Perfectly Legal, But Wrong
When “perfectly legal” is a lame excuse for doing the wrong thing
Society and Politics
Good People Are Leaving the Government
I’ve long admired Norm Ornstein, a public intellectual who leans conservative and has written several books that illuminate the current political dysfunctions in the United States. See, for example, It’s Even Worse than it Looks, reviewed here by Robert Kaiser for...
Supremely Conflicted: Are the Justices Truly Blind?
Don Mayer, July 3, 2023 The U.S. Supreme Court has wrapped up its 2022/23 agenda with the usual array of arresting (and sometimes controversial) opinions, including a notable set-back for affirmative action in the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard case. What’s...
“We Will Hang Earl Warren. . . “
As a member of a teenage Republican club in the early 1960s, I met several “Young Americans for Freedom” (“Yaffers”) and John Birch Society members. The JBS opposed the civil rights movement and believed the U.S. was in dangerous “moral decline,” railing against...
Stuart Rhodes = Solzhenitsyn?
“It’s a free country.” I first heard this at age four, from a kid in the neighborhood (who was probably doing something wrong). Our “freedoms” are not absolute: we are not legally free to steal others’ property or watch child pornography, but we are free...
Witch Hunt!
by Don Mayer “Witch hunt!” We’ve heard that phrase from Donald Trump as a stock response to any number of investigations, indictments, and impeachments. The Mueller investigation, both impeachment proceedings, the Georgia investigation (of a...
The Only Federal Judge in Amarillo, Texas
by Don Mayer Donald Trump’s judicial chickens have come home to roost, and they are laying some perfectly legal but horribly misshapen eggs. Trump, with the help of Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society, and then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, approved...
Florida: The Land of the Free and the Home of the Knave?
By Don Mayer March 7, 2023 Call me biased, but I’m starting to get more than a little “steamed” over politicians who claim to be re-planting the flag of freedom in the State of Florida. On National Public Radio this morning (March 7, 2023) we learned that the Florida...
“It’s a Free Country!”
We cherish our freedoms in the U.S., especially “freedom of speech.” And it’s perfectly legal –– and possibly, a great American tradition –– to cry First Amendment foul, even when foul-mouthed speech runs afoul of First Amendment protections. There are two recent...
Hating Hilary and the Child-Eating Democrats
Hating Hilary must be fun for some, but it borders on idiotic vilification, which is, of course, perfectly legal. She’s now not just a child eater, but takes off girl’s faces to put on her own.
Scotus the Bogus?
The late term Supreme Court decisions on guns and abortion present some odd quandaries about rights, and Constitutional interpretation. If the Court seems unusually political instead of judicial to you, you’re probably right.