Oh, oh.  SCOTUS could decide some time next year that there are no limits on election campaign money at all.

Keeping our democracy depends on at least two of the gang of six being not entirely shameless.  There was some indication of that this last term, but not on any of the really big cases.

Update, 14:30−5:  Another SCOTUSblog post.

John Roberts is speaking to 4th circuit judges and saying that judges should care only about where the law leads, not about what the effects of the decision are.  Given that each justice’s vote on the really big cases that make the news can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy, I have trouble believing that he’s telling the truth.

St. Louis’ No Kings march seems to have gone well.  Our NPR station has a much better description than anything I could write.

Our MAGAt governor called out the National Guard and nothing happened.  One of my senators actually “blamed” the protest on George Soros.  (I couldn’t make that up.)  I’m laughing at both of them.

Trump has a really stupid idea (OK, he has lots of stupid ideas, but one in particular) about giving all the grants currently going to Harvard to tech. schools instead.

Now, money for vocational training is a Good Thing, and Robert Reich has a good take on that.  I was a really crappy student (mostly because I was lazy…I’m not proud of that, but facts are facts), and my highest academic credential is an Associate Degree in Electronic Technology from a proprietary technical school.  It was during my time there that I discovered computer programming, and I still remember the PDP-8 machine language. 😎

But that’s not anything that Trump cares about.  He’s just lashing out like a 2-year-old because Harvard told him “no”.  There are some signs that folks are beginning to see that, and we can hope that that’ll make a difference in the mid-terms next year—if we still have elections by then.

I thought I’d check out SCOTUSblog and, just by chance, got into a live blog of the court releasing opinions.

There were two opinions released, and one might be interesting to folks who read FtB.  In the matter of the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling that you can’t have explicitly religious charter schools¹, with Justice Barrett recused², the SCOTUS vote was 4-4, so the Oklahoma ruling was not overturned.

This doesn’t set a precedent anywhere except Oklahoma, so it can come back to the Supreme Count.  It was just one of those one-sentence statements that doesn’t say who voted which way; but there was some speculation on the live blog that maybe it was Roberts who voted with the liberals to just kick the can down the road yet again.

---

¹“Charter schools” are public schools supported by our tax money.

²Apparently, she’s a very close friend of a woman who’s a big proponent of using public funds for religious schools.

The one big ugly bill contains:

No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued…

If Robert Reich is correct, that gives Trump license to continue to ignore the judiciary—probably the one sentence in the bill that Trump actually cares about.

Is there a lawyer out there who can explain to me what the phrase that begins “if no security was given” means?

I woke up this morning to yet another message in my regular e-mail from the person who triggered my previous post of the same title; and it seems to me that this person needs help that I’m not competant to give.

I’ve banned that person from this blog; and I’ve deleted my original post and all its comments.  I’m not comfortable doing any of that; but this particular flame war is at an end.  I’ll try not to start another one.

… otherwise the oligarchs win.

Lots of folks these days are giving up on the U.S. because of our current politics.  They see Trump and his minions attacking universities and the press, kidnapping and disappearing legal residents … you know the list; but they see these things as separate issues.  It seems to me that we have exactly one problem that takes a variety of forms:  the oligarcy trying, and so far succeeding, to divide us and to make us feel hopeless and just give up.

Don’t give up.  Stay aware of the crap that’s going on.  Get angry.  Even if you’re an old fart like me who can’t do much more than write angry blog posts, keep at it.  There are a few signs that things might turn around before long.

– Trump’s approval ratings are dropping, not among the MAGAts (racists are still cheering on his disappearing of people with darker complexions; he’s still the fundagelicals actual lord and savior), but among those who thought he’d lower egg prices.  There’s probably enough of them to swing an election as close as the recent ones.

– There will be some interesting cases before the Supreme Court some time this year.  It’s possible that at least two of the gang of six will be not entirely shameless.

– Democratic primaries will begin about a year from now, give or take; and they might be interesting.  For example, there’s talk of AOC going after Schumer.  That’ll be fun to watch if it happens.

– The midterms are coming up in about a year and a half, give or take; and I’m guessing that we won’t be having Russia-style elections that soon.  It’s possible that Democrats, more progressive candidates among them, will take control of one or both houses of Congress.

It probably won’t be the end of republican democracy until the 2028 general election, and only if nothing good happens before then.

We need to primary Democrats who are old rich guys and who are friends of the oligarcs, and do whatever we can to get them elected.  Let’s keep at it.

---

I’ve been pretty depressed lately, and not only because of Trump.  I haven’t written much of anything in quite a while, and I think the post above shows it.  Indeed, it seems rather disjointed to me, and not something that would make me think that I’d learned anything.  I need to break out of this funk.  Is this a start at least?  We’ll see…