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The news, in brief …
“This is not a hoax”: Epstein birthday book note allegedly from Trump shared by House Dems
The release comes after Trump called the drawing a "fake thing." Read more.
Sotomayor says SCOTUS ruling lets ICE “seize anyone who looks Latino”
Sotomayor worried that the ruling made Latinos living in Los Angeles "fair game" for ICE harassment. Read more.
“Fight like hell”: Progressive groups demand Dem senators “hold the line” in funding fight
“Fight like hell”: Progressive groups demand Dem senators “hold the line” in funding fight. Read more.
Appeals court upholds $83 million judgment in Trump defamation lawsuit
The ruling called Trump's conduct "extraordinary and unprecedented" as well as "reckless and indifferent." Read more.
Make me smarter …
Try as they might, Republicans can’t silence Epstein’s victims
“The only motive for opposing this bill would be to conceal wrongdoing,” said one victim. Read more.
Unfair in my favor …
Introduced by Bill Watterson in the last half-decade of “Calvin and Hobbes,” Calvinball was just another outlet for the endlessly imaginative troublemaker at the center of the strip.
The “sport” existed in a state of constant flux, with Calvin regularly making up rules, adding equipment and redrawing boundaries to suit his moods.
“Other kids' games are all such a bore! They've gotta have rules and they gotta keep score!” Calvin sang/explained of his pseudosport. “You don't need a team or a referee! You know that it's great, 'cause it's named after me!”
As the Supreme Court ties itself into knots and creates new tests for just about any Trump administration case that comes before it, it’s hard not to see a bit of the beautifully made-up game. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said as much in a partial dissent in August.
“This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules,” she wrote. “We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins.”
The majority are making up the rules as they go along to deliver the outcome President Donald Trump wants. We saw it again on Monday, when they issued a ruling that effectively allows ICE to stomp all over the Fourth Amendment. Like Jackson, we can see that Calvinball as an analogy doesn’t quite fit. The grade-schooler lost his own game with regularity, being outsmarted by his tiger companion.
The game the court’s conservatives are playing could still, by rights, be called Calvinball. Their thinking stems from a man much older than the six-year-old prankster at the center of the influential comic strip, though. In the seemingly rigged rulings of the Roberts court under Trump, the nation’s top jurists are pulling from the nearly 500-year-old works of John Calvin.
Like the protestant leader, it’s clear that the justices believe in predestination. The suspect doctrines of Originalism and Textualism allow them to riff on the fly, like cartoon Calvin coming upon an abandoned tennis racket and pogo stick, until they land on a flimsy justification for the ruling they want.
Pretending to bust out the Ouija board and consult with the ghosts of the Founding Fathers adds a layer of spooky, celestial gloss to the already determined outcome of a Trump W. It allows them to ignore centuries of precedent while presenting an unbeatable argument that even frequent loser (comic strip) Calvin would find suspect: my imaginary friend says I win.
What do you think? Are we in for several more years of “Trump wins, LOL”? Is there any way to rein in the court before 2028? Is the image of John Roberts the Centrist finally (thankfully) dead? Sound off in the comments.
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Before you go …
Katie Miller isn’t fooling anyone
Does Stephen Miller's wife think her dreary podcast will lead her to being First Lady? Read more.
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