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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   4405 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026

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In the Small-Scale Sunday of June 21, 2026, there was this thread talking about the possibility of vandals being the cause of the debacle with the Reflecting Pool and its 2026 renovations. To summarize the various positions of mottizens:

  1. Some think there was vandalism by people who are against the Trump administration.
  2. Some thinks this isn’t vandalism but just the typical problem that would already typically plagues the Reflecting Pool
    1. I assume the implication is that public media is just having TDS
  3. Some thinks this is incompetence at preventing vandalism
  4. I personally thought it was incompetence driven by corruption though concede there are other clear cut case of vandalism (“8647” on the National Mall).

The only person that was ever indicted is former olympian David Hearn, with the grand jury indictment announced by Jeanine Pirro on July 2:

Today, a grand jury has returned a felony indictment against a defendant, David Hearn, for felony destruction of property for which he faces 10 years in prison. The indictment is in response to an incident that occurred on June 19th of 2026 in which the defendant Hearn ripped a piece of recently installed sealant on the bottom of the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial. The evidence shows will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hearn willfully destroyed property at the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool. This was a deliberate act to damage the reflecting pool at the National Mall that members of the National Park Service actually have worked hard to restore and have witnessed. By Hearn's own admission on June 19th, he reached down into the pool. Our evidence further shows that the National Park Service employees observed Hearn actually forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner with both hands. According to witnesses, Hearn damaged approximately two square feet of sealant from the bottom of the pool. A parks employee actually told Hearn to stop to stop his behavior and stop what he was doing. Hearn reacted by shouting at that park's employee, saying that she cared too much about the reflecting pool. And why did she even care since it wasn't her pool? Now, Mr. Hearn's behavior was characterized by witnesses as belligerent, rude, and disrespectful according to National Park Service employees that witnessed the event.

In the same press conference Pirro had this to say when pressed:

Question: Was this part of the pool, you know, there has been some damage. Was this part of the pool specifically if some of the was the uhsealant already partially removed? Can you [garbled] it back and just describe in detail? Because he [garbled] that it looks the same as it did before he arrived. That's his position.

Pirro: You know, I'm not going to get into the evidence, but what I told you is what our witnesses saw and experienced. There was an effort, a violent effort to rip up the sealant from the bottom of the pool. And irrespective of whether or not you know we think that you know there there is some situation needed it we can state and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he caused damage and that damage is over $1,000.

Well, on Friday, DOJ has moved to dismissed the indictment:

Based upon the initial reports provided by the Department of the Interior (“DOI”) and the USS. Park Police (“USPP”), the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia (“USAO-DC’) presented the grand jury with evidence that damage to the Reflecting Pool was caused by vandals, including the defendant in this case, David Hearn. However, it was not until after the return of the indictment, that the DOI provided additional documents to the USAO-DC indicating that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings (“AIC”), and the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026. It was not until after these documents were produced that USAO-DC first became aware of information showing that the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism as initially represented by DOI. Indeed, USAO-DC could only rely (on the information provided by DOI that the damage was entirely caused by vandals, including the defendant in this case, David Hearn. Because these recently-produced materials significantly undermine the evidentiary basis for the indictment initially supplied by the DOI and U.S. Park Police, the USAO-DC respectfully moves to dismiss the indictment without prejudice.

I highly recommend reading the motion to dismiss, it’s hilarious to see how Pirro’s office is trying to cover their ass by repeatedly pointing fingers at Doug Burgum’s DOI for giving them incomplete information.

My takeaway from this is that my position is correct regarding incompetence. Incompetence at planning the renovations. Incompetence by the contractor and overspraying. Incompetence by DOI officials and personnel in protecting the Reflecting Pool (or at the very least chase down the vandals if they exist). Incompetence by DOI officials in not giving Pirro’s attorney office complete evidentiary information. In fact, I give points to Pirro and her office for approving this dismissal, she must have known that Trump wouldn’t like it:

I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool. I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM, that included the grass, which had a big 86 47 emblazoned in giant letters on it, and other elements of the surrounding area. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS! President DJT

[attached image of the 8647 on the national mall]

As for corruption, well I think it’s very likely but it’s also unlikely that Trump’s government or the Republicans would investigate themselves.

I also had the following few thoughts:

  1. Pirro is another female member of the Trump administration that is floating into his crosshairs. Burgum doesn’t when it should be said both the Reflecting Pool and the National Mall are on his watch.
    1. My personal theory is that all the corruption (the government-doled contracts) would be under Burgum so why attack your personal money-maker.
  2. I was researching on no-bid contracts under Obama and Democrats are the one who investigated him. This is reinforcing my thoughts that even if “there is corruption on both side”, the magnitude is different.
    1. Current republicans in Congress are spineless.
    2. Republican voters don’t mind corruption as long as their cultural objectives are satisfied.
    3. Regarding the above, I personally think they’re willing chumps.
    4. Regarding above, I suppose Republicans would call it acceptable tradeoffs.
  3. I still have yet to see video and images of the cuts in the reflecting pool. I’m sure Trump would have loved to “truth” it out.
  4. If there is Trump Derangement Syndrome, there is growing evidence of Reverse Trump Derangement Syndrome where genuinely bad things done by Trump and his administration is downplayed and excused by his supporters.
    1. Which I suppose is what we do for our tribe.

Edit 1: Looks like Trump got some more words today about how much Pirro "folded like an umbrella" and "choked" on this case.

Edit 2: David Hearn was the only one indicted, there were at least 3 others also charged and publicly named but their cases were also dropped. Earlier I said David Hearn was the only one charged.

Binion's takes continue to be some of the best https://x.com/billybinion/status/2084355849045123302

This is a perfect example of why debasing yourself for a politician is never worth it. Jeanine Pirro sacrificed a lot of credibility when she publicly raked an innocent person across the coals. And in the end, she gets thrown under the bus, too. It's humiliating.

I'll never understand why so many people are willing to tarnish their legacies & embarrass themselves to get some brief validation from Donald Trump of all people. We all know he tosses people in the trash like hot potatoes. How have people not learned that? How is this worth it?

Like seriously, wtf does Pirro get out of this? She sold her soul, hurt innocent people through lawfare, wasted government resources (both time/manhours spent going after actual criminals and money) and in the end didn't even manage to make Trump or MAGA happy.

What Jeanine Pirro gets out of it is that she gets to be US Attorney for DC. Pirro is nominally qualified for her position, but in practice has been a tv personality for the past 20 years; no other administration would put her in this kind of role.

With Trump's coterie of subordinates, there's a pretty clear mix of opportunists and sycophants. One of the attractions of working for Trump is that because he can't/won't source talent from conventional recruitment pools, you can jump directly to positions of power if you know the right people and are willing to lick boot.

This is a perfect example of why debasing yourself for a politician is never worth it.

This is just an argument for never getting into politics. If the goal is to feel as though you have never "debased yourself" then your only option is to be an irrelevant commenter like Billy Binion, always out of the fray and above it all.

Glad to see Reason is still in business; I wasn't aware. Of course, this fellow did, by all the eyewitness accounts, reach into the reflecting pool and start pulling the lining up, to the point where the park police noticed and demanded he stop, but maybe, given his background, he's just a pool lining autist, and also a true libertarian who believes that every citizen has a right to audit the structural integrity of the pool without state coercion interfering.

Of course, this fellow did, by all the eyewitness accounts, reach into the reflecting pool and start pulling the lining up, to the point where the park police noticed and demanded he stop, but maybe, given his background, he's just a pool lining autist, and also a true libertarian who believes that every citizen has a right to audit the structural integrity of the pool without state coercion interfering.

The case was dropped after all so what Binion is really saying is don't harass random citizens with weak lawfare just to cover for incompetent contracting work.

Yeah, I don't know what is wrong with the Reflecting Pool or how it happened, but I don't think "well this is already broken, let me rip it to bits" is acceptable. If he did what is claimed, then it is vandalism. It doesn't matter if the lining was already torn, he made things worse.

Imagine your car is stopped with a flat tyre. A passer-by then breaks in a window. "What, this vehicle was already not functional, I didn't do anything wrong!" Would anyone accept that?

Is breaking a window of a car with a flat tire the right comparison? Pulling up a bit of lining that was already torn seems more like walking by a house that's already collapsed, and picking up a handful of rubble on a whim. You could uncharitably describe the latter as "pulling bricks right out of the wall", but vandalism seems a stretch.

Picking up a bit of broken-off lining is not what he's supposed to have done, though. He was yanking it up and didn't stop when instructed to do so.

I'm not saying what he did was, on any theory, lawful (nor was it a nice thing to do). But it seems to me that the salient quality of vandalism is deliberately ruining something that was fine before you got there, or at least, fine in whatever aspect you decided to wreck. Breaking the window of a car with a flat tire - sure, that's vandalism. Poking another hole in the already-flat tire… I dunno. I guess I sort of think of "vandalism", in its vernacular if not its legal sense, as requiring an intent to deface which is moot if you're only worsening damage to something that already visibly needed replacing.

How is it not vandalism to rip off a piece of a national monument? You have to reach into the pool to grab a piece, it's not just laying on the sidewalk raking with the leaves.

Maybe when she shares a commiserating drink with all the other people who sold their souls, hurt innocent people through lawfare and wasted government resources, she can at least feel good that she didn't overplay so cartoonishly hard that she helped Trump get re-elected.

That doesn't explain anything, it's just whataboutism.

And even revenge doesn't make much sense as a motive, like at least with the hilariously awful Comey indictment the person being targeted is James Comey so harassing him is like understandable as the motive. But Hearn is just some random guy, it seems incredibly petty to sacrifice so much face and embarrass yourself in basically every imaginable way just to legally harass a nobody.

Yeah, totally random, self-described "concerned citizen" and double-digit ActBlue donor who knew enough about the topic to make a trip because he wanted to check it out for himself while somehow completely missing all the culture war angles, and so stuck his arm into a pool that you're not allowed to touch to feel it and wriggle damaged parts around just out of idle curiosity, but he definitely says that he didn't affect it in any way.

Completely random guy being harassed for literally no reason.

That doesn't explain anything, it's just whataboutism.

Nah, it's just rubbing your nose in your Arctic research station levels of isolated demands.

If you want a more general, real answer, it's because that's the meta. You immediately drop double-barrel, incendiary shells of rhetoric even over minor things, because the other side is going to do the same or worse, and they will never, ever, ever, show a shred of respect or grace for any kind of retiring humility or professionalism. It's not like you'd be granting respect if they'd said something bland and non-committal about "seeing where the process goes". It's not like anyone making a culture war bonfire out of a pool renovation would have chilled down a single degree - they (you) would have just kept heaping wild accusations onto the pyre*. And it's not like there aren't much more egregious examples to throw shade at elsewhere.

You just only ever notice it when you see an opportunity to pounce on the side you dislike.

*Turing Test Writing Challenge: SecureSignals style post blaming the pool issues on Israel. There was a person holding a "First they came for the algae..." sign...

Completely random guy being harassed for literally no reason.

The case was dropped due to lack of evidence (despite the constant lies beforehand saying there was tons of it), so yes. He got harassed for no reason, literally nothing came out of it.

Nah, it's just rubbing your nose in your Arctic research station levels of isolated demands.

Exactly, whataboutism. It didn't matter whether or not the soviets were right in their critiques of the US, what mattered is that they used the US as an excuse for their own misdoings. If the soviets wanted to defend their actions on the merits, they would have done such.

The case was dropped due to lack of evidence

That's actually not what your own cite says.

I didn't cite anything but if you mean what the OP did, yes it does.

It was not until after these documents were produced that USAO-DC first became aware of information showing that the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism as initially represented by DOI. Indeed, USAO-DC could only rely (on the information provided by DOI that the damage was entirely caused by vandals, including the defendant in this case, David Hearn. Because these recently-produced materials significantly undermine the evidentiary basis for the indictment initially supplied by the DOI and U.S. Park Police, the USAO-DC respectfully moves to dismiss the indictment without prejudice

Yes, the part you underlined is precisely what I was referring to. "There's a plausible enough alternative explanation that we're not going to get a conviction through a DC jury" is actually a different statement from "There was no evidence of the crime at all because we made it all up."

You are reading the first and imagining the second. Or, less charitably, lying.

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