The Supreme Court Has Found the Rock and the Hard Place.

All indications are that the Justices will either invent the idea that Trump has sweeping immunity, or they'll send it back to a lower court.  Either decision creates a problem for Trump.  And for the Court.

The analogy that has been floated in this case is whether or not Trump would have immunity if he had political rivals killed.  His lawyer says he would, but this immunity would be retracted if Trump was then impeached and convicted.

Keeping in mind how enraged are most Americans over the Supreme Court's removal of their rights to abortion, and considering how much further enraged they would be if the Supreme Court told them King Donnie can do whatever he wants, it becomes more or less unfathomable that Donnie gets elected this coming November, if it's not unfathomable already.

But let's say, for purpose of discussion, he does.  But Congress becomes more Democratic.  Donnie not only gets impeached immediately, but the Senate, unlike the one headed by Mitch McConnell, who said he didn't care what the House did about impeachment, because the Republican Senate wouldn't convict him anyway, does in fact convict him.  Immunity gone.

Or Donnie somehow, unimaginably, gets elected, and Congress shifts right, too.  At that point, 250 years after we detached ourselves from King George III, we're under the autocracy of King Donnie and his yes-people (if he needs them, and doesn't just discharge them), and the "democratic experiment" is over.  We lost.  We failed.

Or, if the Supreme Court says a president has immunity, and can have rivals assassinated, why can't Biden have Trump assassinated?  Biden wouldn't, because he's not like that, but if the SCOTUS says he could, and if he does it now, the House will impeach him, and the Senate, if it was as amoral as the one McConnell led, wouldn't convict him.

But the fact is that Donnie himself knows he's not immune.  The last time he lost an election, he did the right thing, at first.  He brought the matter to the courts.  Sixty or sixty-one times.  Sure, there was the famous call to Raffensperger in Georgia, and the denied request of Pence, but he didn't take matters in hand, and declare himself the winner, as if he was immune.  (Or have Biden and Harris assassinated.)  He knows he's not immune.

And the SCOTUS doesn't have to send this matter back to a lower court.  It's already been there.  The Supreme Court of Colorado already ruled against Donnie.  It said he was guilty, had violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, and couldn't hold any office.  The Colorado Supreme Court simply suspended its decision for a little while, because Donnie wanted to appeal to the SCOTUS.

So, what's the SCOTUS to do?  They shouldn't have agreed to hear this case, and it's going to be more or less impossible for them (the right wing supermajority) to get themselves out of it without making fools of themselves more than they've been doing.

Nobody Saw That Coming.

Well, it's been a helluva week or so.  Last week Saturday, I went to South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center, and saw a magnificent dance show ("Ballet X").  Monday, I went to musimelange and heard a gorgeous baroque music concert.  Last night, I saw a very captivating exhibit (and had wine, Barbancourt Haitian rum drinks, a beer, and finger foods) at MOCA.  Tonight, I went to Sandrell Rivers Theater to see a play ("Bourbon at the Border").  Tomorrow and Saturday, I'm going back to South Miami-Dade.  Sunday, I'm going to an Indian music concert.

But I want to talk about the play I saw tonight.  It was put on by the M Ensemble, which is an African American theater company, and essentially all of their plays are about African Americans.  I almost always go on opening night.  It's more expensive --  well, when I say "expensive..." (it was $41) -- but after the opening night performance, there's food, drinks, socializing, and the actors come out after they've gotten cleaned up.  So you can meet them, and tell them if you think they did a great job.  There were four characters in the play tonight.  Rosa had a new boyfriend -- Tyrone -- so their relationship was part of the play.  And May is married to Charlie, who had gotten out of a psychiatric hospital for one of a succession of admissions for depression.  Charlie also had a limp from a fracture he sustained at some point.  Rosa and May were best friends, although Rosa was very fun-loving and was either libidinous or knew how to work men, and May was plain and seemed comparatively exhausted, likely, it seemed, because Charlie was so unstable and prone to depression.

Charlie seemed much better after this most recent hospitalization, and he was eager to get a job.  Tyrone worked for a trucking company that was hiring.  So maybe Charlie could get a job driving trucks.  Tyrone was going to put in a good word with Neil, who was the boss.

As May and Charlie reviewed their relationship, or May talked to Rosa about it, because they had come across some old photographs, it was revealed that May and Charlie had gone down to Mississippi in the 1960s to encourage black people to register to vote.  The setting of the play was during or shortly after the Vietnam war, so the background music from the radio was from that period.  So we're talking about something like a 12 year difference.

The geographic setting of this play is Detroit, which also influenced the choices of music.  The couple sitting behind me were singing along, even though I thought they looked too young to remember that music.  I told them so.  The woman was, shockingly, two years older than I am -- she could easily pass for 50-55 -- and her male companion was two years older than she was, and also looked much younger than he was.

I have to admit I wasn't sure where this play was going.  The write-up about the playwright was such that I expected something very interesting, but I couldn't figure out to what interesting place it was going to go.

And I'm not going to tell you how it ended.  The play runs until April 28 -- not every night, so you have to contact them at 305-705-3218 or tgcooper@aol.com to find out their schedule -- and I strongly suggest you go.  If you care, the regular ticket price for shows other than opening night is somewhere around $35.  Parking is free.  Staff are wonderfully friendly.  Pat and Shirley operate the M Ensemble.  They have very nice staff who take tickets, if you have them, or sell them, if you don't.  Sandrell Rivers Theater is at the corner of NW 62nd St and 7th Ave.  It's reasonably close to here.

You don't know how this play ends, but I do.  When the actors arrived at the post-play reception, I told them they did a great job, and I asked each of them if they saw the end coming as they were reading the play.  Not one of them did.  Nobody did.  I'm reluctant to be hyperbolic about this, but it's kind of brilliant.

Do yourselves a favor.

"Me, Too."

One of our neighbors sent me a frankly painful e-mail.  The e-mail said "Regarding the 'Anonymous' comments on your blog post regarding Ryan Huntington, I'm truly scared about the population and future of BP and our country."  I didn't ask for permission to reprint this, because I can keep the author confidential, and it doesn't matter who it is.  It's one of our neighbors, and someone I know.  I responded "Me, too," and I suggested that our neighbor could have entered this as a comment, instead of a private e-mail to me.  I also said the blog is ours, not mine.  It's true that because of the way blogspot is set up, I have unique proprietary discretion and control no one else has, but I try to minimize that.  I could block comments, or condition them on my approval, and I don't do either of those things.  I invite guest authors -- it's my pleasure to have their input, with which I most certainly don't always agree -- and those guest authors have as much control over the blog as I do.  In the past, I regularly offered guest authorship to people running for Commission, even if I was running against them.  I figured it was a good way for them to make their presentations, or cases, and we could have a nice discussion, or even debate, about their campaigns.  But few candidates took me up on it, and now, no one, frankly, seems to have an agenda.  Nor do they do their neighbors the common courtesy even of campaigning.  So I don't bother to do the legwork to go find the candidates, and offer them space and a circulation.

Which brings us back to our neighbor's lament, certainly about the Village, and also about the country.  Anyone who reads these posts, and the comments (which means the reader has to keep checking back every day or every few days, to see if there are any new comments), has seen the profusion of comments from someone who calls him- or herself "Anonymous."  And I will tell you that "Anonymous'" first comment under the last post came so soon after the post was published that it led me to wonder if "Anonymous" is in fact one of the people on the new post circulation I have compiled.  Either that, or it was a coincidence that "Anonymous" just happened to check the blog right after a new post was published.

"Anonymous'" comments are rambling, often incoherent, filled with misspellings, grammar mistakes, and what are probably the results of someone who has poor verbal ability trying to dictate, commonly enough have nothing to do with the topic of the post, are very often nasty and insulting, and seem to be the products of someone with frankly serious problems.  One of "Anonymous'" common refrains is hope or confidence that Donnie Trump will get re-elected this year, which I guess is part of the reason that our neighbor who e-mailed me expressed concern not only about the Village, but also about the country.  It does appear increasingly glaring that people who are in favor of Trump have in common noteworthy dimness of wit, to put it in a certain way.  Even increasing numbers of people who have been staunch Republicans and "conservatives" (it's still unclear to me what they think they're trying to conserve) are falling away from Trump.  But not "Anonymous."  S/he is still claiming to be a stalwart.  Clearly, that's part of what feels frightening and deflating to our neighbor who e-mailed me.

One of the critically important things about "Anonymous" is that "Anonymous" is anonymous.  So, when "Anonymous" talks, for example, about Village matters, in favor of or opposed to anyone or anything, it's not possible to know who "Anonymous" is, how "Anonymous" thinks s/he knows what s/he says, or if any of these ramblings are worth taking seriously.  So, if I, for example, can't tell, then the sensible choice is to ignore the content.  But if "Anonymous" is a Village resident, then s/he still gets a vote.  Hence, part of our neighbor's concern.  A complete moron with a vote can use that vote any way s/he wants, which imperils the Village.  And because, to take the example "Anonymous" keeps giving us, whether or not it's germane to anything, if the same complete moron is a remaining stalwart devotee of Donnie Trump (it's still impossible for me to believe the polls showing Donnie's considerable support among whoever agrees to respond to these polls), that person (benefit of the doubt here) can imperil the country, just as our neighbor feared.

Back in 2015 and 2016, when Donnie was first running, every available piece of evidence strongly suggested that Donnie was intellectually impaired, completely dishonest, and 100% self-centered.  Although Donnie did not get the support of the majority of the voters, he won because of the distortion created by the technicality known as the Electoral College.  Four years later, after he proved beyond any doubt that he was most definitely stupid, a total and inveterate liar, and had no thought for anyone but himself, he got even more votes than he did when we just strongly suspected it.  So the voters aren't very smart.  It's clear, although faulty and unnecessary, I hope, why our neighbor is as "scared" as s/he is, at least about the country.

Regarding the Village, we have crashed.  We've had the occasional dysfunctional and failed oddball on the Commission from time to time over the decades.  We've worked around them.  But starting in 2016 (yeah, I know: hmm), Commission candidates have stopped campaigning, commonly aren't properly "seasoned" for being Commissioners, and have no agendas.  Which certainly explains why Commissions since then haven't accomplished anything.  We've had 2 1/2 good Commissioners since 2016.  Dan Samaria started out surprisingly very well, until he went in some weird direction, Roxy Ross filled in for Betsy Wise or someone, who ran for the hills when the Commission problems got increasingly bad, and there's been Mac Kennedy.  I'm giving Mac full credit, Roxy full credit, even though it was just to fulfill the end of a term that had been vacated, and Dan half credit because he lost his bearings and didn't have to.

So I totally, totally understand our neighbor's concern, and I share it.  It's sort of heartbreaking to see what's happened to the Village, and to the country.  I even had a brief e-mail conversation with whoever is our current manager, and I suggested he fire police chief Luis Cabrera, because Luis isn't interested in safety on 6th Ave.  The manager said it was the Commission's job to manage the police chief.  So our manager presumably hasn't read our Charter, he doesn't know whose job is what, and which bucks stop at his desk.

Yup, I very much get it.  The straits are most definitely dire.  Whoever can be bothered to vote in the Village this coming Tuesday will have zero good choices out of three options.  In November, apart from the Village election -- again -- among others, we'll have the choice of Joe Biden, who is too old for this, and whose best accomplishments have been to undo some of Donnie Trump's damage, and then get out of the way (although he continues to help the Israelis annihilate innocent Palestinians), or Donnie Trump, who is the stupidest and worst past president this country has ever seen.  Great, huh?

I'm Guessing Ryan Huntington Hasn't Seen "Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror."

Early in that movie (one of the old ones starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes), Holmes is invited to join the British High Command to figure out who's behind the German recordings of attacks against England.  One member of the Council is very opposed to bringing in Holmes, a civilian.  But Holmes has already been invited, and he arrives as the Council members are debating the fact that he was invited.  Holmes shows off some of his stuff, and he notes that one particular admiral clearly objected to his being invited to help.  The Council members are very surprised that Holmes could have known this, and Holmes points out that the Admiral in question had been leaning against a table, and left heel impressions dug into the rug, clearly signifying resistance.

So yesterday, I went to the Village event before the Commission meeting.  Daniela Levine-Cava was there, I had met her before, and I wanted to talk to her for a while.  But while I was there, Ryan Huntington, clearly at the urging of Mac Kennedy, introduced himself to me.  He said he knew about this blog (hmm, he didn't ask me to include him in new post announcements from now on), and that I had mentioned him.  I confirmed I did, twice.  So he wanted to make an introduction, and he apologized for having missed meeting me while he was campaigning.  He said he had been in a hurry to distribute his materials, knocked on doors, and probably knocked on mine when I wasn't home.  Nope.  He distributed a door tag to my house when I was home, and he didn't knock.

Anyway, Ryan and I had a nice chat, under the circumstances (he's running for office, and I'm not supportive), and I told him Mac thinks highly of him, and notes that he comes to Commission meetings prepared with good questions.  (Ryan revealed he's lived in the Village for 13 years, so apparently, coming to Commission meetings is a new thing for him.)  But I told Ryan that he was at a disadvantage, and he was proposing to put his neighbors at a disadvantage, because he hasn't given himself an adequate opportunity to understand how the Village works, what our problems are, how we've addressed some, why we didn't address others, etc.

Ryan mentioned one thing he considers a problem: speeding.  I agreed with him, and I told him our biggest speeding problem by far is and always has been on 6th Ave, and we're not doing anything about that.  But that's not the speeding Ryan had in mind.  He's fixated on our interior streets, and how we should have speed bumps and rotaries.  I told him we already have speed bumps, and they're faulty.  I don't know if Ryan didn't hear me, or if he was just lost in his own thought process.  So I tried again to explain.  We have speed bumps/tables, and they're so high that no one can negotiate them at the accepted speed limit without damaging their car.  As it happens, one of my friends, who's lived here longer than I have, and was standing there, told Ryan the same thing.  Ryan thinks the answer to this is to drive slower (than the speed limit).  I asked Ryan if what he really thought is that 25 mph is too fast, and we should lower the speed limit, again.  (He can't know that we already lowered from 30 to 25, for no reason, or about the traffic studies we've already had.)  He didn't answer.  The purpose of traffic calming devices is to make sure people drive the speed limit, not to make it impossible to drive the speed limit.

Ryan did what Mac escorted him to do: he met me.  He is interested in his own thought process, not in anyone else's (despite his claim to want to include his neighbors more), and he still thinks it's reasonable and not disrespectful to his neighbors to imagine he can dope this all out while in office.  Heel prints are noted.

Have a nice day next Tuesday.  Give my regards.