Author: admin

In a reaction to last week’s post, a reader responded “I get it Joe, you dislike Trump. Please build a case for Clinton as I am unsettled.”

My initial thought was a facile response that the best case for the election of Hillary Clinton was the candidacy of Donald Trump but that seemed too clever by half. I will attempt to make the case for Hillary Clinton but it can’t be done without comparing the two candidates. So, here goes.

Let’s start by examining the two issues that seem to be dogging her campaign, the private e-mail service and the Clinton Foundation.

The use of the private e-mail server was just plain dumb but according to the FBI Director, James Comey, it wasn’t criminal. Clinton has acknowledged that using it was a mistake. Additionally, no one has shown that its use has compromised national security in any way nor led to any event that harmed the United States.

The issue of the Clinton Foundation is a bit more nuanced. Despite promising to build a wall between the Foundation and the State Department while she was Secretary of State, e-mails between employees of the Foundation and her staff at the State Department revealed requests for meetings between donors to the Foundation and Secretary Clinton during her tenure.

Although the requests for meetings were made, there is no indication that the meetings were for anything more than information or face time with her on particular issues. There is no evidence that any of these individuals received anything or benefited personally from the meetings that occurred. Indeed, it would be hard to distinguish the difference between these meeting and normal diplomatic interaction since some of the donors were officials from countries that would be expected to have communication or meetings with the Secretary of State.

As a result of the uproar that followed these disclosures, the Clinton Foundation announced that President Bill Clinton would withdraw from involvement in the Foundation and no foreign contributions would be accepted.

This is too bad because the Clinton Foundation has done extraordinarily good work on issues that plague poverty stricken countries in Africa and the Third World.

While Donald Trump has been the loudest voice in criticizing the Clintons and the Foundation, it is noteworthy that in the past week the news media has reported that Trump’s Foundation has not received any money from Trump for almost a decade and the money it has received from other sources has been utilized to settle litigation against his business entities and other self-dealing.

In the past couple of weeks, with the bombings and attacks in New York, New Jersey and Minnesota, terrorism is back on the front burner.

Who should be supported is a basic reality check.

Clinton, as Senator from New York on September 11, 2001 was instrumental in securing the financial aid and funds to support the re-building of lower Manhattan and compensation for families who lost loved ones in the attack as well as first responders who suffered health ailments from their service at ground zero.

Trump took advantage of the financial aid to obtain monies for a property that wasn’t damaged in the attack.

As Secretary of State and Senator from New York, Clinton has been involved in diplomatic missions and established relationships with heads of state worldwide. She was a member of the National Security team that brought about the deaths of Osama Bin Laden, Anwar Al-Awlaki and other terrorists who would foster terrorist attacks against this country.

Trump promises to ban all Muslim immigration, bring back waterboarding and even more lethal forms of interrogation, and authorize the killing of family members of suspected terrorist overseas. This last proposal would involve ordering American troops to engage in murder and other war crimes.

When it comes to who is the most qualified to lead the United States on the world stage, Clinton, as Secretary of State, has relationships with almost every world leader on the globe. In 2011 I witnessed her testifying before the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee in Washington, D.C. She had flown all night from the Baltic States in order to fulfill this commitment and despite her fatigue was able to discuss every foreign situation and hot spot that the Committee was interested in and did so without notes. Although scheduled to testify for only three hours she testified for over five answering every question that the members of the Committee had. It was truly an impressive performance.

Trump’s knowledge of foreign affairs is decidedly shallow. He would jeopardize the NATO Alliance and perhaps scrap the major defense bulwark that has stood between us, our allies and Russia at a time when Putin has stepped up that country’s aggression both in the Ukraine and Syria. He claims to have a “secret” plan to defeat ISIS but will share no details about it. His campaign aides appear to double as agents for his business interests in Russia and Eastern Europe perhaps illuminating what appears to be a “man crush” that he has on Vladimir Putin.

On the immigration issue, Clinton advocates heightened scrutiny of any refugees that we would accept from Syria and the refugee camps in the mid-East as part of the world community’s effort to alleviate the refugee crisis. She also is for comprehensive immigration reform that would give legal status and an ultimate path to citizenship to immigrants that have been in the country and haven’t violated the law, most importantly the “dreamers,” the children of immigrants who brought them here during their child hood and were raised here.

Trump would build a wall on the Mexican border, which he would demand Mexico pay for and create a deportation force that would round up somewhere between six million and eleven million people and deport them. The last country to round up six million people for ostensible deportation was Germany during the 1930’s. On the issues of terrorism and immigration, Trump has not advocated a single legal, realistic or sensible solution.

Let’s look at other issues.

On Climate Change, Clinton believes climate change need to be addressed and is a proponent of clean fuels.

Trump is a climate change denier. He champions the use of fossil fuels and vows to make the coal and natural gas markets “great” even though they are mutually incompatible.

On the issue of gun control, Clinton believes in expanded background checks and closing the loophole that allows purchases without them and banning military style assault weapons.

Trump believes in an unrestricted right to carry any kind of weapon and twice has hinted that Second Amendment advocates might wish to kill Clinton. Some might say that Trump was being sarcastic or said it in jest. I can say, that having lived through the assassinations and attempted assassinations in the 1960’s and 70’s, this is not a matter to joke about. I believe that having raised it twice disqualifies him from leading the country.

On race relations Clinton has been a lifelong civil rights advocate, who spent her earliest years as a lawyer working for the Children’s Defense Fund. As First lady of Arkansas, she devoted her efforts to improving and raising the standards of that State’s educational system

Trump has a well- documented history of refusing to rent to African-Americans and is the favored candidate of former Ku Klux Klan leader, David Duke, and other White Supremacists. His entry into the political arena Occurred when he led the “birther” movement, the racist campaign to illegitimize the nation’s first African-American President.

On the issue of economic regulation, Clinton supports the retention of Dodd-Franks Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, passed in the wake of the 2007 economic meltdown to regulate the banks that “are too big to fail” and have to be bailed out with taxpayer funds.

Trump favors the repeal of Dodd-Franks and abolishing the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.

Clinton has been a staunch advocate for universal health care and would preserve the Affordable Health Care Act and improve it.

Trump would repeal the Affordable Health Care Act.

It is safe to say that both candidates have issues when it comes to trust and transparency. Criticism of each is justified. I would be remiss; however, if I did not point out the fact that Clinton has disclosed her tax returns for every year she has been on the public stage and like every candidate for President since 1968.

Trump refuses to do so and offers the excuse that he is being audited. The IRS does not prohibit an individual who is being audited from disclosing their tax returns. It certainly does not prohibit a taxpayer from disclosing tax returns from years that are not subject to audit, which Trump has also refused to do.

In “making the case for Hillary Clinton,” I should touch on the wisdom of voting for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate. I would say, do so if you want a President who supports eliminating environmental regulations, abolishing the income tax, abolishing public schools and ending Social Security and Medicare because that is the Libertarian Party Platform. In an interview on NPR, Johnson said he would seek a Supreme Court nominee who is an “Originalist”. That is a justice in the mold of Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia.

This has been my longest post to date.

I think I’ve laid out enough contrasts between Clinton and Trump for anyone to make the choice they believe is the best.

Hillary Clinton has spent her entire career trying to improve life for all Americans of all races and walks of life. She is knowledgeable and deeply thoughtful on the issues that confront us at a time of danger and uncertainty.

Donald Trump has spent his entire life promoting himself and his business interests, utilizing bankruptcy laws multiple times without regard for investors, contractors, employees or the well-being of anyone who might be affected by his failures and defaults.

My own belief is that Donald Trump would be extraordinarily dangerous both at home and abroad were he to become President based upon the positions he’s taken on the issues.

Last week’s reader was right. I don’t like Donald Trump.

When I was in my teens there was an Academy Award winning movie called the” Manchurian Candidate.” It starred Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey. Its plot involved a communist country trying to manipulate a presidential election by having a prisoner of war it had brainwashed assassinate the nominee of one of the parties, catapulting its preferred candidate into the White House.

This year, we have seen computer hackers employed by the Russian Government hack into the computers of the Democratic Party and turn over a trove of e-mails to Wikileaks in an effort to damage the Clinton campaign on the eve of the Party’s convention.

Since the Convention and the disclosure, state election officials been warned by the Federal Government that their electronic voting is at risk and that the results could be manipulated by the hackers.

One doesn’t have to be clairvoyant to see which candidate would benefit from this type of activity.

Vladimir Putin reportedly loathes Hillary Clinton while Donald Trump has a very public “man crush” on him, even hailing him as a stronger leader than the U.S. President.

Trump’s preference for Russia and Putin has been evident for some time. The alarming warning signs about where he would lead us as President have been scattered upon the political landscape throughout the campaign.

Trump has proclaimed that he would condition our commitment to our NATO allies on whether they had fulfilled their financial commitments to the alliance. Never mind that the only time the alliance has been tested was when they all came to our assistance after the attack on our country on September 11, 2001.

Trump has endorsed Russia’s forcible annexation of Crimea comparing it to the invasion of Iraq.

Trump has surrounded himself with campaign aides who have involved themselves in elections in the Ukraine on behalf of Putin’s proxy candidates. Indeed, his campaign chair, Paul Manafort, was forced to leave the campaign after it was disclosed that he may have been paid millions of dollars by one of his Russian proxy candidates.

Make no mistake about the real reason Trump is not disclosing his tax returns as every other candidate for President has done since 1968.

It isn’t about the audit he claims is ongoing.

The IRS does not prohibit a taxpayer who is being audited from disclosing their returns.

Moreover, since the IRS has possession of the returns that it is auditing it is disingenuous to claim that disclosure would prejudice the audit.

Furthermore, Trump has refused to disclose the tax returns for years in which the audits have been completed.

No, the real reason that he will not disclose his returns is because it would reveal the extent of his dealings and holdings in Russia.

While the Federal government, the Clinton campaign, the Democratic Party and legions of editorial writers and columnists have been condemning the hacking, who has been strangely silent about the subject?

Donald Trump.

His only comment to date was a wish that the Russian hackers would hack Hillary Clinton’s computer in search of more e-mails.

This seems somewhat strange since the man has repeatedly claimed that the outcome of the election is “rigged”

What would be even stranger is, if he is right and the Russian hackers change the outcome of our election and succeed in putting a pro-Russian, pro-Putin stooge in the White House.

Every Presidential election I caution people not to turn the television on after Labor Day to avoid seeing what is going on the campaign trail.

Neither the ads run by the candidates nor the super pacs are good for the faint hearted.

This is particularly true this year as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump enter the final lap of the election cycle post Labor Day. There will be nothing that they won’t blame on each other going back to the biblical plagues and do it in thirty second segments.

I do have to confess to getting an early surprise this year when I turned on the television before Labor Day and was confronted with the situations that Maine Governor Paul LePage and former Congressman Anthony Weiner found themselves embroiled in on the same day.

LePage, a Tea Party Republican, is in his second term as Governor of Maine. Mercifully, he can’t run or a third term.

Throughout his six years in this position he has repeatedly made racially charged comments about the causes of crime and drug trafficking in the state. He claimed that ninety-percent of the drug dealers from other states were African-American or Hispanic and came to Maine to get “young white girls” pregnant. He went on to state that he kept a three ring binder with the photos of the drug dealers to back up his claim.

FBI statistics show that 7.4 percent of those arrested for drug sales in Maine were African-American. The Bureau does not keep statistics regarding Hispanic origin.

When LePage’s remarks were challenged as racially insensitive by a Democratic state legislator, LePage left a profanity laced telephone message on the legislator’s answering machine and told him he was “coming after him.” He later said he’d like to duel with the legislator with pistols.

In the past, LePage has said he’d like to tell President Obama to “go to hell” and said that the President “doesn’t like white people.”

After hinting that he might resign his office in the uproar that followed his remarks, he decided that he would finish out his term.

What the future holds for the Governor is uncertain but Donald Trump has stated there would be a place for LePage in a Trump Administration.

Secretary of State LePage? Secretary of Defense LePage? Chairman of the United States Civil Rights Commission?

The mind boggles at the possibilities.

Anthony Weiner, of course, needs no introduction. He resigned from Congress in 2011 after sending a sexually suggestive picture to a twenty-one year old woman in Seattle, Washington.

In 2013 Weiner ran for Mayor of New York but in the middle of the primary campaign, he was unmasked as “Carlos Danger” who had sent more sexually suggestive photos and “sexted” with a twenty-two year old woman and admitted to the same conduct with three other women.

One might have expected that the angriest person would have been his wife, Huma Abedin, who, to her credit chose to stay and work on their marriage.

I suspect that the truly angriest person was former Governor Eliot Spitzer who was attempting a political comeback in the primary election for City Comptroller after having resigned as Governor when it was discovered he was visiting prostitutes. The last thing Spitzer needed was “Carlos Danger” dredging up memories of both of their sexual escapades. Both he and the would-be Mayor would defeated in their races.

On August 28 of this year, we learned that Weiner was sexting again. He sent a sexually suggestive photo to another woman in 2015

. Just two weeks before the magazine Vogue ran a profile of Huma Abedin in which she praised Weiner for being a full-time stay at home father who gave her the freedom to devote herself to the Clinton campaign. Needless to say, this left Weiner with too much idle time on his hands. Abedin understandably announced that they were separating.

What does the future hold for Anthony Weiner?

Well, he clearly loves politics and the limelight.

Maybe he could get on a future Presidential ticket with Paul LePage.

They could run on the slogan “Giving new meaning to Show and Tell.”

One of the beauties of being retired is the freedom to go anywhere at any time of your choosing.

That, of course, is contingent on being able to arrange for the care of three mules, two dogs, two cats and five chickens. Okay, so it takes a little foresight and planning.

Two weeks ago Terri and I were invited to visit her cousin and her husband at a home they had just purchased on the Jersey Shore. Neither of us had ever been to the Jersey Shore. We have a number of close friends who had rented vacation homes there, year after year, and raved about it.

Terri’s cousin had just reached the mandatory retirement age of fifty-seven at one of the Federal law enforcement agencies. Yes, you read that correctly. The mandatory retirement age is fifty-seven. Her husband, who is my age, had reached the mandatory retirement age and retired from the same agency ten years ago.

Both had careers in law enforcement spanning three decades and each had a distinguished career rising to the top level of the agency they were employed by.

My feelings about mandatory retirement ages have evolved over the years. At one time, I would have liked to serve on the Federal bench where an appointment is for life but in retrospect I’m glad it didn’t come to pass because the temptation to work forever might have been too much. I’m very comfortable with the decision I made to retire at sixty-six rather than seek another term this November, which would have been limited to three years. After all, if I had done that I wouldn’t have the freedom to pick up at a moment’s notice and go off to the Jersey Shore. I do, however, have to wonder about the wisdom of putting people out to pasture at age fifty-seven when they have acquired the knowledge and experience to contribute to public safety for at least another decade. But, I’m digressing.

Since I’ve never driven to the Jersey Shore, I decided to rely on Google maps on my mobile phone for directions. It gave us an estimated travel time of five and a half hours.
It became apparent that when it gave us this estimated travel time that it left out the state of Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania has never started an interstate construction project that it intended to complete.
At first I was delighted that Google maps directed us to the 476 bypass which would avoid Scranton. My delight ended when I discovered that Pennsylvania was in the middle of interstate construction on this highway too. Rather than continue us on the bypass, Google directed us onto Route 76 which took us through downtown Philadelphia as rush hour traffic was beginning. We arrived at our destination almost eight hours after we left home.

Terri’s cousin and her husband had chosen the perfect weekend retirement getaway on the Jersey Shore. They were half a block off the main street and in walking distance of all of the shops and restaurants in the town. They were also two blocks from the Atlantic Ocean. The town had a boardwalk and beautiful beaches that ran for miles that made for a beautiful early morning or evening walk. The condominium that they had purchased had two bedrooms and a bathroom off the entrance way, the second floor had the living area, kitchen and another bedroom. Best of all it had a roof top porch where you could sit, have a cocktail and read or watch the sunset. It was a place made for relaxation and it was impossible not to relax. We spent two days with them enjoying the Shore and, most of all, their company.

On the third day it was time to leave and return to the menagerie.

To avoid the return trip through center city Philadelphia at rush hour on a Friday, we mapped out a different route home in which we picked up the 476 bypass upon entering the southern border of Pennsylvania. The trip was smooth sailing until I prematurely exited the bypass just south of Scranton.

I believe that Pennsylvania has been doing interstate construction in Scranton since I was born. In fact, I’m quite certain that the construction of the pyramids in Egypt took less time. Whatever time we were saving by missing Philadelphia was now being lost as we sat in Friday night traffic on Route 81 in Scranton.

After a couple of deep breaths and reminding myself that, now that I was retired and I had all the time in the world, I sat and concentrated on the audio book we were listening to.

We arrived home in about the same length of time it took us to get the Jersey Shore.

As Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz says, “There is no place like home.”

Eespecially if you have to travel through Pennsylvania to get there.

It’s almost Labor Day and I’m wondering where the summer went, let alone the year.

It’s my first year of retirement and it seems to be sailing past.

As we all know, we probably had the mildest winter in a lifetime. The lack of snow seemed very appealing at first but, as I would learn, the lack of precipitation would have consequences later on.

Terri and I had decided to get away from upstate New York for part of the winter. The past couple of years I had rented a condo in North Myrtle Beach and she visited the middle two weeks of the month I was there. I loved the daily routine of walking thee beach for an hour each morning with a cup of coffee while listening to NPR. I would have breakfast, go to the gym and read on the beach for the rest of the day. Listening to the waves crash on the beach all night was pretty tranquil.

This year we decided to try another location and settled on Asheville, North Carolina. Set in the mountains on the North Carolina-Tennessee border it afforded some great hiking opportunities. Asheville is a pretty compact city. We rented a house in North Asheville and were able to walk into the city each day for breakfast or lunch depending on what time we got moving.

Asheville has a neighborhood called the “South Slope” which is home to 19 craft breweries and barbecue places all within walking distance of one another. Adjacent to that neighborhood is the “River Arts District.” In which a number of warehouses have been converted to artist studios. It also has the Vanderbilt Estate with its mansion and miles of beautifully kept walking, biking trails and bridle paths.

The University of North Carolina-Asheville caters to retirees, offering a number of educational courses and programs geared to their interests.

Terri and I agreed that if our children and grandchild were not living in Central New York, it would be a tempting place to relocate in retirement.

Returning home in April, it seemed summer was here.

If the winter seemed barren of snow, the summer was the hottest and driest that I could remember. It was ideal for golf although I can’t say that my game has approved measurably. After a few initial cuttings, the lawn didn’t need much mowing.

We live on a well and it didn’t occur to me that we might have a problem until Terri filled the 100 gallon water trough that the mules drink from and I went to get a drink of water and nothing came out of the tap. Fortunately water came back after a half an hour and the water conservation light bulb went on in my head.

On some days we were able to kill two birds with one stone by diving in our two acre pond to escape the heat with body wash and shampoo. Waiting until we had a full load before running the dish washer and clothes washer, along with other measures large and small.

I did learn that the five hens that Terri bought to add to her menagerie didn’t require much water. The only complication they presented was the mules sticking their heads into the chicken coop because they liked the chickens’ food. Go figure.

As the days got longer, hotter and dryer I found myself getting wistful about life in the city.

I also wanted to strangle anyone who denied the existence of climate change.

When we got a succession of thunder storms during these past two week I felt like a kid on Christmas morning.

Retirement is great. I enjoy it more with each passing day.

I have changed my outlook in one respect.

I was always saying that I wished the winters would slip by as fast as the summers seemed to.

It has now occurred to me that if that came true, I’d be dead in no time.

I’m looking forward to a real long winter and a lot of water next spring.

There is very little that the conservative columnist, George Will, and I agree on unless it’s baseball. Will, however, has raised an interesting theory about the reasons behind Donald Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns.

It is worth noting that every Presidential candidate of either party has released their tax returns beginning with the election of 1976. Donald Trump flatly refuses to do so.

Initially, Trump claimed that he couldn’t release them because he was being audited by the IRS and left the possibility that he might release them when the audit was concluded. When it was demonstrated that an audit was no bar to disclosing the returns, he shifted his position to a blanket refusal which presently he adhere to.

Trump’s position, naturally, raised questions about what the tax returns might reveal.

Is he not as wealthy as he claims to be?

Did his charitable giving not measure up to his boasts about his generosity?

Whatever the reason behind the refusal, Trump and his advisers had to know that the refusal would simply raise more and more questions about what he is trying to hide.

George Will has raised a new, very plausible, explanation.

Trump is trying to avoid having to reveal the business ties and ventures he has to Russian oligarchs and their patron, Vladimir Putin.

Several months ago it was disclosed that the Democratic National Committee’s computer network had been hacked. On the eve of the Party’s Convention almost twenty-thousand e-mails were posted on WikiLeaks. The e-mails revealed that the DNC staff was not neutral during the Party’s Presidential primary contests but had been working to promote the candidacy of Hillary Clinton and undermine the candidacy of her rival for the nomination, Senator Bernie Sanders.

This past Friday more e-mails were posted on WikiLeaks involving donors and personal information about staffers and Democratic officials was disclosed.

It is no surprise that the e-mails were posted on WikiLeaks site since its founder, Julian Assange, is hostile to Hillary Clinton. He believes that she has advocated his extradition from Britain to Sweden where he faces criminal charges involving Rape. He has been holed-up in the Ecuador Embassy avoiding extradition since 2012.

The more interesting question is who was behind the hacking operation and why.

Law enforcement authorities investigating the hack, lay responsibility at the feet of Russian intelligence services. Was Vladimir Putin attempting to injure the Clinton campaign and tip the election to Donald Trump?

Since the beginning of his campaign, Trump has made no secret of his admiration for Putin and has declined to criticize any of his foreign or domestic policies. Up to know this “bromance” has been the subject of late night talk show host monologues and other pundits who find Trump’s admiration of Putin somewhat amusing.

A look, however, at the person running the Trump campaign should give us some pause from treating this as harmless.

In March 2016 Trump hired Paul Manafort to advise his campaign on delegate selection and in June gave him the role of Campaign Manager. He is now the person in charge of the Trump campaign.

Manafort’s history includes working with Russian and Ukrainian politicians and oligarchs and was deeply involved in a disputed election in the Ukraine for a Putin protégé. He has also, reportedly, been intimately involved in a number of financial ventures with the same oligarchs in that country.

Shortly after Manafort joined the Trump campaign, Trump reversed his stand on Russia’s annexation of Crimea now finding it acceptable.

Trump has taken a number of other stands that could only further the desire of Putin for a Trump victory including sending the Russian leader a signal that he might not fulfill this country’s treaty obligation as part of the NATO alliance.

A former Acting Director of the CIA, Michael Morell, has called Trump an “unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”

It’s disturbing that a Russian despot and a fugitive sex offender would, hand in hand, try to influence the outcome of an American Presidential election.

Has Trump, Like Manafort, been involved in financial ventures with the same or similar Ukrainian and Russian oligarchs during his career?

Are any of the deals alive or dead?

Would his allegiance be to those deals trump his allegiance to the United States and its allies were he to become President?

Those are all legitimate questions.

Some or all of them could be answered if Trump were to disclose his tax returns.

Until that happens, George Will’s concern remains an important and valid one.

Last week a United States District Court Judge ordered that John Hinckley Jr. could be released from confinement from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. because he was no longer dangerously mentally ill. Hinckley will be allowed to live with his mother in Williamsburg, Va. with restrictions.

On March 30, 1981, thirty-five years ago, Hinckley attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan outside a hotel in the nation’s capital. The President, a Secret Service Agent and a Washington, D.C. police officer received gunshot wounds from which they recovered. Presidential Press Secretary, James Brady, was gravely wounded in the head and suffered severe brain damage.

Hinckley had bought his .22 caliber Rohm RG-14 revolver at a Dallas, Texas pawn shop using an alias, a false address and an expired Texas driver’s license in October 1980. At the time of the purchase, Hinckley was under psychiatric care.

Four days before the purchase, he attempted to board an airline flight in Nashville, Tennessee to New York City with three handguns and loose ammunition in a carry-on bag. On the same day, President Jimmy Carter was in Nashville and traveling to New York.

Hinckley was charged and tried for his attempted assassination of all four men. He was found not guilty by a jury in the Federal District Court in Washington, D.C. after interposing an Insanity defense.

In the uproar following the verdict, the jurors were compelled to testify before Congress about the reason they found him not guilty. This was unheard of up to that time.

At the time of the trial, Insanity was an “ordinary” defense. This meant that once the accused offered some evidence of a mental disease or defect, the burden of proof shifted to the prosecution to prove that he was sane beyond a reasonable doubt.

Congress promptly passed the Insanity Defense Reform Act which made the Insanity defense an “affirmative” defense and placed the burden on the defendant to prove a mental disease or defect by a preponderance of the evidence. A preponderance of the evidence means the greater weight of the evidence. Since the burden of proving this was “affirmatively” placed on the defendant, a jury, which determines the facts, was free to disbelieve the evidence no matter how much evidence was presented.

Most of the states followed suit with similar changes to the law and some, Montana, Idaho and Utah, abolished the defense altogether.

One would have thought that Congress would have moved just as quickly to remedy the flaws that allowed someone as disturbed as Hinckley to obtain a firearm.

Not so.

The Brady Handgun Violence Act, commonly known as the “Brady Bill” was not introduced in Congress until March 1991. It was never voted on and was re-introduced in 1993 when it passed and was signed by President Clinton becoming law in 1994, more than a decade after President Reagan, James Brady and the others were shot.

President Reagan said the Brady Bill “…can’t help but stop thousands of illegal gun purchases.”

While the law mandated the first background checks, it would not have prevented Hinckley from obtaining a firearm. The prohibition in the law applied to persons who had been previously legally committed to a mental institution or legally declared a mental defective which Hinckley, at the time he purchased the weapon, had not been.

The law had other loopholes and a three day window, in which the FBI could complete a background check, otherwise the gun sale had to be permitted. This particular time limit is still the law today and allowed Dylan Roof, who had drug charges pending, to obtain a handgun and murder nine people at Emmanuel African American Methodist Church in Charleston, South Carolina this year because the three days included a weekend.

As might be expected, the National Rifle Association (NRA) fought passage of the law from 1987 when it was first proposed and funded numerous unsuccessful court challenges to it.

In 1994 the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, commonly referred to as the Federal Assault Weapons ban was enacted which prohibited the manufacture for civilian use of certain semi-automatic firearms commonly called “assault weapons” and “large capacity” magazines.

The law was passed following a 1989 shooting in Stockton, California in which a teacher and thirty-four children were shot and five of the children died.

This law had a “sunset” provision which meant it automatically expired after ten years. It did so in 2004.

Since it expired, we have had the kind of assault weapons that had been banned, used in Columbine Colorado, Aurora, Colorado, Newtown, Connecticut, San Bernardino, California and Orlando, Florida and elsewhere with deadly results.

As we stop to consider the implications of Hinckley’s release from Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital, we might also want to ponder what might have occurred if he had been able to obtain an assault rifle, the way other mass shooters are able to do today.

This past Monday, the Democratic Party Convention opened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The opening day was spent with the Party leadership having to deal with just what it didn’t need. Another e-mail scandal.

This time, almost nineteen thousand e-mails had been posted on the website WikiLeaks by hackers who appear to be affiliated with the Russian Government.

The e-mails were particularly embarrassing to the Party and the Chairwoman, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, because they revealed that throughout the primary campaign the Democratic National Committee had been clandestinely supporting Hillary Clinton.

Senator Bernie Sanders had been making this accusation for some time, claiming that the process was “rigged.” Any astute observer of the primary campaigns could see that Wasserman-Schultz was not being neutral throughout the process but the scope and depth of the DNC support for Clinton was disturbing.

Wasserman-Schultz agreed to resign as Chairperson of the Convention but wanted to open and close the Convention against the wishes of everyone who had a stake in its success. Only after she had been booed by her own delegation did she see the wisdom of abandoning this course and returning to Florida immediately.

The convention proceedings got off to a rocky start with booing coming from the Sanders delegates and supporters each time Clinton’s name was mentioned. Sanders, himself, was booed when he attempted to calm the situation by reiterating his support for Clinton.

As the evening proceedings progressed with speeches by Michelle Obama, Elizabeth Warren and Sanders, the booing and cat calls subsided and decorum appeared to be restored.

The First Lady’s speech was eloquent and revealing about her time in the White House and is credited with changing the tone of the convention.

The second day featured the nomination of Hillary Clinton. Whatever one might think of her, it was a historic moment as a major party nominated its first female candidate for President of the United States. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton spent forty minutes revealing why he fell in love with her and extolling her as a “change maker.”

I felt that the two most significant speech of the night came from former Secretary of State, Madeline Albright and New York Congressman Joseph Crowley.

Albright told of her own immigrant journey to the United States and the danger a President Trump would pose to the United States and our allies because of his strange attraction to leaders like Vladimir Putin and Sadaam Hussein.

Congressman Crowley revealed that in the aftermath of the September 11 attack, Trump took advantage of monies appropriated for rebuilding lower Manhattan involving properties he owned that were not damaged or affected at all by the attack. He contrasted Clinton’s efforts in securing the funds and what he termed Trump’s “cashing in” on the tragedy.

The third night was filled with speeches by former new York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, Vice-Presidential nominee, Tim Kaine, Vice-President Biden and President Obama.

Mayor Bloomberg’s speech was intriguing because he noted that he was an Independent and did not intend to endorse the Democratic Party platform. Indeed. He declared that there were portions of both parties’ platforms that he both agreed and disagreed with. His purpose in speaking at the convention was to warn against the election of Donald Trump whom he labeled a “con man.” He pointed out Trump’s multiple bankruptcies, plethora of lawsuits and contractor that had been “stiffed” by him.

Senator Kaine introduced himself to the world by sharing his life story including his mission to Honduras during his college years where he taught carpentry and plumbing and learned to speak Spanish fluently.

Both President Obama and Vice-President Biden contrasted the conflicting messages of the Convention in Cleveland and that in Philadelphia. The President not only vouched for Clinton’s judgement and experience but went so far as to label Donald Trump a “home grown demagogue.”

The last night centered on Hillary Clinton’s acceptance speech. Where Trump had portrayed America as a dark and troubled place that only he could fix, she spoke of it as an inclusive place, in which all people should be welcome and whose best days are yet to come.

The two conventions were as different in tone and theme as two gatherings could be.

The Republicans left Cleveland with significant divisions in their party. Ted Cruz, the runner-up in the nominating contest, refusing to endorse Donald Trump and the last two Republican Presidents and the last two nominees were nowhere to be seen or heard.

The Democrats left Philadelphia seeming to be unified with a President, Vice-President, former President, Senator Sanders and a whole host of talented surrogates ready to campaign.

Whether that unity remains lasting remains to be seen. If, for example, Hillary Clinton were to become engaged in the Democratic primary contest that Debbie Wasserman-Shultz is involved in against a Bernie Sanders supporter, the party rift could re-open and doom her campaign
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Only time and the next one-hundred days will tell.

They come once every four years. They last no more than four days. They are usually only weeks apart. They are the Republican and Democratic National Conventions.

I, being a political junkie, am glued to the television. I’ve often said that there are only two things I would bet on, prize fights or a political race. The reason is because in either, anything can happen.

This past week, the Republican Party held its convention in Cleveland and I wasn’t disappointed. That, which I didn’t expect to happen, happened.

It started from the opening invocation, when the minister told the assembled delegates that; ”Our enemy is not other Republicans, but is Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.” So much for Christian charity and the milk of human kindness.

The first night of the Convention featured the speech of Melania Trump, the wife of the Party’s nominee for President. Her speech was destined to be a success since portions of it had been delivered before by Michelle Obama whose husband went on to be elected President

I do have to confess that I remain somewhat puzzled about why the Trump campaign would lift portions of a speech for Melania Trump from one given by the First Lady, since Donald Trump and the Republican Party clearly view the President as a foreign born Presidential usurper if not the Anti-Christ.

The second night New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie, announced that he would prosecute Hillary Clinton for a variety of transgressions and the delegates could serve as a “jury of her peers.”

This was a particular treat because Christie has never been inside a courtroom.

After reading out a list of charges, Christie would ask the audience to shout out “guilty or not guilty.” To no one’s surprise the delegates pronounced her guilty on each charge.

If Christie had wanted to exhibit some real imagination, he could have asked them to return a verdict on the George Washington Bridge lane closings.

Day three of the convention featured the acceptance speech of Mike Pence, the anti-Gay Governor of Indiana.

I was initially puzzled about what the Trump campaign thought Pence brought to the ticket since Trump already had eighty percent of the evangelical vote and against Hillary Clinton seemed likely to pick up the other twenty percent. Then I realized that after Christie and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich there were no other prominent Republicans willing to join the ticket. Considering the baggage that Christie and Gingrich carry, Pence must seem like a safe choice.

On the final night of the Convention Trump doubled down on his anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, isolationist positions.

His ambivalence about our NATO obligations can only serve to give great comfort to Russia’s Putin.

Trump’s hostility to immigrants and Pence’s to Gays caused me to wonder about the message being delivered to the 65,000 foreign born men and women, the 5,895 Muslims, the 66,000 gay and 6,700 transgendered persons serving in the Armed Forces at a time when none of the Trump children have served.

In what seems to be a fitting coda to the Convention, the day after it concluded, David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for the United States Senate in Louisiana and declared;

“I’m overjoyed to see Donald Trump and most Americans embrace the issues that I’ve championed for years.”

Pence, who describes himself as a “Christian, Conservative and Republican in that order will recognize this quote from Galatians, Chapter 6 verse 7;

“….for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.”

The past two weeks has been one of the most difficult and painful periods in America since the attack on September 11, 2001.

Two African-American men were killed during police encounters that were captured on cell phones. Five police officers in Dallas were ambushed and murdered by a gunman as they provided security to a peaceful march protesting the earlier shootings.

In Baton Rouge, Louisiana this morning a gunman killed three police officers and wounded four others. At this writing, other than his age and identity, nothing about him or why he did it is known.

Additional protests during this period have led to scores of arrests in cities across the country. The atmosphere is tense, polarizing and is escalating.

Thirty-five years ago, as a criminal defense lawyer, I was involved in a case in which four Syracuse Police officers were charged with beating a Latino man in Upstate Medical Center parking lot while trying to arrest him. During the struggle to put handcuffs on him, he suffered a heart attack and died several weeks later.

The struggle to arrest him was being viewed by a security guard and hospital orderly on a grainy black and white television monitor whose camera was trained on the parking lot. These two witnesses claimed that the officers struck their suspect in the head with a nightstick.

The incident occurred in September 1980 and for the next nine months Syracusans were divided about what the outcome of the criminal proceedings should be. Public pressure exerted on the District Attorney’s office to indict by some groups in the community was intense and an indictment was returned charging them with a felony assault and lesser offenses.

The case went to trial before a jury in April and May of 1981. Medical testimony by Upstate physicians was conclusive that the deceased had suffered only an inch long cut on the head that was not caused by a nightstick and he had suffered two heart attacks previously.

The jury took less than half an hour to find all of the officers not guilty but the healing in the community and of the officers themselves took much longer.

My client, the only veteran of the force, vowed that he would never arrest anyone again.

He didn’t.

He spent the remainder of his career in the Records Division.

Another officer left the force entirely.

A third transferred to another department.

Thirty-five years later, we live in the digital age. Almost everyone has a cell phone with a camera capable of recording videos that can be uploaded to the internet. It is occurring with increasing frequency and the public is arriving at conclusions based on those videos even when the video is a partial one or incomplete. Protests are immediate, tensions are high and rhetoric becomes overheated.

The madman who murdered and injured twelve in Dallas , a city which had no connection to the shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana, where the protest march was peaceful and the police a welcome presence, was inspired by the anger and rhetoric that was manifest following those shootings.

That is what happens when there are madmen among us.

There will always be mad men among us.

Black Lives do matter.

The right to protest peacefully is one that is enshrined in the First Amendment of our Constitution and should be celebrated rather than condemned.

We also need to have faith in the other institutions of government. We need to let them conduct the kind of thorough and complete investigation that is required of these tragic incidents and let them hold whoever needs to be accountable without rushing to judgement.

We need to talk to each other rather than over each other or past each other.

We need to stop and take a breath.