Welcome to the first one.
Every Sunday, I’ll bring you a story worth your attention, a book worth your time, a recipe worth your kitchen, and a dad joke worth your full-groan reaction. Ten minutes. Let’s get into it.
The Brief: A Wrongful Prosecution
This administration keeps indicting its opponents and propping up improper prosecutors, and their cases keep collapsing.
James Comey: dismissed, unlawfully appointed prosecutor.
Letitia James: dismissed, same defect.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka: dropped within two weeks.
Alina Habba, the president’s former personal lawyer turned federal prosecutor: disqualified for serving without Senate confirmation.
The six lawmakers who told troops they can refuse illegal orders, including Sens. Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin: a grand jury refused even to indict.
But one case remains ongoing. Rep. LaMonica McIver of Newark, a 39-year-old freshman congresswoman who is expecting her second child within weeks, faces up to 17 years in federal prison. Her crime: an oversight visit.
On May 9, 2025, McIver inspected Delaney Hall, a 1,000-bed ICE detention center in her own district, run by the private prison company GEO Group under a contract worth more than a billion taxpayer dollars. Congress has a legal right to inspect facilities like this one, unannounced. Three men held there have died in nine months. Detainees have described inhumane conditions: crowded cells, contaminated water, and medication that never comes. This spring they smuggled out an open letter. An SOS, in their words.
The visit turned chaotic when armed, masked agents arrested Mayor Baraka. Prosecutors say McIver’s forearms made contact with officers in the scrum. After the chaos, ICE gave her the tour. Officers walked the woman they would later accuse of assaulting them through the facility she came to inspect. She was never arrested. Eleven days later, Habba announced the charges on social media, after the court clerk’s office had closed. McIver learned about it from a tweet.
From the start, this case is a test. House ethics rules bar members of Congress from accepting free legal help, so McIver must drain her own accounts and campaign funds to fight the Justice Department’s unlimited budget. Her legal costs have passed a million dollars. Win or lose at trial, the government has already shown every member of Congress what an oversight visit can cost. If the tactic works on her, it works on anyone who looks too closely. And she has refused to stop looking: she has returned to Delaney Hall again and again, reporting conditions “any of us would recognize as torture.”
The tactic depends on two things: our attention fading and her money running out.
So here’s your part. Stay aware. Follow the case, share it, and notice out loud when the trial calendar collides with the birth of her child. And if you can, chip in to her defense. Small-dollar donations are the only way the public can fund it.
The Bookshelf
You’re More Powerful Than You Think — Eric Liu
If the story above leaves you angry and feeling powerless, this is the book. Liu treats civic power like a skill you can practice, with plain instructions for turning frustration into leverage. It’s the anti-doomscroll: less “can you believe this,” more “here’s what we do about it.”
Reading it? Tell us about it in the comments.
The Dad Joke
Some people prefer elevators, some prefer escalators. It depends on how they were raised.
The Recipe
Our first edition calls for slow-Sunday energy. Bacon jam is what happens when bacon, onions, brown sugar, and patience meet in one pan, and soft scrambled eggs prove that low heat is a love language.
Bacon Jam and Soft Scrambled Eggs
This is the most straightforwardly delicious breakfast I know how to make.
I serve mine over toasted 5-grain bread, often with smashed avocado (one avocado, a teaspoon of lime juice, salt, and pepper) topped with chopped chives, and cherry tomatoes or strawberries on the side. Make it your way.
Bacon Jam
Ingredients
1 lb bacon, cut into ½-inch pieces
1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
⅓ cup apple cider vinegar
½ cup dark brown sugar, packed
⅓ cup maple syrup
¼ tsp cayenne pepper (or more to taste)
1 tsp black pepper
Instructions
Add the bacon to a 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Cook until crispy, about 20 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the cooked bacon to a paper towel-lined plate to drain. Drain the remaining bacon fat from the pan, then add back 1 tablespoon into the pan.
Reduce the heat to medium-low, and add the onion to the pan. Sauté for about 4 minutes, then add the garlic and cook for a couple of minutes more, until fragrant.
Add the apple cider vinegar and cook, stirring frequently, until the liquid is reduced by half. Add the brown sugar, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper, stirring to incorporate. Return the cooked bacon to the pan. Continue stirring until a jam-like consistency is reached, another 5 minutes.
Turn off the heat and take note that the jam is very hot and sticky. Allow to cool for a couple of minutes, and be careful if serving immediately. Enjoy!
Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Warm before serving.
Soft Scrambled Eggs
Ingredients
3 eggs, whisked
2 tablespoons heavy cream
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Over medium-low heat, pour the cream into a medium nonstick frying pan. Allow the cream to bubble up and just start to caramelize (about 2 minutes).
Pour eggs into the pan. Using a silicon spatula, stir the eggs constantly in a tight circular motion to keep the eggs creamy and prevent large curds from forming. When the eggs are almost cooked to your desired consistency, remove them from the heat and continue stirring until they are fully cooked.
Add salt and pepper to taste, if desired.
Serve immediately. Enjoy!
That’s the first Sunday Brief. If it earned its fifteen minutes, forward it to somebody who needs a recipe and a reason to keep going. And if somebody forwarded this to you, welcome. Subscribe, and I’ll see you next Sunday.
Same table next week,
Slade
Love this!
Something to eat,
Something to read,
Something to play with (joke)
Something we need (social awareness and action)
You’ve covered all of the bases!
(I use this same formula to fill Christmas stockings 😁)
This is terrible! I donated what I could to Ms. McIver. Thank you for fighting the good fight! 👏🏻
Thank you Slade for all you do to keep us informed and for bacon jam!