Tag Archives: oath keepers

July 19, 2022 · 22:27

The Bloody Trail of Documentation Leading to American Carnage: The 7th Hearing of the January 6th Committee



Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Pardon the delay in the publication of this article. I started it the day after the hearing and didn’t finish it because I was tired. The next night I went to dinner and Top Gun, Maverick. Then for the next few days between work around the house, catching, doing some work with publicity for the book, catching up on some reading, watching some movies and documentaries about the Civil Rights Movement as I ponder my next book, in light of current reverses to civil, voting, reproductive, and religious rights by Christian Nationalists and their militant supermajority on the Supreme Court. I need to get with my agent soon for his advice in regard to the five other books I in some stage of development.

I will be making a trip to Washington, DC tomorrow to see DC United play my all time favorite team, Bayern Munich. Thursday I will visit the National Museum of African American History, then have some dinner before heading back to my hotel to watch the live hearings on Thursday Night. Friday I will visit some of the preserved Civil War fortifications around DC, and spend the night in Annapolis and return home Saturday. I will be my first trip to see and do things I want to do since the beginning of COVID. So without further delay the long delayed article.

On December 14th, 2020 the Electoral College cast its ballots and elected Joe Biden as President Elect. Between November 4th and that day President Trump’s legal team had filed 61 challenges in State and Federal Courts, filing 61 lawsuits, losing 60 outright and winning a portion of another that had no bearing on that court’s final decision.

Likewise, Trump personally attempted to pressure Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensberger to find over 11,000 votes to flip Georgia into his column and disenfranchise Georgia voters. Raffensberger refused and testified as to that fact before the committee.

White House advisors and cabinet members told Trump that he lost and needed to concede. He did not, even as then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recognized the legitimacy of the election. However, Trump would not do so and turned to allies outside the administration willing to do anything, especially illegal, to keep him in power.

The situation came to a head on the evening and night of December 18th when in a surprise visit by Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn and Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne obtained access to the President when a junior White House aid admitted to the White House without higher authorization. That is hard to get. I know, because in 2009 a friend of mine from Iraq, who was then Chief of Staff to the National Security Advisor, got Judy and me a private tour of the West Wing, not even to meet the President. The amount of background checks and security required was incredible. One does not get to casually drop in to the Oval Office unless something is seriously awry. Thus when the clown car of clueless, criminally minded, conspiracy theorists pitched a draft executive order for the President to order the Department of Defense to use the military to seize voting machines, and to appoint Sidney Powell as a ”Special Counsel” with full security clearance to do the job of ensuring Trump remained President despite having lost the election and having every lawsuit to overturn the election defeated, often dismissed by Trump appointed Federal judges.

At this point Cassidy Hutchinson, realizing that there were no adults in the room notified Pat Cipollone, and Mark Meadows. Cipollone was the first to arrive followed shortly by Meadows and senior advisor Eric Hirschmann. There was a heated argument which included much profanity and threats, with Hirschmann telling Flynn to ”sit his ass down.” Cipollone demanded their evidence which they failed to supply. There was much profanity, threats of fist fights and violence before the meeting finally ended, with Meadows escorting Giuliani off the White House Grounds. Trump, now realizing that there was no legal way to overturn the election, and the the clown car had no way to keep him in office, decided to use the mob of his supporters to do that very thing. Barely two hours later, Trump sent out a tweet for his supporters to come to Washington on January 6th because it ”would be wild.”

Almost immediately right wing activists, militia groups, and provocateurs, began calling for violence and revolt to keep Trump in power. One used an image from Game of Thrones to call for a ”Red Wedding”, a reference to the murder of people coming to what they thought was a wedding but in which they were massacred. Others, talked of a ”rope day” which is a reference to bringing ropes to hang Trump’s enemies, which included the gallows that was set up hang Mike Pence. Many provocateurs including Steve Bannon, Alex Jones, and many others spread the call of Trump to overthrow the election, start a revolution and kill their opponents.

The violence incited by Trump’s YouTube, Instagram, and other social media propagandists became so vile, violent, and profane and murderous that it makes any person with a modicum of decency, a moral center, and respect for our laws and our system of government sick and frightened for our future as a democracy.

During the following two weeks leading up to 6 January there were meetings, a ”war room” was set up in the Trump Hotel where Trump’s cabal of coup planners made their contacts and gathering their shock troops that led the assault on the Capitol. These included the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. Members of these group brought military grade weapons, including AR-15 type rifles, grenades, body armor, kevlar helmets, bear spay, stocks of ammunition, and a 30 day supply of food. They were primed for battle, and as the day grew closer and it became clear that Vice President Pence would most likely fulfill his duties to certify the Electoral College vote and formally declare Joe Biden as President, Pence became one of their targets for death.

The night before the assault on the Capitol and Trump’s own rally on the Ellipse, a large rally was held within hearing distance of the Oval Office, complete with Sidney Powell, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Alex Jones, Proud Boys and other miscreants urging the crowd to fight like hell for Trump the next day. The language was that of a pre-combat pep talk. It was incendiary and promoted violence against anyone who opposed Trump or supported Biden, continuing to promote the big lie of the stolen election. According to testimony Trump had the doors of the Oval Office in order to take it in and enjoy it.

That same evening two pipe bombs were left near the offices of the Democratic and Republican parties near Congress. The person who left them has never been identified or arrested.

I will return to 6 January after I come back. between then and now I will post about my travels.

Until next time,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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July 11, 2022 · 23:57

A Letter to Young People, Wake up and Resist: Follow the Example of Sophie Scholl

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

The past couple of weeks have been somewhat surreal. The continued revelations of former President Trump and his allies to attempt a coup to keep him in power, the decision of the Trump appointed majority on the Supreme Court to destroy the Establishment Clause in two cases, and to overturn Roe v. Wade by using poor history and case law to destroy any legal precedent regarding the Fourteenth Amendment after when it was ratified in 1868, when women had few rights to property, civil rights, rights to their medical treatment and the right to vote, the last which was enshrined in the 19th Amendment, 51 years after the 14th Amendment. While Roe v. Wade gave women some choice regarding their reproductive rights, and control of their bodies, the Equal Rights Amendement was never ratified, leaving women with far fewer Constitutionally protected rights than men.

That being said, I thought that rewriting an article from our last visit to Munich in 2018 worked very well considering the most recent actions of the court and Republican state legislatures to crush the civil rights of women ad blacks, uphold the rights of people to arm themselves to the teethe with military grade weaponry with few safeguards as to how they can be purchased. The understanding of settled law and precedent has been demolished such that no protections after 1868 can be safeguarded, based on the perverted legal doctrine of ”Originalism,” which is much like the various Christian Fundamentalist doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy, which though unprovable tries to deduce the meanings of the writers, without the tools of hermeneutics, historiography, or the Christian tradition and reason. The doctrine of originalism depends on interpreting the Constitution as if the Founders intended it to be enshrined as scripture rather than a compromised document that most felt at the time would need to be changed.

Now I am 62 years old. Many people of my generation and my parents generation elected these madmen. Those who will save us from tyranny have to be young people of ideals, integrity, and who believe in the founding principle of the Declaration of Independence, enhanced by the words of Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address, who also believe in the protections of the Constitution. 

So I leave you with this for tonight. Please, read it and share it. 

Thank you,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

On one of our trips to Munich we had breakfast and then since Judy’s knees were not up to a lot of long walks or standing took our rental car out to see a couple of places that we had not visited. We went to the grave of the anti-Nazi martyr Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans, and friend Christoph Probst who were executed in February 1943 for publishing anti-Hitler, Nazi, and war pamphlets. Following that we went to the BMW Museum and BMW World. The first was sobering, the second interesting because I like fast cars, but the visit to the cemetery was far more important.

Sophie Scholl Memorial at the University of Munich

I won’t write about the BMW Museum, that is something for true automotive enthusiasts. Instead I will write about that visit to the Friedhof at Perlacher Forst in Munich where Sophie Scholl is buried.

The cemetery is adjacent to the Stadelheim Prison where she was held before her trial and executed on February 22nd 1943. I have written about her and the White Rose resistance movement before. The year before I visited the White Rose Museum and study center at the Ludwig Maximillians University of Munich but last year I didn’t get the chance to make a pilgrimage to her gravesite. I made it a priority this visit.

Visiting a memorial or museum is one thing. However, I find that visiting the gravesite of a martyr, or the mass gravesites of the victims of the Holocaust, other mass killings, or cemeteries where those killed in battle, engenders something of a personal or spiritual connection.

We parked on the street outside Stadelheim, which is still an active prison surrounded by tall walls and guard towers. While Judy waited with the car I walked to the cemetery and then to the gravesite which is on the opposite side of the cemetery from the main entrance. It is a very peaceful place, with many trees and the sections cordoned off by carefully trimmed grapevines.

When I reached the gravesite I paused, and remained for about ten minutes contemplating the cost of real resistance to tyranny. She and her companions had no political, military, or economic power. They were students, and a number had served as medics on the Eastern Front before resuming their studies.

Unlike the men who launched Operation Valkyrie 17 months later they had no connections to any kind of power: they were not part of the movement of German conservatives and militarists who initially supported Hitler and then had second thoughts. When Hitler came to power they were children. They resisted because they found what was happening to go beyond any sense of ethics, morality, or in some cases, like Sophie, their Christian faith.

Memorial Stones to Sophie and members of White Rose outside the University of Munich

At her trial she told the notorious President of the Nazi People’s Court, Roland Freisler:

Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don’t dare express themselves as we did.

While I was their I tried to imagine her courage as she testified to the truth and went to her death. The woman who shared Sophie’s cell wrote of her final words before going to her execution:

How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause? Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?

Many people today are being faced with the same questions that Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans, and friends, including Christoph Probst who was executed the same day had to make. Thankfully, for the most part the future imitators of Hitler have not yet seized full power in Europe or the United States, but it wouldn’t take much for that to happen. Too many people, and not just conservatives, would be willing to sacrifice freedom in the name of security if a major war, terrorist attack, or natural disaster that threatened their well being and/or their economic or social status occurred. Likewise, we Americans have a pretty lousy history in dealing with suspect minorities and dissenters in times of crisis.

A Small Marker commemorating Sophie and fellow helpers near the Ostbahnhof in Munich

In such a situation, how many people would allow their government to oppress and terrorize people that they distrusted due to their race, ethnicity, or religion? I think that the numbers are a lot higher than we would want to admit. The preservation or self and wealth is often more of a motivation than faith, or the rights and liberties of others.

During the Nazi era many non-Nazis supported the Nazi programs because they thought that they benefited them. The same is true in any authoritarian State regardless of the ideology that it subscribes and its people hold dear.

Sophie said:

The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.

An addendum for tonight,

My question to you, and me is hers. If you think you are “safe,” you are only kidding yourself, no matter what your political or religious belief may be. Men like Trump or Boris Johnson, Orban of Hungary, Erdogan or Turkey, Bolsonaro Of Brazil, Marcos of the Philippines, Putin of Russia, or Kim Jun Un of North Korea have no real friends or allies. Their supporters, even the most loyal, are like those of Hitler and Stalin only are safe until they realize their mistaken trust in their leader.

As I write this more and more creditable and documented forensic evidence emerges during the various investigations into the crimes of former President Trump and his militant followers who attacked the Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 with the intent to stop the final ceremonial counting of the Electoral College Vote, even threatening to hang Vice President Mike Pence and murder many members of Congress.

It’s up to you young people. I’ll fight as long as I can, as will other older veterans and resisters. But the long term fight belongs to you. What way will you choose to burn?

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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July 7, 2022 · 00:53

A Time to Mourn and a Time for Righteous Anger: Responding to Highland Park and Every Act of Domestic Terrorism

Police Officer Crying at Highland Park, Brian Casella (AP) Photo

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I have grown weary of domestic terrorists murdering and maiming innocent people. Most of them are young angry white men, who often target their victims based on their race, ethnicity, gender, or religion. Their preferred victims seem to children and the elderly. There are few places in our country that can be considered safe. I have dealt with PTSD and its aftereffects for over a decade. I have lost count of the hundreds of people I have seen die, many due to gun violence. If you have never stood over the bodies of those whose bodies are destroyed, literally torn apart by high velocity semiautomatic rifles and handguns, then this is simply an exercise in political rhetoric. When I saw the picture above with the police officer crying his hands as he walked through the carnage.

When I saw what was happening in Highland Park, I could not wish anyone a happy Independence Day. I say that because there are a significant number of our citizens and elected leaders, especially those of the Trumpified and QAnon GOP. They have private heavily armed so called militias like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, which function as did the Nazi Brownshirts who go around, even after their major role in attacking the Capitol and trying to force a coup to overthrow the government and invalidate an election that Trump lost decisively in both the Electoral College and the popular vote, still use intimidation tactics to target LGBTQ gatherings and even readings to children in public libraries.

I recognized that Highland Park terrorism was likely directed at Jews, first because Highland Park has a large Jewish population, second because I saw one of the terrorist’s bloody videos before they were taken down. The video was flooded with a Welsh rope Rune used as a symbol of right wing Finnish group, with Nazi leanings, known as Suomen Sisu.

It is indeed a time to mourn, but to get angry and to whatever is needed in the courts, in our legislatures, and in taking to the streets to demand that our local state and federal representatives take action to restore what the founders meant in the Second Amendment which the Roberts Court in an opinion written by the late Antonin Scalia which turned the amendment on its head in 2008.

We also need to be ready take up arms against these terrorist groups. Lest anyone be confused, these efforts have to be defensive in nature, not threaten any public official, but limited to working within the laws of our states and working with law enforcement to ensure that peaceful protestors, or the people to assemble.

However, I have to pause for the night. I have a long day tomorrow, and there is much more to say. But I will conclude with the words of the German general Henning von Tresckow who gave up his life to overthrow Hitler, “A man’s moral worth is established only at the point where he is ready to give up his life in defense of his convictions.”

What is our worth?

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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June 29, 2022 · 22:58

Double Dog Damned: “‘I’m the f-ing president. Take me up to the Capitol now,’”


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

When I was 14 years old in the summer of 1974 I watched the

Watergate Hearings from our living room in Stockton, California. Though only 14 I realized their significance and was shocked at how President Nixon acted illegally and was transfixed by the testimony of John Dean that drove the stake through the heart of the Nixon presidency. I have watched every one of the Congressional hearings on the 6 January 2021 attack on the Capitol, including today’s, in which Cassidy Hutchinson, the senior aide to Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows was the most compelling witness I have seen testify before any Congressional committee in my life. I am a historian and something of a wonk when it comes to hearings where I know history was being made, so whenever possible I have tried to watch them. I have watched many witnesses testify in Congressional investigations, including Watergate, Iran-Contra, 9-11, and many more. Likewise I can count numerous Supreme Court and major Cabinet nomination hearings, Impeachment hearings, (Clinton’s and both of Trump’s) and now this.

The interesting thing for me today was that instead of a jaded lawyer, a career politician, a long time bureaucrat, lobbyist, or career military, Defense Department, or other National security professionals, think tank representatives, subject matter experts, and other experienced officials, we saw a 25 year old woman, political novice, speaking under oath, when many others have refused to appear, or plead the Fifth to every question but their name.

Ms. Hutchinson is a 2019 a graduate of Christopher Newport University. She interned for Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Steve Scalise, the year before her senior year, before moving to the White House after she graduated where she served as senior advisor to Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. She was at Meadows’ side in almost every high level White House meeting where every senior staffer knew her, and to add to her creditability she was a young and devoted Trump supporter.

She was in the room, or just outside the room seeing and hearing things that troubled her. She had no part in any making policy, directing operations, but trying to advise her boss, Mark Meadows of the things she was seeing, and trying to get him to do something to get Trump to stop the attack. She knew Mike Pence and realized that Trump put Pence’s life in danger.

Her testimony revealed information known to the committee in prior interviews, but not known to the public and her identity was kept secret until today’s testimony. Today we learned things that I believed either possible or probable based on the public information that I had seen or read. She had nothing to gain from it. She had done nothing that could be criminally prosecuted, she didn’t need to be flipped, like the target of an investigation. One might disagree with what her politics were, or maybe still are, but she acted as an American patriot to tell the truth. Now her life is forever changed. She will be threatened and maybe even be killed by Trump fanatics. She will have to always have security and watch her back, for God knows how long. I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump has already put out a hit on her while trying to make it look like he had nothing to do with it, I think that the term is ”plausible deniability.”

Tuesday we learned of the chaos in the White House on 6 January and the days preceding it. We learned of Rudy Giuliani’s unabashed joy in telling her about what was going to happen on 2 January, and Mark Meadows telling her that 6 January would be very bad, and how that and what she heard during Giuliani’s conversations with the Proud Boys and Oathkeepers troubled her. She then recalled how she on the night of 5 January, discouraged Meadows from attending a meeting at what plotters, including Giuliani, Meadows, Steve Bannon, and Roger Stone called the ”War Room,” where the assault was being planned, something that he didn’t do, but said he would dial in on.

The came 6 January. First came the rally on the Ellipse, where Trump was inflamed because the area set aside for the rally was not full. He demanded to know why and was told that many people did not want to pass through the security checkpoint magnetic detectors because the Secret Service would confiscate their weapons. Trump according to Hutchinson, who was with Meadows explained as to why it was necessary. She was there where Tony Ornato, the former head of Trump’s security detail and then working as a member of Meadows’ operational staff told Meadows that weapons including AR-15s and semi-automatic pistols had be confiscated at the checkpoints and the Secret Service observed many armed people in the mob outside the Ellipse.

Trump was infuriated and demanded that the magnetic detectors be taken down and the armed supporters allowed in stating something to the effect of “You know, I don’t even care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me.” So the question of who Trump knew they intended to harm is valid, and the answer is obvious based on his speech and subsequent actions.

In the speech Trump promised to be with his militant supporters and go with them to the Capitol. However, he was thwarted by the commander of his Secret Service detail, something that we learned of yesterday from Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony, which she explained in detail having worked with Mr. Ornato and Mr. Meadows and having gone almost everywhere Meadows went. There are two types of presidential movements that the Secret Service arranges. Planned movements that usually take weeks and months to coordinate. Then there are OTP movements, or Other Than Planned, which are done quickly with only the President’s security detail being involved and knowing the risks.

Evidently Meadows indicated to Trump that the OTP was still a possibility. According to Trump got into the SUV and when he saw that it was not going to the Capitol, Trump became agitated and demanded that his Secret Service detail Chief, Robert Engel take him to the Capitol. According to Ms. Hutchinson she walked into Meadows office where Ornato asked if she knew what occurred in the armored SUV, she recounted what he said in the presence of Mr. Engel, who did not dispute the account at the time.

Hutchinson described being told by Ornato what had happened next: Trump got into an armored presidential vehicle with Robert Engel, the chief of his Secret Service security detail.
Engel, according to Hutchinson’s account, then told Trump he could not travel to the Capitol. It was not secure, and Trump would have to return to the White House.
“The president had a very strong, a very angry response to that,” Hutchinson said, relaying Ornato’s account. “The president said something to the effect of, ‘I’m the f-ing president. Take me up to the Capitol now,’ to which [Engel] responded, ‘Sir, we have to go back to the West Wing.’”

She also noted Ornoto’s more detailed account which allegedly he and Engel dispute in regard to Trump trying to grab the steering wheel and attack Mr. Engel, but not that Trump demanded to be taken to the Capitol:

She said Deputy Chief of Staff Anthony M. Ornato told her that Trump was “irate” that he wasn’t allowed to go to the Capitol with his supporters after his speech on the Ellipse. She summarized Ornato’s account like this: “The President reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. [The head of Trump’s Secret Service detail Bobby] Engel grabbed his arm, said, ‘Sir you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We’re going back to the West Wing. We’re not going to the Capitol.’ Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel. And when Mr. Ornato had recounted this story to me, he had motioned towards his clavicles.” She said Engel never disputed what Ornato had said. If they dispute the details of her account they should do so under oath and not under the cover of a non-sworn statement issued by the Secret Service.

Thus, from this account we now can establish that Trump knew that his supporters were heavily armed, that they had been incited by Giuliani and Representative Mo Brooks to prepare for war and go into battle, and egged on by Trump who basically threatened the life of Vice President Pence if he ”didn’t do the right thing.” He then promised to be with them when they marched on the Capitol. When I heard Trump say those words on 6 January, I believed that he was lying to them in order to stir themselves up without endangering himself. Evidently, I was wrong. It was his intent to go to the Capitol, evidently with the intent of stopping the Electoral count and in doing so unlawfully overturning the election and peaceful transfer of power in order to remain in power. Who knows what would have happened if he reached the Capitol? I can only imagine that there would have been a massive firefight and probably a massacre, in which Pence and every presumably disloyal Senator or Congressperson, Democrat or Republican present among those slaughtered.

When word came that the Capitol had been breached and the insurgents were inside, Ms. Hutchinson and others including White House Counsel Pat Cipolloni tried to get Meadows to intervene. Hutchinson testified that Meadows responded to calls for more action on Jan. 6 by saying “something to the effect of, ‘You heard him, Pat; he thinks Mike deserves that. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.’”

Cipolloni, has now been subpoenaed by the Committee. I expect that since Ms. Hutchinson said that he told her to make sure that they stayed away from the Capitol. in her words, “We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen,” she recalled him saying, enumerating crimes that could include obstruction of justice, defrauding the election and inciting a riot.

I believe that others will be subpoenaed based on Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony, and I expect others to volunteer to tesify. I fully expect that as they continue their investigation by the Committee that the Justice Department will take evidence, along with what they are accumulating and charge Trump with multiple counts of felony obstruction election results. There could well be more, which likely will involve Federal and State charges from his attempt to get Georgia’s Attorney General to change that states by thousands of votes so he would win.

I have seen Tweets by people on the left condemning her for not speaking out sooner. Such criticism is unwarranted and nothing more than self-righteous grandstanding. When I was her age I was a young Republican and Army officer. I was a devoted follower of Ronald Reagan, and during the Iran-Contra hearings I had no problem condemning the actions of Oliver North and others, but could not bring myself to believe that Reagan was culpable for anything, and it took me until the outbreak of AIDS that there might be something morally wrong in his administration. That did not stop me from remaining rock solid in my support for Republican Candidates for President, though I often split my down ballot votes. I supported George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, and George W. Bush, even after I began to see the grim results of the criminal invasion of Iraq.

It was only after returning from Iraq, shattered by what I saw there, and stunned by the lies I saw coming from the Administration, Fox News, and people like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, which had been my source of news for a decade. I was then, coupled with tremendous racist tropes of Limbaugh and others directed at Barak Obama, and the nomination of Sarah Palin, a completely unqualified airhead and Christian Nationalist nutcase for Vice President that ai quit the GOP and became an ever more thoughtful and strong opponent of it.

So I can understand how a young, idealistic person could support someone like Trump. Crap, how many of us as young people supported candidates and causes that later disgusted us? I guarantee that there are a lot of us. My support of Republicans because I was a Navy brat whose dad served in Vietnam, and how many Democrats and liberals demonized the military, demonization that I experienced as an Army ROTC Cadet at UCLA when some guy started screaming at me ”ROTC Nazi off campus!” That remained with me for years because if there was one thing I was not, it was a Nazi or Holocaust denier. It was probably the one single thing that kept me in the GOP and being an apologist for people I now know were criminals. Thus, I have to commend her for her courage at such a young age to tell the truth when doing so will only endanger her life.

I have to stop for the night, but I have other things that I need to do before bed. I need to take some time to rest, read, and watch our Papillons play.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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June 21, 2022 · 02:00

The MAGA Violence Yet to Come


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I have not written anything here for months, but the last few months have been so busy with teaching, and the finishing touches on Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory. Likewise I am dealing with a number of physical issues which still continue. I think I mentioned the Kidney stone, and maybe the Carpal Tunnel syndrome. I have follow ups coming for both. I had a CT scan of the Kidney this morning in preparation for the follow up appointment with the Urologist. I am concerned that they might not gotten all of it as I still suffer from pain there. The follow up with the hand surgeon next month to determine the next steps in dealing with it which will likely involve a more complicated surgery. But enough excuses, the fact is that my mind and body were fried, I have taken the ten days since school ended to rest and recuperate, make changes to the website, and work with the publicity team at Potomac Books and University of Nebraska Press.

I have wanted to write but have not had the time or energy to do it, but that changes tonight. After taking the time to watch the January 6th hearings, and with everyone else watching relived that attack and listened to compelling evidence from members of the Trump administration and his re-election team revealing damning information on Trump’s egging on of the attack and the encouragement of the Proud Boys and other insurgents to kill Vice President Pence because ”deserved it.” In fact, an informant from the Proud Boys told the FBI that they intended to kill the Vice President that day, and they got within 40 feet of Pence and his family as they fled.

Then there were the mass murders, one specifically targeting Blacks in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York by a exceptionally racist 18 year old man armed with an AR-15 type weapon, he murdered 11 people, mostly senior citizens. He picked the store because he knew it was the most heavily Black neighborhood he could reach, and he travelled almost 200 miles to get there. Also the killing of 19 fourth graders and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, also by an 18 year old with an AR-15 type weapon. There have also been two church shootings by older men, one a gun dealer.

But these are but symptoms of an increasingly violent, gun worshipping culture, with leaders of the MAGA GOP leading the charge. Eric Greitens, the disgraced former governor of Missouri, now running for the GOP nomination for the Senate released a campaign ad with him armed with a pump action shotgun and a group of men dressed as soldiers, all heavily armed and in full combat gear breaking into an ordinary home. Greitens encouraged supporters to get their ”RINO hunting license” which has no limits. A RINO is what used to describe Republicans who were not full in with the party’s agenda. Most of the time it referred to centrists, or those slightly left of center. the first target of this was New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller during the 1964 GOP nominating convention in San Francisco. At that convention, supporters of Senator Barry Goldwater treated Rockefeller as an apostate, and too gain the support of Southern Democrats and the Dixiecrats of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurman who were livid over the Civil and Voting Rights Acts supported by President Lyndon Johnson and a coalition of Democrats and pro-Civil Rights Republicans including future President George H.W. Bush. No matter how one looks at it the 1964 GOP Convention was the watershed moment that led us to today. Baseball great, Jackie Robinson, a special delegate, and friend and supporter of Rockefeller described the fanatical racist crowd in San Francisco’s Cow Palace, in his book I Never Had it Made:

Robinson wrote of his experience at the 1964 Convention:

“I wasn’t altogether caught of guard by the victory of the reactionary forces in the Republican party, but I was appalled by the tactics they used to stifle their liberal opposition. I was a special delegate to the convention through an arrangement made by the Rockefeller office. That convention was one of the most unforgettable and frightening experiences of my life. The hatred I saw was unique to me because it was hatred directed against a white man. It embodied a revulsion for all he stood for, including his enlightened attitude toward black people.

A new breed of Republicans had taken over the GOP. As I watched this steamroller operation in San Francisco, I had a better understanding of how it must have felt to be a Jew in Hitler’s Germany.

The same high-handed methods had been there.

The same belief in the superiority of one religious or racial group over another was here. Liberals who fought so hard and so vainly were afraid not only of what would happen to the GOP but of what would happen to America. The Goldwaterites were afraid – afraid not to hew strictly to the line they had been spoon-fed, afraid to listen to logic and reason if it was not in their script.

I will never forget the fantastic scene of Governor Rockefeller’s ordeal as he endured what must have been three minutes of hysterical abuse and booing which interrupted his fighting statement which the convention managers had managed to delay until the wee hours of the morning. Since the telecast was coming from the West Coast, that meant that many people in other sections of the country, because of the time differential, would be in their beds. I don’t think he has ever stood taller than that night when he refused to be silenced until he had had his say.”

Likewise Belva Davis, then a young African American journalist wrote of her experiences at that convention:

While the Goldwater organization tried to keep its delegates in check on the floor, snarling Goldwater fans in the galleries around us were off the leash. The mood turned unmistakably menacing…

Suddenly Louis and I heard a voice yell, “Hey, look at those two up there!” The accuser pointed us out, and several spectators swarmed beneath us. “Hey niggers!” they yelled. “What the hell are you niggers doing in here?’”

I could feel the hair rising on the back of my neck as I looked into faces turned scarlet and sweaty by heat and hostility. Louis, in suit and tie and perpetually dignified, turned to me and said with all the nonchalance he could muster, “Well, I think that’s enough for today.” Methodically we began wrapping up our equipment into suitcases.

As we began our descent down the ramps of the Cow Palace, a self-appointed posse dangled over the railings, taunting. “Niggers!” “Get out of here, boy!” “You too, nigger bitch!” “Go on, get out!” “I’m gonna kill your ass!”

I stared straight ahead, putting one foot in front of the other like a soldier who would not be deterred from a mission. The throng began tossing garbage at us: wadded up convention programs, mustard-soaked hot dogs, half-eaten Snickers bars. My goal was to appear deceptively serene, mastering the mask of dispassion I had perfected since childhood to steel myself against any insults the outside world hurled my way.

Then a glass soda bottle whizzed within inches of my skull. I heard it whack against the concrete and shatter. I didn’t look back, but I glanced sideways at Louis and felt my lower lip began to quiver. He was determined we would give our tormentors no satisfaction.

“If you start to cry,” he muttered, “I’ll break your leg.” 

It took another fifty two years for this evil wing of the GOP under the leadership of former President Trump to take control of the Republican Party. From the beginning Trump promoted violence against his opponents and was delighted to have the muscle of White Nationalist and Christian Nationalist paramilitaries like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the III Percenters, the Prayer Patriots, and others including Neo-Nazis, and the KKK. When Trump told the Proud Boys in 2020, ”Stand back and stand by“ they knew what he meant. On January 6th they were in position at the Capitol to breach the outer police lines before Trump urged the masses to march to the Capitol and called Mike Pence out as a coward and stated his disappointment with Pence. The threats made toward Pence, Speaker of the House Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Schumer, and others in Congress, of both parties were so malignant that they beggar the imagination.

These threats have not stopped. Congressman Adam Kitzinger, a very conservative Republican who voted with Trump 90% of the time finally voted to impeach Trump in the Second Impeachment proceeding and is now one of two Republicans on the January 6th Commission received a hand written death threat targeting him and his family. Many GOP members have either shut up and become complicit through their silence, others who have actively aided him, and still more like Greitens who are not only aiding him but are encouraging violence and killing of all their opponents, Republican or Democrats. They are being aided and abetted by the propagandists of Fox News, Newsmax, One America News, Infowars, and other toxic spreaders of lies and disinformation. Of course there is the Dark Web where the mind numbing conspiracy theories of QAnon and other groups provide an endless supply of misinformation and lies through sites like 4Chan and 8Chan, and many others. Many of these sites aid in the targeting of opponents, and in abetting threats against them.

In light of how violent the GOP has become it is hard not to to believe that it will not get worse. Every indicator, the words and actions of GOP leaders, the targeting of racial, religious, and gender minorities by the GOP, especially in states like Texas and Florida in highly orchestrated campaigns to disenfranchise people, threaten them, or actively legislate punitive laws that target the civil rights, voting rights, and religious rights of racial, religious, or gender identity of citizens.

Since I am a historian of American racism, slavery, Jim Crow, as well as the Nazi crimes of the Holocaust, I cannot not see where this violent, authoritarian, theocratic and venomous MAGA is going. Since I believe that assassinations, mass killings, bombings and targeted killings of those opposed to Trump and MAGA will become commonplace in the next few months leading to the 2022 and 2024 elections, I will leave those who actively or passively support such violence with the words of Spencer Tracy playing Judge Dan Haygood in Judgement at Nuremberg:

“Any person who sways another to commit murder, any person who furnishes the lethal weapon for the purpose of the crime, any person who is an accessory to the crime — is guilty.”

That will be all for tonight but expect more, and more often.

Peace,

Padre Steve+


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February 11, 2021 · 14:59

The Impeachment Prosecutors Open: The defendants denounce the law under which their accounting is asked. Their dislike for the law which condemns them is not original. It has been remarked before that: “No thief e’er felt the halter draw with good opinion of the law.”

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I watched the second day of Donald Trump’s second Impeachment trial transfixed by the masterful way in which the House Impeachment Managers presented the documentary evidence and connecting the dots from the election night until 6 January. I struggled to think of a title for the article because the evidence was so overwhelming and massive it was hard to find just one thing.

The evidence is so overwhelming that if this were a normal criminal trial the defense attorneys would be doing all they could to make a plea bargain deal. But this is not a normal criminal trial and a large part of the Republican Senators serving as jury has sworn their undying fealty to Trump and will not honor either their oaths to the Constitution or the one they took as impeachment jurors. There is no crime evil enough for many of them to hold him accountable for his actions.

I was reminded of the closing arguments of Justice Robert Jackson at the major War Crimes Trial of senior Nazi leaders by the International Military Tribunal. In his closing Jackson said:

The defendants denounce the law under which their accounting is asked. Their dislike for the law which condemns them is not original. It has been remarked before that:

“No thief e’er felt the halter draw with good opinion of the law.”

Many of those involved in the insurrection before during and after said that they were acting on the orders or invitation of Donald Trump. They called the police defending the Capitol “fucking traitors” as they violently assaulted them, even using the Thin Blue Line Flags, symbols of support for police to assault individual police officers.




The images of the attacks by the terrorists were connected with his tweets in real time on that day, including threats against his own Vice President were starting. Watching former Vice President Pence, Senator Mitt Romney, dozens of Senators barely avoiding potential death from the angry mob which was calling for the deaths of Pence, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others which repeating his tweets by megaphone in real time to further enrage the mob. During the assault at least five people died or were killed, including Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, mortally wounded the attackers who slammed a fire extinguisher into his head. Two officers committed suicide in the following days, 140 more police officers were wounded. How any American could not hold the twice impeached former President responsible for his role over many months beginning before the election to radicalize his base into following his command to come to Washington on 6 January for a “wild time” which he further incited to attack the Capitol that day, something based on his previous orders they came to fulfill.

Trump wanted Pence, Pelosi, Romney, Liz Cheney, Chuck Schumer and others dead. It was a deliberate attempt to seize the Capitol and assassinate them and others. Had it not been for the courage of the outnumbered Capitol and DC Metropolitan Police, the former Vice President, many Senators and Representatives would have been killed, the Capitol taken, the Electoral College certification stopped, and Trump proclaiming himself as President.

But the House Managers were very smart to trace the insurrection back to Trump’s actions before the election and after. In the sixty days after the election, beginning at 2 AM on election night. It was then that the former President spent spinning lies and conspiracy theories about how the election was being stolen from him, and inciting violent revolts and threats against the attorneys general of several states, and elections commissioners at state and county level who were then still engaged in counting votes and in which some states would involve multiple recounts none of which changed the results.

Despite that Trump’s legal teams fired off a volley of over 60 factually and legally unsupported lawsuits which were shot down by Republican majority State Supreme Courts, US District, Appeals, and even the United States Supreme Court. Undeterred, Trump continued trying to overturn the votes, including trying to force the Attorney General Georgia, on 2 January to find the exact amount of votes to make him the winner or the race. On Wednesday Georgia announced that Trump is now being investigated on criminal charges for trying to influence the results of the election.

In spite of all those facts Trump continued to incite his followers. He told them to “walk to the Capitol” and “fight like hell”. In a fiery speech lasting over twenty minutes he urged them to fight more than 20 times, while only once telling them to be peaceful. He described how the election had been stolen and that in such a case “normal rules do not apply.” 

Within an hour Trump knew his private army was already inside the Capitol because even Republican Senators and Members of the House were doing all they could to get him to stop the attack. In fact 14 minutes after the terrorists breached the Capitol and Mike Pence and his family was being evacuated by his Secret Service detail Trump tweeted:

“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”

It was hours before a joyful Trump who thought the insurgents had stopped the . When he finally released a prerecorded statement he told the  insurgents “we love you” called them “patriots” and told them to “go home in peace.”

I will not go into the full timeline and events. I could but the presentation of the Impeachment Managers, Congressman Jamie Raskin, Delegate Stacy Plaskett, Congressman Eric Swalwell, Congressman Joaquin Castro, Congressman Ted Lieu, Congresswoman Madeline Dean, Congressman David Cecilline, and Congressman Joe Naguse is so damning, so overwhelming that I cannot top them.

Instead I simply put one 39 minute segment of the evidence presented by the impeachment managers at the top of this post. However, these is so much more.

Watching the events took me back to Iraq in 2007-2008 and one of the boarding missions I was on during the UN Oil Embargo on Iraq in 2002. I never believed that in my lifetime that I would see an American President attempt to overthrow an election defeat and urge his supporters to commit violence when all legal means had failed.


But besides his direct attack on our Constitution, Republic and democracy before the election until 6 January is just one of many crimes that he and his administration could be prosecuted. I am thinking of the deaths of over 400,000 Americans from COVID-19 a deadly virus that Trump knew as early as a year ago was deadlier than many people thought, but then undermined every effort to contain it or help its victims.


Then there was the treatment of refugees and would be immigrants on the United States – Mexican border including the separation of families, locking children in cages without adequate sanitary or living conditions, and the alleged forced sterilization of women in the custody of the Immigration and Naturalization service and Border Patrol in private prisons on the border, his support for far right racist and White Nationalist extremist groups including Neo-Nazis in actions all over the country which have included attacks on Synagogues, Mosques, and Black Churches.

Likewise the use of heavy handed and brutal police assaults on mostly peaceful Black Lives Matters Protesters, while ignoring looters taking advance of those demonstrations to commit crimes. The most egregious of these was led by the former President himself in broad daylight in Lafayette Park where massive numbers of Metropolitan Police, US Marshals, and numerous other Federal law enforcement agencies backed by the National Guard with active duty Army units in reserve attacked unarmed people doing nothing more than singing or chanting near St John’s Church. The attack on the protesters was notable for its lack of restraint and the President, Attorney General, Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff being involved. The SECDEF and Chairman of the JCS quickly distanced themselves from the attack and condemned it, but few others in the Administration or GOP Senators or Congressmen raised a single protest.

On Friday the former President’s defense team is planing on showing videos of BLM protestors, but more focused on the criminal looters in order to draw a moral equivalency argument. They will also show videos of House and Senate members calling for justice after the race based murders of Black Americans by police and ordinary citizens. But none ever called for an attack on the Congress, the White House or the deaths of their opponents. They insisted that the justice system from local police, sheriffs and prosecutors to the Department of Justice obey the laws against unreasonable force and violence. That will be their argument beginning Friday. They will show rioters and burning buildings but not put them in context. It will be like how the Nazis used the Reichstag Fire to seize complete political and police control and shut down opposition political parties and publications.

Sadly, that tactic may work because it plays to the inherent and often violent racism of the GOP base, and many Senators lack the moral, physical, and political courage to confront that base. Of course there are some in the Senate many in the House, and even more in the State and local GOP that are completely on board with all of this, and even now are censuring, banishing, and challenging any GOP office holder that is that 100% in for Trump. This is not the Party of Lincoln, Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Reagan or either Bush. Instead it has become a fascist, racist, theocratic, authoritarian party committed to destroying the Constitution, our Republic, Democracy, and institutions. Despite their election loss they will continue to overthrow the Republic through legal and violent means, just like Hitler’s Nazis.

As a scholar of Weimar, the Nazi Era, the Holocaust and all of the Nuremberg Trials I do not make such comments flippantly, but only in the gravest situations. Trump and his political supporters have sown the wind and our national and people are now reaping the whirlwind that President Trump is most responsible. If he is not found guilty it will green light future Presidents and elected officials to do the same or worse. Police were murdered, 140 wounded, lives threatened, our Capitol building, a symbol of liberty around the world was desecrated.

This impeachment trial is not over, but the great trial facing our country has just begun. The violence is not over.

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

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January 18, 2021 · 15:37

“There are only two sides to the question. Every man must be for the United States or against it. There can be no neutrals in this war, only patriots – or traitors” The Words of Stephen A. Douglas and Padre Steve for Today

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Sorry I have not written in the past few days but I’ve been trying to sort out all that is going on in our nation between the relentless Coronavirus 19 Pandemic and the threat to our Constitution and Republic posed by the domestic terrorists, so-called militias, White Nationalists, Neo-Nazis, fascist authoritarians, Conspiracy theorists, QAnon thugs, and Christian theocrats dedicated to the person of Donald Trump. Their assault on the Capitol, Congress, and Vice President Pence should have exposed Trump and these thugs to his anyone and the criminal he is. However, according to an AP poll some 80% of Republicans and identified Trump supporters refused to admit that he was responsible in any way for that terrorist assault that he organized and cheered before, during and after it.

Now instead of a normal celebratory inauguration the Capitol is locked down with about 25,000 National Guard troops and countless Federal police from a multitude of Federal Law Enforcement agencies. Meanwhile around the country similar precautions are being taken due to the FBI assessment of potential violence of these violent Trump Cultist groups attacking Statehouses, Governors mansions, and other government offices, Federal, State and local. I personally expect them to make attempts to seize military weapons and equipment from National Guard armories as well as Army and Marine Reserve Centers not located on actual military bases.

We are not in a good situation. We face raging pandemic coupled with the very real threats of declared enemies, weakened alliances, a crumbling economy, and a tremendously unstable and narcissistic sociopath President capable of unleashing any destructive and dishonorable actions in his last few days in office cannot be underestimated.

Thankfully nothing happened over the weekend outside of small protests by armed protestors in a number of state capitols. That doesn’t mean that there have not been upticks in chatter about possible attacks, but it is possible that the response of the FBI in identifying and arresting the terrorists who attacked the Capitol and killed and wounded Capitol and Metro Police, the investigations by Congress, the Capitol Police, and FBI into the real possibility that Republican members of Congress, staffers, and members of the Capitol Police might have aided the attack.

Likewise the strong the stand of senior military commanders ad the deployment of thousands of National Guard troops and units, 25,000 in Washington D.C. alone and thousands in State Capitols might have acted as a major deterrent despite the threats of some of the terrorists to begin another Civil War. They banners they flew in their attack on the Capitol showed just that. They are not conservatives even though many call themselves Republicans. The are anti-U.S. Government radical extremists who hate the Constitution, its limits on Presidential power who are willing to kill to overthrow the government. That is demonstrated by history.

They are anti-United States Government, so long as they hold the Presidency, and absolutely committed to overthrowing it if they don’t hold it. These traitors bet their all on Donald Trump to be their Führer and savior. But Trump failed. He sent them into an attack and the abandoned them. So long as they think he has a minute chance they still might storm the Capitol Wednesday and attack soft targets in other states. But with just a few exceptions over the weekend they remained curiously silent, as if waiting for another order to attack.

That being said given the opportunity or a word from Trump they might might make another attempt before he leaves Washington or to cause death and destruction at the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. That too is a real possibility given the situation, there are some who have gone so far down the road of sedition and treason that they cannot turn back. Their only recourse is violence now, or violence later once they think they have a better opportunity.

I think that there is the possibility of both, but their failed Coup D’tat encouraged  by Trump and his surrogates for weeks failed and  more and more are being caught up charged, jailed and paraded before the world to see might tamper more large assaults. The more dangerous threats now are against individuals they identify as their enemies or raids or attacks on soft government targets, be the Federal, State, or local. That would include National Guard Armories and Army, Marine, or Navy Reserve Centers not located on an actual military base but those in the community where they might get inside help to seize military weapons. An up-armored HUMMV was stolen from a National Guard armory in Bell California over the weekend. Most of these armories or reserve centers have very few personnel on duty on non drill days, and an insider could facilitate the theft of weapons and vehicles that would facilitate further large or small scale attacks.

After Biden takes office I am more concerned about small terrorist cells or individuals making assassination attempts, kidnappings, and other violence against individuals or specific targets they believe to be vulnerable and which would send a statement. Terrorists of every kind resort to such tactics when defeated at the ballot box or military force. Our own history or Reconstruction and it’s subsequent defeat by Klansmen and other racist paramilitaries used such violence as to ensure that President Rutherford Hayes ended Reconstruction and threw newly freed and no enfranchised blacks to the wolves not only in the South but the entire country. After the failed Kapp Putsch and Bier Hall Putsch German right wing terrorists used individual assassination tactics throughout the 1920s instead of insurrection.

Like I said at the beginning of this article I apologize for not posting sooner. Even though I started this article days ago I had to wait complete it.

As always I have been getting threatened and harassed by Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, and Christian Taliban and dealing with them and real life has been exhausting and I just didn’t have the energy to complete it.

Likewise, I put out a post on my Facebook page that if I found out that any member of my family or friends took part in or supported the attack on the Capitol that I would turn them in. Shortly after a cousin who I have sparred with many times because of his attacks on me his theocratic fascist beliefs, and unremitting support of Trump dropped and blocked me from his Facebook account.

I cannot prove it yet, but I believe that he might have be a conspirator or participant in this plot to overthrow the government. I plan on contacting the Norfolk FBI field office to let them know of my suspicions. I have his contact info and a recent photo to help the in their investigation. If he wasn’t involved I would be surprised.

Some would same that family ties should be stronger, but for me loyalty to the country, Constitution, and our democratic norms matter more. I cannot sit by and allow the Union to be overthrown by seditious traitors, regardless of the are family or friends. The American Civil War pitted brother against brother and so such threats against our Union pit me against anyone who threatens it.

I can only echo the words of Senator Stephen A. Douglas after he lost the 1860 Presidential election to Abraham Lincoln because his former Southern Democrat friends decided to splinter the party and torpedo his Presidential campaign by supporting a second Democratic ticket headed by James Buchanan’s Vice President and former Kentucky Senator John C. Breckinridge. Douglas, knowing he lost toured the South to try to convince Southern Democrats not to rebel or support secession. For doing so he was condemned. When the Confederates fired on Fort Sumpter, Douglas who had spent most of his political career brokering compromise said:

“There are only two sides to the question. Every man must be for the United States or against it. There can be no neutrals in this war, only patriots – or traitors”

Douglas, a man who had spent his entire career to further compromise with men who refused to do so finally recognized that the secessionist traitors were just that, and that there was not way to describe them as anything else. He was absolutely correct. Those who assault our Capitol, kill and injure police officers defending it, and calling themselves “Patriots” are not Patriots or freedom fighters. They are domestic terrorists, insurrectionists, and enemies of everything our founders believed was right and true. Honestly, I don’t care if the are blood relatives or long time friends. Anyone who attempts to overthrow this Union is my enemy. I did not spent nearly forty years in uniform swearing my sacred Oath to the Constitution not to tolerate or resist attempts by anyone regardless of their relationship to me to overthrow that Union and Constitution. I might be retired now, but I will remain faithful t my oath, and if any group ever launches an insurrection against the United States I will volunteer to my new State, the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Federal Government to serve to defeat it, not as a Chaplain but as a line officer in any component of the State or Federal military who will accept my service. With my experience as a company commander, battalion, group and brigade staff office before I was ever a minister, and my advanced military education I could command a company, battalion, or regiment of volunteers willing to fight for the Union.

I am angered by the insurgents and terrorists who turned their backs on the Constitution and our country to support the Coup by Trump and his Cult to overthrow it on 6 January. They are traitors. If anyone I know or are related to or served alongside supports their attempted overthrow of of our Republic and Constitution, they are my enemy. There is no room for compromise. There are only two sides now.

So until Tuesday I wish you the best. I have to finish an article for the German newspaper Die Zeit about pastoral for the dying in mass casualty and pandemic events where combat triage, that is treating those most capable of surviving first and giving palliative care to those who cannot. The. I have to finish my photograph credit section of my book Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory! Racism, Religion, Ideology and Politics in the Civil War Era and the or Continuing Importance, to send to the publisher and my agent by Wednesday.

I have more work to do after that, but I won’t stop writing or telling the truth. I know too much about these people to from previous associations with them and listening to their propaganda three to nine ours a day before I went to Iraq. I feel for it from the time I was a teenager and while never an extremist by any means I never spoke up against the lies and conspiracy theories until I came back from Iraq in 2008 to find out that most of the GOP, and other supposed conservatives neither cared about the international law that we as a nation established against war crimes at Nuremberg, the country or people of Iraq, or the military personnel sent to either conquer, subjugate, or occupy that unfortunate country. By May of 2008 I knew the GOP war party had betrayed all of us. They bankrupted the nation, abandoned the troops, and the people of Iraq who initially welcomed us as liberators only to find that we were not liberators but another in a long series of occupiers, from the Assyrians, to the Persians, to the Greeks, the Sunni forces of Mohammed, the British and finally us. I saw the suffering there, I met our friends and allies, and I saw the destruction that we did to that country. If we were held to the standards of the Nuremberg trials our nations leaders would have easily been convicted of the crimes that we charged convicted, and either jailed or executed the Nazis for their crimes. With the exception of committing genocide our leaders and military forces could have been convicted of three of the four counts we convicted the Nazis.

So now, some 57 hours before Joe Biden and Kamala Harris take their oaths as President and Vice President and former President Trump holds some kind of seditious rally when he trundles down the steps of Air Force One for the last time, without any military honors as he departs Washington D.C. he doesn’t deserve any honors of any kind. He has again been impeached and this time he may well be convicted. Likewise, he is going to face a multitude of State and Federal charges. I hope that he is put in the dock and convicted of every one of them. He needs to spend the rest of his natural life in prison as a traitor to the United States, as do many of his violent seditious followers.

So, until Tuesday, peace, be safe, and turn in anyone suspected of attempting to overthrow our Republic, Constitution, or those who want to do harm to our validly elected leaders.

Again I apologize for my delay in writing.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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