mr peters brings us this essay on the current realities here in the empire;

Not quite three months into Trump’s second term and there is talk – some of it emanating from Trump himself – about a third term. What that talk is really saying is that Trump may be considering a presidency for life. The kind that Idi Amin, the “president” of Uganda had.

Well, why not?

The hideous truth is we already have a de facto Idi Amin presidency and it preceded the inauguration of Trump (both of them). The president has not been the thing described in the Constitution for hundreds of years, at least since the presidency of John Adams – who was the second president and the first one to exercise powers he lacked under the Constitution by hounding his political enemies under the Alien and Sedition Acts. Even Jefferson – the president most revered by many libertarians – took it upon himself to make the Louisiana Purchase (not using his own funds, of course) which was something he knew had no constitutional authority to do. Most historian-hagiographers excuse what he did because they agree that Jefferson’s purchase of the Louisiana territory was a good thing. Just the same – in an ends-justify-the-means kind of way – that most Republicans express reverence for Abe Lincoln’s unconstitutional forced re-union of the Southern states during what was a “civil war” in the same way that the war in Korea was a “police action.”.........more........