Arizona Eagletarian

Just F*****g VOTE!

2026-10-04T20:00:13.969-07:00

Whatever it takes!

V O T E!

Judge Luttig's warning UPDATED 9-13-2026

2026-08-24T17:49:32.496-07:00

Who is Judge J. Michael Luttig, and why does his voice matter so much right now?

Judge Luttig is not a partisan figure from the margins of American politics. He is one of the most respected conservative jurists of his generation. Appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 1991 and long regarded as a leading legal thinker within the conservative legal movement, he built his reputation on fidelity to the Constitution, the rule of law, and institutional restraint. His credentials are, by any fair measure, deeply and unmistakably conservative.

The Arizona Eagletarian (me) encourages you, the reader, to listen to Judge Luttig's remarks (warning) from the 31 minute mark of the video, until the end. If you wish to listen to the rest, you may do so on YouTube.

Judge J Michael Luttig is an American lawyer and jurist who served as a U.S. circuit judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1991 to 2006.

An influential conservative legal figure, Luttig gained broader prominence after the presidency of Donald Trump, characterizing him as "a clear and present danger to American democracy," and advocated invoking the Fourteenth Amendment to render Trump ineligible to serve a second term as president.

These comments (by Luttig) are very recent, urgent and critically important.

UPDATE

The (A) Final Battle for America’s Democracy

Forget November 3. It’s January 3 when Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans might bury our democracy once and for all. Here’s how.
Donald Trump instigated a war against America’s democracy on January 6, 2021. He and his Republican allies would have crippled America’s democracy that day had his own vice president not refused to be party to the gravest constitutional offense a president can commit—the refusal to relinquish and peacefully transfer the power of the presidency to his duly elected successor.

Today, almost six years later, Donald Trump and his Republican congressional allies are even more determined to prosecute the president’s war against American democracy to its catastrophic end than they were on January 6, 2021.

That catastrophic end could well come on January 3, 2027, when Trump and his Republican congressional allies wage the final battle in Trump’s determined war to corrupt America’s democracy and deliver a lasting political victory over the Democrats for his MAGA Republican Party.

Trump and his Republican allies have been preparing for this final battle since January 6, 2021. For the past six years, they have embarrassed themselves and the U.S. with their preposterous, win-at-any-cost denial that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election and their deceitful slander of America’s democracy. Since his return to the White House, Trump’s every unconstitutional act in his effort to seize control over the midterm elections—each hailed by his prostrate Republican Congress—has been toward the end of ensuring that Republicans retain a majority in the 120th Congress.

Trump told talk show host Dan Bongino on February 2, “The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting.’... The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.’” The Republicans have [thus far] dutifully fallen in line. (MORE)

History EMPOWERS the powerless

2026-08-08T11:42:00.008-07:00

The power of tyranny is overestimated (not in the short run, but in the long run)…and can be overcome by the unity, the determination, of apparently powerless people. Howard Zinn epigraph to The People's Historian by Dave Zirin

Their cruelties, in their minds, constitute a moral good. But that’s the macho posturing of

nerfy, weak men with uncallused hands and a great deal of unresolved anger. The truth is

that they were shaken to their bones by the 2020 protests and this is the brutish, reactionary

response. They lock away the works of Zinn not because they loathe the historian but

because they fear the history. The irony, however, does burn. What Trump and his cabinet

of reality-show contestants, pro-wrestling executives, and fascist-fanfic authors are

showing in practice is that they actually share a very fundamental belief with Howard

Zinn: that history from the point of view of social movements holds the potential to

empower the powerless. That’s why Zinn worked to popularize this kind of history and

that’s why they aim to erase it. They fear something Zinn wrote decades ago: “Our

country is full of heroic people who are not Presidents or military leaders or Wall

Street wizards, but who are doing something to keep alive the spirit of resistance to

injustice and war…. To ward off alienation and gloom, it is only necessary to

remember the unremembered heroes of the past, and to look around us for the

unnoticed heroes of the present.” They oppose this because their algorithms aimed at

fostering alienation and gloom are essential to making a populace feel defeated. ibid p10

A [person]’s spirit can be marked most clearly in its passage from the reform to the revolutionary impulse at the moment when [they] decide that their enemy will no longer write [their] history. Murray Kempton ibid epigraph

Rights and DUTIES (responsibilities) under the Declaration of Independence

2026-07-04T10:09:39.260-07:00

Happy 250th!

Believe the victims; FACT IS Trump raped female children

2026-03-17T15:48:00.005-07:00

By the way, if Congressional Republicans had adhered to their oaths of office with authenticity, neither cartoonists like Michael de Adder nor his cartoons would get attention with images like this.

Former CNN journalist Jim Acosta interviews an Epstein survivor in the video below starting around the 22:52 mark.

Consider this. If we lived in a small town in Russia (like an Oscar winning documentarian did), we could be in danger of Trump succeeding in getting court and FBI records changed. But Trump will never succeed in doing so.

WE the PEOPLE can rely on that fact. Trump will bluster all the way to January 2027, but he will not win the midterm fight this year. Get ready for a bumpy ride, but know his days in office are numbered.

In the meantime, CALL your US Senators to assert your position that they do NOT pass the SAVE Act. And have great fun at your closest NO KINGS rally on March 28, 2026.

One of my latest reads

2026-02-25T18:28:00.000-07:00

Yikes!

Last month, I started reading a book by a British psychiatrist, Dr. Gwen Adshead, "The Devil You Know: Encounters in Forensic Psychiatry. An alternative subtitle for this work is , Stories of Human Cruelty and Compassion. From the blurb on Goodreads.com:

In eleven vivid narratives based on decades of providing therapy to people in prisons and secure hospitals, an internationally renowned forensic psychiatrist and psychotherapist demonstrates the remarkable human capacity for radical empathy, change, and redemption.

What drives someone to commit an act of terrible violence?... Through a collaboration with coauthor Eileen Horne, Dr. Adshead brings her extraordinary career to life in a series of unflinching portraits.

Alongside doctor and patient, we discover what human cruelty, ranging from serial homicide to stalking, arson or sexual offending, means to perpetrators, experiencing first-hand how minds can change when the people some might label as “evil” are able to take responsibility for their life stories and get to know their own minds.

With outcomes ranging from hope to despair, from denial to recovery, these men and women are revealed in all their complexity and shared humanity.

My intent was to understand (empathize) with the patients and with the doctor, enough to allow me to write characters in fictional stories I haven't yet written.

However, reading about Adshead's patient "Sam, (not his real name)" I was drawn into empathetic understanding of a remarkably earthshattering tragedy, as we've come to know Nick Reiner, who is in jail in California awaiting trial for allegedly (apparently) murdering both of his parents. Sam is the 10th of 11 case studies described in Adshead's book.

From NEWS coverage of a certain POTUS over the last decade, I (we) have become somewhat familiar with some of that fellow's personality flaws. Various mental health practitioners have tried to exercise their Duty to Warn, including in a documentary film, #UNFIT about Trump's first term. I'm confident Jeff Bezos will not get rich by you paying $.99 to watch the film on Amazon Prime if you should choose to do so.

The Trump Administration's Good Faith compliance?

2025-12-21T20:21:00.001-07:00

Fever in the Heartland: the KKK plot to take over America, and the WOMAN who stopped them.

2025-12-10T13:58:00.003-07:00

I had heard of this book when it came out in 2023, but I only just yesterday began to read it. The story is shocking. It is also true. Had you ever heard of Madge Oberholzer? When you read this book or listen to Timothy Egan on this C-Span clip you WILL likely never forget her name. Egan's Author's Note at the beginning:

The following story is true. Dialogue and internal monologue are verbatim from court testimony, oral histories, autobiographies, letters, diaries, and newspaper quotes. See the source notes in the back for further details.

The epigraph at the beginning of the book:

God has no children whose rights may be safely trampled on. FREDERICK DOUGLASS

May the American Electorate WAKE UP to the evil of Trump like Indianans woke up to the evil of D. C. Stephenson after the passing of Madge Oberholzer.

Release the doggone Epstein Files/List(s) already.

American democracy is resilient!

2025-12-04T13:10:00.003-07:00

I wholeheartedly agree with Heather Cox Richardson's argument.

Heather is far from alone in that view.

Suzanne Mettler and Robert C Lieberman in 2020 published The Recurring Crises of American Democracy: Four Threats. Mettler and Lieberman notably show the long national nightmare we're facing under Trump is nothing new.

The saving grace of the situation is that recognition of ongoing threat can and should chase away any complacency and provide confidence that WE SHALL OVERCOME... again.

Why Intolerance and Extremism Happen

2025-11-30T15:43:00.000-07:00

Award winning author Teri Kanefield published a labor of love with her essay on Why Intolerance and Extremism Happen. Teri has taught English at the college level, successfully practiced as an appellate lawyer, and written several books on historical figures notable to our current political times, including Supreme Court associate justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Thurgood Marshall, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B Anthony and many more.

After writing books and blogging about history, law, and notable Americans for more than a decade, the word that comes to my mind to describe Teri's book is sunesis. Understanding. Long ago, bible teachers explained it to me as rivers of understanding coming together. Or connecting the dots.

Please do not pass up this glorious opportunity to connect the dots and magnify your understanding of how we came to this important time. These ARE the days that try Americans' souls.

I am THANKFUL to be alive in this moment in America. Thankful for clear minded writers like Teri Kanefield, historian Heather Cox Richardson (author of Democracy Awakening), former US Attorney Joyce Vance (author of Giving Up is Unforgivable), Ruth Ben Ghiat (author of Strongmen: Mussolini to present), Glenn Kirschner and many more.

My grandchildren WILL be able to look to the advocacy of those of us who have Risen UP! Because Trump will face an ignominious fall and will be marked in history as the BIGGEST loser.

Also, please consider joining those of us who, even if initially down in the mouth about the 2024 election results, have rallied to DEFY Felon 47 at DEFIANCE.org and NoKings.org

The bottom line is Trump and MAGA are fracturing. WE are rising.

Affordable Care Act premiums; outrageous increases; do they pay for medical care or predatory capitalism?

2025-11-11T11:36:00.000-07:00

For the last several weeks, I've been receiving (literally) dozens of spam calls EVERY day. Because I kept my Arizona phone number when I moved, the calls are almost exclusively from Arizona phone numbers. Further, they are EXCLUSIVELY from what sounds like the same female voice with a minimal amount of background (phone boiler room) noise. On the occasions the AI dialer leaves a voicemail message, it says it's trying to ask me if I have Medicare Parts A and B. Naturally, if they had actually LISTENED to my outgoing message, they would know I have no intention of listening to them.

My outgoing VM message indicates I will not be taking (answering) calls from Arizona until after the Medicare enrollment period passes. By the way, if I recognize the caller's phone number, or if they leave a VM, I listen and respond as I deem appropriate.

I have made some KEY inferences. Most notably, these AI spam calls ostensibly want to help me get appropriate Medicare coverage. Medicare advantage plans get paid out of government funds on a capitation basis, which varies by state. Therefore, whether or not these predatory capitalist enterprises make money (or NOT) is ultimately a simple calculation. Simple but IMO outrageous. Capitation (per capita revenue) minus what they are forced to pay for care (tests and provider visits, medications, etc.) actually provided = profit.

WHY else would they be phoning me DOZENS of times EVERY day?

As an aside, because of the government shutdown, actual (not quite Medicare age) families have reported on the outrageous increases in premiums of which they have already been notified. Of course, ACA premiums are not the same as Medicare advantage plans. But my experience as a Certified Government Financial Manager does lend insight on parallels.

The People's Oversight?

2025-10-15T08:24:00.000-07:00

Clearly the Trump administration abhors the People's oversight of its intentions, decisions and actions.

But that is the reason We The PEOPLE have to show Trump and Bondi we will not be intimidated.

Since the Trump administration refuses the oversight of our Constitutional Republic, we MUST get his attention another way.

Find YOUR local No Kings RALLY! Be there or be square.

History will ultimately defeat Trump

2025-09-06T19:30:00.001-07:00

Historian Heather Cox Richardson's Letters from an American are seriously a BFD, as President Biden would sometimes say. Heather's Letters have been effectively blunting some of Trump's efforts to undermine democracy. I realize that for many people, it may not feel like that's the case. However, I am optimistic for the midterm election.

Some other bloggers on Substack are also effectively cancelling out the terrible influence of Trump on corporate media. Among the voices that matter to me are former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner and former US Attorney for Alabama Joyce White Vance.

Laurence Rees' book The Nazi Mind: Twelve Warnings from History is also important.

Project 2025 is and has been terrible. But Trump and his ilk have not been able to do many of the things that enabled Hitler to tear apart Germany. We will oust him in 2026. We WILL end his ability to control Congress.

"Speaker should have stayed out of session a little longer," according to a conservative strategist who said Mike Johnson just "opened up a huge can of worms."

Johnson surprised political observers when he suggested that Trump was an "informant" for the FBI, providing information against Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted child sex abuser, and it led strategist Susan del Percio, who has a history of working with Republican candidates and in Rudy Giuliani's administration, to mock the congressman's claim.

"That is big news," she said, mocking the notion of Trump as an informant on Epstein. She also noted the power of the Epstein survivors now that they have all connected in the same room, and declared that Trump is not going to escape questions about the Epstein files.

"This is getting much much worse for Trump," del Percio said. "And it's not going away any time soon."

Vladimir Kara-Murza delivered a keynote last week, "A Personal Encounter with Tyranny"

2025-08-19T15:24:00.000-07:00

With tremendous thanks to President Joe Biden for having negotiated Kara-Murza's release from a Russian prison, last night I listened to this keynote talk the Russian dissident delivered last week. You can find the transcript at the link. My thanks also to Charlie Sykes for including it in his substack last night.

This 40-minute video is well worth your time. That is, if defeating Trump is important to you.

“Dissenters did something brilliantly simple: in an unfree country, they began to behave like free people, thereby changing the moral climate and the country’s prevailing tradition.” — Andrei Amalrik, Russian historian and dissident.

David Cay Johnston: Hiding What Our Government Is Doing

2025-08-16T15:58:00.000-07:00

Johnston, a professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, teaching journalism, wrote a column posted to DCReport.org on Friday August 15, 2025.

Donald Trump ran for president promising the most transparent administration ever. And the White House claims it is exactly that, exactly what has been provided.

How then to explain the notice posted yesterday, Aug. 14, in the Federal Register, the official government rule change book, proposing to throw out all existing Freedom of Information Act requests unless the requester renews their request?

Building a record of public opposition is crucial.

This looks like a test at one agency designed to significantly reduce and perhaps stop entirely complying with the 1969 law governing how Americans can hold their government accountable by seeking documents, databases, emails, and other materials.

The proposed new rule drew a stiff response yesterday from the libertarian Cato Institute, which said the proposed new rule is “facially unlawful.”

I agree. I rarely embrace Cato’s perspective on public issues, but here its analysis is spot on.

You can be sure that the largest group of FOIA requesters—big corporations and trade groups—will renew because they have a clear business interest. One of the unexpected results of the FOIA law is corporations using requests to find out what competitors, and regulators, are up to. Citizens and journalists are less likely to meet the proposed new re-request rule.

This proposed new rule is part of a piece in which the Trump Administration 2.0 has displayed sophistication in turning away answers to questions it doesn’t like, hiding information, and generally working to create the most opaque administration in history.

Evading Answers

It’s not just Donald Trump attacking journalists who ask questions he doesn’t like, calling them various derogatory terms and then moving on after evading the issue. You can see this in Congressional committee testimony of unqualified and poorly educated cabinet members like Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who can’t tell Artificial Intelligence from A-1 Steak Sauce.

To evade tough questions, McMahon and other Trump appointees often rely on feigned ignorance and irrelevant but long-winded responses that chew up the time of questioning lawmakers who generally are limited to 5 minutes.

All administrations to some degree try to deflect tough questions by journalists, Congress, and constituents. Trump 2.0 is just taking it to a deeper and darker level, often delivered with contemptuous smirks.

The Trump Administration asserts that this rule change is designed to increase the efficient use of limited government resources.

The federal Department of Energy “is being inundated with requests from vexatious requesters and automated bots… These requesters rarely respond to DOE inquiries… Therefore, DOE is undertaking this endeavor as an attempt to free up government resources to better serve the American people and focus its efforts on more efficiently connecting the citizenry with the work of its government.”

True, but…

No doubt that’s true, but as so often happens with trump loyalists what we are seeing is a meat axe approach rather than a scalpel or even a kitchen knife approach to cutting out the harm, in this case from what appeared to be bogus Freedom of Information act requests.

If you click on this link you can learn how to add your thoughts in the Federal Register comments. You don’t need to write anything long or complex. Simply writing that this is an abomination or unacceptable or contrary to good governance and should be rejected out of hand is more than enough.

The more people who respond the better the chances that our TACO president’s minions will chicken out and drop or ease the proposed new rule.

But building a record of public opposition is crucial so I strongly encourage you, whatever your thoughts, to take advantage of the law that lets you as a citizen advise your government on proposed rules changes.

As the notice states: “All responses to this notice must be submitted by email at StillInterestedFOIA@hq.doe.gov.”

Send your thoughts to that address, please, before the Sept. 15 deadline.

“FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IS NOT JUST IMPORTANT TO DEMOCRACY, IT IS DEMOCRACY.” – Walter Cronkite

Civil Resistance; We're VERY GOOD at this!

2025-08-09T09:54:00.002-07:00

Historian Heather Cox Richardson shows us what it takes to resist, and that we are actually very good at it.

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a CRACK, a CRACK in everything

That's how the light gets in -- Leonard Cohen

Erica Chenoweth opens the introduction to her book, Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know with those four lines from the chorus to Cohen's Anthem. She then defines Civil Resistance as

"a form of collective action that seeks to affect the political, social, or economic status quo without using violence or the threat of violence against people to do so. It is organized, public and explicitly nonviolent in its means and ends." (page 1)

Civil resistance can be and often IS incredibly disruptive and confrontational. Chenoweth explains that people and institutions targeted often feel deeply threatened because civil resistance jeopardizes their power and status.

It is a method of conflict
It is waged by unarmed civilians without directly harming the opponent
It involves coordinating a diverse set of methods
It is deliberately disobedient
The goal is to impact the status quo

A big week, and it's only Tuesday!

2025-07-22T16:37:00.000-07:00

In Conclusion From Joyce Vance's Civil Discourse substack post on July 20th.

It’s going to be another important, and probably exhausting, week. They all are these days. Last week, many of you turned out for the Good Trouble protests that cropped up across the country in honor of the late John Lewis. This week, it’s time to make some good trouble. It’s a time for conversations with people around us, especially the hard ones.

From Glenn Kirschner's (July 22nd) YouTube video (12 minutes):

To finish up this blog post, a short fiction piece written by the Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson. An amazingly plausible scenario I hope doesn't play out the way Rick wrote it.

FCI Tallahassee — September 2025
Special Access Secure Meeting Room 3A (“The STAR Room”)

Ghislaine Maxwell was no longer famous in the way she’d once loved. Infamy was all she had now, not just the infamy of prison life itself, but the longer sort, the kind where her crimes grew in imagination to something even worse than what she’d been sent down for.

It hadn’t felt then as it was described now; at first, it was naughty. Then it felt sexy, powerful. Even as she’d recruited the girls, she knew it was wrong, but Jeffrey had an effect on her. On everyone, really.

She didn’t stop, even as the girls got younger and more vulnerable. It got uglier, more seedy, and Jeffrey became more demanding and harsh.

Now, she was a blot of memory, a whispered name behind security glass, but unforgotten by the conspiracy fans, the desperate and weird men and women who wanted to know her secrets. She would have preferred to be forgotten by a world that had swallowed the headlines and then moved on to louder, uglier sins.

But that wasn’t in her power now.

For all that, she was not powerless. Not yet.

That’s why the Department of Justice had flown in on a Friday under sealed scheduling orders and moved her, silently, into a conference room that looks like it was built for narco-traffickers and foreign spies. Concrete walls. A mirror window on one wall. Two cameras, both blinking red. And one long table set like a tribunal altar.

Her ankles were shackled. Her wrists weren’t.

Two guards brought her in. One she recognized: Coosh Stoutamire, a Wakulla Florida native, a by-the-book corrections officer and a mother of five. They couldn’t have been more different, but she liked Coosh.

The other was new. Pale blue eyes. Rural thick. Tribal tats on his hands and fingers. Ex-military. Badge said Hollis. His hands looked like they’d broken horses and kneecaps.

Her lawyers were already seated, Amanda Leigh, the no-bullshit Upper West Side pit viper, and Ollie Nussbaum, all eyebrows and weary sighs. Across from them sat Todd Blanche.

Blanche wore the cold smirk of a man used to deals inked in blood. He had defended Trump, in the years before the base began to rot from the inside. Now he was back inside the government, “officially unofficially” acting as the President’s "special emissary" from Justice. He didn’t even bother with the preamble.

He slid a single piece of paper across the table.

“This is the statement we want Ms. Maxwell to sign. It reads, in part, ‘At no time did Donald J. Trump ever engage in or have knowledge of any illegal conduct related to Jeffrey Epstein, his associates, or any of the properties under federal investigation.’”

Amanda didn’t touch it. “You came all the way here for a lie.”

Blanche looked unimpressed. “We came for closure.”

“And what’s the price for this fairytale?” Nussbaum asked.

Blanche tapped the folder. “Presidential pardon. Full. Unconditional. Drafted, signed, and timestamped. Effective upon signature.”

Maxwell raised a single eyebrow. “I sign this and walk?”

“You sign this,” Blanche said, “and you disappear. In a good way. Spain. Argentina. Somewhere with coastline and no extradition treaty. Somewhere the opposite of this hellhole. We can make that happen.”

Amanda snorted. “Bullshit. You want to rewrite history. What happens when the files leak? When it’s revealed she perjured herself for a pardon? Think of that?”

Blanche shrugged. “You want to examine her…other options?”

A silence. The kind of silence that hums louder than shouting.

The woman beside Blanche - perfectly blonde, perfectly still - remained expressionless. Her presence was a quiet violation of the room’s equilibrium, an x-factor Maxwell couldn’t sort.

Maxwell finally leaned forward.

“I want to make something clear,” she said. “You are promising me my freedom if I lie for you. You want me to deny what’s already in the sealed files. Trump was Jeffrey's favorite guest. The one who didn’t need persuasion. The one who never asked ages.”

Blanche’s jaw twitched. “There are cameras in this room.”

Ghislaine smiled. “Then let the record show: he was worse than anyone knows.”

The blonde woman blinked once.

Blanche leaned in. “Ghislaine, I don’t care what you think you’re holding. I don’t care what you think justice looks like. This is not a morality play. This is asset disposal. You can do the right thing for your country. I’m offering you the only lifeline you’ll ever see.”

Maxwell sighed, whispered, “Let me see the pardon.”

Blanche looked discomfited for a beat, then slid the document across. The blonde said in a voice that sounded like honeyed darkness, “The final, signed copy is at Main Justice.”

Amanda responded. “I can’t recommend my client sign something without seeing the full, signed pardon. Todd, you know this.”

Blanche slid the folder into his briefcase.

”Last chance, take it or leave it.”

Nussbaum and Amanda stood. “We’re done here.”

“Sit,” Blanche said flatly.

Amanda didn’t.

Maxwell did not rise. “Fine. I’ll sign it.” Defeated. Shrunken. Feeling all her years and sins at once.

Blanche tapped the paper once more.

“You’re doing the right thing,” he said. “You’ll look good in retirement.”

She signed.

They stood.

The meeting ended with no handshakes.

As the guards moved to take her back, the blonde woman, nearly silent the entire meeting stepped slightly behind Blanche and leaned in toward Maxwell’s ear.

In a voice as soft as silk and as cold as chloroform, she whispered, “You’ll be taken from this facility now. Cooperate with these two officers.”

Maxwell flinched. Her eyes widened.

The woman didn’t look back.

They didn’t take her to her cell.

This was not procedure.

“Why are we turning right?” Maxwell asked as they moved down the east wing.

Hollis, walking behind her now, didn’t answer.

They passed her usual unit. Passed Medical. Passed laundry. They weren’t going to the motor pool area, or admin. Something clicked in her mind. Something dark. Something terrifying.

“Where are we going?” she asked again.

Coosh didn’t meet her eyes.

Maxwell’s breathing quickened.

“I’m not suicidal,” she said louder. “I’m a model inmate. Ask anyone. No one will believe this.”

They turned into an old storage corridor. No cameras. The air smelled of bleach and North Florida’s unique scent of earthy decay.

Coosh Stoutamire finally spoke, her voice thick and low.

“Honey,” she said, “you know what we gotta do.”

Maxwell stopped walking.

Hollis didn’t move. He just exhaled, long and slow.

Maxwell turned to face them both. “The same as Jeffrey, isn’t it?”

Hollis nodded. “You think there’s room for you out there? You’re the final thread. They don’t leave threads.”

“Will there be pain?”

Hollis sighed. “No. We all like you, Max. But if we don’t do what we gotta...it’s us next. Or our littles.”

She stared at them. “I want to speak to my lawyer. I did what they asked.”

“We’re past that, honey,” Coosh said.

“I want to speak to Amanda right now,” Maxwell said, louder. “You can’t do this. I know the rules. I will disappear. I’ll never say a word...”

Hollis stepped forward and grabbed her arm, his enormous hand wrapping around her entire bicep.

“Don’t fight,” he said. “Just…let me do my job.”

A thick arm around her neck.

“Please,” she grunted. “Please, I—”

She didn’t finish.

The next morning, the warden issued a brief statement:

“Ghislaine Maxwell, inmate 02879-509, was found unresponsive in her cell at approximately 4:14 a.m. She was pronounced dead shortly thereafter. Preliminary reports indicate suicide. No foul play is suspected.

“We also have some terrible news that has deeply affected the FCI Tallahassee family. Corrections officers Sarah “Coosh” Stoutamire and Walton Hollis were killed last night in a tragic vehicle accident just off the FCI grounds.”

The press didn't linger. A few headlines. A segment on CNN. A smirking joke on Fox. MAGA media outlet exulted. Donald Trump promised to release everything on “Famous liberal Democrat Marxist pedo Jeffrey Epstein, who I secretly helped catch.” Nothing would ever come of the promise.

Todd Blanche’s office released a statement:

“While we had no direct involvement in Ms. Maxwell’s final days, we are saddened to hear of her passing. Justice must move forward.”

Amanda Leigh tried to file an injunction. She demanded the visitor logs, the surveillance footage. But the files were sealed within hours under “national security considerations.”

The cameras in the conference room? “Data lost due to a systems update.”

The blonde woman? Never identified.

Six months later, Blanche would die of a massive, unexpected heart attack while working out at a hotel gymnasium.

And the statement Maxwell signed?

It appeared, days later, in story on Fox, leaked from DOJ.

Typed.

Signed.

Dated.

Done.

What Stoic philosophy says about this moment in America...

2025-07-01T15:58:00.000-07:00

Last night, (June 30, 2025) I attended my first event for a Democratic candidate for office in the Town of Greece, NY. Amorette Miller is running for election to the Greece Town Board, Ward 3. This QR code (if my picture of it works) will take you to Amorette's campaign website. Remember, ALL politics is local. This is where it starts for me, in my new hometown.

My Congressional Rep. Joe Morelle was there last night. In his remarks, he noted he would be back in DC today to fight against the Big Ugly bill, which the senate passed, only because JD Vance cast the tiebreaking vote.

Now, the Big Ugly bill is headed back to the House which, in order to please Trump, must pass it again.

I hope they refuse.

Nevertheless, Congress is going to do what Congress is going to do. Then, WE will do what WE MUST do. Remember, WE STILL have agency. Notably:

from The Century Dictionary.

noun The state of being in action or of exerting power; action; operation; instrumentality.
noun A mode of exerting power; a means of producing effects.

We/I do not control Congress. BUT we each control ourselves. As the American ELECTORATE, we have substantial influence, even though it may not seem like it with Trump in the White House. With EVERY mass protest, we must grow the RESISTANCE. By the way, Erica Chenoweth's book (cover pictured below) can be found in MANY public libraries. And it makes an excellent reference book.

As far as what Stoic philosophy says about this moment in America...

We blame our bosses, the economy, our politicians, other people, or we write ourselves off as failures or our goals as impossible. When really only one thing is at fault: our attitude and approach.

There have been countless lessons (and books) about achieving success, but no one ever taught us how to overcome failure, how to think about obstacles, how to treat and triumph over them, and so we are stuck. Beset on all sides, many of us are disoriented, reactive, and torn.

We have no idea what to do. On the other hand, not everyone is paralyzed. We watch in awe as some seem to turn those very obstacles, which stymie us, into launching pads for themselves. How do they do that? What’s the secret? Even more perplexing, earlier generations faced worse problems with fewer safety nets and fewer tools. They dealt with the same obstacles we have today plus the ones they worked so hard to try to eliminate for their children and others. And yet . . . we’re still stuck.

What do these figures have that we lack? What are we missing? It’s simple: a method and a framework for understanding, appreciating, and acting upon the obstacles life throws at us. [i.e. Stoic philosophy]

John D. Rockefeller had it—for him it was cool headedness and self-discipline. Demosthenes, the great Athenian orator, had it—for him it was a relentless drive to improve himself through action and practice. Abraham Lincoln had it—for him it was humility, endurance, and compassionate will.

Holiday, Ryan. The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph (p. 2). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Don't blame ANYONE (even yourself, or even citizens who either voted poorly or didn't vote at all). Resolve. Embrace the obstacles. We SHALL overcome, because THIS LAND WAS MADE FOR YOU AND ME.

Emil Bove, who had been nominated to be the US Atty for DC, today faced senate questions instead to be appointed to be a federal judgeship instead

2025-06-25T19:08:00.000-07:00

First, who is Emil Bové III? The Wikipedia article cites more than three dozen news articles about him, including this one by Erica Ogden in Politico on February 23, 2025.

Video of his questioning by senators include these three posted to YouTube today:

Today also, Joyce Vance, who writes the Civil Discourse substack posted:

Speaking of folks who needed help refreshing their recollection, Bove struggled today in his confirmation hearing under questioning by California Senator Adam Schiff. Schiff asked him about the detail we discussed last night, the allegation in Whistleblower Erez Reuveni’s complaint about Bove’s dismissive comments about the courts. That would be the courts he now hopes to be confirmed to serve on.

SCHIFF: Did you suggest telling the courts 'fuck you' in any manner?

BOVE: I don't recall.

SCHIFF: You just don't remember that.

The exchange between Bove and Schiff is also in the last video above.

If you're so inclined, you may find your US Senators. You may phone the United States Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121. A switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Senate office you request.

I called my two earlier today, asking politely, yet assertively for each of them to vote AGAINST Bove in his quest to become a federal district judge.

If (since) the Trump administration was this afraid of the questions of ONE US Senator, imagine how they (do) feel about the voices of 10 million organized citizens

2025-06-21T11:41:00.001-07:00

Historian Heather Cox Richardson quoting California Senator Alex Padilla...

June 20, 2025 by Heather Cox Richardson

Read on Substack

Ken Burns film, American Revolution, will be broadcast on PBS beginning November 16, 2025

2025-06-16T17:18:00.000-07:00

Ken Burns' documentary series "The American Revolution" will premiere on PBS on November 16, 2025. It explores the war for independence, featuring various historical figures and examining the impact of the revolution on civil liberties and democratic movements worldwide. (AI search engine generated text about Burns' project)

Recently, Burns' team sat for a panel discussion in Concord, Mass to discuss the project. You can view the YT video (here) at 1.75x speed and understand it quite well.

Please plan to view the project when PBS broadcasts it.

Charles Sumner: The brutal caning of Sen. Charles Sumner in 1856 shows the difference between courage and concession.

2025-06-01T14:53:00.005-07:00

Charles Sumner is mainly known as the abolitionist statesman who suffered a brutal caning on the Senate floor by the proslavery congressman Preston Brooks in 1856. This violent episode has obscured Sumner's status as the most passionate champion of equal rights and multiracial democracy of his time. A friend of Alexis de Tocqueville, an ally of Frederick Douglass, and an adviser to Abraham Lincoln, Sumner helped the Union win the Civil War and ordain the Emancipation Proclamation, the Thirteenth Amendment, the Freedmen's Bureau, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875.

Zaakir Tameez, (pictured above) is author of a Charles Sumner biography to be published on Tuesday, June 3rd by Henry Holt & Co. On June 9th, Tameez appeared at Politics and Prose bookstore in DC.

Washington Post today published an op-ed by Tameez headlined: What we can learn from the senator who nearly died for democracy. The embedded link in this paragraph is to a "gift article" in WaPo so readers can read the op-ed for no charge. It begins:

On May 13, a man who made death threats against Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada) for her foreign policy views was sentenced to nearly four years in prison. Last month, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she was “afraid” of using her voice to speak about political controversies. A month before that, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) released audio recordings of death threats he received while he was considering how to vote on Pete Hegseth’s nomination as defense secretary.

From News & Observer:

Threats to lawmakers are nothing new and happens on both sides of the aisle.

Capitol Police reported 9,625 threats against members of Congress in 2021, a record high. That number dropped to 7,501 in 2022, but began to climb again with 8,008 threats in 2023 and 9,474 in 2024. And those are the threats that have been reported.

We all want to change the world! - The Beatles "Revolution"

2025-05-30T14:29:00.000-07:00

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's book We All Want to Change the World: My Journey Through Social Justice Movements from the 1960s to Today, was published on May 15, 2025.

From the Harvard Crimson:

Basketball Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said Harvard had proven its courage by fighting against the Trump administration during Wednesday’s annual College Class Day.

“When a tyrannical administration tried to bully and threaten Harvard to give up their academic freedom and destroy campus speech, Dr. Alan Garber rejected the illegal and immoral pressures,” Abdul-Jabbar said.

The basketball star was the featured speaker for Class Day, which brought thousands of students and their families into the Yard as Harvard and the Trump administration square off over federal funding and international students.

Abdul-Jabbar, who spoke about his path joining the civil rights movement and decision to boycott the 1968 Olympics, said he drew inspiration from Muhammad Ali and Martin Luther King Jr.

In praising Harvard, Abdul-Jabbar referenced King’s encouragement to people to “choose justice over injustice.”

“One of the reasons I’m so pleased to be here today is because I view Harvard University as being among the others willing to take Dr. King’s place,” Abdul-Jabbar said.

Abdul-Jabbar motivated seniors to take up King’s struggle for justice.

“As I look out all over the beautiful faces today who are ready to launch their lives of successful careers, I wonder how many of you will be among the others willing to take Dr. King’s place,” he said.

Outgoing College Dean Rakesh Khurana did not directly address the fight with the White House, but in explaining to the seniors what they could expect during the University-wide Commencement ceremony on Thursday, changed gears mid-sentence to lead a rallying cry.

“I will begin with salutations to President Garber — and by the way, can we give a huge round of applause to President Garber for standing up for what’s right?” Khurana said.

The crowd roared into applause and a 15-second standing ovation.

The opening epigraph to Abdul-Jabbar's book quotes a line from The Beatles' song (referenced in this blog post title and in the YT video above):

Well, you know

We all want to change the world

From the back cover of the hard bound edition (which I purchased),

"Protest movements, Even peaceful ones, are never popular at first.... but there is a reason that protests have been so frequent throughout history: they are effective. The United States exists because of them."

I know I want to change the world. My hunch is that if YOU are a reader of the Arizona Eagletarian, you do too.

What does or will it take to DEFEAT authoritarianism?

2025-05-28T14:39:00.001-07:00

Heather Cox Richardson is the preeminent historian shedding insight on the lawless, oppressive and authoritarian Trump administration.

This is her Letter from an American (listen to Heather read the letter at the link) from last night.

May 27, 2025 (Tuesday)

Political scientist Adam Bonica noted last Friday that Trump and the administration suffered a 96% loss rate in federal courts in the month of May. Those losses were nonpartisan: 72.2% of Republican-appointed judges and 80.4% of Democratic-appointed judges ruled against the administration.

The administration sustained more losses today.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled that 14 states can proceed with their lawsuit against billionaire Elon Musk and the “Department of Government Efficiency.” The administration had tried to dismiss the case, but Chutkan ruled the states had adequately supported their argument that “Musk and DOGE’s conduct is ‘unauthorized by any law.’” “The Constitution does not permit the Executive to commandeer the entire appointments power by unilaterally creating a federal agency…and insulating its principal officer from the Constitution as an ‘advisor’ in name only,” she wrote.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon struck down Trump’s March 27 executive order targeting the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, more commonly known as WilmerHale. This law firm angered Trump by employing Robert Mueller, the Republican-appointed special counsel who oversaw an investigation of the ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian operatives.

Leon, who was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, made his anger obvious. “[T]he First Amendment prohibits government officials from retaliating against individuals for engaging in protected speech,” Leon noted. “WilmerHale alleges that ‘[t]he Order blatantly defies this bedrock principle of constitutional law.’” Leon wrote: “I agree!” He went on to strike down the order as unconstitutional.

Today NPR and three Colorado public radio stations sued the Trump administration over Trump’s executive order that seeks to impound congressionally appropriated funds for NPR and PBS. The executive order said the public media stations do not present “a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.” NPR’s David Folkenflik reported White House spokesperson Harrison Fields’s statement today that public media supports “a particular party on the taxpayers’ dime,” and that Trump and his allies have called it “left-wing propaganda.”

The lawsuit calls Trump’s executive order and attempt to withhold funding Congress has already approved “textbook retaliation.” “[W]e are not choosing to do this out of politics,” NPR chief executive officer Katherine Maher told NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly. “We are choosing to do this as a matter of necessity and principle. All of our rights that we enjoy in this democracy flow from the First Amendment: freedom of speech, association, freedom of the press. When we see those rights infringed upon, we have an obligation to challenge them.”

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis today denied the administration’s motion for a 30-day extension of the deadline for it to answer the complaint in the lawsuit over the rendition of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man sent to El Salvador through what the administration said was “administrative error.”

Despite five hearings on the case, the administration’s lawyers didn’t indicate they needed any more time, but today—the day their answer was due—they suddenly asked for 30 more days. Xinis wrote that they “expended no effort in demonstrating good cause. They vaguely complain, in two sentences, to expending ‘significant resources’ engaging in expedited discovery. But these self-described burdens are of their own making. The Court ordered expedited discovery because of [the administration’s] refusal to follow the orders of this court as affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.”

Trump is well known for using procedural delays to stop the courts from administering justice, and it is notable that administration lawyers have generally not been arguing that they will win cases on the merits. Instead, they are making procedural arguments.

Meanwhile, stringing things out means making time for situations to change on the ground, reducing the effect of court decisions. Brian Barrett of Wired reported today that while Musk claims to have stepped back from the Department of Government Efficiency, his lieutenants are still spread throughout the government, mining Americans’ data. Meanwhile, Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought will push to make DOGE cuts to government permanent in a dramatic reworking of the nation’s social contract. “Removing DOGE at this point would be like trying to remove a drop of food coloring from a glass of water,” Barrett writes.

Political scientist Bonica notes that there is a script for rising authoritarians. When the courts rule against the leader, the leader and his loyalists attack judges as biased and dangerous, just as Trump and his cronies have been doing.

The leader also works to delegitimize the judicial system, and that, too, we are seeing as Trump reverses the concepts of not guilty and guilty. On the one hand, the administration is fighting to get rid of the constitutional right of all persons to due process, rendering people who have not been charged with crimes to prisons in third countries. On the other, Trump and his loyalists at the Department of Justice are pardoning individuals who have been convicted of crimes.

On Monday, Trump issued a presidential pardon to former Culpeper County, Virginia, sheriff Scott Jenkins, a longtime Trump supporter whom a jury convicted of conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, and seven counts of bribery. Jared Gans of The Hill explained that Jenkins accepted more than $70,000 in bribes to appoint auxiliary deputy sheriffs, “giving them badges and credentials despite them not being trained or vetted and not offering services to the sheriff’s office.” Jenkins had announced he would “deputize thousands of our law-abiding citizens to protect their constitutional right to own firearms,” if the legislature passed “further unnecessary gun restrictions.” Jenkins was sentenced to ten years in prison.

Although Jenkins was found guilty by a jury of his peers, just as the U.S. justice system calls for, Trump insisted that Jenkins and his wife and their family “have been dragged through HELL by a Corrupt and Weaponized Biden D[epartment] O[f] J[ustice].” Jenkins, Trump wrote on social media, “is a wonderful person, who was persecuted by the Radical Left ‘monsters,’ and ‘left for dead.’ This is why I, as President of the United States, see fit to end his unfair sentence, and grant Sheriff Jenkins a FULL and Unconditional Pardon. He will NOT be going to jail tomorrow, but instead will have a wonderful and productive life.”

Today Trump gave a presidential pardon to Paul Walczak, a former nursing home executive who pleaded guilty to tax crimes in 2024. The pardon arrived after Walczak’s mother donated at least $1 million to Trump. The pardon spares Walczak from 18 months in prison and $4.4 million in restitution. Also today, Trump announced plans to pardon reality TV stars Julie and Todd Chrisley, who were sentenced to 7 and 12 years in prison for conspiracy to defraud banks of $36 million and tax evasion. Their daughter spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention.

Bonica notes that delegitimizing the judicial system creates a permission structure for threats against judges. That, too, we are seeing.

Bonica goes on to illustrate how this pattern of authoritarian attacks on the judiciary looks the same across nations. In 2009, following a ruling that he was not immune from prosecution for fraud, tax evasion, and bribery, Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi railed about “communist prosecutors and communist judges.” In 2016, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Türkiye rejected the authority of his country’s highest court and purged more than 4,000 judges. Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe pushed judges to stop protests, and the judiciary collapsed. In the Philippines in 2018, Rodrigo Duterte called the chief justice defending judicial independence an “enemy,” and she was removed. In Brazil in 2021, Jair Bolsonaro threatened violence against the judges who were investigating him for corruption.

But, Bonica notes, something different happened in Israel in 2023. When Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition tried to destroy judicial independence, people from all parts of society took to the streets. A broad, nonpartisan group came together to defend democracy and resist authoritarianism.

“Every authoritarian who successfully destroyed judicial independence did so because civil society failed to unite in time,” Bonica writes. “The key difference? Whether people mobilized.”

Bonica's notes used by Richardson in this letter:

Bluesky:

adambonica.bsky.social and

peppapaxpippa.bsky.social/

Americans ARE mobilizing.

Other resources:

Harvard free courses

Erica Chenoweth's book on Civil Resistance: What Everyone NEEDS to Know (Empower yourself and your community/friends/relatives READ this book, ASAP)

If you're inclined to fear, don't (fear).

#PopeFrancis The People's Pope; ABC News Special

2025-04-24T14:17:00.001-07:00

Seven decades ago, I was born into a Catholic family in upstate New York. I was baptized shortly thereafter. When I was 12-years old, I was confirmed in the church.

One year thereafter, with my mother's side of the family, I moved to Phoenix, AZ where I attended high school(s). I rarely attended mass.

In 2010, I began writing the Arizona Eagletarian. Primarily covering the AZ Independent Redistricting Commission. The first several hundred posts here on this blog remain as a record of that coverage.

"Eagletarian" was and is a play on the word egalitarian.

In my seven decades, I've lived a rich life. Rich in terms of many mistakes and some triumphs too.

In 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope, head of the Catholic Church. Strikingly, he chose to take the name Francis.

The ABC News report, which I viewed on Hulu, noted that Bergoglio had a reputation at the beginning of his time as an archbishop as authoritarian. At some point thereafter, he had a substantive change in his personality. Personally, I hope to learn more about how and under what circumstances that change took place.

The Book of the Acts of the Apostles includes the story of the conversion of the Apostle Paul. That's the closest I am aware of for change similar to that which Bergoglio experienced. To me, reference to Bergoglio's "epiphany" was the most salient part of the ABC report. I hope to learn more about it in the near future.

In 2019, after a bitter divorce, I began reading and studying Stoic philosophy from books written by Ryan Holiday. The trilogy includes The Obstacle is the Way; Ego is the Enemy, and Stillness is the Key.

I have found great comfort and encouragement in the Stoic perspective.

Further, Pope Francis' life and ministry has had profound positive impact in the world. He will be missed. I hope someone who emulates him gets to succeed him.