Welcome back to Hopelessly Liberal after its long winter nap. Last year we tried to write about the “#MeToo movement” but each time HL’s advisory board vetoed the post.  The sage and prescient advice was that the exemplars written about (Kevin Spacey was one, Bush 41 another) would soon attract additional accusers, named and anonymous, rendering the point we were trying to make incomplete, at best. The hits kept coming as most of us spent considerable and painful effort recalling episodes of sexual aggression that we were party to. The allegations and introspection continue, but some interim reflections are in order. Politics Skew Perception Among social conservatives in Alabama, Roy Moore’s alleged pursuit of teenage girls during his thirties was quickly compared to Joseph’s marriage [...]

Hopeless liberals of an age spent some of the 1960s debating which failed Eden, one resembling George Orwell’s “1984” or Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” was more likely in our future – pausing occasionally to ponder Robert Frost’s question of whether the world will end in fire or ice. […]

Most attention paid to the SCOTUS actions announced Monday (6/26/17) centered on the grant of certiorari for Trump’s petitions to reverse the Fourth and Ninth Circuit’s injunctions against his second travel ban.  That and the Court’s partial stay of those injunctions pending a decision on the merits next term. Justice Gorsuch But the attention of SCOTUS watchers focused more intently on the work product of rookie Justice Neil Gorsuch, expansively revealed for the very first time in one tension filled hour, when the Court’s final day orders and decisions were announced.  It proved a very ugly picture, confirmed many gloomy predictions about Gorsuch and surpassed some dire ones in previous HL posts. In these “pages” it was predicted that Gorsuch opinions and votes [...]

Four days after HL 36, titled “SCOTUS Refusal to Review North Carolina Voter Suppression Case Speaks Volumes” explained the real (and otherwise unreported) reason the Supreme Court declined to review the Fourth Circuit’s nullification of voting restrictions that “target African-Americans with almost surgical precision” the Court ruled unconstitutional North Carolina’s creation of two Congressional districts.  The lines had been drawn to intentionally dilute the ability of African-Americans to elect candidates of their choice.  North Carolina did this by packing as many blacks as possible into the two newly drawn districts and thereby reducing minority voting power in other adjacent districts. […]

The reflexive but understandable assumption is that most of President Trump’s personnel moves involve partially or wholly corrupt motives. However, criticism of his recent firing of United States Attorney Preet Bharara is much ado about nothing. Indeed, most noteworthy in this departure was the posturing of the Manhattan-based head federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York. The U.S. Attorneys, one for each of 94 territories carved by statute, effectively serve at the president’s pleasure. Technically, the Attorney General’s, but we know about Jeff Session’s fierce integrity and independence. Much has been made, but it is of little moment, that Trump changed his mind after earlier asking Bharara to stay in his post. The fact that Bharara was not singled out, but one of [...]

Welcome to Hopelessly Liberal, a blog going live this day of Trump + 7. Your blogger is an old fashioned liberal, having never deserted its shores for Progressive Land (sounds like a spaghetti sauce factory) or other euphemistic kingdoms. The title “Hopelessly Liberal” is borrowed from my son, who used it in his successful campaign for student council some years back at Riverdale Country School and from Al D’Amato who used it, also successfully, to defeat Bob Abrams in their 1992 U.S. senatorial contest. Mea culpa, as the Abrams campaign’s issues director, I influenced him to run on liberal policies, including universal single-payer health insurance.  By 1992 “liberal” had already become a term of derision for many on the right and far left.  Wimpy liberals [...]