Perfectly Legal, But Wrong
When “perfectly legal” is a lame excuse for doing the wrong thing
Society and Politics
A Sad and Sickening Sight in the Big Apple
Speaker Johnson and many other GOP pols rushed to NYC for Trump’s “hush money trial,” assailing the justice system. Legal? Of course.
Airtime for the Autocrat: Tucker Carlson Sucks Up to Putin
We have reached a very odd place in our national politics: not long ago, Republicans would consistently out-gun Democrats on being “tough on communists,” especially Russia –– who can forget President Reagan saying, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” The...
Lawyer-speak: Legal, yes, but sometimes… Awful!
It's a free country right? Especially with regard to free speech, and what lawyers say in a legal brief or in oral argument: other than insulting the judge and risking a contempt of court order, lawyers can just say the “darndest” things, recalling Art Linkletter’s...
Politically Obtuse Plutocrats
Big money plutocrats are mistaken to think fascism is the answer, for them or for this country.
Punishing Dissenting Voices
19 year old imprisoned for protesting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Good People Are Leaving the Government
I’ve long admired Norm Ornstein, a public intellectual who leans conservative and has written several books that illuminate the current political dysfunctions in the United States. See, for example, It’s Even Worse than it Looks, reviewed here by Robert Kaiser for...
Supremely Conflicted: Are the Justices Truly Blind?
Don Mayer, July 3, 2023 The U.S. Supreme Court has wrapped up its 2022/23 agenda with the usual array of arresting (and sometimes controversial) opinions, including a notable set-back for affirmative action in the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard case. What’s...
“We Will Hang Earl Warren. . . “
As a member of a teenage Republican club in the early 1960s, I met several “Young Americans for Freedom” (“Yaffers”) and John Birch Society members. The JBS opposed the civil rights movement and believed the U.S. was in dangerous “moral decline,” railing against...
Stuart Rhodes = Solzhenitsyn?
“It’s a free country.” I first heard this at age four, from a kid in the neighborhood (who was probably doing something wrong). Our “freedoms” are not absolute: we are not legally free to steal others’ property or watch child pornography, but we are free...
Witch Hunt!
by Don Mayer “Witch hunt!” We’ve heard that phrase from Donald Trump as a stock response to any number of investigations, indictments, and impeachments. The Mueller investigation, both impeachment proceedings, the Georgia investigation (of a...