Category: politicians behaving badly

Kamala Harris for President?

July 14, 2026 • 8:45 am

I’m writing this to blow off steam, and also pose a question to readers: “Why were Democrats so enthusiastic about Kamala Harris’s candidacy for President.?” Sure, she was the default candidate and Democrats had to vote for her if they didn’t want the abysmal Trump, but why the outpouring of enthusiasm for someone who seemed palpably unqualified for the Presidency? Whence the “great joy” that Harris brought to some Democrats? Why the “Kamala is brat” memes, with “brat” meaning “confidently rebellious, unapologetically bold, and playfully defiant.”

I want to blow off stem because yesterday I had an “animated discussion” with a good friend about Harris, with my point being that Democrats can’t afford to get really enthusiastic over a lame candidate. He told me that Harris wasn’t lame, that he was enthusiastic over her, and that she lost largely because she was a woman. Then it was off to the races. (Upshot: we’re still friends, but agreed to differ.)

Confession: I voted for neither Harris nor Trump. In Illinois, Harris was sure to get the electoral votes, but I couldn’t stand Trump. Harris, on the other hand, made me queasy.  So I wrote in “Gretchen Whitmer.” If I had to go back, I may well have written in “Pete Buttigieg”, who would be a great candidate in 2028 but people consider him unelectable because he’s gay. (I don’t believe that, by the way. If Americans can elect a black person President, they can elect a gay one. After all, voters elected a sexual assaulter who advocated grabbing women by the genitals, who was married three times, and who paid off a pornstar to keep her mouth shut after having sex with her. Next to that, being gay a godly position.)

Why couldn’t I stand Harris?  For several reasons. First, she lacked gravitas, or even the ability to string together words in a meaningful sentence. I don’t know how many times the phrase “word salad” was used to characterize her speeches and interviews.  Have a gander, and this is typical. (Don’t forget that Harris avoided interviews and speeches during her candidacy.)

She was long on metaphors like the coconut-tree meme and “I can imagine what can be, unburdened by what has been,” and, even for NPR she was short on specifics in her “60 minutes” interview. You’l remember that her words in that piece were edited by CBS to remove some of the salad. That interview, below, is just another word salad.

I could not vote for a President who could not outline their views clearly.

I didn’t disdain Harris because she was a woman; after all, I had no compunction about voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and don’t give a hoot about about a candidate’s sex, race, or sexual orientation. What I want is someone who can lead the country. And if you can’t articulate your views, or establish a policy platform, and if you gaslight the American public about “what has been,” you won’t get my vote.

Though averring she was going to distinguish herself from Biden, Harris proffered only a continuation of Biden’s policies—policies on immigration, on economics, and on foreign issues.  She was not particularly pro-Israel, and was insistent that the IDF not go into Rafah (“I’ve looked at the maps,” she said). He campaign focused more on serving up word salad and attacking Trump than on advancing her own policies.

Her past: she was not a particularly good Vice-President, though I realize that the Veep has to make their own jobs. Nevertheless, she was assigned to deal with immigration issues and didn’t do squat. She took the “right” positions on issues like women’s and LGBTQ rights as California’s attorney general as Senator, so I can’t say she was “Trumpish” in any way. My worries are that she went along to get along, wasn’t particularly smart or reflective, was too progressive, and, since she couldn’t put two words together, could not lead in the sense of persuading Americans to go along with her.

Given all this, I was baffled at the outpouring of Demorcratic enthusiasm for her. They not only urged others to vote for her (which was fine), but also extolled her as some kind of iconic Democratic figure (which was not fine). We can’t afford, as liberals, to distort someone’s views and image to win elections.  Rather, we have to find good, solid candidates. Harris was not one. The American public was not fooled by her promises to bring change, nor were they heartened by her incoherence in the few public speeches and interviews she gave.  People weren’t fooled, and she lost.

Our job as liberals (and for me as a left-centrist) is to find candidates who have the potential to be leaders, and can articulate a vision.  I think Pete Buttigieg is one, but can’t think of others, though of course both Clinton and Obama emerged at the last minute to win the Presidency. Please put below the candidates you’re enthusiastic for now.

In his column in today’s NYT (archived here), Thomas Edsall mentions three issues that the Democrats  must be “normies” about if they’re to win (“normies” means adhering to the majority Democratic view, not the “progressive” view. A quote:

Even now, according to a new survey by the left-leaning group Data for Progress, the Democratic Party has a net negative rating of minus 29 percentage points among swing voters, worse than the minus 25 for the Republican Party. Democrats seeking to restore their party’s credibility with the electorate as a whole, but especially among those crucial swing voters, might consider adding three planks — on immigration, urban disorder and transgender issues — to the 2028 Democratic platform.

Why? Because it is these three issues that serve to reinforce the perception that Democrats are willing to sacrifice the interests of the working and middle classes in favor of special interest constituencies.

I am more than a little queasy making these suggestions, but I think the Democratic Party needs to perform a kind of brutal surgery on itself.

And here are the three issues and what Democrat has to believe about them if they’re to win (bolding is mine):

On immigration, I would suggest — with plenty of room for amendment — the following:

Democrats will firmly enforce laws on illegal immigration, including tough border enforcement and deportation of unauthorized immigrants who commit crimes.

Unauthorized immigrants with no criminal record who have been in this country for at least five years, along with Dreamers, should be offered green cards with a path toward citizenship. More recent arrivals should be deported.

On crime:

The Democratic Party supports aggressive prosecution of those accused of violent crime, those who engage in crowdsourced “teen takeovers” of stores, as well as all forms of child abuse.

The party backs restoration of bail requirements in the case of felonies, lifetime sentences for offenders convicted of multiple violent crimes, tough enforcement of child support laws and the death penalty if supported by the voters in a state and endorsed by a jury.

Transgender and gender dysphoria:

There are two sexes: men and women.

A man can claim an identify as a woman, and the same in reverse for a woman. They have every right to do so. Their claim should be respected and they should be protected from any form of discrimination for their choice.

Their claim does not, however, alter their biological sex.

Consequently, it is legitimate in areas such as sports where a transgender person would have a competitive advantage over non-trans people to bar such participation. Similarly, a claim to a sexual identity does not give a trans woman the right to incarceration in a woman’s prison.

Finally, the debate over gender affirming surgery and hormone treatments is fraught with contradictory assertions. For now, because there are credible scientific claims of irreversible harms, such treatments for those under 18 should be barred pending further study.

This is the best of the many pieces I’ve read about what Democrats need to do to start winning.

I agree with all these positions, save that I don’t think the death penalty is justifiable, nor do I think it will turn voters off so long as you advocate for the possibility of life sentences without parole.

The problem with Democrats is that they’ve been gaslighting us: pretending that crime is down, that something close to open borders is okay, and that trans rights always trump women’s rights—that biological men are identical to women in all respects.  Voters are not taken in by these positions, and all three of the critical issues Edsall mentions are ones that Democrats tell us are not problematic.

The next President does need to hew to something like Edsall’s program.  Edsall doesn’t mention Israel, which is the thorn on the rose, and it’s possible that no Democrat can be elected who doesn’t criticize Israel for overreacting in Lebanon and Gaza. Could I vote for someone like that? I suppose I could—if they have the other virtues.

Trump wins another round: Supreme Court rules that he’s partly shielded from prosecution

July 1, 2024 • 11:00 am

This I didn’t expect, and it’s a decision by a 6-3 vote, with Jackson, Kagan, and Sotomayor dissenting. Trump is now apparently shielded from prosecution for official acts, but not private ones. That’s going to cause great confusion, but it’s also going to delay his trials, making it easier for him to win November’s election.

From the NYT; click the headlines to read (archived here, but the feed changes):

An excerpt as things unroll in real time:

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that former President Donald J. Trump is entitled to some level of immunity from prosecution, a decision that will almost surely delay the trial of the case against him on charges of plotting to subvert the 2020 election past the coming election in November. The vote was 6 to 3, dividing along partisan lines.

Mr. Trump contended that he was entitled to absolute immunity from the charges, relying on a broad understanding of the separation of powers and a 1982 Supreme Court precedent that recognized such immunity in civil cases for actions taken by presidents within the “outer perimeter” of their official responsibilities. Lower courts rejected Mr. Trump’s claim, but the Supreme Court’s ruling may delay the case enough that Mr. Trump would be able to make it go away entirely if he prevails in November.

Here’s what to know:

  • The ruling: The justices said that Mr. Trump is immune from prosecution for official acts taken during his presidency but that there was a crucial distinction between official and private conduct. The case returns to the lower court, which will decide whether the actions Mr. Trump took were in an official or private capacity.

  • The charges: The former president faces three charges of conspiracy and one count of obstructing an official proceeding, all related to his efforts to cling to the presidency after his 2020 loss. He was indicted last August by the special counsel, Jack Smith, in one of two federal criminal cases against him; the other relates to the F.B.I. raid on his private club, Mar-a-Lago, in August 2022 that recovered missing government documents.

  • The trial timing: The prospects for a trial in the 2020 election interference case before the election seem increasingly remote. If Mr. Trump prevails at the polls, he could order the Justice Department to drop the charges. The bottom-line effect of the court’s ruling appears to be that the trial judge in Washington, Tanya S. Chutkan, is going to have to hold an evidentiary hearing on many, if not most, of the allegations in the special counsel’s indictment of Mr. Trump. The fact-finding process the court has ordered could take a while not only to conduct, but also to prepare for.

  • Lower courts ruled against Trump: Judge Chutkan of the Federal District Court in Washington denied Mr. Trump’s immunity request in December. “Whatever immunities a sitting president may enjoy, the United States has only one chief executive at a time, and that position does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass,” she wrote. A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed in February.

Apparently the January 6 case will go back to an appellate court for further consideration, and that means that a lot of time will pass (way past the election) before this case is decided.

Click to read the ruling as a pdf that you can download:

We are well and truly screwed: the President can commit as many crimes as he wants so long as they are “official acts”, and he has nothing to lose by doing that. And if he gets elected in November, a prospect that seems increasingly likely, he could simply order the Justice Department to drop the whole case against him.

If you’re a lawyer or legal eagle, weigh in below.

Beginning NOW: House committee holds final hearing on January 6 insurrection, and will recommend sanctions. Watch live here.

December 19, 2022 • 11:56 am

Reader Ken sent me some timely news.  Now I’m not sure i the House recommendations will influence the Department of Justice, which will be making its own decisions, but they can’t hurt.  What do you think they’ll do? Will they recommend indicting the Orange Man? I think so.  Here’s what Ken wrote:

The final hearing of the Jan. 6th house special committee starts at 1 pm Eastern today. The committee will be delivering the executive summary of its final report and making criminal and ethical referrals as to the key miscreants.

It will be live streamed on PBS; watch below, or watch at C-Span here.

Surely, even if you’re working, you’ll want to have this on in the background.

Protesting Iranian students may have been lured into a parking garage by the University president to be rounded up for arrest (or shooting)

October 3, 2022 • 10:45 am

UPDATE:  CNN has just reported on the situation, with students reported being beaten, gassed, shot (with what, though?) and arrested. And why the students were in the parking garage is still unclear. But it does seem that they were driven back into the University by security forces. A quote from one student:

“It started with the students refusing to go to class. And then the (professor) of science came to talk to them because they were chanting stuff… the students were led out by the security forces of the university, and they were then stopped by Sepahs (IRGC forces), wearing normal people’s clothing,” Farid told CNN.

“They told them that ‘if you go near the subway station, we will start shooting, go back to the university.’ And then after half of the students got back into the university, they let the others into the parking lot. And after that, they started shooting them with paint balls and taking them into custody in a very, very savage way,” he added.

_____________

It’s true that the “MSM” (mainstream media) has been covering the trouble in Iran, which began when the “morality police” apparently beat 22-year-old Mahsa Amini to death after she was apprehended for having an incorrectly positioned hijab. This has touched off protests throughout the country as repressed anger at the theocracy finally reached the boiling point (I see Amini as the George Floyd of Iran).

But for the latest news you have to go to the overseas Anglophone sources, like the British media, or to Twitter, with the latter sometimes being hard to confirm—as in this case.

What I’m posting about now is a battle between students and government riot police at Sharif University of Technology, a high-class technical school nicknamed “the MIT of Iran” (it was formerly called Aryamehr University of Technology and then Tehran University of Technology.before it was renamed for a Mujahedin). It’s long been a center of protest, which has now erupted into outright battle, as recounted below by the Guardian, the BBC, and Sky News (click on screenshots). I received an email from a correspondent who argues that the University’s President lured the students into a parking garage so that they they could be rounded up by police and arrested—or even shot. (See below).

The Guardian:

From their report:

Activist Twitter account 1500tasvir, which has about 160,000 followers, posted several videos showing Sharif University, traditionally a hotbed of dissent, surrounded by dozens of riot police on Sunday.

One of the videos showed security forces firing teargas to drive the students off the campus and the sound of what appeared to be shooting at a distance could be heard.

Another video showed security forces chasing dozens of students trapped in the university’s underground parking. The account said dozens of students had been arrested.

Iranian state media described “reports of clashes” at the university and said the country’s science minister visited the campus to check on the situation.

Reuters could not independently verify the events at the university.

Students had been protesting at numerous universities on Sunday and demonstrations were held in several cities such as Tehran, Yazd, Kermanshah, Sanandaj, Shiraz and Mashhad, with participants chanting “independence, freedom, death to Khamenei,” earlier social media posts

BBC:

From the BBC Report:

Iranian police have cracked down on students at a prestigious university in Tehran, as anti-government protests continue to sweep the country.

Reports said a large number of students at Sharif University of Technology were trapped in a car park that had been surrounded by security personnel.

One video appeared to show students running away as gunshots ring out.

. . .Sunday was the first day of term for first-year students attending Sharif University of Technology.

The semi-official Mehr news agency reported that about 200 students gathered at the campus on Sunday afternoon and began chanting slogans including “woman, life, freedom” and “students prefer death to humiliation”. As the demonstration continued, the slogans became more radical and directed against the clerical establishment, it said.

The violence erupted in the late afternoon, when security forces arrived at the campus. Mehr reported that security personnel fired tear gas and paintballs, causing some of the students to flee to one of the university’s car parks.

Another appears to show people running as motorcyclists advance along a street. Gunshots can be heard, as well as chants of “death to Khamenei”.

The US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran said a third video showed a “detained protester being carted away with [their] entire head wrapped in clothing” by two security personnel on a motorbike, one of whom then opens fire at the woman filming.

Reports said a number of students were beaten or shot with pullet guns, and that 30 to 40 were arrested.

In one video posted on social media, a group of people are seen trying to escape through a car park while being pursued by security forces on motorbikes.

The fleeing from the car park, the firing of paintballs, and the detained protestor are all shown in the tweets at bottom, as well as in the Sky News video linked below:

I’ll ask you to judge these scenes for yourself, as there’s mass confusion. What’s clear is that the students are running away from something:

Another scene from the parking garage:

The “shooting” in this video is said to be a paintball, not bullets. The detainee in the middle on the motorbike has his head wrapped.

This is the first of a 16-tweet thread:

 

Now it’s not clear what’s happening here. My correspondent, who must remain anonymous for obvious reasons, thinks the students were lured into the parking garage. His/her email:

Yesterday, the Iranian regime trapped students at Sharif University – often called the MIT of Iran – and started shooting at them and arresting them.

The head of the university was on a US Dept of State list of people responsible for human rights abuses in Iran:

If you look on that list, you’ll see this name:

  • Rasool Jalili, Sharif University of Technology, member of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace;

The correspondent continues:

It is believed [Jalili] collaborated with the regime to bring the students on campus under the guise of having a safe place to stay amidst the protests, then unleashing the regime’s forces on them.
Now of course I can’t verify the collaborationist claim adduced here, but Wikipedia says that Rasoul Jalili is the President of Sharif University. and the State Department list does give the names of people whose visas are restricted and “whose property and interests are blocked” by the U.S. because they’re accused of engaging in human rights abuses.

 

Did Jalili lure the students into the parking garage so they could be rounded up, or even shot? I have no idea, but there’s no evidence to contradict it, either. I suppose we’ll find out eventually. But what’s clear is that the Iranian government is at war with the students at Sharif University, and many have been arrested.

As of three days ago, the countrywise death toll from the Iranian protests was 83, and it’s surely higher now. Does this spell the end of the theocracy? I hope so, but they and not the students are the ones with the guns and the jails. And there have been sporadic protests against the regime, but it’s still here. And that’s a damn shame, for imagine where Iran would be if it had a more democratic government, one not infused with medieval theology.

A Congresswoman and an ACLU lawyer go after the New York Times for transphobia

July 14, 2022 • 9:30 am

Jesse Singal is well worth following for both his sensible reporting and his fierce tenacity in investigating like the effects of hormone blockers and, in this case, ridiculous criticisms of the New York Times by congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and lawyer Chase Strangio, Deputy Director for Transgender Justice and staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

We’ve met both of these people before: Tlaib as a member of the “progressive” Squad of congresswomen whose extreme Leftist politics are not only anti-Semitic, but also a source of votes for Republicans. Strangio, who’s in principle engaged in good work (defending the rights of LGBTQ+ people), keeps shooting himself in the foot with ludicrous assertions, like calling for the banning of Abigal Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage. (He claimed the book was transphobic; it is not. I read it, and it’s an analysis of why so many kids are identifying as transgender, some as a way of gathering admiration, and how some are rushed by well-meaning adults into transitions that they may regret.)

Both Strangio and Tlaib tend to be hotheads who shoot from the hip, and that’s what we see in their recent attacks on the New York Times, as chronicled in this Substack post by Jesse Singal. While I’ve criticized the NYT, I actually applauded the two pieces they’re attacking.

Click on the link to read for free, but subscribe if you read Singal often and want to support his writing.

Here’s the skinny.  The New York Times recently published two articles on the trans movement and its fallout. One of them “The battle over gender therapy“, was by Emily Bazelon, and was a long and really good analysis of the differences among experts in how to treat young people with gender dysphoria. I wrote about it briefly and then showed a sour tweet by—who else?—Chase Strangio (below).

What I said in a Hili news report:

A couple of days ago NYT staff writer Emily Bazelon produced a really good piece on “The battle over gender therapy,” detailing all the fighting about puberty blockers, “gender affirming therapy”, and so on. Because she didn’t hew absolutely to the trans-activist line, but actually gave arguments from both sides, the activists are ripping her apart (look at the comment below by the odious Chase Strangio, the ACLU’s chief lawyer for gender affairs. I suggest you read Bazelon’s long article for yourself.

The tweet is from Josh Szeps, who works for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

That was the beginning of Strangio’s bizarre attack on the NYT, which he despises, as he despises Abigail Shrier, for writing about both sides of the sex-transition issue.

The other NYT article was by Pamela Paul. You probably remember her July 3 piece, “The Far Right and the Far Left agree on one thing: women don’t count.“, which criticize the erasure of the word “woman”, which she considered emblematic of the erasure of biological women as a class. I praised the article here, though Singal says that Paul overstepped a bit by equating Right and Left when the latter group is at least promoting reproductive rights of women. Nevertheless, Paul’s piece, like Bazelon’s was not transphobic; it just refused to buy into some extreme transphobic claims. Here’s a sentence from Paul’s piece:

Tolerance for one group need not mean intolerance for another. We can respect transgender women without castigating females who point out that biological women still constitute a category of their own — with their own specific needs and prerogatives

Them’s fighting words to someone like Stangio! For people like Stangio, and now Tlaib, don’t want discussion. The minute someone points out problems with their arguments, or distortions of the facts, or data that contradicts their claims they blow up, which doesn’t help their reputations—including that of the ACLU.

Now, in the face of what Singal calls “Texas’s horrific attempts to separate trans kids from their parents,” both Bazelon and Paul have taken blame from Tlaib and Strangio. And indeed, Texas’s new policy of asking people to report children receiving “affirmative care” to child welfare agencies as possible cases of child abuse is a ridiculous and anti-humanist policy.

What do Bazelon and Paul have to do with this policy? Nothing except that, in court briefs supporting this odious policy in a lawsuit, the state of Texas introduced their NYT articles (and other articles in the paper) as “supporting evidence”, along with other articles that are neutral or innocuous, but may underscore differences in opinion about how to treat kids with gender dysphoria (Singal’s piece shows nine such articles, including the World Professional Association for Transgender Health Standards of Care.)

And so Strangio blew an artery and released the following tweet. The good part is that Strangio and the ACLU are trying to derail the new Texas policy. The bad part is that Strangio blames the New York Times, saying there’s “direct line from multiple NYTs articles to Texas policy”.  That’s a false and stupid claim:

Tlaib also went after the NYT for “providing a platform for transphobic hate and propaganda”, and for “debating whether trans people should even exist” as well as “scapegoating” them. But if you actually read Bazelon’s or Paul’s pieces, you won’t find any discussion of whether trans people should exist. In both cases, trans prople are not denigrated as a class, but some of their supporters’ arguments are debated in Bazelon’s piece and criticized in Paul’s.

This is characteristic of extreme trans advocates. Any suggestion of a debate, any questioning of their claims, automatically labels the questioner as a transphobe who is trying to do away with trans people.  This kind of extreme petulant behavior, in a person, would be a sign of borderline personality disorder.

Here’s Tlaib’s tantrum:

At least Strangio’s mission is admirable, and he’s doing some good work to protect the rights of LGBTQ+ people. He just needs to learn to stop accusing debaters and critics of “transphobia” as an ad hominem way to dismiss their claims.

Tlaib has no such excuse, as she’s merely virtue signaling—and using Strangio and the NYT as a way to raise money for her campaign. In the second tweet above, the petition Tlaib gives links to her campaign page, and, as Singal says (here’s the CNN link):

As CNN indicated, I bet anyone who signs her pointless petition (email and zip code required) will get a fundraising appeal and/or have their info shared with other progressive organizations hungry for data.

One more thing. As I said, one of Singal’s admirable characteristics is that he’s a journalistic bloodhound, sniffing out every clue he can. So he asked Strangio to defend his attacks on the NYT:

On Twitter, I pressed Strangio on all this: I pointed out that neither Bazelon’s article’s appearance on the evidence list, nor Cantor’s reference of it in his declaration, constituted evidence she (or the Times) had done anything wrong. I asked for more specific evidence to support the idea that the paper had done anything morally or journalistically questionable enough to warrant all this outrage.

Strangio didn’t have anything. Instead, he said I should fly to Texas to witness the hearings in person or order transcripts.

Here are a few tweets from the Singal/Strangio exchange:

And another:

Singal summarizes the “debate” with Strangio and Tlaib, and I find this precis pretty funny (though true):

Chase Strangio: The Times is partly responsible for Texas’s horrible policy on trans youth!

Rashida Tlaib: As Chase says, the Times is partly responsible for Texas’s horrible policy on trans youth! Sign my petition!

Me: The documents you’re citing don’t seem to justify this claim at all. Do you have any other evidence?

Strangio: It’s not my job to get that for you.

As the kids online say, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

As Singal notes, this is a “ridiculous waste of time” and a “shameless attention- and money-grab” (the latter by Tlaib). And as I noted, Strangio needs to dial back his rhetoric, which only hurts his cause (insulting the NYT doesn’t help either) as well as the ACLU. As for Tlaib, I’m hoping—but not expecting—that she’ll be voted out of Congress.

“I would like you to do us a favor, though …”

December 10, 2019 • 2:20 pm

by Greg Mayer

Driving home last night, I heard on the radio a clip of a Republican congressman at the House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearing deriding the proceedings for having no memorable catchphrase. He recalled (inexactly) Republican Senator Howard Baker’s famous question from the Nixon impeachment inquiry, “What did the President know, and when did he know it?”, and from the Clinton impeachment, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

He wondered what phrase could possibly epitomize the Trump impeachment inquiry, offering some line about there being no impeachable offenses. It’s hard to know what combination of cluelessness, motivated reasoning, and lack of attention could lead him to arrive at this statement, for the catchphrase immediately leapt to mind. For the Trump impeachment, Trump himself has already produced the memorable phrase by which his impeachment will undoubtedly be remembered: “I would like you to do us a favor, though”.

If you’re looking for a quid pro quo, quod erat demonstrandum.

The constitutional crisis: Matthew Cobb’s report from Britain

August 29, 2019 • 8:30 am

I asked Matthew to keep us up to date on the big political crisis in Britain, where PM Boris Johnson has suspended Parliament—with the Queen’s assent, so much for you royal-lovers—so that Johnson can get the Brexit deal concluded in the absence of the legislature. Here’s Matthew’s report from today, with his words indented:

The Johnson coup –  for that is what it is – proceeds apace. Within 12 hours over 1 million people had signed a petition against the prorogation (suspension) of parliament; there were demonstrations in many cities last night and there will be again this weekend; and it is unclear what the next steps will be. The Queen has signed the order proroguing parliament and that is what will happen. After a few days of sitting next week, it will be suspended: both houses, all the committees, everything (this is very different from a normal recess).

The government and their apologists claim that there is nothing new about this, that it is merely a few days extra. This is a lie. This is not a recess, it is a prorogation. Everything stops. Nothing can be discussed. It is the longest suspension of parliament since 1945, at a time when parliament should be questioning government and holding it to account. Johnson —a generic coward and a liar— is evading his basic responsibilities

There is widespread condemnation of this. Here are some comments by those with whom I do not always agree – such as David Allen Green, a constitutional lawyer who voted Leave, a Tory MP, Sam Gimyah, and the Financial Times.

Here is an excerpt from the Financial Times’ editorial this morning:

And here is a view from someone I do normally agree with, the journalist (and my good friend) Paul Mason:

Some idea of how widespread the hostility is in the population can be seen here:

Inevitably, people have also responded satirically, although in this case every word is true:

As to the future, I fear that Johnson will get his way, because the Tories who said they were opposed to such a procedure (a number of whom are now leading members of the government) will cave in because they are unprincipled, and there are a number of pro-Brexit Labour MPs who would abstain in any vote. More significantly, because of the nature of the UK parliament, it is hard to see how this can be stopped by parliament or the courts. The Queen decides when parliament sits, doing what the government (i.e., the PM) says. As far as I can tell, what happened yesterday was entirely legal.

This raises a more long-term issue, far beyond the feverish excitement of the current moment, or even the prospect of a catastrophic crashing out of Europe with no deal on 31 October. This crisis will undo the very foundations of the United Kingdom – Scotland (massively remain) will become independent (the popular, anti-Johnson leader of the Scottish Tories is about to step down for various reasons), while the impact of a hard border on the island of Ireland (this will be a consequence of No Deal, unless everyone is very smart) will drive Irish reunification. I predict both these will happen with the decade. A situation going back to 1707 (Act of Union with Scotland) and 1922 (creation of Northern Ireland) will have been ripped up by the Brexiteers.

Furthermore, the role of the monarch is now highlighted. This goes back to 1688 and the Glorious Revolution, which ended decades of upheaval and argument, including a civil war and regicide. The monarch is supposedly a figurehead, simply doing the government’s bidding. But note that the armed forces (the ultimate power in any country), swear allegiance to the crown, not parliament… It is often argued that the monarchy will act as a bulwark in the case of an anti-democratic government. We have seen that this is simply not true. The result is that the monarchy acts as a legally-untouchable guarantee of executive power. When people start thinking about this, then the basis of the UK’s unwritten constitution may also be questioned. In my view, these events show how dangerous and anti-democratic the monarchical system is.

There is now no apparent way of holding this government to account. That is a coup, in any language. Protests, demonstrations, marches will be necessary to defend parliament.

Here’s a timeline from the Guardian – it misses out various bits of jiggery pokery that might occur next week, but gives some idea of the amplitude of the crisis.