Bet on yourself

Op-EdIf your words are worth something, you might as well get paid for them.If you can’t beat ‘em, don’t join ‘em. They almost certainly don’t want you and clearly don’t need you.The better advice is: if you can’t beat ‘em, copy ‘em. What they (or ‘em) are doing is working so you might as well do it too.This occurred to me after reading a complaint filed in federal court in New York against President Donald Trump for charging $100,000 a month to get advance access to announcements on Truth Social. Truth Social’s CEO, according to the suit, also said “the company was exploring licensing its data for prediction markets (apparently to facilitate betting on the President’s announcements).”The latter part of the scheme, of course, does not facilitate betting — it facilitates trading of commodity futures. (Chortle)“This scheme is extraordinary, corrupt, and unconstitutional,” the suit harrumphed.Well, yeah, OK, that might be true, but is suing going to do any good? Trump will be long gone before this thing wends its way through courts. A lot of money will be made before this is over — and you can bet on that.The real solution here for the plaintiffs and anyone else interested in raising money is to follow the president’s example. Provide exclusive access to your litigation plans — or, say, plans for lunch — to those willing to invest or support your cause. Then they can go out and make appropriate bets.It is now the American way.Side note: It will be interesting to see how valuable access to exclusive Truth Social announcements will be considering they’re coming from a guy who’s constantly changing his mind.There may be some interesting contrarian bets to be made.Abolition : One of the more controversial positions held by some (but not all) Democratic Socialists is the abolishment of the Senate. Not the building — this isn’t a ballroom situation — but the institution itself.The Senate, after all, is pretty undemocratic — some cows in Wyoming get more representation than millions of people in California.True enough (although you could make an argument for the wisdom of cattle as opposed to humans). But, with all the gerrymandering and safe districts, the House of Representatives isn’t much more democratic. It may even be less democratic.There are problems with abolishing the Senate. First off, you have to amend the Constitution. Even though the Constitution gets ignored whenever convenient, all those politicians trampling on it will still insist it protects them.And then there’s the human factor — what happens to all the elderly people evicted from their congressional homes? It would be a humanitarian crisis.The better idea — which some DSA members like — is to abolish the Supreme Court.Raise your hand if you think the justices you disagree with are the smartest legal minds in the country who should be able to decide the law for everybody?I don’t see any hands. (Yes, I do realize I can’t see any of you, but play along.)So why give them that power when there are lots of very smart judges all around the country?And how many levels of appeal do we need anyway? Why is it that the last appeal is the one that counts even though it could be wrong?You may think we’ll have contradictory laws but we have that already — think state courts.One more advantage of doing away with the Supreme Court: Rich guys who take justices on hunting trips and buy them RVs will have to divide their resources among hundreds or maybe thousands of judges.Their power will be diluted.Categories / Op-Ed, PoliticsSubscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads