Wayward Landlubber

During the administration of Warren Harding, a president known for an incompetent group of political suck-ups loosely known as the "kitchen cabinet", the justice department was often referred to as the Department of Easy Virtue. During that time the Interior Secretary, Albert Fall, was involved in a land grab favoring the CEO of Sinclair oil that has gone down in history as, The Tea-pot Dome Scandal. Sinclair was one of several oil magnates to give money under suspicious circumstances to Harding's election. You might have heard that one before, if you are not a Republican. William Burns, who had started a famous detective agency was the head of the Bureau of Investigations. Earlier he was known as America's Sherlock Holmes. He ended his career as a tarnished cabinet member know for "Gilded Favoritism and Millionaire immunity." Maybe this will sound familiar to those of you not in the cult of Donald J. Trump. William Barr, anyone? It should surprise no one to...

     Today is laundry day. Co-incedently, I'm watching the film, The Landromat. It has nothing to do with cleaning clothes, or the people you meet at the laundromat. The film is directed by Steven Soderbergh and stars (in order of appearance), Meryl Streep, James Cromwell, Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas, Sharon Stone, David Schwimmer, and Jeffery Wright. I name all of the principals because they either gave fantastic performances, or did those small roles well that actors tell actors hired to perform those small roles, "There are no small roles, only small actors". I salute them all. The subject, however is the thing that captured my attention (okay, I'm boring). It deals with the "Panama Papers" finance scandal which was revealed in 2016. You may be forgiven for missing that scandal, there were many shocks to decency that year. In fact, our President; the one with the fat belly, the orange wig, the jutting chin, and the abrasive personality, was joined by hi...

     There are many reasons to question our treatment of people coming across our southern border, many of them seeking refugee status. None of the obvious reasons seem to matter to those people who stridently support Donald Trump and his party. Maybe we should consider a lesson of refugees rejected from entering Roman territory in the fourth century CE. Yes, I know conservatives have no respect for history either, but then what do they respect, besides authoritarian strongmen?      The Goths, Germanic tribes living in Germany, were being pressed by the Huns westword movement. Those barbarian tribes, among them the Visigoths, sought to cross the Danube for the safety of Roman territory. They were met with grudging acceptance but often treated with extreme cruelty. Roman officials sometimes forced these starving people to trade their children into slavery in exchange for dog meat. Steven Miller would have admired this treatment, forgetting that his early for...

The court case that established in the early 19th century the principal of Innocent until proven guilty in the US was Coffin v US. In 1795, some 8 years earlier, the British barrister, Sir William Garrow coined the phrase and ruled that accusers must be robustly tested. Presumably, in both cases the prosecution was not hampered by the defense team, with the  connivance of the Attorney General, and allowed the witnesses to be tested. One may surmise that it had its start in the 16th century Magna Carta.  Republicans are so sure that Orange Julius was denied his chance to prove his innocence, that they won't shut up about it. What they fear is that those Damned Liberals, are going to take that noble law away from them. Them, meaning those people so intent on fighting the deep state, that they welcome the shallow state. They need not worry. We Liberals are responsible for these improvements in jurisprudence. It is a long tradition that preceded the Magna Carta by a millennium (th...