The Trump administration’s authoritarian house of cards is starting to fall down by Chris Geidner

Let’s head towards the end of the calendar year with a touch of hope. Recent weeks have brought welcome and overdue setbacks for the despotically inclined fools currently tainting the White House. Chris Geidner cites two major examples — the court-ordered release from custody of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and the Republican-dominated Indiana legislature rejecting the latest unethical gerrymander — to argue that the usual laws of political physics might finally be asserting themselves. This is the thesis: “The power Trump and allies are seeking is real — but so much of the power they claim to already have is imagined.” This is true, and it’s worth remembering as national Republicans continue to operate with pathetic allegiance to the grifter-in-chief. This piece is published at Geidner’s own shingle, Law Dork.

Fed up with controversy, residents want to get rid of this Minnesota town entirely by Trey Mewes

Reporting for The Minnesota Star Tribune, Trey Mewes details the colossal dysfunction in a dinky Minnesota town. The municipal government has been taken over by inept individuals who compounded their problems by driving away experienced professionals and filling their posts with unskilled replacements. This is the sort of broken-down system the whole nation is heading towards if people don’t continue pushing back against the dismantling of the federal government being enacted by the Grand Old Party.