Gallows Humor

 The New York Times was reporting yesterday on the conversations inside the Trump team in the days leading up to Democrats' blowout electoral success in the midterm elections. Reportedly, one of Trump's top pollsters—someone who also worked on his various presidential campaigns—was joking that they could all be on trial soon, and that they might have to flee the country. 

Someone pointed out that at least Netanyahu had (sort of) won his recent election. Perhaps he would take them in.  "Maybe we could get asylum in Israel," Trump's pollster apparently said. 

The Next Bill Barr

 A recurring pattern in the first Trump administration was that, periodically, even some of the most ideologically extreme conservatives in government—people like Jeff Sessions or Bill Barr, say—would lose their jobs because even they retained some baseline adherence to the rule of law or the independence of their offices that Trump could not tolerate. 

Sessions, for instance, was fired for not wanting to directly involve himself in a legal matter that affected the administration. Barr, likewise, fell afoul of Trump in the final months of the administration by refusing to back up Trump's bogus claims of election fraud, or to conjure phantom evidence of electoral malfeasance out of nothing. 

The Latest Religious Schools Case

 So it wasn't exactly the biggest news story of the day, but earlier this week on Tuesday (election day), the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in yet another case involving religious schools and the free exercise clause. I think it's worth dwelling for a moment on just how extreme and unsympathetic the religious right's position in these cases has become. 

Those who still mentally inhabit a sane world where there is an Establishment clause that courts respect—and who therefore haven't quite internally caught up with recent developments in First Amendment jurisprudence from the Roberts Court—might be forgiven for presuming that it must be unconstitutional for state governments to fund the teaching of religion. 

Patriots and Collaborationists

 Yesterday, before the good news broke about the U.S. midterm elections, the New York Times home page displayed a pair of bad news stories out of Venezuela. Apparently, the U.S. military is not only increasing its direct "collaboration" with the Venezuelan authorities—they are also preparing for a long-term military presence. 

In other words, the quisling regime in power in Venezuela is doing what quislings have always done—they are serving as obedient puppets. And so, they are clearing the way for an indefinite U.S. military occupation of their country. 

Takes One to Know One

 Over on my other blog, I was ranting today about what a terrible snot J.D. Vance is. 

A friend of mine read the post and messaged me afterward to convey that he sensed a certain joyless and hectoring tone in the whole thing. "I understand why you're frustrated, but could you please lower your voice?" he half-seriously remarked. 

The Apostate

 Okay, so I thought Haley Stevens was perfectly entitled to her own opinions on El-Sayed's campaign in Michigan. I even thought it was legitimate for her to try to influence him to tone down or shift his rhetoric or positions. But to switch sides and back his MAGA opponent—as she did yesterday—just two days out from the election—is indeed what Sen. Chuck Schumer called it: a "despicable betrayal" of party and principle. 

There's something almost eerie about the psychology that could go back on one's own prior words so brazenly. Time and again, Stevens had denounced the GOP candidate for a host of valid reasons. Now, at the last minute, she declares that she wants him to be a U.S. Senator. As Lord Byron wrote of the erstwhile Jacobin-cum-Laureate Robert Southey: he "turned his coat — and would have turned his skin"—and that seems to be what happened here too. 

The Dewey Arch

 The New York Times ran a guest column yesterday that described the history of "triumphal arches," which Trump is obviously trying to imitate in the construction of his new so-called "Arc de Trump" in D.C. 

But the Times piece leaves out of the story one of the closest parallels from our own history: the Dewey Arch, which was built in New York's Madison Square in 1899 and demolished a year later.