Events

Since President Biden shat the bed at the debate against the demented, convicted-felon, narcissistic imbecile XPOTUS last week, the Democratic Party cognoscenti have lost their minds. Everyone who doesn't have an office in the West Wing seems to want the President to withdraw from the race, despite only 123 days left before the election. Now, I believe firmly that a healthy party self-corrects, and if a party fails to do so for 14 years, it deserves its worst loss in history. But the reality is, we head...

A few hours ago, HM King Charles III invited Sir Keir Starmer (Lab) to become his Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, and form a government in his name: Keir Starmer has said the “sunlight of hope” is now shining in Britain again as Labour won a landslide UK election victory, bringing a crushing end to 14 years of Conservative rule. Labour had won 411 seats, while the Conservatives were on just 119, with five left to declare by 9.30am. The government’s likely majority is set to be about 170...

Welcome to stop #106 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Industry Ales, 230 S. Wabash Ave., ChicagoTrain line: All of them Time from Chicago: not applicableDistance from station: 100 m from Adams/Wabash, 1.6 km from Ogilvie Transportation Center Chicago's newest brewery opened in April in what used to be Kramer's Health Foods next to the 125-year-old Central Camera store in the Loop. I am impressed. My Brews & Choos buddy and I went there Wednesday directly after visiting Chicago's oldest...

Welcome to stop #105 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Adams Street Brewery, 17 W. Adams St., ChicagoTrain line: All of them Time from Chicago: not applicableDistance from station: 100 m from Adams/Wabash, 1.3 km from Ogilvie Transportation Center The Adams Street Brewery traces its history back to 1887, and has existed in the same location in the Chicago Loop since 1898. It stopped brewing during Prohibition, but the Berghoff Restaurant above the brew works remained open throughout. I doubt much...

The UK general election is going on right now. UK law prohibits editorializing or publishing poll results while polls are open. The major exit polls will come out at 22:00 BST (4pm Chicago time), at which point I will be madly refreshing The Guardian. For now, if you live in the UK, just vote. No matter which way it goes, I'll still visit.

I'm about to leave the office for the next 4½ days. Happy Independence Day! And who could forget that the UK will have a general election tomorrow? To celebrate, the Post has a graphical round-up of just how badly the Conservative Party has screwed things up since taking power in 2010: There’s a widespread feeling among voters that something has gone awry under Tory government, that the country is stagnating, if not in perilous decline. Nearly three-quarters of the public believes that the country is...

I linked to an op-ed by Lawrence Tribe earlier today in which the constitutional scholar argues for something that first appeared right here in the Daily Parker in June 2020: To repair the profound and growing problem of presidential unaccountability, we must dare to design a separate branch of government, outside the existing three, charged with investigating and prosecuting violations of federal criminal laws. Yes! Just as I said, four years ago: we need an elected Attorney General, beholden only to...

Apparently everyone else got over Covid yesterday, too. Or they're just trying to make deadline before the holiday: Peter Hamby pulls the fire alarm after reading a leaked polling report showing President Biden's support slipping in key states after last week's debate catastrophe. Constitutional scholar Lawrence Tribe fumes that yesterday's decision on presidential immunity "reveals the rot in the system." Ruth Marcus simply calls the Republican majority on the Court "dishonorable." In her dissent in...

Thank you, Pfizer-BioNTech, for helping my body recognize and eliminate the SARS-Cov-2 virus in only five days: I've got 5 Brews & Choos stops planned over the long weekend. This helps immensely. And stay tuned: this summer I'm also planning to investigate some of the 12 breweries and distilleries in downtown Milwaukee. (It's only 80 minutes away by train!)

Well, the Republicans sure did pack the court well, didn't they? The Supreme Court's term finally ended today with another apparent success for the convicted-felon XPOTUS. All three Justices he appointed plus Thomas (R) and Alito (R) agreed with the Chief Justice (R) that, despite the actual words of the Constitution and everything that the Federalist Papers warned us about, some actions by a president during his or her time in office cannot be prosecuted: The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision along...