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Category Archives: Creeping Totalitarianism

A valuable resource

Friday, August 7, 2020

I should probably tweet this, inasmuch as I am really only passing along a link. McSweeney’s has provided a valuable service. A day by day accounting of the atrocities, since Trump became president, with some preliminary atrocities included for good measure. My guess is that it’s not exhaustive; that would be impossible, and there’s lots […]

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Something to think about

Tuesday, August 4, 2020

We are taught to believe that the men who framed the constitution were infinitely wise, but in fact, the government they framed was flawed in many respects. Ben Franklin was quoted as saying that they had framed a “Republic if you can keep it”, but in many ways the constitution itself makes keeping a republic […]

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The wrong bogeyman

Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Over at the Palmer Report, we are assured that the threat of Donald Trump refusing to leave office is an illusion: We can’t stress this enough: this an imaginary narrative that pundits have manufactured for the sake of ratings. Donald Trump is playing into this fake narrative because he’s hoping to use the empty threat […]

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There’s something happening here

Sunday, July 19, 2020

What it is, is exactly clear. (With apologies to Stephen Stills) When Trump unleashed a fairly mild (in comparison) version of Nazi Stormtroopers on protestors so he could hold up a Bible, it made headlines. Apparently, he learned his lesson. So long as you start the process somewhere other than D.C. or New York, the […]

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Bad Moon Rising

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

I didn’t practice criminal law, so I never had any reason to bone up on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, but the D.C. Circuit’s decision on the Flynn case baffles me. Well, not really. Given the makeup of the panel, I figured it was at least a 50/50 probability. But it’s difficult to see, […]

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Hey Susan, what lesson did Donald learn?

Saturday, April 4, 2020

The crumbling of the Republic proceeds apace, as Trump, t aking advantage of a plague he is responsible for amplifying, takes steps that will be mostly ignored by a distracted populace and press: National Security Analyst Samantha Vinograd laid into Trump for firing Inspector General Michael Atkinson yesterday. IG Atkinson was doing his job, and […]

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Bad Moon Rising

Sunday, March 22, 2020

A few days ago I noted that the Republicans never let a crisis go to waste. This is probably the biggest domestic crisis we’ve had since the Civil War, so it presents all kinds of opportunities to destroy our institutions. There is no reason to suspend habeas corpus, other than to allow the genius to jail people at […]

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The End is Near

Saturday, February 29, 2020

His politics weren’t so great, if I’m not mistaken, but T.S. Eliot got it right when he wrote this: This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but with a whimper. Maybe “whimper” should be in the plural, […]

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Taking the long view

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

You have to hand it to the right wing. It takes the long view.  The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will hear Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a hugely consequential case that could fundamentally change the rules governing when people with religious objections to a law may ignore that law. Fulton asks whether religious organizations […]

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Another brick in the wall

Thursday, February 13, 2020

Why am I totally not surprised by this: ’Sloppy’ Mobile Voting App Used in Four States Has ‘Elementary’ Security Flaws MIT researchers say an attacker could intercept and alter votes, while making voters think their votes have been cast correctly, or trick the votes server into accepting connections from an attacker. A mobile voting app being […]

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