Living on the West Coast means that by the time I wake up, things have already gotten going across the nation. This morning, I checked my Twitter feed and discovered that Twitter was in meltdown mode because Trump tweeted this: The tweet contained an absurd distinction between “universal mail-in” and “absentee voting,” but of course, …
I finished reading “Let them Eat Tweets” by Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker, and Berkeley political scientist Paul Pierson. I’m ready with a book report. (Screenshots are from the kindle version) Spoiler: Trump and Barr are part of a democracy-smashing machine built by the GOP over the past 50 years. The authors argue that Trump …
The right-wing—which until recently loved the 10th Amendment and revered states’ rights—is now fine with sending federal troops to trample states’ rights. Meanwhile, Trump canceled his convention because of COVID while insisting that schools open. From Andy Slavitt’s thread yesterday: the people dying from COVID-19 are largely “essential workers” and those without the privilege of …
The right-wing—which until recently loved the 10th Amendment and revered states’ rights—is now fine with sending federal troops to trample states’ rights. Meanwhile, Trump canceled his convention because of COVID while insisting that schools open. From Andy Slavitt’s thread yesterday: the people dying from COVID-19 are largely “essential workers” and those without the privilege of …
My followers on Twitter today were in meltdown mode—and no wonder. Trump’s acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf has said the administration will not stop with Portland. They intend to go to Chicago, Philadelphia, and other cities ruled by “liberal democrats.” (What are they after? See my post from yesterday.) We also learned that Trump is …
We learned last night that Trump doesn’t want to be “distracted” by the pandemic: Trump isn’t working on the pandemic. He’s busy trying to rewrite the script of the White House Reality Show. The fiction he wants to create is this: The problem isn’t Covid; the problem is the protestors, and only “Strongman Trump” can …
One way to read Mary Trump’s book about her family is as a study of the overlap between fascism and sociopathy. First a brief summary, then analysis. I. Summary Fred—Donald’s father—was a lying, cheating, sociopath. His mother was selfish and needy. Mary opens her book with a quotation suggesting that the villain of the story …
Last week Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said she was “very seriously” considering withholding funds from schools that don’t open: Without getting into whether she even has the authority to do that, it’s worth recalling that Trump refused to use the Defense Production Act to mass-produce PPE because he didn’t want to bring down the …
As I’m sure you all know, Trump commuted the sentence of his longtime friend Roger Stone on seven felony crimes. Yeah, he corruptly used the power of his office to let a co-conspirator off the hook. In the words of judge Amy Berman, the judge who sentenced Stone, “Mr. Stone was not prosecuted, as some have complained, for standing …
Roger Stone, the Corruptly Issued Sentence Commutation, and more on Covid-19 Read More »
The Vance opinion (the case about whether the NY prosecutor can have access to grand jury material for use in a criminal investigation against the Trumps) is here. The case was a loss for Trump. The justices voted 7-2 with only Thomas and Alito dissenting. Think about that: Ginsburg, Sotomayer, Roberts, Gorusch, Kagan, Breyer and …
