Tuesday, May 12, 2026

Ka$hed Out

He was deep undercover. His “legend” was portraying a drunken buffoon.  "But Biden!” has passed its sell-by date.
PATTY MURRAY: We need someone at this agency who is focused on solving criminal cases, not passing out branded bourbon or jetting around the globe. Your job is to be reachable. If you want to pass out liquor or pop bottles in a locker room, stick to podcasting.

KASH PATEL: *crashes out*
The judges would also accept: *goes full Bondi*
VAN HOLLEN: The article says agents with expertise in Iran were fired for their role in the classified documents investigations of Trump. Is that true?

KASH PATEL: The article, just like all the other articles you cited, is false. I terminated anyone and everyone that weaponized law enforcement.

VAN HOLLEN: I see. So it *was* related to the classified documents case
"I know you are, but what am I?”
VAN HOLLEN: In your response to me earlier, where you had a blowup, you made a couple provably false statements

KASH PATEL: So did you

VAN HOLLEN: Do you know it's a crime to lie to Congress?

PATEL: Maybe the next time you run up a $7,000 bar tab we can talk about it

VAN HOLLEN: See. You're lying again. I'm glad you agreed to take the test regarding whether you have alcohol problems. You are a disgrace.
The only thing missing from this hearing were some ordinary citizens he could refuse to acknowledge. 

CODA: Trump literally didn’t write the book, and he literally didn’t even come up with the title. (And “Urine eyes”? Mullin can’t do better to avoid that?)

But he is literally tweeting his way across the Pacific. Good to know he’ll be well rested and briefed when he gets there. 🇨🇳
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“I don't think about Americans’ financial situation.” President Donald J. Trump*

Per Fortune Magazine:

Price of oil yesterday

Oil price per barrel $107.67
% Change +2.56%

Price of oil 1 month ago

Oil price per barrel $96.44
% Change +14.50%

Price of oil 1 year ago

Oil price per barrel $65.44
% Change +68.75%

Brent crude this morning was up to $110 bbl.
Yes, politicians lie. But TRUMP DID THIS!

*The “J” is for “jerk”? Seems likely.
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But A $1.5 Trillion Budget And…

DURBIN: Could you explain to the American people why with the vast investment we've made in national defense and military, how Iran after they are attacked by us is still capable of stopping the traffic in the Strait of Hormuz?

CAINE: It's a complex situation

DURBIN: As we talk about trillion dollar plus budgets for our military, it appears a very small budget is holding us hostage in the Strait of Hormuz
...and a $200 billion dollar supplemental should allow us to open the Strait by… 🤷‍♂️

The little brown men in black pajamas continue to refuse to play by the rules.

(Anybody else see the irony in this? The myth of the American Revolution (and the war of 1812) is that the clever colonists refused to line up on the battlefield like the “stupid” Redcoats, and that’s how people with flintlocks defeated the technologically superior British army. As I say, ‘tain’t true, but we still brag about it. And yet….)
I think Lindsey wants to go to war with Pakistan. This is when we remember South Carolina started it; and why we’ve never had a president from South Carolina.

And now a word from the President, who is a very stable genius:
He thought he was talking to Pope Leo? Trump knows because Twitter told him so. Whether the budget is $200 million, $400 million, or $1 billion, it will still…be smaller than the ballroom at the Washington Hilton. I know this is supposed to make me run in circles, scream and shout.  But I return to the logistics of this idea (not to mention the legality.  The courts will make short work of this where it happens.), especially considering how this Administration has handled the attack on Iran.

Frankly, I still like our chances. Because the ads are already written:
And for all the Republican apologists out there: This is the context:
Reporter: Did you say you're not considering the financial impact of this war on Americans?!?!?!

Trump: The most important thing is Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

Reporter: What about the pressure on Americans right now?

Trump: EVERY AMERICAN UNDERSTANDS. They just did a poll!
He’s inventing polls, too. Reality is a fungible commodity. I’m sure he didn’t say this, either. If I read the timestamps correctly, this is while he’s on the way to China. Good to know he’s getting prepared…. Well, it does combine insulting female reporters with thinking about black voters, which he was doing as he boarded Marine One. So I’m pretty sure I’m right.
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“Follow The Money”

Also, too, as well: Praising CEO’s who wrecked Social Security (DOGE) and pledged money for Trump’s ballroom at a time the rest of us can’t afford gas, is more than a bit tone deaf.

Any sentient creature knows why they are traveling to China; and it ain’t to kiss Trump’s ass in Tianemen Square.

I’m just adding this for absolutely no reason at all.
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Do You Remember That Economist Cover? 🚀

The rocket ship blasting off, a metaphor for how well the American economy was recovering from
Covid, compared to the rest of the world. 🚀

You know, the one that won Biden his re-election.
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He Was Awake Last Night

But that was his last effort of the night:
Trump had one of his worst mental health episodes yet last night, posting over 55 times in 3 hours. Here is the list:

10:15 PM - Accuses Obama of attempting a coup in 2016
10:15 PM - Says Obama worked with CIA to overthrow Trump
10:15 PM - Reposts tweet saying Obama is a “traitor” and that he should be arrested
10:22 PM - Attacks dominion voting systems for 2020 election saying they switched votes
10:22 PM - Says Fulton County, GA had their 2020 fraud exposed (there was none)
10:23 PM - Accuses Obama of personally making $120 million from Obamacare (wtf?)
10:23 PM - Cites quack lawyer Sidney Powell on the 2020 election
10:24 PM - Posts fake JFK Jr account that says Obama wiretapped Trump Tower
10:27 PM - Demands Senator Mark Kelly resign
10:29 PM - Claims neither Biden nor Harris were in charge of the Biden admin
10:29 PM - Attacks Fulton County, GA again
10:29 PM - Posts Fox News clip of Rep Ro Khanna
10:30 PM - Demands Jack Smith be arrested
10:30 PM - Accuses Obama, Clinton, and Comey of treason
10:39 PM - Reposts a tweet from a MAGA account saying they have secret intel proving Clinton and Obama committed crimes
10:39 PM - Reposts a MAGA tweet saying Hillary Clinton should be sent to Haiti
10:40 PM - Says the DOJ is “working hard” to arrest his enemies for treason
10:40 PM - Reposts a tweet attacking his own DOJ and Todd Blanche for no arrests of political enemies
10:40 PM - Posts a TikTok video of people stealing from a convenience store
10:41 PM - Posts a TikTok of someone taking a Door Dash order
10:41 PM - accuses Obama, John Brennan, and Clinton of sedition and treason again
10:42 PM - Posts a video of a man on CCTV footage knocking over food a waiter was carrying
10:47 PM - Calls Obama the “most DEMONIC FORCE” in American politics
10:47 PM - Posts a tweet from Mike Flynn saying 2020 election wasn’t fair
10:49 PM - Attacks Dominion again claiming they stole the 2020 election (it wasn’t)
10:51 PM - Reposts a fake Charlie Kirk account that claimed Obama blocked Hillary Clinton from being prosecuted
10:53 PM - Claims Obama was part of Hillary Clinton’s emails in some way
11:28 PM - Claims a senior Democrat just testified under oath that Senator Adam Schiff leaked classified information
1:13 AM - Attacks the New York Times for reporting on the reflecting pool

This man is clearly not well.
Then at some point he rested: That’s reassuring.
I guess he wants to make Cuba the 52nd state?
According to a release from the Japanese Joint Staff, fighter jets of the Japanese Air Self Defense Force’s Southwestern Air Defense Force were scrambled to deal with a suspected intrusion in Japanese airspace by what was likely Chinese aircraft.

Japan has been the recipient of both naval and aerial coercion from both Russia and China this year. Such events, oftentimes joint Sino-Russian efforts follow the Japanese prime minister’s past comments showing solidarity with Taiwan and increasing moves by the Japanese to expand their force posture in the local region in response to Chinese coercive measures in the region.
I’m sure Trump will bring this up on behalf of our ally.
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Monday, May 11, 2026

He’s Passed 3 Cognitive Exams


Hard to believe that, really. He still thinks he has any tariff authority he wants. Raising a legitimate question: where does he think the “back” of the White House is? They left the hydraulic lift in the Beast.
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“White Is Not A Race”

But non-white is. You can’t use race to discriminate against whites. See? That would be racist. Against whites. Which is all that matters.

And Other Observations
"Seemingly"? I mean, from observation alone, a corpse and a sleeping person are seemingly the same. (“Death be not proud…/From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be.” “In me thou seest the twilight of such day/as after sunset fadeth in the west/which by and by black night doth take away/Death’s second self, which seals up all in rest.”) But who would say they are the same? “Seems to be” is a pretty weak observation. “Let be be finale of seem./The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream.” Biden “seemingly” didn’t recognize George Clooney once. But this is fine.  So is this. (Texas was (is) the primary supplier of oil in the country. It sets the price for crude in America. And gas in Texas was a lot cheaper 6 weeks ago.)

Or we could go back to talking about socks: 🧦 
I wear boots and blue jeans, so nobody cares what color my socks are. I like colorful and “fun” socks, but I have no chance to wear them. It’s a choice I made when I decided to simplify my wardrobe. (Yes, poor me. 😿)

Funny, the conversation used to be about “fun” ties. I still have most of my ties. Two of them were fun. One is Munch’s “Scream.” I called it my preaching tie, when I was wearing a tie (instead of a collar), although it was hidden under my robe in the pulpit. 

My other fun tie is Santa Claus in an easy chair with his feet up. Pretty much how I felt on the First Sunday of Christmas, after spending four weeks trying to get Christ born.

Makes me almost miss wearing ties. Almost.
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Six Weeks Later

According to Axios, citing senior U.S. officials, U.S. President Donald J. Trump is set to meet with his National Security Team today to discuss how to move forward with Iran. Per the report, discussions also included the possibility of resuming combat operations against Iran, something that has been reported before. Key officials, including but not limited to, U.S. Vice President JD Vance, White House Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, and CIA director John Ratcliffe are all expected to join the meeting.
We want to...
Citing two U.S. officials, Axios is also reporting that U.S. President Donald J. Trump is mulling conducting limited strikes against Iran in an effort to coerce them to accede to nuclear talks. Per one U.S. official, “he will tune them up a bit,” while another official said “I think we all know where this is going.”

Per the report, one option on the table is to strike 25% of the targets the U.S. has marked out but hasn’t hit yet.
...but we don’t want to. After all, pulling troops and missiles from Taiwan and elsewhere has worked out so well for us thus far. Surely a little more bombing after weeks of ceasefire will convince Iran to negotiate in good faith.

Although so far, publicly at least, the negotiations have been nothing more than swapping lists of demands, rejecting whatever the other side submitted out of hand. Oh and, at least on the American side, constantly moving the goalposts.Remember “regime change”? Remember “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” And what’s happening right now?
The president, five aides and outside advisers told me, is convinced that he can sell any sort of agreement as a win. But at least for now, the man who wrote The Art of the Deal can’t even get Iran to the negotiating table. Today, Washington is still waiting for Iran to respond to the latest offering, a one-page memorandum of understanding that is far more of an extension of the cease-fire than a treaty to end the conflict.
Typical Lemire, tbh. Trump didn’t write The Art of the Deal, he didn’t even come up with the title. But he’s dined out on it ever since. I’ve been involved in enough negotiations to know Trump can’t negotiate the purchase of a stick of gum, much less make a “deal.” And his ignorance about negotiating peace in a war he started proves it. Mostly because he never expected to have to negotiate anything.But the irony of Mr. “Art of the Deal” being unable to make a deal, is always worth noticing.
Trump never thought it would turn out like this. After the impressive military operation to snatch Nicolás Maduro from Caracas, the president set his eyes on Iran, telling confidants that it would “be another Venezuela,” a pair of outside advisers told me. They, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. Trump believed that the U.S. military was unstoppable, and that he had a chance to topple Tehran’s theocracy, a prize that had eluded his predecessors. He was redrawing the world’s maps and expected a victory to come in days, a week or two at most. The initial U.S.-Israel onslaught killed Iran’s supreme leader and included waves of bombings that reportedly obliterated much of the country’s missile capabilities. But Tehran did not capitulate, and instead attacked its Persian Gulf neighbors and seized control of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil passes. With a mix of mines, small attack boats, and drones, Iran effectively closed the waterway. Energy prices soared. The conflict settled into a stalemate and then a fragile cease-fire. One high-profile, official round of negotiations failed. No more are scheduled.
Trump was (is) profoundly ignorant, in other words. He was never more than a little child playing “war.” The Venezuela bit is old news. The more damaging bit now is that the U.S. military has not been “unstoppable” since Vietnam. The Gulf War and Iraq notwithstanding, we finally walked away from Afghanistan because everyone has walked away from Afghanistan. But we’ve known since WWII that bombs don’t break resolves and win wars. We relearned that lesson in Vietnam, too. Or we should have.

We have yet to learn the lesson that the more expensive the hardware, the less likely it will overwhelm our enemies. But we are once again learning the lesson of Vietnam: that our military does not make us the Master of the Universe. And that lesson means we need allies. 

We learned that lesson in World War II. And we followed it for 70 years. Then we decided we didn’t need history anymore.

So it goes.


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The Future Is Always Undecided

Yeah, about that: Districts don’t decide elections. Votes do. Come
November, GOTV is the trump (!) card. (Clyburn could be including the Senate in that prediction. Go big, or go home.)
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Copium Supplies Running Low

It just takes him 11 seconds to do it.
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Puerto Rico Has Entered The Chat

Art. IV. Sec. 3, cl. 1:
New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
Hmmm...no mention of the President at all.

Question: is any U.S. president famous for being in office when a new state was admitted? We all know Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase. But I grew up in Tyler, Texas, in a town where the oldest high school was named John Tyler.  And when I finally looked into it, I found out Tyler championed Texas’s entry into the Union. Because he wanted another slave holding state. 

The Civil War wasn’t ab initio at Fort Sumter. And it was just two decades later that Texas seceded from the Union.

But except for the time of succession, none of that is common knowledge.
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Nothing Creepy Going On

And suddenly we remember you bragging about how you wanted to fuck your daughter. And that wasn’t creepy at all, either. See? Not even vaguely creepy.  Neither is that. And what’s the point? The Stephen Miller Eugenics program, of course. “Americans” is now understood to refer to “white people;” just to clarify. In case you didn’t believe me.

All of this is too interesting to Trump:
This is fine.😑 
Trump: "We're reducing drug prices by 600 percent, or 80 percent. It's all about the phrasing of the question. And the media doesn't write about it. It's amazing. It's so sad, it's so biased. That's why the media, their approval rating went down just today 12 percent. You're at 12 percent. That's why I won in a landslide."
Nothing remarkable here, either.

I just googled “drug prices in the U.S.” The AI summary tells me:
U.S. drug prices are, on average, 2.78 times higher than in 33 other high-income countries. For every $1 spent elsewhere, U.S. consumers pay $2.78.
True, Medicare gas negotiated lower prices on 10 drugs (a 50% drop), and the White House reports Bristol Myers Squibb is reducing the price of its HIV drug, but:
Despite negotiations, many manufacturers continue to raise list prices annually, a trend that continued into early 2026.
So I’ve still got no fucking idea what Trump is talking about. But neither does he. Yeah, how’s that working out for you? The Sinister Six are giving you inchoate victories, but when it comes to actual individuals and criminal cases, they don’t seem to be bending due process and equal protection in your favor (i.e., to punish your particular enemies). That’s not what your CIA says.
According to the Washington Post, citing people with knowledge on the matter, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) delivered a confidential assessment to administration officials with the key judgment that Iran can weather the U.S. blockade for at least three to four months. Additionally, the assessment reportedly says that Iran still retains significant ballistic missile stockpiles despite U.S.-Israeli strikes on underground facilities. Per the report, and tracking with past reporting on the subject, “75 percent of its prewar inventories of mobile launchers and about 70 percent of its prewar stockpiles of missiles.”
"They” meaning ICE? We’d all love to see it. The federal gas tax is about $0.18 per gallon. Gas prices have risen over $1 a gallon. Of course, in Trump math, repealing the gas tax would lower the price by 1000%. Depending on how you word it. But don’t we have more weapons now than when we started? (And wouldn’t that involve magic? Or at least fabulism?) So what’s the point of this ceasefire anymore? If they have no weapons, and we’re better off than three months ago? Which doesn’t explain why the “ceasefire” allows Iran to attack UAE (still), or why Saudi Arabia refused to allow U.S. bases in the kingdom to be used to fly air support for the short lived “Project Freedom.” Oh, okay.... Are they in the room with you right now? Speaking of fabulism…. Is autism in the room with you right now? Can you show us on the doll where autism touched you?

Sound medical advice from the guy who told us to inject bleach and find ways to insert black lights in our bodies.
If you love something, maintain a stranglehold over it. Hope is not a plan. When the alternative is JD Vance, that’s almost…comforting. Almost. Oh, by the way:
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🃏🃏🃏🃏

After hearing the Pentagon classified brief on Iran war impact on US weapons stockpiles, Senator Mark Kelly says it is "shocking how deep we have gone into these magazines." He said the Tomahawks, ATACMS, SM-3, THAAD rounds, Patriot rounds, so those interceptor rounds to defend ourselves have been hit hard. He says it'll take years to replenish those stockpiles, which could affect a hypothetical US conflict with China. @FaceTheNation
Unacceptable, and yet here we are. It seems to have penetrated Trump’s impenetrable shell of delusion that we’ve played all our cards; and we don’t have any more.

Which explains why he’s still sabre rattling; but with an empty scabbard. 
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Sunday, May 10, 2026

Sunday Night Colour Comics

(But it’s not a golden calf! Literally! Although, c’mon, it’s an idol; especially with preachers praying over it.) Remember this? Well…
The Beast is really heavy. And the pool wasn’t designed as a motorway.
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Let The Record Reflect…

... on the record. Trump really, really, really doesn’t want to restart hostilities. Still not entirely sure why. 🤷‍♂️ (Actually, unconditional jus soli citizenship is the law in 35 countries; conditional jus soli is the rule in most of Europe. Conditions have been placed on it in European and other countries in response to immigration pressures and fears.  Precisely why Trump wants to change it; he’s a racist xenophobe who fears immigrants. But that change has to be done by constitutional amendment, a process in which the President plays no role. Nor does the Supreme Court. They know that; Trump doesn’t.)

(And he’s lost two tariff decisions. You’d expect him to learn by now.)
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What….

.... does this have to do with anything? It’s easy to see why. And explains the other post. And when is Trump going to pull the trigger on that? Same energy, same question: what’s he going to do about it?
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💩🍔

ATTKISSON: What happened to the audit of Fort Knox?

TRUMP: Which one are you talking about?

ATTKISSON: You and Elon Musk talked about auditing the gold

TRUMP: We wanted to go knock on the door and see whether or not we have any gold in there. We played with that. I wonder if they left the gold in Fort Knox, because they steal a lot. I do want to go to Fort Knox sometime.
He thinks the final scene of “Goldfinger” was filmed there. And he thinks everyone in government steals whatever isn’t nailed down. Which is quite an insight; but not the one he thinks it is. Which was working so well for so long…. He mispronounced “denigration.” And he’s figured out saying it goes to charity means people will try to figure out which charity. This way he gets the credit and the money, which he was always keeping. The guy makes pre-Marley’s ghost Scrooge look like a philanthropist. He’s mad he can’t figure out how to get some of that cash. (And if that was true, why do I still have to put up with all those f@!*ing commercials?)
Trump: "I look at these beautiful little babies and they get a vat, like a big glass, of stuff pumped into their bodies. I think it's a very negative thing to do. I would love to see much smaller shots, like four visits to the doctor. And I think you would have a much better result with the autism."

Gilt-edged proof he was not involved in the childcare of any of his children. And that everything he knows, he learned from cartoons.

The Administration will gladly pay you Tuesday to eat their shitburger today. Damn their ruthless efficiency! (Wait! Gorka? He’s back? Doesn’t this mean the first seal has been broken?)
NEWSNATION: What do you say to critics who assert that this long conflict and its economic consequences represent an intelligence failure?

GORKA: Utter complete hogwash. Garbage. Fake news of the highest degree. This action has been planned for decades by the president. Now he is in the chair. And everything you see has been planned out to the last scintilla. Everything is happening exactly to plan.
So the destruction of the U.S. and world economy is intentional?

I think I hear the second seal giving way….
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Saturday, May 09, 2026

It’s A Monument To One Man’s Ego

And no, I don’t mean Trump. Samuel Pepys and Soren Kierkegaard, to name two, were diarists/journalers who left volumes behind; but nowhere near 3400+.

Do they include the business records of what he actually did to acquire so much money? Or is that still a mystery?
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Dog Bites Man And The POTUS Is A 3 Year Old

Who thinks he’s playing “war.”
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Pretty Much The Xianity I Grew Up Around

And whole-heartedly rejected. A lot of good anti-RC sentiment thrown in there, too, which would never be explicit, but would also never be denied.

And no, I don’t think Trump has a clue what the Bible says; and it’s clear Robert Jeffress is perfectly comfortable with that. The central tenet of the Reformation, especially in the Reformed tradition, was that every individual was allowed to interpret Scripture individually. But Jeffress knows his congregation “interprets” the way he tells them to, and he likes it that way. Even though he’d distinguish the RC, which his Reformed tradition says doesn’t allow the individual to be guided by the Spirit the way his tradition teaches.

Slippery slopes are everywhere, and the splinter in another’s eye is always just a reflection of the log in yours. Especially when all you really want is just a little more power; which is another slippery slope when you want to judge based on who agrees with you, and who doesn’t.
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AOC Understands Where The Real Power In Our Constitutional System Is

And apparently that’s shocking to people. Or maybe the word is: “exhilarating.”
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Didn’t His Judiciary Committee Just Add $1 Billion To The Reconciliation Bill…

...for Trump’s ballroom?
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Regarding Cliches

I’m listening to two poli sci professors on PBS (local) discuss polarization in American politics. One of the professors is Hispanic, but with the sound off, he passes for “white.” His accent and his name indicate otherwise. And he’s speaking in praise of what he calls the “beautiful metaphor” of the melting pot. 

To which I call “bullshit.”

The melting pot is, in reality, a refiner’s fire where gold is separated from dross; the dross is discarded, and the gold is made pure. So the melting pot results in one thing: purity.  This is the goal of Stephen Miller, not the poli sci professor on my TeeVee. But that’s where the metaphor goes. Become refined to “white,” or get out. “White” is usually a loosely defined term. These days it accepts most “Asians,” a term that refers to what 70 years ago we were still calling “Orientals,” because there’s still suspicion of Asian Indians setting up Hindu temples (there’s a beautiful one here in Houston, but there are on-line crazies denouncing such things as the thin end of some wedge). Just to say we’re still playing around with what “white” is, even if the Census Bureau doesn’t. The goal is always to make “white” the baseline, and exclude all others. The Stephen Millers among us want to push that to its logical extreme. But always the desire is to define who is in, and who is out; to declare who is dross, and who is gold.

When we try to use the melting pot metaphor as a positive, a description of the ideal of this nation of many nationalities, we actually mean a stew: a dish of disparate ingredients that yield something greater than the sum of its parts, because it stops being just the sum of its parts. But it also doesn’t dissolve all the parts into grey goo. Nobody wants grey goo. But that’s when everything has, effectively, melted, too.

So nobody wants a melting pot, except the people who want the rest of us tossed out of the pot, and only their kind left behind.

Polarization is easier to understand when you take into account the racism that was in America since we were 13 British colonies. It’s almost always about race. The metaphor of stew is about overcoming racism and accepting differences. The metaphor of the melting pot is about eliminating the dross of any race that is unacceptable to those who would be in charge. I’d just point out that, per the U.S. Census Bureau, Texas is now 40% Hispanic, and slightly less than 40% white. But the GOP in Texas is terrified of the Muslims in Texas, because all their primary candidates have to denounce Sharia law so they can keep the elephants away (I know the cliche is unfortunate in this case). They don’t even know what Sharia law is, but they know they’re scared of it. Because they live in constant fear of something. It seems to be their raison d’etre.

That’s the “melting pot” of American history. We don’t need any more of it. And yes, I think the anxiety about Sharia law is actually anxiety about whites being in the minority, but the only shiny object we’d have on Hispanics is Tex-Mex food (yes, I do know how culturally blinkered that is; that’s the point), and, to put it bluntly, that would be like denouncing chili, which is the national dish of Texas. You might as well speak ill of Willie Nelson. So MAGA has to find something else. Also, MAGA thinks the Hispanic vote is on their side; which it was, until it re-elected Trump.  

Recently a Muslim group in Dallas tried to reserve a portion of a public swimming pool for a gathering. They welcomed anyone not in their group  (it was a group effort, not a mosque event) to join them, but asked that attendees dress “modestly.” The group is actually quite conservative, as they themselves said. Governor Abbott stepped in and denied the group access to the public facility, on the grounds they were discriminating on religious grounds against non-Muslims. They were doing no such thing; they were simply asking non-members who came to the end of the pool they had reserved for their party, to respect a dress code most people in the Southern Baptist town of my childhood would have expected 60 years ago. Abbott didn’t say it, but the dog whistle was clear: no Sharia law on his watch. 

As ever, be careful what you ask for. You’re very likely to get it. 



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Friday, May 08, 2026

“The Be-All And End-All Of Power In America Should Be The People”*

The first day of class in law school my Procedures professor told us: “You give me the rules of procedure, and I’ll give you the law; and I’ll win every time.”

He was right.

One of my favorite comic strips, the stuff that used to make newspapers worth reading (Ask yer grandfather! Punk kids.) appeared in the student newspaper at UT Austin in the late ‘70’s. It was drawn by a law student, and the strip I’m thinking of is when his cartoon protagonist has left law school and joined a firm. A client enters, and angrily declares: “I’m in a bad mood, and I wanna sue!” Which our hero declares to be the motto of the law firm. And there (as the cartoonist knew), our confusion begins.

AOC: All those maps were passed by the state legislatures. Virginia was an election of three million Americans. This court did not overturn a map, it overturned an election. It’s one thing for a court to check a legislature or an executive but the end-all and be-all of power in America should be the people.
There’s a category error there; the same one Gavin Newsom is making here: I suspect none of those states, like Texas, required a vote to redistricting for House elections. California, as I understand, only needed it to change their constitution; pretty much what Virginia did. But Virginia didn’t follow procedure.
“We hold that the legislative process employed to advance this proposal violated Article XII, Section 1, of the Constitution of Virginia," the ruling stated. "This constitutional violation incurably taints the resulting referendum vote and nullifies its legal efficacy."

The state spent $5.2 million for the special election and outside groups raised nearly $100 million to persuade voters, and the new map – which was in response to Republican-led states that redrew districts to add GOP seats – was expected to shift state's congressional partisan split from 6-5 to favor Democrats 10-1.

"The Constitution prescribes a way by which a ballot referendum can occur," said Virginia Tech professor Cayce Myers, explaining Republican arguments against the referendum, "Generally speaking, the ballot referendum has to pass through the legislature, there has to be an intervening election, and then there's another passing of the vote, and then it goes on the ballot."

"That process, by just looking at it from a constitutional perspective, looks like a long process," the professor added. "This process was very fast because there was a special session."
I didn’t write the Virginia Constitution; but according to the Virginia Supreme Court and the quoted expert, that’s what it requires. And failure to follow procedure means “Do not pass ‘Go,’ do not collect $200.” This is the same reason Donald Trump has failed, again and again, to prosecute those he is angry with, since January 2025. And frankly, when even AOC complains about it, she sounds a lot like Trump.

Procedure is the price of justice. Without procedure, Trump would be a tyrant, and all his “enemies” would be in jail. Most of our prized constitutional protections are, in the end, procedural. Equal protection and due process are about procedure. The law dances to their tune. It doesn’t always give us the results we want; but it protects us from the results tyrants want. For the most part.

Put it this way: if Texas (I know Texas law a bit better) had held a referendum on redistricting, it would have been a nullity. We didn’t have to vote to change the state constitution because ours doesn’t ban redistricting between decennial censuses. (It has more failings than that.). In fact, mid-decade redistricting began in Texas. So far as I know, Tom DeLay started it when he got the Lege to do it back when he was in the House, and the pictures of him in a hot tub were still private. Times change, eh? The only time redistricting is up to a vote of the people is when we pick the people to represent us. Ideally, redistricting would be done by independent commissions in all 50 states, and we wouldn’t have this nonsense. But no matter how it’s done, redistricting is always based on old data. Like the prospectus warns, past performance is no guarantee of future results. Districts change population;  groups that voted one way two years ago, may not vote that way two years later. This is expected to be precisely that kind of election.

I started this talking about a comic strip and a potential client who wants to sue. The problem is, the legal system doesn’t work that way. And it doesn’t work that way because procedure determines who can get into court, among other things. Consider how the court is handling Trump’s suit against the IRS. As the court points out, Trump is no longer adversarial to the government. He is the head Administrator of the government. He’s the boss of the agency he sued as a private citizen. Procedure says, without adversarial parties, there is no lawsuit. It’s the essence of conflict of interest. Trump loses, because Trump won. 

I expect, at least, that will be the outcome. And it’s entirely down to proper legal procedure. Bitter with the sweet. Sometimes you like the result; sometimes you don’t.

That usually means justice has been done. As the outcome of the legal system, anyway.  More than that affiant sayeth nought. 

*And so it is. But the route is not direct.
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