3/21/2025

 Friday, March 21, 2025

D+134/61

1947 President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9835 requiring all federal employees to have "complete and unswerving loyalty to the United States"

1966 US Supreme Court reversed a Massachusetts ruling that "Fanny Hill" is obscene

1973 White House Counsel John Dean told President Richard Nixon, "There is a cancer growing on the Presidency"

In bed at 9:30 and awake at 3:15, up at 3:43 from a vivid dream of RJA, JDG, and myself, preparing for a gathering at which RJA would be honored, getting his suit altered, getting an expensive baseball mitt to present him as a gift, my sleeping neural pathways confusing RJA and his home in Delafiedwith JDG and his home in Whitefish Bay.  Not a nasty dream, but confused.

Prednisone, day 334; 4 mg., day 16/21; Kevzara, day 3/14; CGM, day 3/15; Trulicity, day 1/7.   2 mg. of prednisone at 4:45 a.m. and 7 p.m. Other meds at 6:40 a.m.   Trulicity injection at 6:40 a.m.    

Losing my marbles?  As I lay in bed before getting up, I wondered whether I am losing my marble posting yesterday's long rant about Trump and Musk on FB and copying it in a reply to JPG about her sunrise photos.    I wonder whether I ought to retire from life like a clam snapping shut its shell, or a hermit crab pulling back into its. What's the old adage about if you keep your mouth shut people may mistake you for a wise person, but open it and they'll know you're no, something like that.  My Dad's second (and third) wife Grace used to spontaneously break into song in her nursing home in North Pord, sometimes getting other residents to join in.  She would remind us that she "hadn't lost all of my marbles yet," and indeed she hadn't.  Neither have I but I'm on my way.  

From A Man For All Seasons:

William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”

Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”

William Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!”

Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!”

Tom Homan on Fox News:

“I’m proud to be a part of this administration. We’re not stoppinf.  I son'r care what the judges think.  We're not stopping." 

 Justice Brandeis in Olmstead v. United States:

Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal -- would bring terrible retribution.

Are we on our way to a true "constitutional crisis," in which the executive and judicial branches of government conflict in their edicts?  It seems almost unavoidable, or at least highly likely.  I suppose it doesn't really reach crisis stage until some matter, perhaps the deportation of the alleged Venezuelan gang members to some hellhole prison in El Salvador, reaches the Supreme which either enters its own order, or backs up a lower court order, and the president refuses to obey.  That is, when the Court asserts that it has the constitutional power and duty to act, and the President refuses to agree.  If the matter never reaches the Supreme Court, or if the Supremes bow down to Trump in one way or another, we will avoid the crisis pro tempore, until the next big conflict arises.   While mouthing "I always obey court orders,' Trump maintains his great admiration for his predecessor Andrew Jackson, who is famously though incorrectly reputed to have defied the Supreme Cour in response to its 1832 decision in Worcester v. Georgia, a case invalidating Georgia's right to remove Native Americans from their tribal lands.  Legend has it that Jackson said "Marshall has made his decision now let him enforce it."  The case had nothing to do with the Federal government's right to remove tribes, and there was no court order for Jackson to refuse to enforce.  Nonetheless, Trump probably loves the legend because of its 'fuck you,' 'kiss my ass,' and my-dick-is-bigger-than-your-dick quality.  It's hard for me not to believe that Trump is waiting for the right case to flex his political hegemony by defying a court order and getting away with it.  If that day comes, it's Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch' intrate.

CPM is an acronym for 'continuous passive movement,' and refers to a machine that bends a leg without the leg's owner having to exert any muscular effort.  Jim Reck used one for at least his first knee replacement many years ago, and perhaps for the second replacement as well.  In any event, here we are 9 weeks and 1 day since Geri's surgery and Dr. Graf has prescribed one for her.  He has told her again the "the window is closing' on avoiding a limp.  I'm wondering why he has waited so long before getting her on a CPM.