Tag Archives: Clarence Thomas

Fearfully Fearless Predictions for 2024

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Voici les prédictions 2023 apocalyptiques de la célèbre "Nostradamus des Balkans"

Having reached the point where I can say conclusively that I’ve been around for a while, I’m here today to say that I do not recall anytime in my many years that so many people I know or read have expressed so much apprehension for the coming of a new year.

Everyone is expecting the worst.

It comes up in conversation — ok, mostly with my lefty, Trump-despising cronies — but also in blogs, in comments, in asides from strangers. With “Jesus, this one going to be sick … “, being — in para-phrased form — a common refrain. Maybe you do, but I don’t remember this as the calendar turned from say, 2013 to 2014. Or even 1967 to ’68, and ’68 was a seriously bad year anyway anyone looks at it.

For a while I was thinking of doing a semi-facetious list of the ways 2024 is really going to jump the rails of common sense, decency, legality, etc. This list would have included predictions like:

1: Thanks to a ruling of the Supreme Court, with Clarence Thomas refusing to recuse, Donald Trump will be declared the winner of the 2024 election despite again losing the popular vote by millions. Legal battles in Ohio, Michigan and Arizona will result in the Court certifying contested Electoral College electors mere days before the inauguration.

2: Violent protests will erupt across the country and in D.C. as a result, suspending the inauguration and forcing Trump to take the oath indoors under heavy security.

3: An “October surprise” — a startlingly realistic AI-generated deep fake — will so badly damage Joe Biden, much as the Comey letter eroded Hillary Clinton’s support days before the election in 2016, that it will shave tens of thousands of votes in key states, putting a Court decision about the Electoral College in complete control of asserting the winner.

And so on …

But, good lord! What a bummer, right? Who wants to think about this stuff, even if — guessing here — millions already are?

While I continue to doubt both Biden and Trump will make the 2024 ballot, neither has any serious impediment — other than age — in this first week of the new year. I can not imagine the Supreme Court, its dogmatic allegiance to “originalism” withstanding, will do anything to complicate Trump’s myriad legal fights. It certainly won’t uphold Colorado’s 14th amendment decision, no doubt resting its decision on an argument Sam Alito intuits from a Spanish Inquisition case from 1503.

Likewise, in my morose stupor of the moment, I predict the same Court will strategize a way to avoid making any definitive decision on Jack Smith’s request for a ruling on Trump’s total immunity from prosecution on anything; parking tickets, exploiting illegal immigrant labor, stiffing contractors, raping women in department store dressing rooms, inciting a riot to overthrow the government, you name it. The Alito-Thomas bloc will devise a plan effectively exonerating Trump, certainly until after he’s reelected, at which point he can (and will) pardon himself.

I had a couple dozen more like this penciled in for added emphasis, but, damn man! It’s just too dystopian, even for me, a guy who can’t wait for the “Mad Max: Fury Road” sequel.

One thing that constantly rattles through my alleged brain though is how much of the over-arching chaos of this moment, and the looming chaos of 2024 (and beyond), rests at the feet of two people: Trump and Vladimir Putin, two guys who are not exactly unfamiliar or uninvested in each other.

Putin is obviously the key element in the war in Ukraine, and the powerful suspicion is that he is also a primary figure behind Iran’s support of Hamas and Hezbollah, on the grounds that any and all chaos that absorbs and consumes western democracies serves his long term interests.

It seems smart to bet that Putin’s long-standing support for Trump — via internet troll farms and social media disinformation — will, as I suggest with that “October surprise” business — only accelerate and become much more sophisticated this year, since a Trump defeat could likely seal Putin’s fate as well among the Russian elites.

Anyway, I promise I’m scouring the web for more uplifting topics to rant on about in the months to come. Maybe even something about Taylor Swift! Please stay tuned.

With Liberty and Muskets For All

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Guest post by Noel Holston

The Hon. Clarence Thomas and other “originalists” among the justices of the United States Supreme Court favor a concept with respect to interpretation of the Constitution that asserts that all statements therein must be interpreted based on the original understanding “at the time it was adopted.”

That’s how they justify opposition to, say, gay marriage. The Founders didn’t mention homosexuality — or women, for that matter — so there.

I’m not happy about this, but if that’s the way it is, they should be consistent. Apply their doctrine to guns as well.

At the time the Constitution was adopted, in June 1788, a personal firearm was a musket. A single-shot, slow-to-load musket.

It’s highly doubtful that even Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin — visionaries, inventors, Gyro Gearlooses of their times — envisioned anything beyond a musket. The repeating rifle wasn’t invented until 1847, almost 60 years after the Constitution was ratified. Muskets were still in wide use during the Civil War, and primarily — irony of ironies — by soldiers of the Confederacy, the states of which are now among the most protective of their gun-totin’ rights.

No way could Jefferson, Franklin and any other Founder have foreseen M-16s and AK-47s.

So, let Originalist theory reign. Let’s go musket.

Everybody 21 or older should be able to have a musket — a beautiful, wood-and-metal, work-of-art weapon, like Davy Crockett’s “Betsy” — if he, she or they wants. Our government could even provide them for free, like Covid test kits, and require courses on how to handle, use and care for them. They could be etched with our individual Social Security numbers.

But as part of the same campaign, we would collect every single assault rifle and pistol — every unforgiving, grimly utilitarian weapon of war that was never intended for civilian use.

Congressman Clyde owns the Clyde Armory in Athens, Georgia.

Praise the Lord and pass the powder horn.

Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He regularly shares his insights and wit at Wry Wing Politics. He’s also a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune  (1986-2000).  He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” by Skyhorse.