No Kings Protest, Richmond, Virginia, June 14, 2025: A photo journal
Tag: democracy
Tom’s Report on the State of America’s Democratic Health: Into the Crucible or Just Crazy Bat Shit?
As of June 7, 2025
Benchmarks of Democratic Backsliding and Erosion
Coup 2.0. Trump continues the January 6 coup attempt. In an unprecedented memorandum to the U.S. Attorney General, Trump directed the Department of Justice to investigate an alleged criminal conspiracy by former President Biden and his aides to cover up his mental decline. The memorandum also claims that Biden was not mentally competent to sign legislation into law, appoint federal judges, issue executive orders, etc. In effect, Trump is attempting to complete the January 6 insurrection and coup, by erasing the Biden Administration. I suspect the results of the investigation will be used to attempt to discredit and remove all federal judges appointed by Biden, to include Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown, and declare all laws signed by Biden are null and void.
In another act of calculated revenge and cruelty, the wrongfully detained and deported man from Maryland, Abrego Garcia, was returned to the U.S. this week from El Salvador, after weeks of delays and claims he couldn’t be repatriated to America. Garcia was flown to Tennessee where a federal multi-count indictment awaited him. Nine counts of driving undocumented immigrants across the country and one count of conspiracy. Garcia is paying the price for Trump’s illegal deportation program being halted by the federal courts.
On June 4, the White House issued a proclamation targeting citizens of 12 countries from entering the United States. National security reasons were listed for the travel ban, but they disproportionately targeted African countries, confirming suspicions that Trump is engaged in a campaign to dehumanize and criminalize blackness.
The Department of Defense announced plans to rename the supply ship Harvey Milk. The renaming is part of a supposed DoD initiate to reinvigorate the military’s warrior spirit. Milk was a veteran and was assassinated while holding political office. He was also gay. Does Hegseth know that one of the most feared ancient Greek fighting units was known as the Sacred Band of Thebes. It was composed of 300 fighting men, basically 150 partnered lovers. Also, up for consideration by DoD is to rename ships named after Ruth Bader Ginsberg and anti-slavery warrior and freedom fighter Harriet Tubman. What is it with Hegseth and Trump and their hatred of powerful women and gay leaders? Anyway, it has long been considered taboo to rename ships. Bring bad luck they say.
The battle between Harvard and Trump continues with the administration issuing a proclamation banning foreign students issued visas to attend Harvard from entering the country. That ban was halted temporarily by a federal Judge’s injunction on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security requested that the Defense Department activate 20,000 national guard troops to assist their law enforcement efforts to remove migrants from the country. The National Guard units would be used for a host of duties, to include helping track down migrants, assignment to detention facilities, transporting migrants, providing other logistical support. Apparently, in order to skirt Posse Comitatus restrictions, the guard units aren’t being ‘federalized’ so that they can participate in law enforcement operations. That Act prohibits the military from engaging in law enforcement directly. Such as making arrests like police officers or directly pursuing suspects.
In a developing story, Trump activated 2000 California national guardsmen for deployment to Los Angeles following protests and clashes with ICE agents conducting roundups in heavily Latino city districts. Tensions are high and are exacerbated by self-inflicted stupidity. For instance, earlier in the week in Torrance, a coastal city within the Los Angeles area, a 4th grade boy at his elementary school was detained along with his father. They were separated at an immigration hearing, sent to Texas, to await deportation to Honduras.
These provocative actions and others – such as arriving in neighborhoods in military-like uniforms, long guns, body armor, and armored vehicles – are counterproductive and lead to backlashes. What the hell did they think would happen? Defense Secretary Hegseth chimed that Marines at a nearby base were on high alert and ready to deploy if needed. Hegseth, “ARE YOU FUCKING BAT SHIT CRAZY?” That’s a rhetorical question of course. It seems Trump and his minions are itching to kill Americans in American streets.
Warrior Pride
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
— Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
“Anthem For Doomed Youth” Wilfred Owen
Somewhere near Sambre-Oise Canal in Northern France, on November 4, 1918, Wilfred Owen was machine gunned dead. A month earlier during an attack, Owen distinguished himself for bravery and was awarded the Military Cross, a medal reserved for British officers for gallantry in action. Owen died in battle one week, almost to the hour, of the end of Great War. He was gay, and a poet.
Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory gives an account of Owen’s wartime service — and how literary arts reflected the horrors of industrial trench warfare — as part of a broader narrative of how the war turned the world upside down. Victorian idealized and romanticized notions of war and death were buried in the trenches of Flanders or Ypres along with a generation of young men. It’s one of the top five influential works in my life I have read.
Rooted in this 19th century idealized and romanticized notion of war and death are concepts of gender and masculinity and virtue. The Trump administration’s war on gays, trans, and women soldiers harkens back to these antiquated notions of who can or should or is able to defend our country and fight our wars. It is dangerous and misguided along with being bigoted and misogynistic.
During the second world war mathematician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist Alan Turing was key to decoding intercepted German messages. The war was shortened, and tens of thousands of allied lives were saved because of his efforts. Turing also was a co-inventor of digital computers and a founding thinker of Artificial Intelligence. He was gay, and died way to young, perhaps of a suicide. In Hegseth’s world he would have been banned from service. Hell, if Hegseth knew that today’s computers are based on Turing’s ideas, he would have all DOD computers destroyed. Wouldn’t want ‘gay’ computers turning American warriors, you know queer.
Well before Turin and Owen, there was the Sacred Band of Thebes, a 4th century BC, military unit composed of 300 men: 150 partners, lovers. They kicked the Spartan’s asses and were famed for their military fighting prowess, that is their warrior spirit. One can also point to the all-female warrior regiment of the Kingdom of Dahomey in West Africa from the 17th to 19th century in West Africa, that was known for its fierceness.
The point is, as I think you already know, being gay or trans or a woman has nothing to do with military readiness or discipline or warrior spirit or virtue. It is crazy that today the Trump administration is rolling back inclusion and pluralism in our military and trying to impose 19th century concepts of manliness and virtue on a 21st century society. Just fucking stupid dereliction of duty if you ask me. To rename ships because they are named after a gay man, or a woman supreme court justice, or a freedom fighter against slavery is the nadir of half-witted imbecility. And the vast majority of today’s service members know this.
These policies are destructive and counterproductive and hurt readiness, and thereby our country’s ability to defend itself. It also irreparably harms decent, hardworking, talented, patriotic Americans.
Tom’s Report on the State of America’s Democratic Health: Fake Research Papers, Windmills, and Wildebeests
As of May 30, 2025
Benchmarks of Democratic Backsliding and Erosion
Trump’s personal battle of evermore with Harvard continues, with the administration banning foreign students from enrolling at Harvard and then a federal court issuing a temporary injunction. Trump further ordered a freeze on all federal government contracts with Harvard, putting on ice about $100 million in funds. This includes several hundred grants for medical research.
But who cares about real medical research when you can just make it up. Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy released a report on Making America Healthy Again (MAHA). The report however, is riddled with problems, primarily that many scientific studies referenced in the report do not exist. Yes, they were made up, fabricated. Additionally, the FDA issued a statement opining that pregnant women and healthy children do not need COVID vaccinations. Two issues, one, normally the Centers for Disease control makes vaccination recommendations, not the FDA, and two, pregnant women are at greater risk for bad outcomes from COVID infections, the science says. Sadly, after Kennedy’s intentions were made clear, the CDC followed suit. So, here we have it. Science based policy decisions are thing of the past. It’s Kennedy’s magical mystery tour.
The Department of Justice announced FBI investigations into several old closed cases. 1) They will reinvestigate pipe bombs left at the Democratic and Republican offices on January 6, you know the day Trump attempted a coup. Conservative conspiracy theories are that the FBI planted them. 2) The Dobbs Supreme Court leak will also be reinvestigated. My guess the “investigative results” it will be used to impeach one of the three remaining liberal justices. 3) During the Biden administration, a bag of cocaine was found and the FBI will reopen that investigation. This follows previous weeks of charging a democratic house member with assaulting a federal agent, dragging former FBI Director James Comey before investigators for allegedly threatening Trump by posting a number on line: 8647, and investigate New York’s Attorney General Letitia James for mortgage fraud.
Regarding foreign affairs, the U.S. Trade Court ruled this week that Trump’s global tariff regime was unconstitutional and that he overstepped his authority to issue such blanket global tariffs. An appeals court promptly stayed the Trade Court’s ruling until that court can weigh in early June. I imagine it will end up in the Supreme Court. It is anyone’s guess how that will end given the court’s propensity to hand over more and broader executive powers to Trump, basically fatally undermining the fundamental structure of separate and equal branches of government.
Meanwhile, Trump in a Friday missive lashed out at China for violating a ‘trade truce’ pending resolution of negotiations, which according to America’s negotiator, has stalled. I imagine he will have TACOs for lunch later this week. This lashing of China comes on the heels of the administrations announcement that it was reviewing visas issued to China. Trump is reimagining the America’s 19th Century “Chinese Exclusion Act.”
Not to be outdone, Rubio’s State Department, announced a new policy targeting foreign government official that allegedly censor social media. The intent of the policy is to target Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Morae, who has made rulings against the social media company X and Elon Musk. This will no doubt alienate one of our largest partners in South America. I guess Putin and Orban and other foreign government officials that censor social media will be target. Just joking.
Meanwhile, after condemning social media censors, the Department of State announced a freeze on foreign student visas pending the imposition of “expanded” social media reviews to detect anti-American or antisemitic posts. I guess our censorship is a different type of censorship, no?
In sum, Trump is picking a fight-to-the- death confrontation with Harvard, basically summoning all the coercive control levers of federal executive power. As I see it, Trump thinks that if he slays Harvard, the rest of academia will quickly surrender. He may be right. I expect him to ratchet up the pressure in the coming weeks.
China is another case of Trump tilting at windmills. I understand our strategic need to address China as an economic competitor – one that is kicking our butts, especially in technology – and a potential peer military opponent, but I just don’t see a comprehensive, well thought out strategy. For instance, on one hand he said he is imposing tariffs on China (and around the world) to bring manufacturing back to America. Yet, in the ‘big, beautiful bill,’ all the billions in investments in American clean energy domestic manufacturing is being killed. It makes no strategic sense.
Trump’s policies and management of foreign and domestic affairs are helter-skelter, undisciplined, score settling, and a way to line his and his family’s pockets with millions. An like a herd of wildebeests charging headlong in to a crocodile infested river, the Republican party follows.
Finally, so long Elon.
Tom’s Report on the State of America’s Democratic Health: Ugly, Damn Ugly
As of May 23, 2025
Benchmarks of Democratic Backsliding and Erosion
It was an ugly week. First and foremost was Trump’s vile and disgraceful racist spectacle directed at South African President Ramasphosa during a White House visit. Given the long history of English and Dutch colonization and brutal oppression of black South Africans during the apartheid era, the false claim that white Afrikaners are being subjected to a genocide was shameful. The supposed evidence — a video of white crosses — was from the Congo not South Africa. This spectacle was the most openly white nationalist display by an American president since President Wilson screened “Birth of a Nation” at the White House in 1915. A movie based on the novel “The Clansman.”
The battle between Harvard and Trump escalated this week with the administration banning foreign students from enrolling at Harvard. The next day Harvard filed suit, and a Federal Judge ordered a temporary pause on the administration’s action. This escalation is another example of Trump’s use of ‘arbitrary terror’ to punish and discipline supposed adversaries. A hallmark of dictatorships.
Trump also singled out Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce, and Oprah Winfrey for investigation, alleging violations of federal laws. Without any proof, he accused them of accepting payment to endorse political candidates. When Trump suggests an investigation, whether verbally or on social media, one of his willing cabinet members orders one.
When not accusing others of corruption, Trump hosted an event at his Washington Area golf club to reward top investors in his crypto coin $Trump. The 220 top investors averaged around $1.8 million in purchases. According to press reporting, since January Trump garnered over $320 million in fees from these sales. Yep, $320 million in six months.
Speaking of slimy, swampish, Trumpian corrupt practices, his majesty accepted a $400 million emolument from the Qatari crown prince in the form of a 747-luxury jet. It will be used as Air Force One and then provided to Trump’s presidential library foundation for his personal use. Given the overhaul required to ensure it is 1) air worthy, and, 2) not full of electronic eavesdropping devices, it will also require extensive renovations to install secure communications, anti-aircraft missile countermeasures, and hardening for electromagnetic pulses from nuclear detonations. More of your hard-earned tax dollars going to feed Trump’s massive ego. Pure waste, fraud, and abuse.
On the criminal investigative front, following an incident at a New Jersey ICE detention facility, federal prosecutors’ charged U.S. House of Representative LaMonica Mclver with assaulting a federal agent. James Comey, former FBI Director, was interviewed by the Secret Service for allegedly making threats to the president after posting a picture of seashells arranged to spell 8647. ‘86’ being a code for killing someone allegedly. However, if you look at the origins of ‘86’ it is a code for ejecting or barring some from a bar, or, to cancel, reject, discard something, per the dictionary.
Also, the DOJ confirmed it is investigating New York’s Attorney General Letitia James for mortgage fraud. Must have turned over every rock of find that one. Finally, the FCC announced a probe into Media Matters, a liberal advocacy group. This based on Elon Musk’s accusation that the group colluded with advertisers to boycott X for racism. Meanwhile, Mohammed Khalil and Abrego Garcia still sit in jail.
Before turning to some positives, I think the whole Biden fiasco needs a few short words. What was the democratic party leadership thinking? We don’t need a book to tell us what we all knew. It wasn’t Biden’s age; it was his noticeable and serious cognitive decline. His physical fragility and intellectual frailty were clear. When I voted for Biden in 2020, I thought of him as a one term president. He should have bowed out two years in and announced he would not seek a second term. But no. His damn ego got in the way. And a bunch of spineless democrats let him get away with it.
As a result, here we are. What is done is done, however, and now is the time to get your shit together. First focus on getting Spanberger elected governor of Virginia this November. It will be a bellwether. Second, focus on mid-terms and the races you can win. For instance, John McGuire (R) of Virginia’s 5th congressional district is an easy mark given his capitulation to Trump and his support for rolling back Medicaid, Medicare, and food aid, while lining the pockets of millionaires and billionaires. Enough said.
There were some positive notes. In a tie vote at the Supreme Court, after Justice Barrett recused herself, the Louisiana Supreme Court’s decision to not permit a religious-based charter school to receive taxpayer funds, stands. Additionally, a federal judge ruled that shutting down and dismantling the U.S. Institute for Peace was illegal. The judge even ordered DOGE not to trespass on the grounds of the Institute.
Overall, Trump amped up the use of ‘arbitrary terror’ to punish, discipline, and silence dissent. That is to create a climate of fear where most people, as Hannah Arendt wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism in the aftermath of World War II, are “perfectly obedient” to government dictates.
If you think about it, a plurality of Americans live in an autocratic state now. A state of mind, that is. House Republican hold outs to the ‘big, beautiful bill’ were summoned to the White House. I don’t think tea and crumpets persuaded them to abandon their principles. It you are obedient to Trump’s impulses out of fear, you already live in an autocracy. I am not speaking to liberals or progressives; I am speaking to MAGA Republicans. It is you that live in an autocracy. I am as free as bird and think, say, and write what I damn well please.
If you want to read the cumulative list of democratic backsliding and erosion since January 20, click up top ‘Benchmarks’ or menu. Thanks.
Worth a Read
‘Worth’ is a word that we read and hear daily. It derives from Middle English ‘weorp,’ according to etymology online. As an adjective it held meanings of having value, honorable, deserving, noble, of high rank. As a noun, it had connotations of value given a commodity, associated with a monetary value, equivalent value. As a verb not much used today, had a meaning of coming into being.
With the prefix ‘un’ worth becomes a negative, the opposite of deserving, dishonorable, ignoble, of no value. Worthy and unworthy swirl around America’s political discourse on government social and economic assistance programs like pike hunting minnows in reeds. Mostly unspoken, but the connotations of worthy and unworthy are there in plain sight. Some folks are worthy beneficiaries’ others not. A farmer having a loan cancelled through a Department of Agriculture farm assistance program is considered a worthy beneficiary, but a poor kid with a college student loan is somehow unworthy of debt forgiveness.
I recall watching a recent question and answer exchange at a town hall meeting where Iowa Senator Grassely asked participants whether “abled bodied’’ folks should receive Medicaid. Folks in the crowd nodded in agreement. Instead of directly answering a question about proposed broad cuts to Medicaid, to the tune of $800 billion, he tossed out the lure of unworthiness and reeled them in. He flipped the question of broad, sweeping cuts to one about unworthy beneficiaries. In the process he avoided the fact that the majority of those who receive Medicaid benefits are kids, working single moms with kids.
Nowhere in the national discourse about government safety net benefits is the discussion of why so many hard-working folks in this country need a Medicaid program to begin with. Republicans don’t want us to point to decades of stagnating or shrinking wages, little to no medical insurance benefits, the destruction of unions, women being systematically underpaid than their male counterparts, or the link between for-profit hospital and health insurance systems and disappearing rural hospitals. Instead, like a trickster’s shell game, politicians roll out the time-honored trope of unworthiness: It’s those damn able-bodied cheaters and thieves.
This is not new. America has a long history of denigrating and stigmatizing the poor. Lazy, immoral, drunks, dangerous. Unworthy. Even our public school system has 19th century roots in philanthropic endeavors to get poor kids into schools and away from their drunken and lazy parents and instill in them discipline, a work ethic for the factory system.
This dichotomy between worthy and unworthy permeates other areas of our culture and society. COVID is an example of how some made worthy/unworthy arguments about how to respond to the pandemic. To many, the elderly (no longer economically useful) or folks with comorbidities (mostly overweight or diabetic), were not worthy of protecting.
Worthy and unworthy is also central to how we treat migrants. Black Africans wanting asylum are told to ‘go away, no room at the inn.’ White South Africans, ‘welcome, come on in.’ Trump is particularly successful at stigmatizing and criminalizing migrants: “Rapists and murders,” “emptying out their asylums,” “The worst of the worst,” “they’re eating our pets.” The characterization of migrants as unworthy opens the door for his administration to pursue illegal and devastating actions against targeted migrants, such as invoking war time acts to detain and deport without due process or the Writ of Habeas Corpus. The prison that hundreds were sent to in El Salvador is a one-way ticket. An El Salvadoran minister bragged that the only way one leaves the prison is in a coffin. According to polls, many Americans thought it okay, to my discomfort.
If one pauses to look and think, one can see that ‘who is worthy’ and ‘who is unworthy’ all too often shapes our beliefs and actions. Far too often, how we treat foreign visitors, migrants, the elderly, the poor, the sick, the other, depends on whether we consider them worthy or unworthy of human dignity and respect.
Tom’s Report on the State of America’s Democratic Health
As of May 16, 2025
Benchmarks of Democratic Backsliding and Erosion
The big issue this week was the arguments before the Supreme Court regarding the Trump’s executive order eliminating birthright citizenship. The arguments were more about whether federal district judges can issue nationwide injunctions, or pauses, not so much the constitutionality of the executive order itself.
The justices, from what I gathered, seemed conflicted about whether to limit federal judges ability to issue nationwide injunctions, especially if letting the law go into effect nationwide will cause great harm while the case winds its way through the courts. I would think revoking birthright citizenship, or invoking the Alien Enemies Act, or suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus would fall into that category of immense national harm should the executive order or law be permitted to go forth while it is being fought over in the courts.
It the Supreme Court limits nationwide injunctions, it would have to devise a clear set of rules for when a judge may order a nationwide injunction or limit the injunction to their district. I don’t see that happening, if they do, they are crazier than I thought. Or worse yet, rule that federal district court rulings are limited to the district in which the court resides. There are 94 federal court districts, chaos would ensue.
If the Court eliminates nationwide injunctions outright while the constitutionality of the law is being challenged, that would trigger the very real possibility that half the country will have one set of constitutional rights while the other half would have a different set of constitutional rights. For example, if Trump suspends the Writ of Habeas Corpus, five or six district judges may impose an injunction in their districts, but a district in Texas where an immigrant detention facility is located, may not see the suspension of the Writ as unconstitutional. That would then permit hundreds if not thousands of deportations without due process. The harm would be immense.
In another important ruling, the Supreme Court did extend a block on deporting migrants from Texas using the Alien Enemies Act today (May 16). Sending the case back to a lower court for additional litigation.
Republicans should be wary of Trump getting his way on this issue of nationwide injunctions and executive orders. The next Democratic president could declare that the second amendment does not protect the manufacture or possession of AR-15 or similar type weapons. The president could use an executive order to prohibit the possession, manufacture, sale, and transportation of these items across state lines.
Republicans are painting themselves into a very small separation of powers corner. Mitch McConnel basically shanked the Senate years ago. Mike Johnson turned the House of Representatives into a spittoon full of, you know spit. Chief Justice John Roberts, just can’t get his head out of his butt, all but declaring Trump King last term. Although, I must say, after creating this Frankenstein presidency, he is doing his best to cage the beast.
Republicans act as if the Democrats will be forever in the wilderness, a token political party for show during elections, but powerless. If that was their goal, we shall see how they react to losing in the mid-terms and in 2028 Will they accept the outcome(s)? And once the Democrats return to power, how can they ever, ever, claim overreach?
Amazingly, because of court action and popular backlash to the excesses of the Trump White House by DOGE — and don’t forget the tariff mess — the guard rails are bending, but still in place in some places. Where the guardrails are missing is Congress. They are not checking the accumulation of congressionally enumerated powers into the executive branch and seem not to have any interest in checking his power, mostly out of fear I suspect. Then again, some just that holy grail, $5 trillion in tax cuts. most of which will go to the top 1 percent (that is them and their millionaire class)
Some examples of Congressional nonfeasance revolve around Trump’s personal corruption and profiteering from office . For instance his ongoing attempt to accept a $400 million 747 from the Emir of Qatar for use as Air Force 1, and it being ‘decommissioned’ and transferred to his presidential library foundation following his presidency; his sale contest of $Trump (a crypto currency) for White House tour (access?); pocketing tens of millions of dollars in crypto fees through the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial, are all examples of Republicans in Congress looking the other way while Trump engages in what appears to be unconstitutional and corrupt practices.
While there have been some tactical and strategic setbacks for Trump, as the initial 100 days passes into the next 60 days, we are not out of harms way. He will become more dangerous. And, like a trapped and cornered animal, will attack, hard and fierce. Hang on, it will be like holding on to the ears of an angry wolf.
For a cumulative list of backsliding and erosion of our democracy, please click ‘benchmarks’ or menu above. Updates are in bold.
Tom’s Report on the State of America’s Democratic Health
As of May 9, 2025
I apologize for skipping a week (or two), but was traveling out of town. I also needed a short mental holiday.
The courts are doing their job for the most part. Congress….not so much.
A federal Judge ordered the release of detained Turkish PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk, who is attending Tuft’s University on a student visa, following the submission of a Writ of Habeas Corpus. In its usual measured response to adverse court orders, Trump advisor Stephen Miller said the White House is actively considering revoking the Writ of Habeas Corpus for ‘migrants.’ The Constitution clearly states that the writ may not be suspended “unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public safety may require it.” Please see my earlier April 2 essay on Habeas Corpus for a more in-depth discussion on the writ.
In another ruling, a federal judge in San Francisco issued a temporary pause on DOGE’s bulldozing of government agencies and mass firings. Congress did not authorize such activity, per the judge: “As history demonstrates, the President may broadly restructure federal agencies only when authorized by Congress.”
In further court activity regarding Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly detained and deported to El Salvador’s terrorism prison, government lawyers are once again stonewalling the Federal Judge overseeing the case. Government lawyers invoked the ‘State Secrets Privilege.’ This privilege (a Supreme Court invention) lets the government withhold information from a court during civil litigation if the information could damage national security. Unless the information the government lawyers have contain military invasion plans of El Salvador, it is a bullshit ploy. And they know it. Start throwing these bums in jail Judge! Maybe Alcatraz?
Overall, there has been a slight lull in the war on the Constitution, but I think that is because Trump is busy cleaning up his self inflicted tariff mess. If his nomination of Fox host and TV pundit Jeannie Pirro to be the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia — replacing the outgoing interim U.S. Attorney who can’t get confirmed — is any indication, the war on decency and rule of law is entering a new low point. She has not worked in the law field in over two decades and her only previous experience was at a local elected judge and then local prosecutor in the early 90s. She will also be the 23rd Fox News personality to get a Trump administration job.
I imagine as the American economy stalls and the U.S. becomes increasingly isolated as a global pariah, Trump will double down on his autocratic tendencies. He pretty much has usurped Congress’ authority, now he needs to go hard and fast after independent new organizations. I expect to see a slew of FCC preliminary investigative reports and license revocations within the next month or two.
Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments: How The Supreme Court, Trump, and the Far Right intend to undermine the First Amendment
The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments whether Oklahoma state tax dollars must be used to fund religious-based charter schools. The state denied a Catholic Church school’s request for public funding. During the arguments, most justices seem inclined to require that states provide taxpayer dollars to religious charter schools, if they meet all the other charter school requirements. If the Court decides to require public funds go to support religious-based charter schools, this would be a fundamental reinterpretation of the 1st Amendment, what Thomas Jefferson called the “wall of separation” between church and state in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association.
I don’t think it a coincidence that a week or so after the Supreme Courts’ arguments, Trump signed an executive order establishing a “Religious Liberty Commission.” The purpose of the commission is outlined in the instructions:
“The Commission shall produce a comprehensive report on the foundations of religious liberty in America, the impact of religious liberty on American society, current threats to domestic religious liberty, strategies to preserve and enhance religious liberty protections for future generations, and programs to increase awareness of and celebrate America’s peaceful religious pluralism. Specific topics to be considered by the Commission under these categories shall include the following areas: the First Amendment rights of pastors, religious leaders, houses of worship, faith-based institutions, and religious speakers; attacks across America on houses of worship of many religions; debanking of religious entities; the First Amendment rights of teachers, students, military chaplains, service members, employers, and employees; conscience protections in the health care field and concerning vaccine mandates; parents’ authority to direct the care, upbringing, and education of their children, including the right to choose a religious education; permitting time for voluntary prayer and religious instruction at public schools; Government displays with religious imagery; and the right of all Americans to freely exercise their faith without fear or Government censorship or retaliation.”
While the language seems religion neutral, we all know this is about Christian religious freedoms and establishing Christianity as America’s established religion. I don’t see Islamic or Buddhist or Hindu religious imagery being displayed next to the Ten Commandments at public schools. Do you? Be very afraid. Our founding generation was fearful of the establishment of a religious state. This fear animated two of Virginia’s most influential writers and thinkers: James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.
When Virginia’s General Assembly wanted to impose a ‘religious assessment,’ basically a tax to support churches, Madison and Jefferson opposed the measure. As did the Baptist’s who suffered intolerable abuse by the Anglican Church prior to the Revolution. In the “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments” Madison penned a cogent argument that is a relevant today as it was in 1785.
I think it one of the seminal documents in our history as both Virginians and Americans. As such, I have summarized Madison’s 15 key arguments below. They are worth a close read.
- Religious liberty was “in its nature an unalienable right….because the opinions of men, depending only upon the evidence contemplated by their own minds, cannot follow the dictates of other men…. Religion is wholly exempt from the cognizance [of civil society].”
- “Since civil society itself had not right to interfere with religion, certainly the legislature, its creature, had no such right.”
- “It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties… Who does no see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same case any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?”
- “The exercise of religion implies the right to believe in no religion at all, so even the most permissive tax to support religion might violate some consciences.”
- “Civil magistrates can properly neither judge religious truth nor subordinate religion to public purposes.”
- The Christian religion did not need civil support, it had often “existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them.”
- “’Ecclesiastical establishment,’ far from promoting religious purity and efficacy, had nearly always corrupted and stultified it.”
- “Rather than promoting order and freedom in civil society, religious establishments had ordinarily been malignant and oppressive.”
- “The assessment marked a first step toward bigotry, differing from the ‘inquisition…in degree,’ and would make Virginia no longer the asylum for the persecuted.”
- “Good and useful citizens would be driven from the state or deterred from coming there by a religious tax.”
- “Religious strife and violence would be encouraged by laws touching religion.”
- “The policy of the bill is adverse to the diffusion of the light of Christianity…. The bill with an ignoble and unchristian timidity would circumscribe it, with a wall of defence, against the encroachment of error.”
- “An attempt to enforce a religious assessment obnoxious to many citizens would weaken respect for law and order generally.”
- “Evidence was strong that a majority of the people opposed the assessment.”
- “Because, finally, the equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his Religion according to the dictates of conscience is held by the same tenure with all our other rights…. Either we must say, that they may control the freedom of the press, may abolish trial by jury, may swallow up the Executive and Judiciary powers of the State, may that they may despoil us of our very right to suffrage and erect themselves into an independent and hereditary assembly: or we must say, that they have no authority to enact into law the Bill under consideration.”
The Bill did not pass and a year later, Jefferson’s Statute for Religious freedom passed into law. We must remain vigilant against trespasses against the 1st Amendment. It is the cornerstone of why religiosity thrives in America. It is the absence of state control in public spaces that permits churches, and mosques and synagogues and tabernacles and temples to spread and flourish across this country.
Federal Policing in the Era of a Rogue President
Note: I originally posted this essay on my Substack newsletter Bumpass Warbler. Given the continued use of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice to conduct criminal investigations of individuals named by the White House this essay is worth reposting. This week DHS and DOJ confirmed that they have undertaken multiple criminal investigations against Christopher Krebs, who was named in an earlier Trump executive order. The have crossed a line. Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi have become Trump’s henchmen, and the FBI and DHS the modern equivalent to Stalin’s NKVD. This is not an exercise in hyperbole, their actions constitute the first steps down a slippery slope to a police state. End Note.
Over three decades in law enforcement I saw how policing at the local, state, and federal levels changed, some of it not for the better. Today, American law enforcement sits at an inflection point, our guiding North Star under attack. It is not under siege from al-Qaida, or the Islamic State, or criminal gangs like MS-13, it is under threat from within, from a rogue president.
Our constitutional system of separation of powers and the rule of law is degraded daily, like habitat loss in the Amazon Rain Forest, as the White House continues its relentless bulldozing of norms. Habitat loss is notoriously difficult if not impossible to restore fully. Judges are maligned and threatened with impeachment, court orders disobeyed, violations of due process encouraged, speech of foreign students criminalized, constant Habeas Corpus hide and seek games, criminal investigations ordered by the White House, law firm shake downs, arrests and detentions of migrants and valid visa holder without probable cause, harassment of persons of middle eastern origin at points of entry into the United States. That’s just a sample.
While we think of constitutional crises as being played out in iconic court battles and Supreme Court hearings, the men and women in law enforcement, in particular federal agents, find themselves in the middle of this chaos every day, just trying to do their jobs. Trump and his appointees wanting scalps and press events on one side, and their conscience and oaths to defend and protect the Constitution on the other side. This is where the real battle is being waged for the heart and soul of federal law enforcement. In stark terms, are we teetering toward a federal police state?
We’re supposed to be on the side of democracy and the rule of law, were that thin blue line dividing law and constitutional order from chaos…and autocracy. That blue line is not some random color but is deeply symbolic as to the purpose and place of policing in a civil society. We don’t always get it right, and many times the police and federal agents were on the wrong side of history, but the aspiration, the idea was there.
When deciding on a uniform design for London’s newly established Metropolitan Police Department Robert Peel chose blue. The army wore red he reasoned, and not wanting the police to think of themselves as an army, and Londoners not see the police as military occupiers, he wisely decided on blue uniforms.
America followed this path in the 1850s when metropolitan police departments began to outfit their officers in uniforms, starting with the NYPD. Blue was the universal color chosen. Today we accept uniformed officers, but in the mid 19th century, police uniforms were controversial, hotly debated, as was arming them. Perhaps a legacy of America’s long-standing antipathy to standing armies. Before guns, wooden clubs were the issued weapon along with a leather badge. For those that like the historical trivia of things, longer clubs were for night shifts, hence the night stick, shorter clubs were for day shifts.
As the 19th century progressed, so did the size, power, and responsibilities of urban police departments. Federal law enforcement as we know it today practically non-existent. Police precinct buildings became overnight shelters for the homeless, soup kitchens for the hungry. Police departments conducted inspections on building boilers and were sanitation inspectors for urban slaughterhouses as well.
From the mid-19th century, police officers who died in the line of duty increasingly began to be afforded military style funerals. Conspicuous spectacles meant to send a message to the policed, and to the police officer on the beat. Today’s police funerals were 19th century inventions.
In time, near the end of the 19th century, the police were transformed into ‘guardians,’ an acknowledgement of their powerful roll in party politics and political patronage, but also in response to white middle-class urban denizens who demanded heavy handed policing to assuage their fears of crime, disease, and immorality attributed to increasing numbers of foreign migrants.
The 20th century brought police reforms and a growth in the size and number of federal law enforcement agencies. Paramilitary state police organizations were founded. Policing became more professionalized, union and advocacy groups matured. In the 1980s high-capacity pistols replaced six shot revolvers….and the number of average number of bullets being fired in a shooting went from 6 to dozens.
9/11 changed America and policing. Many police departments started looking like military units as military surplus gear was handed out like candy. Tactical uniforms once reserved for special teams, became the rage. Military style body armor, tactical gear adorned police officers like Christmas tree ornaments, long guns slung from bodies, armored vehicles patrolled streets. With military style uniforms and gear the mindset changed, I observed. This change also seeped into federal law enforcement agencies as well. Robert Peel was right.
As we witnessed recently, federal agents in Homeland Security rounded up and deported over 200 hundred alleged Venezuelan gang members using a late 18th century Act meant to be invoked in case of war. The men’s due process rights were ignored, they were swiftly deported to a foreign prison despite a federal court order to stop. The agents knowingly, and apparently willfully, ignored the constitutional right’s of these men, on the orders of one man: Donald Trump. In effect, acting like Trump’s personal army at war.
It’s not just about Homeland Security or FBI agents; it’s about federal law enforcement in general. When folks think about federal law enforcement, the FBI comes to mind (mostly because of their PR machine and TV and movie brand), but every federal department has its own law enforcement agency. About two dozen in all. They conduct criminal investigation specific to their department’s statutory functions. For instance, Medicaid fraud for HHS and tax fraud for the IRS or Visa Fraud for the State Department. They too will eventually (if not already) be tasked to conduct politically driven criminal investigations to punish and discipline Trump’s political opponents.
To my fellow officers and agents, you must decide whether you will obey illegal orders given by a president you may like and voted for. Should you obey his illegal orders now, what happens when a new president you don’t like makes similar illegal demands targeting his or her alleged enemies? That’s why we have the rule of law, not men or women. You must decide when and how you will say ‘enough’ to being muscle for party politicians in high places. It’s not our damn job to be a president’s lawless private army.
When you are asked to draw up arrest lists and swear to arrest warrants using demonstrably false statements because a president told you to — not because they committed any crimes — you’re no longer officers of the law. In fact, as you know, you open yourself up to Bivens lawsuits. Financial ruin, bankruptcy, just like the pillow guy. We are supposed to be a bulwark against injustice, not its facilitator. Otherwise, we will find ourselves in a police state.
Finally, let Jan 6 should be a warning to all. Trump organized, fired up, and sent a mob to the Capitol building. You know, not many people bring a noose to a rally unless it’s a lynch mob. They attacked our fellow federal officers. Scores were injured, crushed, beaten, one tased into cardiac arrest. One officer died that evening; several took their lives shortly afterward. Then Trump, in one of his first acts of his second term, pardoned everyone convicted of assaulting and brutalizing our brothers and sisters. His actions speak loudly. He isn’t pro-police; he sees you and I as pawns, and like any chess player will sacrifice them for the King.
