<[Event "96th US Open"]
[Site "Concord CA"]
[Date "1995.08.??"]
[EventDate "1995"]
[Round "10"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Johnson, Joel"]
[Black "Friedrich, Paul"]
[ECO "B23"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<Ah, the good old days when <perfy> made up stories about his fruitful career day by day.

And day by day, then day by day, and then day by day again. And it went on and on and on... I'll never forget these times!

(Interesting game, tho!)>

Black wins a pawn in exchange for the dark squares. If Black plays his cards right he can hold it! This is what I am saying. I am more inclined to win a pawn yet withstand pressure for it fool!>

<[Event "Herb Healy Memorial"] [Site "Boston Mass"]
[Date "1984.01.01"]
[EventDate "1984"]
[Round "3.1"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Garber, Russell"]
[Black "Shaw, Alan"]
[ECO "B16"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "Herb Healy Memorial"] [Site "Boston Mass"]
[Date "1984.01.01"]
[EventDate "1984"]
[Round "4.1"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[White "Shaw, Alan"]
[Black "Helman, Amir"]
[ECO "A65"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<It has long been established that federal laws surpass all state laws that are in conflict with them. And states have no right to prevent federal officials from carrying out their official duties.

This principle is in the Constitution. It says federal law “shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby.” However, Texas seems to believe it is special and has been defying that principle.

Last month, a federal appeals court granted the state permission to erect razor wire barriers. The barriers prevent federal border patrol officers from doing their jobs. However, the Court also ordered the border patrol not to cut these wires except in very limited circumstances.

The United States Court of Appeals of the Fifth Circuit, a far-right court dominated by MAGA judges, passed the decision. They are famous for frequently handing down decisions that conflict with existing law.

On Monday, the Supreme Court responded by handing down a brief order in Department of Homeland Security v. Texas blocking this Fifth Circuit order. The order drew a 5-4 vote. This means four justices seem to believe that Texas can use razor wire to restrain federal officials.

The four justices who voted for Texas include Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, both Republican appointees, voted with the Court’s three Democratic justices.

The Texas case was borne of the state’s attempt to limit border crossings in Eagle Pass, Texas. They did this by lining almost 30 miles of the US-Mexico border with razor wire.

The barrier is one of several steps Texas’s government has taken in an attempt to limit migration, often in defiance of the Biden administration and federal law. Texas also enacted a law that allows state judges to issue deportation orders, a fundamental power of the federal government.

The state is also in the middle of another court fight regarding a floating barrier of buoys it erected in the Rio Grande. The immediate issue for the Supreme Court is not whether Texas has permission to construct such a barrier against the wishes of the federal government.

Rather, the question in this case is whether the state of Texas may obtain a court order forbidding federal agents from cutting the razor wire barriers when they need to do so in order to perform their official duties.

Despite the Fifth Circuit’s decision, Texas’s arguments in favor of the order are too weak. The Constitution is also against them, so this case is an open-and-shut case for the federal government. Texas will conform for as long as it is a part of the United States.>

<The Supreme Court is preparing to weigh an unprecedented dispute over whether former President Donald Trump can be barred from state primary ballots, forcing the justices to convene during a time when the high court is not normally in session.

Each high court term, which spans from early October until the end of June, the nine justices usually take a break from hearing oral arguments between late January and mid-February. This term, however, is not a normal one for the Supreme Court, which is already scheduled to consider the monumental constitutional question of whether Trump is barred from appearing on state primary ballots across the nation.

Trump's Supreme Court arrival comes into focus

Due to Trump's four separate indictments, two federal and two state, his arrival to the Supreme Court was always somewhat of a foreseeable event for court watchers. But there was not an immediate urgency for the justices to wade into Trump's endless legal tumult until Dec. 19, when Colorado's top court ruled to disqualify him from the state's primary ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment's "insurrection" clause, finding he played a role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and reversing a lower court's ruling that Section 3 did not apply to the presidential office.

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows decided just days later that Trump could not appear on her state's primary ballot under Section 3, which states that "no person shall be" elected if they "have engaged in insurrection or rebellion." Trump filed an emergency petition against the Colorado decision in early January and the Supreme Court agreed on Jan. 5 to take up the case for Thursday, Feb. 8, an atypical day given that oral arguments are normally held on a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.

Cherryfield, ME Accommodation - Book It All in One Place Cherryfield, ME Accommodation - Book It All in One Place Ad Expedia
A 'very fast-tracked' review of Colorado's decision

Case Western Reserve University law professor Jonathan Entin told the Washington Examiner the Colorado dispute "is very fast-tracked," adding that "typically once the court decides they're going to hear a case, we're talking about several months before the case is going to be argued."

The case in question, Trump v. Anderson, is indeed on an abnormally fast track. Trump's legal counsel already filed his opening briefs to the high court on Jan. 18, while lawyers for a group of six voters that sued to keep him off the ballot filed their briefs on Jan. 26.

The Anderson case is significant because it will likely lead to a decision on whether Trump can remain on the ballot in all 50 states, as numerous other litigants backed by the left-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, among others across the country, have attempted to keep Trump off state primary ballots.

"I mean, a lot of important decisions have to get made outside the court in the next three months, so I think the court simply said, 'OK, this is very important. This goes to whether a leading candidate for president is eligible to be on the ballot,'" Entin said.

Coupled with impending ballot certification deadlines, Colorado and Maine count their primary ballots on March 5, meaning the justices only have a short window to rule on whether Trump can or cannot appear on the primary ballot. Both state court decisions to remove him from the ballot have been paused pending the high court's decision, despite two failed efforts by Maine's secretary of state to ask a state court to review her decision ahead of the Supreme Court's ruling.

Supreme Court's timing collides with Trump's art of delay

The Supreme Court's "timing is a function of the importance that the court has attached to the case," Entin said, adding, "frankly, I think that the court has done the right thing in saying we should take this case on a really fast track."

"Whatever they're going to decide, we should know sooner rather than later," Entin said.

As for when the nine justices could decide the case, Entin was hesitant to speculate, but said, "I would be surprised if this case wasn't decided well before St. Patrick's Day," which is on March 17....>

<....Trump could also ask the nine justices if he has presidential immunity to dismiss his 2020 election subversion indictment; a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will soon rule on his argument that he was acting in his official capacity as president when he rallied his supporters to Washington, D.C., amid his post-election calls to halt certification of President Joe Biden's 2020 victory.

Albany Law School professor Raymond Brescia told the Washington Examiner that the Supreme Court "does not have to take that case," noting that "precedent is very much against the former president on executive immunity."

Likewise, it is foreseeable that Trump would petition the justices again if he were ever convicted in one of his four cases, across which he faces 91 charges in total — meaning the 14th Amendment challenge could be just the tip of the iceberg for what Trump cases could come before the Supreme Court.

Trump has fought aggressively to delay his trials at every step of the way and could see his 2020 election subversion trial delayed by up to six weeks due to the presidential immunity dispute pending before the appeals court. If Trump loses at the D.C. Circuit, his legal team could hope for a high court review in a bid to delay the trial even further.

Trump piles on top of an already jampacked term

Feb. 8 marks a busy and high-stakes day for Trump's future, as well as for the Supreme Court's already packed docket, as justices plan to release one or more opinions on cases that have already been argued this term just minutes before oral arguments in the Colorado dispute commence.

The high court has agreed to consider dozens of precedent-setting cases this term, including several challenges against executive agency authority, whether Texas and Florida can bar social media companies from censoring online content, a fight against a federal statute that prevents people under domestic violence restraining orders from owning a gun, and much more.

While it is unclear which cases the justices could decide on Feb. 8, some of their options include a man's bid to use the former president's namesake on merchandise, whether a public official can block a constituent on social media, or even whether the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's direct funding from the Federal Reserve, not from Congress, is constitutional.

It's also possible the justices could resolve a dispute that is looming ahead of South Carolina's June 11 primary for U.S. House candidates. That dispute involves a lower court ruling that ordered the state to redraw a coastal district that is held by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC).

If the high court upholds the lower court decision, it could give Democrats a chance at winning a congressional seat in a contentious election year in which Republicans hold a slim 219-213 majority.>

<One of the most striking news photos taken in 2014, 10 years ago, showed an armed man lying on a highway overpass in Nevada, aiming a long gun through a gap in the overpass’s concrete barriers. The target at which he was apparently aiming? Federal agents from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), then engaged in a lengthy standoff with a rancher, Cliven Bundy, who owed the government fees for allowing his cattle to graze on federal land.

Bundy’s stand against putative government overreach resonated on the right because of the Republican Party’s long-standing hostility toward federal power and because it emerged at a moment when right-wing rhetoric was particularly potent. Barack Obama’s election in 2008 triggered an enormous backlash centered on the U.S. government, and the Bundy standoff in April 2014 piggybacked on that anger. That year was pivotal in tilling the soil for Donald Trump’s emergence a year later, and disparate elements of right-wing politics quickly coalesced around his identity.Sign up for How To Read This Chart, a weekly data newsletter from Philip Bump The Bundy standoff was resolved peacefully, with the government wisely preferring to exercise its massive bureaucratic power instead of its military power. Cliven Bundy’s explicitly racist comments reported by the New York Times eroded his mainstream political support, which made this easier.

Two years later, Bundy was arrested at an airport in Oregon. He was there to support his son Ammon Bundy, who, with some allies, had taken over a federal wildlife refuge. Ammon Bundy and his allies organized a peaceful protest to support two ranchers, Dwight Hammond Jr. and Steven Hammond, who had been ordered to prison for setting fire to federal land. (The Hammonds rejected Bundy’s assistance.) But then Bundy and some of those at the protest seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

As with his father’s dispute in 2014, sympathetic people from across the country responded to calls to show support by joining the takeover. But, unlike in 2014, the incident did not end peacefully; the man who served as a spokesman for the group, LaVoy Finicum, was shot by law enforcement during officers’ effort to arrest the group’s leaders.

Ammon Bundy was acquitted of conspiracy charges related to the takeover. In 2022, he ran for governor of Idaho and lost. The Hammonds, though, received pardons from Trump in 2018. Two-and-a-half years later, of course, Trump made his own call to ideologically allied parties to join an effort to take a stand against the government.

There are numerous parallels between the Bundy standoffs and the right during the Trump era, beyond those identified above. Cliven Bundy, for example, hosted his supporters for a barbecue at which attendees sported “domestic terrorist” name tags — a celebration of condemnation that was echoed eight years later at the Conservative Political Action Conference....>

<....Another parallel: While the Bureau of Land Management was engaged with Bundy, an ambitious Texas politician jumped in.

“The dispute spilled over this week into Texas,” the Times reported, “where Greg Abbott, the attorney general and a Republican running for governor, challenged the Bureau of Land Management on reports that it was looking to claim thousands of acres along the Red River.”

Abbott won that election and reelection in 2018 and 2022. During his most recent reelection bid, he was engaged in a dispute with the federal government — criticizing the Biden administration’s border policies. Texas’s efforts to block incoming migrants included stringing razor wire along the border and putting buoys in the Rio Grande to prevent people from crossing.

In recent weeks, Abbott’s efforts have grown much more contentious, with Texas law enforcement seizing control of a park along the river in Eagle Pass that is used by the U.S. Border Patrol. Texas officials are now blocking access to the park by federal law enforcement, a move that has earned the endorsement of dozens of Republican governors in other states.

In a post on social media, Trump encouraged “all willing States to deploy their guards to Texas to prevent the entry of Illegals, and to remove them back across the Border.” South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R), commonly mentioned in discussions of possible vice-presidential picks should Trump win the Republican nomination, quickly agreed.

But calls for support weren’t answered by just official state actors. A number of convoys of individuals supportive of Texas’s heavy-handed response to migrants — and its rejection of federal authority — are planning to travel to the area. One group, calling itself “Take Our Border Back,” made plans to head to Texas beginning on Monday. The effort was promoted on the conspiracy-addled platform Infowars last week — and by Rep. Keith Self (R-Tex.) on Fox Business on Friday.

Wired reported that the convoy includes armed participants. Self insisted that the organizers (some of whom reportedly called the participants “God’s Army”) were “committed to a peaceful demonstration.” When a Fox Business interviewer asked Self whether “there might be some sort of co-opting of this convoy” (since, she said, “bad actors” had in the past “co-opted these type of events”), Self replied, “That’s always a probability.”

Interest from the political right in policing the border is itself a long-established pattern. In 2006, after incidents involving self-appointed, right-wing border patrols had attracted national news attention, the Congressional Research Service compiled a report noting that vigilante efforts to confront border crossers extended back more than a century. The report also noted that such organized efforts, when not in violation of state or federal laws, had the right to exist.

In another social media post on Saturday, Trump exaggerated the danger posed by immigrants to the United States, 45 percent of whom in December were families or children traveling alone.

“Today we have a catastrophe waiting to happen. It is the WORST BORDER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD,” he wrote. He added: “There is now a 100% chance that there will be MAJOR TERROR ATTACKS IN THE USA. CLOSE THE BORDER!”

This is the mix in play at the moment: Trumpian rhetoric, antagonism to federal law enforcement and armed individuals taking matters into their own hands, particularly at the border. The odds remain good that the tension will be defused peacefully and without incident, as happened 10 years ago in Nevada.

But it’s not a sure thing.>

The worthless Abbott should stay at home, and good riddance to bad rubbish.

G'ahead, <antichrist>: drop a disme.

<Now that the retired federal judge babysitting the Trump Organization has uncovered potential tax fraud at the company, the Trumps responded over the weekend by tasking their own accountant as a monitor that monitors the court monitor.

In an indignant court filing Monday morning, a lawyer for the Trumps for the first time launched an all-out attack on Judge Barbara S. Jones—calling her latest report on the family company an absolute lie, a cheap attempt to justify her government-mandated job, and a last-minute ploy to bolster the New York Attorney General’s bank fraud case that just wrapped up.

“Further oversight is unwarranted and will only unjustly enrich the monitor as she engages in some ‘Javert’ like quest,” he wrote, making a reference to the fictional French law enforcement officer in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, who’s defined by his obsessive pursuit and lack of empathy.

The Trumps also complained about the $2.6 million they’ve had to pay Jones to do her job, dismissing her findings wholesale.

“That the monitor seeks to now perpetuate this folly is beyond the pale,” wrote Clifford S. Robert, who represents the Trump family.

The counterpunch comes just days after Jones revealed a bombshell about former President Donald Trump’s finances. In the run-up to the AG’s trial against the Trumps for lying about real estate values, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur F. Engoron ordered that a court monitor watch over the sprawling family company to ensure it doesn’t shift or hide assets ahead of a potentially huge judgment that could cripple the business empire. Since then, Jones has issued nearly half a dozen reports indicating that, for the most part, all is well.

That is, until Friday, when she updated Engoron with a report that, as The Daily Beast first reported, suggested Trump lied for years about a supposed personal loan he made to one of his own companies—sleight of hand that may have allowed him to dodge taxes on nearly $50 million in income.

“When I inquired about this loan, I was informed that there are no loan agreements that memorialize the loan, but that it was a loan that was believed to be between Donald J. Trump, individually, and Chicago Unit Acquisition for $48 million,” she wrote.

That tiny footnote made big news Friday afternoon—just as Trump lost his second rape defamation trial and was ordered to pay $83 million to the journalist E. Jean Carroll.

The Trumps’ lawyer pushed back on that report Monday morning, labeling her assertion a “demonstrable falsehood”—and calling into question her ability to do her job.

“The Trump entities of course never said the loan did not exist. Rather, they provided a copy of an internal memorandum reflecting simply that ‘no liabilities or obligations are outstanding’ under the loan at that time,” Robert wrote. “The Monitor’s deliberate mischaracterization casts further doubt on her competency and veracity.”

But the apparent proof the Trumps cite for that claim does not confirm that the loan ever existed.

The memo, an unsigned and vague “inter-office memorandum” sent by the “legal department” to “file” last month, describes an entirely different loan arrangement. The loan that Trump listed on his presidential financial disclosures was a $48 million loan from Trump’s “Chicago Unit Acquisition LLC” to Trump personally. But this memo now says the loan was from Chicago Unit Acquisition LLC to another entity, called “401 Mezz Venture LLC.” The memo also simply states that the loan is over and done with. It offers no other explanations about whatever happened to the $48 million....>

<....“This shall confirm that, as of the date hereof, with respect to the above-referenced loan, no amounts are due or payable, such loan is of no force or effect, and no liabilities or obligations are outstanding,” it writes. The filing also references a “discussion” that Trump Org counsel Alan Garten had with Jones about this loan, but offers no details about what was said in the conversation. In a phone call with The Daily Beast on Saturday, Garten claimed repeatedly that the loan was between Chicago Unit Acquisitions LLC and Trump personally, and that Trump had loaned the money to the LLC.

However, Justice Engoron is likely to view that with suspicion. He spent years forcing the Trumps to turn over evidence, has seen documented evidence of the billionaire lying about the size of a Trump Tower triplex, and has repeatedly deemed their experts and testimony as unreliable at trial. On top of that, the Trump Organization is currently in hot water for faking internal paperwork related to its legal work and expenses—the very reason that Trump is facing 34 felony charges from the Manhattan District Attorney over the cover-up of his alleged sexual affair with the porn star Stormy Daniels, a trial set to start in March.

The Trumps also fired back against Jones by recruiting their own certified public accountant to back up their claim that she’s got it all wrong, one who wrote that, “Based upon my education and experience, my review of the various reports, and the express language contained in those reports, the Monitor did not identify any financial reporting misconduct, suspicious activity, or any suspected or actual fraud.”

But that too might fail to convince the judge, because it came from Jason Flemmons, a CPA who lost credibility when testifying at the recent bank fraud trial. Justice Engoron tore into the accountant last month, noting how Flemmons had “inexplicably” contradicted himself several times and seemed willing to bend over backwards to appease the Trumps. Engoron was annoyed at how Flemmons kept providing cover for the Trump family, like when he asserted that basic accounting principles require that an asset’s present value reflect discounted future income—but refusing to admit the Trumps broke the rules when they failed to do that.

So far, the period reports issued by Jones have been muted, failing to reveal much of anything spicy or salacious. The closest they came to that was in November, when she caught Trump quietly moving $40 million from the Trump Organization into a personal bank account, apparently to cover a whopping $29 million tax bill. But even that didn’t hint at any wrongdoing.

But with her latest report, Jones has struck a chord—and the Trumps are quickly scrambling to cut her loose.

In the closing pages of his Monday court filing, Robert downplayed her nearly year-long investigation as nothing more than a costly exercise in hunting for minor mistakes that don’t amount to anything. And he called her recent findings “self-serving hyperbole.”

“The monitor has thus far been paid over $2.6 million in the past 14-months to ‘uncover’ seven immaterial disclosure items, three irrelevant inconsistencies and five clerical errors,” he wrote. “The court therefore must and should end this abusive and costly process.”>

<[Event "New England Masters"] [Site "Peabody Mass"]
[Date "2007.08.13"]
[EventDate "2007"]
[Round "1"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Rizzitano, James A"]
[Black "Kritz, Leonid"]
[ECO "D10"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Be2 O-O 6.Bg5 Na6 7.Nf3 h6 8.Be3 Ng4 9.Bc1 e5 10.O-O c6 11.h3 exd4 12.Nxd4 Nf6 13.Re1 Re8 14.Bf3 Nh7 15.Nb3 Ng5 16.Bf4 Bxh3 17.Bg4 Bxg4 18.Qxg4 Ne6 19.Bh2 h5 20.Qh3 Be5 21.Rad1 Qg5 22.Rxd6 Bxd6 23.Bxd6 Rad8 24.Qh2 Rxd6 25.Qxd6 Rd8 26.Qh2 Rd3 27.Rd1 Rxd1+ 28.Nxd1 Qd8 29.Ne3 Qd3 30.Qe5 Qb1+ 31.Kh2 Qxa2 32.Nd2 Qa1 33.Nf5 Qe1 34.Ne7+ Kf8 35.Nxg6+ Ke8 36.Nf3 Qxf2 37.Qh8+ Kd7 38.Nge5+ Kc7 39.Nxf7 Kb6 40.Qf6 Nac5 41.b4 Nxe4 42.Qxe6 Qg3+ 43.Kh1 Nf2+ 44.Kg1 Ng4 45.Qe2 a5 46.c5+ Ka7 47.bxa5 Qf4 48.N7e5 Qc1+ 49.Qe1 Qxe1+ 50.Nxe1 Nxe5 51.Kf2 Ka6 52.Ke3 Kxa5 53.Kd4 Ng6 54.Nd3 Kb5 55.g3 h4 56.g4 h3 57.Nf2 h2 58.g5 Nf4 59.Nh1 0-1>

<[Event "Thursday Night Swiss"] [Site "Burlington VT"]
[Date "1997.10.16"]
[EventDate "1997"]
[Round "3.1"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Virzi, David"]
[Black "Shaw, Alan"]
[ECO "E81"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<Asked on Quora: "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?" An articulate and witty writer from England, Nate White, wrote the following perfectly apt response, sentiments shared by people around the world in general …

“A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace; all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing. Not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever.

And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility. For us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is. His idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults, he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.

And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff, the Queensberry rules of basic decency, and he breaks them all. He punches downwards, which a gentleman should, would, could never do, and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless, and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority, perhaps a third, of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

- Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.

- You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss.

He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of @#$%. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.

In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws, he would make a Trump. And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumps of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God, what have I created?’

<[Event "New England Masters"] [Site "Peabody Mass"]
[Date "2007.08.14"]
[EventDate "2007"]
[Round "6"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Alvarez, Franklin"]
[Black "Rizzitano, James A"]
[ECO "B22"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]