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I wish. I wish no one was above the law.

America’s soul was once to be found in Honest Abe Lincoln. I fear that it is now in the possession of the sociopath who subverted the Constitution after the 2020 election. I fear it because in 2024 he won the presidential election with a popular majority. 

Like our closest simian cousins, the chimps, humans detest that which is unfair. During the Depression the cop-killing bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde became heroes to Americans down on their luck. I hope scales fall from the eyes of Trump’s supporters during the next 1,309 days.

I conjured this cartoon of Gulliver yesterday morning. But what could I write about the black-robed Lilliputians?  There was, of course, the businessman’s 4,000-plus court cases from 1972 to 2016. I too had been to court – three times. In his second tour as President, 251 lawsuits have been launched against his administration in 150 days. 

The chief difference between the businessman and the President is that now taxpayers and dark money are paying his attorneys. When the businessman was paying, lots of attorneys got stiffed. Just ask Rudy G. Now they are climbing his pant legs to defend him. 

When I was earning my political science degree, law school seemed like a suitable destination. I asked the first person I ever held in awe why he didn’t go to law school. Oh, the stories I could tell you about Dave. That old SOB. If he knew I was writing about him I suspect he’d just smirk. I’ll skip the salacious and stick with my awe.

My dad, Dan Welty, was admitted to the Kansas Bar but never practiced law. He taught a popular business law class at Mankato State. Dave purchased my dad’s services during a college charity “slave auction.”  He bought my dad to put on a party for his college dorm, non-alcoholic, of course. Still in high school I overheard the rollicking from upstairs. It was a great success.

Two weeks into my college career the fraternity my dad had encouraged me to join talked me into running for the Student Senate. I was completely at sea as I attended a meeting for candidates in the Student Senate chambers. After I took a chair, another fellow sat next to me. He placed a fat binder in front of him. This was Dave. He was planning to interrogate us. 

After a scruffily bearded candidate bloviated authoritatively about his platform he paused smugly to take questions. Dave paged through his binder and asked Tommy boy three questions in quick succession. 
How could Tommy accomplish his plank A when State College policy A1 forbade it? Pause. Awkward mumbling. 

How about his plank B, when college policy B2 nixed it? Pause. Muted mumbling. 

And how could he manage C when policy C3 made it a hanging offense? 

Through the next 40 minutes and 20 candidates I held my breath in dread of kid razor. I swear I took no more than three for four respirations max, until it was my turn. But Dave had no questions for me. As we departed Dave told me my dad was OK.

After Dave graduated, he was snapped up by a college administration that was equally impressed with his talents. Looking to my own future I asked Dave if he’d ever given any thought to law school. He told me law was a useful tool. 

Shortly after that I decided on an education degree. I told myself there were too many laws and too many lawyers. That might have been sour grapes but it was also true.

Today, a lot of those damn lawyers are defending Trump or have been blackmailed into giving him millions of dollars in pro bono work to pass out to his jail birds and supporters.

The legal brains of the Republican Party call themselves the Federalist Society. With Trump’s three new Supreme Court justices they have come very close to bestowing on President Trump the same powers that Hungary’s President Viktor Orban has employed to shutter the press. 

The Trump/McConnell Supreme Court ruled last year that a sitting president was virtually immune from accusations of law breaking while conducting the nation’s business. Like a child racing to a “safety” during a game of tag, Trump raced to the White House to avoid the threat of sporting prison orange. Thank you, Elon Musk.  

There is a reason the litigious Trump keeps Andrew Jackson’s bust in the Oval Office. Jackson was a hard ass like Trump’s mafia lawyer Roy Cohn. When the Supreme Court ruled that Jackson’s Indian Removal Act was unconstitutional Jackson shrugged. 

Andy said of the Court’s Chief Justice, “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.” 
At least Jackson didn’t plan a $68 million birthday parade. He needed his army to goose step Indians into Oklahoma during winter’s Trail of Tears. Make room El Salvador. Mafia Don ain’t finished.

Our president calls judges who rule against his misadministration extremists. He pardons people who threatened to kill Vice President Pence and overran Congress. He wants to free the goons who planned to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic governor. So many petards.

The phrase, “hoisted with your own petard” comes from William Shakespear’s doomed Hamlet when he remarks on a soldier hoisted (blown skyward) by his petard (small bomb). 

It means to become a victim of the injury you planned to inflict on someone else. Even the Federalist Society has become alarmed as their president subverts the judiciary. I pray that the petards hoisted at a thousand black-robed Lilliputians come to Democracy’s rescue and blow up under Trump’s you know what. 

BTW, “Petard” is French for fart.

Welty can be googled on Google. Not sure if AI has anything to say about him yet.