Photographer, Gardener, Nerd
It’s like you’re walking with a key and it all makes sense and then you drop the key down a hole and all of a sudden you watch the key disappear and then you forget what the key looked like and then forget even having a key then standing looking at a hole wondering why you’re standing there and yet there’s a tickle of a thought festering in your mind that you know why you’re standing there and there’s a good reason and then it hits you that you’ll never remember why. Never.
Ah, good old days, when we tested this new software and loved the stupidity and brilliance of early AI. Think Siri at age eight. I just felt that we inadvertently (or advertently) corrupted her somehow.
Let’s game this out: gun owners will clearly fight to keep guns readily available and most other folks disagree so how far will either side go? Gun control is a red-hot issue. Mitch might even do his job. So, gun owners are told that things have changed and, well, they have guns. Machine guns, by the millions, that can easily kill millions of non-gun owners. They don’t seem to be shooting each other, for the most part. And we haven’t even gotten laws passed and the violence is escalating. At this point, any number of things, or combination of things, can easily go south and we’re fucked. Climate, fascism, corruption, racism, guns, hackers, inequality of every kind. A lot of shit going south. “May you live in interesting times.” Not a real Chinese proverb; more of a curse. We’re cursed.
You’re the only one who gets it all right. Always speaking truth to power and that’s blossomed into countless voices, fighting for what makes us all angry: inequality in all its forms. Financial, civil, racial, hereditary, all of it. It’s all wrong, steering us into such hate and pain – all wrong. You have the truest strengths and I’ve loved many who did, as well: Lincoln, Teddy, FDR, JFK, Martin and Bobby. None of them were perfect, and you’d agree none of us are, but I’d give almost anything to have any one of them with us right now. Sadly, that’s not possible, so we look to you to carry the mantel. Leader, thinker, carer, strong and honest. What more could we want?
The decision was a solid majority of 7 to 2. The composition of the vote is fascinating. Fully half of the Republican majority was from Nixon appointees and two from Ike. FDR and LBJ got one each. Dissenters were from both parties, one from JFK and another from Nixon.
What you had was a court led by six justices put there by Republican presidents that lost one vote but gained two Democrats. In essence, the Nixon-Eisenhower Republicans joined the FDR/LBJ minority.
So, when someone yells and screams about abortion, remind them four Republicans and three Democrats decided the vote.
Ike putting a Democrat on the court is priceless but then that same Democrat went on to lead the Liberal wing and served for 34 years. You go Ike!
Burger R Nixon
Douglas D FDR
Brennan D Eisenhower
Stewart R Eisenhower
Marshall D LBJ
Blackmun R Nixon
Powell R Nixon
Rehnquist R Nixon dissent
White D JFK dissent
I tell myself that it has to get worse before it gets better but it just keeps getting worse.
Every few months, for no clear reason, one of the apps on our Apple TV will ask us to login. I know I entered credentials a day or so before, so…feels like shopping at the same store for years, know the staff by name and one day you walk in and they all say “who the fuck are you?”
We are in the midst of what will clearly be viewed by historians as the single greatest presidential scandal in our history. It’s actually dozens of scandals, but narrow down to two big ones, both historic. A con man lied his way into the White House (not thinking he’d get elected – he just wanted to feed his ego and get richer) and the GOP kept him in office for two fucking years. Now that the adults are in charge, they’re investigating all the things we saw happen but could do nothing about it. Something is finally happening but we can’t forget two things: he got elected and was kept safely in office. This means the mechanisms in our system did not work and must be changed. One of my favorite Lincoln quotes: “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”
The American Experiment is built on a great many fundamental mechanisms, the interpretations of which are still being fought over, but a few are unassailable, including a two year reset.
All Congressman and Congresswomen must run for office every two years, meaning the response to a crisis can force a change in the Congress no faster, at least in a smoothly running government.
And that’s what they planned. If enough people decide that a change is needed, and can vote enough like-minded folks into office, they effectively change the government.
Democrats took effective power this term and began the work of correction. The Founders also built in a mechanism if two years is too long to wait: impeachment and the presidency was the reason.
Fluttering zigzag snake, glittering flashes of mostly white, bright but not blinding, obscuring everything. The snake writhes across my field of vision, uncoiling towards the sides. Diamond-studded cobra, glistening in the light it creates. A sense of numbness, disorientation but not fall down sick. Lasts about half an hour, start to finish, and I would never drive during one.