Luigi Mangione Or At Least Some Vigilante
Trump is acting no less outside the law than Mangione or whoever gunned down the CEO of UnitedHealthcare.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement she has directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione. To preserve context, Mangione is accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, leaving behind shell casings labeled “deny,” “defend” and “depose.” Evidence Mangione carried out the assassination exists, but it is seemingly thinner than law enforcement would have the world believe.
I’m not litigating the facts in the Mangione case right now; there is a lot going on and people have finite time. Attention is not divided evenly, a personal tragedy or triumph can pull any of us away from the broad context of life. Even if you’re outwardly focused, think how this one murder has captured more than the usual share of law enforcement resources and public attention.
In 2023, there were approximately 19,252 reported homicide cases in the US. I’m willing to bet the Mangione case will get the law enforcement resources of the 20 most expensive murder prosecutions of 2023.
‘There Is Actually A Lot Going On’ should probably be the name of this newsletter. The worst traits of the startup business world, have turned the US federal government into a move-fast and break-things playground run by people too Machiavellian for the corporate world.
There Is Actually A Lot Going On
The result of the startup approach is looking like the end of rule of law in the US. In a court filing in March 2025, the Trump administration said it had snatched a Maryland father with protected legal status and deported him to El Salvador, but said that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction to order his return. What the hell kind of administrative error sends someone to a prison where they cannot be returned.
On March 2025 Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish-born PhD student at Tufts University was in effect black bagged by secret police. She has since been sent to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Louisiana against a judge’s order.
These are not isolated incidents of break it now, sort it out later. Here’s a list of several academics arrested or otherwise harassed by ICE under the Trump administration, Mahmoud Khalil, Badar Khan Suri, Kseniia Petrova, Momodou Taal, and Alireza Doroudi. To be maximally clear this is not a full list.
Oh yeah, and the Trump admin is seemingly defying some court orders. According to sources speaking to ABC News “Trump's administration made a calculated decision to ignore a judge's directive to turn around two flights containing hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members,”
The Trump administration also deported Rasha Alawieh, a Brown University professor with an American visa despite a federal judge in Boston ordering that the government could not take her out of the country without giving the court advanced notice. The administration is and will obviously continue to argue they are not defying court orders. The playbook of narcissism is at all times one of disputing reality.
The Third Term Third Rail
Trump told NBC News he won’t rule out seeking a third term in the White House. People are discussing this on the legal merits, a framing I find laughable.
When I told a joke about running George Clooney and Barack Obama with the slogan, “George can stay out of politics for the next few years,” several law professors including
informed me my proposal wasn’t legal. The insufferable 'Ain’t We Grand' ticket was prevented by the 12th Amendment barring someone constitutionally ineligible to the office of President from serving as VP.Here’s the thing. It doesn't matter to Trump what the law says. He will seek a third term if people in positions to enable him are willing to enable him. Trump will do whatever he is able to do.
Spare me the conversation about co-equal branches of government. Those traditions don’t matter, and the co-equal branches would only matter to a man like Trump if the Judicial Branch controlled the Marine Corps and the Legislative Branch controlled the army. Trump only cares about hard power.
The way things are going, if Trump is still breathing—even if barely conscious—he will seek a third term.
Luigi The Vigilante Or At Least A Vigilante
Morality has never really been a part of law in a nation founded with slavery and conquests of the indigenous peoples. For that matter the ethical canon of the legal profession is one almost indistinguishable as ethics when measured by any other ethical standard. But the US has had a legal structure, and although it often supports oppression, that structure gave everyone lines in which to color inside.
Trump has taken an approach that disregards any normal sense of morality and existing legal structures. Trump is acting no less outside the law than Mangione or whoever gunned down the CEO of UnitedHealthcare.
The laws of the land already favor the powerful doing what they want. Structural violence is not treated as violence under the laws of the United States. How many people died due to health insurance denials? We don’t have those stats.
A nurse I know has a full-time hospital job appealing denied claims from health insurers. She’s not alone in that role. She has a high success rate in appealing denied claims because most denials are bullshit. ProPublica published an article about how Cigna used a computer program to bulk-deny claims with little or no review.
For the insurance companies delaying means they hold money longer earning interest on those funds. Some people never appeal a denied claim, and insurance keeps that money as profits. If someone dies waiting on healthcare, the insurance company loses a costly customer.
A murder with a gun is alarming. A murder by non-responsiveness and bad faith,? That is just how things are in this world. The law favors Trump doing almost whatever he wants, and he’s still breaking the law. Don’t talk about this like the 12th Amendment matters.