Vladimir Putin is a thug! He has no reason whatsoever to detain journalist Evan Gershkovich in Russia

Three Months after Evan Gershkovich’s Illegal Arrest in Russia, Support for the Detained Journalist Remains Strong.

BOWDOIN COLLEGE, Maine- As he approaches his fourth month behind bars in Russia, the Wall Street Journal reporter and 2014, Bowdoin graduate, unfairly detained on spying charges, will hopefully draw strength from the continued outpouring of support for him back home.

Calls for Gershkovich’s release and messages of support from Western media, US politicians, and former classmates and colleagues at his his alma mater, Bowdoin College, remain undimmed.

While questions are being asked about President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power following an apparent near mutiny by Wagner group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, Gershkovich’s immediate future seems more assured. A Moscow court last week rejected an appeal by his lawyers calling for the release of Gershkovich from pretrial detention, meaning he now faces a further three months, at least, behind bars before he goes on trial.

“We write to express our profound anger and concern over your unjust and wrongful detention in Russia,” wrote Maine’s US Senators Susan Collins (R) and Angus King (I) last week. 

They were joined by thirty of their colleagues in signing an open letter of support for Gershkovich and fellow American Paul Whelan, also being detained in Russia. “We hope you are doing as well as possible under the current circumstances and understand the enormous burden you may feel as the Russian government uses you as a political tool,” they continued.

“Since your arrest, we have advocated for your release publicly and privately. We will not stop until you are safely home. We believe that a free press is crucial to the foundation and support of human rights everywhere.”

This message has been echoed in the free press throughout the world, mostly recently here in Maine, where the editorial board of The Bangor Daily News published an op-ed this week (“Journalism is not a crime. Russia must release Evan Gershkovich.”)

“We have far more questions than answers about what happened in Russia over the weekend, and what continues to happen, with what may have been an almost-coup and uncertainty about the strength of President Vladimir Putin’s position,” wrote the board. 

“Amid the uncertainty, at least one thing remains clear: Russia should release the people it has wrongfully detained.”

Florida economy is impacted by global warming: Government must respond to save lives

At first, you sweat.

Killer heat claims too many lives, and it’s going to get worse 

Editorial echo published in the Orlando Sentinel: 
It’s the body’s first line of defense: Sweat, as it evaporates, can keep your body a critical degree or two cooler than the air around you. But a number of factors, including dehydration or tight-fitting , non-breathable clothing that traps sweat instead of letting it evaporate or intense physical activity that raises your core temperature faster than you can cool down, will defeat that defense. Another self-regulating system kicks in, and your breathing and pulse grow more rapid as your organs fight to lower your core temperature.

This is how the first signs of heat exhaustion feel — physical reactions that an increasing number of people experience every day. They are warnings that many don’t take seriously, and we’re not just talking about individuals. As global temperatures inch upward, Florida is obviously on the vanguard of a rising threat to life and health.

Yet local, state and national officials haven’t done nearly enough to combat the threat heat poses, and many Floridians will pay for that with their lives. That should change.

When your internal temperature crosses a critical threshold of 104 degrees, you’re in trouble. Your chances of recovery without medical intervention — by getting someplace cooler, by drinking water — start to dwindle.

The ranks of people at risk of heat-related health problems are wide and variable. Prolonged exposure to high temperatures can be particularly dangerous for young children and the elderly, as well as people who are pregnant, people with chronic diseases such as diabetes, people whose jobs keep them outdoors without ready access to shade or water, and athletes whose intense activity can push their temperature into the danger zone far more quickly. Risks also vary by location, with residents in densely populated urban areas suffering more than those in the suburbs and low-income people endangered because they can’t afford high electric bills.

But anyone can succumb to heat-related illness. As global temperatures inch upwards, more people will. That demands serious attention at the local, state and federal level.

Your skin is dry now, and flushed. You probably have a piercing headache and you may be feeling weak, dizzy, possibly nauseated. Your speech grows confused, your muscles are cramping and you may start to have convulsions or seizures. Inside, your body is at war with itself. Instead of slowing down, your metabolism will often speed up, pushing your temperature even higher.

The obvious place to start: Better education and warning. The National Weather Service already issues advisories in advance of anticipated spikes, as it did last week for South Florida, where it predicted “feels like” temperatures in the range of 105-111 degrees — clearly in the danger zone for most humans.

But those warnings might not reach those who need to hear them. Extreme heat advisories should follow the model set up for big, dangerous weather events such as hurricanes, including easy-to-decode levels of threat assessment, advisories on how and when people should protect themselves against dangerously high temperatures and other in-the-moment information that people need to make smart decisions.

Your liver, kidneys and brain start to shut down, then your blood vessels shred. You begin to hemorrhage, purple bruises blossoming across your skin. You are within minutes of becoming one of approximately 1,300 Americans who die each year of heat-related illness. 

Perhaps, you may survive with rapid medical attention — but the chances of permanent brain damage or other long-term effects are significant.

For Floridians at the highest level of risk, warnings won’t be enough. There must be a level of infrastructure needed to deal with high heat. The CDC has suggested several ideas worthy of public investment, including the establishment of community cooling stations for those who don’t have access to air conditioning and urban forestry programs that can lower temperatures in intensely developed areas.

These are the easy solutions. Then it gets tough, because many of the needed changes fall into one of two areas.

How Floridians must respond: First: Economic support for those who cannot afford the energy required to stay cool. State and federal governments should consider subsidizing power costs for low-income households that kick in during hot months. But they should also investigate the potential of lower-cost solutions such as evaporative air conditioning units (also known as swamp coolers). These predate refrigerant-based air conditioning systems and require so little energy that many can be operated through USB connections.

The other required step: Restrictions on employers who might otherwise keep their workers in high-heat conditions with inadequate access to shade or water. This will cause Florida’s two biggest industries — agriculture and tourism — to scream bloody murder. Those protests should be viewed in this light: Would anyone dare to argue that companies had the right to force workers to cut ferns or sell theme-park balloons in the middle of a hurricane?

Some might still debate the causes of global warming. ❓❗ 

But the impact of global warming is undeniable. Most years, extreme heat already claims more lives than hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, flooding and mudslides combined, and it’s only getting worse. Our leaders must come to grips with the need to take heat seriously, as the major health threat that it is, or more will die. And Florida will be among the first to bear the grim toll of that failure.

The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board 

Immigration reform needed to welcome people who want to start a new life in America

Why are we afraid to welcome immigrants?

Echo opinion letter published in the Orlando Sentinel:

Dear Editor: For the last three decades, at least, we have been talking about a solution to the immigration issue. 

America needs the branches of government getting together to address a common ground that is fair, workable and offers the resolve to allow people from other countries who want or need to come to the United States to start a new life for their families, enjoy the freedoms we offer, and feel safe. 

Immigrants should know that if they come here they have to work hard, learn the language, pay their taxes, show respect for others and be a good citizen. They are still free to to keep their culture.

Of course there have to be rules that are understood and accepted by the government, and it’s necessary to address this issue from the position of our Christian (Maine Writer, remember the Beatitudes Matthew 5:1-12) values, regardless of religious preferences. 

We should not be afraid to say this. 

I arrived in this county 60-plus years ago with no job, no money, a wife and one small child. I feels blessed to have had this opportunity. My story is the story of thousands, even millions from so many countries.

What are we afraid of in welcoming new people? Jobs will always be available for people who want to work hard.

Lino Rodriguez in Maitland Florida

Another Mad King Syndrome: Ron DeSantis and his Trumpzi puppeteer

Ron DeSantis Is a Man Of No Qualities

(Donald Trump has competition for the title of being a "Mad King", described by William Shakespeare in "King Lear".

Echo essay published in Esquire Magazine by Jeff VanderMeer.

As Ron DeSantis provides safe harbor for oppression in Florida and exports bad policy across the country, it's clear that he represents an existential threat to American democracy—even if he fails to become president.

Ron DeSantis with his puppeteer TFG (The Former Guy) Trump.

After four years of punishing the people of Florida with actions largely meant to increase his personal power, Governor Ron DeSantis appears to be bringing his corrosive brand of politics to a presidential run. But DeSantis only looks like an even remotely reasonable or centrist candidate when viewed in a line-up between his gubernatorial predecessor Rick Scott and ex-U.S. catastrophe Donald Trump. That he sits comfortably between the two, accompanied by a host of extremists, should be cause for alarm, not suggestions that he is anything other than an authoritarian.

While the slogan “Make America Florida” gains traction on bumper stickers and pundits debate DeSantis’ electability, DeSantis continues to plunge ahead with culture wars in schools that sunder communities, gaslight Floridians about the environment, and implement anti-scientific policies across life-or-death situations. But there is still—even after three years of a badly mishandled pandemic—nothing to apologize for, nothing to be accountable for, and nothing to be transparent about, to anyone.

A Florida political system that has over the course of several Republican governors maximized voter suppression and gerrymandering has contributed to DeSantis’ unprecedented ability to centralize power in Florida and muffled most effective opposition. It is in this context of restricting voting rights, too, that disastrous policy decisions opposed by millions of Floridians have been portrayed as somehow not subpar, but superlative.

In certain quarters, these (IMO Maine Writer- draconian!) policies are bally-hoo’d as a form of “freedom” and “liberty.”


Just like destructive Republican governors before him feathered the nest for DeSantis's success by destroying safeguards and institutions—making it possible for DeSantis to become more predatory and authoritarian—Trump has set the table for DeSantis at the national level. Trump's coalition of white nationalists, conspiracy theorists, disgruntled rightwing journalists, and evangelicals now becomes how DeSantis, who otherwise might be unelectable, can see a path to the White House.

With DeSantis’ explicit approval, the Republican-led Florida legislature stamped out as much home rule as possible, continuing Scott’s legacy, and rendered cities and counties less able to govern effectively. This helps the special interests that fuel DeSantis’ campaigns, but does nothing for ordinary citizens.

DeSantis’ unchecked power in the state is reflected in his ability to bully that same legislature into a redistricting that removed traditionally Black voting blocs, despite the legislature preferring a more moderate plan. That he worked with national operatives to push this effort to completion hints at the networks DeSantis already has access to, even before formally announcing a run for president.

Where Scott, an austerity Republican, had not already retired or removed competency within state agencies during purges disguised as fiscal responsibility, DeSantis has continued to politicize as many positions as possible, removing vital experience from state agencies. As a feature, not a bug, of these actions, DeSantis has made many of these institutions much less transparent and accountable to Floridians.

But DeSantis has crossed boundaries Scott only dreamed of breaching—including a shameless streak of political pay-to-play. A October 2022 Tampa Bay Times article revealed that “since assuming office in 2019, DeSantis has accepted roughly $3.3 million in campaign donations from 250 people he selected for leadership roles—a 75% increase in the number of donors appointed” over Scott’s first term in office.

As DeSantis blurs the line between matters of state and his personal campaigns, he often talks about fighting the “corporate media” as a sop to his supporters, portraying himself as a modern-day American hero standing up for the common man (and, sometimes, woman). Yet his campaigns have largely been backed and supported by huge corporate conglomerates or elites.

DeSantis’ recent efforts to remove a state’s attorney reelected by the voters and reappoint an extremist judge rejected by the voters demonstrate a willingness to keep pushing the legal limits of his authority, in pursuit of more centralized control of Florida. Blurring the lines between the governorship and his campaign, DeSantis celebrated his executive order suspending “woke” Hillsborough prosecutor Andrew Warren Marshall at a rally described as “campaign-like,” complete with cheering crowds. Internal communications from the governor’s office suggest DeSantis wanted a fight with a Democratic attorney, to further push the governor’s “woke war.”

But what has DeSantis been successful at?

Helping DeSantis is a personal media machine that includes Christina Pushaw, former press secretary, constantly on the attack on social media. Within DeSantis’s dismal inner circle of anti-vaxxers, big developers, and people who have been arrested, Christine Pushaw serves proudly as a kind of resurrected middle-school bully. Pushaw spends a lot of her time punishing journalists on social media, acting as if facts were hand grenades strapped to puppies. This coarsening of the discourse makes almost every issue in Florida a slow grind to move through, but also as gray and lifeless as a Brutalist trompe-l’oeil. There is also, in all of this, a trickle-down effect of local Florida politicians fearing Ron, using Ron as an excuse, acting like Ron or like Ron’s inner circle, employing Ron’s tactics, giving voice to his rhetoric, believing what they think Ron believes (making it reasonable), worshipping Ron’s success.

But what has he been successful at?

Ron DeSantis will tell Americans in his new book Courage to Be Free (❓) 

Ron DeSantis is a man of no qualities!

...that his heart “was always for the people of Florida” and pay lip service to Florida’s rich history. He will paint himself, possibly into a corner, as a hero—a David to the Goliath of corporate media, even as he takes millions from huge corporations. He will tell you he is saving the Everglades, even though most of his promises remain unkept and the measures undertaken inadequate.

DeSantis will likely exaggerate a military career that resulted in him receiving a Bronze star for classified duties during 2007-2008, only for him to leverage that honor by characterizing his service as a lawyer as indistinguishable from being a fighter pilot in ads for his 2022 campaign. Another DeSantis ad stated that God made DeSantis on the eighth day because, as God allegedly put it, “I need a protector.”

Politically, DeSantis’ first job as a member of the House of Representatives (2012-2018) displayed more evidence of his allegiance to corporate interests than being “God’s defender” of ordinary Floridians. The League of Conservation Voters gave DeSantis a 2% rating for voting against clean water and air efforts, and for Big Agriculture—only pushing back against a Big Sugar provision in a Farm Bill. These votes presaged a governorship greenwashed by its second year, despite DeSantis anointing himself a new Teddy Roosevelt of conservation.

Details about DeSantis’ military career may be sacrosanct, but recent insight into his stint as a high school teacher in Georgia provides a view of DeSantis that also undermines the idea of divine guidance. In addition to being “cocky and arrogant”—not traditional Christian values—DeSantis fraternized with students in an unprofessional way, made Black students uncomfortable with comments dismissive of slavery, and displayed “cruelty in humor” during a public prank in which he coerced a student to chug milk until the student vomited.

And while national pundits applauded DeSantis’ hurricane response, what many Floridians saw was DeSantis in spotless wading boots delaying disaster relief for a photo op while wearing the tasteless advert of a reelection badge. Or DeSantis admonishing hypothetical looters as survivors worried about digging through the wreckage to find their dead. Or, even as Florida enjoyed record surpluses and still sometimes wearing his reelection swag, DeSantis establishing and stumping for a potentially fraught private nonprofit fund for the hurricane’s victims.
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But much worse still, in terms of disaster, DeSantis had already politicized the pandemic. COVID broke communities in Florida, even if some still do not know they were broken, or how broken. It left communities to fend for themselves, even in counties that tried to provide decent messaging, all while people we loved died or got sick, or got sick and died later.

Into these horrors, DeSantis inserted a counterfactual surgeon general who did not believe in masks or vaccines, and punished businesses and school boards that tried to follow the facts by instituting local mask and vaccine mandates. A state-wide communication failure and full-on disinformation campaign arguably increased death and suffering–culminating in DeSantis’ call to establish a COVID jury to help justify his decisions. DeSantis used his messaging, and his proxies’ messaging, not just to push a political agenda rather than a public health agenda, but to break down political resistance at the same time. DeSantis, in part, built his political machine on making Florida sicker.

Despite these discrepancies between image and substance, DeSantis will try to portray himself as a benevolent, successful man, “presidential” in the sense of not doing any of the things he has done as a politician. Helping that narrative will be his wife Casey DeSantis, who will provide the optics of a perfect family, scripted by a skilled media team. Her attire at her husband’s inauguration generated praise conjuring up the illusion of Jackie Kennedy, as cynically intended.

But there’s no Camelot waiting at the end of a DeSantis presidential run. Along the way, we will be subjected to more manipulative optics and endure, insult to injury, the strained extended metaphors common to authoritarians, including the one at the heart of DeSantis’ inaugural speech: “In captaining the ship of state, we choose to navigate the boisterous sea of liberty rather than cower in the calm docks of despotism.”

Normalization of cruelty matters. Normalization of authoritarianism matters. Normalization of Orwellian approaches to governance, anti-democratic to their core, matter. It is dangerous to let fascism become a concept that lazily yawns and breathes in the morning air, whistles a cheerful tune on the way to a café coffee and a breakfast sandwich, before getting down to the serious work. Thankful that, once more, it has not had to explain itself.

It is dangerous to let fascism become a concept that lazily yawns and breathes in the morning air.

The business of state, which for DeSantis is often the business of his own personal politics, will continue. His fifteen-week abortion ban may become even more restrictive and concealed carry of weapons without a permit is back on the legislative agenda. In addition to a brutal campaign of suppression of queer identity, DeSantis has supported his crusade against Critical Race Theory (CRT) by trying to destroy New College with extremist (and incompetent) board appointees, and by sending a letter to all public universities asking for information on their race and diversity teachings—even as professors quit rather than subject themselves to censorship. CRT allows far-right Republicans to combine a strawman with a bogeyman in pursuit of the perfect bogus woke war, while the demonization makes it hard for colleges to effectively serve their students.

DeSantis may be less flamboyant than Trump, but he supports a style and substance of governance just as inflammatory. He weaponizes others’ emotions to create an image of himself as imbued with the qualities of some quasi-religious savior of Florida while actually making people’s lives worse. He then, over and over again, continues to inflame the discourse so the sleight of hand that is his charisma doesn’t gutter out—because the issue contains the igniting ember, not anything in DeSantis’ personality.

What this means for a DeSantis presidential campaign is unclear, despite pundits doing what they do best: throwing civilized barbaric yawps into the void and hoping the echo that comes back is the future. The chaotic DeSantis style of “governance,” from which it is difficult to pivot to whatever center remains, has only two clear benefits: it gives DeSantis more state control and more national media coverage.

The most memorable description of DeSantis at the beginning of his turn to the far right came from Nate Monroe of the Jacksonville Times-Union, who wrote that Florida’s “mad king” was “sinking ever deeper into strange and dark fever dreams.” Monroe was referring to DeSantis’ “Darwinian COVID-19 herd immunity experiment,” hiring of COVID conspiracy theorists, and as the pandemic raged, a crackdown on nonviolent Black Lives Matters protestors in the state by expanding “Stand Your Ground” laws to absolve motorists driving into marchers. (In 2022, this law would be condemned by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of on Racial Discrimination.)

This is the Ron DeSantis of Florida, who wants to become the Ron DeSantis of America❗ OMG!

In the end, it may not matter whether DeSantis is a “mad king,” a cipher like Rick Scott, an ideologue, an oligarch, an autocrat, or a rather ordinary politician in the right place at the right time. The effects of DeSantis’ actions remain the same, while in his rhetoric he often takes the term “bully pulpit” as literally as possible.

Mad King DeSantis❗ 

Florida and its people don’t deserve this desecration—no place does, even as DeSantis and his Republican predecessors have managed to turn an absolute paradise into a place that is close to a failed state. Because what Ron DeSantis does, at base—including to his base—is simple. He inflicts damage in pursuit of political gain. On purpose and with abandon and with no regard for collateral harm.

What trickles down, then, in the end, along with all of this “freedom,” is nepotism, corruption, cruelty, greed, and—both by design and as a byproduct of all the rest—shockingly bad ideas about governance.

Why would you want any of this inflicted on the nation?

This is the Ron DeSantis of Florida, who wants to become the Ron DeSantis of America. To tell us to our dying day that we are not communities of loving grace and communion, that we are not all connected, that acts of loving kindness are for fools and traitors. To tell us that only some of us matter, not all of us.

Maybe, in the end, if we do not heed the warnings, DeSantis will tell us, in a thousand lacerating ways, direct and indirect… that none of us matter.

JEFF VANDERMEER

Jeff VanderMeer is the New York Times-bestselling author of Annihilation and twelve other novels. His nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Nation, Current Affairs, and many others.

Donald Trump was never found "innocent" about his communications with Russia

Read the full Justice Department indictment at this PBS site here.

Russia if you are listening from Book People

The Department of Justice released an unsealed federal indictment of former President Donald Trump, with 37 felony counts related to the mishandling of classified documents, obstructing justice and making false statements.

Trump and Putin in Helsinki

A Repository opinion letter writer on June 11 describes what he calls “the false narrative of collusion between Russia’s President Putin and President Trump.” 

The problem here is that the narrative is not false.

In the current case of secret government documents held by Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, he does not seem to be denying anything he is accused of doing. He says it is not a crime. He says he acted within his presidential powers and legal rights. But he does not deny the underlying accusations.

Trump famously said in a public speech during the 2016, campaign, “Russia, if you’re listening;” − as he invited the Russian government to hack into American computers.

One of Trump’s campaign chairmen was Paul Manafort*, who was found guilty as a result of the Russia investigation. Trump gave him a presidential pardon.

Several Trump associates and supporters have been found guilty in court. But like the old joke about “an officer and a gentleman” being two different men, a legal judgment of “not guilty” is not the same thing as a declaration of innocence. Trump is not "innocent."

Although I agree with several of Joe Biden’s decisions and policies, I believe he is naïve and “Pollyannaish” on the subject of Trump and presidential powers.

I would have told Biden in January 2021, to campaign heavily against the power of presidential pardons. He should have said this is a bad thing for presidents to have such powers, and we need to change it. Even if Biden could not have got any anti-Trump constitutional amendments passed, he should have tried.

All of the high-sounding words about our great “justice system” mean nothing, if a president can just − on a whim − destroy it all with the stroke of a pen.

Eric Haubert, Massillon, Ohio

This article originally appeared on The Repository, A Canton Ohio newspaper: Letter to the editor: Trump is not 'innocent'

*In 2019, during their fourth day of deliberation, the jury found Manafort guilty on 8 of the 18 felony counts, including five counts of filing false tax returns, two counts of bank fraud, and one count of failing to disclose a foreign bank account.

Trump is preoccupied with he, himself and I: Unqualified for elected office

Donald Trump did not — and does not — recognize any distinction between himself and the office of the presidency. He is it, and it is him. How Is It Possible That We Are Still Talking About This Man?OMG! Donald Trump declared that he is running for president yet again.  (In my Maine Writer opinion, Donald Trump is a delusional old man!)

Echo opinion published in The New York Times by Jamelle Bouie.

Trump's delusional view is as close a fundamental rejection of American constitutionalism as you can imagine — and it helps explain much of the former president’s behavior in and out of office. It is why he could not abide any opposition to anything he tried to pursue, why he raged against the “deep state,” why he strained against every limit on his authority, why he rejected the very idea that he could lose the 2020 presidential election and why he decided he could simply take classified documents to his home in Florida.

For Trump, he is the president. He is the government. The documents, in his mind, belonged to him.

What this means in practical terms is that as Trump runs for president, he has promised to bring key parts of the federal government under his control as soon as he takes office. 

Trump wants to clear out as much of the executive branch as possible and swap professionals for true believers — a new crop of officials whose chief loyalty is to the power and authority of Donald Trump, rather than their office or the letter of the law. And in particular, Trump wants to clear house at the Department of Justice, which is investigating him for mishandling those documents.

Trump cannot tolerate the existence of an independent Justice Department, and so, if made president again, he’ll simply put it under his thumb.

Obviously, if it is a preoccupation for Trump, it is a preoccupation for the Republican Party. And in addition to covering for the former president in the face of federal charges, the other Republicans vying for the nomination have adopted his view that the independence of federal law enforcement violates his (and potentially their) authority as president.

Ron DeSantis — whose tight grip on the operations of government has been a hallmark of his tenure as governor of Florida — made his distaste for an independent law enforcement apparatus clear in a set of recent comments. “I think presidents have bought into this canard that they’re independent, and that’s one of the reasons why they’ve accumulated so much power over the years,” he said of the Justice Department. “We will use the lawful authority that we have.”

Former Vice President Mike Pence has promised to “clean house at the highest levels of the Justice Department” if elected president. “Lady Justice is blind,” Pence said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And there are tens of millions of Americans who have reason to believe that the blinders have been taken off and that we haven’t seen equal treatment under the law.”

Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina has said, similarly, that if elected president, he will “clean out the political appointments in the Department of Justice to restore confidence and integrity in the D.O.J.”

As to what ends?

It is not hard to imagine a world where a second-term  President Trump orders a newly purged and reconstituted Justice Department to investigate any groups or individuals that happen to be a target of MAGA rage, whether they broke the law or not.

Trump has upended nearly half a century of tradition with his contempt for the idea that law enforcement ought to remain separate and independent of the White House. 

But, also, Trump's actions grow naturally from an increasingly vocal faction within the conservative movement, as well as reflects a key change in the nature and composition of the Republican coalition.

The GOP's American psychosis didn't start with Donald Trump. It won't end with him, either. A line runs from the 1964 Republican National Convention to Trump’s Jan. 6 riot. It has zigged and zagged over the years. Opinion published in Think Opinion Analysis Essays.

• With regard to the former, the vocal faction, there is the recent enthusiasm among so-called nationalist or populist conservatives for using the state to enforce a particular social order. 

• And with regard to the latter, a change in the Republican coalition, there is the way that, influenced by Trump, the Republican Party has begun to take on the values and attitudes of the small-time capitalist and the family firm.

Of course, business owners have always been a critical part of state and local Republican politics. The nation’s state legislatures and county boards of supervisors are full of the proprietors of family-owned car dealerships, fast food franchises, construction companies, landscaping businesses and regional distribution firms. 

And in fact, many of the most visible and important families in conservative politics have their own family firms, albeit supersized ones: the Kochs, the DeVoses, the Crows and the Trumps.

Among the elements that distinguish this closely held model of ownership from that of, say, a multinational corporation is the degree to which the business is understood to be an extension of the business owner, who appears to exercise total authority over the place of production, except in cases where the employees have a union (one of the many reasons members of this class are often intensely and exceptionally anti-labor).

If the nature of our work shapes our values — if the habits of mind we cultivate on the job extend to our lives beyond it — then someone in a position of total control over a closely held business like, say, the Trump empire might bring those attitudes, those habits and pathologies, to political office.

Ron DeSantis has not improved the quality of life in Florida

This opinion letter was published in TCPalm, Stuart Florida news:

OMG! No! President Ron DeSantis? Let's hope not❗

Ron DeSantis should in no way become president of our great country.

ROYAL PALM BEACH, Fla. — Florida homeowners are still getting sticker shock from their property insurance premiums in 2022.  The average yearly cost to keep a property insurance policy in this state is nearly double what it is in the rest of the country.

What this man D.Santis (or whatever he says his name is) has done to us in Florida, I can only imagine what he'll do as president!

Giving the insurance companies higher rates shows he doesn't care about the middle class. And what about letting the government decide when a woman can have an abortion?

At one time, I thought he was a good man, but I would not vote for him if he was the last man on planet Earth.

Roy Pelella, Stuart, Florida

Trump refused to listen to his legal team but now he is "shocked! shocked!" because he is indicted with 37 felonies

Echo opinion letter published in TribLive (Pittsburgh Tribune)

What was Trump thinking❓ 37 felonies❗

I am in utter disbelief that people not only continue to defend Donald Trump on this latest indictment, but that they also try to draw comparisons to others who had classified documents. 

Mike Pence and President Biden immediately turned everything over and allowed full investigations to be conducted.

Trump was given well over a year to return the documents, with his own lawyers advising to turn them over. The Justice Department said if he cooperated, this could be resolved. Instead, he moved and hid boxes, tricked his lawyer into certifying everything was returned when it wasn’t and was subpoenaed again; Trump’s own staff reported he was hiding the boxes.

The indictment reveals that he refused to listen to the advice of his legal team and lied to them and the National Archives. The best part of the indictment is the recording of Trump showing off that he not only had secret documents but wishing he had had a chance to declassify them. The immaturity blows me away — like a little kid showing off some cool new toy. No one wonders why his lawyers have been resigning and Trump is having trouble getting a new legal team together.

The only part his blindly loyal followers say that I will agree with is that he is being treated differently than others. 

Ha❗ Anyone else would have been locked away a long time ago❗❗😠No one believes it when he says “if they come for me, they will come for you.” Right? Unless, of course, you committed 37 felonies.

Karla Thomas in Hempfield, Pennsylvania

Donald Trump and his demented mind syndrome

Trump’s Brazen and Breathtaking Defense
The former President claims that if he just calls a document personal—whether it plausibly is or is not—no one can even question him about it, published in The New Yorker, by Amy Davidson Sorkin.

At the Heart of the Documents Case: Trump’s Attachment to His Boxes. The former president has long stowed papers and odds and ends in cartons that he liked to keep close. His aides called it the “beautiful mind” material*, reported in The New York Times. Secret government documents were found strewed on the floor in a room at Mar-A-Lago. (Maine Writer- In my opinion, tRump's hoarding of papers is more like trying to describe a demented and irrational mind syndrome.)

The former guy Donald Trump seems to collect people who push extreme legal theories, and in the days before January 6, 2021, a number of them were swarming around Vice-President Mike Pence.

Their big idea was that Pence could use his position presiding over a joint session of Congress to toss out the electoral votes of several states—and that to do so would be totally constitutional. 

To Pence, it didn’t add up. The American Revolution had been fought to get rid of a king, he wrote in his memoir: “The last thing the framers of the Constitution would have intended would be to confer unchecked authority on one individual.”

Trump has a different view. He made that clear, after appearing in federal court in Miami for his arraignment on thirty-one felony charges of unauthorized retention of documents “relating to the national defense,” in violation of the Espionage Act of 1917, and six additional felony charges alleging that he conspired to obstruct justice, and concealed and lied about the documents. (The Espionage Act, despite its name, is not confined to spying and is often used in cases involving government secrets.) 

In fact, the indictment was brought by the special counsel Jack Smith. Many of the documents were marked classified; many were kept in cardboard boxes that were moved around among a ballroom, a bathroom, and a closet at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. He pleaded not guilty, calling the indictment “the Boxes Hoax,” and blaming it on President Biden and “his closest thugs, misfits, and Marxists.” 

Unbelievably, the root cause of the hoax, to Trump’s delusional mind, is the prosecutors’ unwillingness to acknowledge the power of Trump.

“The President enjoys unconstrained authority to make decisions regarding disposal of documents,” he told supporters at his Bedminster golf club, hours after his arraignment. By way of explanation for this assertion of power, which would go well beyond a President’s ability to classify and declassify documents, he gave a garbled rendition of a 2010 lawsuit in which Judicial Watch, a conservative activist group, sued the National Archives and Records Administration (nara) in an attempt to force it to gain possession of audiocassettes of Bill Clinton speaking with a historian while he was President, which he had kept. (Trump calls this “the Clinton Socks Case,” because the cassettes were kept for a time in Clinton’s sock drawer; Socks was also the name of the Clintons’ cat, who was not involved.) The case wasn’t about classified materials but about the distinction between personal and Presidential records, and the extent to which the Presidential Records Act allows the President to draw that line. The judge ruled against Judicial Watch.

One would think that this decision—which involved very different circumstances, was limited in scope, and never reached the Supreme Court—would not be of much use to Trump. How could he assert that documents marked “Top Secret” which concerned the “military capabilities of a foreign country” (cited in count seventeen of the indictment) or “nuclear capabilities” (count five) are personal records❗❓😖 Those documents were generated by other executive agencies, according to the indictment, and not during a cozy conversation with a historian.

Trump’s answer is brazen and breathtaking: he claims that if he just calls a document personal—whether it plausibly is or is not—no one can even question him about it. “Whatever documents a President decides to take with him, he has the right,” Trump said. “It’s an absolute right. This is the law.” 

It is not the law, and it would be absurd to think that the P.R.A., (Presidential Records Act) which was enacted after Watergate precisely to limit a President’s ability to hold on to official records, is actually a license to loot. By his own reasoning, Trump could take the original parchment Constitution, stash it in one of his boxes, and walk away with it.

Trump seemed to expect that the Bedminster crowd would cheer his boasts about having the power to, in effect, lie to National Archives and Records Administration (NRA) and to the country, and many people did. In polls, he leads the field for the G.O.P. Presidential nomination by a margin that has only grown wider since his previous indictment, in April, in New York, on state charges related to an alleged hush-money payment. (Trump pleaded not guilty.) Primary season is looking to take the form of a legal demolition derby, with another indictment expected soon in Georgia, this one involving alleged efforts by Trump to overturn the 2020 election results; Smith may also be working on additional federal charges against Trump, related to January 6th. The cases may not be resolved by Election Day, 2024. A felony conviction would not preclude Trump’s becoming the president again.

The question of Presidential power does factor into the documents case. Smith may have turned to the Espionage Act in part because, perhaps surprisingly, a prosecutor does not need to show that national-defense information held without authorization was ever classified—thus avoiding a fight over which of the documents are still classified. (According to the indictment, there are recordings of Trump saying that a number of them were not declassified.) The statute itself is disturbingly vague as to what a prosecutor does need to show, beyond that a defendant should have been aware that such information “could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.” Also, according to current case law, it should be closely held by the government.

Trump’s retention of the documents and his careless storage of them—in a club that hosted thousands of guests—appear to easily clear the bar for an Espionage Act conviction. (The obstruction-related charges also look strong: Trump does not seem to have been subtle in his box-shuffling scheme.) But it is true that the Espionage Act bar is low, and, as a result, the law has been abused, before and after various amendments. It was the means of prosecuting pacifists during the First World War; Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, and died last week; and Reality Winner, a National Security Agency translator who leaked a single classified report about Russian election interference in 2018—during the Trump Administration. She was sentenced to more than five years in prison.

Trump’s trials thus may offer an opportunity to think about how we police secrecy. At the same time, Trump is already pushing his supporters to accept a dangerous interpretation of Presidential power—and of his personal power, which in his mind may be the same thing. We appear to be headed toward a period in American politics that is particularly unconstrained and unchecked, in ways that the Framers, as Pence would put it, might never have intended but would certainly have feared. 

Published in the print edition of the June 26, 2023, issue, with the headline “Unchecked Boxes.”

*A Beautiful Mind, is a reference to the title of a book and movie depicting the life of John F. Nash Jr., the mathematician with schizophrenia played in the film by Russell Crowe, who covered his office with newspaper clippings, believing they held a Russian code he needed to crack.

Donald Trump the former guy will be in the courts during his political campaigning and spending millions for lawyers

Donald Trump’s indictment on charges of mishandling classified documents is set to play out in a federal court in Florida. 

Now the Republicans that support the former guy must adhere to the rule of law. 

The former guy Donald Trump in court

Echo opinion letter published in TribLive: 

The wrongminded responses of congressional Republicans to the former guy Trump’s indictment, as described in the article, “Trump’s GOP defenders in Congress leap into action on charges after months of preparation” (June 10, TribLIVE) show, that these supporters are more concerned about Donald Trump than about the safety of our nation and the rule of law. On the one hand, they say that no one is above the law. On the other hand, they make it clear that they view Trump as being above the law.

Trump’s violations against the retention of top-secret documents, including those dealing with nuclear weapons, as well as indications that he twice showed such documents to people who had no clearance, are highly serious. Anyone who cares about the United States and the rule of law should want the allegation to be dealt with through the courts.

When was it that the party once concerned with national security lost its way?

Robert J. Reiland in O'Hara Township, Pennsylvania

Anti-vaxxers are now stalking physicians: Are restraining orders needed?

Echo essay published in MedPage Today, news by Vineet Arora, M.D., Tricia Pendergrast, MD and Regina Royan, MD:

While the nation has declared the COVID-19 public health emergency over, the politicization of healthcare and medicine continues to result in harassment of doctors and scientists.

Just this past weekend, vaccine scientist Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, became the target of significant online harassment after criticizing a Joe Rogan podcast episode featuring Presidential candidate and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and debunking many of Kennedy's claims as misinformation. After being challenged to debate Kennedy, Hotez was approached unannounced outside his homeby a couple of anti-vax activis ts demanding answers. Whether it is about vaccination, reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ health, or advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion, doctors and scientists continue to face attacks online and off.

Among a sample of over 350 physicians and scientists online, over two-thirds reported being harassed on social media. The most commonly reported reason for harassment was advocacy, with those who advocated for public health issues more commonly facing harassment. While no one is "safe" from harassment, personal attacks on social media were not equally distributed. Those who identified as women, nonbinary, Black or Hispanic, LGBTQ+ or disabled were significantly more likely to report harassment due to their identity.

While "online harassment" may sound like annoying trolling, our study paints a much more nefarious picture of online harassment of physicians and scientists. In open-ended comments, many participants described detailed and targeted incidents of harassment for the expressed purpose of harming a professional's career (i.e. negative online reviews, reports to an employer) all the way to threatening violent bodily injury, including rape, against the professional or their family members. 

In a few cases, the harassers eventually moved offline and went so far as to physically appear at the professional's place of work, and in one case, even physically assaulted the victim. Our findings are strikingly similar to the escalation in the Hotez incident over the weekend.

Despite the harrowing nature of these incidents, physicians and scientists disclosed that when they did report these online threats to either law enforcement or their employer, it was to no avail. 

As a result, several stated they have started posting online less regularly or have stayed stay away from controversial topics due to fear of harassment. As one subject reported, "I've had to take a step back from a lot of health discourse. This constant battle is taking a lot out of me. Unfortunately, I tend to now stay out of it."

In light of these findings, it's important to consider the consequences of such online attacks on physicians and scientists.

First and foremost, online threats are not and should not be seen as harmless. As evidenced by the bomb threats to Boston Children's Hospital and children's hospitals around the country due to provision of life-saving gender affirming care, online threats can incite actual threats of physical violence that jeopardize the safety of both medical professionals and the communities they serve. 

Robert Kennedy Jr. is a politician, and writer who has promoted anti-vaccine propaganda and public health-related conspiracy theories.

Moreover, online attacks of medical and science professionals take an emotional toll on a workforce that is already facing a high degree of burnout and depression. 

Given that recent data suggest that 1 in 5 physicians already plan to leave the workforce, online attacks for those who continue to work will only exacerbate the problem. A telling example comes from a study of public health officials from last year. Of the more than 200 public health officials who had recently left their post, over one third had experienced some form of harassment.

Furthermore, these online attacks appear to be effective in silencing the voices of physicians and scientists. This is especially concerning given that those with minoritized identities are at greater risk of being silenced, at the time when we should be elevating and supporting their voices. Given the large health equity gaps and continued health challenges faced by women and minority populations, it is particularly important that physicians and scientists from these groups are supported. 

Retaining these individuals in our workforce is even more critical given the continued underrepresentation of women and minorities in STEM and the already high rates of attrition these groups face. Lastly, silencing the voices of medical and scientific professionals can also facilitate the unchecked proliferation of misinformation online. At a time when trust in scientific institutions is already low, it is essential to retain these trusted messengers within minority communities.

For these reasons, addressing the online harassment of physicians and scientists is paramount. Supporting physicians and scientists who are victims of online harassment is key.

Professional societies and employers can also facilitate support through rapid response mental health support for those experiencing online harassment, akin to the online harassment that has been produced by Pen America for journalists. 

Recently, the University of Chicago published a guide to managing online harassment, which includes steps you can take to report the incident as well as steps the university can take to mitigate the consequences. Leaders of professional societies can also lobby for stricter regulations of social media companies given the toll online harassment puts on their constituents. Social media companies should also be held responsible for the deliberate misuse of their platforms to harm individuals. While disheartening to see that Twitter disbanded its unit that previously tackled online harassment and misinformation, we are encouraged that YouTube is proactively labeling credible health information. Lastly, policymakers can intervene. For example, Colorado has recently criminalized doxxing of personal information of public health workers or their families. Similar legislation can easily cover a broader population of workers, including doctors and scientists.

As long as doctors and scientists continue to face death threats, doxxing (publishing private or identifying information), sexual harassment, and other forms of harassment online, we risk silencing their voices at a time they are needed most. It is time to condemn online attacks against physicians and scientists to ensure the health and longevity of our workforce, and to promote sharing of scientific knowledge freely and constructively. This will ensure we can ultimately reap the benefit of scientific progress in an equitable and just way.

Vineet Arora, MD, MAPP, is dean for medical education at The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. Tricia Pendergrast, MD, is a PGY1 anesthesiology resident at the University of Michigan Hospitals. Regina Royan, MD, MPH is an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Michigan.