Air force

• On March 19, 2024, Trump filed his brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith for Trump’s alleged criminal attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
• To support his contention, Trump cites Supreme Court cases, the Federalist Papers, and other writings from legal scholars.
• If a student of mine had submitted a brief making the arguments that Trump and his lawyers assert in their Supreme Court filing, I would have given them an F.

Sitting in judgment

• But it is not standard practice to characterize those cases and documents as saying one thing when they say the complete opposite.
• Trump begins by citing Marbury v. Madison from 1803, which is one of the court’s most consequential cases.
• Trump also argues that, according to the Constitution, “federal courts cannot sit in judgment directly over the President’s official acts.” This assertion is contrary to scores of cases where federal courts have reviewed presidential acts.
• That act grants the secretary of education the authority to “waive or modify” student loan programs during national emergencies.

Citing Kavanaugh

• But the main legal question remains – whether a president holds, as Trump claims, absolute immunity from criminal investigations and prosecutions for a president’s official acts.
• From a policy perspective, Trump claims that “functional considerations” warrant the absolute immunity that he seeks because if a president is subject to criminal liability, that legal exposure “will cripple … Presidential decisionmaking.”

• To further this claim, Trump relies on a 2009 law review article by Judge Brett Kavanaugh, then of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, who now sits on the Supreme Court.
• Trump quotes Kavanaugh, who wrote that “a President who is concerned about an ongoing criminal investigation is almost inevitably going to do a worse job as President,” which Trump provides as evidence of support for the position that a president requires absolute immunity.
• But even a cursory reading of Kavanaugh’s article reveals that Kavanaugh argued only for a deferral of a criminal prosecution until after a president leaves office.

Civil cases vs. criminal cases

• Trump urges the court to extend the presidential immunity established in this civil case to criminal matters.
• But he overlooks the fundamental difference between the civil justice system and the criminal justice system.
• The purpose of the civil justice system is to make an injured party whole again.
• But the purpose of the criminal justice system is to protect society, because crimes are understood to be harms against the public.

Wayne Unger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• The Ukrainian Air Force has submitted a formal request with Canada's Department of National Defence to proceed with the training.
• Two Ukrainian pilot instructors began training in October 2023 and have forged a productive collaboration with the Ivan Kozhedub National Air Force University (KNAFU) in Ukraine.
• This fighter pilot training pipeline will be essential to ensure Ukrainian Air Force air superiority once new Western fighters are introduced.
• ITPS Canada and its tactical training division the International Tactical Training Centre (ITTC) is a Canadian success story, as the world's largest independent school of flight test training.

• Developed for the 618th Air Operations Center (AOC) of the United States Air Force Air Mobility Command, the four new features address C2 challenges with response time to mission-critical requests for information.
• Air Force operators of any kind using Mattermost can leverage the features developed under this AFWERX Phase II to enhance mission intelligence shareability in real-time.
• Message Acknowledgement - Improves situational awareness and synchronization on mission intelligence through enhanced visibility of message receipt across the chain of command.
• User Group Management - Drives alignment across groups of rotating personnel during a mission, including operators and aircrews at the tactical edge.

• The Verizon Response Teams participating in the drills included:
  Verizon’s Major Emergency Response Incident Team (MERIT), a specialized team of hazardous material-certified Verizon technicians and engineers.
• Verizon’s Dedicated Impact Response Team (DIRT), technicians and engineers with specialty training in mobile satellite asset deployment, basic generator repair, and cable/connector making.
• Verizon Frontline Crisis Response Team dedicated to providing on-demand, emergency communication assistance during crisis situations to government agencies and emergency responders, on a 24/7 basis.
• Headquartered in New York City and with a presence around the world, Verizon generated revenues of $134.0 billion in 2023.