Hanging My Emotional Laundry Out to Dry

That’s how I think of these occasional conversations we share.

Seldom have I seen the national and international temperatures running so high. Adding to that frustration, artificial intelligence (AI) seems to have taken over YouTube and most forms of social media, so that we are never sure if the ‘trusted source’ is actually that person.

I listened to, and watched, an hour-long presentation by Warren Buffett a few days ago that was perfect. Good old Warren, looking great and never missing a beat. But Buffett always misses a beat or two. It’s his nature, and one of the many things that make him both unique and trustworthy.

So, I copied the link, and ran it past (who else?) ChatGPT, and they found no such utterances by my economic hero. It suggested that Warren limits his public discourse to the Berkshire Hathaway.com website. And so I do now, but the sting of being conned remains.

Another observation deserves a clothespin or two.

If Senator Chuck Shumer is unable to direct his fellow Democrats any more effectively than current sloppiness suggests, he ought to stand down. Congress, on both sides of the aisle, is dominated by aged individuals, long past their sell-by date in an age of young and far more enlightened voters.

Yet the average age of congresspersons for Republicans in the House is 56 and 58 for Democrats. The Senate skews older, with an average age of 62 for Republicans and 65 for Democrats. Both houses operate on seniority for major positions, and that merely (and substantively) continues the wreckage. Old farts are mostly unbeatable in elections, almost entirely because voters recognize their power.

We hang out laundry to keep ourselves clean.

Not in politics, we don’t. Have you ever wondered if that’s why Congress is so old and stinky? Hanging out the wash is only good for so long. Then it’s time to wander ove to the voting booth, while we still have one, and vote in new underwear. Merit-based advancement would be a start, where the average age of Democrat Committee Chairmen is 68. Chuck Shumer, over in the Senate, is seventy-four.

Can’t be done, you say? In the new underwear department, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old political newcomer, former barista and organizer for Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign, combined both a political conscience and a brilliant message to defeat Joe Crowley in a major Democratic House upset. The last time the 56-year-old Crowley even had a primary challenger, AOC was not yet old enough to vote.

So, it’s been done, and what America really needs is not so much a new car or a raise in pay, but young, energetic candidates to run against the Chuck Shumers and Lindsey Grahams, whose usefullness and competency has long abandoned them.

Lastly, at least for today, clothespins are hardly secure enough to hold down the flapping, wind-blown laundry over at the Supreme Court.

In my view, our current occupant of the Oval Office gets entirely too much press, and his enablers far too little.

John Roberts’ wrecking crew over at the Court has been neutered more cleanly than bull calves at roundup. Currently heralding a far-right supermajority, engineered in the Orange Man’s first term, the Supremes have accomplished two amazing anomalies in their history; an all-time low approval rating, and the enabling of a rogue presidency.

Lesser courts, both liberal and conservative, are in array as their judgements (both by juries and from the bench) continue to be overturned. Recent cases illustrate a pattern, as the Supreme Court increasingly used its emergency (or “shadow”) docket to grant stays of lower court rulings that had blocked executive action, often with limited explanation. The rate of grant decisions in favor of the administration jumped to about 67% in the early months of the Orange Man’s second term.

It can be argued that this undermines the role of lower-courts, dilutes preliminary injunctive relief, and concentrates power in the executive branch and the high court, a clear violation of the constitutional concept of separation of powers.

The effect was to allow executive action to proceed while litigation lags, in some cases involving major rights or institutional checks, such as immigration rights, agency independence, and civil-rights protections.

“Justice delayed is justice denied” has a long history, most famously attributed to William Gladstone, a 19th-century British Prime Minister. Even so, the sentiment is much older, appearing in earlier texts such as the Magna Carta. Martin Luther King Jr. is perhaps its most recent statesman using the phrase.

Perhaps it is more frighteningly worth noting that many of the Supreme Court orders were unsigned, summary, and provided little or no reasoning, which severely undermines their legitimacy, transparency, and precedent value.

There are those who advocate hanging laundry inside out, and that may be appropriate when the Supreme Court is in charge of washing up decisions by the lower courts.

But I see a rainstorm approaching, and hasten to take down today’s laundry and head for shelter.

Ironing is a subject for another day.