Author Archives: Gene Berkman

Colorado Judge rules Trump guilty of Insurrection

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Politico reports that a Colorado judge has ruled on the 14th Amendment challenge to Donald Trump’s right to run for President. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/17/colorado-judge-rules-trump-engaged-in-insurrection-but-can-still-run-for-president-00127909

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington challenged Donald Trump’s right to run for office, invoking the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment states “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. “

“CREW said the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 disqualified Trump under a reading of the Civil War-era amendment.”

“The judge found that Trump did engage in an insurrection on January 6, 2021 “through incitement, and that the First Amendment does not protect Trump’s speech.” But she also found that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to Trump.”

The Judge indicated that since the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment does not mention the President specifically, that it was not wise to interpret the clause where the Founders had not spoken.

Almost certainly, the authors of the Constitution considered the President to be an officer of the United States. Article II, Section 1, says “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.

He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years”

Paragraph 6 states “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President;  neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”

Paragraph 7 states “In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.”

Paragrah 9 states “Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:–“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Article II, Section 4 states “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Quotes from The Constitution of the United States are taken from this source: https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/full-text

It is a strange interpretation that the Founders vested all executive power in a President who is not an Officer of the United States, or make a President who is not an Officer of the United States take an “Oath of Office.” It is this Oath of Office which is the basis for the Insurrection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The wording of the clause appears to apply to all who take an Oath of Office to Defend the Constitution of the United States.

Of course, there is an extra-Constitutional reason for the Judge to rule. The Judge knows, as well as everyone who has lived in America since 2016, that enforcing the Constitution’s 14th Amendment would lead to massive violence by supporters of former President Trump. The events of January 6, 2021 show that America is under threat from a leader who sees violence as an acceptable approach to gaining or retaining public Office.

All America is under threat from Donald Trump and his supporters. Donald Trump has already said he would trash The Constitution of the United States if that would keep him in office. His supporters on January 6 made clear their contempt for The Constitution, and their willingness to use violence to keep Trump in power. Every Secretary of State fears that violence, and they are all avoiding their own duty to enforce The Constitution in regard to this particular disqualification of a candidate.

The fear is justified. The Secretaries who will not keep Trump off the ballot make it sound like a principled stand – “let the voters decided whether he should be in office.” A good principle indeed. In November 2020, the voters decided that Trump should not continue in office, and the result was the violent attack on the Capitol and the offices of Congress on January 6, 2021.

Does anyone think that Donald Trump will accept defeat in November 2024, and congratulate the winner? America will live under the shadow of violence as long as Donald Trump is politically active. The threat is made all the worse by the cowardice of the Republican National Committee in refusing to take the lead in disqualifying Donald Trump for the 2024 election.

If the question makes it to The Supreme Court of the United States, I would remind the Justices that each of them took an Oath to Defend the Constitution. I would also note that the Supreme Court building probably has better security than the offices of the Secretary of State in any of the 50 states.

Calling Names:Trump denigrates his enemies

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So now Donald Trump is calling people who oppose Trumpian Statism  “vermin” – and the
L.A. Times compares this to the rhetoric of the Nazis. 
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-11-13/trump-vermin-speech

True enough, but we don’t have to go that far geographically, or that far back in time.
In the 1960s and after, Fidel Castro would call people who opposed Cuban Communism “Gusanos”
which means “worm” in Spanish.

Seems like The Don uses “vermin” in the same metaphorical way Castro used “Gusanos.”

Given Trump’s reverence for Vladimir Putin, and his professed “love” for Kim Jong-un, it
seems he is more like Castro than like Hitler.

Of course, Castro’s favorite book in college was “Mi Lucha” – “My Struggle” – or “Mein Kampf“‘ in
the original German. I guess if you are talking about a totalitarian megalomaniac – whether it is
Fidel Castro or Donald Trump – you are never that far from the comparison to Hitler.

Ukraine: War’s Toll on Schools, Children’s Future

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Human Rights Watch reports on the youngest victims of the Russian aggression in Ukraine:

  • Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has devastated schools and kindergartens throughout the country. Since February 2022, over 3,790 educational facilities have been damaged or destroyed.
  • Ukrainian children have paid a high price in this war because attacks on education are attacks on their future.
  • International donors and aid agencies should support the Ukrainian government to ensure the equitable reconstruction of schools in all regions of Ukraine.

(Kyiv, November 9, 2023) – Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has devastated schools and kindergartens throughout the country, Human Rights Watch said in a report and video released today. Since February 2022, over 3,790 educational facilities have been damaged or destroyed, according to Ukrainian government figures, severely interrupting access to education for millions of children.

The 71-page report, “Tanks on the Playground,” documents the damage and destruction of schools and kindergartens in four Ukrainian regions during the first months of the fighting. Most of the damage to educational facilities resulted from aerial attacks, artillery shelling, rocket strikes, and, in some cases, attacks using cluster munitions – causing significant damage to roofs, the collapse of walls, and major debris in classrooms. Russian forces frequently looted and pillaged schools they occupied, a war crime.

“Ukrainian children have paid a high price in this war because attacks on education are attacks on their future,” said Hugh Williamson, director of the Europe and Central Asia division at Human Rights Watch. “The international community should condemn the damage and destruction of schools in Ukraine and looting by Russian forces.”

Human Rights Watch visited 50 education facilities in the Kyivska, Kharkivska, Chernihivska, and Mykolaivska regions and interviewed almost 90 school officials, representatives of local authorities, and witnesses to military operations.

Education in Ukraine has been under attack since Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014. Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 led to further attacks on and military use of schools, which, along with the overall effects of war, have severely disrupted Ukrainian children’s education, already suffering from school closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Many students from schools that were damaged or destroyed had to continue their studies in other schools, studying in shifts or remotely, which has eroded the quality of education, Human Rights Watch said. Russian forces’ attacks on power infrastructure and consequent electricity and internet outages have frequently impeded remote learning.

Full Post @ Human Rights Watch https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/09/ukraine-wars-toll-schools-childrens-future

“Suspend Arms to Israel, Palestinian Armed Groups” – Human Rights Watch

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(Jerusalem) – Allies of Israel and backers of Palestinian armed groups should suspend the transfer of arms to the warring parties in Israel and Gaza given the real risk that they will be used to commit grave abuses, Human Rights Watch said today. Providing weapons that knowingly and significantly would contribute to unlawful attacks can make those providing them complicit in war crimes.

Israel and Palestinian armed groups have committed serious abuses amounting to war crimes during the current hostilities. Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups deliberately killed hundreds of civilians in Israel on October 7, 2023, and took more than 200 hostage. Israel then cut electricity, fuel, food and water to Gaza’s population and severely curtailed life-saving humanitarian aid, all of which are acts of collective punishment.

“Civilians are being punished and killed at a scale unprecedented in recent history in Israel and Palestine,” said Bruno Stagno, chief advocacy officer at Human Rights Watch. “The United States, Iran and other governments risk being complicit in grave abuses if they continue to provide military assistance to known violators.”

Israel’s key allies—the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Germany—should suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel so long as its forces commit widespread, serious abuses amounting to war crimes against Palestinian civilians with impunity. Iran and other governments should cease providing arms to Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, so long as they systematically commit attacks amounting to war crimes against Israeli civilians.

Since October 7, about 1,400 Israelis and others, and more than 9,700 Palestinians, many of them civilians, have been killed, according to local authorities.

During the current hostilities, Israeli forces have imposed collective punishment on civilians in Gaza by denying them water, electricity, and food, and have willfully impeded humanitarian aid from entering Gaza.

They have also repeatedly used explosive weapons with wide area effects in densely populated areas, reducing entire blocks and large parts of neighborhoods to rubble and raising grave concerns of indiscriminate attacks, and indiscriminately used white phosphorus, an incendiary material that burns human flesh and can cause lifelong suffering, in populated areas in Gaza and in Lebanon. Amnesty International has also verified photos showing M825-series white phosphorous 155mm artillery projectiles being used by Israeli forces near the Lebanese border and Gaza fences.

Israel’s military has also ordered over a million people in northern Gaza to evacuate to the south of Gaza because of military operations in the north, though they had no safe place to go or safe way to go anywhere in Gaza. Broad-based warnings, rather than specific warnings of imminent attacks, suggest that everywhere in northern Gaza is subject to military attack. This order risks mass forced displacement, a war crime. Israel has also sealed its border crossings to anyone who would seek to flee.

Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups have deliberately killed civilians, taken civilians hostage and continue to hold them, and launched thousands of rockets at Israeli communities, all of which are war crimes.

The leaders of Israel and Palestinian armed groups have made statements indicating that serious abuses by their forces will continue. Israeli officials have sought to hold Gaza’s entire population responsible for the October 7 attack; one minister said that “there is no reason” to provide humanitarian aid to the population until Israeli forces “eliminate” Hamas. A spokesman for the Hamas military wing threatened to broadcast “with sound and video” the “execution of one of our enemy’s civilian hostages.”

Future military transfers to Israel in the face of ongoing serious violations of the laws of war risk making the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Germany complicit in these abuses if they knowingly and significantly contribute to them, Human Rights Watch said. Providing weapons to Palestinian armed groups, given their continuing unlawful attacks, risks making Iran complicit in those violations.

Full Post @ Human Rights Watch https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/06/suspend-arms-israel-palestinian-armed-groups

Liberal International “deeply concerned about the threat to the lives of civilians in Gaza”

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14/10/2023

Liberal International is deeply saddened by the unfolding tragedy and human suffering resulting from the recent Hamas attack on Israel. We mourn the loss of innocent civilian lives on all sides of the conflict. The carnage caused by Hamas’ incursion into Israeli territory has led to a military response by Israel.

As events escalate we are deeply concerned about the threat to the lives and homes of civilians – ordinary men, women and children – in Gaza . We insist that all combatants act in accordance with the laws of war and international humanitarian law to minimise civilian casualties. We call upon Hamas to free all hostages with immediate effect.

We reiterate the position adopted by the global liberal family that two independent and democratic states can be the only viable outcome for civilian populations on both sides. We applaud the leadership of the United Nations Secretary General who is working to find an equitable solution that respects the aspirations, security and rights of both Israelis and Palestinians.

Source:https://liberal-international.org/news-articles/li-bureau-alarmed-at-threat-to-the-civilians/

Liberal International Stands in Solidarity with the People of Israel

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07/10/2023

The bureau of Liberal International stands in solidarity with the people of Israel and condemns today’s attacks against civilians in the south of the country and recognises Israel’s right to defend itself.

News of indiscriminate rocket bombardments, gunmen from the militant group, Hamas, entering Israel from Gaza, and reports of the taking of hostages in their homes shock us and liberals worldwide. Our thoughts are with the victims of these attacks which do not serve the interest of the Palestinian people.

Source:https://liberal-international.org/news-articles/liberal-international-stands-in-solidarity-with-the-people-of-israel/

Nikki Haley Burned Trump and Her Fellow Republicans for Blowing Up the Debt

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by Eric Boehm (from Reason.com)

“Donald Trump added $8 trillion to our debt!” Haley said during Wednesday’s first Republican primary debate.

When it comes to runaway federal spending, unsustainable levels of borrowing, and the inflation that those first two things have helped unleash, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said Wednesday that Republicans better look in the mirror.

“The truth is that Biden didn’t do this to us, our Republicans did this to us too,” Haley said during the early moments of Wednesday’s Republican primary debate. She pointed specifically to Republican support in Congress for COVID stimulus bills and other recent spending packages. “They need to stop the spending, they need to stop the borrowing, they need to eliminate the earmarks that Republicans brought back in,” she said.

Then she delivered the hammer blow: “And Donald Trump added $8 trillion to our debt, and our kids are never going to forgive us for this,” Haley said.

She nailed it.

Trump promised to pay off the national debt within eight years when he was running for office in 2016. When he got to the White House, the national debt was a little less than $20 trillion. He, uh, didn’t pay it off. Instead, federal spending climbed each of the first three years that Trump was in office—from $3.98 trillion in fiscal year 2017 to $4.45 trillion in 2019—then exploded in 2020 due to emergency COVID-19 spending. (For the first two years of Trump’s term, Republicans also had full control of Congress, so there is a lot of blame to go around.)

When he left, the national debt was nearing $28 trillion. Today, it stands at $32.7 trillion.

Republicans have predictably swung back to a message of fiscal restraint during President Joe Biden’s time in office, seemingly forgetting that the fiscal years of 2017 and 2018 ever existed.

Haley shining a spotlight on the bipartisan role of borrowing and spending in recent years was a welcome moment—and a powerful one for Haley, who stood out during Wednesday’s sometimes chaotic debate. And it’s critical for whoever wins next year’s presidential election to be clear-eyed about the seriousness of the debt problem facing the federal government.

Commentary by Eric Boehm reposted from Reason.com https://reason.com/2023/08/23/nikki-haley-burned-trump-and-her-fellow-republicans-for-blowing-up-the-debt-shes-right/?itm_source=parsely-api

Freedom Conservatism: A Statement of Principles

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To ensure that America’s best days are ahead, we must apply the timeless principle of liberty to the challenges of the 21st century.

On September 11, 1960, a group of young conservatives gathered in the home of William F. Buckley, Jr., in Sharon, Connecticut. For decades, the timeless ideals embodied in the document they produced animated the American conservative movement.

Today’s public policy challenges are different than the ones faced by the Sharon Statement signatories in 1960. Authoritarianism is on the rise both at home and abroad. More and more people on the left and right reject the distinctive creed that made America great: that individual liberty is essential to the moral and physical strength of the nation.

In order to ensure that America’s best days are ahead, we affirm the following principles:

  1. Liberty. Among Americans’ most fundamental rights is the right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force: a right that, in turn, derives from the inseparability of free will from what it means to be human. Liberty is indivisible, and political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom.
  2. The pursuit of happiness. Most individuals are happiest in loving families, and within stable and prosperous communities in which parents are free to engage in meaningful work, and to raise and educate their children according to their values.
  3. The foundation of prosperity. The free enterprise system is the foundation of prosperity. Americans can only prosper in an economy in which they can afford the basics of everyday life: food, shelter, health care, and energy. A corrosive combination of government intervention and private cronyism is making these basics unaffordable to many Americans. We commit to reducing the cost of living through competitive markets, greater individual choice, and free trade with free people, while upholding the rule of law, freedom of contract, and freedom of association.
  4. Full faith and credit. The skyrocketing federal debt—which now exceeds the annual economic output of the United States—is an existential threat to the future prosperity, liberty, and happiness of Americans. We commit to building a constructive reform agenda that can restore America’s fiscal sustainability, ensuring that future generations inherit a more prosperous and secure nation than the one we now inhabit.
  5. A nation of laws, not men. Equality under the law is a foundational principle of American liberty. Unfortunately, today this principle is under attack from those who believe that the rule of law does not apply to them. One manifestation of this problem is the explosion of unaccountable and unelected regulators who routinely exceed their statutory authority and abridge Americans’ constitutional rights. The President should only nominate policymakers and judges who are committed to upholding these rights.
  6. Americans by choice. Immigration is a principal driver of American prosperity and achievement. America is exceptional because anyone—from any corner of the earth—can seek to live in America and become an American. Nearly all American citizens descend from someone who came here from somewhere else, and we must treat all citizens equally under the law. To this end, the United States, as a sovereign nation, has the right to secure its borders and design a rational immigration policy—built on the rule of law—that advances the interests and values of American citizens. 
  7. Out of many, one. The best way to unify a large and diverse nation like the United States is to transfer as many public policy choices as possible to families and communities. Much of the discord in America today comes from the fact that too many decisions are made for us by centralized authorities. The Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for granting government the just authority to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power. 
  8. America’s promissory note. Martin Luther King, Jr. described the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as containing “magnificent words…a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.” Prior to 1964, however, slavery and segregation were enforced by state governments and, in many cases, by the federal government. Many who descend from victims of this system now face economic and personal hurdles that are the direct result of this legacy. We commit to expanding opportunity for those who face challenges due to past government restrictions on individual and economic freedom. We adamantly oppose racial discrimination in all its forms, either against or for any person or group of people.
  9. The shining city on a hill. American foreign policy must be judged by one criterion above all: its service to the just interests of the United States. Americans are safest and freest in a peaceful world, led by the United States, in which other nations uphold individual liberty and the sovereignty of their neighbors.
  10. Freedom of conscience. Essential to a free society is the freedom to say and think what one believes to be true. Under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, federal and state governments have a legal obligation to uphold and protect these freedoms. Private institutions have a moral obligation to do the same.

Statement reposted from https://www.freedomconservatism.org/p/freedom-conservatism-a-statement

See list of signatories at end of statement @ freedomconservatism.org

Donald Trump indicted for keeping classified documents after leaving office

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The federal grand jury in Florida indicted former President Trump on 38 counts of keeping government documents after his defeat in the 2020 election, and related actions concerning these documents.

31 counts rely on 18 USC 793 which includes references to espionage, but no claims of espionage are made in the indictment. No claims are made that Mr Trump shared this information with Russian or North Korean agents. One can only speculate on that, given Mr Trump’s well known respect for Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un.

Additional counts rely on 18 USC 1512 and 18 USC 1519, which concern withholding a document from the proper government agency, in this case the National Archives.

Reckless disregard for American national security, manifested by insecure storage of documents, including in places accessible to the public, constitutes the factual basis for the indictments.

Read the full indictment here https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000188-a12f-db74-ab98-b3ff4de50000

HJTA announces initiative to “Repeal the Death Tax”

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The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, California’s leading taxpayer advocacy group, will go forward with an initiative to restore the right of parents to transfer their home and limited other property to their children without reassessment to market value.

The announcement follows the 3-4 vote in the Senate Governance and Finance Committee Wednesday to defeat Senate Constitutional Amendment 4, authored by Sen. Kelly Seyarto, R-Murrieta, which aimed to reverse the provisions in Proposition 19 regarding intergenerational transfers of family property. Under Prop. 19, which passed narrowly in November 2020, property is now reassessed to market value upon transfer between parents and children, with limited exceptions.

At a hearing on Wednesday, Los Angeles County Assessor Jeffrey Prang testified in strong support of SCA 4, emphasizing that voters were not informed of the complex and costly effects that Proposition 19 would have on property tax reassessment of long-held family homes as well as businesses built over generations. “These neighborhood markets, auto shops and family-owned restaurants are community staples,” he said, but they are “in jeopardy of closing their doors when they are hit with high tax bills.”

Veronica Nelson, 1st VP of the Sacramento Realtists Association, testified that it’s essential to address the damage that Proposition 19 is doing to families in communities of color as they try to build economic security for the next generation. She raised the concern that Prop. 19 has put tenants at risk of eviction by requiring the reassessment to market value of family-owned apartment buildings when parents pass away. The Realtists organization, the California Association of Real Estate Brokers, was founded in 1947 to serve the needs of the Black community at a time when racism and redlining blocked that community’s access to homebuying and real estate services.

“It’s unfortunate that this Senate committee was not willing to protect California families from being taxed out of their property when a parent dies,” said HJTA President Jon Coupal. “In 1986, the Legislature voted unanimously to place the parent-child transfer exclusion from reassessment on the ballot as Proposition 58, which was approved by nearly 76% of voters. Proposition 19 took that away and replaced it with the largest property tax increase in California history.”

Sen. Kelly Seyarto said many voters were unaware that Proposition 19 would have this effect, because the measure’s title and summary on the ballot emphasized separate provisions that provided benefits for senior or disabled homeowners and wildfire victims.

“The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is a grassroots organization with hundreds of thousands of members,” Coupal said. “We are the group that put Proposition 13 on the ballot to protect the lifelong investment of hardworking California families.  We will be filing an initiative with the attorney general’s office very soon to restore the protections that Proposition 19 took away.”

Source:Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association https://reinstate58.hjta.org/

Contact the HJTA to support this initiative:

Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association
621 South Westmoreland Avenue, Suite 200
Los Angeles, CA 90005
Phone: 213-384-9656