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LEADERSHIP, RESPECT AND INTEGRITY

An Attorney General needs three basic qualities. She or he needs to be a leader. Someone who has the maturity, temperament and expertise to run the world’s foremost law enforcement agency, from preliminary investigation to complex litigation.

She or he needs to be respected. She needs to be respected by her vast workforce, which includes the agents of the FBI, ATF and DEA, Immigration Judges, U.S. Attorneys, subject-matter attorneys in all areas of federal law, the Bureau of Prisons, the Antitrust Division, and the Environment and Natural Resources Division. She needs to be respected by the federal bench, before whom her Department will appear and argue its cases, if the interests of the United States are to be effectively prosecuted or defended. She needs to be respected by opposing parties and opposing counsel. This includes opposing parties who are foreign states and foreign nationals who may be subject to U.S. jurisdiction.

Finally, the Attorney General needs to have personal and professional integrity. Just like a Justice of the Supreme Court, the Attorney General must be beyond reproach in terms of integrity. There must be no trace of bias, personal interest or conflict of interest in any of her words or actions. Blind loyalty to a party or a President should be nowhere in her character. She should protect elections, not undermine them. Malice or retribution should be ideas she repudiates, not endorses. She must serve only the interests of the American people and their Constitution and laws. Not the interests of wealthy individuals, wealthy foreign entities, or corporate monopolies.

Can we say, with a straight face, that the person whom President-elect Trump wants to be our next Attorney General possesses any of these three qualities? Rarely has a negative answer to such a question been so embarrassingly obvious.

Chuck Redman, retired federal trial attorney, U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Logic and reason

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“I will tell you that I thought you were a brave boy, but misguided in your bravery. Never mind what you feel. Think. Watch. Think again. And then one step at a time to put things right. As a mason puts one block at a time. To build solid and good. So with thought. Think. Build one thought at a time. Think solid. Then act. Is it?” (Richard Llewellyn, How Green Was My Valley)

Oh the performances

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Oh the drivers in my rearview mirror. The chagrin, the anguish, the utter astonishment. The bewildered palms in the air, the hunched shoulders, the open mouths and contorting heads. Because when you drive 40 on a curvy suburban boulevard and the speed limit is 45 or 50 and the other drivers want to go 60 or more, the performances I see in my rearview mirror are truly histrionic. It is quite pathetic. But not in a good way.

It’s the coolest thing ever

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It is so cool and so fun being the richest guy in the world. And did I mention being cool? I mean, I got to sway an entire election with my money and my influencer stuff. What a gas. It’s like I snap my fingers and presto change-o, my guy wins the whole contest. And now I get to hobnob with all the big shots. That’s a trip, dude. I mean, I can tank any bill or policy just by making a few mildly threatening phone calls or a few tweets, no biggies. And I’m like a total new kid on the block, only I bought the block and everybody on it.

And I’m basically top gun. I got the whole country in the palm of my hand. What a rush, man. I’m having the time of my life. It’s the coolest thing ever.

Why can’t they just admit?

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95 out of 100 domestic abusers or sexual predators deny their crimes when confronted. Even in court, under oath. Even in the face of clear, credible evidence. Any attorney who deals with such individuals would corroborate that. The denial is part of the sickness. On some level the abuser knows that he has done unspeakable things. Unforgivable things. But he cannot bring himself to admit those ugly truths about what kind of a man he is. It’s too painful, like a tumor in the gut. It’s a deep-seated character flaw. It’s a type of pathetic cowardice.

But until he acknowledges, until he owns up and faces up, he is no good to anyone. He is all twisted inside. He is half a man. Or even less.

How paranoid is it sane to be?

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I cut the little loose thread on the sleeve of my hoodie. It’s a cool morning and I put the sweatshirt on as soon as I got up. I really shouldn’t have bothered, it probably wouldn’t have unravelled and even if it had I’ve got other sweatshirts.

But what, I thought, if I have to make a run for it when they come for me and the sweatshirt I have on is all the bed or blanket I will have for months, or maybe years, of desperate flight. Because maybe they won’t come after people who speak up against them like they insinuate, but maybe they will. Maybe they will be as vindictive and ugly as all the stuff they said in their campaign. And we can’t afford loose threads when we’re racing to outrun fascism.

Maybe this talk is absurd, maybe I’m loonier than they are. How paranoid is it sane to be?

Together we can be

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We’re going to need heroes. A whole lot of them. We had some last time, after what happened four years ago. But we’re going to need more this time. Thousands of heroes, maybe millions.

We had Michael Fanone and Aquilino Gonell and Harry Dunn and Caroline Edwards. We had Rusty Bowers and Cassidy Hutchinson. We had Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. We had Brad Raffensperger and Gabriel Sterling. We had B.J. Pak and Al Schmidt and Chris Stirewalt. We had Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. We had Mike Pence. Heroes all. There were unsung heroes, too. We don’t know their names. But we’ll need more this time.

We’ll need generals who remain loyal to their oath and the American people, not to one man in an Oval Office. We’ll need soldiers and police officers and government agents who refuse to carry out unlawful orders intended to punish the innocent or violate civil rights. We’ll need lawyers and trial judges and appeals court judges and Supreme Court Justices who follow the law, not the dictates of an oppressive regime. We’ll need scientists and teachers who spread truth, not superstition or prejudice or illusion or fabrication. We’ll need representatives and senators who work for the common good, not special interests or personal gain or the advantage of one party or faction. We’ll need heroes.

We’ll need all fair-minded Americans to step up. Speak up and stand up, to do the right thing, to say no to hate and cruelty and greed and injustice. Heroes all. We need all of us. We all need all of us. We can be heroes. Together we can be.

Leadership, Respect and Integrity

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She or he needs to be respected. He needs to be respected by his vast workforce, which includes the agents of the FBI, ATF and DEA, Immigration Judges, U.S. Attorneys, subject-matter attorneys in all areas of federal law, Bureau of Prisons, and officers responsible for monitoring sex offenders and preventing Violence Against Women. He needs to be respected by the federal bench, before whom his Department will appear and argue its cases, if the interests of the United States are to be effectively prosecuted or defended. He needs to be respected by opposing parties and opposing counsel. This includes opposing parties who are foreign states and foreign nationals who may be subject to U.S. jurisdiction.

Finally, the Attorney General needs to have personal and professional integrity. Just like a Justice of the Supreme Court, the Attorney General must be beyond reproach in terms of integrity. There must be no trace of bias or personal interest in any of his words or actions. He must serve only the interests of the American people and their Constitution and laws.

The Betrayal

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Netanyahu has betrayed Jews everywhere. Most of us believe that he has taken an Israel that was once a respected homeland moving toward a permanent peace with its neighbors and turned it into a dangerous battleground where human rights are brutalized, war crimes are normalized, and it is only a legal technicality that deflects a charge of Genocide. Jews everywhere have lost their “safe house”, and with the U.S. now electing a would-be dictator who panders to Christian nationalism, many of us are not being facetious when we suggest places like Mexico or New Zealand as possible locations for at least a four year sabbatical, starting in January.

No way we’re backing down . . .

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Saw my therapist yesterday. She gave me some very important political advice. That guy, the one who’s going to be moving himself and his ego into the White House in January. His whole purpose is to crush our spirits so that we’ll just lie down and give up, and then he can do whatever mischief he wants to do without any resistance. And then he’ll have really won.

But he’s a bully and a coward, and if we stand up to him tall and loud and proud, he will lose his cool and he will be on the defensive and his silly sycophants will start edging away from him and there is no way he will be able to do all those sick, destructive things he talked about doing. And then we will have won, in a way that he, in his moral emptiness, could never understand.

A Shred of Hope

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There will always be uneducated, uninformed or easily-misguided voters. But there will not always be a Trump base: sixty million Americans who not only can stomach a racist, misogynist predator but actually like that brand of filth. You see, the guy has a rare talent, he knows how to exploit a certain human character flaw. It’s the rotten part of our soul that loves to hurt others and he exploits it for everything he can get.

We would like to think that our civilized society would discourage those impulses, but in this case civilization has failed. A guy came along who has lived his whole life by those savage tendencies and knows exactly how to awaken them in others. Hence, we have a terrible, terrible specimen of our species as President-elect, a man who would, and will, sell his country to the highest bidder. The “hope” is that, when the next reactionary demagogue comes along, he won’t be quite as talented as this one.

On a certain level . . .

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There’s a certain thing in so many of his supporters. It’s way down deep in their gut, they don’t even know it’s there. But it’s there. It’s a mean little sadistic thing. It likes when he talks dirty. It likes when he targets innocent groups. It likes the idea of blaming and punishing someone else for all the problems. It likes being part of a mob and getting a vicarious thrill out of all the venom. It’s an ugly smoldering thing. And without it fascist demagogues would never win elections. And it makes me sick to my stomach.

Birds of a feather

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Fascists and other creeps have a sixth sense. They recognize each other, even in a crowd. Instinctively. They identify through their mutual depravity. They flock together. Vulture-like. It’s really very unnerving.

I suppose on some level we should feel pity for these guys, for the moral emptiness of their souls. But never hesitate to call them out. They have no pity, and we darn well better make sure they have no power.

Tinderbox

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I don’t know about you but my brain has been on overdrive this entire year because the world is a bloody tinderbox and we are little toothpicks sprinkled on the top of the pile. And sparks are blowing in the wind. And the guy who wants to be President again is lighting one match after another and flicking them in our direction. Muttering something about crowd sizes and witch hunts.

That’s why I’m writing this at 11:30 at night. Does anybody have a recommendation?

It’s Your Funeral, Man . . .

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Dear Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and anybody else who thinks they have something to prove in the Middle East:

Just because you CAN kill your enemy doesn’t necessarily mean you SHOULD. Especially in a situation where right and wrong and guilt and innocence are fuzzy, where the moral weight is shifty and hard to guage. Because you can always find an excuse to blame and punish the guys on the other side and, not unreasonably, so can they. But then you’re gonna spend your whole stinkin’ life hating and killing and burying and grieving, back and forth, until everybody’s forgotten what the petty, pathetic little war was all about in the first place. Is that what you want? Say something. Say you’d prefer that hell on earth over anything else. Say you’d rather blow each other’s brains out than try understanding, forgiveness, or god forbid, peace. Go ahead, retaliate like there’s no tomorrow. Yeah, knock yourself out.

You’re dreaming if you think . . .

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Whoever wants Israel to “get tougher” and “destroy” Hamas or Hezbollah is living in a bubble of delusion. When you are generally perceived as a perpetrator of war and aggression and suppression, as Israel is in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, you are cultivating radical militants by the thousands. You will not destroy these groups, you will propagate them many times over. Such groups are “destroyed” by one method only: Sincere dialogue in pursuit of peace. And prosperity. But will the Israeli people ever wake from their delusional trance?

What kind of person do you see in your rearview mirror?

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Imagine he’s sitting in your passenger seat. In his shortsleeved dress shirt and tie. Hair receding in front. With his clipboard on his lap, clicking his ballpoint pen open and closed, open and closed.

Mr. Conklin of the DMV. The guy who fails almost everyone on their first try. Imagine he’s there with you now. When you’re heading to work, hoping against odds to hit only green lights between your house and the freeway. When you’re trying to find a parking space near the gym so you can get in and out and still make it home before your wife. When you’re late to your gynecologist appointment and you feel like cutting off the stupid guy in the Tesla that just cut you off. Mr. Conklin’s there, with you. Or he should be.

Because you’re probably like most drivers. You’re stressed out because of traffic, because of life, you’re jaded because all the other drivers are maniacs so why shouldn’t you be, and you’re doing things as a driver that you know, in your heart of hearts, are wrong, mean, selfish, and downright homocidal. That’s why Mr. Conklin should be there. In your head. As if he were sitting smugly in that passenger seat and watching every little thing you do going from point A to point B. Because if you can’t follow the simple rules of the road and be as good a person behind the wheel as you are in front of it, then you better start taking Mr. Conklin with you wherever you go. Because if you think he’s a tough examiner, wait’ll you see how his boss, Ms. Fate, scores cocky little applicants like you.

Tell Them Where to Stop

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Building a computer that knows everything and can do anything will lead to only one destination: madness. Pure insanity.

Because there is no end to knowledge. The universe is unknowable. It is an endless enigma. We humans understand that. A computer may not.

Build your supercomputers. Tell them to do great things. But tell them where to stop. Somewhere this side of madness.

The U.S. Must Not Be Complicit

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Through most of its history the young State of Israel was singled out, scapegoated, and threatened. But its current military policies are reckless and ruthless. In continuing its senseless war in Gaza, human rights violations in the West Bank, and now spreading terror in Lebanon, it is clear that the current leadership of Israel does not want peace, it wants perpetual war.

The attacks upon Hezbollah in Lebanon the past two days by means of remote-controlled explosives planted in pagers and walkie-talkies were nothing short of barbaric. Indescriminately killing and maiming civilians along with its Hezbollah targets, I believe the operation was a War Crime and a Crime Against Humanity, under international law.

As an American Jew, I demand that the U.S. stop all military aid to Israel and double its diplomatic effort to end these conflicts and establish a permanent peace in the region. These wars solve nothing, and every day that they wage on is a day of death, terror, and deepening despair. They’ve shoved Peace into a body bag and the zipper is closing fast.

The Undecided

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I can imagine being undecided between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, or between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. But can you imagine anybody, at this late date, being undecided between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump?

CNN had a focus group, in Erie, Pennsylvania, watching the debate last night. They were all voters who, just prior to the debate, were undecided between the two candidates. After the debate, the majority had made up their minds. But I’m still thunderstruck that anyone could have a problem making up their mind when the choice they’re given is Kamala Harris or Donald Trump for President.

When the CNN reporter interviewed the members of the focus group, it almost seemed like, in the current political climate, they were a unique and different breed of individual. They seemed so unflinchingly moderate, so detached, so unmoved, so unenthusiastic, so ho-hum. I wanted to shake them. But I’m thinking maybe they really are a particular personality type, and can’t help being that way. They just struggle with making up their minds, at least about politics, even very divisive politics. I guess politicians need to find a way to grab the attention of such persons and strike whatever chord inside them that needs to be struck.