“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

Soon, the Supreme Court will take up the Colorado case to determine if, after trying to overthrow a legitimate election to maintain power, Donald Trump is eligible to hold the office of the Presidency of the United States.

They will almost certainly make an embarrassing hash of that ruling.

I’ve not been posting much political content for the past months for a few reasons. First, the issue most central to the global debate is uniquely ill-suited to social media. In October, the day after Hamas murdered over 1000 Israelis, I hazarded this excerpt from the poem September 1, 1939, by W.H. Auden:

“I and the public know

What all schoolchildren learn,

Those to whom evil is done

Do evil in return.”

Like Auden’s complete poem, written just hours after Hitler invaded Poland, setting the stage for World War II, I offered that stanza as a lament for the hell that would flow from that newly minted and atrocious history of violent action.

It was not taken as such.

CJR - the Columbia Journalism Review - posted an important story this morning, linked below in the first comment. It's about a 5-minute read that breaks down the failures of the New York Times and the Washington Post regarding political reporting. Consumers of both broadsheets will note that CJR correctly tars the Times as significantly worse at their job, though both papers of record are shitting the bed when it comes to maintaining a properly informed public.

For all the talk about the polarization of news, the siloing of information, or even the bizarre and mindless assertion of a liberal-biased media, the real problem is capitalism - though CJR doesn't come right out and say that, so I'm saying it here.

Before anything noble or enlightened about informing the public and the virtues of independent journalism, newspapers want to keep their readers' attention. So, when it comes to politics, the absolute imperative is to sell the horserace. If, by the very nature of the horses involved, that race is a thoroughbred vs. an old nag, then the media needs to boost the slowpoke, hobble the speedster, or both.

The butt of the scuttle suggests that Trump is looking at charges on three counts in the Jan 6 case:

- 18 U.S.C. § 371 - Conspiracy to defraud the U.S. - When two or more people conspire either to commit any offense against the United States or to defraud the United States or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.

- 18 U.S. Code § 242 - Deprivation of rights under color of law - makes it a crime for a person acting under color of any law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.

- 18 U.S. Code § 1512 - Tampering with a witness - prohibits tampering with witnesses, victims, or informants in a legal case, with the intent to obstruct justice. It makes it a crime to engage in actions such as intimidation, retaliation, or bribery to hinder the communication of information or cooperation with law enforcement or the judicial system.

On May 19, I wrote this about Ron DeSantis when much of the punditocracy was still hyping him as the next big thing. “What a fucking idiot. What a cruel, cowardly, bullying idiot. If you’re getting into the DeSantis market, short the fuck out of your position. He’s a political tragedy just beginning to implode.”

As has become painfully obvious, that assessment was on the money, and tonight, I’d like to do two things: First, I’d like to take a bit of a victory lap at spotting this also-ran for what he was before the herd caught up. Second, I’d like to draft the first (of thousands) of autopsies concerning the DeSantis campaign that will be written when he officially drops from the race after Iowa. The fact that he’s still technically alive, politically, makes it that much more fun.

Call it a premortem.