Here is how the Navy should have handled it. “Former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis would never have agreed to this. But his successor may well have gone along with it. He is, after all, only an acting secretary, and desires the real title from a boss who likes to string ambitious men and women along. Naval officers of the past — a Preble or a Farragut or a Nimitz — would have disdained such requests. If called on the carpet, they would have spoken up and spoken back, with the firmness expected of officers from a service known for its ornery independence." This should be read in full.

The Justice Department cannot get a handle on how to spin Attorney General William P. Barr’s dissembling: “Simply put, it cannot possibly be true both that Barr ‘accepted the special counsel’s legal framework for purposes of our analysis’ and that his determination not to charge Trump with obstruction was made ‘without regard to . . . the constitutional considerations that surround the indictment and prosecution of a sitting president.’ ”

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Republicans cannot handle the exposure of their contempt for democratic elections. “So now the nation is in full possession of the reality that Russians — Russians, for cryin’ out loud — worked on the same side as every Republican volunteer, donor, elected official and Trump voter. . . . The simple reality is that the Republican Party was in business with Russian intelligence efforts, what used to be known as the KGB, and precious few leading the Republican Party seem to give a damn.” Read the whole thing.

Let’s see how Georgia handles the lost business resulting from its cruel and oppressive legislation. “Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger told Reuters on Wednesday it would be ‘very difficult’ for the media company to keep filming in Georgia if a new abortion law takes effect because many people will not want to work in the U.S. state.”

Let’s see how the Supreme Court handles evidence the administration lied in denying the real purpose of adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. “The disclosures represent the most explicit evidence to date that the Trump administration added the question to the 2020 census to advance Republican Party interests. . . . The filing on Thursday sought sanctions against the defendants in the lawsuit, led by Commerce Secretary Wilbur L. Ross Jr., who were accused of misrepresentations ‘on the central issues of this case.’ ”

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