10/6/2025

 Monday, October 6, 2025

D+ 

1949 President Harry Truman signed the Mutual Defense Assistance Act (for NATO)

1951 Joseph Stalin proclaimed the Soviet Union had the atomic bomb

1956 Scientist Albert Sabin announced that his oral polio vaccine was ready for testing; it would soon supplant Jonas Salk's vaccine in many parts of the world

1961 JFK advised Americans to build fallout shelters

1976 US President Gerald Ford said there is "no Soviet domination in Eastern Europe" during a Presidential debate against Jimmy Carter

1987 Senate Judiciary Committee voted 9-5 to send the nomination of Robert Bork for a seat on the Supreme Court to the full Senate with an unfavorable recommendation

2002 Pope John Paul II canonized Opus Dei founder Josemaría Escrivá as a Catholic saint

2018 Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed and sworn onto the US Supreme Court amid protests and after an FBI investigation

In bed around 9, awake and up, unable to sleep at 12:30, out to TV room & recliner.  Back to bed  6, and up again at 8.   

Meds, etc.  Linezolid at 8:20 a.m.  My right hand is acting up with 'claw finger.'  My back hurts.  My foot hurts a little when I am upright.  I still have a lot of redness and discoloration of my leg and foot, swelling, and some pain in the foot, but I could do some laundry and function somewhat normally today.  I filled my two-week pill boxes today and took my "morning meds" at 4 p.m.

Text exchange with LOA:

HI, Pal.  (1) FYI, my release from the hospital only lasted one day.  I was back in, in worse condition, last Wednesday and released again Saturday. (2)  I was glad to see that my favorite former AUSAs signed that letter about Comey.  Good for you and Jan.  (3)  I’ve been wondering for some time what a second civil war would look like.  Trump and Gov. Abbott are showing me.  Red State National Guard troops deployed against Blue State citizens over the objections of Blue State governors and mayors. s/f

LOA; ou need to stop doing that hospital stuff. This shut down is really disturbing. The orange menace will use it to lay off even more govt workers. I can’t stand either side. S/F 

 

Civil War II: Red State National Guards vs. Blue State citizens.  from this morning's New York Times:

Judge Again Blocks Guard Deployment as Trump Expands His Targets

 A federal judge on Sunday night blocked the Trump administration from deploying hundreds of out-of-state National Guard troops to Oregon, even as President Trump turned to the Texas guard in a widening hunt for military forces to send to Democratic cities.

The Trump administration had tried to send hundreds of California National Guard troops to Portland, Ore., while mustering hundreds more from Texas, despite a stern ruling from Judge Karin Immergut of U.S. District Court in Oregon just Saturday that sought to block military forces.

Judge Immergut, an appointee of President Trump, called an emergency hearing Sunday, then broadened her restraining order to cover “the relocation, federalization or deployment of members of the National Guard of any state or the District of Columbia in the state of Oregon,” telling Justice Department lawyers that the president was ”in direct contravention” of her order.

The blizzard of moves by the Trump administration, from Texas to California, Illinois to Oregon, has left governors and the courts scrambling to keep pace. First, the administration tried to sidestep Judge Immergut by turning to California. Then the president ordered as many as 400 members of the Texas National Guard to deploy for “federal protection missions” in Portland, Chicago and potentially other cities, according to a letter released by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, on Sunday night.

“We must now start calling this what it is: Trump’s Invasion,” Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas fully backed the deployment.

“You can either fully enforce protection for federal employees or get out of the way and let Texas Guard do it,” he wrote on social media. “No Guard can match the training, skill, and expertise of the Texas National Guard.”

The president had said the troops were needed to respond to demonstrations at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland and another in suburban Chicago.

But Judge Immergut wrote on Saturday that the protests in Portland, which have been generally small, “were not significantly violent or disruptive” and that she expected a trial court to agree with the state’s contention that the president had exceeded his constitutional authority. The Trump administration quickly appealed.

Then, in a pivot that outraged both states, the president ordered 200 members of the California National Guard who had been commandeered earlier this summer and sent to Los Angeles as part of another contested federal deployment to travel to Oregon support federal law enforcement. The decision to essentially substitute California troops for the thwarted Oregon deployment drew vehement criticism from Gov. Gavin Newsom of California and Gov. Tina Kotek of Oregon, both Democrats, who charged that the use of the out-of-state troops without their consent was an abuse of power and illegal.

“The rule of law has prevailed — and California’s National Guard will be heading home,” Mr. Newsom said after the judge’s restraining order was issued late Sunday.

But the judge’s order did not cover a pending deployment of guard troops to Chicago. Mr. Pritzker charged that the mustering of guard troops from Texas was aimed at escalating tensions.

“It started with federal agents,” Mr. Pritzker said in a statement. “It will soon include deploying federalized members of the Illinois National Guard against our wishes, and it will now involve sending in another state’s military troops.”

I suspect that this will be a critical test for the U.S. Supreme Court, which, through its ''shadow docket' or emergency docket, has so far been very supportive of Donald Trump and the 'unitary executive' theory.  Stand back and standby.

On Facebook this morning:

Janice Jenkins Anderson

Larry and I joined more than 1000 of our former DOJ colleagues in signing the below letter condemning the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. The Comey indictment represents an unprecedented assault on the rule of law directed by President Trump. There is simply no doubt that this is a vindictive prosecution. I am heartbroken that the Dept of Justice that Larry and I so proudly served for decades has become a mere political pawn in advancing the authoritarian designs of this administration. 

The letter:

We, the undersigned, are alumni of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) who have collectively served both Republican and Democratic administrations. Each of us proudly took an oath to defend the Constitution and to faithfully discharge the duties of our office, which included pursuing the evenhanded administration of justice free from partisan consideration.

We write today to condemn the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey for allegedly making a false statement to and obstructing an investigation conducted by Congress during testimony he gave nearly five years ago. The indictment represents an unprecedented assault on the rule of law directed by President Donald Trump, as evidenced both by his many overtly self-interested and partisan pre-indictment interventions in the investigation and his disregard for the professional judgment of the prosecutors who investigated Comey’s 2020 testimony and reportedly assessed the case as too weak to charge. Trump’s actions fly in the face of DOJ’s longstanding guidelines for apolitical law enforcement and the Principles of Federal Prosecution memorialized in the DOJ’s Justice Manual. They jeopardize the ability of DOJ attorneys to do their jobs consistent with the law and the rules of their licensing bars. And they flout constitutional protections for persons accused of crimes, including the requirement that trials must be conducted in a court of law rather than in the media and that every person is entitled to due process and equal protection of the laws. A few of President Trump’s many transgressions against the laws, rules, and norms comprising the fair administration of justice follow.

. . .  

Finally, we unequivocally support Erik Siebert, the former United States Attorney who carried out his duty to decline to pursue unwarranted charges, as well as the career EDVA prosecutors who did the same. They honored their oaths of office at the cost — or great risk — of losing their jobs and are a credit to public service and the legal profession. They have brought light to one of the darkest moments in DOJ’s history and are an example of the integrity and courage we all must exercise now. We urge public officials and ordinary citizens alike to join them in working to ensure that our nation remains a democracy governed by the rule of law. 

Charles D. Clausen

Were I a DOJ alum, I would add my signature. As a former Marine, I also took an oath to defend the Constitution and am appalled by how thi commander-in-chief is using the American military, deploying troops to American cities and blowing boats out of international waters because it is believed that they are carrying illegal drugs to the U.S.  I suspect it is only a matter of time before he and his Secretary of Defense are indicted for the latter crimes by the International Criminal Court and perhaps the United States itself becomes a defendant in the International Court of Justice. It already stands indicted in international public opinion.