Dead Patriots Society

for the complete documents, see: https://trumptimes.blog/2026/09/01/trump-v-california/

From District Judge Indiea Talwani’s August 27 Order:

For a State to comply with the Final Rule: (1) ballot envelopes and return envelopes must comply with certain ballot envelope design requirements,…(2) State or local election officials must submit their ballot envelope and return envelope designs to the USPS for approval, id.; and (3) after obtaining approval of the ballot envelope and return envelope designs, State or local election officials must input each voter’s information into a USPS-run electronic portal, 91 Fed. Reg. at 549991 (DMM 705.24.4.2). The Final Rule provides no timeline for USPS’s approval of ballot envelopes and return ballot envelopes, but precludes election officials from uploading voter information until the USPS approves the ballot envelopes and return ballot envelopes. 91 Fed. Reg. at 54991 (DMM 705.24.4.2(f)). And where a State or local election official does not obtain envelope and return envelope design approval, or does not upload voter information, or does not include unique intelligent mail barcodes on ballot envelopes, the USPS will not mail ballots to voters.  

[T]he Constitution charges the States with election administration. U.S. CONST. art. I § 4, cl. 1. While the States’ decisions may be pre-empted by Congress,…, the court is unaware of, and no party has proffered, any delegation Congress has made that would permit the USPS to regulate election mail,…

Plaintiff States face irreparable harm where they are required to comply with a likely unconstitutional regulation for which compliance is practically impossible as to the 2026 midterm elections, now little more than two months away. Most Plaintiff States have already ordered their mail ballots, and some are required by state law to send them to eligible voters as early as next week. Plaintiff States have neither time nor funds to design new mail ballots, seek approval of the new designs, order production of mail ballots, update their own election management systems, train election officials to use the USPS portal, and upload citizen data to the portal, all before the midterms….If Plaintiff States are unable to comply with the Final Rule, an outcome that seems unavoidable given the timeframe, they will violate their obligations under the Constitution and State laws to administer elections. Defendants and Intervenor-Defendants offer no reply to Plaintiff States’ assertion that compliance for the 2026 midterm elections will be impossible for many of them.

The record continues to lack any evidence regarding fraudulent absentee or mail-in voting…. In any event, the USPS’s interest in correcting an unsubstantiated problem through likely unconstitutional means is dwarfed by the overwhelming risk of pervasive disenfranchisement of citizens who need access to mail ballots in order to vote. The balance of harms and public interest warrants a TRO [Temporary Restraining Order].

From Justice Jackson’s dissent in Trump v. California, August 24:

Our Constitution expressly delegates the power to conduct federal elections to the States. See U. S. Const., Art. I, §4;…This “dispersal of responsibility for election administration has made it impossible for a single centrally controlled authority to dictate how elections will be run, and thereby be able to control the outcome.” Id., at 32.

The Order thus requires a fundamental overhaul of the States’ existing mail-in ballot systems—changing from a state-administered process to one in which the Federal Government controls who gets a ballot and whose vote counts.,,,States can only offer ballots to citizens whose names appear on the appropriate lists, forcing States to give their voter lists to the Federal Government in order to have their voters’ ballots processed by USPS. Ibid. And USPS can interdict and refuse to transmit mail-in ballots submitted by individuals who are not on the right list.

Moreover, and notably, due to the Order, a State’s election officials face possible federal investigation and prosecution if they fail to compile and use the new Citizenship Lists for administering federal elections. The Government admits this. See, e.g., Reply in Support of Application for Stay 13 (stating that “a State’s refusal to consider” a Citizenship List could “be relevant evidence of an intent to violate, or to facilitate the violation of, the federal laws prohibiting non-citizen voting…

The Government now asks us for a stay of the District Court’s injunction. This Court is obligated to hold the Government (just like any other party) to a high bar when seeking a stay under these circumstances….(Scalia, J., in chambers) (“[W]hen a district court judgment is reviewable by a court of appeals that has denied a motion for a stay, the applicant seeking an overriding stay from this Court bears an especially heavy burden”…

At a minimum, the successful stay applicant must make a “strong showing” that it is likely to succeed on the merits, that it will suffer irreparable harm while the case proceeds, and that, on balance, the equities—including the public’s interest—favor a stay. … The Government has not come anywhere close to carrying this burden here. 

Begin with irreparable harm. The President is only conceivably harmed by an injunction barring executive action if that court order is preventing him from doing something the law permits him to do. But here the Government has not even bothered to assert, much less demonstrate, that the President has the constitutional authority to issue an order that directs the manner in which the mail-in ballot aspect of federal elections is to be administered. This means that the Government has failed to establish irreparable harm.

The Constitution plainly assigns the power to conduct federal elections to the States. See Art. I, §4. The President does not have any legal authority to require that elections be conducted in accordance with his preferences, or to withhold delivery of mail-in ballots that are not formatted consistent with the President’s wishes….The Government is not injured in the slightest by an injunction stopping it from engaging in this patently unlawful conduct.

Footnote #7: These, by the way, are facts: The District Court considered evidence and made findings about the detrimental consequences of allowing the Order to stand…. Under this Court’s precedents, those findings are entitled to “clear error” deference.…We cannot simply set them aside or ignore them….(“Where an intermediate court reviews, and affirms, a trial court’s factual findings, this Court will not lightly overturn the concurrent findings of the two lower courts” … But nowhere does this Court’s order suggest or conclude that the lower courts’ harm-related factfinding was clearly erroneous. 

The Court’s ruling imposes needless harms on the Plaintiff States in the interim (before they can again obtain relief ) and does nothing to promote the public’s interest in well-ordered elections practices and the institutions the Constitution tasks with safeguarding democratic norms. Our precedents require balancing the equities precisely to avoid this kind of damaging and pointless outcome.

In the end,…what makes today’s ruling so off-base is the Court’s lack of situational awareness regarding this equitable judgment. It treats the Government’s stay application as if the whole point is merely to demonstrate that the Plaintiff States’ claims are not justiciable. Taking its eye off the ball, the majority misses the Government’s actual objective: to secure our imprimatur for its effort to foment chaos ahead of the November elections. 

Rather than swallow the Government’s gamesmanship whole, the Court should have given this empty, strategic, and bad-faith stay bid the swift rejection it deserves. Cf. Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 483–484 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting) (“The governing principle has long been settled. It is that a court will not redress a wrong when he who invokes its aid has unclean hands. . . . Where the government is the actor, the reasons for applying it are even more persuasive”

(Reprinted from the Boulder Daily Camera. August 15, 2026)

Sadly, no one has done more to enable Trump’s assault on our democracy than Chief Justice John Roberts.

I will briefly discuss four cases: Trump v. United States, Trump v. Slaughter, Louisiana v. Callais, and Mullin v. Doe. The first came down in the summer of 2024; the rest were decided this year.

In Trump v. United States, Roberts wrote for the majority that “the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energetic, independent Executive,” undeterred by the prospect of criminal prosecution for his actions in office.

The Constitution makes no mention of presidential immunity. And in the Impeachment Judgment Clause (Art I, Sect. 3, Cl. 7), one who is removed from office may subsequently be prosecuted and punished “according to law.”

President Ford’s pardon of Nixon assumed no presidential immunity. And as Justice Sonia Sotomayor writes in her dissent, Trump’s own lawyers during his second impeachment trial “insisted that a former President ‘is like any other citizen and can be tried in a court of law.’”

Undaunted, our champion of the “unitary executive” theory reasons that some degree of presidential immunity is implicit in the separation of powers. (Since there is no mention of immunity in the Impeachment Judgment Clause, Roberts reasons — in effect — that we can’t infer much from it.) For acts within the president’s exclusive authority, immunity must be absolute. For all other “official acts,” the president enjoys “presumptive immunity,” with the burden on the Government to demonstrate that a prosecution would pose no “danger of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.”

This decision surely emboldened a man with no regard for the law to begin with.

Trump v. Slaughter, in which Roberts also wrote the majority opinion, is similarly fast and loose with the Constitution, history and precedent. This case concerned “independent” agencies established by Congress, with “for-cause” removal protection to insulate them from partisan politics. Roberts argued that such agencies, tasked with some executive functions, also violated the separation of powers, which vests executive power in the President.

Roberts seemingly misrepresents founders Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, who maintained that there must be some blending of power between the three branches for them to check each other and maintain any separation of power.

In his concurring opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch raises the concern that in granting to the president “at-will” removal power of members of these agencies, the Court has significantly expanded the power of the Executive, which was not the intent of Congress.

By Roberts’ own standard, his opinions in these two cases are amateurish.

What is Roberts’ own standard? His opinion in the 2023 Alabama redistricting case, Allen v. Milligan, will do. Ironically, that may be the best defense of the 1982 amended Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act I have read, which prohibited voting schemes by States, including districting voting maps, that effectively discriminate against racial minorities, regardless of intent. Roberts abandoned that position three years later to join Alito’s convoluted opinion in Louisiana v. Callais. (Even worse was what followed the Louisiana decision: the Court’s 2026 unsigned order granting a stay in Allen v. Milligan. Had the author of that order bothered to read the appealed decision by the District Court, which bent over backwards to comply with the Louisiana ruling?)

Roberts’ 2023 decision in Allen is crystal-clear writing; Alito’s decision in Louisiana is anything but clear. (For Allen 2023 and Allen 2026, go to: trumptimes.blog.)

Of course, John Roberts opposed the 1982 amended Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act from the beginning. But that is not at all evident in his exemplary 2023 opinion in Allen.

As for Mullin v Doe, in which the Court determined in part that race was not a factor in the ending of Temporary Protection Status for Haitians, and therefore the administration did not violate the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection of the laws, Alito, Roberts, Thomas and Kavanaugh overlooked patently racist statements by Trump. In 896 words, Alito talked all around the subject and concluded none were “overtly racial,” but never quoted any of them. Justice Elena Kagan, in her dissent, spelled it all out in 135 words.

So much for defending the Constitution.

May 18, 2026

Hon. Todd Blanche 

Acting Attorney General 

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 

950 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. 

Washington, D. C. 20530 – 0001 

Dear Acting Attorney General Blanche: 

I have just read the Associated Press story about the proposed settlement of President Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service which creates a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” the purpose of which you have characterized as allowing people who believe they were targeted for prosecution for political purposes to apply for payouts, creating “a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress.” While you indicate that the purpose of the fund is to “right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again,” it is far less than clear what “this” refers to. The article speculates that the fund will be available to, for instance, “compensate” those who were indicted, pled guilty to and/or were convicted following trial, and sentenced with respect to their activities on January 6, 2021, as well as others who, on the basis of criteria unexplained, were somehow victimized by your department before your arrival. 

The absurdity of the creation of this fund, and the unethical nature of your continuing personal involvement in this matter, is evident on every possible level. 

First, you should not need me to tell you that you, personally, are hopelessly and irrevocably conflicted in this matter. You personally (and quite ably) represented Donald Trump in the case brought by the State of New York, in which he was convicted of 34 felonies. However, after he was elected in 2024, you joined the Department of Justice, and now have been designated as the Acting Attorney General.  As such, it is your department’s duty to defend the Internal Revenue Service against President Trump’s, as well as other members of his family’s, preposterous charges arising out of the unauthorized release of his tax returns – a release that every single president and presidential candidate since Richard Nixon has done entirely voluntarily. You have now clearly allowed your ongoing and unquestioning allegiance to your former client blind you to your obligation as the Acting Attorney General to defend the interests of the citizens of the United States, not Donald Trump. In short, you have knowingly and unethically put yourself in the position of trying to serve two masters. For all their faults, both your predecessors in the first Trump Administration, Jeff Sessions and William Barr, understood the distinction between being Donald Trump’s political supporter and cheerleader, or personal attorney (“Where is my Roy Cohn?”), on the one hand, and the Attorney General of the United States on the other. The same, of course, cannot be said of your immediate predecessor, Pam Bondi. 

Second, assuming the AP’s speculation is correct, you and your department are now and will remain in the absurdly conflicted position of suggesting that prosecutions which were meticulously investigated, indicted, prosecuted, settled and/or tried by the Department of Justice, and resulted in sentencings by federal judges, somehow, some way, in some delusional understanding of reality, amounted to a “weaponization” of the DOJ. I am sure you understand that a huge hurdle in a large percentage of those cases will be the statements made in sentencing by those convicted of federal crimes, when they acknowledged their guilt of the charges on which they had been indicted, expressed remorse, wished they “had it to do over again” etc.  It will be an absurd spectacle to hear those January 6 defendants claim that they were somehow misled, or more likely, simply lied to the federal judge who was about to sentence them, and really ought to receive money for all that they have been through. 

Third, and perhaps most importantly, the damage which you are doing to the integrity and credibility of the Department of Justice may never be undone, either in the eyes of the federal judiciary, or the public at large. Nothing is more common in a criminal courtroom than that a defendant believes that they are unjustly accused. When that defendant has the head prosecutor (you) absurdly suggesting that their prosecution was motivated by the department’s bias against your true client (Donald Trump), and that the crimes they committed on January 6, and subsequently solemnly admitted to in open court, were somehow based on something other than the facts and the law, that is damage that will take generations to repair, if it ever will be. 

It is one thing for a man so purposefully uneducated in legal matters as Donald Trump to claim to believe that the insurrection on January 6 simply amounted to “patriots” enjoying a “day of love,” the several resulting deaths notwithstanding, while a single photograph of seashells arranged on a seashore amounts to a threat to his security. It is quite another for you, a law school graduate, to labor under the same preposterous delusion.  If you have no better judgment than that, you must immediately remove your name from consideration for appointment as Attorney General of the United States. At a bare minimum, you must immediately recuse yourself, and your entire department, from any further involvement with a so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund.” The stain of your continued involvement with this matter, and with the Trump Administration as a whole, will follow you for the rest of your legal career. 

Very truly yours, 

Ross B.H. Buchanan 

Denver, Colorado

#1

Dear President Trump,

Your insatiable quest of power and glory cannot profit your soul. 

As scripture makes clear, “those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (Matthew, 23:12). And “God resists the proud, but shows favor to the humble” (James, 4:6).

If one would govern he must first learn to serve. If he has to obtain a following by force or cunning, by creating factions, he invariably arouses resistance. 

He must have some notion of a public interest apart from his personal ambitions. He must be able to adapt to the demands of the time.

I pity the parents trying to raise caring, responsible citizens with Donald Trump in the White House.

Sincerely,

____________

#2

Mr. Trump,

Are you trying to prove you are the world’s most insecure man?

If so, you are succeeding, most recently with your desperate threats to destroy civilian infrastructure in Iran.

We do not elect presidents to exact vengeance on their political opponents, or to pursue their own depraved visions of power and glory.

We elect presidents to govern, with some notion of a public interest, not to exploit and stoke political divisions. But the latter has been your game plan since 2015. In 2016, you told Bob Woodward that real power is the ability to instill fear. That is how you operate.

You are the kid who always had to change the rules of the game in order not to lose. That is what you tried to do in 2020, culminating in a violent attack on Congress.

Since 2015, you have trashed immigrants and invented all kinds of lies about them, so as to help build your political base. Now you are bent on deporting or imprisoning as many darker-skinned people as possible, no matter how many lives are destroyed and families traumatized.

You have made complete jokes of the DOJ and FBI, turning them into arms of your vengeance.

You decry political violence, even as you are the Instigator-in-Chief of such violence. You regularly issue threats against judges, election workers, journalists and others, fully aware that any one of your true believers out there might take your words as marching orders.

You are happy to call yourself a Christian if it furthers your pathological quest.

Your contempt for and reversal of environmental regulations and policies to move us away from dependence on oil, gas and coal may be the most revealing of all. Do you even care what sort of world your own children and grandchildren will live in when you are through?

Always looking for new ways to disrupt lives, you launched a needless war against Iran. In addition to the direct cost in human suffering, the opportunity costs of this war–notably the human needs we cannot fund as a result–are mind-boggling.

You need to stop this war. If you follow through with your latest threats, you will surely regret it. The human misery you cause by destroying civilian infrastructure will be tremendous. And it will not cow the leaders of Iran. You will only succeed at unifying Iranians against the United States and Israel. The world will remember you as a complete fool, and a war criminal.

Sincerely,

___________

May our children not behave like our president

REMEMBER: The recipient of your letter may or may not read it. But SOMEONE will, especially if it is hand-written. And that person can surely think for herself, or himself. That same person converses with colleagues, friends, family members, fellow parishioners, etc. 

Mr. President,

Stop this war before it is your ruin.

Sincerely,

X

Dear Secretary Rubio,

The only thing sadder than Donald Trump is all those who had his number years ago, yet now are eager to do his bidding.

Sincerely,

X

Dear Senators Thune, Murkowski, Tillis, McConnell, Paul, Collins, and Cassidy,  

By now it must be clear that Donald Trump’s loyalty is not to his Party or his Country, but only to himself, and his deluded pursuit of power and glory.

This is a slow motion trainwreck. The sooner five of you decide you will need to vote with the loyal opposition to end it, the better for everyone. 

Sincerely,

X

Contact info for these seven Senators:

Lisa Murkowski, 522 Hart Senate Office Bldg.,Washington,  DC 20510,  202-224-6665 (Contact:https://www.murkowski.senate.gov/contact/email)

Bill Cassidy, 455 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg., Washington, DC 20510,  202-224-5824 (Contact: https://www.cassidy.senate.gov/contact/get-in-touch/)

Susan Collins, 413 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg., Washington, DC 20510, 202-224-2523 (Contact: https://www.collins.senate.gov/contact/email-senator-collins)

Thom Tillis, 113 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg., Washington, DC 20510,  202-224-6342 (Contact: https://www.tillis.senate.gov/email-me)

Rand Paul, 295 Russell Senate Office Bldg., Washington, DC 20510 202-224-4343 (Contact: https://www.paul.senate.gov/connect/)

Mitch McConnell, 317 Russell Senate Office Bldg., Washington, DC 20510, 502-582-6304 (Louisville KY office) Contact: https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contactform

John Thune, 511 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510, 202-224-2321. (Contact: https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact)

Senator Graham,

You were once a playmaker in a functional Senate. You once had Donald Trump’s number. But now, on this 250th year of our experiment in democracy, your only ambition is to please that same man, who is hell-bent on ending that experiment.

 As a member of the Judiciary Committee, are you not appalled by his attacks on the third branch of government (not to mention his disregard for and attacks on Congress)? 

How sad for your Party. How sad for your Country. How sad for you.

Sincerely,

X

President Trump, The Whte House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20500

Dear Citizen:

President Trump is not well.

You who are reading this may not feel free to agree with the statement above, but I am sure you can see the truth in it.

Donald Trump behaves as though he never learned to lose anything with grace. He is the kid who always had to change the rules of the game so as to “win”. As president of the most powerful country on earth, he believes he “wins” if he can manage, by hook or by crook, to avoid the peaceful transfer of power to a Democrat.

Having appointed loyalists to head the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who in turn have purged those departments of individuals whose loyalty to Trump over the Constitution is in doubt, he has transformed those agencies into arms of his vengeance.

Donald Trump doesn’t know what to do with himself. He does not seem happy unless he is disrupting lives, communities, or whole economies, with all the human costs that shake out. Recently he launched a war in the absence of an imminent threat and without authorization by Congress. It is clear this war was poorly planned, and was done at the behest of Israel, which enjoys undue influence in Washington.

His attacks on political opponents and on the Judicial branch seem unprecedented and are intended to intimidate. Chief Justice John Roberts has felt it necessary to rebut such attacks. Most recently, the president has talked of laws to “crack down” on “criminal, rogue judges”.

With his numerous and escalating attacks on both Congress and the Judiciary, and his determination to guarantee election outcomes favoring his party, he is the very man our Founders feared.

On this 250th anniversary of our Country’s birth, every citizen needs to decide how he or she can help stop this slide into dictatorship.

Sincerely,

X

Stephen Miller, The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20500

Mr. Miller:

Learn to do right; seek justice.
    Defend the oppressed.[a]
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
    plead the case of the widow.

                 –Isaiah, 1:17

I understand you are 40, and a happy father and husband. Surely you must want for others the same joy and security you and your family have.

Isn’t that about as basic as it gets?

So I am curious why you push such a cruel policy toward undocumented immigrants, even to the point of breaking up families.

Why don’t you advocate for sensible immigration reform, something like the bi-partisan legislation which many Republican lawmakers supported in 2024, until candidate Donald Trump called on them to oppose it?

If that proposed bill was not adequate, how would you improve on it?

And why do you make such improbable claims about protests against ICE? What are your sources of information? Your inflammatory approach is not serving the President well. 

I do not see how it can profit your soul to persist on your current path.

Sincerely,

X

Mr. President,

    You can do your best to trash our democratic institutions.

    You can dismember immigrant families.

    You can rule your party by fear and make cowards of most Republicans.

    You can abuse your powers to persecute your perceived enemies.

    You can withhold aid to the world’s most destitute.

    But if you have not love, you have nothing. 

    Your insatiable quest for power and glory cannot turn out well for you.

     It sure as Hell won’t get you to Heaven.  

Sincerely,

X

Dear Chief Justice Roberts, 

I very much appreciate your recent decisions and public statements in defense of the Constitution against a man who obviously does not mean well.

You may salvage the legacy of the Roberts Court yet!

Courage,

X

Dear Mr. Speaker [Mike Johnson],

I understand your Christian faith is important to you. In that case, you must hold the Greatest Commandment in high regard. 

Here it is:

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”   –Matthew 22:36-40

Mr. Johnson, do you not see the glaring contradiction between your faith and your support for a president who delights not in serving God, but in his own deluded pursuit of power and glory?

Sncerely,

X

Dear Senator Cruz:

God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

–1 John, 4:16 KJV

You once had Donald Trump’s number. He once accused your father of being in cahoots with President Kennedy’s assassin. 

How can you do his bidding? Surely you can see this is a slow motion trainwreck.

Your loyalty to the tyrant is misplaced. Your job is to defend the Constitution.

Sincerely,

X

Dear Congressman Neguse, Senator Hickenlooper, and Senator Bennet:

How can you guys judge Republicans who will not stand up to Trump when you will not stand up to the Israel lobby?

Israel’s main problem is not Hamas or Iran. Israel’s main problem is its excessive power, which allows it to believe it can have security without seeing to justice for the Palestinians.

By unconditionally supporting Israel’s military supremacy in the region, you three are part of the problem.

Sincerely.

Dear Senator Murkowski,

In this hour of our peril, you are a bright shining star.

Right now, lawmakers like you are few. But trust in God, and know that courage is contagious.

Sincerely,

X

Mr. Patel,

Your loyalty to Donald Trump is beyond question. You have fired competent and experienced F.B.I. personnel for doing their jobs. But you told lawmakers that you only terminate employees for poor performance.

You have fired agents for thinking creatively and kneeling in solidarity with Black Lives Matter protesters.

You have made fools of Senators whom you misled and who voted to confirm you. 

You once claimed you could prove that January 6 was an “insider job”. Your evidence? There were F.B.I agents in the crowd that day. But there is an obvious explanation for that short of your preposterous claim.

You have written children’s books to perpetuate Donald Trump’s big lie about the 2020 election. How do you account for his multiple attempts to deceive and defraud judges, state election officials, DOJ officials, state legislators, members of Congress and American voters as spelled out in the Smith Report?

How do you explain his calling his supporters from across the country to “stop the steal” on January 6, inciting them with his false claims and fighting words at the Ellipse, his refusal to call off the rioters for three hours, and his 2:24 pm tweet egging on the mob in pursuit of Vice President Pence?

Mr. Patel, you obviously have talent. One should not waste his or her talent. But more importantly, one should not put it to dark schemes.

How can your conduct  profit your soul? 

Sincerely,

X

As all countries with nuclear weapons know, such weapons are best suited for deterring attack by another nuclear power, rather than for an unprovoked attack which would invite massive retaliation. 

America and Israel do not attack countries with nuclear weapons. That alone explains why Iran might want some. Yet, it’s an article of faith in Washington that Iran must not get the bomb, because it would want to nuke Israel. Nevermind that Israel would then blow Iran to smithereens.

Iranian leaders enjoy their political power and privileges as much as any gang of elites, and are probably no more inclined to forfeit those things and commit suicide by attacking Israel, a well endowed nuclear power.

It is implausible that Iran posed any imminent threat. And even supposing Senator Lindsey Graham is right that Iran was close to having eleven nuclear weapons, it does not follow that Iran could then hold the preeminent power hostage.

This was a war of choice, and such wars should be costly, the better to deter their kind. In the best circumstances, the instigators are stripped of power by their own people. But usually, it falls on other countries to first impose a high cost in blood and treasure.

No matter what anyone thinks of Iranian leaders or others aiding its retaliation, Iran is doing its job. It is balancing against preponderant power. Though the warfare is asymmetrical due to the power discrepancy between the two sides, the vast majority of deaths are caused by America and Israel.

Our longstanding commitment to ensure Israel’s military dominance in its neighborhood has meant two things. First, Israel feels no urgency to end its injustices (and worse) against the Palestinians, and continues to take Palestinian land. Two, Israel imagines it can enhance its security by attacking weaker enemies. This time it dragged us along.

As many have said, Hamas is an idea, which Israel cannot eradicate by force. But Israel can undermine Hamas politically by finally agreeing to the establishment of a secure, sovereign Palestinian state. There will have to be a sacrifice: Israel will have to relocate 700,000-plus Jewish settlers from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel would still retain 78 percent of the land “from the river to the sea”, historical Palestine.

Israelis will only know security when Palestinians do as well. Were it not for the power imbalance between Israel and the Palestinians, they might have hashed out a two-state arrangement years ago. But that imbalance has meant that peace has not been pressing enough to compel Israel  to consider terms that would be acceptable to the Palestinians.

As an aside, were the power imbalance reversed, the Palestinians might be no more accommodating of Jewish aspirations for peace and security. Power corrupts us all.

As for Israel’s attempt to vanquish all its enemies, such cannot prevent, and will likely speed, the restoration of a rough balance of power in the region. The late political theorist Kenneth Waltz explained why.

In 1959, in Man, the State and War, Waltz wrote that “A balance of power may exist because some countries consciously make it the end of their policies, or it may exist because of the quasi-automatic reactions of some states to the drive for ascendancy of other states….The balance of power is not so much imposed by statesmen on events as it is imposed by events on statesmen.” In 1979, in Theory of International Politics, Waltz methodically developed his theory of structural realism.  Of balancing, he wrote:

“From the theory, one predicts that states will engage in balancing behavior, whether or not balanced power is the end of their acts.  From the theory, one predicts a strong tendency toward balance in the system.  The expectation is not that a balance, once achieved, will be maintained, but that a balance, once disrupted, will be restored in one way or another.“

The idea of an unintended structure hovering above states competing for security, at once mindless yet capable of derailing the plans of any of them, is not easily grasped.  It seems axiomatic that any social system must be reducible to the qualities and preferences of the actors that comprise it.  Seeing the world as merely the sum of its parts, Americans like to populate it with good and evil actors to explain wars.  But this morally simple approach misses structural forces.

From our perspective, our motives may be noble; that aside, other states with competing interests cannot abide unchecked power. 

A realist knows that one thing you can’t do with a bayonet is sit on it, and likewise a preponderant state will always find some worthy use of its power.  Humans, usually oblivious to structural or unconscious forces influencing them, conjure plenty of reasons to act as they do.  But how causal are self-serving explanations?  Notwithstanding that human motives and actions appear tightly conjoined, it is a safe bet that deeper forces often drive our actions.

Structural realism accounts for the ironic outcomes of international politics; from the perspective of the “system” itself, there is nothing ironic. The boomerang effects of preeminent power contribute to system stability.  From a systemic perspective, actors that frustrate the projection of American and Israeli power are doing their job, regardless of what anyone assumes about their values.

Without seeking authorization from Congress, with no imminent threat to the United States, and at the insistance of a foreign power, President Trump initiated war against Iran. One objective of that war was regime change, which was not communicated in the sparse consultation between the Secretary of State and eight leaders of Congress. 

Previously, also without Congressional authority, President Trump conducted an act of war against Venezuela by violating its sovereignty to seize its president, and had ordered lethal attacks on non-combatants at sea, killing many scores of people who posed no imminent threat to Americans.

These actions amount to violations of the public trust and abuses of power by President Trump, as do his “weaponization” of the federal justice system, his attempts to subvert free and fair elections, his reckless use of federal agents in seizing and detaining allegedly undocumented people, and his deliberate endangerment of the lives of Members of Congress who reminded members of the armed forces that they have an obligation to not obey illegal orders. 

President Trump appointed loyal “election deniers” to head the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who then purged those agencies of individuals whose allegiance to Trump over the Constitution was in doubt. He has demanded the prosecution of individuals he regards as enemies. He has thus transformed the federal justice system into an instrument of his vengeance.

After trying to fraudulently reverse the 2020 election results, he incited a violent attack on Congress to prevent that election’s certification and the peaceful transfer of power. In his second term he has called on Republican-controlled state legislatures to revise their congressional maps in favor of Republican candidates, called for Republicans to “take over” and “nationalize” elections, and ordered a raid on the Fulton County, Georgia elections office. In that raid, F.B.I. agents seized 700 boxes of material from the 2020 election, on the contrived premise that election fraud had occurred, four years after Georgia officials had audited and certified the results of that election, and after courts had rejected numerous lawsuits challenging those results.

Since 2015, he has stereotyped undocumented people as violent criminals. In pursuit of mass deportations his administration has broken up families and traumatized children, ignored court orders and demonstrated contempt for the Constitution and due process. It has detained tens of thousands of people, many in substandard facilities and denied members of Congress access to those facilities. He has deployed the National Guard over the objections of state governors and threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act. He has deployed agents who have recklessly violated civil liberties of suspected undocumented people as well as citizens. He has carelessly justified killings by federal agents and opposed proper investigations of those killings.

Over the years, President Trump has risked harm to judges, election workers, and other perceived political enemies with many careless and inciteful public statements. In November of 2025, after unauthorized lethal attacks on people at sea, two U.S. Senators and four Congresspeople, all military veterans or former members of intelligence services, posted a video which reminded members of the armed forces that they were obligated to “refuse illegal orders”. President Trump responded by posting tweets calling them “traitors” and accusing them of “sedition at the highest level”, actions “punishable by death”. He reposted one tweet which said: ”Hang them George Washington would.”  

These offenses amount to “injuries done immediately to the society itself” (Hamilton, Federalist #65). They are sufficient to justify impeachment by the House of Representatives, trial and conviction by the Senate, and removal from office.

Dead Patriots Society

may our children not behave like our president

Post #7 February 24, 2025

Dear Chief Justice Roberts,

With the Senate having confirmed many Trump loyalists to his Cabinet, the Nation needs the judicial branch to check this President. I implore the Court to take any opportunities that come its way to lay down clear restraints on the Chief Executive. 

I applaud the Court’s recent decision to let be a temporary restraining order on the administration’s unlawful attempt to remove the head of the Office of Special Counsel.

This President, who was plenty bold before the Court’s ruling in Trump v United States, surely read that as a green light to do whatever he pleases. One could cite many ill-considered actions by Donald Trump and Elon Musk, which seem heedless of any public interest. I note here the appointment of Pam Bondi and Kash Patel as Attorney General and F.B.I.Director, respectively.

Having regretted picks for both posts in his first term, this time Trump chose true believers. In Senate hearings, neither Bondi nor Patel could give a straightforward answer to these questions: who won the 2020 election? and, would you resign rather than follow an illegal order? The acrobatics of both betrayed an allegiance to one man.

Since Trump v. United States, is there such a thing as an illegal presidential order?  The President now enjoys “absolute immunity” in “exercising his core constitutional powers”, including “official discussions between the President and his Attorney General” [and presumably his F.B.I. director]. Or, is there such a thing as an illegal presidential order, but the issuer does not have to answer for it? Can an Attorney General be prosecuted for complying with an illegal order the President cannot be?

We will never know how many senators would have voted in February, 2021 to convict Trump of inciting insurrection, had they known a criminal prosecution for the same conduct might be ruled out. In Trump, the Court downplayed the Trump factor:

“This case poses a question of lasting significance: When may a former President be prosecuted for official acts taken during his Presidency? …[I]n addressing that question today, unlike the political branches and the public at large, we cannot afford to fixate exclusively, or even primarily, on present exigencies. In a case like this one, focusing on ‘transient results’ may have profound consequences for the separation of powers and for the future of our Republic.” Youngstown, 343 U. S., at 634 (Jackson, J., concurring)  pp.49-50.”

But the Constitution must anticipate Presidents like the one alluded to in “present exigencies”: a man deeply insecure and vengeful, whose chief concern is self-aggrandizement, not any public interest; one heedless of truth and any harm he causes others; one who stokes division and scapegoats minorities; one who insists on allegiance to himself and not the Constitution; one who, with vast financial resources, is willing to “primary” disloyal members of his party; one who will go to great lengths to avoid a peaceful transfer of power, even inciting a violent assault on Congress.

. The Constitution must anticipate a President free of any internal checks, who may be mentally ill. Can a “unitary executive” model best keep the Republic, or do we need extensive checks and balances between the three branches of government?

The Majority opinion contains approximately a dozen references to a much desired bold President, or the corresponding fear of one chilled by the possibility of criminal prosecution, and only a single reference to any countervailing interest, specifically, “fair and effective law enforcement”. Whatever balance between those interests the Court may have intended was surely lost on Donald Trump.

As many high school students know, and as the two dissents note, the Founders were equally concerned to protect against a usurper as President.

 On July 1, when the decision was announced, the return to the White House by a vengeful Donald Trump was as likely as not. We can bet he has no intention of seeing to a peaceful transfer of power in four years, should the Republican candidate lose.

I have  posted a highlighted version of Trump v. United States and excerpts on the internet  (at: https://trumptimes.blog). As I first read the dissents, I recalled Alan Barth’s book, “Prophets with Honor”, which I read in high-school in 1975. In my opinion, both Justice Sotomayor’s and Justice Jackson’s dissents rank with those in Barth’s book. I have included excerpts from the dissents in the attached Appendix. 

This is our hour of peril. Trump is the man our Founders feared.

Respectfully,

Todd Buchanan

APPENDIX

In-text references are omitted, but page numbers of the text are included. 

From Justice Sotomayor’s dissent:

To determine whether a particular type of suit against a President (or former President) could be heard, a court “must balance the constitutional weight of the interest to be served against the dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.”…”When judicial action is needed to serve broad public interests—as when the Court acts, not in derogation of the separation of powers, but to maintain their proper balance, or to vindicate the public interest in an ongoing criminal prosecution—the exercise of jurisdiction has been held warranted.” (p.80)

The majority relies almost entirely on its view of the danger of intrusion on the Executive Branch, to the exclusion of the other side of the balancing test. Its analysis rests on a questionable conception of the President as incapable of navigating the difficult decisions his job requires while staying within the bounds of the law. It also ignores the fact that he receives robust legal advice on the lawfulness of his actions. (p.81)

[F]ederal criminal prosecutions require “robust procedural safeguards”….The criminal justice system has layers of protections.(p.82)….

The grand jury provides an additional check on felony prosecutions, acting as a “buffer or referee between the Government and the people,” to ensure that the charges are well founded….(“[A] criminal prosecution cannot be commenced absent careful consideration by a grand jury at the request of a prosecutor….

If the prosecution makes it past the grand jury, then the former President still has all the protections our system provides to criminal defendants. If the former President has an argument that a particular statute is unconstitutional as applied to him, then he can move to dismiss the charges on that ground. Indeed, a former President is likely to have legal arguments that would be unavailable to the average criminal defendant. For example, he may be able to rely on a public-authority exception from particular criminal laws,3 or an advice-of-the-Attorney-General defense…(p.83)

If the case nonetheless makes it to trial, the Government will bear the burden of proving every element of the alleged crime beyond a reasonable doubt to a unanimous jury of the former President’s fellow citizens… If the Government manages to overcome even that significant hurdle, then the former President can appeal his conviction, and the appellate review of his claims will be “‘particularly meticulous.’” … He can ultimately seek this Court’s review, and if past practice (including in this case) is any indication, he will receive it. (p.84)

In light of these considerable protections, the majority’s fear that “‘bare allegations of malice,’” … would expose former Presidents to trial and conviction is unfounded. Bare allegations of malice would not make it out of the starting gate….[I]t took allegations as grave as those at the center of this case to have the first federal criminal prosecution of a former President. That restraint is telling. (p.84)

{B]ecause of longstanding interpretations by the Executive Branch, every sitting President has so far believed himself under the threat of criminal liability after his term in office and nevertheless boldly fulfilled the duties of his office. (p.84)

Although it makes sense to avoid “diversion of the President’s attention during the decisionmaking process” with “needless worry,”…one wonders why requiring some small amount of his attention (or his legal advisers’ attention) to go towards complying with federal criminal law is such a great burden. If the President follows the law that he must “take Care” to execute, Art. II, §3, he has not been rendered “‘unduly cautious,’”… Some amount of caution is necessary, after all. It is a far greater danger if the President feels empowered to violate federal criminal law, buoyed by the knowledge of future immunity. (pp.84-85)

From Justice Jackson’s dissent:

….We have long lived with the collective understanding that “[d]ecency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen…(p.99)

 When the Federal Government believes that someone has run afoul of a criminal statute and decides to exercise its prosecutorial discretion to pursue punishment for that violation, it persuades a grand jury that there is probable cause to indict….Then, the Government marshals evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant engaged in the prohibited conduct and possessed the requisite state of mind (p.100).

. Notably, criminal defendants have various constitutionally protected rights during the criminal-liability process…

The defendant also has at his disposal many means to defend himself against the criminal charge (p.101).

….The defendant may also raise, and attempt to prove, affirmative defenses that “excuse conduct that would otherwise be punishable.”

….Consistent with our foundational norms, the individual accountability model adheres to the presumption that the law applies to all and that everyone must follow it; yet, the model makes allowances for recognized defenses. One such defense is the special privilege that Government officials sometimes invoke when carrying out their official duties (pp.101-102).

With that understanding of how our system of accountability for criminal acts ordinarily functions, it becomes much easier to see that the majority’s ruling in this case breaks new and dangerous ground. Departing from the traditional model of individual accountability, the majority has concocted something entirely different: a Presidential accountability model that creates immunity—an exemption from criminal law—applicable only to the most powerful official in our Government.

[Under the new Presidential accountability model] whether a President’s conduct will subject him to criminal liability turns on the court’s evaluation of a variety of factors related to the character of that particular act—specifically, those characteristics that imbue an act with the status of “official” or “unofficial” conduct (minus motive). In the end, then, under the majority’s new paradigm, whether the President will be exempt from legal liability for murder, assault, theft, fraud,  or any other reprehensible and outlawed criminal act will turn on whether he committed that act in his official capacity, such that the answer to the immunity question will always and inevitably be: It depends (pp.105-106).

…[T]he majority holds that the President, unlike anyone else in our country, is comparatively free to engage in criminal acts in furtherance of his official duties. 

That point bears emphasizing. Immunity can issue for Presidents under the majority’s model even for unquestionably and intentionally egregious criminal behavior. Regardless of the nature or the impact of the President’s criminal conduct, so long as he is committing crimes “pursuant to the powers invested exclusively in him by the Constitution,” … or as needed “to carry out his constitutional duties without undue caution,” …he is likely to be deemed immune from prosecution (pp.106-107).

[R]ecall that under the individual accountability model, an indicted former President can raise an affirmative defense just like any other criminal defendant. This means that the President remains answerable to the law, insofar as he must show that he was justified in committing a criminal act while in office under the given circumstances….

Under the majority’s immunity regime, by contrast, the President can commit crimes in the course of his job even under circumstances in which no one thinks he has any excuse; the law simply does not apply to him. Unlike a defendant who invokes an affirmative defense and relies on a legal determination that there was a good reason for his otherwise unlawful conduct, a former President invoking immunity relies on the premise that he can do whatever he wants, however he wants, so long as he uses his “‘official power’” in doing so….In the former paradigm, the President remains subject to law; in the latter, he is above it (pp.108-109). 

[T]he Court has unilaterally altered the balance of power between the three coordinate branches of our Government as it relates to the Rule of Law, aggrandizing power in the Judiciary and the Executive, to the detriment of Congress. Second, the majority’s new Presidential accountability model undermines the constraints of the law as a deterrent for future Presidents who might otherwise abuse their power, to the detriment of us all. 

Law, we have explained, “is the only supreme power in our system of government, and every man who by accepting office participates in its functions is only the more strongly bound to submit to that supremacy, and to observe the limitations which it imposes upon the exercise of the authority which it gives.”…. With its adoption of a paradigm that sometimes exempts the President from the dictates of the law (when the Court says so), this Court has effectively snatched from the Legislature the authority to bind the President (or not) to Congress’s mandates, and it has also thereby substantially augmented the power of both the Office of the Presidency and itself (p.110).

As to the former, it should go without saying that the Office of the Presidency, the apex of the Executive Branch, is made significantly more powerful when the constraints of the criminal law are lifted with respect to the exercise of a President’s official duties. After today’s ruling, the President must still “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” Art. II, §3; yet, when acting in his official capacity, he has no obligation to follow those same laws himself.

But whatever additional power the majority’s new Presidential accountability model gives to the Presidency, it gives doubly to the Court itself, for the majority provides no meaningful guidance about how to apply this new paradigm or how to categorize a President’s conduct. 

Article II does not contain a Core Powers Clause. So the actual metes and bounds of the “core” Presidential powers are really anyone’s guess (pp.110-111).

[P]romoting more vigor from Presidents in exercising their official duties—and, presumably, less deliberation— invites breathtaking risks in terms of harm to the American people that, in my view, far outweigh the benefits (p.115).

This is not to say that the majority is wrong when it perceives that it can be cumbersome for a President to have to follow the law while carrying out his duty to enforce it. It is certainly true that “[a] scheme of government like ours no doubt at times feels the lack of power to act with complete, all-embracing, swiftly moving authority.” …. But any American who has studied history knows that “our government was designed to have such restrictions.” Ibid. (emphasis added). Our Constitution’s “separation of powers was adopted by the Convention of 1787, not to promote efficiency but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power. The purpose was, not to avoid friction, but . . . to save the people from autocracy.” (Brandeis, J., dissenting). (pp. 115-116).

Having now cast the shadow of doubt over when—if ever—a former President will be subject to criminal liability for any criminal conduct he engages in while on duty, the majority incentivizes all future Presidents to cross the line of criminality while in office, knowing that unless they act “manifestly or palpably beyond [their] authority,”… they will be presumed above prosecution and punishment alike (p.116).. 

For my part, I simply cannot abide the majority’s senseless discarding of a model of accountability for criminal acts that treats every citizen of this country as being equally subject to the law—as the Rule of Law requires. That core principle has long prevented our Nation from devolving into despotism. Yet the Court now opts to let down the guardrails of the law for one extremely powerful category of citizen: any future President who has the will to flout Congress’s established boundaries (p.118).

Dead Patriots Society

may our children not behave like our president

Post #6 February 16, 2025

Mr. President,

A friend tells a friend what he should hear, not what he wants to hear. A friend would tell you that you are not well, and you need professional help, not more power. Indeed, your insatiable thirst for power, and need for blind loyalists like Kash Patel and Pam Bondi, is one indication you are not well. 

I do not pretend to be your friend, though I do not wish you harm. But I am authorized to advise you, because I hold “the only title in our democracy superior to that of President, the title of Citizen”.

I was 23 when Jimmy Carter spoke those words. The timing of his passing was uncanny, if not providential, because the contrast between you two is stark.

Whatever else one might say about Jimmy Carter, he aspired to be a good example for Americans and their children, during his presidency and afterward. Now many of us pray our children will not behave like our President. 

One lesson we try to teach our children is how to lose with grace, without loss of self-esteem or animosity toward the winner. Your inability to admit defeat in the 2020 election, and your willingness to put lives at risk which included egging on rioters chanting “Hang Mike Pence!”, demonstrates that you never learned that lesson.

Mr. President, I was a classmate of Rick Reilly, whose 2019 book “Commander in Cheat” was prophetic. If Donald Trump cheats openly and shamelessly at golf, what is he capable of in the oval office?

To my knowledge, you have not uttered one word of apology to Mike Pence or any of the legislators trapped in the Capitol on January 6th, or the Capitol police who defended them, or those very people you incited to violence by your Big Lie. But releasing hundreds of them who were duly tried and convicted was no way to redress the wrong you perpetrated on the American people. Instead, you have put more people at risk.

I have written before that you seem incapable of self-reflection. The other day I inquired of an ancient source what advice I could give you. The answer I got is titled “Contemplation”. Here is part of that answer:

“Self-contemplation means the overcoming of naive egotism in the person who sees everything solely from his own standpoint. He begins to reflect and in this way acquires objectivity. However, self-knowledge does not mean preoccupation with one’s own thoughts; rather, it means concern about the effects one creates. 

“It is only the effects our lives produce that give us the right to judge whether what we have done means progress or regression.”

Mr. President, have you and Elon Musk stopped to ponder, for instance, what your abrupt halt to many humanitarian aid projects has meant to the world’s poorest people?  Do you honestly believe you have the right to dispossess Gazans of their land?

Mr. President, life is not about power. It is about doing good. The same ancient source quoted above says of power: “Whereas an inferior man revels in power whenever he comes into possession of it, the superior man never makes this mistake.”

Mr. President, from your own words and actions, and those of Steve Bannon, the American people have cause to believe you never intended to accept an electoral defeat in any of the last three presidential elections. We all need to know now that there will be a free and fair election in 2028, and that you will not attempt to halt the peaceful transfer of power to a Democratic administration, should the Republican candidate lose. We need to know that you will put the Big Lie to rest, and your days of sowing distrust and division are done. 

Are you capable of living up to your oath of office, to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution? Are you finished trying to usurp power from the other two branches of government?

We deserve, and need, to know.

The truth will make you free.

Todd Buchanan

 

Dead Patriots Society

may our children not behave like our president

Post #5, February 6, 2025

 

Dear Senators:

The Senate has already jeopardized the rule of law enough by approving an Attorney General who cannot answer a simple question that probably a hundred million American voters could: who won the 2020 presidential election? 

If the Senate approves Kash Patel as F.B.I. director, the man with the gal to publish a list of members of the “Deep State”, that will further undermine the rule of law, and extend the Senate’s complicity in the Usurper’s demolition of  our democracy.

Here is the answer Pam Bondi  gave Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the first on the Senate Judiciary Committee to ask her who won in 2020:

 “…President Biden is the President of the United States, he was duly sworn in, and he is the President of the United States. There was a peaceful transfer of power. President Trump left office, and was overwhelmingly elected in 2024.”

There was a peaceful transfer of power in 2020, but only after Donald Trump did everything he could, including inciting a violent attack on the legislative branch, to stop it. Now those convicted of attacking the Capitol police and attempting to exact retribution on Mike Pence, Nancy Pelosi, and possibly others, are back on the street, obviously where Trump wants them.

Pam Bondi needs to read the January 6th Report. She needs to read Jack Smith’s Report (here is a highlighted version: https://trumptimes.blog/2025/01/26/the-smith-report/). A quick, easy read is Cassidy Hutchinson’s account of that horrific day in chapter 16 of her book, “Enough”.

Cassidy Hutchinson is, not surprisingly, on Kash Patel’s list.

     When Senator Durbin asked Bondi what she made of Trump’s January 2, 2020 call to the Georgia Secretary of State, telling him to find an additional 11,780 votes, she said she had not heard the tape (likely?). Durbin replied: “Well the quote I give you is exact: “Find 11,780 votes.”

To which she replied: “It is my understanding that is not what he asked him to do.”

To which Durbin replied: “You need to listen to it.”

Now this True Believer is Attorney General.

Kash Patel is equally a threat to the rule of law. Patel has already complicated the job of the F.B.I. by publishing his list, which has surely raised the level of threat to all on that list. 

(By the way, Kash Patel could not answer the question ,Who won in 2020? either.)

Especially after the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Trump v United States, which someone like Donald Trump will read as guaranteeing presidential immunity for ALL of his actions, it is a fair question if there is any longer such a thing as an illegal order from the President, when he/she is arguably acting within the president’s exclusive sphere of authority. (It is also a fair question, given that a Trump victory was as likely as not last spring and summer, to ask the author of the Court’s opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts: What were you thinking?)

It was tough enough before this recent Court decision for a conscientious official to stand his or her ground against an illegal order. Now Trump and Company are determined to rid the executive branch of Deep Staters, apparently anyone capable of independent thought.

Senators, it is incumbent upon you to end this carnage of American democracy. If you fail, history, and growing numbers of your constituents, will not pardon you.

Sincerely,

Todd Buchanan