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Showing posts from July, 2024

The Power of a Long Table

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  It's true: In the US we are too isolated from each other. All restaurants' tables should be mostly long ones, where strangers can mingle and exchange ideas, and as we learn to appreciate a diversity of thoughts, perhaps we will not be quite so quick to kill each other randomly.

Too much immunity for presidents

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  Today, the conservative Supreme Court got it wrong on a major immunity decision. I mostly agree with them: A U.S. president should be immune from liability for actions taken within the scope of his or her presidency ("official acts"). That's fine*, but the court stopped there. It should have given us a narrow scope of what "official actions" are. With no limit given, there are two likelihoods, both negative, and I curse this Court for it: (a) A President can now make 'political prosecutions' against perceived enemies, with impunity; and (b) Any attempt by lower courts to impose limits are going to go back to the Supreme Court, causing years of delay whilst a dictator president is free to do evil left and right against their own citizens. Welcome to the new America, where all that stands between the people and 'whimsical imprisonment' is the personal ethics of our president. If we ever have a leader who throws political enemies into prison, with