• Show Notes

Dear Reader,

I am sitting in my home office as I ponder what to write. A good amount of snow has fallen, and it’s beautiful. We got maybe six or seven inches. Further upstate, in places like Binghamton, a whopping 44 inches of powder fell. Schools here have declared a snow day, even though learning has been largely remote and messy roads are obviously no obstacle to class when wifi still works. I asked the CAFE team if I too could take advantage of the winter storm, announce a snow day, and excuse myself from writing this week’s note. My request was declined, in part because it will be my last missive of the year.

But they said I could make it short, and I didn’t have to address law or politics. I had originally thought perhaps I’d write about the propriety of a special counsel in the Hunter Biden matter. Or the pardon power and how it will be abused in the coming weeks. Or Bill Barr’s legacy. Or Justice Department priorities in the next administration. Or even the nonsensical criticism of Dr. Jill Biden, her title, and her dissertation.

But those issues, while surely important, seem small when considered against the arc of the past year, with all the surprise and upheaval and pain and death. There were too many bleak moments in 2020. I don’t need to rehash them here. We all lived through them.