Someone sent me what was a pretty funny article from what I think might have been the satirical site, “The Onion.”  Whoever wrote it nailed spot-on the anti-immigrant angst tearing at the Trump administration, and showing it in as absurd a way as possible
 
The piece was about how out-of-control lost that inner-circle is now that the Supreme Court has overturned Trump’s Executive Order banning birthright citizenship.  They took the mania to its most illogical (albeit hilarious) extreme – the setup is that a panicked Fox reporter follows up on a comment made by Trump’s anti-Immigration poster boy spokesperson Stephen Miller by clarifying with excitement, “Are we banning pregnant women from America?” he asks hopefully. “Are we banning foreign pregnant women?"
 
And what the story has Miller responding is, "Well, what I'm saying is that you have to now think very carefully on who you let into the country, even on a temporary basis, because of the possibility, as you said, for birth tourism, right? ... People that come here just to have babies on American soil, and that baby gets to be a citizen for life."
 
As I said, that might have been from “The Onion.”  But it wasn’t.  That’s a verbatim transcript of Stephen Miller interviewed yesterday by Fox host Jesse Watters.
 
So, yes, Stephen Miller is actually saying that the Trump administration has to “think very carefully” about banning pregnant women from vacationing in the U.S. 
 
In fairness, I’m not quite sure that amid his tortured hate twisting his judgement into unrecognizable forms Mr. Miller fully understands the meaning of the word, “think.”  Or “very carefully."  Or even, it seems, “babies.”
 
Still, though, he’s nonetheless absolutely serious.  After all, he’s Stephen Miller, the Trump administration’s resident Openly-Racist Xenophobe.  So, when he adds, "There’s a lot of things we have to take a hard look at,” one only hopes that for his personal safety, Stephen Miller doesn’t look so hard that he risks straining anything.  Like his brain, soul or common sense.  Although, being as shriveled as they all are at this point, there isn’t all that much left to strain.
 
What I love to imagine, though, is the meeting that Stephen Miller called of his crackerjack Rapid Response Anti-Immigrant Hate Team that worked hard to find a catchphrase that would win the argument and danced around giddily when they came up with “birth tourism.”

Fun Fact:  The U.S. Constitution does not mention “tourism” as a reason that disqualifies a baby born on U.S. soil from becoming a citizen.
 
How full of all-consuming bile toward immigrants does a person have to be to think as Stephen Miller does when he says that having birthright citizenship is such a risk to America (which, by the way, we’ve had for 250 years) that “it means that if a person comes here nine months pregnant…” as if the U.S. is overrun by so many women nine months pregnant that those babies risks undermining the 342 million Americans living here.  Never mind that, a) it’s actually legal and in the Constitution, and b) if the parents are just tourists, then they will have to leave (presumably with their baby!) when their visa is up.

Never mind, too, that the Mayo Clinic says that one should “Also, be aware that some airlines may not allow pregnant people on international flights” late in their pregnancies at all.  And that long international flights increase the risk to the mother of deep vein thrombosis.  And...
 
Sorry, I got sidetracked with reality.  I apologize.

This is so much simpler:
 
Mainly, this is just deep mania by Trump’s top advisor on the subject, voicing Trump’s own long-held position.  And I can only imagine clips of this video being shown during the Mid-Term Election campaigns.  I’m sure it will go over really well with the womenfolk.  And that's even though it doesn’t directly concern them, being here in the U.S. already and citizens, because what it does show is a demeaning and dismissive perspective by the Trump hierarchy towards women – and in the most easy to grasp way.
 
“Are we banning pregnant women from America?”  Are we?!  Well, hey, watch this space!  “There’s a lot of things we have to take a hard look at.”
 
Yeah, there’s a real winning issue -- during high consumer prices, a rise in inflation, cuts to health care, soaring gas prices, an unnecessary and hated war, all the while pushing your signature “SAVE Act” that would disenfranchise tens of millions of women from voting (!)...for a guy who has a 34% approval.
 
Not to mention just about any level of approval. 
 
Banning pregnant women.
 
Even just thinking about it -- let alone saying it out loud, and risking having to explain how this jimdandy plan will work.  And why??? -- is a political disaster in the waiting.  And when you do say out loud that you have to “seriously” consider no letting pregnant women in the country, and that you have to take “a hard look” at it, you risk infuriating not only rational women and men, but also (when nothing comes of your "hard look") your base then getting upset when you don’t get anywhere with it.
 
So, sure, go ahead, make banning pregnant women your issue. Make it even just a part of your backpack you want to run up the hill with in your platform.
 
Today’s MAGOP – Keeping government out of your lives, one idiotic hypocrisy at a time.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court Parade of Decisions continued, as they close out their term.  I was very pleased by their ruling that allowed mail-in votes to be counted after Election Day, as long as they were post-marked by midnight.  It was a ruling that only made sense, after all, since we don’t require in-person votes to be counted only on Election Day.  And I was extremely relieved by the decision that blocked the firing of officials on the independent Federal Reserve Board – but overall was appalled by their rulings.  Par of the course, alas. 

That the mail-in decision barely squeaked through by 5-4 for such a braindead issue, however, was disturbing.  And that the Federal Reserve Board decision was also just 5-4 is pathetic and scary that they came within just a single vote of giving Trump – or any president – full control of the board that sets financial standards for the country and is what gives the U.S. dollar such stability.  And almost worse (or perhaps worse) that the vote was totally contradicted by the Court’s other decision that a president can, without cause, fire employees of any independent agency -- experts charged with issues of safety and security, from the Consumer Protection Board to OSHA to the Federal Trade Commission to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and more.  The decision (beyond being contradictory) is deeply problematic.  It not only undermines 90 years of precedent (yet another case of the High Court throwing out long-standing precedent which undermines the stability of the law), but is also, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in her dissent, “profoundly destabilizing” by giving full control to a president of agencies that were not only created by Congress, but written specifically to be independent.

It seems that in its far-right zeal to roll-over for lame duck Trump and keep giving expanded powers to the president by throwing out long-reaching precedent, they appear blissfully unaware that in 2-1/2 years there will likely be a Democrat in the White House.

At least we know that when the far-right complains about “activist judges,” they don’t really mean it, at least when it comes to what they advocate.

But these are the Court's decision.  And so they must be accepted.  Even if they are criticized.  Unlike what we regularly hear from Trump and many MAGOPs when a decision doesn't go their way, we haven't heard calls for any of the Justices to be impeached.  But that doesn’t mean problematic issues – including subverting the foundation of precedence in the law and eroding the Separation of Powers can’t be addressed.
 
It turns out that Sen. Cory Booker was very bothered, as well – though not shockingly, he wasn’t alone.  He released a statement that he's determined to reform the Supreme Court, adding that he's terrified the country was just one vote away from losing on the counting of mail-in ballots, and that, as he put it, the Court is bought and paid for. And he intends to hold them accountable.
 
While some may think he is referring to pushing for a Constitutional Amendment that deals with the Court, I feel sure that that’s unlikely.  Passing an Amendment is incredibly difficult.  It takes a vote of two-thirds of each house of Congress to just propose an Amendment, and then three-fourths of the states to approve it.  This makes passing an Amendment incredibly difficult, but can be overwhelmingly time consuming.  The Equal Rights Amendment passed Congress in 1971 – over half-a-century ago.  It still hasn’t passed the state vote (though has come close)– but has exceeded the 1979 deadline set by Congress, although there have been efforts to extend the deadline.  Further the initial effort to get the Equal Rights Amendment began 103 years ago, in 1923.  So, waiting on a Constitutional Amendment to address issues with the Supreme Court does not appear to be time well spent...
 
However, there are changes that can be made by Congress.  One is to create Ethics Requirements for the Supreme Court which currently don’t exist.  (Though there are ethics rules for all other branches of the judiciary.  Go figure.)  However, there is also a belief among legal experts that Congress can create term limits for the Supreme Court, even without a Constitutional Amendment.  The more likely of these options is the creation of what’s called “Senior Status” Justices, which already exists in the judiciary.  This is where 18-year term limits would be implemented for High Court Justices, but “Senior Status” Justices would keep their lifetime appointments to hear all cases other than appeals (which are most of what the Supreme Court deals with).  These other cases would be like conflicts between states.  As a result, this allows Justices to keep their lifetime appointments as required by the Constitution, but with different, limited duties.
 
There are other options for Congress, like expanding the Court (an option I personally don’t like for many reasons, among them that for the next 2-1/2 years, any vacancies would be nominated by Trump, and also once Democrats do get a chance to add seats, when MAGOPs get their chance back they’ll likely offset that again), but then any changes will face a hurdle – and few will have immediate impact.  However, some hurdles are, at least, lower than others.  And the important thing here is that it's not just a case of disagreeing with a decision, but decisions that over time -- even when parties and presidents change -- have a negative impact on the country, whatever one's political belief.

Justice, we have long been told, is blind. 

You just wish that sometimes it didn’t pretend it was ignorant, too.
​

The most wildly entertaining, if numbing story on social media is the meltdown by Trump and his circle, along with MAGAs trying to support them, over the disaster with his renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.  It’s a remarkable story in its faux outrage and comic weirdness, as well problematic for Trump on its own terms, but much worse for Trump is how it’s morphed into something else.  More on that later.
 
To show you how engrossing, odd and problematic this is, none of that even includes that Trump had promised to get the repair done for $1.5 million, and the cost ballooned to $14 million.  And that the job was given in a no-bid contract to Trump’s pool guy with zero experience for the restoration -- since the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is 2,030 feet long, and a completely different kind of structure from a hotel swimming pool.  All of that is just preamble.
 
In fact, the Trump meltdown story doesn’t even include that within days, after painting the bottom of the Reflecting Pool a deep, rich American Blue, and re-opening it for the public to massive “See How Great It is What Trump Has Done That Joe Biden Didn’t!!!” fanfare, algae began to grow in the Reflecting Pool which turned green.  Trump conspiracy theorists started to cry that it was sabotage by The Libs.  (Yes, algae conspiracy.)  Alas for them, professional experts quickly responded by explaining in reality that the algae was caused by two circumstances:  one, it was build-up inside the old pipes that had been shut down during the long renovation and now had been turned back on again, and two (which many experts warned beforehand), that using dark blue paint (like all dark colors) absorbs heat, so combined with the normal Washington, D.C. summer temperature in the sweltering upper-80s, this is the ideal condition for algae to bloom.
 
But hey, don’t take it from me.  Here’s a tweet from pool renovation expert Steve Goodale who had warned online from his @poolandspaguru account -- "If we change nothing else except the color, absolutely you're going to have more prolific algae growth. It's a foregone conclusion."  (Fun Fact:  Making this all the more whimsical is that Mr. Goodale is Canadian.)
 
At which point, to kill the algae, the clean-up crew poured highly toxic 12% hydrogen peroxide into the Reflecting Pool.  Never mind that it has already killed some birds and ducks who come to rest there.  Nor does it include that the name of the company run by Trump’s pool guy is actually called “Greenwater Services.”  Honest.  Don’t tell me God doesn’t have a sense of humor.

And none of that is the vaudeville act I’m referring to.  It’s just the “In a galaxy, far far away” scroll on the movie screen to fill you in on the background as you settle in with your popcorn.
 
No, the entertainment began when huge chunks of the blue paint began floating to surface, and the full-blown meltdown took over.  It’s hard to properly describe the circus, because so much of it overlaps, but I’ll try.
 
Immediately, Trump began blaming “Vandals,” without any evidence, of course (this is Trump after all, who needs evidence and reality), a charge picked up by his circle.  And then he began to claim there had been many arrests of these “Vandals” – without any evidence, of course, because this is…oh, you know.
 
And then Jonathan Karl of ABC News did a report on the floating blue debris, tilting a chunk that was sitting on the surface for a better view by the camera -- and Trump began crying out that Karl had vandalized the Reflecting Pool, and U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro (whose record of “Let me please Trump” indictments is pathetic) joined the fray, threating that Mr. Karl might be investigated and indicted.

​And the cries of “Vandals” grew, and the news stories about Trump blaming Vandals” and him claiming this problem was all the work of “Vandals” began to be reported.  Never mind that the words, “Trump has blamed" and "Trump claimed" may be the two least-substantive phrases in the English language and should always be followed by "without evidence."
 
But best is when in one of Trump’s long tweet meltdown screeds, he wrote that "criminals" had poured "corrosive and destructive chemicals" into the Reflecting Pools.  Never mind that Trump's own clean-up team had themselves literally poured highly toxic 12% hydrogen peroxide into the water!!!  Which is what experts say has apparently caused the damage.
 
At this point I think it’s a good idea to include what was written online by Laurence Boorstein. Mr. Boorstein’s social media bio explains he’s Project Management Professional, with an MBA in Finance from Columbia University, and a Masters degree in Civil Engineering from Columbia, 40  years of experience, and projects in 18 states and 29 countries.  He wrote --

​​Well, okay, then, there’s that.
 
And it brings the story along to this past weekend and the story of the cyclist who was arrested for putting his hand in the water and touching some of the floating blue paint chunks.  (Yes, really.  Hey, I did say that this all was the entertaining and weird part.)
 
Well…okay, that’s the way many news stories reported the story, and MAGAs on social media began referring to this dastardly saboteur as a Liberal boomer activist criminal.  Though if anyone had taken just a moment to get an update from reality --

The “cyclist” (or just “the man,” as early outrage dismissively called him) was 67-year-old David Hearn, a three-time Olympian who represented Team USA (“USA!  USA!!) in Whitewater Canoe Slalom.  He has won Gold Medals at two World Championships, and in 1995, was even named USA Canoe/Kayak Male Athlete of the Year.  So, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is the kind of facility he was very well-acquainted with.  It's a 2,000-foot water structure like many of those he's spent a lifetime training in. (Some Olympic rowing events are, in fact, 2,000 feet.) He had been cycling around the Reflecting Pool, and said that he saw something odd floating in it, and so (being attuned to what 2,000-foot pools should look like) he stopped and went to touch it.  And that’s when Park Police arrested him and put him in handcuffs on a misdemeanor charge of destruction of government property.  

​“I didn’t vandalize anything,” Hearn told the Washington Post.  “I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.  I reached in there, and I was able to grab the end of that flapping piece, the already peeling piece. It was still attached to the bottom. I didn’t remove anything.”
 
It’s hard to imagine that the charges won’t be dropped, since touching floating debris hasn’t yet reached the level of crime, even in Trump’s dystopia.  But the story not only began to create extensive MAGA meltdown, but the Reflecting Pool now has more police patrolling around it -- even the National Guard (yes, really, I’m not making this up) -- protecting the water and algae as if grabbing rubble is of critical national importance.
 
The Reflecting Pool debacle has gotten so bad at this point that Trump (after all the “Look at What Trump Did!!!!! Praise) says it will again have to be emptied and redone.  Caused by all the “Vandals,” and all the “criminals.”
 
Anything to distract from the actual reason Trump’s pool renovation is a disaster.  It was mishandled from the first by a no-bid contract to a Trump pal with no experience who made off with $14 million, 10 times the original budget, and then the problem was worsened by pouring toxic hydrogen peroxide in the water.  So…yeah, blame “Vandals.”  Blame The Libs.  Call out the police.  Arrest the journalist, arrest the Olympian, arrest the mythical criminals who weren’t actually arrested.

At least this time, though, Trump can again say he Drained the Swamp. And really did it!
 
But lest you think all this three-ring entertainment is from the “outraged” side – oh, no, it’s ratcheted high up even more by those ridiculing it all.  And there is plenty to ridicule.  Indeed, this is the most entertaining part of the story of all.  For many reasons.
 
And those reasons start with the obvious:  that everyone can see the once-blue water is now green.  And everyone saw Trump’s clean-up team pour toxic hydrogen peroxide into the Reflecting Pool.  And everyone can see chunks of blue paint floating on the water.  This isn’t “a cyclist” is who destroyed the Reflecting Pool.  This isn’t “news reporter Jonathan Karl” is who destroyed the Reflecting Pool.  Everyone can literally see it all.  Even the ones who don’t want to believe reality. 
 
So, the only people who will conceivably believe these Trump “Vandals” idiocies are the very bottom of Trump’s base who will never accept he ever made a mistake and believe that The Libs and “others” are the problem for everything in the world, including algae.  Meanwhile, everybody else gets it.  Because it’s really easy to get.  Because everyone can see it.  And by Trump, his circle and MAGAs trying to make the issue “Vandals,” cyclists and conspiracies, rather than say it was handled poorly, they all keep the debacle alive.  And give it massively more attention far beyond nothing more than just screwing up a pool.
 
Instead, social media is now wonderfully overrun with giddy comments, jokes, photos and videos of –
 
The “real ‘Vandals’” pouring hydrogen peroxide into the pool.
 
A photojournalist putting his remote-controlled waterproof camera into the Reflecting Pool to take video along the pool’s destroyed floor. (James Cameron couldn’t have done it better in Titanic – though it would have been much more expensive and taken a lot longer.)
 
MAGA memes of “Make Algae Grow Again.”
 
The National Guard (!) keeping on guard to protect the green Reflecting Pool with floating blue chunks.  (See, I said I was telling the truth.)

Ridicule that Trump isn’t even able to beat algae, so how did he think he could defeat Iran?
 
Ironic comparisons that Trump and MAGAs want people arrested for damaging government property for touching rubbish floating in a pool while being okay with pardoning 1,600 Insurrectionists who rampaged inside the U.S. Capitol to overthrow the government.
 
Derision that while negotiations have started to hopefully end his Iran War, Trump instead is focusing this much attention on a pool of water.
 
Noting that more people have been arrested for touching garbage in the Reflecting Pool than for their involvement in the Epstein Files.
 
Reminders that the job was done in a no-bid contract by a Trump crony John J. Cafaro, who actually has two felony convictions – and worse, they’re for conspiracy to bribe a member of Congress and campaign finance violations! – and who looks like a rejected character actor for a Bond villain because he’s too clownishly cliched…and whose company is named “Greenwater.”​

​But best and far-above all, as I mentioned at the very beginning, the most important and wonderful result of this incredibly entertaining story that Trump himself has kept everyone’s focused attention on (with his mythical “Vandals” and delusional rants about conspiracies and screeds on non-existent crimes) is that the public is pointing out how the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool utter debacle has become online a metaphor of the Trump administration –
 
-- Because once again, here is Trump taking something that had had some recent repairs and algae cleaning, and was considered, for the time being, fine.  and he comes in, destroys it, makes things significantly worse, and he has no idea how to fix the problem.  And people have begun accompanying photos of this green Reflecting Pool and floating blue chunks alongside photos of other Trump debacles:  the demolished East Wing of the White House, the cemented-over White House Rose Garden, and the destroyed White House grounds from his cage-fight circus.  Not to mention reference and photos of his failed war in Iran.

​​And in his out-of-control ego to stamp his name on everything, made this disaster of the Reflecting Pool a metaphor for it all.  Things that were fine until Trump came in and destroyed it.  Not just the historic government structures he’s demolished, but tariffs shredding the economy, destroying our relationship with our oldest ally Canada, threatening to attack our ally Greenland, undermining America’s reputation in the world, cutting aid to those in need – whether foreign countries or even Americans’ own healthcare and financial assistance, pushing our NATO allies to act on their own, creating distrust in the legal system, distrust in elections, distrust in vaccines and the CDC and World Health Organization, making immigrants (even those who are citizens) afraid, and more.  Things that were fine – until Trump said, “I can renovate” that, and then tore it apart and destroyed it.  “I alone can fix it.”  And the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool became a metaphor for it all.
 
Obi Wan Kenobi was right.  Metaphors be with you.
 
And in the end…it is a large pool of water.  And not only did Trump hire a no-bid crony who went far over-budget and ruin it, but Trump (being Trump) couldn’t accept that and  has turned it into a manic fiasco about “Vandals” and conspiracies and roaming police guards and arresting Olympians and blaming reports and opening up comparisons of this to all his failures, including his Iran War capitulation.
 
All because of a large pool of water.  Because that’s what happens when you have dementia which is degenerative, are a malignant narcissist, and are surrounded by unqualified incompetents who have no ability to help you, but know their jobs rely solely on them saying “yes”, all of it enabled and protected by your party in Congress.
 
You get someone who, when asked by Axios last week what he’s learned from his Iran War conflict about the limits to his power, answers -- “I haven’t learned that lesson yet. I know there are, but there are no limits.”
 
You get someone who tells a Fox reporter on Sunday that after his capitulating “Memorandum of Understanding” 60-day negotiating period ends, “I can do whatever I want.”
 
Man, he hasn’t even learned there are limits to trying to defeat algae.

​I was going to write about the circus grift on the White House grounds on Sunday, an embarrassment filled with flying motorcycles, razzle dazzle and corporate pay-to-play branding that reprehensibly misused military honor guards and had absolutely nothing to do with America’s 250th anniversary or “Freedom", and didn’t even mention that the day was the 250th anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Army, but was only a gaudy extravaganza to massage Trump’s massive, but fragile ego.
 
But instead, I thought the announcement that Department of Justice (sic) was opening an investigation of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and his wife Jennifer Siebold Newsom was more worthy of longer comment.
 
Gov. Newsom is, of course, one of Trump’s most vocal and harshest Democratic critics, and considered a political rival who is strongly believed will be running for president in 2028.
 
His wife founded two charity foundations, the Representation Project, a nonprofit organization, and co-founding the California Partner's Project, a nonprofit that promotes gender equality.  She is also a documentary filmmaker.  From all reports, legal experts say that it looks like she is being investigated for tax violations.
 
(Another probe is believed related to Newsom's former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, who was indicted last year on nearly two dozen federal charges and pled guilty last month to three counts on wire fraud, filing a false tax return and lying to an FBI agent. Gov. Newsom was not related to any of the charges.)
 
Is it possible that Jennifer Siebold Newsom did commit a tax violation?  Absolutely.  Is it far more probable that she didn’t and Trump’s DOJ specifically was illegally targeting her just for being married to the Governor of California who Trump hates?  O dear heavens, of course!  Most assuredly.  “Probable” is the most low-key, yet fully accurate term I could think of.  (For that matter, even if she did commit a tax violation, it’s still illegal to target someone just on the basis of who they are or what they said, without first having the evidence of a crime.)  This certainty of targeting is not said for biased reasons, but because the Justice Department actually has very strict guidelines with many steps required before investigating political figures or their families -- none of which were followed.  Moreover, there are reports the First Assistant U.S. Attorney did actually, specifically target Newsom.  (More on that in a moment.)  And furthermore, not long ago, Trump said that Gov. Newsom should be investigated and that “I think it would be a great thing.”
 
But even far more to the point, here is just a little list of Democratic politicians, government and public figures, and journalists who have been outspoken critics of Trump and then been indicted or had investigations opened against them by Trump’s DOJ as part of his "I Will Be Your Retribution" Malignant Narcissism Tour.

("Your" will be herewith defined as "My.")
 
Gov. Gavin Newson, (D-California)
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California)
Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minnesota), political opponent 2024
Mayor Jacob Frey (D-Minneapolis)
Mayor Kaohley Her (D-St. Paul)
Mayor Ras Baraka (D-Newark)
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona)
Sen. Elisa Slotkin (D-Michigan)
Rep. Jason Crowe (D-Colorado)
Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D- New Mexico)
Rep. Chrissie Holihan (D-Pennsylvania)
Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pennsylvania)
Rep. Lamonica McGiver (D-New Jersey)
Letitia James, NY Attorney General
Attorney General Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota)
District Attorney Fani Willis (D-Fulton County)
District Attorney Mary Moriarity (D-Hennepin County)
Jack Smith, Former DOJ Special Counsel
James Comey, former FBI Director
John Brenan, former CIA Director
Christopher Krebs, Former Cybersecurity Agency Director
John Bolton, Former National Security Advisor
Jerome Powell, Federal Reserve Chairman
Lisa Cook, Federal Reserve Governor
George Soros, Democratic Megadonor
Don Lemon, Journalist
Georgia Fort, Journalist
ActBlue, Democrat fundraising organization
Southern Poverty Law Center, civil rights organization
Cassidy Hutchinson, Former White House Aide
E. Jean Caroll, who twice successfully sued Trump
 
Gee, what a long list of coincidences.
 
As Henry II said of the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket to no one in particular, but to everyone in earshot.  “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” 
 
And then Becket was arrested.  And executed.

And as Trump said, in praise of China dictator Xi ending presidential term limits.

"He's now president for life. President for life. And he's great.  And look, he was able to do that.  I think it's great. Maybe we'll give that a shot some day."

​Some day.  Or as he said running in the 2025 campaign, "I want to be a dictator, but only for one day."

Back to Gov. Newsom and his wife.  The investigation of them is reportedly being run out of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Sacramento, overseen by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli.  He's the same lawyer who has opened an investigation into supposed election fraud in California, claiming even he would have indictments in one to two months…despite asking radio listeners for witnesses to support the "allegations".  As noted above, there are reports that Essayli told his staff to find a case specifically against Newsom that he could then prosecute.  (No, not "find me a crime," or something for which there was existing evidence, just something for which he could open an investigation about and after that try to find evidence.) This, not shockingly, is not how any prosecutors office are supposed to run by guidelines, where evidence of crimes are brought to them first, and then investigated to be able to prove them.
 
John Flannery, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney, is the former boss of MS NOW’s Ari Melber.  He was a guest yesterday, and Melber asked him his view of all these investigations and indicts.
 
Flannery’s extemporaneous response was a Masterclass in the law and democracy.  Its off-the-cuff eloquence built up force as it went on, so fluent it seemed he almost did it in one polite but enraged breath.  As offended by the misuse of his lifetime profession as he was angry by the trampling of the Constitution.  When I went back and transcribed it, the only thing I decided to change was adding punctuation marks in his non-stop soliloquy because that made it easier to read.
 
“My view is that we make a mistake when we talk about ‘weaponizing.’  There’s a big difference between having a broad discretion to investigate a crime, but when you start something frivolous, when you have nothing but a fishing expedition, when you choose the target based on their visibility as a presidential candidate, and his wife to pressure him -- and because she’s active in the area talking about sexism and has had movies [she’s made] and so forth -- then what you have is, you have the appearance of attacking people for what they say, the First Amendment, and it’s the First because it is the way that we challenge the government, and nothing could be clearer in this case than that.  And when we’re challenging the government, no less than Justice Jackson said that if something is fundamentally improper, then it’s inappropriate and wrong and unconstitutional.  And we turn to the 15th and 14th Amendments to find the guidance for that.  ‘Due process’ means ‘fundamentally fair.’  This is not fair.
 
“When I was an AUASA, if I was talking about where our investigation stood, and we hadn’t indicted and there hadn’t had a public hearing, I’d have been fired.  These people are not fired.  Why?  They gave answers and they tried to rebut the target of their investigation.  Why?  Because that’s what Trump wanted, whether he says it exactly or not.  They said, ‘We’re here in Sacramento, what do we have to do with D.C.?’  Well, you’re only a phone call away from the Oval Office.  And we see from the New York Times disclosures and others, there are no barriers to these people cooperating in violation of our laws and Constitution.  So, what do I think about it?  It’s a major miscarriage of justice, and if I was a judge we would start investigating with a Master and some funds, because we have some data points already.”
 
But as pointed as John Flannery was, it was Gavin Newsom whose statement was the most powerful.  Newsom chose to get out front of the story, but instead of making it all about the investigation of himself and his wife, he turned the tables and did what you do to a bully, bluntly and aggressively made it about Trump and his abuse of power.  Right from his first words --

​Newsom was only warming up.  He went on, unrelentingly.  
​

​​And in the end, Newsom concluded with a directness to his rival –
 
"To Donald Trump, who I know is watching, because he watches everything, I have a message for you. You can subpoena my records, you can investigate me, you can harass me, put my name on every and any enemies list you have, but leave my wife and family out of your personal vendetta."

I don’t know what the ultimate result of all this will be.  It could completely backfire on Trump and vault Governor Newsom’s stature higher and into the leading Democratic front-runner position.  Or not.  There even could be an indictment or worse.  But given Trump's history with these retribution attacks, the former seems far more likely.
 
But as blatant and infuriating and abusive and corrupt and disturbing as Trump’s action is (and of course it’s Trump’s action because it’s hard to imagine an Assistant U.S. Attorney investigating the Governor of California and his wife, a politician who is an outspoken critic of Trump and is seen as major Democratic candidate for president, without the approval of the Acting Attorney General of the United States – a man clearly auditioning to become the official Attorney General – who wouldn’t act on such a thing without the approval of Trump, the person who can appoint him), I look at this the same way I look at all such actions by Trump:
 
As terrible as any Trump actions are and harmful to the United States…they are just as harmful in return to Trump, and at times even more so.  An ongoing disaster for him.  Self-inflicted, time and again.  Because at this point, with only a paltry 34% approval, the American public knows who Trump is, a small-minded, insecure, malignant narcissistic, pathological lying, wannabe fascist dictator with dementia that is degenerative -- who just held a gaudy,  razzle dazzle, circus extravaganza to massage his massive, but fragile ego.  And as hard  as it is to miss that whole, long list of Democrats and any level of opponents who’ve been investigated or indicted by his DOJ, it is near-impossible to miss Trump's government investigating the wife of the Governor of California, the largest state in the country, and the Governor himself who is seen as a candidate for the presidency

If you didn't see Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on Sunday, his Main Story was about the pardons Trump has given out.  Simply put, it's a wonderful report -- detailed, scathing at the massive corruption, and often hilarious.
​

I know it is not obligatory that I understand why the Supreme Court takes up the cases it does.  Especially this Supreme Court.  That said – I don’t even begin to understand why the Supreme Court has taken up the case, pushed by Trump and MAGOPs, about when you can count mail-in ballots, that only mail-in ballots received by Election Day should be allowed to be counted – not (as is the case now) counting every mail-in ballot that has been postmarked by Election Day.

As far as I understand reality, the issue with voting is when the ballots were cast.  Not when they were counted.  Ballots could sit around for days before anyone decided to count them.  And the results would still be official. 
 
California does, of course, begin counting votes on Election Night – but the state is so populous they notoriously don’t finish counting their votes for weeks.  In fact, county officials in California have a full month to count and certify their votes.  Are the votes they count after Election Night not supposed to be considered valid?
 
Let’s go further and compare.  In the 2024 general election, 15 million people cast ballots in California.  On the other hand, in Wyoming, there were 260,000 votes recorded.  Just as a pure guess, I’d think it takes more time to count votes in California than Wyoming.  Would it proper to penalize states that have more people living in them and therefore require more time to count their votes?  No, obviously. And we don’t do so.  But if MAGOPs don’t want mail-in votes counted after Election Night – why don’t we stop counting after midnight? 
 
For that matter, my sense from following results on Election Nights is that many states stop counting votes around 11 PM and send everyone home.  So, if votes are only qualified if they’re counted on Election Night, does that mean that people who got their votes registered on time, but not counted before registrars got tired and went home would have their ballots invalidated?
 
If so, then what would keep states from sending vote counters home when the candidates they want to win have more votes?

Obviously that’s not going to happen – it’s ludicrous.  But…the question remains.  Which is why this MAGOP challenge to mail-in vote counting is ludicrous.
 
But let’s take it to the next logical step.  If mail-in ballots aren’t supposed to be counted if they arrive after Election Day, even if they were postmarked and registered before then, it should follow (to be fair), then no votes should be counted after Election Night.  Which would then raise the question about recounts?  If you can’t count votes after Election Night…why should you be allowed you re-count them days after Election Night??  You are, of course, and should be allowed to.  But why not mail-in votes?
 
Again, the whole point with voting is when the votes were cast, not when they were counted!
 
Fun Fact:  Mail-in ballots have been counted after Election Day since before the Civil War.
 
I don’t even begin to understand why even this Supreme Court agreed to take up this case.  It strikes me as profoundly illogical and idiotic, to the extent that if the law as it stands in every state is overturned and mail-in votes can only be counted on the day of the election, it raises so many more issues and so many more massive problems.  Which are unnecessary because – the whole point with voting is when the votes were cast, not when they were counted!
 
But then, when any question that relates to why “this” Supreme Court would act – that pretty much provides the answer.  Along with the concept of illogical and idiotic.
 
Who knows how they’ll decide?  They may rule that the case is illogical and idiotic.  Or not.  But I don’t even begin to understand why they took it up.  Even this Supreme Court.
 
But they’re “this Supreme Court.”  And not only do I not have to understand why on earth they do what they do, neither – as it’s so often happened – do lawyers.