Quote of the week
Trump’s electoral fiction floats free of verifiable reality. It is defended not so much by facts as by claims that someone else has made some claims. The sensibility is that something must be wrong because I feel it to be wrong, and I know others feel the same way. When political leaders such as Ted Cruz or Jim Jordan spoke like this, what they meant was: You believe my lies, which compels me to repeat them. Social media provides an infinity of apparent evidence for any conviction, especially one seemingly held by a president.
The New York Times
High Court on conflict of interest
We cannot agree with either the President’s submissions or those of Adv Abrahams. In a rights-based order it is fundamental that a conflicted person cannot act; to act despite a conflict is self-evidently to pervert the rights being exercised as well as the rights of those affected. And section 96(2)(b) [of the South African Constitution] makes that clear beyond the pale. If conflicted, the individual simply cannot act, is “unable” to act, whether section 90 was there or not.
