April 4, 2025

The government still functioned under Bush, though not always in ways we liked,

because he didn't go out of his way to destroy it. The federal agencies and the civil servants who kept them going continued to work; people didn't worry about whether they'd get their Social Security checks; national parks stayed open; the Kennedy Center produced whatever performances it wanted; law firms weren't retaliated against for representing clients who opposed the government. Some very bad things happened viz. Iraq, but the federal government still chugged along, competently managing the day-to-day issues affecting most people. But Trump is not merely stupid; he's much worse than that. He's at the center of a Venn diagram of stupid, crazy and evil. A government can still function if it's not intentionally sabotaged. Ours was basically stable and functioned pretty well under the good presidents and the stupid ones and the bad ones - until now.

April 2, 2025

Now that Musk has failed to deliver in Wisconsin, will Trump keep him around?

There aren't many universes where two egos the size of galaxies could co-exist, and Trump is said to be irritated with the many references to Musk as the real president. Musk is just as much of an attention hog as Trump, which probably chafes that fat orange ass pretty severely. Nevertheless, Trump has been happy to let Musk do his DOGE thing because it means he (Trump) doesn't have to work and, better yet, he gets the benefit of Musk's money - in particular, money to influence elections and encourage primary challenges against GOPers who dare to disobey. But despite throwing millions at the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, including a stunt that was about as close to vote-buying as he could get away with, Musk didn't deliver, and Crawford won by a considerable margin. Does this make Musk a loser? To Trump, there's nothing worse than a loser. If Musk can't promise to deliver every election for Trump, is it worth the irritation of his constant grandstanding to keep him as his "advisor" or whatever the hell he is? Is Eloon damaged goods? Stay tuned.

March 31, 2025

If you did want one you could probably get a pretty good deal right now.

I was never in the market for a Tesla even before Eloon lost his shit because I couldn't afford one. Maybe I could do now, but I'd rather drive a rusted-out 1978 Pacer and put up with the ridicule instead of the loathing that comes with Tesla ownership these days. And let's mourn poor Nikola Tesla, the neglected genius whose name is now sadly associated with a shitty person and an ugly truck that was glued together and occasionally explodes.

March 31, 2025

He has no concept of even basic economics; what he's doing boils down to

simple animal behavior: it's all threat displays, signals animals exhibit to show aggression and dominance to potential rivals or threats. Trump is a simple animal; he just wants to show that he's the biggest, baddest beast in the forest. He bares his teeth, beats his chest, and threatens tariffs. In the animal world threat displays can be effective, causing rivals to back away; but they can also be disadvantageous, inciting further aggression, like biting, scratching and trade wars. There's no point in trying to analyze Trump's behavior as if he were a sentient, thoughtful human who understands complex concepts like economics. He's instinct- and ego-driven to behave like a gorilla whose dominance is being challenged.

March 29, 2025

Courts willing to follow the Constitution and the law are also the only things standing between

Trump and the oligarchs' money - including Musk's. People have become wealthy in the US only because there is a stable legal system that allows it; in the federal courts, commercial litigation accounts for the majority of civil cases. Corporations and other business entities regularly sue each other for breach of contract, business disparagement, unfair competition, antitrust claims, etc. The libertarian types hate regulation, but the regulations they hate mostly have to do with rules that cut into their profits, like environmental or labor safety rules. But they don't want the courts to go away; the courts maintain a mostly level playing field, at least among businesses. Back in 1952, SCOTUS told Harry Truman that the government couldn't take over the steel industry to prevent a strike even thought the Korean War was going on and a strike could cripple arms production. But that was then. Would this SCOTUS tell Truman that he couldn't seize Musk's businesses in the event of a "national emergency" (and then find a way to skim much of it for himself)?

Russian oligarchs remain wealthy (and in some cases, alive) only because Putin allows it and they stay away from windows. https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/22/accidental-defenestration-and-murder-suicides-too-common-among-russian-oligarchs-and-putin Can Musk and the other captains of industry assume Trump will leave them alone and let them be filthy rich without interference? Seems to me that without the courts we're heading for a Mafia-like system where corporations and oligarchs will have to expect to pay protection money to stay in business. "Nice little SpaceX ya got there, Elon. Be a shame if something happened to it."

March 28, 2025

I'm not sure this Congress - at least the GOP part - *wants* to protect Social Security.

They'd probably be perfectly happy to see it turned over to and managed by private equity parasites. NTSB is a different animal - though not part of DOT, NTSB used to report to it for administrative purposes, while at the same time doing investigations into the FAA, which was also under DOT. Because of that conflict, Congress made NTSB fully independent. The problem with taking SSA out of the executive branch is that it's tied up with the IRS, which collects the FICA tax that funds it.

Also there's the unfortunate Flemming v. Nestor case from 1960, which addressed an amendment to the Social Security Act that stripped benefits from contributors who were deported under the Immigration and Nationality Act. A resident alien from Bulgaria who had paid into Social Security for 19 years began drawing benefits. He was subsequently deported for involvement in the Communist Party, and his benefits were terminated. He claimed that the amendment had deprived him of a property interest in Social Security without due process and was therefore invalid. SCOTUS ruled that there is no contractual right to receive SS payments because they are not “property” and are not protected by the takings clause of the 5th Amendment.

March 23, 2025

Do Musk and the other oligarchs understand that the only thing protecting them

and their wealth is the US legal system? If Trump tears it down, as he seems to be trying to do, what's to stop him from simply confiscating the wealth of the billionaires on some "national emergency" pretext and then turning it over to himself or his businesses? In the Youngstown v. Sawyer case in 1952, where Truman tried to nationalize the steel mills to prevent a strike during the Korean War, SCOTUS said a president couldn't do that, but that was then, and a different SCOTUS. It's what Putin has done in Russia - he allows the oligarchs to remain wealthy, but only as long as they toe the line and stay away from windows. Business people and corporations collaborated and complied with Hitler and many became wealthy, but we know how that whole mess ended, and some of those corporate leaders ended up defendants at Nuremberg. Without the legal system Trump could decide that he, not Musk, should be the richest man in the world and take whatever steps he needed to make that happen. So maybe all these rich assholes should try a little harder to push back on Trump as he tries to destroy the courts.

March 14, 2025

True - but the CR itself could be challenged as unconstitutional,

and I expect it will be, since it gives Trump broad power to allocate and spend federal money without Congressional approval. Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 says: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States." The case law interpreting the spending clause deals with the extent of Congress' spending power, not the power of the executive to interfere with it. Let's see if there's a constitutional challenge - and yes, I'm well aware of the fact that this SCOTUS seems unduly sympathetic to the power of the executive, but this is a unique situation, and I can foresee lower federal courts issuing injunctions based on the spending clause in particular cases, which would at least throw sand in the gears.

March 12, 2025

More sanewashing. We have never before had a president who is almost certainly

as mad as a box of frogs, so the media can't figure out how to cover him - they have only ever had to report on bad presidents, not insane ones. Our whole political/governmental system was set up to deal with bad people, but not with crazy people. There are procedures in place to deal with bad presidents and other bad politicians; the Founding Fathers recognized the possibility that bad people could achieve positions of power so they crafted a system of checks and balances. This usually works pretty well to control or weed out the bad people and bad policies, but not the crazy people and crazy policies. Nixon, Reagan, and Bush were bad in various ways, but they were not crazy. Nixon was dishonest and he drank too much; Reagan was dishonest and probably had Alzheimers by the time he left office; Bush was dishonest and fairly stupid - but they were sane. They could be described and their actions could mostly be predicted and opposed.

But how do we, as a system, deal with someone who isn't even passably normal? I'm not a psychologist and I don't even play one on TV, but it's obvious that that boy ain't right. His behavior is bizarre and unpredictable and often inexplicably destructive. His reasons for doing anything make sense only to him, and he changes his mind more often than most people change their underwear. We don't know what to do with him so we keep treating him like just another bad but sane president. It's not working. He really should be in a rubber room and loaded up with Thorazine, but since that's not possible he at least shouldn't be regarded as anything approaching normal. No, it's not part of any normal universe to talk about invading Canada, and the appropriate headline should be something like Has Trump lost his f*ing mind?? and not just some expression of puzzled concern.

We are in the Upside Down and The System had better start realizing it.

March 2, 2025

Trump's "prize" is that he gets to reign in Hell rather than serve in Heaven.

He's Milton's Satan, without the elegance:

It's really all about injured ego. In A Preface to Paradise Lost, C.S. Lewis said: "No one had in fact done anything to Satan; he was not hungry, nor over-tasked, nor removed from his place, nor shunned, nor hated—he only thought himself impaired. In the midst of a world of light and love of song and feast and dance, he could find nothing to think of more interesting than his own prestige." Trump wants the Nobel Peace Prize, not only because it's a big deal in general, but especially because Obama got it. But he'll have to be satisfied with reigning (for only a short time, I hope) in the Hell of his own making.