2024 Archives

The only remedy at this late stage in this 50+ yearlong campaign to remake America is a massive revolt this fall at the ballot box, turning Congress over to Democrats while holding the White House. Kevin Roberts, who heads the Heritage Foundation (largely responsible for Project 2025) just implicitly threatened Americans that if we don’t allow him and his hard-right movement to complete their transformation of America from a democratic republic into an authoritarian state, there will be blood in the streets.

Six Republicans on the Supreme Court just gave Trump - should he become president again - Putin-like powers... They did it. The Supreme Court handed a massive victory to Donald Trump in this so-called “immunity” case, and it will probably take a year or more before there’s even a chance he’ll be held to trial for trying to overthrow the 2020 election and, thus, the government of the United States. As feared, the six Republicans on the Court essentially threw Trump’s sedition case back to the lower court (with caveats) where there will be numerous decisions to make — which are all further appealable, resetting the case so Trump can drag things out for another year or more — about whether the crimes he’s committed are “official” or “private/personal” acts. But that’s not the worst of it. They also turned Trump or any future fascist president into our first American king or führer.

Your vote is the most important part of the American commons. The commons embrace those realms that we all own and jointly administer through our government. They include our air and water; our roads and skyways; the frequency spectrum we use for communication, radio, and television; our public school system; our military, police, and fire departments; the agencies we use to ensure the safety and quality of our food and medications; the systems and laws that keep people playing the game of business within legal boundaries; our jails and prisons; our oceans and public lands; and our social safety net—among other things. In this era of rapid climate change, our atmosphere and oceans, which absorb 95 percent of the extra heat in our atmosphere, are the most critical of our commons, because they have the potential, through destabilization of weather and sea level rise, to destroy civilization and even to render our planet sterile of human life.

This election is too important to indulge one man's desire to hang onto his office. It literally will define the future of democracy as a form of governance both in America and worldwide… Last night, I ghost-wrote this for the editorial board of Raw Story at their request; they made a few changes and expanded it somewhat as you can see on their site. This morning, I would add that Trump told over 30 massive and consequential lies last night, again demonstrating his lack of fitness for the presidency and CNN's inability to honestly moderate a debate. It's doubtful, though, that anybody in the Republican party will be discussing replacing him today. There are massive possible downsides and upsides to replacing President Biden on the ticket at this late date. The upside is that the publicity and national curiosity around the new candidate could swamp Trump and his BS and reinvigorate the campaign. The downside is that the possible infighting, and the possibility of the Democratic Party picking a weak candidate (including the vice president), could produce the opposite effect and hand the election to Trump.