Tuesday, December 15, 2020
Trump and Death
Any man’s death diminishes me.
— John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occcasions
One of the things that will be remembered about the trump tenure is the high number of people who through his good offices are no longer numbered among the living. They fall into two categories-those who have died because of his braggadocio and inattention to facts, and those who have died because of his malevolence. In both cases the beneficiaries of his actions are dead.
In presiding over the deaths of the thousands who have died during the last 12 months, the trump was ably assisted by the corona virus. It outsmarted the trump each time the trump announced that the fight against the virus had turned the corner and posed no further threat. Those pronouncements were, as we now know, wrong. The virus has killed approximately 300,000 people in the United States and that number is increasing at the rate of one new death every 30 seconds. Apparently aware of the fact that the virus was proving on a daily basis that it did not enjoy the same happy relationship with the trump that the trump thought he enjoyed with the virus, there have been few, if any, trump references to the virus or to those whose lives have been upended by the virus since November 3.
As significant as the trump’s failed relationship with the virus has been, when considering the number of deaths for which the trump was responsible, historians will also look at those killed because of the trump’s devotion to the death penalty.
Prior to the beginning of the trump residency in the White House, the United States had not executed any resident of a federal prison for 17 years. During that 17 year period the only executions of prisoners on death row took place in states where the executed prisoner had been convicted of a state crime which, under the criminal code of the state in question, made the prisoner death penalty eligible. Thanks to the trump and his lackeys, that 17 year hiatus came to an end beginning in July of the trump’s last year living in the White House. The beneficiaries of the trump’s devotion to the death penalty are those whose convictions under the federal criminal justice system included a death sentence that as of last July had not yet been executed. The deferral of execution of those criminals in prior administrations was because society was weighing the propriety of using the death penalty as a way to achieve justice for wrongs committed by those on death row. Such considerations were of no moment in what passes for the mind of the trump.
Beginning in July of 2020, the year in which a majority of voters decided that the trump’s residency in the White House should come to a close, the trump concluded that inmates living at government expense on death row should suffer the same fate as he, and be required to give up their residences. In the case of residents of cells on death row, that was accomplished by enforcing the death penalty. By the time the trump is finished with his executions, 10 prisoners will have been executed in one year. The last time that many executions took place in one year was in 1896.
Between July and the time the election took place, eight inmates who had been sentenced to death and were living on death row, were executed. Following the election, and as of this writing, two more have been executed, and three more are promised the opportunity to meet their maker during the month of January and prior to the inauguration of the new president.
The five prisoners who will have been executed after November 3, had another distinction. Not only were they among the first thirteen to be executed following a 17 year lull in executions of federal prisoners, but they were the first prisoners to be executed during a unique period. That is the period following an election that, as a result of the election, gave the occupant of the White House notice that on January 20 he or she must vacate the premises. That is known as the lame duck period. As this is written three inmates have been executed during the lame duck period and in his eagerness to set new records, the trump has promised to rid society of two more death row residents before his own residency in the White House comes to an end.
The prisoners who are facing eviction and execution before January 20, 2020 have exhausted all their appeals which were quietly handled by their lawyers. They will quietly exit this world before January 20, 2021. The trump, who like the prisoners, is facing eviction, has exhausted all his appeals in the noisy fashion that might be expected of someone having the maturity of a petulant child and it is not yet clear that he has accepted the fact that he will have to vacate the White House on January 20th. Presumably, before January 20th one of his millions of worshippers will explain that to him so he will not be surprised when the moving vans arrive.
Thursday, December 3, 2020
Crimes and Punishments
Legal justice is the art of the good and the fair. — A Saying
They are two sides of the same coin and given the trump’s lack of interest in governing following the recent election, it is good that there is at least one coin in his pocket that retains his interest. It makes up for the fact that he has lost interest in the corona virus, a virus that since its introduction has provided the trump with a forum to tout his success as the country’s leader.
Since early 2020, the trump has spoken repeatedly about the famous covid, a virus that he explained he had correctly and early identified, a virus that irrespective of when the trump was speaking had, thanks to his brilliance, been brought under control as of the time he was speaking.
Following those repeated assurances, there was an election in which the trump was resoundingly defeated. As a result the trump attention went from concern for those who had been defeated by the virus to concern about his defeat by the voters. Since the election he has had nothing to say about the virus, even though, as this is written, it is causing deaths in the United States at the rate of approximately one a minute. Instead, and in addition to his concern about voter fraud, he has turned his attention to the criminal justice system.
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The first part of the criminal justice system the trump has now seen fit to address is the part that offers forgiveness to those who have been convicted of crimes or might be criminally charged at some time in the future. Those about whom he is reportedly now concerned are friends, family members, and former colleagues. The trump is sensitive to their needs not only because of his compassionate nature, but because deep in the recesses of what passes for his mind, is a nagging concern that when he is no longer protected by the mantle of the presidency, he may find he has an ongoing connection to the workings of government and the law, not as president but as defendant. As of this writing he has begun taking steps to pardon those convicted of crimes, and to protect from punishment those who, having engaged in criminal conduct, have not yet been found out. In so doing, he hopes to set the stage for pardons for himself, issued by himself if possible, or, if not, by his successor. Without a pardon, the post-presidency era may take an embarrassing turn for him.
Pardons are not the only aspects of the criminal justice system that have caught the trump’s attention. Punishment is another and that is the other side of the coin referred to above. The newest proposal for improvement to the justice system comes from the trump’s Department of Justice but he, as president, is entitled to all the credit for the proposed change. It has just been announced that the justice department has taken steps to increase the number of methods of execution permitted to be used on those convicted of death penalty eligible crimes in federal courts. The changes will become effective on Christmas Eve.
Before those changes were approved, the only approved method of execution that could be used in the federal system was lethal injection. Under the Christmas Eve protocol, prisoners sentenced to death may be executed by any method of execution accepted in the state in which the death sentence imposed by the sentencing judge is to be carried out. Under this enlightened approach, in addition to lethal injection, and depending on the protocols of the state in which the prospective decedent finds him or herself awaiting execution, the sentence may be carried out by a firing squad, by being seated in an electric chair, or by being seated in an ordinary chair in a room that is then filled with poisonous gas. That is an obvious improvement over the present practice of limiting society’s ability to rid itself of its unwanted members only by means of a lethal injection. And the improvement this new protocol offers to the present system is especially meaningful in that, unlike the pardon process, this is not being effected in order to benefit the trump. It is an overall improvement to the means employed to rid society of its unwanted members.
Since a majority of voters in this country have voted to rid themselves of their unwanted president, (albeit not the way one disposes of the convicted criminal), one cannot help but contemplate events that will take place on the magical date on which the trump will no longer be the president. They will take place irrespective of whether the trump has pardoned himself. Rumor has it that at the exact moment that Joe Biden is standing on the podium, his hand on the Bible, swearing to undertake his duties as president, the trump will be on the golf course at Mar a Lago preparing to hit a golf ball. The Lord will be watching over him. Just as Mr. Biden recites the oath of office, the trump will hit the ball, and it will be a hole in one for him for only the second time in his life. With Joe Biden sworn in as president, the whole country will feel like it hit a hole in one.
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
The Three Turkeys
The turkey . . . is a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America.
— Benjamin Franklin, Letter to Sarah Bache
It was the juxtaposition that instantly drew the observer’s attention- pictures of President-elect Biden in Delaware on November 24, standing with future members of his administration, a group that included many of the most distinguished people in the United States who have served in government in the past, and are prepared to offer their service yet again, and the trump in the Rose Garden with two other turkeys. To see the turkeys in the Rose Garden, the one standing behind a podium holding a microphone, and the other two, Corn and Cob, lying on their stomachs hoping for pardons, on the same day and almost the same time as the President-elect was introducing distinguished members of his new administration, could only be described as a coincidence. The difference between the two groups was obvious. The main difference between the three turkeys in the Rose Garden is the means of communication used by them. Corn and Cob communicate by gobbling whereas the trump communicates by tweeting.
Two of the turkeys in the Rose Garden almost certainly were slightly worried knowing that, absent a pardon, they would almost certainly soon find themselves lying in repose in someone’s oven from which they would be moved to the dining room table and an inglorious end. The other turkey had a similar concern although absent a pardon his fate would not be known until many months after January 20. As he well knew, the absence of a pardon might mean a jail cell rather than an oven.
To the extent the turkeys had an awareness of the control the trump had over their futures, they may have believed that the future of one of them was secure-for good reason. They had probably been told of the three earlier ceremonies that had taken place during the trump administration in honor of the Thanksgiving holiday during which one of the participants was always pardoned. Furthermore, in anticipation of the exciting event, the turkeys’ owner had almost certainly told them of some of the pardons the trump had given during the period the power to pardon belonged to him. Their owner would have told them about the pardon given former Maricopa County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio who was convicted of “immigrant roundups” while serving as sheriff. He would have told them of the pardon given vice-president Pence’s former chief of staff who was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. He would have told them of the pardon given Roger Stone, a long-time friend of the trump who was convicted on charges of witness tampering, obstructing an official proceeding and five counts of making false statements in an investigation of the trump campaign. And those names were just a just a smattering of those who had been pardoned by the trump, the owner would have explained to them.
Considering all those pardons, the turkeys’ owner would almost surely have told them that compared with the seriousness of the crimes committed by the beneficiaries of those presidential pardons, the lives the turkeys had led had been exemplary. The owner would have told them that if neither of them was pardoned the fate that awaited them could only be attributed to an accident of birth and that they should not feel that their fate was their fault. The fact that a pardon for them was even being considered was a stroke of luck for which few other turkeys could ever hope. With those reassurances, Cobb and Corn probably felt reasonably secure in the knowledge that if the trump had found it in his heart to pardon, among others, those people described above, the two of them, whose only fault was being hatched, would be similarly treated.
As the ceremony concluded, and in a singularly touching moment, the trump, accompanied by his wife, Melania, went to the table that was covered with flowers and miniature pumpkins on which Corn was resting. Solemnly raising his right hand the trump said: “Oh, so lucky. That is a lucky bird. Corn, I hereby grant you a full pardon. Thank you Corn. What a bird. Thank you.” How Cobb reacted upon hearing those words is not known.
While pardoning Corn, the trump was almost certainly wondering whether there was any chance that following the inauguration of President-elect Biden, President Biden would show him the same compassion that he, as president had on four different occasions bestowed on a turkey, as well as on several criminals whose conduct had been less exemplary than the lives of the pardoned turkeys. In the case of the trump only time will tell whether he is prosecuted or pardoned for the multitude of offenses for which he could properly be charged once he leaves the protective shell provided by the White House. He can rest assured that he will not be the only person eagerly waiting to get the answer to that question.