Too many commentators have blithely accepted the underlying but false proposition that a president may declassify anything he wants simply by handing it to someone or taking it home. Even the New York Times erroneously stated that there is “no Supreme Court precedent” that would limit a president’s power to declassify any documents he chooses to release. The Times notes that, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the president is the ultimate “classifying authority” and, it is inferred, he may declassify anything, anytime. These commentators merely take issue with Trump’s contention that he did so with the files that he spirited off to Mar-a-Lago.
Thursday, September 1, 2022
Trump loses it on Truth Social over scathing op-ed in Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper
"Attorney General Merrick Garland's raid on Mar-a-Lago has ex-President Donald Trump back in the news. That's a problem for Republicans, who need to move beyond him," argued the tabloid, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
"But if the focus is on Trump instead, enraged Democrats will unite, pause their internecine warring while independents will abstain or vote against the GOP," the NY Post wrote.
"The next 10 weeks will be decisive. Democrats and the media will want to keep it all about Trump — he's great for ratings and clicks, and they don't want to review Biden's horrific record anyway," the NY Post wrote. "Republicans, and their candidates, need to keep the focus firmly on the big picture. Namely: Biden and the Democrats are an ongoing disaster — and Donald Trump is no help in digging America out of it."
Donald Trump's Favorite Newspaper Turns on Him
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-favorite-newspaper-turns-him-mar-lago-fbi-1738411?amp=1
"Yes, Trump did much good in his four years: Notice how Democrats have opted not to repeal his tax cuts. But he lost in 2020 because too many Americans—especially moderates—had gotten sick of his self-indulgent behavior. Since then, his egomania has only grown," the newspaper said.
The Post said that Trump's "derangement" about the 2020 election "is why Dems control the Senate now, and his endorsements in this year's primaries have helped saddle Republicans with enough weak Senate candidates this year that retaking the chamber seems increasingly out of reach."
The editorial discussed Biden and the upcoming midterm elections before concluding that Trump would not be helpful to Republicans' chances.
"Republicans, and their candidates, need to keep the focus firmly on the big picture. Namely: Biden and the Democrats are an ongoing disaster—and Donald Trump is no help in digging America out of it," the newspaper said.
West Point is displaying a Ku Klux Klan plaque at entrance to Science building, Congressional Naming Commission finds
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/31/politics/west-point-kkk-plaque/index.html
West Point, the United States Military Academy, has a plaque with the name Ku Klux Klan written out and a hooded figure displayed at the entrance to Bartlett Hall, the science center on the military academy's campus, according to a new report from the Congressional Naming Commission.
The Commission, which was established by Congress to provide recommendations to the Department of Defense on renaming Confederate markers on US military installations, released their second of three final reports to Congress on Monday.
Trump Attorney's Eye-Popping Claim On Live TV Sounds Like A Confession
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-attorneys-eye-popping-claim-074935027.html
An attorney for former President Donald Trump seemed to admit that the highly sensitive documents seized from Mar-a-Lago when the FBI executed a search warrant last month weren’t kept in the most secure of settings.
In fact, Alina Habba said on Fox News on Wednesday that the files were kept in an office where Trump “frequently” had guests.
Swastikas and other symbols of hate displayed at Ottawa protest aren’t just offensive—they’re dangerous, says Andrea Freedman, CEO of Ottawa’s Jewish Federation
It is not hyperbole to say that right now our society stands at a precipice. What starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews. We the Jewish people have become a litmus test for how much hate a society will tolerate, and I am so sorry to say we have reached a breaking point, as evidenced by this weekend’s ugly events.
Confederate Statues Were Never Really About Preserving History
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/confederate-statues/
In recent weeks President Trump has railed against tearing down statues across the country — and has been particularly dogged in his defense of Confederate monuments. But his argument that they are benign symbols of America’s past is misleading. An overwhelming majority of Confederate memorials weren’t erected in the years directly following the Civil War. Instead, most were put up decades later. Nor were they built just to commemorate fallen generals and soldiers; they were installed as symbols of white supremacy during periods of U.S. history when Black Americans’ civil rights were aggressively under attack. In total, at least 830 such monuments were constructed across the U.S, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which maintains a comprehensive database of Confederate monuments and symbols.
Pride and prejudice? The Americans who fly the Confederate flag
The post-war white south embraced the Confederate battle flag, making it their sentimental symbol of the “lost cause” of the war. By the time Mississippi embedded it into its new state flag in 1894, the flag was used to both honor the Confederate dead as well as a romanticized version of the war’s purpose.
About 93% of racial justice protests in the US have been peaceful, a new report finds
About 93% of racial justice protests in the US since the death of George Floyd have been peaceful and nondestructive, according to a new report.
The findings, released Thursday, contradict assumptions and claims by some that protests associated with the Black Lives Matter movement are spawning violence and destruction of property.
The report was produced by the US Crisis Project, a joint effort by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) and the Bridging Divides Initiative (BDI) at Princeton University, which collects and analyzes real-time data on demonstrations and political violence in the US.
Donald Trump's Response to DOJ Filing Blasted as 'Full of Nonsense'
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trumps-response-doj-filing-blasted-full-nonsense-1738784
Conservative jurist John Yoo told CNN that the response from Trump's lawyers seemed "confused" and seemed like an effort to "really kick the can down the road."
"The thing it's missing is any response to the photographs and to the allegation that 100 sets of classified documents are found, which is really a startling claim by the government that you would have thought Trump would have responded to it here," he said.
University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck reacted with a tweet, saying "If Trump declassified everything, why are his lawyers agreeing with DOJ that any Special Master should have a Top Secret/SCI security clearance??"
‘Clearly’ Trump had ‘nefarious intentions,’ ‘nothing short of our national security at stake’
John Brennan, former CIA Director, appeared on MSNBC’S "The ReidOut" Wednesday to discuss how he considers former President Donald Trump to be a "national security" risk with "nefarious intentions" after the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago home.
He went on to cast aspersions on Trump, appearing to imply that he was like a traitor who spied on his own government for foreign adversaries. "And the types of things that he’s doing, it reminds me of some individual U.S. government officials who were recruited by foreign intelligence services who did their utmost to conceal their activities, to conceal the documents that they might have taken and stolen from the U.S. Government," he continued.
Trump's legal gambits offer fresh revelations and deepen his political risk
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/01/politics/trump-legal-gambits-political-risk-analysis/index.html
At the same time, however, Wednesday's filing also threatened to backfire since it appeared to admit to the transgression of which Trump is accused -- keeping classified information at his home. This could be another self-inflicted legal blow. Much like the revelations by the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection, the longer the process goes on, the more damning it seems to become for Trump.
While the ex-President has succeeded in politicizing the investigation, and uniting much of the GOP behind him, his gambits so far have often only revealed more and more damning evidence about his own conduct.
The Justice Department, meanwhile, seems to be constantly outwitting Trump's politicized and emotional defenses, which typically fail to address substantive legal issues.
Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Five myths about Robert E. Lee
https://reevesjw.medium.com/five-myths-about-robert-e-lee-d9d6fa331aa
The belief that the Confederate leaders didn’t really commit treason is widely held in America today. In 2017, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said of Lee, “He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country. It was always loyalty to state first back in those days.” Lee himself made a similar argument in 1866, when he said, “Virginia, in withdrawing herself from the United States, carried me along as a citizen of Virginia, and her laws and her acts were binding on me.”
Regardless, of Lee’s and Kelly’s view of the matter, it was always the position of the United States Government that Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and the other Confederate leaders had committed treason, as defined in Article III of the Constitution. On June 7, 1865, Robert E. Lee was indicted for treason by a federal grand jury in Norfolk, Virginia. He faced death by hanging if convicted.
A Current Officer’s Thoughts on Robert E. Lee
https://angrystaffofficer.com/2017/09/01/guest-post-a-current-officers-thoughts-on-robert-e-lee/
Lee’s Army killed or wounded 1,100 Union Soldiers during the 7 Days Battle, Lee’s first as the Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. From there, the Union suffered over 1,600 casualties at Second Manassas, 11,100 (2,100 killed) at Antietam, 12,600 casualties at Fredericksburg, 17,000 casualties at Chancellorsville, 23,049 (3,155 killed) at Gettysburg, and the list goes on through the 1864 campaigns against General Ulysses S. Grant, the siege of Petersburg (4,200 losses estimated), and Lee’s final surrender at Appomattox. (See: McPherson, James and James Hogue, Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction.)
So should Lee’s statue be removed? The simple removal of a statue does not equate to destroying our common American history. It simply sends the message that Americans will not tolerate the honoring of such an intolerant man who was responsible for the deaths of so many Americans. A statue is not “history” in and of itself, but simply a reflection of how we Americans remember our past. Those who see this as a removal of history may be surprised to discover books, perhaps a better means of learning history than a statue.
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