The Fourth

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I find myself still reeling from last week’s end of the term opinion dump by the Supreme Court, the conservative supermajority continuing its steady march back to the 19th century. Like last year’s disaster, this year will require a series of blogs assessing the damage. That will come on the other side of the Independence Day holiday.

For today I pass along two recommended references. The first, Professor Heather Cox Richardson of Boston College’s brilliant, as always, substack on the events leading up to the Declaration of Independence. If you don’t already subscribe to Professor Richardson’s “Letters from an American” you should.

And second, the wonderful film of the wonderful Broadway Musical, “1776“.

Both remind me of our struggle to form “a more perfect union.” And how we must continue that struggle in the face of headwinds that at times like these seem insurmountable.

Happy Fourth of July.

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Trump and Nixon

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Yes, this is Donald Trump and Richard Nixon. The photograph was taken at the Westin Galleria March 11, 1989, at a fundraising event, Houston High Society’s Party of the Year. Nixon would have been about 76 years old. He had resigned the presidency fifteen years earlier. Trump would be about 43 years old, working on building his empire. Trump had been courting the disgraced Nixon at least since 1983 when he invited Nixon to move into Trump Tower in Manhattan, where Trump lived. A series of letters between the two, previously unknown, was revealed to the public by the Nixon Foundation just two years ago.

A footnote is appropriate here. The image Donald Trump paints of himself as a self-made, tremendously wealthy, successful businessman has always been a fraud. That Donald Trump is a fictional character created as the star of the NBC television program, The Apprentice. The image was crafted by television producer Mark Burnett in 2004 and promoted heavily by NBC under the guidance of then CEO Jeff Zucker. That character never existed.

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Trump and Ellsberg

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I was researching a column on the connection between Donald Trump and Richard Nixon when the news broke, Daniel Ellsberg had died at the age of ninety-two. The report was not a surprise. In March, Ellsberg had announced that he had been diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer. He had been, in recent weeks, giving a series of interviews recapping the tumultuous events that made his name a household word in the 1970s and warning that those events continue to have relevance today.

Ellsberg’s words ring true. The case of Daniel Ellsberg prompted actions by Richard Nixon which triggered events eerily like the actions of Donald Trump and the events they have triggered today. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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Trump: Indicted. Again.

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Donald J. Trump, twice impeached while President of the United States, has now been indicted twice since leaving the White House. I never imagined I’d be writing a lead line like that.

Trump has been charged by a federal grand jury sitting in Miami with putting the United States at risk by mishandling nuclear and military secrets after he left office. The indictment contains thirty-eight counts, alleging Trump:

  • Retained top-secret documents detailing U.S. nuclear secrets, military vulnerabilities, and plans for retaliating in the event of an attack after he left the White House.
  • Left such documents in boxes inside his Mar-a-Lago club’s ballroom, even as large gatherings were held within it.
  • Was caught on tape showing secret U.S. battle plans to private citizens, admitting as he did so that the plans had not been declassified.
  • Moved boxes of secret documents out of a storage room so his lawyers would not find them when they searched for papers that needed to be returned to the National Archives in compliance with a subpoena.
  • Asked an attorney to hide or destroy any “really bad” documents that were in his possession instead of returning them to the government in compliance with the subpoena.

Conviction on any one of these courts could result in a substantial fine and a jail sentence. Trump has now been arrested and arraigned on these criminal charges.

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Fox Settles

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It would have been glorious. Can’t you just imagine the theater? Picture the big mouths of the Fox empire on the witness stand, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Rupert Murdoch and the lessor lights being cross examined. Answering questions from lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems. Knowing that the judge had already determined that the Fox personalities had lied about Dominion. Knowing that emails they and other Fox employees wrote, released to the public in various pre-trial motions, showed that the Fox operation was anything but a traditional news organization with a goal of informing the public as to the truth of events. Rather, the evidence demonstrated that the self-named “Fox News Channel” is a sham, pursuing ratings and the loyalty of its right-wing audience at the expense of all else.

We’ve seen plenty. But we will be denied seeing the next act of this long running drama. Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News for pushing false accusations that the voting company had rigged the 2020 election. The trial was set to last six weeks. But just after the swearing in of the 12-person jury in the Wilmington, Delaware courtroom, before the lawyers could make their opening statements, Judge Eric Davis announced a settlement had been reached.

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Stormygate.

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The headlines say it all. Donald J. Trump, the first American President to be impeached twice while in office, is about to be the first ex-President indicted for a criminal offense after leaving office.

The impending event has seen the chattering heads of cable television and social media wagging with speculation ever since the news, quoting “sources,” broke last Thursday. Trump and his lawyers confirmed the news Friday, announcing that the Donald would travel to New York on Monday and would report to court on Tuesday for his formal charging and arraignment.

As is tradition in New York, the grand jury’s formal accusation is under seal until the arraignment and the district attorney has said nothing, meaning all comment is made in the absence of any factual knowledge of the sum and substance of the charges. That hasn’t stopped the speculation. Nor has it stopped the clear calls for protest demonstrations, bordering on violence, coming from Trump and his acolytes. The New York Police Department is on full alert.

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A Grammar Lesson

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There are scores of serious, issue-oriented problems I have with today’s Republican Party. I would love an opportunity to engage their leaders in serious debate. But the first problem I face is that it is not clear who those leaders are. And the loudest people who run for election under the Republican banner seem to have little or no interest in debating anything.

This is evident from the moment most of the Republicans open their mouths and complaint about the “Democrat party” or a “Democrat position.” It is not the “Democrat Party” it is the “Democratic Party” and their purposeful error of grammar reeks of the playground name calling I remember so well from my childhood. There is nothing cute about being called childhood names. Gravy, groovy, garbage, I heard them all.

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