admin – Page 2 – Joe Fahey

THE NEW MEIN KAMPF

The writer-philosopher George Santayana is credited with the phrase: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Donald Trump has strived mightily to distance himself from Project 2025, the 900 plus page playbook that outlines his policies and goals should he return to the White House. Trump repeatedly claims that he “knows nothing” about Project 2025 while his campaign makes the claim that no one speaks for them. It’s no surprise that Trump and the campaign would try to distance themselves from Project 2025 since it contains ideas and plans that are anathema to democracy and near and dear to the heart of one who professes he will be a “Dictator on day one.”

Trump and the Trump Campaigns’ denials fly in the face of what we know about the people who participate in Project 2025’s authorship. While the document is ostensibly prepared by the Heritage Foundation, a right- wing Christian policy Institute, the Washington Post in its analysis of the plan reports that “28 of the projects 38 primary authors-nearly 75%-worked in the Trump administration.”[1] A leading architect of the project is Russell Vaught, who served as Budget Director during the Trump administration and is widely viewed as a potential Chief of Staff should Trump be reelected.

While Trump professes to know nothing about Project 2025 even a cursory review of it reveals its contents to be a mirror image of Trump’s campaign rhetoric. The Section outlining Executive Power proposes eliminating civil service protection for thousands of federal government employees, such as Jay Bratt, Justice Department Chief of Counterintelligence, allowing Trump to hire and fire at will. One will recall that in the waning days of the Trump administration he authorized “Schedule F” to be created which if adopted would have achieved this result. Fortunately, it was abandoned during the earliest days of the Biden administration.

Project 2025 would bring the Department of Justice directly under Trump’s supervision. The chapter outlining how the Department would be administered includes plans to bring the FBI under the supervision of the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division and the Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division noting,” revelations regarding the FBI’s role in the Russia hoax of 2016, big tech version, and suppression of Hunter Biden’s laptop in 2020 strongly suggest that the FBI is completely out of control. To protect the Constitution, fight crime effectively, and protect the nation from foreign adversaries, the next conservative administration should begin to restore the FBI’s domestic reputation and integrity and enhance its effectiveness in meeting actual foreign threats.” To carry out this directive the administration would conduct, “ a comprehensive review of all major FBI investigations and activities and terminate any that are unlawful or contrary to national interest”[2]. The document goes on to recite “the director of the FBI must remain politically accountable to the president in the same manner as the head of any other federal department or agency. To ensure prompt political accountability and to reign in perceived or actual abuses, the next conservative administration should seek a legislative change to align the FBI director’s position with those of the heads of all other major departments and agencies.”[3] Clearly the intent of this proposal is to enable Trump to fulfill his pledge to his supporters when he promises them, “ I will be your retribution.”

In this chapter, Project 2025 outlines specific mandates it envisions the Department of Justice conducting. One is, “Announcing a Campaign to Enforce the Criminal Prohibitions in 18 USC Code Sections 1461 and 1462 Against Providers and Distributors of Abortion Pills that Use the Mail.”[4]

Another, is to “pursue appropriate steps to assist the Department of Homeland Security in obtaining information about criminal aliens and jurisdictions across the United States, particularly those inside ’sanctuary jurisdictions.’ Examine and consider the appropriateness of withdrawing or overturning every immigration decision rendered by Atty. Gen. Garland and any successor Atty. Gen. during Pres. Biden’s term.” This is clearly a prelude to Trump’s launching “the largest deportation of “illegal immigrants” that he has announced repeatedly on the campaign trail.

Project 2025 in its Homeland Security Chapter proposes repealing protections established by the Biden administration for unaccompanied children and would allow them to be detained and “returned to their country of origin.”[5] It would further amend the Homeland Security Act to remove the detention of alien children from the Department of Health and Human Services and transfer it to the Department of Homeland Security. Both these measures, and even more draconian ones proposed by Trump’s “advisor,” Stephen Miller that include large-scale defense detention camps, would be resurrected in a Trump administration.[6] This, despite the fact, that over a thousand children separated from their parents during the Trump administration remain unaccounted for.[7]

Beginning in 1933, Hitler and the Nazis vilified the Jews in Germany and its occupied territories as a prelude to confining them in camps after the invasion of Poland, ultimately leading to their attempted extermination known as the “Final Solution.” Trump has vilified migrants from Mexico, Latin America and other countries beginning in 2016 and currently vilifies Haitian immigrants with false tales of their “eating the pets,” as he vows to rid them from this country.[8] Most recently Trump has begun to rail against immigrant being ”genetically inferior.”[9]

The echos from the past resonates louder with each passing day.

Trump and his campaign’s disavowals of Project 2025 are belied by the document itself. The online version, which the public is invited to read, declares at the top of each page that it is the “2025 Presidential Transition Project.”[10] Clearly it wasn’t drafted for either the Biden or Harris campaign. Trump’s attempts to distance himself and his campaign from the document is reminiscent of Hitler’s prohibition on Mein Kampf being translated into French or English in 1936 as recounted in William Schirer’s Berlin Diaries.[11]

Recently I listened to a broadcast of a Trump rally at which the crowd chanted “Send them back” as Trump vowed to remove the Haitian immigrants that he falsely was accusing of eating peoples’ pets. When I first heard the chant it sounded, disturbingly, like “Sieg Heil.”

As William Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest, “What is past is prologue.”

[1] How Democrats Made Project 2025 one of their top anti-GOP Attacks, Washington Post, September 4, 2024

[2] Project 2025, p.548-9.

[3] Project 2025, p.551-2

[4] Project 2025, p.562.

[5] Project 2025 p.148.

[6] Trump’s Plan for Giant Detention Camps Points to a Brutal 2024 Reality, Washington Post, November 14, 2023.

[7] The Biden Administration Is Still looking For Migrant families Separated Under Trump, Mother Jones, October 17, 2023.

[8] Trump Falsely Accuses Immigrants in Ohio of Abducting and Eating Pets, Mike Catalini, Julie Carr Smyth and Bruce Shipkowski, Associated Press, September 11, 2024.

[9] “Trump Suggests ‘bad genes’ to Blame for Undocumented Immigrants Who Commit Murder,” Washington Post, October 7, 2024.

[10] Project 2025, p.7.

[11] Shirer, William L., Berlin Diaries, The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941, Galahad Books, New York (1995)p.85.The writer-philosopher George Santayana is credited with the phrase: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

The echos from the past resonates louder with each passing day.

As William Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest, “What is past is prologue.”

[1] How Democrats Made Project 2025 one of their top anti-GOP Attacks, Washington Post, September 4, 2024

[2] Project 2025, p.548-9.

[3] Project 2025, p.551-2

[4] Project 2025, p.562.

[5] Project 2025 p.148.

[6] Trump’s Plan for Giant Detention Camps Points to a Brutal 2024 Reality, Washington Post, November 14, 2023.

[7] The Biden Administration Is Still looking For Migrant families Separated Under Trump, Mother Jones, October 17, 2023.

[8] Trump Falsely Accuses Immigrants in Ohio of Abducting and Eating Pets, Mike Catalini, Julie Carr Smyth and Bruce Shipkowski, Associated Press, September 11, 2024.

[9] “Trump Suggests ‘bad genes’ to Blame for Undocumented Immigrants Who Commit Murder,” Washington Post, October 7, 2024.

[10] Project 2025, p.7.

[11] Shirer, William L., Berlin Diaries, The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941, Galahad Books, New York (1995)p.85.

The Boys From Brazil Revisited

In 1978 the movie “The Boys From Brazil” was released. It had an all-star cast that included Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, James Mason and others. The plot revolved around the cloning of infants from genetic material obtained from Adolf Hitler. I thought that the plot was farfetched until I learned about the Federalist Society.

Leonard Leo is currently the Co-Chairman of the Federalist Society. The Federalist Society is a right-wing organization dedicated to stacking the Federal Judiciary with zealots determined to undo all modern day concepts of constitutional interpretation. Leo served as Vice-President of the Society and created a fundraising network of affiliated not-for-profit organizations funded by anonymous donors. One of these, the Marble Freedom Trust was the recipient of a 1.6 billion dollar from an Illinois businessman.

The Federalist Society was founded in 1982 during the administration of Ronald Reagan. At that time Robert Bork, Antonin Scalia, Reagan’s Attorney-General Edwin Meese and Supreme Court Justice, William Rehnquist were espousing a theory called “Originalism” as a counter to the theory of a “Living Constitution” which involved interpreting of the Constitution in the context of modern day issues. Originalism purports to analyze and apply constitutional principles in the way they would have been understood by the original framers. Prior to 1982 there was no mention of Originalism being applied or mentioned in Supreme Court decisions .Originalism, in reality, is a fig leaf designed to justify the reversal of such concepts as the Fourteenth Amendment “Right to Privacy” which underpins the right to an abortion, contraception, same-sex marriage and the voiding of gay sex prohibitions, all issues decided during the 20^th and 21^st centuries. It has further advanced the voiding of firearm restrictions on licensing automatic weapons and other measures designed to protect the public and school children from mass shootings. In sum, the application of Originalism by the current Supreme Court has resulted in the Constitution and its historical protections to having no more current relevance than the Cretan hieroglyphs.

An additional method of constitutional interpretation that arose along with Originalism is one called “Textualism.” This method involves focusing on the plain meaning of the text and how the terms would have been understood by the public at the time of ratification of the Constitution and its amendments. Like Originalism this provides an alternate way to roll back the modern day protections afforded by the Supreme Court pursuant to the living Constitution interpretation.

With the addition of the three Trump appointed Justices, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Comey- Barrett to the Court on which Roberts, Thomas and Alito already sat, there is now a majority of justices who purport to subscribe to either the theory of Originalism or Textualism or both. This majority, despite their confirmation hearing testimony promising to adhere to the principle of stare decisis,( which means to follow the decisions that have been repeatedly been affirmed during prior terms), have repeatedly reversed and nullified protections guaranteed by a long-standing line of cases involving the right to privacy.

Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, and reaffirmed repeatedly throughout the next 45 years, was reversed and the right to obtain an abortion even under the most egregious circumstances was nullified. Justice Thomas, in a concurring opinion, declared that the Court should now re-examine all of its previous right to privacy decisions involving contraception, same-sex marriage and sex between consenting adults in private settings.

In District of Columbia v. Heller the Court held that the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual right to possess a firearm, ignoring a history of cases holding that the right applied in the context of a “well-regulated militia” as set forth in the language of the amendment itself. In 2022, the Court invalidated a New York State law regulating permits for concealed carry firearms in public that had been in existence for 111 years. Justice Thomas’s opinion held that the Sullivan Law had to be evaluated in the context of the understanding at the time of the framers enshrined it in the Constitution. Needless to say, the framers never contemplated the invention of submachine guns, AR 15’s and other automatic weapons or pistols with expanded magazines.

Most recently in Trump v. United States, the majority on the Court, for the first time, decided that a President of the United States could be immune from criminal prosecution for crimes committed while in office. These “Originalists” and “Textualists”, ignored the language in the Impeachment Clause which holds a president is liable for criminal prosecution after impeachment and removal from office. Likewise, that nowhere in the Constitution or in the papers of the framers is the prospect of presidential immunity mentioned.

Chief Justice Roberts in the opinion, joined by the new majority, announced a harebrained Rube Goldberg formula for which presidential conduct must be evaluated and he further prohibited evidence of official acts even when they illuminated the criminal intent of the president’s conduct. In short, at a time in which a former president charged in multiple indictments containing breathtaking criminality and is trying to return to office, he cannot for all practical purposed be prosecuted for this conduct.

Prior to the existence of the Federalist Society, Supreme Court Justices were selected based upon either extensive legal experience, public service or a combination of both. The result was the confirmation of legal giants like Louis Brandeis, Earl Warren, Thurgood Marshall, Lewis Powell, John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and the like. Now, with the Federalist Society and its incubation of right wing judicial appointees, we have a selection of nominees predicated on ideological purity and longevity.

The result, is that we have a Supreme Court composed of a majority of well-educated morons.

The Trump Verdict

For almost two decades I presided over felony criminal trials in Onondaga County Court and New York State Supreme Court. I followed the recent criminal trial of Donald Trump on a daily basis, in a variety of news outlets, from beginning to end. I wholeheartedly believe that this trial was conducted fairly and the verdict must be accepted as such.

Trump had all of the rights guaranteed to every defendant prosecuted in the Courts of New York State. He exercised his right to confront and cross-examine the witnesses who testified against him. He exercised his right to call witnesses in his own defense. He could have exercised his right to testify in his own behalf and yet chose not to do so. His jury was comprised of twelve jurors and six alternates drawn from New York County after a thorough jury selection process. They were chosen and seated with the consent of his attorneys. After deliberating and considering all of the evidence adduced at the trial, they returned a verdict based upon that evidence. Trump was afforded all the due process he was entitled to.

The claims by Trump that the trial was” rigged” is of no moment when one scrutinizes the evidence presented at the trial. Of the 22 witnesses who testified, many were Trump insiders and they gave the most damning testimony.

David Packer, former publisher of the National Enquirer, testified about capturing and killing negative stories about Trump, including one involving Karen McDougall, a playboy centerfold, with whom Trump had an affair.

Rhona Graff was Trump’s longtime assistant at the Trump organization.

Hope Hicks was Trump’s 2016 campaign press secretary and one of his closest confidantes during his time as President.

Jeffrey McConney was the former controller at the Trump Organization. He processed the allegedly falsified records.

Deb Tarasoff a bookkeeper from the Trump Organization. She processed the allegedly falsified records.

Rebecca Manochio, a Trump Organization employee. She shipped checks to Trump for him to sign.

Madeleine Westerhout, Trump’s White House secretary, who witnessed Trump signing the checks to Michael Cohen.

All of these witnesses were employees or individuals that were part of Trump’s inner circle.

Michael Cohen, the architect of the scheme to silence Stormy Daniels, by paying her not to reveal her affair with Trump, was Trump’s in-house counsel and employee in the years leading up to the scheme and in the months after.

Stormy Daniels, of course, was the object of Trump’s desires and the person with whom he had the affair that he sought to hide before the election.

All of these individuals were prosecution witnesses and none of them were individuals employed by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. To suggest that their testimony was “rigged” is simply beyond ludicrous.

The guilty verdict on all 34 felony counts now begs the question, what sentence should be imposed to hold Trump accountable.

Judge Merchan has ordered a presentence investigation by the Court’s Probation Department which will encompass Trump’s conduct in committing the offenses and his ten Contempt of Court citations during the trial. It will include his extensive litigation history, his bankruptcies and the other conduct deemed relevant for the Court’s consideration. It will also include his age, his current health, his lack of a criminal record and that he served a term as President of the United States.

The Court will also have the benefit of a recommendation by the District Attorney of what he believes will constitute an appropriate sentence. Trump will be afforded the opportunity to submit his own pre-sentence memorandum urging a specific sentence, along with any letters attesting to his character.

Trump will have the opportunity to address the Judge at the time of his sentencing. Most defendants use this opportunity to express contrition or regret for their conduct in a bid for leniency. From my own experience a defendant’s comments can have an impact on the sentencing judge at the moment sentence is imposed. Given Trump’s track record of insulting the Court, its employees, the witnesses and the proceedings that led to his Contempt citations, any comments along these lines appear unlikely and would ring hollow.

Judge Merchan has a wide range of options from which to fashion an appropriate sentence. The maximum sentence that can be imposed for each felony that Trump was convicted of is an indeterminate range having a minimum of 1 1/3 years and a maximum of four years. The Judge could also impose a definite sentence of one year incarceration, a sentence of six months incarceration and five years’ probation or a conditional discharge involving no jail time but requiring Trump to meet conditions imposed by the Court. In theory, a sentence for each felony could be imposed to run consecutive to one another but almost every observer considers that to be highly unlikely. The maximum sentence of imprisonment might also be considered excessive by an appellate court but a sentence less than the maximum would not be viewed as such.

In deciding how best to hold Trump accountable Judge Merchan should consider that Michael Cohen, a co-conspirator, was sentenced to three years imprisonment for engaging in the same conduct that Trump was convicted of. Moreover, unlike Trump, Cohen admitted his guilt and was given the benefit of a sentencing reduction for his” acceptance of responsibility.” Another factor the judge should consider is Trump’s repeated defiance of the courts “gag order” during the trial. His repeated public attacks on the judge, his family, his staff, the district attorney, his staff and the witnesses amply demonstrate Trump’s belief that he is accountable to no one.

An additional consideration the judge should take into account is that the conduct underlying Trump’s convictions deprived voters that were choosing a candidate for the highest office in the land of information that may have directly impacted their choice. In short, the voters were the victims of these crimes. A sentence that is too lenient not only fails to hold Trump accountable for this conduct but also fails to dissuade any future candidate for office from engaging in this type of conduct.

I spent two decades in a court of the same level in which Judge Merchan now sits. Sentencing a defendant is never an easy task. I don’t envy Judge Merchan’s position but I am confident he will impose a fair and appropriate sentence that will hold Trump accountable and demonstrate to the public that this conduct has no place in our political system.

The longest Journey

Last week the 80^th anniversary of the D-Day invasion was commemorated in France. My father was one of the thousands of American troops to make the D-Day invasion but he didn’t live to see this anniversary.

He was 29 years old on June 6, 1944. He had enlisted in the U.S. Army, like almost all of the eligible young men of that era. He had married my mother in Chicago, Illinois in April 1943. After a brief honeymoon, on which she became pregnant for my oldest brother, his unit shipped out from Sparta, Wisconsin where they had completed “winter maneuvers.” As the troop train made its way from Wisconsin to New York City where they would board troop ships bound for England, it passed through Syracuse, his hometown, and where my mother, pregnant with my brother, resided with her parents. He told me that he could see their apartment from the train which was several blocks from the downtown train station. He looked at the apartment building longingly and struggled with the knowledge and the sadness that he might never see his wife again or meet his unborn child.

His younger sister, Margie, was already in England. She was a member of the Red Cross and a Social Worker at the 231^st Army Air Force Division Hospital in Wynmondham near Norwich, England.

In May of 1944 Margie learned that her older brother, Jim, was in England and set out to find him. She had a general idea of where his unit was situated but not their exact location. Whitsunday, the day on which Anglicans and Protestants celebrate the Pentecost in England, fell on May 28, 1944. Since it was a public holiday, wartime travel restrictions were relaxed for the weekend and Margie set out on the evening of Friday, May 26th to find her older brother.

Margie had written him letters informing him that she would try to visit but learned they had not been delivered, she boarded a train and shared a compartment built for six with 12 other passengers making sleep impossible. Margie had decided to make Swansea, the second largest city in Wales situated on the southwest coast of England, her “base of operations. ” She arrived there on Saturday morning, May 27^th. At the Red Cross station in Swansea, she met two Army Air Corps soldiers looking for their brothers who were in Jim’s unit. They decided to join forces and search for their loved ones together.

There is search was hampered by the fact that all road signs had been removed in order to preserve the secrecy of the troop buildup. Nevertheless, they continued their search by train and bus and arrived at the Unit’s location. Margie impressed a full Colonel with her story of her search and they located my father, whom she described as “hot and bedraggled in fatigues.” They spent the remainder of the day and all of Sunday together walking and talking. She wrote her younger sister, Ellen, describing him as ”…fine and not too unhappy. He described his job to me, so that I know things shouldn’t be too rough for him when they get underway.” It was the last time she would see him before the end of World War II.

Less than two weeks later my father made the landing at Normandy. Anyone who has seen the movie Saving Private Ryan knows of the carnage that occurred on those beaches. My father was a medic and in pictures wearing the Red Cross insignia. He successfully managed the landing at Normandy and survived his units’ trek across France and Belgium. Six months after his landing on Normandy and just as he thought he was safe, his unit was caught in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge. The largest and bloodiest single battle fought by United States forces in the third deadliest campaign in American history.

My father survived World War II, seemingly uninjured, and was honorably discharged. He returned home, reunited with his family and met my older brother for the first time. He had no interest in going to reunions or visiting with the others from his unit. I can only recall one occasion on whichshe was visited by one of his comrades in arms and how strange it was to hear him addressed as “Doc.” If my brothers and I asked him about his combat experiences he would deflect rather than talk about his memories. The only occasion in which he recounted an experience was in telling my brother Chuck about seeing a priest administering the last rites to a dying soldier on the Normandy Beach. When he returned to that location a short time later the priest was dead and his head was missing. To his dying day every loud noise startled him.

After he was gone the movie Saving Private Ryan was released. My brothers and I each saw it separately. Afterward, the first time we were together we discussed the movie. I asked them about their reaction to the Normandy Beach scenes and together they said ”Now, we know why Dad reacted the way he did to loud noises.” Now we all knew why he wouldn’t recount his combat experiences and let those horrific memories that were like an evil genie out of the bottle.

The Rise of The Fourth Reich

Almost 40 years ago I spent the winter reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer. One of the things I found intriguing about this work was the author himself. Shirer had been one of the war correspondents known as “Murrow’s Boys” a group that included such luminaries as Walter Cronkite, Eric Severaid, Charles Collingwood and a host of others. But at the end of the war he was the only one who was not offered a career in broadcasting by William P Paley the founder of CBS. Shirer would spend the next fifteen years chronicling the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party from captured Nazi documents, diaries of the Third Reich leaders, evidence from the Nuremberg trials and Shirer’s own reporting from Germany during that period, including interviews he conducted with Hitler. It is a chilling and horrifying account of the Nazi regime and its many crimes against humanity particularly the Holocaust. Most readers of this work took refuge in the belief that such an occurrence could never occur here.

Donald Trump’s Campaign to return to the White House is putting the lie to this belief. In his speeches Trump has adopted language utilized by Hitler and other Nazi leaders, calling his opponents “vermin” and that immigrants will “poison the blood” of our nation. He has similarly adopted language from the Stalinist era calling his political opponents and journalists “enemies of the people” in his naked attempts to persuade his followers to discredit their opinions. Some critics of Trump, that are still members of the Republican Party, dismiss his rhetoric by suggesting that they doubt he has read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. They may be correct in this assessment of him, but I would bet that Stephen Miller, Trumps human gargoyle, has not only read the book but modeled a future presidency on a return to the policies of the Third Reich.

On the subject of immigration Trump has promised his supporters that he will undertake the most massive round up and deportation of immigrants in the history of the United States. Miller has confirmed that plans are underway to construct giant detention camps to accomplish the roundup and detention of immigrants during a second Trump term.[1] The parallels this plan has, with those the Nazis carried out during the Third Reich, are unmistakable. Jews, Gypsies, the Gay community and Hitler’s opponents were herded into camps which over time were transformed into concentration camps, slave labor camps, and ultimately extermination camps. Anyone who doubts that this could be the end result of the Trump-Miller camps will find The Theory And Practice of Hell by Eugen Kogon[2] illuminating.

Trump has promised to re-enact his ban on Muslims entering the country and eliminating the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of Birthright Citizenship. Likewise “Chain Migration” in which naturalized citizens can sponsor relatives for admission to the United States is on the chopping block. The irony of this last promise is particularly rich, since it apparently didn’t apply to Trump’s in-laws.

These concepts of Trump are not novel. They had their origins in Germany beginning in 1933 when the Nazi Government began the denaturalization of Jews that had fled Germany and in 1935 when Reich Citizenship was enacted. This measure excluded Jews and stripped them of their right to vote or be civil servants. It was expansive in its reach, encompassing those who had Jewish grandparents, those who were half Jewish, if they belonged to a Jewish religious community, had a Jewish spouse or violated the miscegenation laws of 1935.[3]

On the stump, Trump has vowed to seek “retribution” for those who have opposed him. To carry out this agenda the Heritage Foundation and other organizations are formulating Project 2025 a plan to eliminate Civil Service protection for thousands of government employees so, like the Nazi Brown shirts, those most loyal to Trump can be appointed to carry out his designs.[4] It would dismantle the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, gut climate change regulations and promote fossil fuels and eliminate the departments of Education and Commerce.

Hitler, it will be remembered, embraced the dictators and war criminals of his time. He allied with Mussolini of Italy, Tojo Hidecki of Japan and had a mutual nonaggression pact with Stalin that ended when Germany invaded Russia. Trump continues to embrace Vladimir Putin of Russia, Kim Jong Un of North Korea, Xi Jinping of China, Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines and Nicholas Maduro of Venezuela, all of whom are autocrats that have oppressed their people.

Putin is in the midst of waging an unprovoked war on Ukraine. Kim Jong Un, Trump’s favorite “Bromance” partner, is supplying military hardware to Russia in its war on Ukraine while systematically imprisoning and starving his countrymen every day. Xi Jinping continues to oppress and imprison the Uyghur people in “re-education camps.” Rodrigo Duterte allowed a relentless campaign of extrajudicial killings of people suspected of drug activity. Nicholas Maduro, who Trump hosted at Mara Lago, has been accused of serious human rights abuses while attempting to circumvent the results of an election he lost, in true Trump fashion. Ignoring all of this, Trump has threatened to try and remove the United States from NATO suggesting that Putin and Russia could “do whatever the hell they want” to our NATO allies. The same allies who came to our defense after the September 11^th attack, the only time that Article 5 of the Treaty calling for mutual defense has ever been invoked.

At the conclusion of World War II, the Nazi leaders were prosecuted for crimes Against Humanity and other war crimes. Many of them were sentenced to death and executed. Others received long prison sentences. The world breathed a sigh of relief, secure in the knowledge that the example had been made and it could never happen again.

Well, it is happening again.

It is happening here.

It is happening now.

[1] “Trump’s Plan For Giant Detention Camps points to Brutal 2024 Reality,” By Greg Sargent, Washington Post, November 14, 2023.

[2] Farrar, Straus and Company (1950) and Berkley Medallion Edition (1960)

[3] The Citizenship of Jews in Nazi Germany, Library of Congress Law Library, July, 1993.

[4] “Why A Second Trump Presidency May Be More Radical Than His First,” By Charlie Savage, Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, New York Times, December 4, 2023 updated December 7, 2023.

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The Right To Be Left Alone

This past June the United States Supreme Court in the decision titled Dobbs v. Jackson, overturned Roe v. Wade a 50 year old precedent that established a woman’s right to reproductive treatment was, for the most part, between her and her physician.
Whether one is pro-choice or pro-life, the ultimate determination in this decision is that a woman has a lesser right to privacy than a man.
As a country we have not faced such a situation since 1920 when the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed guaranteeing women the right to vote.
A woman’s right to reproductive freedom was rooted in the 14th Amendment right to privacy most prominently enshrined in a 1965 United States Supreme Court decision titled Griswold v. Connecticut. In that decision the Court invalidated a Connecticut law that made it unlawful for married couples to obtain and use contraception. In its 7-2 decision the Court determined that there was a right to privacy implied in specific provisions of the Bill of Rights such as those in the First Third Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution and that those various guarantees created “zones of privacy.”
The right to privacy established in Griswold would form the basis of later Court decisions. In Lawrence v. Texas the Court ruled that the right to privacy protected adults engaged in private consensual sexual behavior in a Obergefelll v. Hodges, it ruled that the right to privacy afforded the right to same-sex marriage. Now, all of these decisions and the right to privacy itself, are in danger of being overturned according to the concurring opinion of Clarence Thomas in the Dobbs decision.
In that opinion Thomas called for the Court to re-examine these precedents and the principle that the 14th Amendment enshrines a right to privacy. ( Notably, and for obvious reasons, Thomas did not include the Court’s decision in Loving v. Virginia, which overturned state prohibitions on interracial marriage.)
In 1890, one-hundred and thirty-three years ago, future United States Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis published an article in the Harvard Law Review titled The Right to Privacy. In that article, Brandeis and his co-author, Samuel Warren, first advocated for “the right to be left alone.” Almost three decades later, in 1928, Brandeis would enshrine this principle in his dissenting opinion in Olmsted v. United States. There, he wrote;
“The protection guaranteed by the Amendments is much broader in scope. The makers of our Constitution under took to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone-the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.”

This became the bedrock of the right to privacy later enshrined in Griswold and its progeny.

I adhere to the belief that no government federal or state has any business determining who we are allowed to marry, what takes place in the privacy of a bedroom between two consenting adults, what contraception is sought by couples from their doctors, or whether a woman or a couple make their decision to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.

An intrusion into these decisions, in every instance, should be eclipsed by the “right to be left alone.”

Putin In the Dock

After the end of World War II, the Allied victors, Britain, France, Russia and the United States held a conference to decide how to deal with the Holocaust and other Nazi war crimes. The War had begun on September 1, 1939 for most of the world but Russia was late to the alliance since it had a non-aggression pact with Hitler until he invaded her on June 22, 1941.
When the Allies conferred, it was decided to convene a War Crimes Tribunal to prosecute those officials in the Nazi regime that were responsible for the conduct of the war. While Hitler and his inner circle had committed suicide in his bunker as the Allies closed in, there were still a number of high -ranking Nazi officials.
Criminal culpability would not be limited just to those that directed the extermination of the Jews and other targeted groups but would be extended to those who waged “aggressive war” and provided the industrial capability to arm the war machine and spread its propaganda.
Twenty major figures from the Nazi regime were chosen for prosecution. The Chief of Staff of the High Command, Command officers of the German Army, Navy and Air Force were selected. The three major propagandists were also included. Similarly, central economic planners, Minister of War Economy and Minister in charge of forced slave labor were charged. The Nazi Foreign Minister was included along with the Minister in charge of Occupied Territories who presided over the killing, looting and theft of property belonging to those that had been conquered. The Minister in charge of security which included the Gestapo and the head of the Hitler Youth were also in the prisoner’s dock.
After a lengthy trial spanning two years, seventeen of them were found guilty with one in absentia.
Ten of the war criminals were sentenced to death. They included the Chief of Staff High Command, Chief of the Armed Forces, Chief of the Air Force, the Foreign Minister, the Minister of Occupied Territories, the Minister of occupied Austria, The Minister who supplied forced slave labor, the Minister in charge of security and the Gestapo, and all of the ministers that furnished propaganda for the Nazi regime.
Hitler’s Deputy was sentenced to life imprisonment along with his Economic Czar and the Chief of the Navy.
The head of the Hitler youth was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment along with the Minister for Central Planning and Armament.
The least sentence imposed was ten years for one of the Naval admirals.
At this writing the Russian invasion of Ukraine is in its sixty-fifth day. Throughout this time, the world has seen Russia commit war crime after war crime. Russian troops have bombed civilians, shelled hospitals, targeted children and executed the elderly. They have raped women and children. They have looted museums and people’s homes. They have attempted to cover up these atrocities through the use of mass graves and mobile crematories.
The world has not seen this national depravity since the fall of Berlin in 1945.
At this writing there is no end in sight. Stymied by the Ukrainian defense of its country, Putin has appointed General Aleksandr Dvornikov as the commander of the Russian Forces invading Ukraine. Dvornikov is known as the “Butcher of Syria” for the war crimes and atrocities he committed there. Putin’s selection of Dvornikov signals that the worst atrocities are yet to come.
When this travesty concludes, accountability must occur. A War Crimes Tribunal like that held in Nuremberg is required or this criminality will become the new normal.
Putin, Dvornikov, Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the security Council, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Army Chief of Staff, Valery Gerasimov and any other ministers or oligarch who made this atrocity possible need to join Putin in the Prisoners Dock at a War Crimes Tribunal.
After they have set foot in the Prisoners Dock, they need to set their feet on gallows.

1776

For almost 250 years the numbers 1776 have been considered an emblem of the United States bid for freedom from England. They have now taken on a more sinister meaning since the events of January 6, 2021 when a mob stormed the Nation’s Capitol building in an attempt to thwart the counting of electoral votes certifying the election of President Joseph Biden.

In the days immediately following the insurrection reports of newly elected congressional representatives giving tours to unnamed, unidentified people the day before the riot trickled out into the news media. Congresswoman Lauren Boebert denied giving any tours to insurrectionists but admitted to giving tours to “family members” on January 2nd and 3rd. Yet on the day of the insurrection, she tweeted that “today is 1776” and that House of Representatives Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi had been removed from the House Chamber and the members were locked inside of it, despite having been told by the House Sergeant of Arms not to post anything to social media.

Congressman Jody Hice (R-Georgia) also tweeted on January 6, hours before Congress convened, that “What is done today will be remembered. This is our 1776 moment.” What was meant by the references to 1776 was open to much speculation in the days, weeks and months following the rioting and insurrection. Then, on February 14th of this year, much greater clarity was shed on the true meaning of these tweets by elected members of Congress. On that day an indictment was filed against leaders and members of the “Proud Boys,” a far-right anti-immigrant, racist organization, charging them with conspiracy to commit various crimes and the commission of those crimes in connection to their activities and conduct leading up to the events that occurred at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and on that day.
On page 5 at paragraph 14(c) of the indictment it is alleged;
“…the defendant Ethan Nordean is alleged to have posted on social media on November 20, 2020 “’We tried to play nice and by the rules, now you will deal with the monster that you created. The spirit of 1776 has resurfaced and has created groups like the Proud Boys and we will not be extinguished. We will grow like the flame that fuels us and spread like the love that guides us. We are unstoppable, unrelenting and……now unforgiving. Good luck to all of you traitors of this country that we so deeply love…you’re going to need it.’”
Further on in the Indictment on page 12 at paragraph 41 it is alleged that
“Between December 30 and December 31, 2020 Tarrio communicated multiple times with an individual whose identity is known to the grand jury On December 30 this individual sent Tarrio, a nine-page document titled ‘1776 Returns.’ The document set forth a plan to occupy a few ‘crucial building’ in Washington, D.C., on January 6, including House and Senate office buildings around the Capitol with ‘as many people as possible’ to ‘show our politicians We the People are in charge’ After the document was sent the individual stated ‘ The revolution is important than anything.’ Tarrio responded, ‘That’s what every waking moment consists of…I’m not paying games.’”

Finally, on page 23 of the indictment at paragraph 106 it is alleged that on January 6th the day of the insurrection;
“At 2:57 p.m. Tarrio posted a message on social media that read ‘1776’ and then ‘Revolutionaries are now at the Rayburn office building’ which referred to a House of representatives’ office building that had been referenced in the ‘1776 Returns’ plan received by Tarrio on December 30, 2020 had received.”

It now becomes very clear that the references to “1776” in the tweets of the various Republican Congressional member that day were not idle, random commentary on the events to unfold that day but were recognition of the plot hatched by the Proud Boys and their accomplices to stage an insurrection to try and overturn the election results. In this context the “tours” led by Boebert and others in the days before it, deserve more and deeper scrutiny.

Indeed, it is becoming increasingly clear that additional scrutiny should be focused on additional members of Congress and their possible involvement in the events of January 6th. This past October, Rolling Stone magazine published an article that reported that two organizers of the January 6th protests admitted meeting with Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Paul Gosar (R-Az), Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), Andy Biggs (R-Ga.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Boebert and others in planning the protests of January 6.

At this writing it appears that the probes by the House of representatives Select Committee and the Justice Department have widened and encompasses the conduct of Steve Bannon, Roger Stone and the usual collection of felons that are part of Trump’s Circle. It has even focused on the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, Ginni.

As we continue to learn more, I can’t help but feel that Benedict Arnold showed more loyalty to this country.

Unfair and Definitely Unbalanced

During World War II, the Nazis had two English speaking propagandists, Lord Haw-Haw and Axis sally. The Japanese also had an English speaking one too. Their mission was to broadcast fake news to the Allied troops so that their claims would undermine their fighting morale.
For those who doubt the concept of reincarnation, one need only turn on Fox News to see that they are, once again, among us. I refer, of course to Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Maria Bartiromo.
Last month, Carlson, in his best Lord Haw-Haw fashion declared that Democrats believed that Americans had ‘a patriotic duty to hate Vladimir Putin’ and posed the question”What is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much?’”. He contends that Ukraine is not really a democracy describing it as a “pure client state of the United States State Department,” despite the fact that Trump tried to extort the newly elected President into opening an investigation into Hunter Biden in exchange for already pledged military assistance. He sought to frame the choice between supporting Ukrainian President Zalensky and Vladimir Putin by posing the question “…But will destroying the entire Russian economy make Putin less bad? Will it make Russian troops withdraw from Ukraine? And if it will, how exactly will that work and how long will it take? Or is the plan even bigger than that? If they did, we can force Vladimir Putin from office entirely. Okay. Will that work? And if it does work, what happens to Russia after Vladimir Putin leaves? “
The new “Axis Sally,” Laura Ingraham, tried to blame the invasion on the “weakness and the incompetence” of the Biden Administration and derides President Zalensky’s appeal to Putin to end the invasion as a “pathetic display.”
Not to be outdone by her two co-hosts, Maria Bartiromo aspiring to be the 21st century “Tokyo Rose,” suggested that Putin’s invasion was a “ruse” to divert attention from Hilary Clinton’s email and the ‘hoax over the Russian investigation.” As the invasion unfolded, she speculated that “It seems that there is a predetermined outcome here in place. And that this is a slow death to Ukraine and president Zalensky as the Russian forces continue to get closer. With all of these other fatalities that we’re talking about-and some people have told me over the weekend that they feel that. At the end of the day, this administration does not see Putin as the enemy, they see him as a partner on many issues. They see him as a partner on climate change. They see him as a partner on the Iran deal.” Putin as a partner. She may have outdone Alex Jones with this conspiracy theory.
Carlson in his “Lord Haw-Haw role, “has now expanded his audience to include the viewers of Russian state television. The publication Mother Jones reported that memos from the Kremlin ordered that Russian state television “feature tucker Carlson in their coverage of the #Ukraine war as much as possible” and quoted the memo which said “it is essential you use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News hos, Tucker Carlson, who sharply criticizes the actions of the United States [and] NATO, their negative role in in unleashing the conflict in Ukraine, [and] the defiantly provocative behavior from the leadership of the Western countries and NATO towards the Russian Federation and towards President Putin, personally.”
Of late, such Republican intelligentsia as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Madison Cawthorn and Matt Gaetz, perhaps coveting a spot on Russian Television, have publicly echoed some of “Lord Haw-Haw’s” claims.
We can only be grateful that Carlson wasn’t born one-hundred years ago or we would have had to listen to him question whether Adolf Hitler’s successor would have been worse.