“The US government is attempting to imprison Roger Ver for 109 years for the crime of following his lawyers’ advice. His case represents an unprecedented attack on attorney-client privilege that threatens everyone who relies on professional counsel. Today, Ver sits silenced in Spain, unable to defend himself publicly, while prosecutors use his own lawyers’ records against him—records that show his meticulous attempts to follow the law. This isn’t just about cryptocurrency; it’s about whether any American can safely consult legal counsel without fear of prosecution. If this precedent stands, seeking professional advice could become evidence of criminality.” (11/08/24)
“The 2024 presidential campaign ended pretty much where it began: loathing the never-ending presence of Donald Trump. On the day before the election, The New York Times front page displayed a gaudy editorial (badly disguised as ‘News Analysis’) under the title ‘Torrent of Lies Redefines Political Norms.’ Doesn’t that sound like a hard-charging rerun of 2016? Nothing ever seems to change from the paper that gaudily proclaimed under Trump that ‘The Truth Is More Important Now Than Ever.’ You can point and laugh, since The New York Times refused to admit that Hunter Biden’s laptop full of corruption details was authentic until 2022, and then it acknowledged reality in a story on page A-20, in paragraph 23.” (11/08/24)
“One can be overjoyed by the repudiation of a candidate without being pleased with the opposing candidate’s victory. This election is an occasion for that reaction. An American (or anyone actually) is perfectly justified in taking pleasure in Kamala Harris’s humiliating defeat while anguishing over the intemperate Donald Trump’s impressive win. As I like to say, every election has good and bad news: the losers lost but the winners won. That’s where I am today if anyone cares to know. I rejoice at the defeat of Harris and virtually all that she stands for, while also realizing that some of the grounds for that defeat are themselves to be repudiated.” (11/08/24)
“Bad as The Donald is, we cannot help but be grateful that Kammie the Commie is going to have to pack up and move further than the few blocks from Blair House to the White House come January. Yes, we know it is fall (especially since we finally got freezing temps at night here in the compound). But except for the never-Trumpers and the totally brainwashed or master manipulators in ‘Blue,’ a lot of people seem to be relieved that we will not have a fourth Obummer term. We understand that The Donald is still a statist, and as Massa he will not restore the Republic, much less institute a libertarian-minarchist regime. But we realize (and pray) that he will be a tremendous improvement on the last half-dozen or so White House dwellers …” (11/08/24)
“Houston is renowned for being the only major American city without zoning. To the chagrin of die-hard believers in zoning’s necessity, Houston proves that you can have a successful, affordable city without it. Yet, counter to those who believe that zoning is at the root of most of America’s urban ills, the city also shows its absence does not make a city that different from its peers. Looking at a variety of metrics on housing affordability, one can see how Houston does well but not too dissimilarly from other middle American cities.” (11/08/24)
“Kamala Harris’[s] resounding defeat at the polls, and what both Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and Hungary’s Viktor Orban hailed as a historic political comeback, puts paid to any hope that the planetary ascendancy of reactionary politics is a passing phenomenon. A campaign that celebrated its unqualified continuity with the Democratic Party of the Clintons, Obama and Biden crumbled in the face of a candidate who leaned into accusations of fascism with even greater glee than in his last two campaigns …. How are we to think about the fact that democratic process has certified and emboldened what so many have diagnosed as an unparalleled threat to American democracy?” (11/08/24)
“The ongoing war on Gaza and the push to annex large parts of the West Bank represented a golden opportunity for Netanyahu and his extremist government to increase the pressure on UNRWA. They have been enabled by unconditional US support, and the willingness of various western governments to recklessly act upon Israel’s false claims regarding the UN organization. By allowing Israel to delegitimize the very organization responsible for enforcing international law, the UN’s crisis becomes much deeper.” (11/08/24)
“The populist Sanders-left (which is actually broader because it includes Tucker Carlson and others called rightists) is partly correct and partly incorrect about what happened to the Democrats last Tuesday. They say correctly that the Democrats failed because they have taken non-elites for granted, patronizing and subsidizing some (minorities, for example) and disparaging and penalizing others (regular bourgeois working Americans of both sexes and all skin tones and ethnicities). This is usually stated as ‘The Democrats have betrayed the working class.’ This is good as far as it goes, but it goes not far enough.” (11/07/24)
“In his recent forum essay on nullification, Mark Pulliam distinguished between true nullification laws — those in which a state claims that it can refuse to obey federal laws that the state deems to be contrary to the Constitution — and laws that are merely statements of disagreement or vows of non-cooperation. This is an important distinction because the states are under no constitutional obligation to endorse federal laws or to cooperate with the federal government in enforcing them.” (11/07/24)
“As advocates of liberal democracy — this publication’s constituency — dig our way out of the rubble of Tuesday’s electoral earthquake, we wonder: How much policy mayhem may the second Trump administration bring? How much corruption and incompetence? How many persecutions and pardons, deportations and internments? How many trade wars, ruptured alliances, and calls to civic violence? How many more threats to prosecute and imprison his political rivals? There is no telling, except to say that the damage will be considerable for all the reasons that have been well rehearsed in these pages. At this gloomy time, I’m afraid I need to deepen the gloom. Those of us who believe in, and fight for, liberal democracy need to consider the possibility that the greatest damage Trump’s victory will do is not in the sphere of economics or foreign policy or the rule of law. We need to view the election as a moral defeat.” (11/07/24)
