Ward on Words

In 2024, Americans voted for a corrupt, venal, sexually amoral felon for president and we are paying the price for elevating a felon to the highest office in the land. His party bows only to Trump. The Constitution, if it gets in the way of Trump's corruption, is essentially to be ignored by the party.  Since assuming office, he's ripped apart the apparatus of the federal government. Though no one could ever confirm that Elon Musk, a South African immigrant who has multiple billion dollar contracts with the federal government, was the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (AKA DOGE, named for a crypto coin favored by Elon Musk), Musk served as the de facto face of the "temporary" government entity , which previous to DOGE was formerly known as the United States Digital Service (this was done to get around the need for congressional approval for a new department.)  Musk and his lackeys took a sledgehammer to budgets, congressional contracts, approved grants,...

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...

Jeffrey Epstein is back in the news, years after he died of suicide in 2019 in a federal jail, imprisoned while waiting trial for charges that he sex trafficked minors and conspired to sex traffic minors. He was, for years, a long-time friend of Trump's until they had a falling out over a real estate deal (I guess the sex trafficking of minors and the "Lolita Express" stuff were not deal breakers.)  Epstein has been in the news for a while, at least since Trump brought him up on the campaign trail back in 2024 , promising to release information about Epstein and his clients. From ABC News: "'Would you declassify the Epstein files?' Fox News' Rachel Campos-Duffy asked. Trump responded, 'Yeah, yeah, I would.'" In January 2024, a year prior to the election, Pam Bondi, future USAG, went on Fox News  with Sean Hannity to ensure that the focus remained on the Epstein files after some files were released by the Biden DOJ, claiming: "... Ghisl...