James M. Redwine

Donald Trump

It Is On U.S.

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The title of a CNN article by Aaron Blake is, “Trump Launches the Regime-Change Effort in Iran that he Pledged to Avoid”. But President Trump did not start our wars with Iran, America did. We live in a republic where we choose our representatives. Their actions are our actions. The blame and shame for Israel sending three missiles into an elementary girls school in Minab in southern Iran to prevent the girls from developing nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles, is ours. We murdered more than 100 children in what Israel called its preemptive opening act of self-defense. We share Israel’s shame and blame for this crime; but we did not have the right to elect Benjamin Netanyahu. No, our Supreme Leader, who enabled and abetted these war crimes, is in office because we chose him twice. Or, as Donald Trump says three times, due to what he calls the stolen 2020 election.

During the Viet Nam War we Americans were branded with our country’s public attitude as reflected by the stated military strategy against the people of Viet Nam and Cambodia. General Curtis LeMay said we were going to “Bomb them back to the Stone Age”. Fifty-eight thousand of our soldiers and over 1,000,000 Vietnamese were slaughtered in that endless and mindless tragedy. That is the same strategy Israel has been and still is applying in Palestine with our encouragement, weaponry and diplomatic immunity. Israel is using the same actions now in Lebanon and Syria.

Americans who opposed the Viet Nam War and those who now oppose the war with Iran are reminded of the 1960’s folk song by Phil Ochs, “Is There Anybody Here?”:

♫ ….
[Verse 3]

Is there anybody here
Who thinks that following the orders takes away the blame?
Is there anybody here
Who wouldn’t mind to murder by another name?
…. ♫

Or as pointed out by the war hero, Senator Mark Kelly, whom Secretary of War Pete Hegseth wants to court martial for pointing out what is clearly the moral and legal duty of the military that they should refuse illegal orders. Before Kelly flew all those combat missions during the Viet Nam War, he could have paid a medico to find bone spurs in his ankles and let some other “suckers and losers”, as Trump called D-Day’s heroes, go risk life and limb to serve their country in Viet Nam.

President Trump declared one of his main objects of our attacks on Iran was regime change. With Israel’s killing of Ali Khamenei and other senior leaders of Iran’s government, that objective has been met, not by ballots, but by bullets. America has the right to regime change also. We have several non-ballistic alternatives and all of them require citizen and elected representative involvement. Impeachment is one non-violent alternative.

But, to cast the blame on the narcissistic, megalomaniacal military decisions of one person out of 350 million does not absolve the rest of us. We are America; President Trump is one American. The blame and shame are on U.S. all.

Follow us on Facebook at “Jim Peg Redwine” or Substack “@gavelgamut”

 

Bad Bunny vs. Bad Donnie

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Our version of a Puerto Rican cane field; a corn field in Posey County, Indiana. Photo by Peg Redwine

Metaphors are never perfect. If they were, they would be identical copies, not learning opportunities. A more perfect metaphor for Donald Trump’s vision of America versus Bad Bunny’s vision of how Donnie treats Puerto Rico would have had the New York Jets play the Seattle “Sharks” in the 2026 Super Bowl. This would have left no doubt of the half-time show message. My northeast coast bred wife, Peg, said about five minutes into the spectacular production of telephone poles, sugar cane bundles and salsa rhythms, “Hey, Jim, this is West Side Story!”

With my small-town Southwest upbringing I got it a little more slowly, but I had to agree. Donald Trump’s MAGA view of America (the white Jets) was juxtaposed to Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio’s Puerto Rico (the Sharks). Themes of immigration, bias, and what America is truly about were punctuated by throbbing music and ecstatic dancing. In less than fifteen minutes, Bad Bunny celebrated the culture of the United States and of Puerto Rico and Spanish speaking peoples, including soccer, but reaffirmed America’s triumphant football talisman by personally carrying a “real” football.

Bad Bunny has stated that the only thing stronger than hate is love. He described his “fifteen minutes of half-time fame” as the desire for Americans to conquer hate with love, especially through music and dancing. Bunny, dressed all in white, joined that endless legacy of dreamers such as Jesus, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and our Founding Fathers (and Mothers) who advance the hope that love will conquer hate. I am less sanguine, but it is probably better to keep an open mind even in the face of thousands of years of contrary evidence.

I am familiar with Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story but confess I had never heard of Bad Bunny until Super Bowl LX. On the other hand, I had never heard of Taylor Swift until she started showing up at Kansas City Chiefs games. I do know a few songs by that earlier “Elvis the Pelvis” who drove my generation’s parents to distraction and to whom Bad Bunny is compared for what the Donald calls Bunny’s pornographic movements and song lyrics (does Donald even understand Spanish?). Although, if anyone should recognize pornography it might be someone judged by a jury with sexual assault. Unfortunately, the endings for both Romeo and Juliet and for Tony and Maria were not love conquering hate but tragedy.

If football is America’s new substitute for great literature, the Super Bowl half-time show may have become the type of looking glass through which we see and seize our country’s future. Will we celebrate another 250 years of our Constitutional republic and a striving for what even our most mundane athletic contests offer: Due Process and the Rule of Law as interpreted by impartial officials? Or will we finally have reached the final gun as so many other cultures have done? Bad Bunny says he is betting on love while Donald proudly professes hate for his enemies.

If sports are a metaphor for our country’s life, Super Bowl LX’s half-time show with its “Love conquers all” message may draw upon the “Better Angels of our nature”. Hey, it could happen.

 

A New World Resolution

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A new year is rapidly approaching. Hope for a better world is evidenced by universal blame placing, always onto someone else. Perhaps Jeffrey Epstein, or Donald Trump or Lane Kiffin or the idiot driving slowly in the passing lane. Or as Jimmy Buffett finally admitted in Margaritaville, “It was his own fault”.

One thing each of us believes is it is never our fault. Yet, in a republic, the United States for example, it is the fault of all citizens since we either choose or allow to remain in office our representatives. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth may have ordered Admiral Frank Bradley to carry out Commander in Chief Donald Trump’s order to kill the people on the alleged drug boat on September 02, 2025, but in America the President represents all of us. In the court of world opinion, each American violated our Constitution’s Bill of Rights and Due Process clauses as contained within the New World Resolutions of the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.

Our Founders were well aware of the irony contained within those famous New World Resolutions, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal”. They knew that thousands of years of human history belied such a reality. What real truth they knew to be self-evident was that power does not corrupt humans, it enables them to be corrupt. The words were aspirational, not factual. The Constitution of the United States designed a framework for a system of government in which the natural inclination of humans to abuse power is sublimated to the competing powers of the majority who would abide by Due Process of Law.

If the eighty-one people we have killed in the Venezuelan boats were drug runners, there are well established procedures for determining those facts and for dealing with each situation. The U.S.A. has the most powerful military on earth. Even if the Venezuelan government was sponsoring those boats, its military is impotent against ours.

Our aircraft carriers, submarines, destroyers and aircraft can and do monitor every craft that comes within our United States territorial waters. We have the ability and authority to force any such drug boat or fishing boat, to stand down and be searched without danger to American personnel or equipment.

We could safely and thoroughly search such boats and vet their sailors as to drugs or other illegal contents. If such criminal intent against America were to be evidenced, the occupants could be arrested and taken before a court in the United States or a world authorized legal body. Any drugs could be confiscated, used as evidence and later destroyed and the drug runners imprisoned.

Such a procedure is what our Founders would have demanded from King George III. It is called Due Process. As the folk singer Phil Ochs sang in his song, Is There Anybody Here:

♫Is there anybody here
Who thinks that following the orders takes away the blame?
Is there anybody here
Who wouldn’t mind to murder by another name?♫

We Americans who claim to be a light to the world should shout STOP! when our representatives justify killing others without affording them the rights we demand for ourselves. America was born in 1776 and should not lose its aspirational soul after only 249 years. For as Phil Ochs also said in his song, ♫This country is too young to die♫. America today can re-pledge our “Lives, our Fortunes and our Sacred Honor” to the hopes our Founders knew had not yet been made possible but that they and we should resolve to make reality. Due process should be our talisman, not just our hope.

 

You Shall Know the Truth & the Truth Will Set You Free (John 8:32)

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Jesus was born in Palestine and did much of his teaching there about 2,000 years ago. The words Jesus spoke were so offensive to the chief Jewish scribes and priests they called upon the Romans to crucify him even though he had committed no crime except, “He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee even to this place” (Luke 23:5). Actually he was just calling for peace and justice.

The Chief Pharisee, Joseph Caiaphas, and his ruling Judaic council charged Jesus with heresy and asked the Romans to try him. The Roman rulers, Pontius Pilate and King Herod, could find no fault in his behavior and planned to release him. Pilate then called together the chief priests and the religious rulers and the populace, to tell them Jesus would be released. “But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified” (Luke 22:6-25). So, Jesus was crucified for expressing views those in power in the Sanhedrin found offensive. Those eye witness accounts as reported in the Bible come from the famous authors of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, all of whom were Jewish. Ergo, the knee jerk response of contemporary society and Trump’s White House that they were being anti-semitic would lie fallow.

The Romans, much like those today in American academia who caved to the financial threats from the Trump Administration, just washed their hands of the matter (Matthew 27:11-26). However, the shame of shirking the most sacred duty of a college, that is, preserving the free flow of ideas, cannot be so easily cleansed.

Another Palestinian activist, Mahmoud Khalil, who advocates in America today for peace and justice in Palestine and Israel has not been charged with any crime, but is currently imprisoned in America for exercising his First Amendment right to free speech, principally during his tenure at Columbia University. He was arrested by the power of President Donald Trump’s Executive Branch that disagrees with Khalil’s calls for peace in Gaza and an end to the slaughter by the Zionists of over 50,000 Palestinians, mainly civilians. Khalil’s peaceful support for the resistance of the Palestinian people from 1948 until now to the military actions and occupations by Israel in Palestine, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and Yemen is at odds with the positions of the Trump and Zionist Israeli administrations.

The myopic view of Israel’s Zionistic actions over the past seventy-seven years is reminiscent of lessons from Hans Christian Andersen’s 1837 fairy tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes. Just as a narcissistic ruler is conned into parading naked before an adoring crowd until an innocent child exposes his vanity, Presidents Biden and Trump find no fault with the Zionists in Israel. That is the very purpose of the First Amendment, to expose the truth.

When our government will brook no dissent nor even consider opposing views, great harm and even greater injustice may occur. Protests and free speech in a non-violent academic atmosphere are vital to preserving our democracy. Just as our Founders feared, a silenced majority leads to tyranny from a minority.

Many Jewish people at Columbia University, and in much of the rest of the world, agree with Khalil or, at a minimum, believe he has the right to peaceably, publicly express his views. In America, Free Speech is not anti-semitic or pro-Palestinian; it is an essential element to preserving our democracy. As the Jewish and Roman rulers of 2,000 years ago discovered, power abused can lead to rights denied and even a country being destroyed. 1948 might have been a new beginning for Israel, but it may not survive the Zionist dream of total conquest of its neighbors in the Middle East while being abetted by our government, much of the media and academia.

The First Amendment to our Constitution is first because our Founders knew it is vital to democracy. When our institutions sell their principles for money or succumb to fear of speaking the truth because they may be branded anti-semitic, we may eventually reap the whirlwind, perhaps even a nuclear one.

You Say You Want A Revolution

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Photo by Peg Redwine

The Beatles sang:

♪ You say you want a revolution
…
You say you’ll change the Constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me it’s the institution
Well, you know
You’d better free your mind instead ♪

I do not know why those British songsters were singing about changing America’s Constitution during the Viet Nam War. Perhaps they were just selling a song or perhaps they felt it was a return to 1776. Regardless, today in the United States it seems a lot of Americans seek to remake America in their own image and the quickest way is a revolution. Of course, not much thought may have gone into what a revolution would truly mean in 2025 et. seq.

On the other hand, James Madison of the small body and the gigantic brain gave the written word to the revolution he had just participated in and the possible future ones he wanted to prevent by designing a United States Constitution based on a theory that all humans seek to expand their power as much as they are allowed. Therefore, for a democracy to continue existing, the bedrock of our country had to be a government made up of separate functions controlled by competing separate and equal powers. As a people we have had a history of teetering from side to side with only occasionally tipping completely over to any one branch gaining too much power.

The Civil War broke out because all three branches chose conflict over compromise on the issues of slavery and the human rights of African Americans. On other visceral issues, such as Native American rights, Women’s right to vote, use of alcohol or marijuana or wars such as World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, we have managed to let the struggling of the separate governmental powers find a way to come out in an acceptable equilibrium.

We have had countless opportunities to lose our democracy but have eventually stepped back from the brink. The United States Supreme Court has taken more than one foray into excessive power, such as Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857). During Chief Justice Earl Warren’s reign (1953-1969) the Court’s ultra-liberal rulings had much of the public up in arms. There were even billboards on the highways calling for Warren’s impeachment.

And the Legislative Branch has had its attempts at being the conscience of America also. For example, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy set himself up to be the ultimate determiner of what a “true American” was. During the era of “McCarthyism” in the 1940’s and 1950’s the American public generally bought into his “Red Scare” tactics until the facts overcame his allegations.

But it has usually been the Executive Branch where the abuse of power has been the most obvious. The most salient example was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who was president from 1933 until his death during his fourth term in 1945. Even though a great majority of both Congress and the American people objected to American involvement in WWII, Roosevelt manipulated the United States into the war. Of course, he had the aggression of Japan to help his argument.

It was Roosevelt’s long-term in office and some of his unpopular policies that brought about the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that forbids anyone from serving more than two terms as President. Although some supporters of President Donald Trump have advanced the possibility of an exception to this amendment for President Trump. Such moves on behalf of Donald Trump and the current makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court are raising concerns among anti-Trumpers. There exists the possibility that neither the Supreme Court nor the Legislature may provide a proper balance for our democracy as both may be biased in favor of President Trump, especially as about one-half of the electorate has supported him and his policies.

While a revolution may be extremely unlikely, so have been numerous other shifts in power in America throughout our history. There is no need yet to call for extraordinary action by any branch nor from the news media or the public. However, it is the fabric of our democracy that may be being tested once again. There is no harm in remaining true to the wisdom of our nation’s charter and there could be harm from failing to reference it.

Photo by Peg Redwine

70 X 7

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Peter eventually made it to the rank of saint; although he may have paid a heavy price for it. Peter was uncouth but Jesus stated he was the foundation of Jesus’ church. According to the New Testament, Jesus and Peter had many one-on-one conversations about theological matters, including forgiveness. In Matthew, Ch. 18, vs. 15-21, Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.”

In other words, both Donald Trump and Hunter Biden are clothed with a robe of get out of jail free cards based on our Constitution’s Presidential Pardon Power. Oklahoma’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters, is not correct; America was not founded on Biblical principles but on principles of the European Enlightenment. Its army was led by George Washington who owned slaves and its Constitution was drafted by fellow slave owner James Madison who was Washington’s staunchest supporter. Washington’s physical presence and Madison’s great mental prowess were two of the main building blocks of our country. The President’s Pardon Power was inserted into the Constitution, probably, because most of the Founding Fathers who had a foundation in the history of the monarchies of Europe expected George Washington to become America’s first king and the Pardon Power was most likely a vestige of the European “Divine Right of Kings” to have the “Final Say” in matters calling for mercy. Instead, we might seek guidance from our Founding Fathers and such other secular authorities as Professor Joseph Campbell who taught mythology and literature at Sarah Lawrence College for many years. Unfortunately, Professor Campbell passed away in 1987, but in his 1972 book Myths to Live By at pages 188-189 Campbell wrote:

…. “The modern Western concept of a legal code is not of a list of unassailable divine edicts {such as the Code of Hammurabi or the Ten Commandments for examples} but of a rationally contrived, evolving compilation of statutes, shaped by fallible human beings in council, to realize rationally recognized social (and therefore temporal) aims. We understand that our laws are not divinely ordained; and we know also that no laws of any people on earth ever were.”

Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump must navigate America’s Constitution where Article II, §2, clause 1 provides, “The President shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in cases of Impeachment.”

Pardons are granted by democratically elected Presidents. Over the years thousands of pardons have been granted. President Biden has pardoned his own son after repeatedly and publicly stating he would not. Donald Trump may pardon numerous January 06, 2020 defendants after repeatedly and publicly stating he would. Some people find both Presidents’ actions repugnant. If so, they may work to change the people-made Constitution or work to elect somebody else or impeach whomever the country has elected. After all, our Founding Fathers bequeathed to us a democracy based on free will.