A platform for sense and decency … and smackdowns of reactionaries

Merrick Garland: All Attorney, No General

He’ll never admit it publicly, but when President Biden looks up the street toward DOJ, he sees Garland, all attorney, no general. Nine months in, the hope 81 million had in DOJ’s prosecuting the head of the Trump criminal enterprise for obstructing justice and fomenting insurrection is dead. Like Lincoln’s McClellan, Garland is about his […]

Inherent Contempt Power: Why Not?

Why does the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol not use its powers under the Constitution to get what it needs? It has the inherent contempt power over individuals who refuse to cooperate with the its investigation. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) chairs the Committee, which recently invited […]

Sedition – Part 1

Federal law defines clearly the crime of sedition — more precisely, “seditious conspiracy”— in 18 USC 2384: “If two or more persons … conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by […]

Accountability American-Style

The predictable American accountability pantomime is in full swing: Who lost Afghanistan?!?! Just as the endeavor itself was a 20-year exercise in bloodlust, deluded expectations, venality, and performance art, so is the pale imitation of the reckoning with its end. Never mind the absurdity of the question, though telling as it is about the mentality […]