Tag: donald-trump

The Iran War Tax on Virginia Farmers

Virginias farmers are once again being sacrificed on Trump’s altar of stupidity and foolishness.  His Noble Great Mightiness’s war has already cost the lives of thousands in the Middle East, 13 of which are American service men and women.  In treasure every week, the war costs American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.  Americans are also paying at the gas pumps and in grocery stores.  The defense department just presented a $200 billion reapers bill to Congress.  

Virginia’s farmers will pay additional costs as well. Not only in the rising costs of fuel and fertilizer but in sons and daughters.  Rural Americans are overrepresented in our armed forces.  Close to 45 percent of those in uniform come from counties like Louisa.

Didn’t Trump know it’s planting season.  Virginia farmers must decide what to plant this year.  Corn or soy or both.  Decisions about spending capital on new equipment must be made as well.  The soil must be tilled, the land prepped for seed. Yet, uncertainty abounds because of the war.  The confused and contradictory messages coming from the administration are unhelpful as to the war’s objectives, and most importantly, its end point. The feeds the uncertainty for farmers across Virginia and the nation.  It seems that while Iran is losing the war militarily, it is winning the war politically, strategically.  Hope and hubris are not war plans.

While this administration postures and dithers and twirls about like whirling dervishers, the supply of nitrates for fertilizer remains plugged up in the Persian Gulf, unable to make the passage through the Strait of Hormuz, that strategic strait of water on Iran’s southern shores.  Fertilizer prices have jumped as a result, on average about 20 percent.  It will take months to fix the fertilizer supply chain disruption caused by Trump’s chaotic war.  

Even if the war should end today, perhaps it’s too late for the farmers who need to make purchases now, or bet wrong earlier.  Soy doesn’t need nitrated based fertilizers, corn does.  Farmers may not take the risk of planting corn and go with soy instead.  That, however, will create a surplus of soy, thus lowering the price per bushel.  Can’t win either way.

That’s not all, because of this questionable war of choice, Trump cancelled his state visit with Xi of China.  China is the largest importer of soy in the world and last year not one American grown soybean was bought by China in retaliation for Trump’s punitive, and in some instances illegal, tariffs.  Virginia farmers lost tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in exports because of Trump’s actions.  Virginia exports over a billion dollars’ worth of farm products to China. Not anymore. The announcement of the cancelled meeting caused the price of soy to drop.

It’s pain at the gas pumps.  We’ve all been to the gas station and noted the rise of gas and diesel prices.  Not fun paying $3.99 a gallon for gas and over $5 for diesel. They won’t be going down anytime soon.  Not with the Strait of Hormuz closed for the indefinite future and Trump threatening to put boots on Iranian ground.  

I did some research on what it cost in gas or diesel to plant and grow corn and soy, from seed to market.  Purdue University has some pretty good charts and tables that show the costs at each step of farming those crops.  There are at least 14 phases, I learned, taken in sequence to prepare the ground, plant the seeds, weed the fields, harvest the crops, and get them to market.  Most require tractors or combines or other farm vehicles.  

Basically, according to these Purdue University tables, to plant 300 acres or corn and 300 acres of soy, a farmer would use approximately 3655 gallons of fuel.  Broken down per acre, that would be $5.94 gallons per acre.  Of course there are variables like soil conditions, age of equipment, etc, that determine individual costs.  Diesel now cost about $5.59 per gallon (I didn’t deduct the taxes farmers are exempted from).  That comes out to almost $20,000 in diesel costs.  In prewar prices, it comes out to almost $13,000.  That’s a seven-thousand-dollar war tax on Virginia farmers.  Yes, it is a war tax. 

Did not Trump, his Noble Great Mightiness, this genius of all things, not see this coming?  And his equally impressive “We negotiate with bombs” Secretary of War, did he not see the potential consequences of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz?  Fools, the lot of them.

Because of Trump’s strategic failures, Virginia’s farmers are left with footing the bill for higher fertilizer costs, collapsing soy markets, and staggeringly high fuel costs at a critical time in the planting season.  

How long can Virginia’s farmers survive with this type of love from Trump? Blind obedience he demands.  ‘Suck it up,’ he says; ‘be patriotic,’ he says; ‘it’s only temporary pain,’ he says. Last year Trump authorized the payment of $30 billion in farmer bailouts because of his tariff fiasco.  This year he is already demanding that Congress pass a farm bill, immediately. He’s turning farmers into bailout junkies.

Another bailout is coming, a bribe to his “Farmers for Trump” tribe.  He thinks he can buy their silence and acquiescence.  He’s right it appears, but some are starting to see the light, it seems.  Not only is he bankrupting hard working farmers, he’s also sending many of their sons and daughters into harms way.  His uber patriotic sons and daughters never deigned to serve.  Hell, they wouldn’t be caught dead in uniform.  Barron isn’t running down to the recruiting station.  No, he was just named to the board of directors of a new company.  Another Nepo baby enriching himself and missing the wars, while our kids fight the wars. 

Are We Still a Democracy?

Are we still a democracy? I think that is a good question and not one asked hyperbolically or in the ‘sky is falling’ moment of hysteria or panic. Serious people are asking that question and the answers may not be to your liking. I struggle that I even have to ask that question, but one must in today’s America. A demagogue rules America by fiat and edict. Two reports offer a snap shot of the health of America’s democracy. You be the judge.

This past November the Charles F. Kettering Foundation published a report on Americans attitudes towards democracy.  This report was done in conjunction with Gallup, a respected polling organization.  

Their conclusion was, that overall, Americans were committed to democracy, but with clearly defined differences in how one’s age defines how one perceives democracy as an ideal and how one’s economic circumstances impact perceptions of democracy’s effectiveness in solving problems.  

If you are over 65 democracy is super.  A robust 80 percent are strongly committed to democracy.  If you are under 29 not so much.  Only about 53 percent say that democracy is the best form of government. Economics also played a role in how one perceived democracy is performing.  If you are ‘living comfortably’ about a third gave democracy a thumbs up.  Those who say it is ‘very difficult to get by’ only 12 percent give democracy a thumbs up.  For those that ‘feel disconnected from their communities’ or question their status in society are likely to question democracy’s ‘value and performance.’

In another report recently released, researchers at a Swedish University published a report on the global health of democracy.  Their tenth annual report.  According to the V-DEM Institute website, the report is an analysis of “….the largest global dataset on democracy with over 32 million data points for 202 countries and territories from 1789 to 2025.  The report involves over four thousand scholars and other country experts and measures over 600 different attributes of democracy.” Go to the this link to read the report: https://www.v-dem.net/documents/75/V-Dem_Institute_Democracy_Report_2026_lowres.pdf)

It does not look good for the world, much less the United States.  Devoting an entire section of the annual report, the authors addressed democratic backsliding in the United States. They conclude that the United States is no longer a liberal (small l liberal) democracy, primarily because of the unprecedented and rapid concentration and accumulation of power in the presidency and the dismantling of our constitutional checks and balances.  I think they are right. They also conclude that America’s fall from democracy to autocracy was done in record time.  Faster than both Turkey’s and Hungary’s slip into the autocratic abyss. In a rank ordered list of 179 countries for strength of democratic values and norms, America has slipped to 51st.  Yeah, make America great again.

So, it appears most Americans still believe in the great experiment called democracy, but, paradoxically, a majority do not believe democracy is working in America.  

Given the K-shaped economy, where wealth inequality continues to grow rapidly in America, it is no surprise that Americans tend to be skeptical of democracy, but strangely unskeptical of unrestrained capitalism.  Democracy doesn’t make one unequal, capitalism does. One should not conflate an economic system (capitalism) with a political system (democracy).  That’s not to say, however, that they are mutually exclusive; one should try to understand them as interacting spheres of power.  Our democratic decline is a reflection of America’s broken political economy.

The Kettering Foundation report does to some extent explain why many Americans, it seems, are indifferent to the collapse of American democracy. The V-DEM institute report shows the result of that indifference in hard numbers, at least at the federal level.

Where are we then as a country?  And where do we go from here?

At a federal level, yes, I think we are no longer a democracy.  Our system has collapsed.  Trump’s war in Iran is an example of our spectacular fall from a constitutional system of checks and balances to complete and utter deference to Trump by Congress.  Only an absolute monarch takes their country to war without consulting the people.  That is exactly what Trump did, and Congress cowered like the spineless shits they are.

The courts are still functioning as defined but has no ability to enforce its decisions.  These court decisions are theoretically enforced by the executive department, a department that in many instances has given the Court’s the middle finger. As such, Trump’s threat to take over the mid-term elections and challenge the results should be taken at full face value.  

At the state level, at least in Virginia, we still are a democracy.  Some states like Texas, Oklahoma, and Florida are authoritarian regimes, by my estimates.  Wrecking the barriers that separate church and state, restricting women’s rights, demanding schools teach white heritage and not real history, imposing voting barriers such as a de facto poll taxes (getting a passport for instance, which costs a couple hundred dollars), restricting and banning books, to list a few.

The question then becomes not only about democracy, but whether our social contract as a united country can survive, or is it in terminal decline?  Is it possible for America to remain a federation of united states, some liberal democracies while others theocratic autocracies? A king like president punishing states and rewarding others?

Fundamentally, and I acknowledge this, our perceived health of our democracy seems to be defined by where one is standing in the political spectrum. Some think Trump hasn’t gone far enough while others think he is gone way to far; many others just want to pay for gas and feed their family. It’s complex, it’s fluid, it’s uncertain. Our crisis of democracy, I think is a crisis of identity. It’s about whose America this is and whether democracy is the solution, or as some argue, the problem?

“I Didn’t Vote for This”

I think over the past weeks, if I got a quarter for every time I heard or read about a Trump voter saying, “I didn’t vote for this.” I could buy a box of chicken tenders and a Dr. Pepper at the local Elk Creek Store.

Mostly I think it is a bullshit dodge, a cop out, a self serving excuse. Given the chance to vote for him again, I believe, they would. Trump was pretty clear where he stood on most things and clearly articulated what he intended to do. So they knew damn well who and what they were voting for. Why? I think Trump’s racist and bigoted words and actions resonated with a majority of them and continues to resonate with them to this day.

His islamophobia and animus towards black and brown people were on full display during his campaign for a second term. His racist rhetoric was so vile and repulsive as to be disqualifying for high office. And that is without even factoring in his disastrous first term and attempted coup.

Now we learn of a woman who claimed in an 2019 FBI interview that Trump sexually assaulted her in 1984 at his Atlantic City Casino. These interviews were initially withheld from release of the Epstein files, but journalistic sleuths pointed out clues to their existence and they were later released, the Justice Department claiming an oversight.

The victim was 13 or 15 when she was raped. I believe her and she should have her day in court to demand justice for herself and other victims. You may recall that Trump oversaw the Department of Justice and FBI as President in 2019. A civil jury in 2023 found that Trump had sexually assaulted another woman in the dressing room at a department store in 1996. Notice any patterns?

Those that voted for him knew about his sexual predatory behavior. In addition to the 2023 civil jury findings, a majority were also aware of the infamous “Access Hollywood” tapes where Trump bragged about sexually battering women. Over two dozen women came forward with allegations of sexual misbehavior during his campaign for his first term in office.

So, Trump voter, don’t tell me that you didn’t vote for this. Yes, you did, and you damn well knew what you were voting for.

Regime Change: Coming Soon this November

One day before the war on Iran, the Secretary of Defense announced that Scouting America had surrendered its’ honor and ethics in exchange for continued financial support from the War Department.  They, had according to the Pentagon, agreed to certain concessions.  For example, the ‘Citizenship in Society’ merit badge will be replaced by a new ‘Military Service’ badge.  In exchange, a tiger cub scout pack was allowed to name the operation against Iran.  Operation Farting Trump was a close second to Epic Fury.  

I am thankful that Hegseth, AKA He-Man Master of the Universe, was steely eyed focused on Scouting America and his perpetual war on American pluralism and women, just one day before sending our men and women into harm’s way in a surprise attack on Iran, an unjust and illegal War.  Such a role model for our young.

State of the Union:  Reason, Faith, and the American Way

I remember the day they died.  It was a cold day, partly cloudy.   The engines roared as we rolled out of the scrub pine forests of Fort Benning, Georgia, and pulled into an assembly area to clean and turn in our armored tracks.  Everything caked red, mud and sand. Our final two-week field exercise was over and spirits were high, however, only to be dashed. In the age before cell phones and the internet, rumors circulated in the assembly area that the space shuttle Challenger exploded on takeoff.  No survivors apparently.  It was January 28, 1986.

The destruction of the Challenger and death of her crew dominated the news. It was a period of collective national mourning. American’s demanded answers.  A commission was established.  The weather and then the O-rings were fingered as the cause of the accident along with flawed decisions on launch day, poor communication between NASA and the maker of the O-rings, and a failure in NASA’s “safety culture.”  

Ten years later the sociologist Diane Vaughn wrote The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA.  Vaughn saw the disaster as a failure of a workplace culture; where ‘acceptable risk’ was incrementally expanded slowly over time, exacerbated by a ‘culture of production,’ and a senior leadership at NASA unaware of many problems plaguing programs they led.   This culture, Vaughn posited, resulted in the “normalizing of deviance.”  Vaugh didn’t believe that project managers and decision makers up the NASA hierarchy were amoral or made “amoral calculations” per se, it was that NASA’s cultural ethos had changed over time to where unacceptable risk had become normal, and therefore non-deviant.  A disaster resulted.

This theory of ‘normalizing deviance’ captured my attention, and continues to do so to this day. Many disasters are rooted in the normalization of deviance in many organizations.  Boeing’s MAX 737 air disasters which resulted in the deaths of over 300 souls comes to mind immediately.  Although there, I think there were amoral decisions based on greed.  

Vaughn saw the development of a culture where deviance is normalized over times as organic, a product of layered decisions by different folks over an expanse of years, driven by internal demands and too few resources, and unrealistic expectations by senior leaders.  These eventually result in delayed disaster:  The loss of life on both small and large scales.

Today I argue, the state of our union is in question, subjected to the unrelenting head winds of the deliberate normalization of deviance within our government. It is part of the disorder playbook Project 2025, a deliberate strategy by the Trump administration to affect those disruptions.  Where amoral decisions are the point. Where disaster is the goal. We seem now to be in a continuous vortex, spiraling toward a national disaster, Captain Chaos at the helm.

Like most folks coping with a disaster in real time, I am trying to figure out just what the hell is going on, orient myself to understand where the danger lies, protect myself and my family and my community from harm.  I ask myself what is animating the Trump movement’s wanton destruction of our constitutional system, a system fundamentally embedded in the Enlightenment.   

It is clear, I think, that part of the process is to disassemble the constitutional order, to undermine the state, to break the system, induce chaos and disruption simultaneously, to make folks want to walk away from democratic norms.   Democracy then becomes the agent of chaos, an ungovernable mess, with Trump and his minions as the cavalry coming to the rescue.  But it is more like the pyromaniac volunteer fireman who sets your house a blaze and then arrives on the fire truck.  That is part of the autocratic, dictator-in-waiting playbook.

The evidence is strong, and suggests it is very much at the heart of gutting the federal system, both within and without the executive branch of government.  Below are four examples of this normalization of deviance:

  1. Secretary of Defense Hegseth’s and President Trump’s speeches to an assemblage of admiral and general officers at Quantico, Virginia, this past year was a call to disregard centuries of our military’s ethos of remaining apolitical and not treating Americans, or certain Americans, as enemies.  Calling American citizens enemies or suggesting that certain American cities be used for conducting war maneuvers is not normal and should never be normal. Hegseth and Trump are trying to change that ethos.  It may be working.  The extrajudicial killings of alleged drug smugglers — a criminal offense not an act of war – by American service members are one of those incremental changes that may lead to larger changes.  We have seen this in Department of Homeland Security.
  2. DHS operations are another example of this deliberate normalization of deviance.  Homeland Security has become a paramilitary force designed to discipline and punish migrants, regardless of status, harass non-whites, criminalize foreign accents, and kill transgressors, such as Good and Pettri and others. The Recruitment and hiring of unqualified applicants, many of whom could not pass basic physical fitness standards, and more importantly, pass a required constitutional law test during training, does not bode well for law enforcement ethos within ICE of CBP.  Hiring law enforcement officers whose primary qualifications are being a Trump loyalist, white supremacist, neo-Nazi, or ignorant brute, is not normal.  Noem and Miller and Trump have already changed the ethos of DHS, for the worse.
  3. Department of Justice attempts to indict political foes is another example of normalizing deviant behavior.  The latest attempt to use a grand jury to indict six members of Congress for reminding uniformed members of the military that they can refuse to obey illegal orders (see 1 above) is astounding.  The incompetence of the DOJ’s attorney that presented the case to the grand jury would be great fodder of late-night comedy shows – it was – but for the fact that DOJ was trying to indict Trump’s political foes.  That is scary shit.  Ever since Trump appointed the least qualified Attorney General in American history, along with his chilling speech at the Justice Department, he has worked hard to impart a culture of deviance at DOJ. That deviance led to attempts to indict political foes with specious probable cause and suspect interpretations of criminal laws.
  4. Even childhood vaccines have become the object of Trumpian deviance.  Childhood vaccines save lives.  What once was an unacceptable risk to children’s lives – remaining unvaccinated — is now acceptable to too many parents on the mistaken and misguided belief that autism is caused by vaccinations.  How many children must die or be scarred before sanity returns?  The science does not support that claim of cause and effect.  But that’s the point, I think.  The attacks on reason and science and learned authorities — vice religious authority — are a clue as to a wider agenda against expertise.  But more on that below.

Just as pernicious is the normalization of deviance in Congress.  The Constitution specifically empowers Congress with the power to declare war, to levy taxes, to spend the people’s monies.  When Trump claimed those powers from Congress, Speaker of the House Johnson and Senate leader Thune looked the other way.  Johnson, like Sergeant Shultz in the old TV series Hogan’s Heroes, keeps repeating “I see nothing, I see nothing.”

It is not if, but when, we will have a national rupture if we continue to ignore the deviance creeping into our government.  A normal President would accept a mid-term loss, Trump on the other hand, is already seeding deviance by claiming rigged elections if he loses, calling for Republicans to ‘nationalize’ elections in selected states or localities.  If he tries to nullify the elections and seize ballots it will be a national disaster, with broad and serious consequences.  If he succeeds, it may be the end of our great experiment, disunion, perhaps even war.  

It is not just the normalization of deviance within government that is of concern. We must look at the larger context in which to understand where we are going as a nation. This Age of Normalizing Deviance is part of a wider movement to counter and undermine the Enlightenment not only in America, but globally.  

The late 17th century to the start of the 19th century was a period that was marked by the innovation of new sciences and philosophies that questioned old assumptions and traditions and beliefs about the human condition.  These new thinkers sought to better understanding the world through reason and science.  What would come from these innovations were the intellectual foundations for representative government – democracy – and concepts inalienable rights of man.  Starting with the Glorious Revolution in England in 1688/89 it was a period of intellectual and physical revolutions.  Europe and North America were convulsed.  Without this Enlightenment, our country would not, could not, exist. 

The Enlightenment brought forth American style democracy: our written constitution; our enduring social compact; our concept of individual freedom.  Adherents to radical enlightenment paved the way for the American Revolution, the concept of equality, the separation of church and state.  The French Revolution gave birth to the modern notion of human rights.  The Haitian revolution put a dagger in the heart of slavery, although it died a slow death.  Betterment of the human condition through science not superstition, through democracy not monarchy.

Nevertheless, contrary to the belief that reason and science vanquished faith, there has in fact been a long détente between reason and religion, for well over a century. Moderate enlightenment adherents sought a middle ground between reason and religious traditions to answer the great questions about the meaning of life, the human condition.  It is why our deist founders like Madison and Washington and Hamilton didn’t include God in the Constitution.  It is why Jefferson and Madison introduced a bill in Virginia’s General Assembly to keep religion and state separate.  

Harvard, Yale, and Columbia came out of this Enlightenment drama in North America.  It is no coincidence then, why these and other historical institutions are targets of Trump and his Departments of Education and Justice.  Unlike many newer land-grant universities and colleges, they are a direct bridge to the Enlightenment.

This dual secular public square and private religious space is precisely why America is one of the top countries in the world when measuring for religiosity.  It was a bequeath from our founders to future generations of Americans.  It’s our strength, not our weakness.  Nonetheless, we do suck when it comes to maternal mortality rates.

I think degrading and undermining these enlightenment ideals and traditions is the goal of Project 2025.  The Trump movement is a convenient vessel through which to achieve these goals.  We are in a period of counter-revolution; abolishing the existing enlightenment order to replace it with one that fits more with their world view of a patriarchal society; divine rule through Christian religious hegemony and authority.  Theocracy not democracy. 

We must fight and resist.  For those who adhere more to faith than reason, you have the most to lose in this battle, I argue.  

Take the Lord’s Prayer, for example.  It has two versions, one in Matthew the other in Luke.  Additionally, some folks say ‘debt’ verse ‘trespasses’ or in another example of word choices, some say ‘lead us not into temptation’ while others say, ‘do not let us fall into temptation.’  Words matter. These variations permit congregations and churches to diverge in the meaning of prayers, their cosmology of the world, however slight, yet meaningful to them. 

Without the separation of church and state, eventually government will corrupt religion and ultimately pick a particular sect as a winner.  Do you want Trump, or any president for that matter, appointing your church’s minister or priest?  Or telling you which version of the Lord’s Prayer to repeat?  Or shutting down your Temple, Mosque, or Church? Or what religious text to read?  Prayer in school takes on a different meaning when your version of a prayer is subordinated to another sect’s version.  If nothing matters more to you than your faith, this is what is at stake.  

If past is prelude, we must expect another disruptive and divisive State of the Union message by Trump.  I refuse to participate by watching.  We must as a nation come to together to derail the normalizing of deviance within our government.  With so much in the balance, to sit back and let the dominoes fall where they may is reckless and a betrayal to all who died defending our country, and a betrayal of generations of Americans yet to be born.  Autocrats have a way of eventually devouring their own young.  If you wait too long, you, or your unborn descendants, will be on the dinner plate.  

Break Glass in Emergency: Vote Yes by April 21 in Virginia’s Redistricting Referendum

If things were normal, which they are not, I would oppose returning the drawing of Virginia’s congressional district maps back to the state’s legislature, even temporarily.  America is in deep trouble, however. Democracy is in retreat; the country is ruled by decree out of the White House. Congress sits mute.  A President ruling from his gold encrusted throne threatens to “nationalize” the elections and seems indifferent to his paramilitary police brutalizing communities and shooting and killing citizens.

The Constitution – our written social contract as to how the government is organized and how power is shared – is shredded day-by-day by Trump.  Our representative in the 5th District, John McGuire just voted for the Save Act to make it harder for Americans to vote and agrees with Trump’s call for Republicans to nationalize the vote, or at the least, has not repudiated Trump’s demand.  He thinks he works for Trump and not we the people of his district.  It is time to fight back, it is time to b break the glass because there is a constitutional emergency.

The fastest and best way to check Trump’s unchecked power is by electing Democrats to the House of Representatives – the people’s house – and the senate.  Sensing a coming defeat this November and a loss of a Republican majority in the House of Representatives, Trump demanded that red states redraw their congressional districts, immediately.  If you can’t win fair and square, cheat, lie, and steal is this administration’s mantra.

Texas obliged instantly, without consulting their people.  Another example of rule by dictate far too common in red states.  At least the people of California had a choice whether to redistrict (they voted ‘yes’ this past November).  We the people of Virginia will have our chance to give voice to whether we redistrict.  That vote is April 21.  Early voting starts March 3.   

Democrats did not ask for this redistricting fight, but Trump threw down the gauntlet.  We the people of Virginia must take drastic steps to reclaim sovereignty or lose our democracy to one-party rule and dictatorship. 

Vote YES to temporarily redistrict Virginia’s congressional seats.  

For those constitutional law geeks like me, below are some Frequently Asked Question:

How many other states are redistricting (or counter redistricting) based on Trump’s outrageous demand?

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, five states have already redistricted (Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, California); A number of states have introduced legislation to redistrict (Maryland, South Carolina, Washington, and Virginia):  Florida is in the process of adopting legislation with additional states contemplating redistricting, but awaiting state court decisions (Alabama, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Wisconsin).  Other states have already moved forward and many plan to do so.  Indiana rejected Trump’s redistricting demand.

Why does Virginia need a vote on whether to redistrict its congressional districts?

In November 2020, Virginians voted overwhelming (66 percent) to amend the state’s constitution to appoint a 16-member bipartisan commission to draw Virginia’s congressional districts.  Virginia is one of about a dozen states that have independent commissions to draw congressional maps.  A majority (29) still permit their state legislatures to draw congressional districts.  The referendum vote in April is the only constitutionally sanctioned method to temporarily amend our state constitution so that the Generally Assembly can redraw Virginia’s congressional districts.  

Why hasn’t the Supreme Court ruled that partisan redistricting is unconstitutional?

They did rule, by not ruling.  They took the easy way out and said it was out of their hands, that there were no ‘judicially discoverable’ or ‘manageable standards’ to adjudicate claims of unconstitutionally drawn districts, with one exception, drawing districts to favor white voters (e.g., diluting concentrations of black or brown voices into majority white districts).

A brief recent history:  In 1986, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal courts could hear challenges to how congressional districts were drawn, however, the court offered no standards.  Some years later in 2004, the Supreme Court ruled there were no “judicially discoverable or manageable standards.”  The conservative court inches it way toward legalizing partisan gerrymandering.

In 2019, in Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme court ruled that federal courts could not hear claims of partisan gerrymandering because they – the court — could not articulate any standard by which to judge partisan gerrymandering.  Out of very thin air, they could invent the legal fiction that President Trump is immune from crimes committed for official acts, but these Harvard and Yale legal brains are damned clueless as to how to fix the scourge of gerrymandering.  This legal punt basically legalizes partisan gerrymandering no matter how egregious, at least at the federal court level.  State courts can still hear cases, nonetheless.

To make matters worse, the Rucho decision gave states a “partisan” get-out-of- constitutional jail card for race-based gerrymandering.  In 2024, South Carolina drew racially gerrymandered congressional districts.  The South Carolina NAACP sued.  South Carolian argued it was not racial gerrymandering, but ‘partisan’ gerrymandering.  In a 6 to 3 decision, the Supreme Court agreed with South Carolina and let the racially drawn maps stand.

After Texas redrew its congressional districts after Trump requested it do so, The League of United Latin American Citizens sued.  A federal district court, after 9 days of testimony and review of thousands of documents, concluded that Texas illegally redrew the congressional districts based on race.  In a shadow docket ruling, however, the Supreme Court, overturned the district court and said Texas could use the newly drawn maps.  

The reasons given by the Supreme Court’s were: 1) The District Court failed to “honor the presumption of legislative good faith;” 2) The District Court did not produce a viable alternative map; 3) It was too close to the election to redraw the redrawn congressional maps.   My only response:  What the fuck!  I did not know there was a ‘legislative good faith’ exemption to unconstitutional laws.

So, there you have it.  Go out and vote. And vote Yes.  

“It’s Not If, but When”

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

—Martin Niemöller

I try not to post more than one essay a week, but this week seems to warrant another.  After reading an article about a viral video of a 70-year-old bookstore owner who said he was “fucking angry’ before walking back into a haze of smoke and tear gas in Minneapolis, I wanted to research the back story of the quote he posted in his store. The one above.

The history of the person, and why he said or wrote these words, is just as important at the words.  

Martin Niemöller was a Lutheran pastor in Germany during the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum – which displays this quote on a wall as you exit the exhibits as a final thought — Niemöller originally ‘sympathized with Nazis ideas’ and supported the far right. However, when Hitler began to “interfere with the protestant church” he dared to criticize Hitler.  He spent seven years in prisons and concentration camps.  

For those who support the far right here in America that is your right. But when you stand by, and even cheer and gloat, when the government comes for migrants, liberal politicians, journalists, or late-night comedians, that quote should be a wakeup call.   Don’t think you are immune, you are not. It’s not if, but when they come for you.

‘Ordinary Americans:’  Kristi Noem and Her Police Battalions.

A lone English soldier in his red tunic stood post in front of Boston’s Custom’s House.  ‘Lobster back’ was yelled, words were exchanged, things heated up, a crowd gathered.  Tensions between colonists and soldiers was high.  The colonists thought of them as occupiers.  When all was said and done that March 5, 1770, three Bostonians were dead and another two would die of wounds in days to come.   

The captain, who summoned additional soldiers to face down the hostile and aggressive crowd, and eight other soldiers were later arrested and jailed after the acting governor of Massachusetts called for an inquiry after the shooting.  Seven months later Captain Preston stood trial for murder.  The question was whether he ordered his soldiers to fire.  Testimony by witnesses suggested he did not.  The jury acquitted him.  

A little over a month later, the eight soldiers were tried for murder.  After a record 9 days of testimony, six of the eight were found not guilty.  The remaining soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter verse murder.  That is they had been provoked.  They were offered the “benefit of clergy,” basically proving they could read a verse in the Bible, and were branded on their thumbs verse a jig at the end of a rope.

Bostonians were proud that they could provide a fair trial, that the accused were able to have defense lawyers, one of whom became president of the United States, John Adams, and that the jury of citizens were fair and impartial.

Four years later, however, the English Parliament removed the ability of colonial governments to conduct any judicial proceedings against crown officials who allegedly committed a capital offense while supposedly upholding the law or quelling protests.  It was one of several acts known as the Intolerable Acts enacted following the Boston Tea Party in 1774.  The Administration of justice Act as it was formally known, was nicknamed the ‘murder act’ by colonists.  In short time, America exploded in Revolt in 1775 and declared independence in 1776.  250 years ago, to be exact.

Now, during the 250th anniversary celebration of our independence from capricious rule, Trump and his administration officials have basically reimagined the Administration of Justice Act by repeatedly claiming that federal law enforcement officers have absolute immunity for acts committed to uphold the law or quell protests of ICE operations.  Rule by decree instead of representation has overtaken our government.  Congress has become a debating society of half-wits and imbeciles.

The feds have stifled local and state officials from investigating two homicides committed by ICE or Border Patrol agents.  Following the last homicide, Border Patrol and ICE agents who participated in the assault on, dog pile on, and shooting of Alex Pretti, fled the scene, leaving the crime scene unsecured.

Immediately, Trump advisor, and architect of these brutalist occupations of American cities, Stephen Miller, labeled Pretti an “assassin.” The director of the Border Patrol, defended his agents, saying that Pretti intended to shoot ICE and Border Patrol agents without any evidence other than Pretti was carrying.  He was. He had a concealed carry permit but did not draw his weapon or attempt to draw his weapon.  Video evidence suggests an agent had taken Pretti’s gun moments before a single gunshot rang out, followed by a barrage of gun shots directed at a prone, non-resisting Pretti.

Another heinous and unprovoked murder by Trump’s masked agents.  

As every day passes into tomorrow, ICE and Border Patrol Agents look and act more like the reserve police battalions that followed the advancing German army in to Poland at the start of the second world war than true law enforcement officers.  These reserve police officers, recruited from Germany’s working classes, slaughtered millions of Jews.  

These reserve police officers, who Daniel Goldhagen argued in Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust were conditioned to kill, and willingly did so.  Goldhagen wrote, “Simply put, the perpetrators having consulted their own convictions and morality and having judged the mass annihilation of Jews to be right, did not want to say “no.””

My point is not that ICE and Border Patrol Agents are Nazis, although, like the German death battalions, they are armed like soldiers, dress like soldiers, think like soldiers, and act like soldiers. The things they do lack, however, are martial discipline and apolitical ethos of real professional American soldiers and well-trained law enforcement. 

It is this militarized police mindset, paired with Trump and his administration’s psychologically conditioning, that has caused ICE and Border Patrol agents to act in similar ways that the reserve police battalions behaved: Occupy supposedly ‘enemy’ cities (Trump’s words not mine), execute orders without question, and if need be, kill for ideological reasons. They have turned ordinary men and women into real and potential killers.  Recall Trump’s speech to his assembled generals not so long ago.

Trump and rightwing conservatives have engaged in a pattern of excluding, stigmatizing, and humiliating migrants, especially migrants of color.  Dehumanizing them like the Nazis did Jews.  Trump’s claims of Haitians eating pets and his recent denigration of all Somalis as low-IQ are examples of this conditioning.  It does not help that the Supreme Court conditioned citizenship and legal presence in America with whiteness. 

It takes more than conditioning, however, to make ordinary people kill.   Neo-ICE and Border Patrol agents must be raised in a family and community environment that leads them to believe and tolerate what Trump and his acolytates openly spew every day. Racism and white supremacy are alive and well in many corners of America.  It is blasted from Fox News broadcasts every single day.  It takes a village to raise a kid, it also takes a village of racists to raise a kid to become a killer.

Americans must not only condemn the individual actions of ICE and Border Patrol agents but the men and women in leadership — from Trump, to Vance, to Miller, to Bondi to Noem, to Bovino and downward – who articulate, condone, and encourage gratuitous violence and protect the murderers in the name of white nationalism.  When ICE treats migrants and protestors like Noem treats her dogs, we must do what we can to stop the madness.

Get ICE and border patrol battalions out of our cities.  Retrain them, fire the zealots, and sack their leadership, including Bondi, Bovino, Noem, Miller, and Patel.  Most importantly, to diffuse the tension, let local and federal agencies jointly investigate the homicides of Good and Pettri, and if charges are warranted, let a local jury decide their guilt or innocence.  That is the American way.  

The alternative is revolution.

Butthurt: A Reason to Sacrifice Lives?

A Modest Proposal for The Norwegian Prime Minister’s Response to Trump’s Greenland letter:

Donnie,

I received your letter last, which complained that you did not win the Nobel Peace Prize and have thereby decided to punish Norway by seizing Greenland.  

First, you do know, and should know, that Greenland is not part of Norway.  It is an autonomous region of the Kingdom of Denmark.  

Second, the government of Norway does not award the prize.  It is awarded by the Nobel Foundation, a non-government organization, named after a dead Swede. And no, his last name is not foundation.

Third, Greenland is not for sale, according to our Danish neighbors.  Just because 90 percent of the inhabitants of Greenland are indigenous peoples does not mean you can force the sale of the land for a handful of beads and trinkets, like America’s forefathers did to indigenous people’s lands in North America. The age of colonialism is over.

Fourth, if you wish to oppress your own people, destroy your economy, and demolish the democratic social contract between you and your people, have at it.  Leave us out of your childish temper tantrums.

In closing, two questions:

I am curious, and must ask why are you willing to sacrifice the young lives of your soldiers, airmen, and sailors for your petite jealousies? Greenland will not come cheaply to America as Danes are fierce fighters as you know because they fought and died alongside Americans in Afghanistan.

How do you intend to explain to a grieving mother that their son or daughter died in a desolate ice field because you are butthurt because a woman of color won the Nobel Peace Prize?  That you think American lives are worth sacrificing to satisfy your unchecked lust for a piece of stamped metal.  

Sincerely,

//Signed//

“Guards of this Kind:” A Brief History of the Original Intent of Madison’s Second Amendment.

New York Times Reporter: “Do you see any checks on your power….”

Donald Trump:  “Yeah, there is one thing.  My own morality.  My own mind.  It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

No Mr. President, we the people can stop you.

What is happening in America is not normal.   When a president sitting in the White House, stewing in his own grievances and thirst for vengeance and proclivity to spectacle, says he is only bound by his “morality,” we as a nation are in deep trouble.  As is the world.

I know this essay’s title may make some folks uncomfortable, but please bear with me (yes, a pun). I am self-aware enough to understand that invoking the Second Amendment can be provocative. I struggled while writing this essay on a number of levels. First, is that it even had to be written. Given the words and actions of Trump, I feel it is necessary. On another level, I don’t want to be interpreted as calling for armed revolt. I do not want that. That would be insane.

My whole adult life was living, working, or traveling to conflict and war zones, failed and failing states, police states. I know that option to be unacceptable. On a third level, I feel too many Americans are indifferent or distracted or worn. down and just don’t give a shit, that only some people are impacted and they will never by touched. Inevitably, in a dictatorship, even it you agree with the dictator now, you will be touched and your soul will be crushed eventually as you tire of being told what to watch, what to read, and what to think. Because you are reading this, you know I hit the publish button.

I want to lay out my thoughts on the limits of power of the central government and what States can do once Trump and federal government blows past those limits.  The origin and intent of the Second Amendment figures prominently in any discourse about how to create “guards” to a tyrannical central government.

Blue states continue to get pounded by the Trump administration.  It routinely withholds funds from blue states as punishment for resisting his policies.  Incongruously, it is the blue states that provide most tax raised monies to the federal government, with red states getting more federal tax dollars in terms of spending than they actually put in. In essence, Trump is super charging the transfer of wealth from blue to red states.  Oh, the irony.

Trump targets blue states and cities with mass deployments of militarized immigration agents as punishment for deigning to treat migrants as human beings.  As the result of protests against these deployments, Trump federalized and deployed national guard units without traditional requests from state governors, and in all instances in blue states, against the wishes of the governor and the majority of the state’s peoples, to quell, he alleges, widespread violence, but we know it is to smother the people’s voices.  

Now he is deploying hundreds of additional Homeland Security agents to investigate alleged fraud in Minnesota’s social safety net programs, according to DHS’s secretary.  A calculated and chilling response to the protests over the killing of a woman by an ICE agent and the states demand to be included in the investigation of the homicide of Renee Good.  Incongruously, Trump condemns the death of protestors in Iran, but claims an American protestor shot and killed by an ICE agent was a domestic terrorist, and, intoned, deserved to die.  

Hey, Ayatollah in Iran.  News Flash:  Just rebrand Iranian protestors as deranged left wing domestic terrorists.  Then you are good to go.

This is what despots do.  They flood the streets with thugs and faceless paramilitaries and then sanction investigations to cover up murders. Nazis Germany’s Brown Shirts of the past are being reborn as combat fatigue wearing ICE agents.

This is what he will do to Virginia now that we will have a democratic governor and a state legislature controlled by democrats.  Expect payback with canceled programs, stopped federal grants, and deployments of Homeland Security agents to intimidate citizens.

The ability of a state to resist a tyrannical central government is how the Second Amendment was born.

What became the Second Amendment was not intended as an individual right to bear arms but a collective right of a state to bear arms to maintain its’ citizens inalienable rights.  Lord Dunmore, the English Governor of Virginia’s, attempt to seize the militias’ arms in Williamsburg, Virginia, at the outset of America’s first civil war was still fresh in the mind of the founding generation.  

It never crossed the minds of folks back then that the constitution needed to enumerate the right to own firearms for defense or hunting at the federal level.  Gun ownership – mostly muskets — was so ubiquitous and a traditional right in the colonies that enumerating the right would be ridiculous.  States had the right to regulate firearms and did so, most notably restricting possession primarily to whites.  

The Second Amendment was intended as a state’s right to maintain armed militias for their defense against a tyrannical central government.  It was a meant as bulwark of self defense against a large standing Army used by the central government to impose its will on a state or states. If you follow how the language of the amendment changed and unfolded, I think one can get a sense of what the intent was and how the amendment was seen and understood within a broader conception of constitutionalism, tradition, common law, and gun possession in the early republic.

On June 8, 1789, James Madison introduced nine propositions or resolutions for amending the Constitution. From these propositions the House of Representatives would derive 17 amendments, of which, ten would eventually become the Bill of Rights. Way down the list, buried in proposition four, after statements about religious freedom, freedom of speech and press, the right to peaceable assembly and petitioning for redressing of grievances, Madison, proposed what would become the second amendment.

The Annals of Congress contains the record of the running debates surrounding the amendments to the Constitution and reflect contemporaneous conceptions of the meanings of these amendments, and how they changed over the debates. Madison, borrowing from the other state constitutions and even the 1689 English Bill of Rights, proposed the following language regarding the right to bear arms (House Records, pp. 451-452):

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.”

Madison’s propositions did not gain much traction in Congress. Members of Congress were more concerned with the mechanics of setting up a functioning government. The debates preceding and surrounding the discussions on the proposed amendments centered on funding mechanisms and structure of the various executive departments being contemplated. Madison nonetheless persisted, and on July 21 requested further consideration of the amendments. After “desultory” conversation on the amendments, they were referred to a committee of eleven, which included Madison.

Just short of a month later, the committee of eleven finished their work on the proposed amendments and presented them to the House of Representatives on August 17. Madison’s language on bearing arms was revised and read:

“A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; but no person religiously scrupulous shall be compelled to bear arms (House Records, p.778)

Eldridge Gerry of Massachusetts, a veteran of the constitutional convention in Philadelphia in 1787, and who was one of three delegates who refused to sign the Constitution at the end of the convention, led the debate regarding the amendment to bear arms. His remarks are crucial, I think to understanding, the intent of this amendment. He states:

“This declaration of rights, I take it, is intended to secure the people against the mal-administration of the Government; if we could suppose that, in all cases, the rights of the people would be attended to, the occasion for guards of this kind would be removed (p. 778).”

Not one person during the debate contradicted or challenged Gerry’s assertion, which seems to state that the ability to keep and bear arms referred to the people’s ability to form militias as a collective defense against a tyrannical central government. The remainder of the debate that day on this amendment surrounded primarily the question of religious scruples and service in the militia.

After more “desultory” (I love that word) conversation, 17 proposed amendments to the Constitution were sent to the Senate on August 24. The bearing arms amendment was number 5 and read after some minor tweaking (Senate record, pp. 63-64):

“A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.”

On September 4, the senate, whose records of debate are not as detailed as the House’s records of debate, showed that senators objected to a number of the amendments, but without comment as to why. “On the motion to adopt the fifth article of the amendments proposed by the House of Representatives, amended to read as followeth: ‘a well regulated militia, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed:’ It passed in the affirmative” (Senate Record, p. 71).

So, there you have it, a brief but spectacular history of the origin of the Second Amendment.

Trump’s advisor Stephen Miller’s call to abandon America’s social contract and resort to a ‘state of nature’ where brute force is the first and only response should scare the shit out Americans.  This new dogma of ‘power, strength, and violence’ will fundamentally rewrite the world order but also crush America’s social contract between the people and the government:  the annihilation of the separation of powers, the demise of a democratic central government, and the eradication of shared sovereignty between the states and the central government.  That, good reader, is why we have “guards of this kind,” the Second Amendment. 

Let me be clear, I am not calling for armed revolt or violence against our central government or secession, I still believe in the vote and the power of the American people to reign in Trump.  But as Congress and the Supreme Court not only fail to curtail Trump’s excesses, and in fact enable him, what are the people to do?  

States are the peoples last bulwark against Trump and a despotic central government.  A new pposition is rising, however.   Not from spineless democratic leaders like Schumer, but from Republicans.  Republican Senators that voted to restrain Trump’s war powers received threatening profanity laced phone calls by Trump.  A sign he is losing control and trying to bully folks back into line.

What I ask is that our new, incoming governor, think long and hard about how to deal with an increasingly authoritarian and despotic central government that continues to ratchet up the level of violence against the people in targeted states and cities – maladministration as Eldridge Gerry put it.  The governor needs to develop contingency plans on when and how to resist, to include using the National Guard to defend our natural and inalienable rights as a free people of Virginia.  

It seems to me America cannot long remain a nation if Trump puts his boot on the neck of blue states while red states happily bend the knee to the tyrant in the White House. Time to mobilize once again, stay engaged, and get family and friends to vote this November.