Trump at Arlington,

TAT readers,

Woohoo, it’s Friday. As I noted at the beginning of the week, my writing schedule will be a bit erratic while helping my son and his family, work on their new home. Today, is one of those abbreviated posts.

Frankly, it tires my soul to continue to fight these battles against the immoral, the brainwashed and the un-American MAGA movement. The issue at hand is another in a long list of heart-wrenching attacks on our military, our fallen, our disabled, our Veterans, our Gold Star families and other military families. I won’t rehash all of the details for the simple reason, that, most of America already knows that Trump and his henchmen are lying. Also, every respectable news service, has pretty much covered every detail of the latest trampling of fallen service-members and their families.

In recent reporting from Axios, Trump’s team at Arlington was told they could not film in Section 60, filled with fallen troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. A Trump aide pushed an Army staffer who tried to enforce the Federal law against campaign advocacy in the National Cemetery. As always, Trump continued to lie about the incident, despite the aggrieved employee pledging to not to press charges. Now it is reported that he blames Gold Star families for the controversy.

I can no longer even try to be semi respectful of a former POTUS that not only gave highly classified intelligence to foreign nations, but hoarded more and obstructed justice, which led to the Espionage charges against him. Columbian born, Judge Aileen Cannon tried to save him by dismissing Trump’s immunity case on laughable grounds, but Special Counsel, Jack Smith outsmarted this relatively new and disgracefully dishonest, Trump appointee to the Federal Court.

Of course, the US SCOTUS/ Supreme Court will save him again when a decision, from the charges refiled by Jack Smith this week, reaches them. It is perfectly reasonable for any moderately informed American, to question just what is it that holds sway over Justices, Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Coney-Barrett. Even those of us who have read all and parts of the Constitution, easily see that understand that this very far-right court, is as unethical, as the day is long. For example:

• ProPublica’s extraordinary, Pulitzer Prize earning investigation of disgraceful ethics violations by a couple of SCOTUS Justice’s, shows just how deeply questionable, these Justices may be.

  "ProPublica’s “Friends of the Court” series uncovered the biggest ethics scandal to hit the Supreme Court in the modern era. Reporters Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan, Alex Mierjeski, Brett Murphy and Kirsten Berg pierced decades of judicial secrecy and uncovered major gifts to justices from a small set of politically influential donors."
  
  - ProPublica Wins Pulitzer Prize for Supreme Court Coverage
  - May, 2024

  

• The current SCOTUS is in theory charged with interpreting our Constitution. They regularly interpret business cases in a manner that empowers oligarchy, despite the fact that constitutional scholars consider the US Constitution, as the “anti-oligarchy” constitution.

  "Long before “the one percent” became a protest slogan, American founding father John Adams feared the power of a class he called simply “the few”—the wellborn, the beautiful, and especially the rich. In John Adams and the Fear of American Oligarchy, Luke Mayville presents the first extended exploration of Adams’s preoccupation with a problem that has a renewed urgency today: the way in which inequality threatens to corrode democracy and empower a small elite. By revisiting Adams’s political writings, Mayville draws out the statesman’s fears about the danger of oligarchy in America and his unique understanding of the political power of wealth—a surprising and largely forgotten theory that promises to illuminate today’s debates about inequality and its political consequences.
  
  Adams believed that wealth is politically powerful in modern societies not merely because money buys influence, but also because citizens admire and even sympathize with the rich. He thought wealth is powerful in the same way that beauty is powerful—it distinguishes its possessor and prompts reactions of approval and veneration. Citizens vote for—and with—the rich not because, as is often said, they hope to be rich one day, but because they esteem the rich and submit to their wishes. Mayville explores Adams’s theory of wealth and power in the context of his broader concern about social and economic inequality, and also examines his ideas about how oligarchy might be countered.
  
  A compelling work of intellectual history, John Adams and the Fear of American Oligarchy also has important lessons for today’s world of increasing inequality."
  
  - John Adams and the Fear of American Oligarchy
  - Luke Mayville
  - October, 2016

  

• SCOTUS, ruled in favor of Trump in the so-called, “immunity trial.”

  Presidential immunity: “In a sweeping decision that constitutionalizes the modern reality of the imperial presidency, the US Supreme Court has established near-total criminal immunity for Donald Trump’s official acts while he was president. It’s an outcome that would have astonished the nation’s founders, who feared precisely that if the chief executive amassed too much power, the republic would turn into an empire. The conservative majority in the 6-3 decision left a little bit of room to prosecute Trump for unofficial or private acts committed while in office. But it defined such acts narrowly and said lower courts couldn’t examine Trump’s motives when determining whether a given act was official or not. The result will mean that most, maybe all the federal criminal charges against Trump for conduct related to Jan. 6 will get dismissed. And none has any realistic chance of going to trial before the presidential election in November.”
  
  - Evaluating the Supreme Court: Harvard Law faculty weigh in on 2023-2024 SCOTUS term
  - The Harvard Law Review
  - Noah Feldman
  - July 2, 2024

Yes, I continue to write about the issue of Trump’s increasingly exposed disdain of our military, for two primary reasons. First and foremost, as a retired, 100% disabled soldier, with multiple combat zone deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq and having lost friends and colleagues on the battlefield, I refuse to acknowledge Trump as a Commander-in-Chief, former or again. Hell, I find it difficult to accept that he is much of a human being either. Secondly, the survival of our constitution republic is acutely threatened by the tens of millions of MAGA voters, devoted to Trump, and falsely claiming to be patriots.

These conned fake-patriots may be brainwashed, but backing Trump puts them increasingly at odds from all honest Americans, regardless of political persuasion. This includes me, as I wrote last a week or so ago, “I miss my friends and family.” America cannot continue much longer, with half our voters incapable of snapping out of their, Trump trance." We experienced a similar dilemma, leading up to and extending well past the Civil War. Ideology is addicting if “sold” via professional influencers.

This threat is an intensely human threat and must be solved by humans. As difficult as it can be to speak up and advocate for true American values, it is the only real answer. You may notice that I didn’t suggest acting in favor of a party to save our nation. Professionally speaking, “Blue Wave” is not a selling point. Political parties are in today’s America, so polarizing that such advocacy falls only serves to alienate those you wish to reach.

Advocacy must be for our true patriotic values, not the fake-patriotism of MAGA. As I like to say, “get the values part right and the politics will settle themselves.” Only one party adheres to our constitution and it sure as hell… is not the MAGA controlled GOP. Who knows, maybe, if the GOP survives, one day they may go back to true “principled conservatism” instead of being far-right extremists. Then it would be battle between non-extremist parties working for a better union. At the moment though, I’m not holding my breath.

To wrap up this shorter essay, I will only say that messaging about America, our values and the sacrifices made to keep her safe, is best expressed in Clinton-styled campaigning, “it’s the values stupid.” As that today’s TAT began by defending our military, I will close by saying that “those who made the “sacrifices to keep us safe” so that we could keep the fires of freedom burning, never deserve to be so callously disrespected, as Trump and MAGA do so very often.

My very best for your weekend,

Paul