To be or not to be . . . a crook
17 November—Since “People have to know whether or not their president is a crook,” 52 years ago today, entertaining a group of newspaper editors at Disney World in Florida—without so much as cracking a smile, mind you—Tricky Dick Nixon assured America, “Well, I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got.” There’s no question that he did in fact earn everything he had—by hook or by crook, as it were. And putting aside things like tax fiddles and use of taxpayer money to improve his private property in California, he may not have been a crook in the commonly understood sense of grifter and thief. (As opposed to grifter-in-chief.)
But even though he probably hadn’t known about CREEP’s initial break-in at the Democratic National Committee office in the Watergate Hotel until after the fact, in the aftermath Nixon stayed on top of it and lied to the public (of course) and everybody else and abused his presidential power to obstruct justice. Obstruction of justice was a more serious crime than the break-in, by the way.
Nine months after his assurance, facing impeachment and certain conviction by Congress and courts, Not-a-Crook Nixon announced his resignation in a broadcast from the Oval Office on 8 August 1974, to take effect the next day. A month later, President Jerry Ford sought fit to pardon Nixon (which, like it or not, was the right thing to do in the circumstance) because before the Trumpophilic Supreme Court majority invented total presidential immunity last year, it just didn’t exist—in the Constitution or anywhere else. Those were the days.
A month before Nixon joked that he wasn’t a crook, Spiro Agnew had resigned as Tricky Dick’s veep on 10 October 1973. That was two months after public disclosure of Zorba the Veep’s own criminality. (For those too young—or too old—to remember, that was a Democrat derisive allusion to the 1964 movie “Zorba the Greek” and Agnew’s Greek heritage. But the veep had no problem with it.)
So Spiro Agnew’s crimes included tax fraud, bribery, and extortion. They started when he was Baltimore County Executive and continued when he was Governor of Maryland and Vice President of the United States. To avoid prosecution, he pleaded no contest to a single felony charge of tax evasion and was sentenced to three years of unsupervised probation and fined all of $10,000. God forbid a former American vice president should serve real time. But he surrendered at least a part of his ill-gotten gains (plus interest) and was never pardoned.
The wayward Supremes haven’t invented vice presidential immunity. Yet. Give ’em time.
Apropos nothing, consider the crimes Spiro Agnew committed before and during his tenure as vice president: tax fraud, bribery, and extortion. What unpunishable sitting president does that remind you of?
Squirrels’ nuts
16 November—The squirrels have been particularly active at Pinchpenny Park these past few weeks, storing black walnuts and other goodies and building nests wherever they feel is safe and comfortable. Wherever they damn well please, in other words. The old hay shed, whose security was breached several years ago by commando squirrels or other rodents who gnawed a ground-level entrance through the plywood siding, is now a popular squirrel condo.
There are several nests in the shed, on shelves, in a milk-bottle crate, in a horse-stall corner feeder from the late barn, and one in a never-used lawnmower grass catcher whose fabric has been recycled—along with other soft stuff rodents are adept at scavenging—to line a few of the nests. Unopened black walnut husks are strewn all over the floor and piled in every receptacle. The current walnut hoard is only from this year and last, though the nests go back to the original breach. The squirrels and I have better things to do than keep house.
Even though squirrels, like most people but unlike most unfairly maligned rats (who are essentially squirrels with bald tails and more community spirit), aren’t known to share resources or living quarters, given the fantastic hay-shed condo—convenient location and great protection from elements and predators—it’s likely that a few families are in fact sharing the premises. It can happen.
The bad news, then, is that the intense squirrel activity this autumn is a traditional portent of a colder and snowier winter than, say, the last one, which was pretty mild and not particularly snowy. Pretty good winter, actually. The Farmers’ Almanac agrees with the squirrels, predicting a “cold and snow-filled” winter. But The Old Farmer’s Almanac predicts another mild and dry winter. Although The Old Farmer’s claims 80 percent prediction accuracy, both almanacs actually have around 50 percent accuracy.
No more accurate than the almanacs in long-range prediction, the National Weather Service, which Donald Trump and Elon Musk knackered along with its parent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other federal agencies they didn’t like, tactfully takes a bit from both almanac forecasts to predict “wetter-than-average conditions” with “warmer-than-average” temperatures. More rain than snow, perhaps?
The few woolly bears observed at Pinchpenny Park this season also disagree about the severity of the upcoming winter, two with wider black stripes, two with wider orange (or brown) stripes.
The good news is that although the squirrels appear to be working hard to prepare for a hard winter, they don’t appear to be chubbier than usual. Of course, that could simply be because they’ve been working so hard . . .
Bribing Trump
15 November—You’ve got to hand it to Donald Trump. It’s not that other presidents haven’t accepted bribes and committed all manner of unprincipled, unethical, unlawful crap. But if indeed other presidents have done the dirty—accepted bribes, anyway— they’ve done it discreetly, keeping their malfeasance under the table. Because there’s no record of any American president ever having accepted a bribe. Ever. No record, at least.
But Trump comes along and not only does he not try to conceal his self-dealing, but boasts about it. Some of it, anyway. (We don’t know what we don’t know.) Like the garish Bribing 747 the scumbag-in-chief gleefully accepted in May from the terrorist-supporting royal family and authoritarian government of Qatar that’s being converted—“modified for executive airlift support,” as Trump’s lie-spreaders put it—at a probable cost to taxpayers of a billion dollars.
More than a few of Trump’s supporters and enablers were and are critical of that bribe, which primarily enabled lucrative deals for the Trump Organization in Qatar and incidentally enabled Qatar to build what’s being rationalized by Trump’s lie-spreaders as a training facility at an Idaho airbase but is likely to be a base for Hamas, Taliban, and Al-Qaeda terrorists to invade and commit genocide in North America. Thanks to Donald Trump.
Compared to the Qatari bribe, the just-reported Swiss bribe to Trump is bupkes, chicken feed: Rolex tchotchkes, including a one-off desk clock, and a one-kilogram—two-and-a-half Troy pound—engraved fine—24 karat, 99.9 percent pure—gold bar worth about $130,000. And lots of de rigueur ass licking.
And wouldn’t you know it: Yesterday, Trump lowered the 39 percent tariff he’d imposed on Swiss imports to 15 percent. We don’t know about the bribes that motivated him to lower the several other tariffs that he didn’t have the constitutional authority to raise or impose in the first place but was allowed to get away with by his congressional enablers. It’s hoped—but not necessarily expected—that his normally cooperative Supremes will nevertheless correct that clearly unlawful usurpation of congressional authority.
Not that the law matters to Donald Trump—or to the Qataris or Swiss, to be sure—but according to the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause federal officials, including the president, generally cannot accept personal gifts from foreign countries or potentates without the express consent of Congress. Not that Trump’s Congress would ever deny him express consent. Gifts above a minimal value—currently about $500—are considered gifts to the government, not the individual. And if a president keeps a high-value gift, he must reimburse the government for its fair market value. Can you see Trump ever doing that? Seriously.
Of course, there are all sorts of clever end runs around the Foreign Emoluments Clause as well as everything else in the Constitution. One of them is that bribes may be officially tendered to the U.S. government rather than individuals, including the president. Like the Bribing 747 that was officially given to Trump’s criminal war department. Another end run is that bribes may be ultimately destined for a presidential library. Like the Bribing 747 and the Rolex tchotchkes. But we don’t know what we don’t know . . .
Pitying Randy Andy
14 November—Taking her lead from the late musician born Prince Rogers Nelson who made a big deal of purple and in his later years called himself the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, a news reader on the BBC the other night referred to King Charles III’s younger brother, born to the purple and popularly dubbed Randy Andy almost four decades ago, as the Man Formerly Known as Prince Andrew.
For American readers not familiar with the word, randy in its most common British usage means horny, oversexed, lustful, lecherous. Evidently Prince Andrew earned that distinctive sobriquet when he was a pupil at Gordonstoun, a private school in Scotland, following in the footsteps of his father, royal consort Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark), and elder brother, Prince Charles (born Charles Philip Arthur George). At Gordonstoun for sure; and not unlikely as an oversexed adolescent.
You don’t have to be a royal to be an oversexed adolescent, so Randy Andy must have been especially gifted.
The Man Now Known as Andrew Albert Christian Edward Mountbatten-Windsor—Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, for short and Randy Andy more than ever (and Remorseful Andy in his own coterie and psyche)—saw over two decades of presumably honorable service in the Royal Navy as a helicopter pilot and minesweeper skipper, including combat during the Falkland Islands War. He retired as a commander in 2001 and was made an honorary vice admiral on his 55th birthday in 2015. It was nice to be a royal. But you wonder why he wasn’t given a fourth or fifth honorary star.
When Prince Andrew married Sarah Ferguson in 1986, his doting mommy, Queen Elizabeth II, made him Duke of York. It was nice to be a royal.
Because of Randy Andy’s association with randier sleazebag Jeffrey Epstein, the unflattering things Virginia Giuffre said and wrote about him, and the $16 million his doting mommy paid her off as if to apologize to a woman who knew precisely what she was doing, his elder brother King Charles III stripped him of his titles and honorifics. But he remains a prince and royal duke and is still eighth in the line of royal succession, since fiddling that would take an act of parliament.
And if Andrew Mountbatten Windsor’s elder brother—who waited most of his life to die so he could be crowned—hadn’t produced issue, Randy Andy still would be next in line to be the useless monarch with a double-barrel phony family name.
But what the hell does it matter anyway? More to the point is succession of the American royal family, whose malignancy is in clear contrast to the benignity of the British royal family. .
Enshittification
13 November—St. Augustine’s birth 1,671 years ago today has nothing to do with the topic of today’s disquisition, although it’s doubtful that the sainted Bishop of Hippo would have approved of enshittification. In fact, had enshittification been a practice in his day, Augustine surely would have denounced it in no uncertain terms, in the elegant Latin he’s noted for.
The word enshittification has been around for only a few years. The concept, less commonly known as crapification and platform decay, had been elucitated in print several years earlier. The actual practice has been a fact of life as long as most of us can remember.
Enshittification is the noun. The verb is enshittify.
Cory Doctorow, a Canadian writer now living in the United Kingdom, came up with the word enshittification three years ago, in November 2022, specifically to describe the decline in quality of online products and services. But it’s applicable to and entirely appropriate for all products and services.
Put simply, manufacturers and vendors—providers—start out by creating and marketing high-quality products at attractive prices—sometimes at a loss—to reel in customers; and once the products and services have become established and customers locked in, the products and services are degraded and otherwise compromised to maximize profit.
Thus it’s mostly a function of capitalism, of course. But not all the time, as governments also degrade services for any number of reasons—as is often seen after politicians get elected, for instance.
Enshittification was the American Dialect Society’s 2023 Word of the Year. It’s comfortably ensconced in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary (and was its 2024 Word of the Year), and the Cambridge Dictionary. But, true to form, the Oxford English Dictionary hasn’t yet taken enshittification seriously. The word, any way.
Back to the practice of enshittification, then, online we can see—and have experienced—it in the growth of Amazon.com and Google.com, for instance, whose profits have grown substantially while quality of their services has decreased in numerous ways, not limited to the metastatic increase in intrusive advertising customers must suffer—unless they pay extra for relief.
Shrinkflation of grocery products is a form of enshittification, wherein customers get less and pay more for the smaller quantities of product they may become addicted to. Price optimization—finding the price point, the sweet spot to maximize profit however it has to be done while not pissing off too many customers—is a form of enshittification.
So the purpose of enshittification is simply to enhance the bottom line. But isn’t that what capitalism is all about?
Hearst, Epstein, Trump
12 November—My god! Today’s Hearst RepublicanAmerican actually has a story about Litchfield on the front page over the fold. Over the fold! And it was written by a fully employed staff writer rather than a piece-working correspondent subsisting on scraps. Remember that Hearst Connecticut Media had effectively told poor little Litchfield to drop dead when it bought the Waterbury rag in February? And it has since provided negligible coverage of a few events—usually after being begged by local officials or activists?
While of some moment and consequence within Litchfield, the subject of today’s mercifully short story (comprising fewer than 200 words, including headline and sub-head) is of virtually no interest to the Waterbury rag’s declining readership not living and/or paying taxes in the town and is in all events subsidiary to its placement—and, indeed, to its very appearance in the Waterbury rag.
On the other hand, the Waterbury rag’s few remaining readers in Litchfield are presented with daily mega-doses of late (i.e., delayed by at least a day) news and associated crap with precious little interest for or relevance to them—us.
In all events, don’t wonder or worry what today’s banner-headline story is about, just marvel at its very creation, appearance, and position in the Hearst RepublicanAmerican. But don’t for one second think it’s a harbinger of Hearst Connecticut Media’s increased interest in or coverage of Litchfield.
Rest assured, if the Monitor had a fold, this would be over it: Before leaving Litchfield, it must be reported that Christmas lawn decorations have begun to appear on Meadow Street. And doubtless in other locations that our piece-working correspondent subsisting on scraps hasn’t driven by. Already. It’s only the second week of November and some Halloween decorations—some of them very clever, it must be said—are still gracing lucky lawns. And Thanksgiving is two weeks away. And Christmas is six weeks away. Jesus Christ! Rather, Santa Claus and Rudolph!
💩 💩 💩 💩 💩 💩 💩
So the House Democrats down in Washington have just released some new emails from Jeffrey Epstein that raise new questions about his relationship with Donald Trump. Well, Trump has nothing to worry about. Because like everything else that casts him in a bad light—like news and polls—the Epstein emails obviously are fake . . .
Reliving Armistice Day
11 November—What’s now called Veterans Day in the United States was originally called Armistice Day when it was proclaimed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 and established as a national holiday by Congress in 1938 to commemorate the end of a war and honor the people who served in it. Veterans Day, since 1954, honors all living and deceased military veterans.
The armistice—a temporary suspension of hostilities, specifically the fighting on the Western Front—that effectively ended the Great War—now called World War I—was signed on 11 November 1918 in French Marshal Ferdinand Foch’s personal railroad car in the Forest of Compiègne, France, at 5 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, which was also Paris Time. Five o’clock in the morning?! Anything for peace. (France, east of the United Kingdom, has since moved its time an hour ahead of GMT, by the way.)
At the behest of Marshal Foch, the Supreme Allied Commander, the armistice took effect at 11 a.m. That made for the lucky elevens that he reckoned would be easy to remember and transmit to the troops: the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Onze chanceux, as Foch might have put it.
The armistice was signed by seven men, three for the Allies, four for the Krauts—sorry, Germans: Maréchal de France Ferdinand Foch, who had essentially set the terms of the armistice; Foch’s Chief of Staff Général Maxime Weygand; and Britain’s First Sea Lord Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss (usually pronounced Weems) for the winners. Even though the Allies couldn’t have prevailed without Pershing’s American Expeditionary Forces, inter alia, no American nor other Ally signed the armistice.
Not that it matters in the circumstance, but General Pershing believed the armistice was a mistake, putting a premature end to the war rather than a decisive, total military victory—attainable a few weeks down the road, he reckoned—that would have humiliated the Germans and led to a more lasting peace. Right. Adolf Hitler was just a low-ranking noncom in the Bavarian Infantry at the time and hadn’t yet perfected his demagogic skill.
The losers who signed the not-all-that-humiliating armistice for the new German government following the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II were two civilians, Matthias Erzberger and Graf (Count) Alfred von Oberndorff, and army Generalmajor (Major General) Detlof von Winterfeldt and navy Kapitän (Captain) Ernst Vanselow. Evidently higher-ranking officers couldn’t be woken up so early in the morning.
Getting back to Foch and Hitler, when the Nazis invaded France in 1940, Hitler made the French sign the armistice in the selfsame railroad car, still parked in what had become the Glade of the Armistice near Compiègne, in which Germany had capitulated to the Allies in 1918. Hitler made a point of attending the ceremony that vindictively humiliated the French, which took place at about 6:30 in the evening of 22 June. Probably because he was a late sleeper.
Whom does vindictive dictator bring to mind? Certainly not Donald Trump. And he’s an early riser . . .
Latest Trump abomination: no surprise
10 November—So Donald Trump’s latest abomination is his pardon of 77 fellow scumbags who tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election by foul means. He didn’t have to pardon himself as leader of the vile insurrection because thanks to his fan club on the Supreme Court who have encouraged him to break the law he’s unpunishable.
Trump executed and excreted the omnibus reactive/proactive pardon for all the usual suspects on Friday but the disgusting news—euphemized as a proclamation—was posted by his scummy pardon attorney, Ed Martin, on Elon Musk’s overused social platform, rather than Trump’s, only last night:
“I, DONALD J. TRUMP, do hereby grant a full, complete, and unconditional pardon to all United States citizens for conduct relating to the advice, creation, organization, execution, submission, support, voting, activities in, or advocacy for or of any slate of presidential electors . . . [and] any conduct relating to their efforts to expose voting fraud and vulnerabilities in connection with the 2020 Presidential Election.”
Did somebody forget to mention in the feculent post that Trump was President of the United States? Okay, it’s incredibly painful to type that.
And Trump’s termagant press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, compounded the insult to integrity and justice by bullshitting that the latest crop of pardoned criminals “were persecuted and put through hell by the Biden Administration for challenging an election, which is the cornerstone of democracy. Getting prosecuted for challenging results is something that happens in communist Venezuela, not the United States of America, and President Trump is putting an end to the Biden Regime’s communist tactics once and for all.”
It’s worth noting that Karoline didn’t claim or even imply that Trump had actually won the 2020 election in spite of Joe Biden’s communist tactics. Well, maybe she ever so vaguely implied it. On the other hand, her juxtaposition of persecuted and prosecuted is sweet. Karoline Leavitt is damn good. Disgusting, disgraceful, full of shit, to be sure—just like her boss on all counts. But Trump couldn’t ask for a more obnoxious—and thus Trumpishly perfect—press secretary.
(We’ll see what happens with challenges to the 2026 midterm election results that are likely to be subverted by Trump’s unspeakably corrupt machine.)
It’s also worth noting that Trump’s unquestionably loyal pardon attorney, Ed Martin, was himself a Stop the Steal stalwart who claimed the 2020 election was rigged and that Trump had won it. But Martin evidently just talked nonsense, so he avoided arrest. And Martin was the scumbag-in-chief’s interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia but couldn’t muster enough support even among Trumpublicans in the Senate to get confirmed for the permanent job. But it ultimately paid Martin to suck up to Trump.
This latest tranche of ludicrous Trump clemency recipients must be purely symbolic because the pardoned scumbags were convicted or are pending trial in state courts rather than federal courts. For all the good that’ll do. So there must be something more sinister behind the latest executive clemency. But what?
Kristallnacht, Carlson, and Driscoll
9 November—Tucker Carlson and his admirers must be celebrating Kristallnacht today (and tomorrow) on the 87th anniversary of the Nazi-sponsored antisemitic pogrom in Germany and its annexed territories.
On to the topic of the day, then, Dave Driscoll would have turned 82 last Friday had he not died of Cancer in September. Here’s a reader’s observation on Driscoll’s legacy:
TWO GATHERINGS, TWO OBJECTIVES
This past weekend, there were two gatherings for Dave Driscoll, the former coach of the Litchfield Track Club and the Litchfield school system who passed away this past September. Each gathering had different perspectives on his life.
The first gathering was at St. Anthony’s cemetery. Officiating the rite of committal was Monsignor Tucker for Dave Driscoll’s final resting place. Gathered together were true friends who offered their final farewells to Dave’s life and accomplishments. Of the many comments that were made to honor his legacy, there was one comment that stood out. There was one fact about Dave, “Of the many years I knew him, there wasn’t one time he ever said anything bad about anyone.” There is always a good side to remember for everyone. God bless Dave Driscoll for his memorable achievements in the running world he so admired.
That wasn’t the case for him at the second gathering. It took over thirty years for people to come forward to convey their thoughts and feelings about Mr. Driscoll. Of course, there wasn’t any need for respect knowing this wasn’t the time to gather on the same day of his burial. This was importantly a day to gather for truth and healing for survivors of the coach’s abuse and to blame just about everyone associated with Mr. Driscoll.
They took away a social gathering at the Community Center, had a photo removed from a restaurant and believed his role with the Litchfield Hills Road Race had to do with their abuse. After thirty years of being silent and with his passing, it was time to get revenge and proceed to take action to ban his name from being associated with any town functions. It’s safe to say these speakers’ goals of getting even and settling the score are being achieved. But who was really to blame for the past?
Who was to blame for the oversight of their abuse? Did these victims ever question their parents about their unwillingness to pursue the abuse? If they had pursued this issue at the time, maybe there wouldn’t have been a gathering. Did any of the speakers mention the lack of proper attention by their parents toward their abuse at their gathering? The aim was to encourage open dialogue and the importance of truth-telling!
Hopefully, they did mention the reasoning why their parents were unwilling to file charges. Their decision not to open it up made prosecutors decline to proceed with any prosecution. In turn, all the negative remarks at this gathering and action to ban his legacy are pointed at someone with a clean record of never having any criminal charges against him. Because of this, to ban Dave Driscoll’s past association with the LHRR would be a dishonorable decision by the race committee and morally wrong to his legacy.
Richard Morin
Litchfield
For the benefit of readers not familiar with this episode in Litchfield’s purposefully sanitized but none the less sordid history, Dave Driscoll was accused over 30 years ago of sexually abusing boys he coached. A police investigation confirmed Driscoll’s alleged pederasty and recommended he be charged with three felonies.
But Driscoll was never arrested because parents of the minor alleged victims were unwilling to prefer charges or allow their children to testify in court. That was and is inexcusable, to say the least. In all events, without testimony there could be no case. A warrant for Driscoll in Maine, where he worked at a summer camp, was never executed. So an alleged pedophilic predator remained on the loose. And he maintained his relationship with Litchfield track events and the town’s school system for many years thereafter.
On the other hand, Dave Driscoll wasn’t around to defend himself at the catharsis on the green a week ago . . .
Judging the judges
8 November—Last night Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued an administrative stay on SNAP benefits in favor of the Trump administration. Thursday, a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit issued a ruling considered favorable to Donald Trump in his effort to quash his criminal conviction in New York State.
Judges are supposed to be apolitical in their conduct and decision-making, to uphold the rule of law without bias or favor, because an independent, nonpartisan judiciary is a fundamental principle, a sine qua non of democracy and of our republic.
Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist No. 78 that judicial independence is essential for a “steady, upright, and impartial administration of the laws” and as a check on the other branches of government.
Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution gives federal judges life tenure and other benefits to encourage that “steady, upright, and impartial administration of the laws,” if not guarantee it.
So it’s worth noting that Justice Jackson and the three circuit appellate judges exemplify nonpartisan, “impartial administration of the laws.” Because all four were appointed by Democrat presidents.
Certainly federal judges appointed by Republican presidents other than Donald Trump also have demonstrated impartiality in administering the laws. And even some judges appointed by Trump have been known, however infrequently, to rule against Republican and—even—Trump interests.
From our observation, however, it appears that Trump’s judicial appointees are far more likely to rule based on partisanship and even loyalty or gratitude rather than on law or legal philosophy. That’s why he was advised to appoint them in the first place.
Trump’s Supreme Court appointees, on the other hand—Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett—are less likely to favor him and Republicans for partisanship, loyalty, or gratitude than for legal and constitutional philosophy. Hard as it may be to believe based on their apparently pro-Trump rap sheet, they do have principles.
Justices Thomas and Alito, appointed by Bush 41 and Bush 43, respectively, are most likely among the Supremes to side with Republicans and Trump. Usually for the wrong reasons, of course, although Alito is great at rationalizing his opinions. But thanks to Article III, Section 1 we’re stuck with them until they decide to do the right thing—despite their blatant partiality and other questionable conduct . . .
Trump-Hegseth murder spree continues
7 November—Last night, Donald Trump’s equally repulsive and culpable warlord, Pete Hegseth, gleefully announced the 17th multiple killing of their current pelagic murder spree in the southern Caribbean and eastern Pacific. So far. The genocide is bound to metastasize. (Don’t bother looking up “pelagic,” by the way; it means “pertaining to the open sea,” as opposed to “littoral,” which means “pertaining to the shore.”)
Trump’s criminal conspirators justify the murders they authorize and commit by insisting that the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with specified and unspecified drug cartels whose unspecified operatives are “unlawful combatants” whose actions, according to an alleged confidential note to Congress, “constitute an armed attack against the United States.”
But Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul had no hesitation in calling the premeditated extrajudicial killing of people outside of armed conflict—lacking both due process and evidence—“murder.” Just plain murder. In arguing for his purely symbolic motion to prevent the Trump maladministration from conducting the quasi-military strikes without congressional approval—which failed anyway in the gutless Trumpublican-majority Senate—Sen. Paul emphasized that the United States can’t have a policy of “blowing up every ship we suspect or accuse of drug running” without due process, pointing out that not every victimized boat had drugs.
And even if it is an actual war, Sen. Paul insisted, Congress must authorize any war carried out by U.S. military forces. He recognized that during war “lower rules for engagement” often obtain and “people do sometimes get killed without due process.” But “a briefing is not enough to overcome the Constitution. The Constitution says that when you go to war, Congress has to vote on it. To be clear, we’ve got no information. I’ve been invited to no briefing.”
When Donald Trump is thrown out of office in 2028, along with Trumpublican congressional majorities, it’s expected—or at least hoped—that a depoliticized, deweaponized justice department will prosecute him and his top conspirators for the drug-related murders (because that’s precisely what they are), as well as other unlawful acts he and they have committed and are likely to commit during Trump’s reign of terror.
Trump himself may be able to get off, thanks to last year’s Supreme Court misruling, even though murder isn’t among a president’s unpunishable prerogatives. But Hegseth, to name but one obvious top-level ready, willing, and enthusiastic conspirator, isn’t immune from prosecution for anything. Including murder. And there’s no federal statute of limitations on murder.
Of course, Hegseth and other high-ranking Trump conspirator-murderers could cop the so-called Nuremberg defense like the top Nazis at the post-WW II Nuremberg trials: “Just following orders.” Sure. But it didn’t work for Hitler’s Nazis. And it shouldn’t work for Trump’s Nazis.
Apropos nothing, Trump made a point of lifting Joe Biden’s moratorium on the death penalty . . .