Dahlia Lithwick writes:

President Donald Trump is throwing himself a parade this week, complete with a flyover by the Navy’s Blue Angels and Air Force One, the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines standing by his side, and tanks that the District of Columbia emphatically does not want, although recent reporting suggests they will be parked and stationary, in an attempt to not destroy the roadways, as was originally planned. While historically, any Fourth of July celebration in Washington has been nonpartisan, this year the president will deliver a “Salute to America” address at the Lincoln Memorial. Perhaps he will spend it saluting America in a unifying and sober fashion, with no reference to his party, his enemies, or his reelection bid, but it seems much more likely that he will turn it into a Trump rally.

Putting aside for a moment the property damage and waste, the cost to a cash-strapped National Parks Service, and the horrifying authoritarian spectacle of a military tribute to one man’s ego, there is also the astronomical waste of taxpayers’ dollars to consider. USA Today spoke to a White House aide who estimated the cost to transport the tanks alone at $870,000; this helps explain how the cost of the scuttled military parade Trump wanted for 2018 added up to about $92 million. And while nobody will say precisely what amount taxpayers will be paying for this event, the government is currently detaining children at the southern border without access to toothbrushes, soap, socks, or their families.

Then, of course, there are the separate legal problems. CREW, the watchdog group that has been bird-dogging the administration on ethics violations, emoluments violations, and Hatch Act violations tweeted that it will be watching the “Salute to America” to determine whether the president will violate the Hatch Act when delivering his remarks.

As a refresher, the Hatch Act is a 1939 law that bars virtually all federal employees from engaging in partisan political activities. [Continue reading…]

Tom Nichols writes:

After being exiled by his own family to military school, Trump has repeatedly compensated for his subsequent evasion of military service by imagining himself as the reincarnation of George Patton. Other national leaders who ducked military service during Vietnam, from Dick Cheney to Bill Clinton, have usually had the good sense to be quiet about it. Even George W. Bush, who undertook the hazardous training of a fighter pilot, rarely drew attention to his careful choice to join the National Guard. When he showed up on an aircraft carrier swaggering around in a flight suit, more than a few of his admirers winced.

But only Trump, who continues to pontificate on his own courage and martial skill despite his obvious lack of both, is going to force the entire country to engage in a national exercise of play-pretend, with a pageant better suited for the leader of some tiny nation’s junta rather than the president of the United States. [Continue reading…]