Donald Trump and maga Republicans are AGAIN creating a false narrative about how horrible political violence is an American epedemic

With appreciation to the opinion writer Benamin Wallace-Wells, I must say some of the graphics described are difficult to read but important nonetheless.  

Charlie Kirk’s Murder and the Crisis of Political Violence
After a shooting with obvious political resonance, news about the perpetrator’s motives rarely brings clarity.  Opinion published in The New Yorker by Benjamin Wallace-Wells.  

Full disclosre, I knew nothing about Charlie Kirk until after his brutal assassinaation in Utah, in broad daylight, while hewas speaking to a group of students.  His short bio: Charles James Kirk (October 14, 1993 – September 10, 2025) was an American right-wing political activist, entrepreneur, and media personality. He co-founded the conservative organization Turning Point USA (TPUSA) in 2012 and was its executive director. He published a range of books and hosted The Charlie Kirk Show, a talk radio program. Kirk was a prominent voice of the MAGA movement within the Republican Party, and was considered to have become an icon of modern American conservatism. Kirk was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs of Arlington Heights and Prospect Heights, briefly attending Harper College before dropping out after one semester to pursue political activism full-time.

UTAH- Three thousand people attended the conservative Turning Point USA event at which Charlie Kirk spoke on Wednesday, September 10, 2025, on an outdoor green at Utah Valley University. The sheer size of that crowd—in the morning, at a school in a suburb of Provo, and even if some were there to protest—is just another piece of evidence that Kirk, in his years-long campaign to inspire a hard-right turn among people in their teens and twenties, had built a formidable movement. There was a Q&A portion, and someone asked how many transgender Americans had been mass shooters in the past decade, to which Kirk replied, “Too many.” The person next asked, “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last ten years?” Kirk said, “Counting or not counting gang violence?” Then, in videos, there is a single, audible crack, and Kirk’s body jerks and then goes limp. In the audience, heads turn: someone had shot him, apparently from an elevated position about a hundred and fifty yards away. Soon, Kirk’s spokesman announced that he had been killed. He was thirty-one, and left behind a wife and two young children. Donald Trump, a close ally, ordered all flags flown at half-staff until Sunday evening.

Kirk’s death was brutal, and tragic. It also had the effect that terrorists aim for, of spreading political panic. In the immediate aftermath of a killing with obvious political resonance, there is a period of nervous foreboding, as the public waits for news of the perpetrator’s identity and for any hints of what might have motivated the terrible act, and braces for the recriminations to come. But, as often as not, information brings no clarity. 

We have a fairly good sense of the politics that motivated Luigi Mangione, the accused killer of the UnitedHealthcare C.E.O., and James Fields, who sped his car into a crowd of counter-protesters at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, killing a young woman.

But attempts to define the political motives of Thomas Crooks (who tried to kill Trump last summer, in Butler, Pennsylvania), or of Cody Balmer (who has been charged with firebombing Governor Josh Shapiro’s official residence, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in April), or even of Vance Boelter (the longtime anti-abortion activist who, in June, allegedly killed one Minnesota state lawmaker, along with her husband, and tried to kill another) quickly become ensnared in the problems of their apparent mental illness or a more basic incoherence. Robin Westman, who stands accused of shooting and killing two children at a Catholic church in Minneapolis last month (and whose transgender identity was the focus of many right-wing media reports), had written “Kill Donald Trump” on some weapons, and neo-Nazi slogans (“Jew gas” and “6 million wasn’t enough”) on others, and expressed alignment with the Sandy Hook shooter, Adam Lanza. The motives were strange and idiosyncratic enough that they couldn’t easily be blamed on any one partisan side.

The effect of these violent acts on politics has been easier to track. Shortly after the news of Kirk’s shooting, the former Obama Administration official and liberal pundit Tommy Vietor echoed a common sentiment when he wrote on social media, “Political violence is evil and indefensible. It’s a cancer that will feed off itself and spread.” If that is right—if violence is contagious—then that is because each act generates its own responsive pattern of fear. The news itself in recent years has been a catalogue of the ubiquity of political aggression and anticipatory dread. In 2022, a man arrived at Brett Kavanaugh’s home with a Glock and padded boots; later that year, a man broke into Nancy Pelosi’s home and tried to murder her husband with a hammer. 

Unfortunately, the threats against members of Congress have also escalated significantly in the past decade. The Republican senator Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, said at a conference this summer, “I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real.” After the shootings of lawmakers in Minnesota, the Democratic congressman Greg Landsman told the Times that every time he went out on the campaign trail he was haunted by a vision of himself lying murdered. “It’s still in my head. I don’t think it will go away,” he said.

What politicians can control is how they respond. Speaking from the Oval Office on Wednesday evening, Trump denounced his perceived enemies. “For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals,” he said, and vowed to find those he deemed responsible for “political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it.” Unlike Barack Obama, who sang “Amazing Grace” at a funeral after the mass shooting at Charleston’s Mother Emanuel church, Trump made no gesture toward common national feeling; he limited his litany of victims to those with whom he is aligned. The man sitting at the Resolute desk and blaming his enemies for political demonization—for acting “in the most hateful and despicable way”—had earlier in the week promoted a new campaign of ICE raids in Chicago with a social-media post featuring himself as Robert Duvall’s character in “Apocalypse Now” and the tag line “ ‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning . . .’ Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.” That aggression, combined with Kirk’s shooting, seemed to be literalizing the culture war, in real time.

The footage of Kirk’s murder is horrifying. His head flops; blood gushes from his neck. At a press conference afterward, the university’s police chief, who had just six officers to protect the crowd of three thousand, said, “You try to get your bases covered, and unfortunately, today, we didn’t.” It is hard to blame him. The ubiquity of weapons and the ease with which just about anyone can get them has made the protection of human lives increasingly difficult. That the threat of political violence is so endemic is one reason that what was once true of Trump’s movement is increasingly true of the country: it is distrustful, and feeling imperilled. In Utah, the people closest to the stage threw themselves to the ground quickly, and then so did hundreds of others, as they realized what was happening, in a wave that moved outward from Kirk. It was a visual manifestation of fear, spreading. ♦

Donald Trump and maga Republicans must put an end to political prosecutions based on retribution. Pam Bondi must resign.

Echo report published in Washington Monthly electronic news by James Zirin.

James Comey. the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and former District Attorney for the New York Southern District, was (barely) indicted for making false statements and obstructing Congress. 

The gossamer-thin charges, issued by a federal grand jury, came after Donald Trump pressured the attorney general to indict Comey for perjury before the statute of limitations expires next week. At issue: whether Comey lied during a Senate hearing in September 2020, about the FBI’s investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016, election, and whether his deputy, Andrew McCabe, authorized a leak to a reporter. An inspector general’s report, probably not shown to the grand jury, casts doubt that anything was untoward on Comey’s part. The president’s norm-shattering crusade against Comey included pressuring Attorney General Pam Bondi, bouncing his own respected pick for U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and replacing him with an insurance attorney who worked on Trump’s personal defense team and has no prosecutorial experience. The former is reported to have balked at making the indictments Trump wanted. The latter seemed to have no such hesitation. That Comey may well have elected Trump in 2016, by violating Department of Justice policy and giving long, rambling remarks about Hillary Clinton’s emails—a case he closed that summer and then, with great fanfare and little evidence, reopened days before the presidential election—is one of the ironies of our era when justice can best be seen through a fun house mirror. It’s a shocking development and proof that Trump’s presidency is a revenge-driven one and is in full throttle. I suspect, with great sadness, this will not be the last of the Trumpian revenge indictments.

I came of age in the law when presidents and prosecutors were made of sterner stuff. In 1967, when I joined the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, I became steeped in the Justice Department’s tradition of non-partisan independence.

Mr. Comey would head the office after 9/11, but when I was there, the head was the legendary prosecutor Bob Morgenthau, who would later become the longtime Manhattan District Attorney. Public service was in his DNA. His grandfather was the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, nominated by Woodrow Wilson. His father was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Treasury Secretary. He was a friend and appointee of President John F. Kennedy.

No one asked me about my politics when I interviewed for the job. In fact, I was a registered Republican. The “Boss,” as we affectionately called Morgenthau, expected that we, as federal prosecutors, be guided only by the facts and the law in each case. Politics was foreign to our culture. We were lawmen, not political apparatchiks. We investigated Republicans and Democrats with equal fervor, sharing and sharing alike.

Today, under Donald Trump, tradition is seriously compromised. The Communist Manifesto predicted the “withering away of the state,” and under Trump, we are witnessing it shrivel or loom all-powerful, depending on how you look at it.

Forget that Trump has diminished if not extinguished the government’s commitment to foreign aid, medical research, Medicaid, sensible economic regulation, the environment, and the arts.

Forget the First Amendment infraction that two late-night television political satirists have been forced off the air, with two others said to be “next” as part of the crackdown on media using libel actions and threats to block legitimate mergers and acquisitions. Trivial is the footnote that in the face of public outcry, The Walt Disney Company, ABC’s parent, has announced Jimmy Kimmel’s show is back on the air. The abridgement of free speech continues. Under pressure from the government, right-wing media company Sinclair, which operates nearly 40 ABC stations across the country, says it will not restore Kimmel’s show to the airwaves it licenses. It announced it will preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live! with news programming. Nexstar, which owns roughly 30 ABC affiliates and is seeking regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission for its merger with Tegna, says it will follow suit.

Forget that the executive claims it has the authority to impose harsh tariffs when that power is explicitly granted to Congress by the Constitution.

Forget that Trump threatens to send the military or ICE agents to blue cities across the country to carry out law enforcement activities, even though it is illegal under the Posse Comitatus statute.

Forget that Trump has attempted to undermine the Federal Reserve’s independence by trying to fire Lisa Cook, a Biden-appointed member of the Fed’s board of governors, over a minor issue related to a mortgage application filed before she took office or that virtually all living Fed chairs and former Treasury secretaries have filed an amicus brief spelling out the grave threat posed by this president to Fed independence.

Forget that releasing all the Justice Department files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein would be a simple matter and could erase lingering suspicion about lurid details of his 15-year relationship with Trump, but most of the documents remain secret.

Forget that three Trump supporters—Trevor Milton, Carlos Watson, and Devon Archer—each convicted of securities fraud, were pardoned, potentially undoing civil penalties that could total hundreds of millions of dollars. Also, forget that the Justice Department is ignoring the investigation of Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar. Homan allegedly took a paper bag of cash, worth $50,000, to help FBI agents posing as businessmen secure government contracts related to the border.

From all this, we might swallow hard and move on.

But the final straw is that Erik Siebert, U.S. Attorney for Eastern Virginia, was forced out of office for refusing to indict Trump’s personal enemies after reviewing the facts and the law. Siebert resigned, though Trump claims he had fired him. Siebert, a seasoned lawman appointed by Trump himself, believed there was no crime to prosecute. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office: “I want him out.” The issue? Siebert refused to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James, who successfully went after the Trump Organization for fraud and is a key figure in much of the litigation state attorneys general are bringing against Trump. Siebert’s office was looking into Jim Comey and declined to pursue charges against him.

Siebert was a seasoned and respected career prosecutor. He began his career in 2010 as an Assistant U.S. Attorney. He spent nearly 15 years prosecuting a wide range of cases, including violent crime, international and domestic drug trafficking, illegal firearms, fraud, child sexual exploitation, illegal immigration, and public corruption. Trump appointed him interim U.S. Attorney the day after his inauguration on January 21, 2025. He received awards and accolades for his prosecutions. He was a Metropolitan Police Department officer in Washington, D.C., from 2002 to 2006. His father-in-law is a former Virginia Attorney General and a counselor to Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin.

Siebert had support from Virginia Republicans and the commonwealth’s Democratic U.S. Senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine. They knew he was a dedicated career prosecutor. He had the respect of the judges in his district. When his 120-day interim term ended in May, the court unanimously reappointed him to continue in office.

Trump, the self-styled chief law enforcement officer of the country, has flagrantly abused his power. His conduct in seeking direct control over the hot-button cases in Pam Bondi’s Justice Department makes any parade of other horrors pale in comparison. We are living through a period of maximum danger for the nation.

Even before Siebert resigned, ABC News predicted that the administration would appoint a U.S. attorney to investigate James more aggressively. “It looks to me like [James] is very guilty of something,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office last week, “but I really don’t know.”

So, who would that person be, ready to do the master’s bidding? The Washington Post reported it would be Mary “Maggie” Cleary. Cleary, who has limited federal experience and has spent much of her career in the Virginia state system, joined the Justice Department’s Criminal Division in September 2025. Her LinkedIn bio states she “served in the Culpeper County Republican Committee.” She undoubtedly recognizes the immense power of the prosecutor, claiming in an essay published this year that she had been “framed” as participating in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol—an incident she says ended with her being cleared by investigators and inspiring her to pursue a U.S. attorney position.

After the Post reports on Siebert’s successor, Trump abruptly shifted his stance on Truth Social, claiming that he judged that his enemies were “all guilty as hell.” Guilty of what? If he had read the United States Code, it would probably have been the sections related to conspiracy to defraud the United States or mishandling classified documents, for which he was indicted.

Then, he proposed a different nominee, Lindsay Halligan, a “Special Assistant to the President” who has worked on the information purge at the Smithsonian. Before this, she practiced insurance law in Florida, joined his legal team, and handled her first federal case in 2022 when Mar-a-Lago was searched. She has never been involved in any prosecution. Unlike Cleary, who was somewhat qualified for an Assistant U.S. Attorney’s position, Halligan lacks the remotest experience to qualify her for this important role.

Halligan brought an indictment against Comey, and a grand jury has agreed. What now? A federal district judge might dismiss the case for lack of evidence or because this is a selective and vindictive prosecution; Trump himself has given Comey’s attorneys ammunition with his public statements. If and when the Comey case ever reaches trial, prosecutors will have the Herculean task of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to twelve jurors when there’s a mountain of evidence that the prosecution was selective. And then there is always an appeal. What a waste of judicial resources!

And beyond the prosecutions of Comey and perhaps James, Trump’s push for indictments of his two enemies could undermine public confidence that other cases are being pursued for valid reasons.

Here’s the full text of what our president said:

And the follow-on to the purge of Siebert is the pressure on Maryland U.S. Attorney Kelly O. Hayes, another veteran career prosecutor. Hayes has the purported mortgage fraud case against Senator Adam Schiff, another of Trump’s enemies, and the one against his former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, for mishandling classified documents. Hayes reportedly told associates that she well understood the grave consequences if she declined to bring a case against a Trump enemy because the evidence of criminality was insufficient.

If history doesn’t repeat itself, it’s said to rhyme. In 2006, President George W. Bush fired nine U.S. attorneys for what seemed like political reasons. His Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, appropriately resigned over the scandal. 

As Watergate sadly proved, politics has no place in public prosecutions.

If left unchecked, Trump will transform us into a nation where criminal law enforcement becomes a political tool for the president. We tend to mock Latin American countries as “banana republics,” implying they are places where the government suppresses opposition. However, there is much to learn from Latinos about respecting the rule of law. Argentina prosecuted its former president, Jorge Rafael Videla, for crimes committed during his regime, and Brazil did the same with its leader, Jair Messias Bolsonaro. Yet, we seem unable to do even that.

Opinion by James D. Zirin, author and legal analyst, is a former federal prosecutor in New York’s Southern District. He also hosts the public television talk show and podcast Conversations with Jim Zirin

Donald Trump and maga Republicans must stop the use of federal goverment law enforcement to seek political revenge

Department of (Bondi) Justice and the FBI are broken.

Echo opinion letter published in the Philadelphia Inquirer

James Comey was right. Kash Patel and Pam Bondi are acting more like Mafia consiglieres to a mob boss than public servants. Bondi knew better and was not enthusiastic about bringing charges against Comey, but unlike one of her predecessors as attorney general, Jeff Sessions, her loyalty to President Donald Trump outweighed her integrity.

Tom Homan was caught on video accepting a bribe of $50,000 in cash, which he apparently kept. Patel shut down the investigation because there was not enough evidence to convict Homan, according to him.

In the case of Comey, there must have been a team of Trump lawyers poring over everything he said and did to find something to prosecute him for. Apparently, mortgage fraud wasn’t an option. So they came up with him lying to Congress.

Trump just made the case against Comey harder to prosecute by claiming he lied, he lied a lot, and he is a dirty cop, and calling Judge Michael Nachmanoff a “Crooked Biden Appointee” in an attempt to work the ref in the case.

The U.S. Department of Justice is broken because the rule of law, one’s public service, and evidence no longer matter. 

This reflects a larger problem in that Trump is turning our nation into a banana republic — or, maybe more appropriately in this instance, a crime family — as Donald Trump floats one scam after another while in office, and tries to take out anyone he thinks has wronged him.

From George Magakis Jr., in Norristown borough in Pennsylvania

Hypocrisy is now a meaningtless Cliché in the world of Donald Trump and maga cult Republicans. James Comey indictment is an example.

Echo opinions published in The New York Times by Carlos Lazada and an excerpt opinion by the Editorial Board: The Comey Indictment Plunges the Country Into (another❗) Grave New Period*.

James Brien Comey Jr. is an American lawyer who was the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 2013, until his termination in May 2017.

Writes Carlos Lazada in the NYT: Donald Trump and James Comey have got to stop meeting like this.

On May 9, 2017, President Trump fired Comey as director of the F.B.I., a dramatic, norm-busting move whose consequences would dominate much of the president’s first term. Days later, Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election — to pick up, essentially, the work that the F.B.I. had begun. Since then, Trump’s vendetta against Comey and all things “Russia, Russia, Russia” has never ended.

As news of Comey’s firing broke that day in 2017, I happened to be arriving at a Washington book party, an event packed with veteran political journalists and former senior government officials, including a White House chief of staff or two. I remember how shocked people felt; there was a sense that an important line had been crossed.

Eight years and way too many lines later, Trump has seen fit to cross an especially bright one, and once again he’s done it to step on Comey. Thursday’s indictment of Comey by a federal grand jury — on one count of making a false statement in a 2020 Senate hearing and another of obstructing that proceeding — came despite the objections of career prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia, who had not found sufficient evidence to charge Comey.

No matter: The White House soon replaced a reluctant U.S. attorney with an inexperienced loyalist, and Trump pressured the attorney general herself to move against his perceived political enemies. “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!) OVER NOTHING,” he said in a message to Pam Bondi last week, adding that they’re all “guilty as hell” and that “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

Shortly after the indictment became public, Trump gloated on social media: “JUSTICE IN AMERICA!”

This is but the latest step in Trump’s second-term quest for political retribution, and the president has already said there will be more indictments to come. Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, called the action against Comey a “dangerous abuse of power,” stressing that “our system depends on prosecutors making decisions based on evidence and the law, not on the personal grudges of a politician.”

But really, the most eloquent case against indicting Comey —
against using the Department of Justice as an instrument of personal revenge — comes courtesy of Trump himself. And it comes, of all places, from the justifications Trump provided for firing Comey eight years ago.

In his brief letter dismissing the F.B.I. director — weirdly, it was hand delivered to the bureau headquarters by Trump’s longtime bodyguard, even though Comey was in Los Angeles — the president explained that he was relying on the written advice of Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, and Rosenstein, the Justice Department’s No. 2. “I have accepted their recommendation and you are hereby terminated and removed from office, effective immediately,” Trump wrote, attaching the documents from both Sessions and Rosenstein.

So, what did these two top officials say when arguing for Comey’s removal?

Rosenstein criticized Comey’s behavior during the F.B.I. investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails, when the director gave a high-profile news conference in 2016 criticizing Mrs. Hillary Clinton for being “extremely careless” in using a private server for government work but declined to bring charges against her. Rosenstein said Comey had “gratuitously” released “derogatory information” about Clinton and had “laid out his version of the facts for the news media as if it were a closing argument, but without a trial.” He called it a “textbook example” of what federal officials are trained not to do.

He was talking about Comey nearly a decade ago, but he could be talking about Trump today.

“The goal of a federal criminal investigation is not to announce our thoughts at a press conference,” Rosenstein continued. “The goal is to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to justify a federal criminal prosecution, then allow a federal prosecutor who exercises authority delegated by the attorney general to make a prosecutorial decision.”

He was talking about Comey nearly a decade ago, but he could be talking about Trump today.

Rosenstein cited the views of several top-ranking Justice Department officials to support his recommendation. Judge Laurence Silberman, who was deputy attorney general during the Ford administration, said that “it is not the bureau’s responsibility to opine on whether a matter should be prosecuted.” Rosenstein quoted Jamie Gorelick and Larry Thompson, who served as deputy attorneys general under President Clinton and George W. Bush, as saying that Comey had violated his obligation to “preserve, protect and defend” the traditions of the Justice Department, and had instead engaged in “a kind of reality TV of federal criminal investigation” that was “antithetical to the interests of justice.”

They were talking about Comey nearly a decade ago, but they could be talking about Trump today.

Sessions, whose one-paragraph letter recommending Comey’s removal relied heavily on Rosenstein’s memo, wrote eloquently about the principles that should guide his department. “As attorney general,” he said, “I am committed to a high level of discipline, integrity and the rule of law to the Department of Justice — an institution that I deeply respect.” In calling for a “fresh start” at the F.B.I., he said that “it is essential that this Department of Justice reaffirm its commitment to longstanding principles that ensure the integrity and fairness of federal investigations and prosecutions.” The F.B.I. director, Sessions wrote, must set “the right example for our law enforcement officials and others in the department.”

He was talking about Comey nearly a decade ago, but he could be talking about Trump today.

Of course, Sessions and Rosenstein were laying out the most respectable rationale possible for Comey’s firing. All manner of alternative explanations would soon emerge, including from Trump and from top aides: that he’d been thinking about “this Russia thing” when he decided to dismiss the director, that Comey was “a real nut job,” that he’d thought about firing Comey as far back as November 2016, before he was even in office and long before any convenient memos arrived from the Justice Department.

But even these face-saving arguments from Sessions and Rosenstein remain instructive. The two men were setting exacting standards for law enforcement in America, for procedure and principle, and warning that the wrong leader could blow right through them.

They weren’t wrong. And if these standards apply to the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, they should apply to the president of the United States even more.

Donald Trump as president should not gratuitously lay out his view of the events surrounding a criminal inquiry, creating a reality TV rendition of an investigation. The president should not sound off on social media on the guilt or innocence of individuals but instead allow the Justice Department to do its work. The president should not let his personal resentments undermine the integrity and fairness that should guide the Department of Justice. And it is the president, above all, who must set the right example for the rule of law in America.

As Trump concluded in his 2017, letter to Comey, “it is essential that we find new leadership for the F.B.I. that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission.” He was talking of Comey nearly a decade ago, but he could be talking about himself — and his presidency — today.

Truth, Lies and Leadership

Trump and Comey will always be intertwined in the history of this period, and not just because of Clinton and Russia and Mueller and the rest. Together, they tell the story of the politicizing of justice in America. When Trump proclaimed his case for Comey’s dismissal in 2017, he unwittingly challenged his own calls for Comey’s indictment in 2025. It would almost be literary, if it were not so real.

To cry hypocrisy  is a  cliché, almost feels quaint- overused and lost its original caustic meaning. 

A president, i.e. Donald Trump, with little regard for the rule of law, except for how the law can be made to strengthen his own rule, is beyond shame or embarrassment. He is, to coin the cliché, a hypocrite. 

Invoking high principle one day and violating it the next is simply the cost of doing business, and, to Trump, the cost seems low.

After leaving his post, Comey published a book — a somewhat self-serving one, as I wrote at the time — about ethical leadership in public life. In it, he recalled his days going after Mafia families as U.S. attorney in Manhattan. “As I found myself thrust into the Trump orbit, I once again was having flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the Mob,” he wrote in 2018. “The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview.”

Comey was talking about Trump nearly a decade ago, and he could be talking about him, even more so, today.

*handpicked federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, obtained an indictment of the former F.B.I. director James Comey on highly dubious charges.  (One of the charges was not upheld by the Grand Jury.)

In an unusual (and unethical) process, the indictment came just four days after Trump installed Halligan on an interim basis and just days before the statute of limitations on the charges would have expired.

He chose Ms. Halligan — his former personal attorney, who had no prosecutorial experience — for her willingness to be compliant. The president forced out her predecessor Erik Siebert after he refused to file charges in the Comey case and another one. Mr. Siebert’s staff spent months investigating before deciding there were no grounds for indictment. Trump responded with a social media post pronouncing Mr. Comey “guilty as hell” and vowed that Ms. Halligan would see to the prosecution of the cases in a way that her “woke” predecessor refused to do.

Long before this week, Trump crossed some of the clearest and most important lines in how justice is administered. He ran for office promising to prosecute his enemies and appointed loyalists who have ordered investigations of people the president does not like. On their own, those moves deserved to be the biggest law enforcement scandal of the past 50 years. Yet they turned out to be just a start. He has now gone beyond ordering investigations to dictating their outcome.

In fact, Trump removed any pretense that the law is blind. 

As despots have done for centuries, he is persecuting people he considers his enemies, with little justification other than raw political power. It is reminiscent of the old royal notion “L’état, c’est moi”: I am the state.  (IOW Trump is a dictatorial authoritarian and wanna be bonna fide Fascist).  

P.S. Trump's hand picked prosecutor LindseyHalligan risks the loss of her license to practice law if Comey' indictment is proven to be unethical, especially given how many times prosecutors have refused to bring charges against him in the past.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans must revisit the basics of decency and kindness! End hate speech caused by extremism

Civility matters:  Maine Writer preface, it is time to revisit quotes by Fred Rogers.  "There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind."

Echo opinion letter published in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

I fear we are losing sight of how effective democratic political discourse has historically depended on applying the “Golden Rule” across party lines — that is, treating others as you would like to be treated yourself. In one notable example, then-presidential candidate, Republican John McCain, publicly defended his opponent, Democrat Barack Obama, during a town-hall meeting in 2008 when one person stated, “I don’t trust Obama … he is an Arab.” “No, ma’am,” McCain responded. “He’s a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what this campaign is all about.”

At that time, political debates emphasized policy differences rather than constant ad hominem personal attacks. Lawmaking in our democracy was understood to nearly always require compromise. However, this administration’s stated intention is to “flood the zone” with divisive and inflammatory rhetoric, purposely cutting off constructive and factual dialogue over policy differences.

A return to resilient American democracy calls for increased bipartisanship, collaboration across political lines, and stopping the personal attacks on character, integrity, and motives of those with differing political views. 

Recently, there was widespread public advocacy for a renewed commitment to our First Amendment rights. We must seize the moment and extend it to encouraging “Golden Rule” practices within our democracy. Healthy debate requires that we disagree without being disagreeable. A return to respectful and civil political discourse is essential if our Great American Experiment is to survive.

From Douglas Coe, retired captain, U.S. Navy, and former senior executive at U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Donald Trump and his incoherent babble to the United Nations.

Opinion letters published in The New York Times:

In the stumbling address Donald Trump tried to give to the United Nations General Assembly, he questioned whether the U.N. should exist. His own remarks provided the answer.

Dear Nations of the World: On behalf of the American people, I apologize for the words and behavior of our president at the United States. He does not represent our beliefs. 

By asking,“What is the purpose of the United Nations❓” — and telling world leaders, “Your countries are going to hell”  —  Trump showed precisely why the U.N. matters.

The United Nations remains essential as a forum where nations can challenge authoritarian impulses and defend shared norms. Without this global venue, weaker states and civil society would have no platform to confront great-power unilateralism or to uphold international law and human rights.

The United Nations is not perfect. Security Council vetoes and limited enforcement power are real obstacles. But the remedy is reform, not retreat.

Donald Trump's dismal display didn’t diminish the U.N.’s relevance. His clumsy speech only underscored the need to strengthen it. 

From Jordan Ryan in Decatur, Georgia (The writer is a former United Nations assistant secretary general).

To the New York Times Editor: An objective observer might have found Donald Trump’s United Nations talk astonishing, whether because of the rudeness of his words — the insults, the braggadocio, the disparaging of the leaders of so many other countries — or his appropriation of nearly four times the time allotted to him to speak. (What an ass ❗)

Sadly, most of us ceased being astonished years about Donald Trump. 

In fact, the Trump's stumbling United Nations talk is an extension of his constant sources of shame and embarrassment.

From Peter Larson in Milwaukee Wisconsin

Americans who remember when life was once upon a time politically "normal" must push back against extremism- GOP Alert!

Echo opinion letter published in the Boston Globe:

Utah Governor Spencer Cox: said he is sad and angered after the killing of Charlie Kirk on the campus of Utah Valley University. But it was Kirk's own words who helped him."When people stop talking, that's when you get violence," Cox said, quoting the conservative activist, known for visiting college campuses and inviting people to debate him. Cox read several of Kirk's quotes about forgiveness and having human connections, telling the younger generation to build a culture that is different than today's political climate. https://cbsn.ws/46oOENl

Dear Editor of the Boston Globe:  About the only thing I’ve heard in the two weeks since Charlie Kirk’s sad and tragic assassination that has made much sense to me was Utah Governor Spencer Cox’s encouragement to “log off, turn off, touch grass, hug a family member, and go out and do good in your community.” Wise words. So much of the rest of what passes for public discourse in America today assaults our senses.

Out here in normie-land, we do not want a civil war. 

Instead we vigorously renounce political violence and its encouragement — period. We wish that political leaders of all stripes — but honestly, especially the hard right and all the “near-right” leaders who have been sucked into that vortex — would just put down their swords and work together to solve the grave problems we face. Those of us on the left are not members of a cabal of child-eating America-haters; those of us on the right are not fascist Hitler wannabes. 💥😡

Who are we❓ We are (the normal people❗) most of the country, and by a very wide margin. 

But you would never know that from a glance at social media or even the pages of this newspaper. What would happen if we all took Cox’s advice❓ What if we turned off social media and worked together to solve our common challenges❓ What if we elected leaders who genuinely felt the same way and acted on that impulse❓

From Andy Calkins in Gloucester, Massachusettes

Donald Trump is destroying American exceptionalism he is an idiot: United Nations speech in October 2025 was another failure

Trump’s U.N. speech was ‘a worldwide embarrassment for the United States’- Donald Trump was a failure (again) during his United Nations incoherent babble....  gobbledegook.

An echo opinion published in the Los Angeles Times

Donald Trump could not have done a worse job of portraying our country and its leadership in an ugly way than in how he behaved during his address to the annual United Nations convocation (“Trump calls climate change ‘the greatest con job ever’ in combative U.N. speech,” Sept. 23).

There was no diplomacy, deference or respect provided to any representative of the nations assembled. President Trump was alternately angry, belligerent, insulting, condescending and boastful. The message he delivered could be summarized as, “America first, last and always, and the hell with all of you.” If that sounds like an exaggeration, he told the U.N. that “your countries are going to hell.”

His lack of respect and disparagement of the myriad individuals who recognize the threat that is posed to the world due to man-made changes in the climate was a disgrace, Trump referring to those who recognize the challenge as “stupid people.” 😖😞😡

Donald Trump is a worldwide embarrassment for the United States.

From Oren Spiegler, in Peters Township, Pennsylvania

Donald Trump and maga Republicans are supporting a weaponization of our government: Firing journalists is a clear and present danger!

Echo opinion published in The Philadelphia Inquirer, by Jenice Armstrong:  A Clear and Present Danger❗

America is not OK under Trump’s leadership: A trio of heavy hitters, including brothers Bryan and Howard Stevenson, will be at the Fitler Club on Thursday to talk about surviving in today's political climate.


The Washington Post’s firing of columnist Karen Attiah really has me shook, as they say.

I used to love that paper. I grew up in Washington, D.C., where it was a must-read. I even worked there briefly after college, and always assumed that one day I would end up back in its newsroom. But the paper that helped bring down former President Richard Nixon with its coverage of the Watergate break-in scandal isn’t what it used to be.

Now under the ownership of Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, the paper claims Attiah was fired because she violated the paper’s social media policy by posting about the late conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. But personally, I think there was a lot more to it than that. Attiah — the last Black full-time columnist at the Post — was an unfortunate casualty of this toxic Trumpian moment that has engulfed America. She symbolizes what’s going on as voices such as MSNBC political analyst Matthew Dowd are being silenced, and journalists are being required to sign a pledge not to share unauthorized information in order to cover the Pentagon.

Americans should be up in arms as our freedom of speech — a bedrock principle in the Bill of Rights — is under attack. ABC’s indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! after the comedian’s remarks about Kirk became a rallying cry — enough to get him back on the air. Social media users are losing jobs and getting doxed because of their posts. Political polarization is extreme.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump sits in the Oval Office plotting revenge against his political enemies and flexing his authoritarian muscles.

I used to wonder how my ancestors survived slavery and Jim Crow segregation. Here’s what I now realize: One day in the not-so-distant future, many will look back at us and wonder how we managed to get through such troubling times. America is not OK.

So, when an email landed in my inbox about a fundraiser dedicated to surviving today’s political climate, it stopped me. I actually read it several times as I savored the words: a “night of insight, inspiration and healing.” If America ever needed all three, it’s now❗

The event, scheduled for Thursday at the Fitler Club in Center City, will be cohosted by a trio of real heavy hitters: civil rights attorney and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson, whose best-selling book, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, was adapted into a Hollywood movie in 2019; his brother, University of Pennsylvania psychologist and professor Howard Stevenson; and Robin Smith, a psychologist and a former regular on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

When I talked to Smith, she said the purpose is to “have the conversation that is anything but safe.” The timing is fortuitous given everything that’s been happening. As she pointed out, “This is the season to … not ask, ‘Do you hurt?’ but ‘Where do you hurt, and how can we begin to tend to our injuries?’”

Proceeds will benefit Lion’s Story, a Philly-based nonprofit founded by Howard Stevenson that provides resources and training to assist those attempting to navigate the complexities of racial stress.

“My brother and I grew up in a poor, racially segregated community,” said Bryan Stevenson, whose organization was behind the effort to open the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Ala., in 2018. “We are both the products of Brown v. Board of Education. We have lived that legacy of slavery and lynching and segregation from our own background.”

The Delaware native added that it’s important people don’t allow the country to backslide in its quest for racial justice. “We haven’t even got where we are trying to go,” he said. “So this is not a time for us to be pushed backward. Organizations like Lion’s Story have a critical role to play in that effort.”

If I were around, I would stop by the Fitler Club and try to soak up some of the good vibes for myself. But I plan to take a few weeks off to basically touch grass, as the young folks say, and to think about something other than politics and the implications of Trump’s latest post on Truth Social.

That’s my healing strategy. Hopefully, it will help sustain me for what challenges are ahead.

Jenice Armstrong
I'm an Inquirer op-ed columnist and a member of the Inquirer Editorial Board. I write about race and gender, local and national politics, and sometimes pop culture.