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Another sign of hope

Sunday, May 3, 2026

The news has been horrible lately, but there are some signs of hope, again assuming that elections are fairly held. In the example I’m about to discuss that will likely be the case, as it’s taking place in Maine.

Jonathan Bush,a cousin of the person who is now merely in the running for second worst president of the United States, is running for governor in Maine. As has been happening more generally across the nation he has been saying the quiet parts out loud, such that the opposition ads practically write themselves.

In his case:

In 2017, nearly 60% of Mainers voted to expand the state’s Medicaid program, helping more than 130,000 people access affordable health care. Last week, Jonathan Bush compared that decision to Russian President Vladimir Putin killing schoolchildren.

And then there’s this:

This is not the only time Bush has targeted MaineCare. In March, Bush told WLOB radio that he wants to use artificial intelligence to kick people out of the program.

So, not only is he opposed to a program that is obviously popular with a large majority of the people in his state, he is advocating for artificial intelligence to start kicking people off that program, something that is going to appeal only to the most rabid of right wingers, whose votes he would get in any event, assuming he wins the primary in which he is currently involved.

It wasn’t so long ago that Republicans would deny intending to do such things, though they would, in fact, have every intention of doing them. That way they could prevent the press from reporting what was actually obvious to anyone 1) with a brain, and 2) who was paying attention.

Bush is by no means an exception. This sort of thing is becoming more and more commonplace. Many Republicans have apparently begun to think that an oligarchy of the rich is something that sells well with the American people, even when you don’t dress it up as something entirely different.

So, should he get the nomination, the ads opposing both him and Susan Collins will indeed write themselves. In Collins case Mainers have already heard plenty about how “concerned” she is about things she will do nothing to oppose or prevent. No doubt, should Bush get the nomination, they will hear plenty about how he wants to use AI to take away their health care. We can only hope that this sort of thing will be taking place throughout the country.

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Israel losing support, at about the same pace as Trump

Sunday, April 19, 2026

Digby at Hullabaloo has an interesting post regarding American attitudes toward Israel. She starts by quoting Dan Pfeiffer who discusses polling that shows that “strong majorities of Americans have negative views of Israel and Netanyahu”. This is a great change from just a short time ago, a reaction to the fact that like a country with a certain orange man as its putative leader, Israel has begun to engage in acts very much resembling those in which a certain European country engaged in the 1930s and 1940s. Pfeiffer writes:

According to an NBC poll, positive views of Israel have dropped 15 points since 2023, in the immediate aftermath of the October 7th terrorist attack. The shift is driven primarily by Democrats, but it goes much further than that. Support among independents is down 19 points, and even among Republicans, it’s dropped 9 points.

Pew found that strong majorities of Americans have negative views of Israel and Netanyahu. This is not just a Democratic phenomenon — a majority of adults under 50 now rate Israel and Netanyahu negatively.

Bibi Netanyahu and the genocide in Gaza have done untold damage to Israel’s standing in the United States. Only a few years ago, Israel was seen as one of our closest allies. Now, many Americans view it as a pariah state. That has real implications for American politics. While many Democrats have spoken out, the leadership — particularly Senator Schumer — has been reluctant to, clinging to an outdated view of the U.S.-Israel relationship. Politicians who don’t grasp this seismic shift risk being out of touch with the electorate in both parties. Israel is yet another issue where there’s a yawning gap between the base and the establishment.

Both Pfeiffer and Digby point out that it’s important that the Democrats strongly make the case that opposing Israel’s current incarnation is the right thing to do and has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. That can be done assuming the Democrats come up with a coherent argument that they use consistently.

Naturally, the Democrats will likely fail to stick together and make a coherent case for opposing Israel’s actions, though it does appear that a large number of elected Democrats have seen the light. Recently, a resolution proposed by Bernie Sanders, who himself is Jewish, seeking to block arms transfers to Israel, garnered 40 Democratic votes in the Senate, but this, from one of the 300 or so fundraising emails I receive every day, didn’t surprise me:

When Bernie introduced his resolution to block these latest arms sales of bombs and bulldozers, he called on Congress to FINALLY show backbone and moral clarity in the wake of horrific violence in Gaza and now Southern Lebanon. But Schumer didn’t just miss the moment – he voted no. That’s a betrayal that will lead to more death and destruction in our name.

Chuck Schumer is the majority leader and he insists on living in a fantasy world in which nothing has changed since 1975. It would be ever so nice if the Democrats would choose a leader who understands where things stand right now.

I should add here that I’m not exactly a fan of any of the countries that surround Israel. Iran is certainly not a country that strikes me as a haven of human rights. But given the situation in that part of the world, we should simply step back and refuse to be a part of any of it while continuing to clearly articulate that opposing what Israel is doing is not equivalent to anti-Semitism. It would not be hard to find plenty of American Jews who would support that position. See, e.g., Bernie Sanders.

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Impeach? 25th Amendment? Yes and No.

Thursday, April 9, 2026

John Larson, along with other Democrats, has filed articles of impeachment against the genius. I don’t expect them to go anywhere, but perhaps more important is that Larson and others have demanded that the 25th Amendment be invoked to remove Demented Don from office. In doing so they are explicitly, though perhaps not explicitly enough, referring to his deteriorating mental state:

Larson also called for the 25th Amendment to be invoked against Trump. “He’s becoming more unstable by the day,” Larson said. “He is unfit to lead.”

Again, I don’t expect anything concrete to come of it, and I’m not sure that I even want something to come of it. More on that later.

I’ve written often enough on this blog about the unbelievable inability of Democrats to speak with one voice. The cited article states that there are 80 Congressional Democrats that have called for invoking the 25th Amendment. It’s time for those Democrats and others to start openly calling out Trump’s dementia and the failure of the media to adequately cover it. Start calling him names. They can have “Demented Don” for free (see above). If the Democrats continue to pound on the undoubted fact of his dementia the press, other than Fox, will have no choice but to cover it. As more and more people, particularly the “low information” voters, accept the fact that he is in fact in the grips of dementia, the more likely they’ll be to vote against Congressional Republicans who will continue to do nothing about it. Assuming a somewhat fair election that will assure a solid Democratic majority in the next Congress.

All that being said, as I indicated above, I don’t really want Congressional Republicans to invoke the 25th Amendment before the next election. First, doing so might mollify some of those “low information” voters. It would also achieve nothing immediately so far as preventing the rise of fascism in this country. JD Vance is a full fledged fascist, who is quite a bit smarter than Trump. If he’s installed before the next election it would likely mean fewer Democrats elected in the fall, not just because of the idiotic “low information” voters feeling reassured, but because he’d probably be better at organizing a steal. If the 25th Amendment is invoked the best time would be after the upcoming election. If Vance became president he’d do as much harm as Trump would have done, but he doesn’t have Trump’s ability to con large numbers of voters into voting against their interest, so he’d be unlikely to win the election in 2028. Assuming, again, that it’s not stolen. That being said, the country would probably be better off if Demented Don “served” out his term, thereby driving even more voters into the Democratic fold in 2028.

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Good Friday Night Music

Friday, April 3, 2026

I’ve been doing this blog now for about 22 years, not writing as frequently as I used to, but every now and then. Lately it seems there’s nothing to say, because the rot and corruption seems so obvious. Who ever thought we’d see a day when George W. Bush would look good by comparison to any president?

Anyway, I feel absolutely obligated to continue the Good Friday tradition, though I must confess it’s getting harder and harder to look on the bright side. Sure, it looks like the genius is crashing and burning, and it’s nice to sea the folks, such as Noem and Bondi, who’ve lined up to kiss his ass getting their own asses kicked from behind, but there’s still no guarantee they won’t steal the next election.

Anyway, here it is, for the 22nd straight year or so.

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Is he losing the court?

Thursday, April 2, 2026

If the reporting here at Above the Law is accurate, it would appear that the Supreme Court is going to rule that the Fourteenth Amendment means what it says, that every person born in the United States is a citizen of the United States. It is somewhat depressing to be somewhat surprised that the court may rule that words with clear meanings can mean only what they say, but we live in times when such things truly are surprising.

Trump showed up at oral argument, presumably to try to pressure the judges into ruling in his favor, but, again, judging by the contents of the article, he has only Alito for sure and Thomas most likely. That, by the way, shows how down the road to fascism we have gone, for if even two judges buy into the meaningless drivel served up by Trump’s lawyers, we are in very bad shape. Roger Taney must be spinning with delight in his grave.

One plus for us good guys that flows from Trump’s dementia mixed with narcissism, is the fact that he tends to undermine his own agenda. In this case, it can’t help that he has attacked the members of the court that ruled against him on the tariffs and that he has practically threatened them in this case. Not only is such behavior likely to cause resentment, but for some of them it may actually get them to realize that it has not been a good idea to enable his criminality in the past. After all, it’s one thing to have him committing crimes against others, but it’s another when you’re the victim. Perhaps too, it has become clear to the likes of John Roberts, as it has been clear to us hippies for years, that Trump’s ultimate aim is to neuter the courts as well as the legislature. After all, that’s what Hitler did, and like his Dad, he’s a fan.

It should nonetheless be noted that this case should never have gotten to the court, in that the court should either have refused to hear a case in which the lower courts were so clearly right, or it should have affirmed without the need for oral argument. This is yet another one of those instances in which I’m quite sure I would have gotten an F in law school had I tried to make the case Trump’s lawyers are making.

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MAGA support crumbling

Tuesday, March 17, 2026

I should start by saying that the following assumes we will have somewhat fair elections in November. I am by no means predicting that will actually be the case.

Given that assumption, it appears that Trump’s decision to go to war for no reason whatsoever is causing his, and by extension Republican, support to crumble. It’s very disappointing for the genius, because he actually thought starting an unnecessary war would cause his approval to skyrocket. For various reasons his bigoted supporters can’t stomach his war. As per usual, they have come to this conclusion for all the wrong reasons, but they have still done so. To a great extent it’s the fact that they are anti-Semites, such as Trump’s former Top Counterterrorism Official, Joe Kent, who has now resigned because he believes Israel pressured Trump to start the war. There is a grain of truth there, I suppose. I’m sure Bibi encouraged Trump, but it’s not foreign involvement to which Kent objects, he just hates Jews. And in any event, Bibi doesn’t have the clout to “pressure” Trump into doing anything, he can merely encourage him to do something he is already inclined to do.

Another example is Stewart Rhodes, the reprehensible head of the Oath Keepers, who is even willing to forego the pardon he was going to ask for because, like Kent he’s an anti-Semite, something about which he’s totally upfront:

“We can’t shut our eyes to the obvious role of the influence of Zionism in our government, of the Israeli people, intelligence services, Mossad, and others in our government,” he began. “So that’s why I no longer call myself MAGA. I am an America-only patriot. I’m a Christian nationalist, an American Christian nationalist. I have to open my eyes to the reality in front of my face, and it’s caused a division inside of MAGA, and it’s caused a division on the political right. But so be it.”

He’s a horrible human being, but he’s right that there’s a division on the political right, with the anti-Semites and others who have supported Trump drifting away from him, and, by extension, the Republican Party. I’m by no means arguing that these people will come out and vote for Democrats. They will either not vote at all or they will vote for a more extreme right wing party that might spring up. It would certainly be nice to see such a third party spring up and steal the majority from the Republicans. A bit of payback for what Ralph Nader did to the Democrats in 2000, something which led directly to the fascist state we have become.

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Was she really a judge?

Saturday, March 14, 2026

Apparently she was, according to Wikipedia. I refer to Jeanine Pirro, currently serving as the US attorney for the District of Columbia. One has to wonder if she was as ignorant then as she is now, or is she just pretending?

It’s always good to see one of our courts standing up to the fascists, and always doubly satisfying when the court, in this case Judge James Boasberg, tells it exactly as it is. Jeanine isn’t interested in going after criminals, since then she’d have to indict every member of the cabinet, not to mention herself. She is, however, very interested in kissing the ass of the man currently living in the White House, or what’s left of it. So recently she tried to bring criminal charges against Fed Chair Jerome Powell. She had no evidence, of course, but the pretext was that somehow he had committed crimes connected to construction work on the Fed Building.

Boasberg wrote in a court filing that “the Government has produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime; indeed, its justifications are so thin and unsubstantiated that the Court can only conclude that they are pretextual.”

Pirro couldn’t understand the judge’s ruling!

“This is the antithesis of American justice,” she said. “Exonerating anyone without any records, without an investigation or question, is not how our criminal justice system works.”

I only handled a few criminal cases when I practiced, though I did participate in the criminal clinic in law school. And I was never a judge. But even I knew that you can’t subpoena someone unless you have probable cause for a reasonable person to believe that that the person in question has committed a crime. It’s even in the constitution, the fourth amendment. This judge simply called it as it was, as I assume Pirro is aware on some level. You can’t simply make up a crime that you claim they committed, despite having no evidence, and then commence an investigation, particularly one that includes a search or seizure.

It’s depressing that the Department of Justice is engaging in this sort of stuff, but it’s a somewhat hopeful sign that most of the lower court judges (we can exclude Aileen Cannon from this list) have stood up to the fascists. My own guess is that if Jeanine decides to appeal this to the “Supreme” Court, they will simply refuse to take the case, not because they are trying to stop the fascists, but because the billionaires that have been bribing so many of them would likely prefer to have Powell in there, rather than someone who will do whatever Trump wants at any given time.

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About that Dog Killer

Friday, March 6, 2026

One of the reasons put forward by the Republicans and the press for Trump shoving Noem (the dog killer) aside is his statement to the effect that she lied about the 200 and some odd million dollar anti-immigrant ad campaign she has waged, with, I would guess, a lot of those funds going to people whose names shall not be divulged. She claimed in recent testimony that Trump had approved of the ads, and he claimed he knew nothing about them, which of course would, as has been pointed out by some, mean that she committed perjury when so testifying. As Digby points out here, (the quote is from a Rolling Stone article) she made the same sort of statement a year ago without Trump taking issue with it:

Noem said that Trump instructed that he didn’t want to be in the ads himself, telling her: “I want you in the ads, and I want your face in the ads … but I want the first ad, I want you to thank me. I want you to thank me for closing the border.” She recalled: “I said, ‘Yes, sir, I will thank you for closing the border.’ So if you notice, in that ad, we thanked him for closing the border.”

Far be it from me to say that Noem has never committed perjury, though she does tend to avoid doing so by simply refusing to answer questions. For instance, is she having sex with Corey Lewandoski, who she hired as highly paid aide? When asked if she was in fact having an affair with him, which raises obvious ethical questions, she responded:

Mr. Chairman, I am shocked that we are going down and peddling tabloid garbage in this committee today,” she replied.

She delivered similar responses to follow up questions.

But, even if the Democrats take over completely in 2028 (no way Pam Bondi will bring charges, after all) I would hesitate to bring perjury charges against her for claiming that Trump knew about the ad campaign. Can you imagine the field day her lawyer would have if the prosecution relied, as it would have to do, on Trump’s testimony to the effect that he knew nothing about it? I suppose that after he was confronted with several thousand of his own lies the judge might have to call a stop to it, and just dismiss the case. Not only would they fail to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, they couldn’t even prove it by a preponderance of the evidence (the civil standard) or establish probable cause (the even lower standard for bringing a case in the first place). In fact, assuming we’re talking about a post Trump era, the case would likely never get to trial, as it would be dismissed early on if the only evidence the prosecution had was the testimony of a constant liar.

But, then again, Noem wouldn’t get off scot free. She’s committed perjury on other occasions, and also broke a lot of other laws in the course of establishing a fascist state in this country.

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An obvious point

Saturday, February 21, 2026

Yesterday the Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling holding Trump’s tariffs unconstitutional. There is, of course, a fact about this that the mainstream press will not report, or only hint at.

There was no question about the unconstitutionality of Trumps tariffs. The constitution is clear. Yet 3 justices ignored the obvious in order to support a would be dictator. It should be noted widely that had Biden did the exact same thing, the decision would have been 9-0, with the three fascist enablers no doubt leading the charge against him.

Nothing could make the need for some sort of Supreme Court reform more clear. The lower courts (Aileen Cannon and her ilk excepted) have actually done a good job trying to stop the march of fascism, only, so often, to have those attempts frustrated by a Supreme Court, with the other three part time fascist enablers joining in, which stays the lower court decisions for all time, pending a decision that never comes, or, which upholds patently unconstitutional or illegal behavior. Term limits would appear to be one solution. Packing the court is another, but that risks having it packed again should the fascists return to power.

If Congress passes the so called SAVE act, which will disenfranchise millions of American citizens, the current Supreme Court will most likely uphold it, though it, as well, is clearly unconstitutional. Oddly enough, they may never get the chance, as Mitch McConnell, of all people, is standing in the way. One of those ironies, that the man most responsible for the current make up of the court is, in effect, preventing it from doing the harm that anyone with a brain could have predicted it would do.

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A glimmer of hope

Wednesday, February 11, 2026

Let me start by saying that I completely understand that the Republicans intend to try to steal the upcoming mid term elections. This post will assume that they will not be successful in doing so. I know that’s not exactly a safe assumption, but bear with me.

The special elections that have been held since the genius took charge have, by and large, shown a fairly massive shift in voter sentiment. Democrats have won in districts that could fairly be characterized as having been deep red just a year ago. Not only have they won, but they have won by large margins, or lost by smaller margins than would have been the case before the genius came back.

The Republican game plan was, until recently, very effective. They did what they could to benefit their billionaire backers while getting the votes of the people they were screwing by attacking various groups, none of which were causing those people any real harm. They had to attack black folks by implication, rather than directly, but they still got the message across. They had gay folks for a while but that sort of lost its effectiveness when a lot of people came to realize that they knew and liked a lot of gay people. They have since switched to trans folks, but except for the die hard MAGA types, that really doesn’t sell very well. And of course they are attacking immigrants, but in a way that has a) lost them the large portion of the Hispanic vote that had for some reason gone over to them in 2024, and b) lost them a large portion of people who sort of draw the line at government agents murdering people on the streets. It has gained them no votes, because the people who support these Gestapo tactics were already voting for them.

But there’s another thing going on. They are now openly screwing people, rather than doing it in such a way that those people don’t realize it’s happening. A good example is their decision to openly and blatantly deprive millions of people of the subsidies they needed to get health insurance in this, the only advanced nation in the world that does not have free health care for its citizens. There is no way that all of those people voted for Democrats, although they all should have. Had you, in 2024, told those that voted for Trump that he would take away their health care they would no doubt have refused to believe it. Depriving people of health care loses them a lot of votes but gains none. Anyone who favors depriving people of health care is already voting for Republicans.

You can see the same thing happening in issues both big and small. One quite small example is Trump’s recent threat to prevent a bridge connecting Canada and Michigan. It’s an absurd thing to do without doubt, and it gains exactly no votes for Republicans while driving away people who had an interest in seeing that bridge opened. (Found out after the first draft of this post that there’s a billionaire who was behind all this.) Sure, it’s in Michigan, and it’s a blue state, but there are Republican politicians in Michigan and they will lose votes as a result of this sort of thing. Here’s another, and this in a red state (which may be tending blue, at least in spots). The FAA announced that it would close El Paso’s airport for 10 days for “special security reasons”. Bullshit of course, and it backed down quickly. But it’s the sort of thing that pisses off their own voters for no particular reason. They just keep piling this sort of stuff on.

There’s no reason to think any of this will stop. It is merely to be hoped that the Democrats will learn how to take advantage of it, and to pressure the press to report it each time the Republicans choose to screw their base.

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