Category Archives: Law

Ban the Damn Guns

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America today is suffering a plague of gun violence.

It wasn’t always this way. Americans used to own guns without engaging in daily massacres. As a Chicago native, I learned as a child about the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929, when members of one Chicago gang set up and killed seven members of a rival gang. It was so shocking it led to legislation that prohibited automatic weapons in the U.S.

That ban was extended with restrictions on “semiautomatic assault weapons,” as well as magazines that met the criteria for what it defined as a “large capacity ammunition feeding device,” in 1989 after 34 children and a teacher were shot and five children killed in Stockton, California with a semi-automatic Kalashnikov rifle. A pull of the trigger is required for each shot of a semi-automatic. An automatic fires continuously.

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Republicans Are Afraid of YOU!

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You. Yes. You. Republicans are petrified you might discover the truth. Scared you might hold them accountable for the January 6, 2021 insurrection when a mob inspired by Donald Trump stormed Capitol Hill.

Thirty-five Senate Republicans ran from Washington, D.C. this week like rats deserting a sinking ship after driving another nail into the coffin of democracy. They were headed for another vacation. This one, ironically, to commemorate the sacrifices made by those brave men and women who put their lives on the line to protect the democracy the senators had just turned their backs on. They had just refused to cast votes to create a bipartisan, independent commission to investigate the January rebellion.

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Just a Normal Day on Capitol Hill

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Yeah, sure.

On May 12 Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (R-Ga.) downplayed the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, comparing the mob’s breaching of the building to a “normal tourist visit:”

“Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes, taking videos and pictures…. You know, if you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”

Rep. Andrew S. Clyde et. al. May 12 Congressional Hearing
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Pay to Play: The American Way

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Money has always been a big factor in American politics. You can’t outright pay politicians in return for their vote on an issue of interest to you. That’s bribery and it’s a crime. 18 U.S. Code § 201. But you can come very close. That’s because it costs a tremendous amount of money to run for public office and we leave it to the politicians to raise their own funds.

State-wide races for governor, state legislator, or U.S. House or Senate seats can cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. A major state-wide campaign requires a hefty advertising budget and paid staff to handle things like communications, strategic planning, finances, and legal compliance.

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Trump Trial #2 – sine die

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US Senate

And so it is over. The second trial of Donald J. Trump, the only president to have been impeached twice, has adjourned. And Trump is now also the only president to have been found not guilty twice by the U.S. Senate. In the final tally, 57 senators, including 7 Republicans, found Trump guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors for inciting the mob that went on to breach and vandalize the Capitol, and to injure and kill law enforcement personnel. Forty-three senators found Trump not guilty. A supermajority of 67 being constitutionally required for conviction, the result was not guilty.

But only a handful of Trump’s most loyal supporters rushed to the cameras to proclaim that their leader had been exonerated by what goes down as the most bipartisan impeachment in history. The senators, and the world, saw the video of senators and members of the House fleeing for their lives during the attack on January 6th. They saw the Vice-President, Mike Pence, and his family being ushered away from the senate chamber by the Secret Service. They viewed Trump’s tweet of rage following Pence’s refusal to attempt an unconstitutional coup by rejecting of the voter’s will saying, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.” They heard testimony that Trump had sent that tweet moments after receiving word that the Vice-President’s life was at risk.

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The Second Trial of Donald Trump

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Been there. Done that.

It seems like just yesterday the Senate tried Donald J. Trump for High Crimes and Misdemeanors. It was in January, 2020. He was acquitted.

This time it is different. The House of Representatives sent over only a single charge, accusing Trump of inciting insurrection in a speech to supporters before the deadly attack on the Capitol. They voted for impeachment without hearings or witnesses, using only the former president’s own words against him. And unlike the first time, where the impeachment was passed on a party-line vote, this time ten Republican members of the House stood with their Democratic collogues.

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trump’s attempted coup – THAT WAS the week that was

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The Week is Over

The cliché says that journalism is the first draft of history. We shall have to wait the verdict of historians several years down the road to craft a title for the tumultuous events of the last week and put them into perspective. For now it shall suffice to note that the FBI is calling on citizens to help identify members of the violent mob of Donald Trump supporters who attacked the United States Capitol on Wednesday in an attempt to stop Congress from tallying the Electoral College votes declaring Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris the next president and vice-president.

It was the first time since the Constitution was ratified on June 21, 1788, that a President of the United States attempted to overturn the results of an election and remain in office after the election of his successor had been certified by the states and the District of Columbia.

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