26 Comments
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Richard Spiering's avatar

Silver lining: the Supremes showed us who they really are, and it ain't pretty. Between this dick move and Dobbs, they're helping to kill their own party. Let's hope it dies quickly.

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A.Gnosticthefirst's avatar

If metaphors became reality, Pinoccio's nose and flaming clothes would adorn the obese figure of the dangerous lying tangerine.

Benjamin Franklin said that freedom occupies one side of a coin. Vigilance occupies the otherside. When media and other institutions fail in liberal democracies the democracies fail too. Agent Orange has accelerated this process, allowing the Supreme Court (loaded with three of his nominations) to formally suspend the rule of law.

Project 2025 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025) is already written and awaits the Republican Presidential winner in November. It has chilling ideas for a government transition.

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Livi C.-Hall's avatar

I am upset and terrified, that this is our timeline.

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Robot Bender's avatar

So am I. If this stands, I foresee suffering and bloodshed coming that Americans haven't experienced since the Civil War. 😔

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Dale Waldo's avatar

A very broad brush but valid.

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Scott Monty's avatar

Thanks, James. A good shot in the arm.

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Kevin Robbins's avatar

“they didn’t like the English king saying they couldn’t steal land from Native Americans”

Thanks for the interesting substack. It always amazed me how much power the church had throughout the history of Europe. Queen Elizabeth the first impressed the shit out of me by standing up to the pope, Spain and France while fending off suitors.

I’m reading American Revolutions by Alan Taylor right now. They seem to have left that small detail out in high school that I quoted above. The revolutionary war was just because we didn’t want to pay taxes? Not the part about we wanted to genocide Native Americans and steal their land.

The brutality between Patriots and Loyalists got some real short shrift, too. Reading about how bad the election of 1800 was is somehow reassuring. Of course, neither Adams nor Jefferson was a demented, pathological narcissist. That was Aaron Burr.

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D. C. Wilkinson's avatar

James, you said your piece. And your point was? What good is our vote if your premise is true: the rule of law in America is already dead. The POTUS is now KOTUS. Sad. We fought for our independence so we would not have to be ruled by someone who believed he was above the law. I am no soothsayer but my gut tells me we're not getting out of this imbroglio unscathed.

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John's avatar

Nifty summary! Perhaps someday a rundown of a Black Plague or two rifling through the European population and its influence on governance and the church might be in order? I've heard a time or two that the influence was substantial.

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Nicole Heilman Grissom's avatar

All these brand newbies! Did they even read the title of your stack? 😂😂😂 Thank you, as always, for the work you do.

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Orinda Spence's avatar

Sweary is about what this is. I am too old to read all those sweary words therefore, I quit at about the 4th paragraph. Bye for now.

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Natasha's avatar

Argh.

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Pablo's avatar

You cannot be taken seriously when you starts cursing and throw f-bombs in the opening paragraph. That’s juvenile.

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Sara Marie Holt's avatar

Read the title of his Substack! If you don’t like to use fucking curse words, find another column to read! Fucking fuck head!

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Edie Sadowski's avatar

Please clean up the language

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Sara Marie Holt's avatar

What the fuck is your deal? Ugh, read the title of his Substack! Stupid shitbird!

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Sheri Muntean's avatar

Woof. I'm looking forward to more of that! Watching history of power and influence is like coming up on a train wreck - horrifying, but I'm fascinated and can't look away!

And yes, I bought your fucking book. 🤪🤣

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Esther Abrams's avatar

James, there is some older history that I would like your take on. In ancient Persia, the king was subject to the law.

Yes, I got that from the Biblical book of Daniel, and much that I had believed to be true from that particular library has proven not to be, but a vague memory tells me that little tidbit was confirmed.

So governmental subjection to the rule of law is ancient, and the Persian empire may or may not have been the first state to have this feature. Can you elaborate?

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NedZeppelin's avatar

Let’s face it - no one is wiser or more noble than an unelected bureaucrat stationed at their gray desk in a federal government agency. The government is the only thing standing between us and the chaos of imprudent decisions which might be made by the infinitely ignorant ordinary citizen in a society free of regulations which the agencies have proclaimed, however thinly related to their enabling legislation, for the selfless and necessary purpose of protecting us from ourselves.

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Mark Miller's avatar

A reasonable argument if ignorant ordinary citizens were ever going to wield any real power, but in the choice between the Robber Barons & the Military Industrial Complex and some unelected bureaucrats with their ‘burdensome regulations’, history has repeatedly demonstrated we’re much better off with the latter.

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Johan Hancke's avatar

Weakening the government is an important milestone on the road back to medieval rule without accountability to the people. SCOTUS is helping those who want to go that way. And they are explicit: The courts shall determine which government regulations shall be valid. Doesn't look good at all.

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