Republicans seem to be increasingly fond of using the levers of government -- any levers of government they control -- to get their own way, no matter what. Perhaps this was spurred by Donald Trump's attitudes (and/or lawlessness) or perhaps it is the end result of a gradual Republican slide towards authoritarianism, but whatever the actual cause Republicans are now engaged in rather extraordinary uses of government power to punish those whose political opinions they disagree with. This is a far cry from the traditional Republican stance against "Big Government" it should be noted -- just one more in a long list of previous ideological positions they have completely abandoned in the Trumpian era. They now seem to have settled on: "The era of Big (Republican) Government is at hand!" as a guiding principle.

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Today's Republican Party is not just the Party of Trump, it also is now the Party of Trumpism -- or to put it in plainer terms: authoritarianism. "We're going to do whatever we want to do, because we can" seems to be the new rallying slogan for Republicans. Never mind what the public thinks or wants, never mind the possible political backlash, it's just going to be full steam ahead for as long as they can get away with it.

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The Tennessee state house chamber just took a step down a very dangerous path. It voted to expel one of its members on purely partisan lines (this is as of this writing -- votes on expelling two others are expected shortly). Expulsion has historically been used only in the most drastic and serious [...]

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Significant political news was made yesterday, and it happened far from a New York courtroom. Two elections were held, in Wisconsin and Chicago, and in both cases the progressive candidate emerged victorious. This will have some wider repercussions on the Democratic Party, so it's worth taking a look at what just happened in a little more detail.

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As I write this, America is in an extended intermission between Act 1 and Act 2 of today's political drama. Donald Trump has surrendered himself to the New York authorities, been arraigned, been charged with 34 felonies, and been released. He is currently en route to Florida, where he will later give a speech and/or press conference from his own golf resort.

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Donald Trump's typographical mistakes were already legendary. But up until now, none have truly been as historic as the one he posted immediately after a New York grand jury indicted a former United States president for the first time in American history [bizarre capitalization in original, of course]: "These Thugs and Radical Left Monsters have just INDICATED the 45th President of the United States of America...." Um, well, yes... the grand jury just indicated that Donald Trump was worthy of indictment.

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Although the American news media hasn't paid it a whole lot of attention, Israel now seems to be teetering on the brink of an existential crisis over what form of government it is going to have -- one geared towards democracy and checks and balances, or one headed in a much more authoritarian direction. While international news is routinely given short shrift in America (unless our own troops are somehow involved), what seems striking to me are the parallels between what Benjamin Netanyahu is currently attempting to do and what a second Donald Trump presidential term might look like here.

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On one of the last days of the year 1170, an English king seems to have begun a long tradition of what might now be known as "mobspeak." Like unto a mobster capo who is cautious about saying or ordering his minions to do specific things which he might later be found guilty of, King Henry II -- speaking about a man who was a powerful rival at the time, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket -- uttered the ultimate in "deniability" to his knights. The wording is in doubt, since this all happened a very long time ago, but the most common phrasing known today is: "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" We personally prefer the version that calls him a "meddlesome priest" instead, just for the Scooby Doo vibe, but the only account written by a contemporary of Henry worded it (in Latin): "What miserable drones and traitors have I nurtured and promoted in my household who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric!" This version, we feel -- with only slight modernizations of the language -- could easily have been uttered by Donald Trump. It includes shaming his own followers ("miserable drones and traitors") for being insufficiently loyal and fervent in his defense, a personal playground insult to the object of his wrath ("low-born cleric"), as well as overdramatizing his own victimhood ("treated with such shameful contempt"). The whole statement is downright Trumpian, when you think of it.

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The House of Representatives tried to override President Joe Biden's first veto today, but the effort failed in a 219-200 vote -- far short of the two-thirds necessary to override (290 votes in a full House). This was the first-ever veto from Biden, on a bill Republicans had convinced a few Democrats to cross the aisle for. The bill itself would have changed a rule from the Labor Department to remove the freedom of conscience in the investment world. To put it another way, Republicans wanted a Big Government solution to a problem that essentially only exists within their own minds. Most Democrats were right to oppose imposing ideological limitations on what pension fund managers can and cannot do, and President Biden was right to veto it.

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There's a recurring theme in both American fiction and actual American history, of playing to the crowd in legal situations. And, at times, it can actually work wonders. Trying a criminal case "in the court of public opinion" can make its own mark on history -- no matter the outcome of the actual court case. Think: the Scopes Monkey Trial. Or John Brown. In both cases, the public eventually wound up on the side that actually lost the case in court (Scopes lost, and John Brown's body wound up "a-mouldering in the grave" after he was executed).

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