Tag Archives: Trump

Trump II

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The closer we get to the election, the clearer a picture we get of Donald Trump’s plans for a second term as President. It is enough to scare anyone who cares about the nation. And it has proven to be enough to get people who served in the first Trump administration to come forward and express their fears. As this is being written more than a dozen people who worked for Trump endorsed Trump’s longest serving chief of staff, Marine General John Kelly’s assessment that he is a “fascist” threat to the constitutional order.

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It’s Still the Economy, Stupid

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One thing the political polls agree on is the number one concern on the minds of voters. It’s the economy. It is ALWAYS the economy.

The problem, at least for Vice President Harris, is that what voters call the economy is not what economists call the economy. What voters mean when they say economy is prices as in, the price of a gallon of gasoline, the price of a bottle of milk, the price of a dozen eggs. Those prices are up. And as is usual, the incumbent gets the blame.

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Debate #2

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I did not rush to write after the second debate of this presidential election season, the first between vice-president Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump. I, along with the majority of the debate watchers, was not going to change my voting plans as a result of the ninety-minute session. I tuned in for the spectacle. And, it appears, I had a lot of company. The debate drew an impressive audience of 67.1 million viewers. This was a big increase from the 51.3 million viewers for the first debate, the one between President Joe Biden and Trump.

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Chicago and the DNC

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The 2024 Democratic National Convention is about to begin in my hometown. I am worried.

In the summer of 1968, I was between my junior and senior years in high school. After a string of the usual summer jobs, delivering clothes for the local tailor, bagging groceries at the local supermarket, this summer I had a “real” job. I was writing computer programs for the City of Chicago. It was a big secret in those days that if you ignored a parking ticket in Chicago, you would never hear from the city. That was because the city’s traffic court, which had a crew of one hundred patronage workers dutifully typing the data from each ticket and each mailed in payment onto computer punched cards, no one had written the programs to match the two card decks and print out notices threatening arrest to the scofflaws who hadn’t paid.

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The Prosecutor and the Felon

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More than a month ago I wrote about the poor performance of President Joe Biden in his June 27th 2024 debate with Donald Trump. Then I put politics aside, frankly, having had enough for a while.

Did I miss anything?

Seriously. If Aaron Sorkin wrote a script describing the events of the last few weeks, nobody would believe it.

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The Supremes Über Alles

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In my two previous columns (here and here) I detailed some of the winners and losers resulting from the opinions issued during the Supreme Court term just ended. Now let us look at the biggest winner of them all, the Supreme Court itself. In the last three weeks of the term, the Supreme Court transferred much of regulatory and administrative authority and rulemaking to itself. The federal courts were not authorized and are not equipped to serve as roving regulators of last resort for hundreds of federal agencies. According to the Court:

  • Judges know more about science than scientists.
  • Judges know more about medicine than doctors.
  • Judges know more about structural safety than engineers.
  • Judges know more about climate change than meteorologists.
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Form and Substance

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There is no sugar-coating it. President Joe Biden had a train wreck in his first 2024 debate with Former President Donald Trump. Fifty-one million watched. I wrote that I had concerns because Biden had seemed physically feeble during some appearances in the last year. Right as he walked out on the debate stage, I saw those signs, Biden walking slowly and speaking slowly and in a soft scratchy voice. I did not expect to see him ramble and become incoherent, but he did that more than once. At other times he was clear, combative, and effective, defending his administration and listing his accomplishments. But you could not fail to notice the other moments.

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