Ward on Words

The rapid collapse of American constitutional order has been shocking to witness. Trump's authoritarian dreams have been nearly realized. His goals are aided and abetted by a corrupt SCOTUS, led by the spin-meister Roberts, a man whose legacy will be the destruction of the Constitution he swore to uphold. No one in his party seems to want to defend the Constitution and instead will do and say anything to get on TV to defend Trump.  With DOGE, he sent a wrecking ball through multiple government agencies. He unconstitutionally slashed funds allocated by Congress for cancer research, medical breakthroughs, historical accounts, the National Parks. Elon Musk, a foreign citizen from South Africa with billions in US contracts propping up his failing businesses, made off like a bandit with our private data.  ICE violence against civilians  Trump has unleashed a masked, armed and unregulated militia upon blue states. In Chicago, ICE/Border Patrol agents dropped from helicopters on...

FULL DISCLOSURE: I am merely a voter and in no way a constitutional scholar. I write these observations as an observer, a citizen and a voter (who also follows AP Style.)  We've seen this year that SCOTUS can act swiftly to allow Trump unchecked powers. They've used the shadow docket to give the president the power to halt payments that have been funded by acts of Congress (Trump constitutionally does not have power of the purse, but that seems unimportant to SCOTUS.)  Another unsigned SCOTUS shadow docket ruling – Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo –  has allowed Trump to round up people based on looks and skin color. Brett Kavanaugh included a brief concurrence outlining why he thinks it's okay for ICE to consider race and skin color as evidence of a crime , which ignores the 4th amendment, designed to protect people from unreasonable searches and seizures. Here is the language of the 4th amendment:   " The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers...

We are in the midst of extraordinary times right now in America. I personally know people who think everything is fine – they think the big issue we face is just that Democrats don't have a messaging strategy (they don't, and that's part of the problem) and Trump's just doing what he said he'd do (very true! Trump lies about a lot of things, but not about his goals for an " I alone can fix it " presidency.) However, none of this is fine and none of this is normal political discourse or behavior.  What's clear - we have a president without any guardrails or checks or balances. We have the Roberts Court to thank for much of this - John Roberts' immunity ruling is a travesty of justice , allowing the president unconstitutional unchecked powers because the six ideologues on the court wanted to protect a president's right to act without fear of prosecution. How "originalists" can twist themselves into this pretzel is essentially unknowab...

On Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025, millions of Americans poured into the streets to participate in the nation-wide "No Kings" protest. Early estimates places this as one of the largest national protests, if not the largest, with millions of people protesting in communities across every state . In the cities, large crowds assembled to protest the authoritarianism of the Trump administration.                                                      Other 98 Instagram collage of No Kings protests                                                                 across the country The New York Times decided to place the story...

War has come to America and it is in the shape of US military troops sent to US cities to attack and beat down any dissent shown by citizens to any of Trump's actions. It is absolutely terrifying to watch the GOP assert military control in US cities.  Pete Hegseth, whose o wn mother calls "an abuser, " recently called all generals in the US military to Quantico so he could peacock on stage in front of them and brag about how his war fighters were no longer going to be fat and out of shape .  "It’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world. It’s a bad look. It’s not who we are," [Hegseth] said to a room full of generals.  Trump has declared that the Department of Defense is now the Department of War - to hell with the fact that changing the name of a department requires congressional approval. He is a dictator and what he says goes. ( My question – how much does it c...

On Sept. 15, 2025, Trump filed a $ 15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times and other parties. The pleading runs 84 pages. On Sept. 19, 2025, Judge Steven D. Merryday, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, issued a four-page ruling ripping Trump's pleading to shreds . (It's short, to the point, and definitely worth the read.)  The ruling allows Trump's team to refile within 28 days and requires that the new pleading cannot exceed 40 pages. In his spare, four-page ruling, Judge Merryday provides multiple lessons in writing that all of us could benefit from following, lessons that I would like to share here: Lesson 1) Cogently present the issue: "In this action, a prominent American citizen (perhaps the most prominent American citizen) alleges defamation by a prominent American newspaper publisher American newspaper publisher (perhaps the most prominent American newspaper publisher) and by several other  corporate and natural persons.   ..." Les...

Trump and Vance have taken to social media in the last 24 hours to showcase their utter disdain for the rule of law, due process and the Constitution. Their actions are impeachable offenses but unfortunately for US patriots and constitutionalists, their party is 100 percent on board with authoritarianism. I don't know how you can look at the events of this week and come to any other conclusion.  First, JD Vance used social media to let everyone know that extrajudicial murders conducted by US military are fine by him. His statement was in response to the Trump administration's boast that the US military blew up a boat in international waters, killing all 11 people on board. Trump and his team claimed without evidence that the people on the boat were smuggling drugs  to the US from Venezuela and thus, the US government acted as judge, jury and executioner, no evidence or trial needed to prove any guilt before execution.  In response to this act of violence, JD Vance did wha...

Washington Post has an exclusive story about how Trump's Pentagon "plans military deployment in Chicago as Trump eyes crackdown."  The story, as per usual from national news media these days, adopts the Trump frame, amplifying Trump's false claim that Chicago is a desperately violent city in need of a military "crackdown." Here is the lead of the story by Dan Lamothe. "The Pentagon has for weeks been planning a military deployment to Chicago as President Donald Trump says he wants to crack down on crime, homelessness and undocumented immigration, in a model that could later be used in other major cities, officials familiar with the matter said.   "The planning, which has not been previously disclosed, involves several options, including mobilizing at least a few thousand members of the National Guard as soon as September to what is the third most populous city in the United States." It is absolutely terrifying and unprecedented - this news th...