Creating Nuremburg Justice for the Executive Office

 

It is never too early to create a mechanism to bring the GOP to justice. My question is this: 'How can we structure a Joint Congressional Committee to investigate crimes in the executive offices including but not limited to the president similar to the Nuremburg trials of Nazi's after WW 2.'

Perhaps some Senators and Representatives can start work on the idea now in readiness for the next election where it is both desirable and likely that the Democrats will be the majority Party in both houses. 

ChatGPT said:

Creating a Joint Congressional Committee to investigate alleged crimes within the executive branch — including those potentially committed by the President — and structuring it similarly to the Nuremberg Trials would be highly complex. The U.S. system of government, bound by constitutional protections like separation of powers and due process, limits Congress’s authority compared to post-war international tribunals. That said, here is a step-by-step conceptual framework for how such a committee could be structured within the bounds of U.S. law:

---

⚖️ 1. Legal Foundation

A committee with this kind of extraordinary scope would need a clear legal and constitutional basis:

• Congressional Resolution or Act: A joint resolution passed by both chambers could create a Temporary Joint Investigative Committee on Executive Conduct, defining its mandate, powers, and limitations.
• Supreme Court Review: Expect challenges to the legitimacy and scope; a preemptive review or legal defense strategy is essential.

---

🏛️ 2. Committee Structure

A high-level structure might include:

Role	Function
Bipartisan Leadership	Co-chairs from both parties, likely senior members from Judiciary or Oversight Committees.
Subcommittees	Organized by type of alleged crime: abuse of power, obstruction, corruption, civil rights violations, etc.
Legal Advisors	Constitutional and criminal law experts to ensure legal compliance.
Fact-Finding Teams	Subpoena power, field investigators, forensic accountants, etc.
Public Communications Office	To ensure transparency and maintain public trust.

---

🔎 3. Scope of Authority

Define jurisdiction carefully:

• Crimes Under Federal Law: Fraud, abuse of power, obstruction of justice, espionage, etc.
• Violations of International Law or Human Rights: If applicable, referencing treaty obligations like the Geneva Conventions or the Rome Statute.
• Abuse of Office: Patterns of unethical or unlawful executive conduct, potentially including use of pardons, national security powers, or foreign influence.

---

📜 4. Powers and Tools

Like the Watergate and Church Committees, this one could have:

• Subpoena Power (for testimony and documents)
• Contempt Proceedings (if witnesses refuse to cooperate)
• Immunity Grants (to compel testimony)
• Collaboration with DOJ, IGs, and GAO (for law enforcement and auditing)
• Public Hearings (modeled after Nuremberg/Watergate for transparency)

---

🌐 5. Accountability and Justice Mechanisms

This committee wouldn’t itself try cases like the Nuremberg Tribunal but could:

• Refer Evidence to DOJ for Prosecution
• Recommend Articles of Impeachment
• Propose Structural Reforms (e.g., limit executive privilege, create an independent prosecutorial body)

---

🧭 6. Nuremberg-Like Features

To mirror the moral clarity and legal rigor of Nuremberg, the committee should:

Feature	Implementation
Documented Record of Abuses	Create a detailed historical and legal archive.
Clear Ethical Framework	Use international human rights principles as a guide.
Independent Judges or Review Panel	Consider appointing retired federal judges or special masters.
Transparency	Public reports, televised hearings, access to findings.

---

⚠️ 7. Limitations

• No Judicial Authority: Congress cannot convict or imprison.
• Political Risks: Can be dismissed as partisan unless handled with extreme fairness.
• Constitutional Constraints: Especially regarding executive privilege and due process.

---

✅ Example Precedents to Study

• Nuremberg Trials – For legal structure and moral clarity.
• Watergate Hearings – For oversight and public engagement.
• Iran-Contra Investigation
• Church Committee – For intelligence and executive abuse oversight.
• Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (South Africa, others) – For moral legitimacy.

 

 Here's a model draft resolution: 

I'm sure this framework needs a lot of work before calling for a vote, but it is a beginning.

ChatGPT said:

Here's a model draft resolution for establishing a Joint Congressional Committee to Investigate Executive Branch Crimes and Abuses, structured to align with U.S. law but inspired in part by the investigative rigor of the Nuremberg Trials:

---

🏛️ Model Congressional Resolution (Joint)

"Joint Resolution to Establish the Select Committee on Executive Accountability and Integrity"

---

116th CONGRESS
1st Session

JOINT RESOLUTION
To establish the Joint Select Committee on Executive Accountability and Integrity to investigate alleged violations of federal and international law by current or former officials of the executive branch, including the President of the United States, and to ensure constitutional accountability, transparency, and justice.

---

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

---

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Joint Resolution may be cited as the “Executive Accountability and Integrity Act.”

---

SECTION 2. ESTABLISHMENT OF JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE.

There is hereby established the Joint Select Committee on Executive Accountability and Integrity (hereafter referred to as “the Committee”).

---

SECTION 3. PURPOSE AND MANDATE.

The purpose of the Committee shall be to:

1.      Investigate credible allegations of criminal conduct, corruption, abuse of power, or violations of federal or international law by executive branch officials, including current and former Presidents, Vice Presidents, Cabinet Secretaries, and senior advisors;

2.      Document a full public record of findings and make recommendations for criminal referrals, civil liability, or structural reforms;

3.      Uphold the rule of law and constitutional accountability in the highest offices of government.

---

SECTION 4. COMPOSITION.

·         The Committee shall consist of 20 members, 10 from the Senate and 10 from the House of Representatives, appointed equally by the Majority and Minority Leaders of both chambers.

·         The Committee shall have two Co-Chairs, one from each major political party, elected by the Committee members.

---

SECTION 5. POWERS.

The Committee shall have the authority to:

·         Issue subpoenas for testimony, documents, and records;

·         Administer oaths and compel witnesses;

·         Work in cooperation with the Department of Justice, Inspector Generals, Special Counsel Offices, and relevant state attorneys general;

·         Hold public and closed hearings;

·         Appoint independent special legal advisors, including experts in constitutional law, international law, and human rights;

·         Commission independent investigations and forensic audits.

---

SECTION 6. INVESTIGATIVE AREAS.

Investigative authority shall include, but not be limited to:

1.      Obstruction of justice

2.      Abuse of pardon power

3.      Improper use of executive privilege

4.      Foreign interference or collusion

5.      Unlawful enrichment, fraud, or misuse of federal resources

6.      Human rights abuses or war crimes

7.      Suppression or manipulation of federal agencies or intelligence

---

SECTION 7. REFERRALS AND RECOMMENDATIONS.

The Committee may:

·         Refer evidence of criminal conduct to the Department of Justice or other prosecutorial authorities;

·         Recommend Articles of Impeachment, if applicable;

·         Propose legislative reforms to prevent future abuses;

·         Publish a Final Report of findings and recommendations.

---

SECTION 8. PUBLIC ACCESS AND TRANSPARENCY.

·         Hearings shall be televised or live-streamed, except where classified information is involved.

·         All findings shall be made available through an official public website and Congressional Record.

---

SECTION 9. DURATION AND FUNDING.

·         The Committee shall operate for a period of 24 months from the date of enactment, with the option of extension by majority vote of both chambers.

·         Funding shall be appropriated by Congress as necessary.

---

SECTION 10. PROTECTIONS AND IMMUNITIES.

·         The Committee shall ensure compliance with constitutional due process protections.

·         Witnesses may be granted limited immunity where necessary to obtain testimony.

·         Protections for whistleblowers, government employees, and civil society informants shall be guaranteed.

---

SECTION 11. SEVERABILITY.

If any provision of this Act is held invalid, the remainder shall not be affected.

---

SECTION 12. EFFECTIVE DATE.

This resolution shall take effect immediately upon enactment.

 

Our Courts TRY To Save Us From Tyranny

Heather Cox Richardson..May 28

Political scientist Adam Bonica noted last Friday that Trump and the administration suffered a 96% loss rate in federal courts in the month of May. Those losses were nonpartisan: 72.2% of Republican-appointed judges and 80.4% of Democratic-appointed judges ruled against the administration.

The administration sustained more losses today.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled that 14 states can proceed with their lawsuit against billionaire Elon Musk and the “Department of Government Efficiency.” The administration had tried to dismiss the case, but Chutkan ruled the states had adequately supported their argument that “Musk and DOGE’s conduct is ‘unauthorized by any law.’” “The Constitution does not permit the Executive to commandeer the entire appointments power by unilaterally creating a federal agency…and insulating its principal officer from the Constitution as an ‘advisor’ in name only,” she wrote.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon struck down Trump’s March 27 executive order targeting the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, more commonly known as WilmerHale. This law firm angered Trump by employing Robert Mueller, the Republican-appointed special counsel who oversaw an investigation of the ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian operatives.

Leon, who was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, made his anger obvious. “[T]he First Amendment prohibits government officials from retaliating against individuals for engaging in protected speech,” Leon noted. “WilmerHale alleges that ‘[t]he Order blatantly defies this bedrock principle of constitutional law.’” Leon wrote: “I agree!” He went on to strike down the order as unconstitutional.

Today NPR and three Colorado public radio stations sued the Trump administration over Trump’s executive order that seeks to impound congressionally appropriated funds for NPR and PBS. The executive order said the public media stations do not present “a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.” NPR’s David Folkenflik reported White House spokesperson Harrison Fields’s statement today that public media supports “a particular party on the taxpayers’ dime,” and that Trump and his allies have called it “left-wing propaganda.”

The lawsuit calls Trump’s executive order and attempt to withhold funding Congress has already approved “textbook retaliation.” “[W]e are not choosing to do this out of politics,” NPR chief executive officer Katherine Maher told NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly. “We are choosing to do this as a matter of necessity and principle. All of our rights that we enjoy in this democracy flow from the First Amendment: freedom of speech, association, freedom of the press. When we see those rights infringed upon, we have an obligation to challenge them.”

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis today denied the administration’s motion for a 30-day extension of the deadline for it to answer the complaint in the lawsuit over the rendition of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man sent to El Salvador through what the administration said was “administrative error.”

Despite five hearings on the case, the administration’s lawyers didn’t indicate they needed any more time, but today—the day their answer was due—they suddenly asked for 30 more days. Xinis wrote that they “expended no effort in demonstrating good cause. They vaguely complain, in two sentences, to expending ‘significant resources’ engaging in expedited discovery. But these self-described burdens are of their own making. The Court ordered expedited discovery because of [the administration’s] refusal to follow the orders of this court as affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.”

Trump is well known for using procedural delays to stop the courts from administering justice, and it is notable that administration lawyers have generally not been arguing that they will win cases on the merits. Instead, they are making procedural arguments.

Meanwhile, stringing things out means making time for situations to change on the ground, reducing the effect of court decisions. Brian Barrett of Wired reported today that while Musk claims to have stepped back from the Department of Government Efficiency, his lieutenants are still spread throughout the government, mining Americans’ data. Meanwhile, Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought will push to make DOGE cuts to government permanent in a dramatic reworking of the nation’s social contract. “Removing DOGE at this point would be like trying to remove a drop of food coloring from a glass of water,” Barrett writes.

Political scientist Bonica notes that there is a script for rising authoritarians. When the courts rule against the leader, the leader and his loyalists attack judges as biased and dangerous, just as Trump and his cronies have been doing.

The leader also works to delegitimize the judicial system, and that, too, we are seeing as Trump reverses the concepts of not guilty and guilty. On the one hand, the administration is fighting to get rid of the constitutional right of all persons to due process, rendering people who have not been charged with crimes to prisons in third countries. On the other, Trump and his loyalists at the Department of Justice are pardoning individuals who have been convicted of crimes.

On Monday, Trump issued a presidential pardon to former Culpeper County, Virginia, sheriff Scott Jenkins, a longtime Trump supporter whom a jury convicted of conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, and seven counts of bribery. Jared Gans of The Hill explained that Jenkins accepted more than $70,000 in bribes to appoint auxiliary deputy sheriffs, “giving them badges and credentials despite them not being trained or vetted and not offering services to the sheriff’s office.” Jenkins had announced he would “deputize thousands of our law-abiding citizens to protect their constitutional right to own firearms,” if the legislature passed “further unnecessary gun restrictions.” Jenkins was sentenced to ten years in prison.

Although Jenkins was found guilty by a jury of his peers, just as the U.S. justice system calls for, Trump insisted that Jenkins and his wife and their family “have been dragged through HELL by a Corrupt and Weaponized Biden D[epartment] O[f] J[ustice].” Jenkins, Trump wrote on social media, “is a wonderful person, who was persecuted by the Radical Left ‘monsters,’ and ‘left for dead.’ This is why I, as President of the United States, see fit to end his unfair sentence, and grant Sheriff Jenkins a FULL and Unconditional Pardon. He will NOT be going to jail tomorrow, but instead will have a wonderful and productive life.”

Today Trump gave a presidential pardon to Paul Walczak, a former nursing home executive who pleaded guilty to tax crimes in 2024. The pardon arrived after Walczak’s mother donated at least $1 million to Trump. The pardon spares Walczak from 18 months in prison and $4.4 million in restitution. Also today, Trump announced plans to pardon reality TV stars Julie and Todd Chrisley, who were sentenced to 7 and 12 years in prison for conspiracy to defraud banks of $36 million and tax evasion. Their daughter spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention.

Bonica notes that delegitimizing the judicial system creates a permission structure for threats against judges. That, too, we are seeing.

Bonica goes on to illustrate how this pattern of authoritarian attacks on the judiciary looks the same across nations. In 2009, following a ruling that he was not immune from prosecution for fraud, tax evasion, and bribery, Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi railed about “communist prosecutors and communist judges.” In 2016, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Türkiye rejected the authority of his country’s highest court and purged more than 4,000 judges. Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe pushed judges to stop protests, and the judiciary collapsed. In the Philippines in 2018, Rodrigo Duterte called the chief justice defending judicial independence an “enemy,” and she was removed. In Brazil in 2021, Jair Bolsonaro threatened violence against the judges who were investigating him for corruption.

But, Bonica notes, something different happened in Israel in 2023. When Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition tried to destroy judicial independence, people from all parts of society took to the streets. A broad, nonpartisan group came together to defend democracy and resist authoritarianism.

“Every authoritarian who successfully destroyed judicial independence did so because civil society failed to unite in time,” Bonica writes. “The key difference? Whether people mobilized.”

—

Notes:

https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2025cv0429-93

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/addressing-risks-from-wilmerhale/

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/27/trump-leon-wilmerhale-mueller.html

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.278933/gov.uscourts.dcd.278933.110.0_3.pdf

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/27/nx-s1-5413094/npr-public-radio-lawsuit-trump-funding-ban

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815.163.0.pdf

https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-stepping-back-doge-final-form/

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/us/politics/trump-pardon-paul-walczak-tax-crimes.html

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/27/trump-pardon-reality-tv-couple-convicted-fraud-00371950

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5319140-trump-pardons-scott-jenkins/

Donald J. Trump, Truth Social post, May 26, 2025, 3:19 p.m.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/oct/07/silvio-berlusconi-immunity-law-uncontitutional

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/27/1253209931/npr-trump-lawsuit-funding

Bluesky:

adambonica.bsky.social/post/3lpv4a3ynpk2l

adambonica.bsky.social/post/3lq45lt6pnt2t

peppapaxpippa.bsky.social/post/3lq4eurqhjk26

A NEW Dem Administration: This Old Boy Can Dream

 

My Wish List

t-rump will die eventually. 

Here's what I want:

1. All GOP officeholders prosecuted for all crimes

2. Dems win House, Senate, White House

3. All 47's  EO's revoked

4. Marginal Tax rate restored to Pre Reagan 75%, Social Security payments exempt from income tax

5. All Federal computers' hard drives wiped clean to delete DOGE back doors, data reinstalled and thoroughly encrypted, DOGE people who commit crimes are prosecuted

6. All 47's pardons revoked

7. All assault rifles banned permanently

8. All private contracts and entities which conduct sensitive or critical national interest matters are terminated and each entity is then nationalized and run by civil servants and/or military, specifically to include Musk Space X, Star link and ALL of Palantir government contracts and properties

9. Health care is nationalized and all private companies dissolved

10. Anti-monopoly and Anti-trust activities ramped up

11. NLRB expanded and given adequate funding and regulatory structure and personnel 

12. Right to Vote standards established so that any State law which does not comply is terminated.

13. Strict inheritance taxes invoked so that any estate assets in excess of $10.0 million are confiscated

14. BANK regulation enhanced and strict criminal penalties installed

14. ICE dissolved, criminals jailed

15. Immigration laws overhauled and funding increased to allow US to fulfil legal obligations in a timely manner

16. Birth right citizenship recognized

17. Path to citizenship enshrined in law

18. Dreamers recognized with laws

19. Excess profits tax installed to punish price gouging

20. Bitcoin, et al regulated with bank style regulation and criminal penalties

That takes the first 30 days of the new administration, then we can work on the rest.................

Is you is, or is you ain't ? UPDATED.......

Here's our only political question today:

Is you a Fascist, or is you ain't a Fascist?

The question was posed in 1943 by Louis Jordan about a lover. That question perfectly defines our issues today. 

You can hear the song here 

We don't have political parties anymore. 

They are gone.

What we have is a Fascist movement and a counter Fascist movement.

T-rump's GOP is the Fascist party, complete with its very own Gestapo/ICE, concentration camps, and fear inducing rhetoric and actions. Its manifesto is the Project 2025 program

The Anti Fascist movement consists of every person who acts to protest and/or delay the Fascist agenda.

Unfortunately, neutrality is NOT an option in this fight: Those who remain silent enable the Fascist movement to proceed. 

 

Choose now before choice is no longer possible.

UPDATE - FROM DAVID BROOKS NYT MAY 27, 2025

Yesterday, the neoconservative David Brooks wrote this in an OpEd in the NY Times,

"Trumpism… is primarily about the acquisition of power — power for its own sake. It is a multifront assault to make the earth a playground for ruthless men, so of course any institutions that might restrain power must be weakened or destroyed. Trumpism is about ego, appetite and acquisitiveness and is driven by a primal aversion to the higher elements of the human spirit — learning, compassion, scientific wonder, the pursuit of justice. …

What is happening now is not normal politics. We’re seeing an assault on the fundamental institutions of our civic life, things we should all swear loyalty to — Democrat, independent or Republican.

It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power. …

I’m really not a movement guy. I don’t naturally march in demonstrations or attend rallies that I’m not covering as a journalist. But this is what America needs right now."

Tell It To The Judge

 

It is not rocket science. When a sworn peace officer - city, county or state - sees a crime in progress the officer must arrest the persons committing the crime.

The United States government is encouraging some of its officers to detain and deport immigrants, and even some citizens, regardless of whether or not the said officers have proper legal authority.

Those actions are crimes. 

When a sworn officer of the law in any city, county or state of the United States witnesses anyone including alleged Federal agents detaining anyone, they are required to ensure that the purported Federal agent is acting legally with due process.

If the officer determines that the purported agent is acting illegally, the officer should arrest, book and jail that alleged Federal agent for committing a crime. Then that person will have the opportunity to defend him or herself in a court of law. The officer should then release the detained person unless the officer thinks the detained person is a criminal.

But, if the officer determines that the purported Federal agent has adequate evidence of legal authority granted by due process to detain the person SIGNED BY A REAL JUDGE ONLY, then the officer should take custody of that person and book him or her into jail. The officer may choose to thank the Federal agent for their help. 

A SWORN PEACE OFFICER MUST NOT ALLOW THE FEDERAL AGENTS TO REMOVE THAT PERSON TO ANY FACILITY OUTSIDE OF THE OFFICER'S JURISDICTION. 

There is a likelihood that the Federal agent will commit a crime of deporting or jailing that person without due process.

There Will Be Blood

“It would be helpful if we stopped pretending this terrible chapter in American history won’t close without bloodshed …

'— D. Earl Stephens, author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes.'

It would be helpful if Americans, and our feeble Democratic politicians in particular, stopped implying by their comatose actions that Democracy is some damn American right and has no end date.

America very well might be arriving at hers, because, yes, it really is that bad right now.

Rather than bringing Ping-Pong paddles and groovy, little signs to a fascist hate-fest disguised as a State of the Union speech, it would be helpful if our meek, out-of-touch Democratic politicians at least pretended they understood the perilous moment we are standing in right now.

We are in deep, deep trouble, and now would be a wonderful, necessary time to step in front of your favorite mirror and honestly ask yourself what you are willing to do to fight for our country’s survival.

We are but six-plus weeks into the repulsive, wannabe-king’s second term and the damage he and his party are causing are already at catastrophic levels.

Our air, water, earned benefits, peace, public safety, civil rights, and human rights are all under immediate threat. Worse? This is only the first course of many that will be served by the vindictive, orange madman, and his pathetic party of supplicants.

The insults, the attacks, endless provocations, and thrashing of our Constitution will continue daily. All this carefully planned evil will be aimed at exactly one thing: breaking us.

Everything he is doing is designed to pound us into submission, and he’s having a grand damn doing it.

This was entirely his aim when he and his pet mutt, JD Vance, double-teamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the behest of Boss Putin in the Oval Office on Friday. The idea was to publicly humiliate the man who has done more to defend America’s interests across the globe than any Republican in memory.

Because Zelenskyy has tasted gun powder and breathed the odious smell of death on the battlefield, he wasn't about to be pushed around by some morbidly obese, 78-year-old yacht club bully and his toady, who think swinging a sand wedge to free a golf ball from some bunker is dangerous business.

Zelenskyy punched back and wasn't having it. He told the truth, and didn't back down. The future of his country is on the line right now, and he acted like it.

And therein lies the playbook for dealing with this sadistic bastard — if only the cautious, too-clever Democratic Party and their weak leaders, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, bothered paying attention.

While Rome burns, they dither.

They act as if we have all the time in the world, when time is something that is not guaranteed right now. They seem to somehow have no idea how bad things are about to get, or most certainly will be when elections they seem to be pinning their hopes on roll around next year.

Everything changed on November 5th, but by the looks of it, very little has changed in the Democratic Party.

This country will never be the same, and the sooner we come to grips with that, and start acting accordingly the better.

What would you do if everything you had and everyone you loved was threatened? Would you act like Zelenskyy or Schumer?

One of the big mistakes of Joe Biden’s presidency was this notion that everything was going to be OK, and that his idea of America matched the actual circumstances of America.

If I had a dollar for every time he said this, I’d fold up shop and move to Tahiti:

“We are the United States of America – there's nothing we can't do if we do it together. We just have to remember who we are.”

It was a noble statement and magical thinking that would have worked great pre-2016, when we could still believe without being laughed at that our two parties could work together in a crisis to protect America.

When we were attacked by the terrible human being who is now somehow leading us January 6, 2021, that magical thinking needed to go out the nearest window.

Instead, our Justice Department twiddled its thumbs and allowed the America-attacker to build himself back up, so that WE would have to deal with him AGAIN.

I seethe just thinking about this, but it is where we are right now, and the sooner we all understand this the better.

The clock is ticking. The bomb is in place.

Which brings me back around to my original premise: At some point, he will do something so heinous … so anti-America … so dangerous … that the people who truly love our country will be forced into the streets to take a life-or-death stand. Sadly, this is actually the best-case scenario, because the worst case is we just go quietly into the dark, gloomy night and become an authoritarian country, where we have zero rights or say in how we are governed.

Yesterday under the cover of his blankets, the America-attacker shared this with us:

Now read the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; OR THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE PEACEABLY TO ASSEMBLE, AND TO PETITION THE GOVERNMENT FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES."

He is telling us what he thinks of America and silly things like the Constitution. Kings don’t pay attention to that kind worthless drivel.

And, really, end of the day, it not him who we have most to fear. It’s the stupid, goddam Republicans who are stubbornly in all of our lives. These are the people who have illustrated there is no known pain or sacrifice to our civil liberties or pocketbooks that they won’t absorb just for the satisfaction of watching some poor kid of color going without something they didn’t think she should have.

So the choice is yours: You can continue thinking there is some magical way out of this, or you can begin to take the threat to everything you hold dear seriously, and ACT accordingly.”

— D. Earl Stephens, author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes.

AMERICANS DO NOT HIDE BEHIND MASKS

 

AMERICANS DO NOT HIDE BEHIND MASKS

 

You do NOT have the right to wear an American flag emblem on your person when you arrest Americans who are exercising their Constitutional rights.

 

You especially do NOT have the right to wear the flag emblem when you hide behind a gun, a mask and a bulletproof vest.

 

AMERICANS do NOT hide their face or badge, or bend a knee to tyrants.

 

When you behave like that, you are a COWARD and a FASCIST GOON. You are NOT an American.

 

My family has been here since 1631; we fought alongside George Washington. We fought in the Civil War. I have worked to counter Russian aggression since 1960.

 

I am disgusted by your behavior.

 

Either put on your badge and take off your mask, or go home and hide behind your Mommy.......

 

Stop desecrating the American flag.

Removing trump

trump will not leave office due to any legal action.

Most 20th Century tyrants died in office.

He will try to stay in power unless and until he is removed by any means including force.

We cannot expect elections or lawsuits to remove him.

We must act quickly and decisively, regardless of the law, to ensure he is removed from office.  

Documenting 47's Con Job

Heather Cox Richardson May 3

Yesterday I identified incorrectly the messaging app newly fired national security advisor Michael Waltz was using at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday as the unsecure Signal app. Joseph Cox of 404 Media identified the app as “an obscure and unofficial version of Signal” from “a company called TeleMessage which makes clones of popular messaging apps but adds an archiving capability to each of them.” As Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo notes, this third-party app introduces even more insecurity into those White House communications.

Today I spent time organizing the many tabs I had opened over the past six weeks. When they were grouped by topics, what emerged was the story of an administration that decided from the start to portray President Donald Trump as a king, creating an alternative social media ecosystem designed, as Drew Harwell and Sarah Ellison of the Washington Post noted in early March, “to sell the country on [Trump’s] expansionist approach to presidential power.”

The team set out not just to confront critics, but to drown them out with a constant barrage of sound bites, interviews with loyalists, memes slamming Democrats, and attack lines. “We’re here. We’re in your face,” said Kaelan Dorr, a deputy assistant to the president who runs the digital team. “It’s irreverent. It’s unapologetic.” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said their goal was “FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE.”

They are engaged in a marketing campaign to establish Trump’s false version of reality as truth. The White House has also brought into the press pool right-wing influencers, who are asking questions that tee up opportunities for White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt to push administration talking points, which the influencers then amplify on social media.

Trump’s aspirations to authoritarianism are showing today in the announcement that there will be a military parade on Trump’s 79th birthday, June 14, which coincides with the 250th anniversary of the Second Continental Congress’s establishment of the Continental Army in 1775. About 6,600 soldiers, 150 vehicles, and 50 helicopters will proceed from near the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, to the National Mall at a cost of tens of millions of dollars.

Trump’s attempt to empower loyalists showed today in the news that the Trump administration has reached a settlement in principle with the family of Ashli Babbitt, the Trump loyalist who was shot by Capitol Police officer Michael Byrd as she tried to breach the House Speaker’s Lobby on January 6, 2021. The right-wing Judicial Watch organization had filed a $30 million civil suit on behalf of Babbitt’s estate. A 2021 internal review determined that Byrd saved lives.

The administration’s hunkering down in right-wing ideology showed as well in Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s public attack on U.S. ally Germany for declaring the German right-wing political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) as an extremist party that goes against Germany’s “free democratic order.” That designation is the result of a three-year investigation. It allows the government more leeway in monitoring the AfD.

Both Vice President J.D. Vance and billionaire White House advisor Elon Musk supported the AfD and backed it in a recent election. Rubio took AfD’s side today, writing on social media that that new designation was “tyranny in disguise.” He attacked the current government and urged Germany to “reverse course.”

The German Foreign Office responded publicly. “This is democracy. The decision is the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law. It is independent courts that will have the final say. We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped.”

It says something about the Trump administration that the German government is lecturing the U.S. government about the dangers of right-wing extremism.

Molly Beck of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan spoke to reporters yesterday, threatening Wisconsin governor Tony Evers with arrest after the governor issued a memo to state workers directing them to check with a lawyer before turning over documents or other items to officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Evers said Republicans were mischaracterizing his memo, which did not direct anyone to break the law.

"We now have a federal government that will threaten or arrest an elected official, or even everyday American citizens who have broken no laws, committed no crimes and done nothing wrong," Evers said. "And as disgusted as I am about the continued actions of the Trump administration, I'm not afraid."

Yesterday, at an event for judges, jurists, and lawyers, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson spoke out against the attacks on judges currently plaguing the country. Judge Esther Salas, whose son Daniel was murdered by a man who came to their house looking for her, has been calling out the recent tactic of sending pizzas to the homes of judges or their children, making the point that right-wing opponents know where they live. Furthering their attempt at intimidation, the perpetrators have been using the name of Judge Salas’s son.

Judge Jackson began her remarks yesterday by saying she wanted to address “the elephant in the room”: the attacks on our legal system. Such attacks are not just on individuals, she said, but undermine the system itself. “Attacks on judicial independence is how countries that are not free, not fair, and not rule of law oriented, operate,” she said, and she told her colleagues: “I urge you to keep going, keep doing what is right for our country, and I do believe that history will vindicate your service.” According to Laura N. Pérez Sánchez of the New York Times, the audience gave her a standing ovation.

At least some of the administration’s intimidation is an attempt to cow opponents. It does not appear to be working.

Yesterday, about 1,500 lawyers and their allies packed the plaza outside Manhattan’s federal courthouse to defend the rule of law. According to Santul Nerkar of the New York Times, they held up pocket Constitutions, reaffirmed their oath to support and defend the Constitution, and chanted: “The rule of law protects us all. Without it we will surely fall.”

Speaking in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., constitutional law scholar and U.S. representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said, “The whole country needs a constitutional refresher.” He recited the Preamble of the Constitution: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

On March 6, Trump issued an executive order attacking the law firm Perkins Coie, which has represented high-profile Democratic individuals and causes, by barring the federal government from hiring the firm, suspending the security clearances of individuals working for it, barring its lawyers from entering federal office buildings, and preparing to end government contracts with any of its clients.

Rather than back down, as several other firms did, Perkins Coie sued the next day. Today, Judge Beryl Howell permanently barred any enforcement of Trump's executive order, saying it “violates the Constitution and is thus null and void.” In her opinion, Howell noted that “disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government.” Trump’s executive order violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of the right to free speech, the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process, and the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of right to counsel.

She pointed out that the fair and impartial administration of justice has been part of the U.S. since John Adams “made the singularly unpopular decision to represent eight British soldiers charged with murder for their roles in the Boston Massacre.” “I had no hesitation,” Adams wrote in his diary, because “the Bar ought…to be independent and impartial at all Times And in every Circumstance.”

Today, Riley Board and Dylan Tusinski of the Portland Press Herald reported that the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the state of Maine reached a settlement in the state’s lawsuit against the Trump administration after it froze funding to Maine education. The administration claimed the state violates the law because it allows transgender girls to compete on girls’ sports teams. Governor Janet Mills said she was following state and federal law and that Trump could not change the law by fiat. Maine attorney general Aaron Frey said the state had no choice but to sue in order to force the USDA to follow the law. The settlement restores the funding and establishes that the administration will go through the legally required process to pursue its policy.

When Trump tried to bully Governor Mills over the issue at a White House meeting in February, she told him, “See you in court.” Today she commented: “It’s good to feel a victory like this. I stood in the White House and when confronted by the president of the United States, I told him I’d see him in court. Well, we did see him in court, and we won.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi has launched a different lawsuit against the Maine Department of Education that would pull funding primarily from poorer students and students with disabilities. “That’s a separate complaint they filed a few weeks ago, it’s only a one-page complaint that cites no authority, no case, no law,” Mills said. “We’ll see them in court on that one as well.”

Finally, tonight, Trump’s apparent determination to dominate the news and to project an image of leadership is overlapping with his increasingly erratic behavior. After suggesting on Tuesday that he’d like to be Pope, tonight the president of the United States posted on his social media site an AI-generated image of himself wearing papal robes and a miter.

—

Notes:

https://www.404media.co/mike-waltz-accidentally-reveals-obscure-app-the-government-is-using-to-archive-signal-messages/

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-signal-scandal-somehow-just-managed-to-get-much-worse

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/03/06/trump-white-house-media-social-influencers/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/05/02/white-house-influencers-propaganda-leavitt/

https://apnews.com/article/trump-army-military-parade-birthday-2f5cd12c8ccd4efddc29bfa3cf8f2705

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-settlement-family-ashli-babbitt-rioter-killed-on-jan-6-2021/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy4vz9jed5lo

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/02/g-s1-64037/afd-germany-extremist-alternative

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/02/trump-border-czar-tom-homan-warns-gov-tony-evers-over-ice-guidance/83408495007/

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/judges-courts-lawyers-attacks-shapiro-violence-salas-rcna201146

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/us/politics/supreme-court-justice-jackson.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/nyregion/national-law-day-courthouse-protests.html?smid=bs-share

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.278290/gov.uscourts.dcd.278290.185.0.pdf

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/judge-strikes-trump-order-targeting-perkins-coie-law-firm-rcna204564

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/01/ketanji-brown-jackson-sharply-condemns-trumps-attacks-on-judges-00323010

https://www.pressherald.com/2025/05/02/maine-settles-case-over-frozen-usda-school-funds/

Donald J. Trump, Truth Social post, May 2, 2025, 10:29 p.m.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/30/donald-trump-pope-catholic-conclave-lindsay-graham/83363390007/

Bluesky:

vermontgmg.bsky.social/post/3lo7r6g5fqc2q

prchovanec.bsky.social/post/3loafgmzlp22g

 

It Is Time to Prosecute Federal Field Agents Who Commit Crimes

Some Federal agents - ICE, FBI, DHS, etc., etc - commit crimes while carrying out orders.

The Nuremberg trials established that 'following orders' does not shield soldiers or officers from criminal liability from criminal actions they commit. 

While we can and should contnue suing current administration officials for their criminal acts, now it is time to prosecute field agents for their criminal actions.

Perhaps field agents will follow the law if they feel at risk of prison time. 

RISK OF PRISON TIME

Call 911, Report a Violent Kidnapping

Call 911, Report a Violent Kidnapping Whenever you see one

I don't know how much of this is possible.

BUT, it seems like it's felony violent crime of kidnapping when masked men and women with no identification or judicially approved warrant snatch someone from the streets of the United States of America and lock them in a vehicle and then drive off. 

Everyone physically present in the United States has due process rights. So then, let the kidnappers follow the law. Prevent kidnappers from harming residents, legal or not.

I think kidnapping is a serious crime. 

SO CALL 911  when you see it!! tell the police all you can and then press charges.

Maybe slow the CRIMINAL ICE down a step and save a life.......