Month: July 2016

This past Monday, the Democratic Party Convention opened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The opening day was spent with the Party leadership having to deal with just what it didn’t need. Another e-mail scandal.

This time, almost nineteen thousand e-mails had been posted on the website WikiLeaks by hackers who appear to be affiliated with the Russian Government.

The e-mails were particularly embarrassing to the Party and the Chairwoman, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, because they revealed that throughout the primary campaign the Democratic National Committee had been clandestinely supporting Hillary Clinton.

Senator Bernie Sanders had been making this accusation for some time, claiming that the process was “rigged.” Any astute observer of the primary campaigns could see that Wasserman-Schultz was not being neutral throughout the process but the scope and depth of the DNC support for Clinton was disturbing.

Wasserman-Schultz agreed to resign as Chairperson of the Convention but wanted to open and close the Convention against the wishes of everyone who had a stake in its success. Only after she had been booed by her own delegation did she see the wisdom of abandoning this course and returning to Florida immediately.

The convention proceedings got off to a rocky start with booing coming from the Sanders delegates and supporters each time Clinton’s name was mentioned. Sanders, himself, was booed when he attempted to calm the situation by reiterating his support for Clinton.

As the evening proceedings progressed with speeches by Michelle Obama, Elizabeth Warren and Sanders, the booing and cat calls subsided and decorum appeared to be restored.

The First Lady’s speech was eloquent and revealing about her time in the White House and is credited with changing the tone of the convention.

The second day featured the nomination of Hillary Clinton. Whatever one might think of her, it was a historic moment as a major party nominated its first female candidate for President of the United States. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton spent forty minutes revealing why he fell in love with her and extolling her as a “change maker.”

I felt that the two most significant speech of the night came from former Secretary of State, Madeline Albright and New York Congressman Joseph Crowley.

Albright told of her own immigrant journey to the United States and the danger a President Trump would pose to the United States and our allies because of his strange attraction to leaders like Vladimir Putin and Sadaam Hussein.

Congressman Crowley revealed that in the aftermath of the September 11 attack, Trump took advantage of monies appropriated for rebuilding lower Manhattan involving properties he owned that were not damaged or affected at all by the attack. He contrasted Clinton’s efforts in securing the funds and what he termed Trump’s “cashing in” on the tragedy.

The third night was filled with speeches by former new York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, Vice-Presidential nominee, Tim Kaine, Vice-President Biden and President Obama.

Mayor Bloomberg’s speech was intriguing because he noted that he was an Independent and did not intend to endorse the Democratic Party platform. Indeed. He declared that there were portions of both parties’ platforms that he both agreed and disagreed with. His purpose in speaking at the convention was to warn against the election of Donald Trump whom he labeled a “con man.” He pointed out Trump’s multiple bankruptcies, plethora of lawsuits and contractor that had been “stiffed” by him.

Senator Kaine introduced himself to the world by sharing his life story including his mission to Honduras during his college years where he taught carpentry and plumbing and learned to speak Spanish fluently.

Both President Obama and Vice-President Biden contrasted the conflicting messages of the Convention in Cleveland and that in Philadelphia. The President not only vouched for Clinton’s judgement and experience but went so far as to label Donald Trump a “home grown demagogue.”

The last night centered on Hillary Clinton’s acceptance speech. Where Trump had portrayed America as a dark and troubled place that only he could fix, she spoke of it as an inclusive place, in which all people should be welcome and whose best days are yet to come.

The two conventions were as different in tone and theme as two gatherings could be.

The Republicans left Cleveland with significant divisions in their party. Ted Cruz, the runner-up in the nominating contest, refusing to endorse Donald Trump and the last two Republican Presidents and the last two nominees were nowhere to be seen or heard.

The Democrats left Philadelphia seeming to be unified with a President, Vice-President, former President, Senator Sanders and a whole host of talented surrogates ready to campaign.

Whether that unity remains lasting remains to be seen. If, for example, Hillary Clinton were to become engaged in the Democratic primary contest that Debbie Wasserman-Shultz is involved in against a Bernie Sanders supporter, the party rift could re-open and doom her campaign
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Only time and the next one-hundred days will tell.

They come once every four years. They last no more than four days. They are usually only weeks apart. They are the Republican and Democratic National Conventions.

I, being a political junkie, am glued to the television. I’ve often said that there are only two things I would bet on, prize fights or a political race. The reason is because in either, anything can happen.

This past week, the Republican Party held its convention in Cleveland and I wasn’t disappointed. That, which I didn’t expect to happen, happened.

It started from the opening invocation, when the minister told the assembled delegates that; ”Our enemy is not other Republicans, but is Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.” So much for Christian charity and the milk of human kindness.

The first night of the Convention featured the speech of Melania Trump, the wife of the Party’s nominee for President. Her speech was destined to be a success since portions of it had been delivered before by Michelle Obama whose husband went on to be elected President

I do have to confess that I remain somewhat puzzled about why the Trump campaign would lift portions of a speech for Melania Trump from one given by the First Lady, since Donald Trump and the Republican Party clearly view the President as a foreign born Presidential usurper if not the Anti-Christ.

The second night New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie, announced that he would prosecute Hillary Clinton for a variety of transgressions and the delegates could serve as a “jury of her peers.”

This was a particular treat because Christie has never been inside a courtroom.

After reading out a list of charges, Christie would ask the audience to shout out “guilty or not guilty.” To no one’s surprise the delegates pronounced her guilty on each charge.

If Christie had wanted to exhibit some real imagination, he could have asked them to return a verdict on the George Washington Bridge lane closings.

Day three of the convention featured the acceptance speech of Mike Pence, the anti-Gay Governor of Indiana.

I was initially puzzled about what the Trump campaign thought Pence brought to the ticket since Trump already had eighty percent of the evangelical vote and against Hillary Clinton seemed likely to pick up the other twenty percent. Then I realized that after Christie and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich there were no other prominent Republicans willing to join the ticket. Considering the baggage that Christie and Gingrich carry, Pence must seem like a safe choice.

On the final night of the Convention Trump doubled down on his anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, isolationist positions.

His ambivalence about our NATO obligations can only serve to give great comfort to Russia’s Putin.

Trump’s hostility to immigrants and Pence’s to Gays caused me to wonder about the message being delivered to the 65,000 foreign born men and women, the 5,895 Muslims, the 66,000 gay and 6,700 transgendered persons serving in the Armed Forces at a time when none of the Trump children have served.

In what seems to be a fitting coda to the Convention, the day after it concluded, David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for the United States Senate in Louisiana and declared;

“I’m overjoyed to see Donald Trump and most Americans embrace the issues that I’ve championed for years.”

Pence, who describes himself as a “Christian, Conservative and Republican in that order will recognize this quote from Galatians, Chapter 6 verse 7;

“….for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.”

The past two weeks has been one of the most difficult and painful periods in America since the attack on September 11, 2001.

Two African-American men were killed during police encounters that were captured on cell phones. Five police officers in Dallas were ambushed and murdered by a gunman as they provided security to a peaceful march protesting the earlier shootings.

In Baton Rouge, Louisiana this morning a gunman killed three police officers and wounded four others. At this writing, other than his age and identity, nothing about him or why he did it is known.

Additional protests during this period have led to scores of arrests in cities across the country. The atmosphere is tense, polarizing and is escalating.

Thirty-five years ago, as a criminal defense lawyer, I was involved in a case in which four Syracuse Police officers were charged with beating a Latino man in Upstate Medical Center parking lot while trying to arrest him. During the struggle to put handcuffs on him, he suffered a heart attack and died several weeks later.

The struggle to arrest him was being viewed by a security guard and hospital orderly on a grainy black and white television monitor whose camera was trained on the parking lot. These two witnesses claimed that the officers struck their suspect in the head with a nightstick.

The incident occurred in September 1980 and for the next nine months Syracusans were divided about what the outcome of the criminal proceedings should be. Public pressure exerted on the District Attorney’s office to indict by some groups in the community was intense and an indictment was returned charging them with a felony assault and lesser offenses.

The case went to trial before a jury in April and May of 1981. Medical testimony by Upstate physicians was conclusive that the deceased had suffered only an inch long cut on the head that was not caused by a nightstick and he had suffered two heart attacks previously.

The jury took less than half an hour to find all of the officers not guilty but the healing in the community and of the officers themselves took much longer.

My client, the only veteran of the force, vowed that he would never arrest anyone again.

He didn’t.

He spent the remainder of his career in the Records Division.

Another officer left the force entirely.

A third transferred to another department.

Thirty-five years later, we live in the digital age. Almost everyone has a cell phone with a camera capable of recording videos that can be uploaded to the internet. It is occurring with increasing frequency and the public is arriving at conclusions based on those videos even when the video is a partial one or incomplete. Protests are immediate, tensions are high and rhetoric becomes overheated.

The madman who murdered and injured twelve in Dallas , a city which had no connection to the shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana, where the protest march was peaceful and the police a welcome presence, was inspired by the anger and rhetoric that was manifest following those shootings.

That is what happens when there are madmen among us.

There will always be mad men among us.

Black Lives do matter.

The right to protest peacefully is one that is enshrined in the First Amendment of our Constitution and should be celebrated rather than condemned.

We also need to have faith in the other institutions of government. We need to let them conduct the kind of thorough and complete investigation that is required of these tragic incidents and let them hold whoever needs to be accountable without rushing to judgement.

We need to talk to each other rather than over each other or past each other.

We need to stop and take a breath.

When I was contemplating retirement a couple of years ago, my wife, Terri, gave me a book entitled “How To Retire Happy, Wild and Free.” The book is an excellent guide for anyone considering retiring because it addresses all aspects of retirement beyond just financial security.

It forces you to think about what your daily activities will be, how to establish a “bucket list” of all the things you want to do before you go on to your great reward.

In my case, I decided that I would visit all the Presidential Libraries, see different parts of the country, do more research and writing, post a weekly blog on whatever came to mind and regularly go to the gym to stay healthy among other things.

Some of these goals I’ve met, others I’m working on and some have yet to be started.

One of the activities I decided to do, was learn to play the piano. So, I went out and bought a keyboard and found a piano teacher and started taking lessons.

I thought this might be easier than learning a foreign language since I never passed a foreign language course in high school and had to fall back on the Latin I had learned in parochial school to meet the foreign language requirement in college.

I still had some memories of the piano lessons I took in grade school from a Roman Catholic nun and the lingering pain I had on the back of my head when I didn’t play well for her, but I managed to repress them.

I’m able to report that learning to read music and play the piano is no easier than learning a foreign language but I am persistent.

This past 4th of July my three year-old granddaughter, Claire, was visiting. She enjoys playing with our two dogs, Sinead and Georgia, whom she calls “Georgia Peaches” and visiting the mules, cats and chickens out in the barn.

While I was practicing the piano, I heard her ask her mother; “Who is playing that yucky music?”

A few minutes later, as I was coming up stairs, she asked; “Who is coming up the stairs?”

“The man who was playing the yucky music,” I replied.

“We were hoping you hadn’t heard that,” her mother said. “Actually, I agree with her,” I replied.

About an hour later, we were in the driveway getting ready to leave for a 4th of July party. Like all kids, she was getting impatient and asking when we were going to the party.

“Well,” I said, “we could stay here and listen to more yucky music.”

“I didn’t say it was yucky,” she told me.

“You didn’t,” I asked, “then who did?”

“Georgia Peaches said it,” she replied.

I guess I’ll have to practice more.

For several years I have suspected that the Justices of the United States Supreme Court are a group of very well educated people who are bereft of common sense.

I first began to have this suspicion in 2010 when it handed down the Citizens United decision in which it declared that corporations had a First Amendment right to spend unlimited amounts of money to support or oppose a candidate or ballot issue because it constituted “Free Speech.”

In short order there was an explosion of nonprofit “social welfare” or “trade association” groups who could accept unlimited donations and did not have to disclose the donors. This led to the term “dark money” being coined to describe such contributions.

The flood of “dark money” into these organizations on both sides has turned the American political world into a giant cesspool.

It is estimated that a successful presidential campaign will need to raise one billion dollars for the 2016 campaign. Much of that will be “dark money” going from the non-profit “social welfare” or “trade association” groups to super-pacs supporting the various candidates.

Needless to say, this limits the field of potential candidates either to the wealthiest who can self-finance or those willing to do the bidding of the “dark money” donors. The day in which “anyone could grow up to be President” untarnished, is past.

What ultimately confirmed my suspicion about the Supreme Court occurred this week when it decided the case of McDonnell v. United States. The Court unanimously reversed the public corruption conviction of Robert McDonnell, the former Governor of Virginia, who had accepted $175,000 in loans, gifts and other benefits from Jonnie Williams. Williams was a businessman who owned a herbal supplement that he wanted research tested by the Virginia public universities and McDonnell arranged meetings between Williams and the state officials including hosting them at the Governor’s mansion.

A jury convicted McDonnell after a five week trial during which it heard the circumstances surrounding the gifts and the arranged meetings on counts of bribery and honest services fraud. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction.

In reversing the conviction, the Supreme Court found that arranging the meetings did not constitute an “official act” by the Governor because they did not require the Governor to use his authority to make a decision or exert pressure on another public official to do so. It went on to conclude that setting up constituent meetings was a routine function of public officials and did not constitute an official act.

It’s hard to see Jonnie Williams as nothing more than Santa Claus.

It doesn’t take a soothsayer to predict that this restrictive interpretation will make it more difficult to prosecute public corruption.

Lyndon Johnson once extolled the backgrounds and talents of the various members of John F. Kennedy’s cabinet to House of Representatives Speaker, Sam Rayburn, calling them the “best and the brightest the country had to offer.” Rayburn is said to have replied; “That may be true, Lyndon, but I’d feel a little better if one of them had run for sheriff once.”

That might not be a bad qualification for the next Supreme Court Justice.