attempt to kill the program in 2017 helped Democrats win big in the 2018 midterms.

Which brings us to the health care earthquake that’s soon to hit — an earthquake that, based on my read of Mettler, is going to inflict significant political damage on the Republicans.

For those who haven’t been keeping up: The Affordable Care Act requires that health insurance companies offer the same policies to everyone, with no discrimination based on pre-existing conditions. It also provides significant subsidies to help people pay insurance premiums — specifically, limiting the amount families have to pay out of pocket as a percentage of their income — with the subsidies on a sliding scale based on income. These subsidies have an important secondary benefit: They encourage even healthy people to buy insurance, which improves the risk pool and therefore holds overall premiums down.

Mandatory disclaimer for liberals: Yes, it would be much simpler just to have single-payer healthcare, paid for with progressive taxes. But that wasn’t politically possible when Obamacare was created, and it still isn’t. Obamacare was more or less the best we could get.

As originally drafted, however, Obamacare was underpowered and underfinanced. Insurance was still hard for many Americans to afford, even with the subsidies. And there was an upper income limit for the subsidies: you still received substantial support as long as your income was less than four times the poverty line, but as soon as you crossed that line all support was cut off. This is the kind of “notch” everyone who studies tax and benefit policy is adamant that you want to avoid.

So in 2021 the Biden administration enhanced the subsidies. Out of pocket payments were reduced for everyone. And the “notch” was eliminated: maximum premium payments as a percentage of income were capped no matter how high one’s income was, although this limit wasn’t relevant for the truly affluent.

But the legislation providing these enhanced subsidies expires at the end of this month. And Republicans in Congress are adamantly opposed to maintaining them. Even Trump has pleaded with his party to agree to a temporary extension, but seems to be getting nowhere. Visceral GOP dislike for anything that helps ordinary Americans may be partly to blame. Moreover, bolstering the ACA would be an implicit admission by the Republicans that they have been wrong all along about health care.

So let’s think about the politics of what’s about to happen: Millions of Americans are about to see a sudden rise in health care costs — not a hypothetical future rise, but a sudden jump on January 1.

And who will be hit worst? Here are Charles Gaba’s estimates for Florida:

Almost all ACA enrollees will be paying more. However, the really huge premium increases will fall on older Floridians who are relatively well off — that is, those with incomes above the maximum allowable to receive subsidies. According to Gaba, these people are likely to see their insurance bills rising by more than $2500 a month — more than $30,000 a year! And these people, unlike many Medicaid or food stamp beneficiaries, have a high propensity to vote.

This ACA premium shock will hit as other forces are exacerbating the sense of crisis over affordability. Businesses are starting to fully pass onto consumers the cost of Trump’s tariffs. Electricity prices are soaring as data centers inflict the cost of their enormous power demands on consumers. In addition, Trump’s deportation policies are increasing the cost of food.

Trump may believe that affordability is a con job, but it isn’t. It’s going to hit him and his allies hard. And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving group of people.

MUSICAL CODA

Friends,

Today I want to share with you a statement by former federal judge Mark L. Wolf explaining why he resigned from the federal bench in early November. I found it sobering and troubling. The statement appeared in The Atlantic.

By way of background, Wolf served in Gerald Ford’s Justice Department at the same time I did, under Attorney General Edward Levi, who had been president of the University of Chicago. (I was assistant to the solicitor general; Wolf was special assistant to then-Deputy Attorney General Laurence Silberman — later a federal appeals court judge — and Edward Levi.) It was a time when Levi and the department struggled to recover public trust after the Watergate scandal.

Wolf went on to lead the public corruption unit at the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston, securing more than 40 convictions, including of officials close to Democratic Mayor Kevin White. Ronald Reagan named Wolf to the federal bench in 1985. He has been considered a conservative jurist.

***

Why I Am Resigning

By Mark L. Wolf

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan appointed me as a federal judge. I was 38 years old. At the time, I looked forward to serving for the rest of my life. However, I resigned Friday, relinquishing that lifetime appointment and giving up the opportunity for public service that I have loved.

My reason is simple: I no longer can bear to be restrained by what judges can say publicly or do outside the courtroom. President Donald Trump is using the law for partisan purposes, targeting his adversaries while sparing his friends and donors from investigation, prosecution, and possible punishment. This is contrary to everything that I have stood for in my more than 50 years in the Department of Justice and on the bench. The White House’s assault on the rule of law is so deeply disturbing to me that I feel compelled to speak out. Silence, for me, is now intolerable.

When I accepted the nomination to serve on the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, I took pride in becoming part of a federal judiciary that works to make our country’s ideal of equal justice under law a reality. A judiciary that helps protect our democracy. That has the authority and responsibility to hold elected officials to the limits of the power delegated to them by the people. That strives to ensure that the rights of minority groups, no matter how they are viewed by others, are not violated. That can serve as a check on corruption to prevent public officials from unlawfully enriching themselves. Becoming a federal judge was an ideal opportunity to extend a noble tradition that I had been educated by experience to treasure.

My public service began in 1974, near the end of Richard Nixon’s presidency, at a time of dishonor for the Department of Justice. Nixon’s first attorney general, John Mitchell, who had also been the president’s campaign manager, later went to prison for his role in the break-in at the Democratic headquarters at the Watergate complex and for perjury in attempting to cover up that crime. His successor, Richard Kleindienst, was convicted of contempt of Congress for lying about the fact that, as instructed by the president, he’d ended an antitrust investigation of a major company after it pledged to make a $400,000 contribution to the Republican National Convention. The Justice Department was also discredited by revelations that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had obtained and disseminated derogatory information about political adversaries, including Martin Luther King Jr.

I joined the Department of Justice as a special assistant to the honest and able Deputy Attorney General Laurence Silberman. Soon after, in 1975, President Gerald Ford named Edward Levi as attorney general to restore confidence in the integrity of the department. Levi, then the president of the University of Chicago, had a well-deserved reputation for brilliance, honesty, and nonpartisanship. Ford told Levi that he wanted the attorney general to “protect the rights of American citizens, not the President who appointed him.”

I organized Levi’s induction ceremony and was there when he declared that “nothing can more weaken the quality of life or more imperil the realization of the goals we all hold dear than our failure to make clear by word and deed that our law is not an instrument of partisan purpose.” For the next two years I served as one of Levi’s special assistants, working closely with a man who was always faithful to this principle.

With Levi as my model, in 1981 I became the deputy United States attorney and chief federal prosecutor of public corruption in Massachusetts. In about four years, my assistants and I won more than 40 consecutive corruption cases. Many convictions were of defendants close to the powerful mayor of Boston at the time. As a result, I received the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award and was appointed a federal judge.

Some of the cases over which I presided as judge involved corruption and were highly publicized. Most notable was the prosecution of the notorious Boston mobsters James “Whitey” Bulger and Stephen “the Rifleman” Flemmi. Both, it turned out, were also FBI informants. Agents in the bureau, I discovered, were involved in crimes and egregious misconduct, including murders committed by Bulger and Flemmi. I wrote a 661-page decision detailing my findings. This led to orders that the government pay more than $100 million to the families of people murdered by informants whom the FBI had improperly protected. Their FBI handler was convicted twice and sentenced to serve a total of 50 years in prison.

I also presided over a six-week trial of a former speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. After he was convicted of demanding and accepting bribes, I sentenced him to serve eight years in prison.

I decided all of my cases based on the facts and the law, without regard to politics, popularity, or my personal preferences. That is how justice is supposed to be administered—equally for everyone, without fear or favor. This is the opposite of what is happening now.

As I watched in dismay and disgust from my position on the bench, I came to feel deeply uncomfortable operating under the necessary ethical rules that muzzle judges’ public statements and restrict their activities. Day after day, I observed in silence as President Trump, his aides, and his allies dismantled so much of what I dedicated my life to.

When I became a senior judge in 2013, my successor was appointed, so my resignation will not create a vacancy to be filled by the president. My colleagues on the United States District Court in Massachusetts and judges on the lower federal courts throughout the country are admirably deciding a variety of cases generated by Trump’s many executive orders and other unprecedented actions. However, the Supreme Court has repeatedly removed the temporary restraints imposed on those actions by lower courts in deciding emergency motions on its “shadow docket” with little, if any, explanation. I doubt that if I remained a judge I would fare any better than my colleagues.

Others who have held positions of authority, including former federal judges and ambassadors, have been opposing this government’s efforts to undermine the principled, impartial administration of justice and distort the free and fair functioning of American democracy. They have urged me to work with them. As much as I have treasured being a judge, I can now think of nothing more important than joining them, and doing everything in my power to combat today’s existential threat to democracy and the rule of law.

What Nixon did episodically and covertly, knowing it was illegal or improper, Trump now does routinely and overtly. Prosecutorial decisions during this administration are a prime example. Because even a prosecution that ends in an acquittal can have devastating consequences for the defendant, as a matter of fairness Justice Department guidelines instruct prosecutors not to seek an indictment unless they believe there is sufficient admissible evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Trump has utterly ignored this principle. In a social-media post, he instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek indictments against three political adversaries even though the officials in charge of the investigations at the time saw no proper basis for doing so. It has been reported that New York Attorney General Letitia James was prosecuted for mortgage fraud after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, one of Donald Trump’s former criminal-defense lawyers, questioned the legal viability of bringing charges against James. Former FBI Director James Comey was charged after the interim U.S. attorney who had been appointed by Trump refused to seek an indictment and was forced to resign. Senator Adam Schiff, the third target of Trump’s social-media post, has yet to be charged.

Trump is also dismantling the offices that could and should investigate possible corruption by him and those in his orbit. Soon after he was inaugurated, Trump fired, possibly unlawfully, 18 inspectors general who were responsible for detecting and deterring fraud and misconduct in major federal agencies. The FBI’s public-corruption squad also has been eliminated. The Department of Justice’s public-integrity section has been eviscerated, reduced from 30 lawyers to only five, and its authority to investigate election fraud has been revoked.

The Department of Justice has evidently chosen to ignore matters it would in the past have likely investigated. Some directly involve the president. It has been reported that at a lavish April 2024 dinner at Mar-a-Lago, after executives from major oil companies complained about how the Biden administration’s environmental regulations were hurting their businesses, Trump said that if they raised $1 billion for his campaign he would promptly reverse those rules and policies. The executives raised the money, and Trump delivered on his promise. The law may be unclear concerning whether Trump himself could have been charged with conspiracy to bribe a public official or honest-services fraud. In addition, Trump himself may have immunity from prosecution if similar payments for his benefit continued after he became president. However, the companies that made the payments, and the individuals acting for them, could possibly be prosecuted. There is no public indication that this matter has been investigated by Trump’s Department of Justice.

As a prosecutor and judge I dealt seriously with the unlawful influence of money on official decisions. However, Trump and his administration evidently do not share this approach. After Trump launched his own cryptocurrency, $TRUMP, his Department of Justice disbanded its cryptocurrency-enforcement unit. The top 220 buyers of Trump’s cryptocurrency were invited to a dinner with Trump. Sixty-seven of them had invested more than $1 million. The top spender, Justin Sun, who was born in China and is a foreign national, reportedly spent more than $10 million. Sun also reportedly spent $75 million on investments issued by a crypto company controlled by Trump’s family. It is illegal for people who are not U.S. citizens to donate to American political candidates, and the most that anyone can donate directly to one candidate is $3,500. Ordinarily, the Department of Justice would investigate this sort of situation. There is, however, no indication that any investigation has occurred. Rather, a few months after Sun started purchasing tokens from the Trump-family cryptocurrency company, the Securities and Exchange Commission paused its fraud suit against Sun and his companies pending the outcome of settlement negotiations. (Sun and his companies have denied any wrongdoing.)

Trump is not the only member of his administration whose conduct is apparently shielded from investigation. In September of last year, Tom Homan, who became Trump’s “border czar,” reportedly was recorded accepting $50,000 in cash in return for a promise to use his potential future public position to benefit a company seeking government contracts. The FBI had created the fictitious company as part of an undercover investigation. Typically, an investigation of that sort would have continued after Homan became a Department of Homeland Security official, with the FBI seeking any additional evidence of bribery. However, after Trump took office, the investigation was shut down, with the White House claiming there was no “credible evidence” of criminal wrongdoing. Weeks after the FBI investigation was reported, Homan denied taking $50,000 “from anybody” and has said he did “nothing criminal.” An honest investigation could reveal who is telling the truth.

There is also the matter of Trump’s executive orders. A good number are, in my opinion, unconstitutional or otherwise illegal. For example, contrary to the express language of the Fourteenth Amendment, one order declares that not everyone born in this country is a U.S. citizen. Trump’s administration also has deported undocumented immigrants without due process, in many cases to countries where they have no connections and will be in great danger. Although many federal judges have issued orders restraining the government’s effort to implement those executive orders, some appear to have been disobeyed by members of the Trump administration. Trump has responded by calling for federal judges to be impeached, even though the Constitution permits impeachment only for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” such as treason and bribery.

Trump’s angry attacks on the courts have coincided with an unprecedented number of serious threats against judges. There were nearly 200 from March to late May 2025 alone. These included credible death threats, hundreds of vitriolic phone calls, and anonymous, unsolicited pizza deliveries falsely made in the name of the son of a federal judge, who was murdered in the judge’s home in 2020 by a disgruntled lawyer.

Over the past 35 years I have spoken in many countries about the role of American judges in safeguarding democracy, protecting human rights, and combatting corruption. Many of these countries—including Russia, China, and Turkey—are ruled by corrupt leaders who rank among the worst abusers of human rights. These kleptocrats jail their political opponents, suppress independent media that could expose their wrongdoing, forbid free speech, punish peaceful protests, and frustrate every effort to establish an independent, impartial judiciary that could constrain these abuses. These kleptocrats have impunity in their countries because they control the police, prosecutors, and courts.

In my work around the world, I have made many friends, young and old, who have been inspired by the example of American judges, lawyers, and citizens. They have suffered greatly for trying to make their countries more like ours. Among them are impartial judges who have been imprisoned in Turkey, a brilliant young Russian lawyer who was alleged to be a spy and forced into exile, and a Venezuelan law student who almost lost sight in one eye while protesting his country’s oppressive government. They courageously share what have historically been our nation’s convictions. These brave people inspire me.

I resigned in order to speak out, support litigation, and work with other individuals and organizations dedicated to protecting the rule of law and American democracy. I also intend to advocate for the judges who cannot speak publicly for themselves.

I cannot be confident that I will make a difference. I am reminded, however, of what Senator Robert F. Kennedy said in 1966 about ending apartheid in South Africa: “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.” Enough of these ripples can become a tidal wave.

And as Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney wrote, sometimes the “longed-for tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme.” I want to do all that I can to make this such a time.

Share

Friends,

On Monday, the social media account of Pete Hegseth’s so-called “Department of War” posted that the department is investigating Senator Mark Kelly, a retired Navy officer.

Kelly’s supposed offense? He participated in a video reminding members of the armed forces that they have no duty to follow illegal orders — a concept enshrined in the Code of Military Justice, the shameful case of Lt. William Calley during the Vietnam War, the Geneva Conventions, and the Nuremberg Trials.

I’ve known Mark for several decades. I saw him pilot rockets into space. I gave a blessing at his marriage to Gabby Giffords.

I visited with Mark soon after Gabby was shot. He was brave, steadfast. If she survived (which wasn’t at all clear at the time), he was determined to go on with their lives together, doing whatever needed to be done. He has done that. Today, although not entirely recovered, she lives a reasonably full life, and they continue to support each other in every way.

When Mark ran for Senate, he was equally determined to go on with the work Gabby had begun as a member of Congress.

Few people are more dedicated to the ideals of America and the principles of the Constitution than Mark Kelly.

As for Pete Hegseth, well, the less said the better.

The contrast between Mark Kelly and Pete “Whiskeyleaks” Hegseth or Donald “Bonespurs” Trump couldn’t be larger.

The social media announcement put out by Hegseth’s “Department of War” mentioned “serious allegations of misconduct” against Kelly, suggesting that Kelly could be recalled to active duty “for court-martial proceedings or administrative measures.”

This is a dangerous move — almost as dangerous as putting federal troops into American cities over the objections of their mayors and governors or killing sailors on vessels in international waters because they’re “suspected” of smuggling drugs.

Trump likes military tribunals because they don’t require the same extent of due process as regular trials — and Trump has shown his contempt for due process. In the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump called for those he perceives to be his enemies to be prosecuted in military tribunals. He said former representative Liz Cheney was “guilty of treason” because she participated in the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Kelly has posted:

“When I was 22 years old, I commissioned as an Ensign in the United States Navy and swore an oath to the Constitution. I upheld that oath through flight school, multiple deployments on the USS Midway, 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm, test pilot school, four space shuttle flights at NASA, and every day since I retired—which I did after my wife Gabby was shot in the head while serving her constituents.

“In combat, I had a missile blow up next to my jet and flew through anti-aircraft fire to drop bombs on enemy targets. At NASA, I launched on a rocket, commanded the space shuttle, and was part of the recovery mission that brought home the bodies of my astronaut classmates who died on Columbia. I did all of this in service to this country that I love and has given me so much.

“Secretary Hegseth’s tweet is the first I heard of this. I also saw the President’s posts saying I should be arrested, hanged, and put to death.

“If this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won’t work. I’ve given too much to this country to be silenced by bullies who care more about their own power than protecting the Constitution.”

Today, Kelly refuses to be silenced by a disreputable secretary of defense and a twice-impeached occupant of the Oval Office who’s been convicted of 34 felonies.

I believe Mark Kelly would make an excellent president.

Share