Espionage Act

Donald Trump To Be Indicted In South Florida Court On Tuesday June 13

Ronald 4 Comments

Donald Trump is about to be the first President to be federally indicted, on 37 counts of violation of the Espionage Act; unauthorized retention of national security documents at his Palm Beach estate Mar a Lago; conspiracy to break the law knowingly; obstruction to conceal records; false statements to law enforcement officers; and likely mishandling of official documents, and other charges not yet made public before next Tuesday in a South Florida federal court.

If Trump had not retained documents he was not allowed to have in his private possession, and then refused to hand them all back to the government in a timely fashion, this situation would never have developed as it has!

This is a sad moment, but unavoidable for upholding the Constitution, rule of law, and American democracy.

This is a crisis time now, as Trump supporters could be liable to conduct themselves as they did on January 6, 2021, and provoke violence and bloodshed anywhere and everywhere.

And the Republican Party, with only a few exceptions, is falling in line behind Trump, accusing the Biden Presidency of having conspired against an opponent, continuing their defense of a man who incited an insurrection against the government, and put former Vice President Mike Pence and all members of Congress into danger of bloodshed and violence on January 6, 2021.

It is the grand jury that is bringing charges based on evidence, not the President or anyone else in the government, as the right wing extremists are claiming.

No one is above the law, and Donald Trump now stands as twice impeached, and twice indicted, with the likelihood of still two more indictments at the minimum, regarding the Insurrection and the interference in Georgia voting!

Sad Conclusion: Donald Trump Has Violated The Espionage Act, And Must Be Arrested And Prosecuted!

Ronald Leave a comment

The revelation of Donald Trump breaking the Espionage Act, and having top secret documents at Mar A Lago, that had to be removed by court order brought by the Justice Department, leads to a clearcut conclusion.

Donald Trump has undermined national security, obstructed justice, violated the Espionage Act, and must be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law!

Anyone in the Republican Party or at Fox News Channel or other right wing media channels is guilty of complicity if they continue to support Donald Trump with this new revelation!

There should be complete reversal by all Republicans in Congress and at the right wing media channels, or else they are to be regarded as collaborators, and a threat to civil order and American democracy!

Earliest indications are that Fox News Channel, by watching that station on Friday night, is still engaged in promoting the defense of Donald Trump, a very troubling development!

And threats against the FBI and other government institutions and individuals are a growing crisis, all due to the cult like worship of Donald Trump supporters!

Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden, And The Espionage Act of 1917!

Ronald 3 Comments

In 1917, after America had entered World War I, President Woodrow Wilson pushed through Congress the infamous Espionage Act, designed to be used against actual spies, but manipulated instead to bring Eugene Debs, the Socialist Party leader and five time Presidential candidate to trial, and to sentence him to federal prison, with Debs only being pardoned in 1921 by President Warren G. Harding, as Wilson refused to consider such a pardon.

That was not a bright moment in our civil liberties history, and Wilson remains condemned for promoting legislation that was abused by him and Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, not only the Espionage Act, but also the Sedition Act of 1918, the first such federal legislation of that name and type since the Sedition Act of 1798 under President John Adams, which was repealed under his successor, Thomas Jefferson! The Sedition Act of 1918 was repealed by Congress in late 1920, but never has that occurred for the Espionage Act!

The Espionage Act should have been repealed, but instead, it was used against Pfc, Bradley Manning, who used his position in the Army to give access to hundreds of thousands of documents about the Iraq and Afghanistan War to Wikileaks, and then, after being arrested, was horribly mistreated, including total isolation and being stripped naked, outrageous conditions he did not, and no one, deserves!

Manning has now been acquitted of “aiding the enemy” under the Espionage Act language, but still faces many years in prison, when to many, he was a “whistle blower”, who should not be prosecuted and convicted for exposing the secret actions of our government and military in both Iraq and Afghanistan, two highly unpopular wars created by the actions of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld!

The same controversy centers around Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency employee, who shocked the nation by exposing many secrets of the NSA and Central Intelligence Agency, and then fled, first to Hong Kong, and then Russia, and is trying to gain asylum in Latin America, if not Russia.

A majority of the American people see him as a “whistle blower” rather than a spy, and so the issue of how to deal with these two individuals, one military, and one civilian, divides the American people!

The Centennial Of Woodrow Wilson’s Presidency: A Time For Debate Over His Legacy

Ronald Leave a comment

A century ago day, Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated as the 28th President of the United States,and helped to transform the Presidency in massive ways, some good and some bad.

Wilson has been under attack in the present climate of conservative attacks on reform oriented Presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Barack Obama.

The facts are that Wilson, FDR, and LBJ were the three most accomplished Presidents in domestic affairs, but with plenty of criticism about their handling of wars and the domestic relationship to those wars.

Wilson accomplished the most domestic reform of any President before him, taking on parts of Theodore Roosevelt’s New Nationalism agenda on the Progressive Party line in 1912, adding it to his own New Freedom legislative ideas.

So Wilson’s time saw the following:

Underwood Simmons Tariff

Federal Reserve Act

Clayton Anti Trust Act

Federal Trade Commission

Keating-Owen Child Labor Act

La Follette Seamen’s Act

Adamson Act (eight hour work day in interstate transportation)

Federal Farm Loan Act

Some of this did not work out well long term, and additionally, Wilson had major negative policies dealing with:

Woman Suffrage—opposing an amendment (although it came about despite him in 1920, via the 19th Amendment).

Race Relations—clearly racist policy of imposing Jim Crow segregation in Washington, DC; unfair treatment and recognition of African American sacrifices in the World War I effort; and endorsement of an openly racist film, D W Griffith’s BIRTH OF A NATION, which portrayed the Southern view of Reconstruction, a myth of long standing, which finally was proved inaccurate in the past half century of historical research and writing.

Civil Liberties Violations— including arrest and imprisonment of Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs for opposition to the draft and American involvement in World War I; the Espionage and Sedition Acts; and the Palmer Raids after the war.

In foreign policy, Wilson engaged in “Missionary Diplomacy” including interventions in Haiti, and more significantly in Mexico, attempting to pursue Pancho Villa for a raid across the border into Columbus, New Mexico, the worst incursion in American territory since the War of 1812. And of course, the controversy over Wilson and our entrance into World War I continues even today, and the whole debate and divisiveness over the Versailles Treaty and League of Nations in 1919-1920.

Additionally, being incapacitated by a stroke, but being unwilling to hand over temporary power to Vice President Thomas Marshall, and allowing his wife to run cabinet meetings, is another major issue in assessing Wilson’s Presidency.

So Wilson is a “very mixed bag” as a President, but usually is ranked in the bottom of the top ten of our Presidents, specifically because of his long range influence on America, rare among Presidents, for good or for bad, and there is clearly plenty of both!