The Fortnightly Rant

Another fortnight has come and gone—and not just any fortnight. Continuing a trend that began in 2015—and mirroring, in the political realm, the ratcheting up of global temperatures and resultant climatic catastrophes—this has been the 290th consecutive fortnight to have been worse than the one before. Appropriately, this one kicked off under cover of darkness. In the early morning hours of Saturday, August 8th, the full Senate voted, in effect, to combine the offices of Attorney General of the United States of America with that of Mr. Fixit of the Trump Organization. So, your mother was right: nothing good happens after midnight. Nine years earlier, …

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Tuesday, Stewart Rhodes and his Oath Keepers—who millions of Americans saw with their own eyes, on live television, attacking the U.S. Congress on January 6, 2021 intending to prevent the orderly transition of executive power—were handed a “Get Out of Jail Free” card by the Justice Department, currently being run by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. Through sheer force of character, we presume, Judge Mehta declined to mention Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener in his opinion. Nevertheless, he made it clear that he would have preferred not to issue it. “Before turning to the government’s proffered justifications for dismissal, it is important to note the reasons …

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Nine hundred years ago, Henry of Huntingdon wrote of King Canute, a Dane who had ruled England about a century before. Canute, in Henry’s telling, had his throne carried down to the seashore, where he then commanded the incoming tide to stop advancing before it reached him. Spoiler alert: the tide did not stop. Tides come and go, but that story has remained. So it goes with many stories that are open to interpretation. A fool might think that the story shows King Canute to be a wet-footed fool. That ancient monarch knew, though, where his powers ended. He was just trying to drive some …

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Harmeet Dhillon, the U.S. Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, announced on Tuesday that she is sending teams of election monitors to six states this primary season, New Hampshire being one of them. The alleged purpose of this expenditure of taxpayer dollars is to “increase voter confidence.” Dhillon ought to know better. She attended college in New Hampshire, graduating in 1989. By then, Secretary of State for Life [Emeritus] Bill Gardner* had already been overseeing elections for 12 years, scrupulously enough to make Caesar’s wife look like a floozie. Gardner retired in 2022, but his successor, David Scanlan, would …

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Gracious sakes, look at the calendar! Just a week from tomorrow comes the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence! My, my—how time flies when you’re publishing newspapers. Routine journalistic practice would be to honor the occasion by combing the archives and republishing bits of our reportage on that earth-shaking event. Frankly, though, our Human Resources Department has failed to provide us with sufficient editorial staff to perform such a task. Also, not to cast aspersions on Daniel Fowle, our founder and then-editor, but mid-18th century prose is an acquired taste. Instead, we’ll recommend to our readers a volume available at the Portsmouth Public Library: …

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