Editor: Jonathan Turley collides with the Amendment I and Robert Jackson!
The problem here is that Jonathan Turley’s self-willed forgetting of American Dissidents : Gordon Hirabayashi, Minoru Yasui, Fred Korematsu, and Mitsuye Endo!!
Korematsu v. United States: 80 Years Later
Even 80 years later, Korematsu v. United States still serves as a reminder of the need to protect civil liberties even during times of insecurity.
November 7, 2024
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Jackson warned of the dangerous precedent set by the ruling, emphasizing that racial discrimination was antithetical to American democracy—particularly when fighting a war against fascism:
But once a judicial opinion rationalizes such an order to show that it conforms to the Constitution, or rather rationalizes the Constitution to show that the Constitution sanctions such an order, the Court for all time has validated the principle of racial discrimination in criminal procedure and of transplanting American citizens. The principle then lies about like a loaded weapon, ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need. Every repetition imbeds that principle more deeply in our law and thinking and expands it to new purposes.
Despite the dissents, the court’s ruling not only legitimized the military’s actions during wartime but also raised questions about accountability and oversight in matters of national security.
When General Delos Emmons (Western Defense Commander after DeWitt stepped down in 1943) lifted the exclusion orders on the West Coast and the Army permitted Japanese Americans to return to the West Coast in January 1945, Korematsu’s brothers went home to Oakland, where they found their family’s nursery in disarray. Korematsu couldn’t bring himself to return and decided to remain in Detroit. There, he met his wife and raised his children, living a quiet life and never speaking of his experiences.[19]
But in December 1981, while Congress wrapped up a series of hearings on the removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during the war, a lawyer named Peter Irons reached out to Korematsu with a shocking discovery. Based on his legal team’s research at the National Archives and Records Administration, Irons discovered that the military and the federal government had purposefully withheld information proving that Japanese Americans were not a security risk—crucial documents that the Supreme Court justices could have used in their decision. When Irons informed Korematsu that he wanted to pursue a pardon for his wartime conviction, Korematsu retorted, “I don’t want a pardon. If anything, I should be pardoning the government.” Ultimately, however, Korematsu agreed to Irons’ proposal.[20]
Two years later, in November 1983, San Francisco US District Court Judge Marilyn Patel heard Korematsu’s case and issued her ruling: “[t]he conviction that was handed down in this court and affirmed by the Supreme Court in Korematsu v. United States is … vacated and the underlying indictment dismissed.” [21]
Korematsu was grateful but had one final plea:
“Having this conviction cleared, I am very happy. But … I would like to have it completely cleared from the record and that this will never happen again to any American citizen.” [22]
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Editor: This from Chicago Magazine of Febuary 1, 2017 might just put Mr. Stephens enthiasm for Rahm Emanuel, into another, more accurate perspspective !
Headline: Rahm Emanuel: The Least Popular Mayor in Modern Chicago History
Sub-headline:The mayor’s job approval drops well below the Bilandic Line in the latest Tribune poll—and his approval rating among white voters is just four points ahead of Harold Washington’s in 1985. By Whet Moser February 1, 2016, 3:56 pm
A decade ago, TV writer John Rodgers was trying to figure out how low George W. Bush’s approval ratings would go. A friend predicted 27 percent, because that was the percentage of the vote the hapless Alan Keyes received in his comically lopsided Senate race against Barack Obama. “Twenty-seven percent of the population of Illinois voted for him,” his friend said. “They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgment.” (Bush would drop to 25 percent in the Gallup poll, making it a pretty impressive prediction.)
The Tribune just polled ‘s approval rating. What do you know: it is 27 percent.
It’s a big poll for a local politician, almost 1,000 respondents, and Emanuel gets killed on basically every question. The only thing resembling a bright spot is that “only” 41 percent of respondents think he should resign, versus 51 percent who don’t. But the racial breakdown is dramatic. Whites are 26 percent for resigning versus 69 percent against, while blacks and Hispanics have basically same split: 51 percent and 50 percent for resignation, respectively, versus 40 percent against. It’s a big blow for a politician who needed the black vote to win a surprisingly contested second term.
How bad is 27 percent? It’s real bad. According to my search of Tribune job approval polls, since the era of Daley dominance began no mayor has ever been this unpopular. In fact, it’s so bad that it’s six points below the previous worst.
Richard J. Daley
He served before the age of regular job-approval polling, but a Gallup poll taken 10 years after his death in 1986 gave him a 73 percent job-approval rating. Before his last election, Daley won a Trib poll in a four-way mayoral primary with 55 percent.
Michael Bilandic
Remember him? He was the machine politician whose handling of the 1979 blizzard—both logistically and politically—is a famous cautionary tale for urban leaders. Prior to it, he had a 48-percent approval rating, according to a WBBM poll; afterwards, he fell to 33 percent.
Jane Byrne
She won because of Bilandic’s collapse, but a year later had a mere 35 percent job-approval rating—and, according to the Tribune in 1980, her good/excellent numbers were actually lower than Bilandic’s.
Harold Washington
Racial tensions caused problems for Washington in City Council, but his top-line numbers were good: 54 percent approval versus 36 percent disapproval in 1985 (though the split was 33/58 for whites), and 67 percent approval in 1987. The Trib used the northwest and southwest sides as a proxy for white voter approval that year, and he notched 47 percent in the former and 32 percent in the latter.
Eugene Sawyer
Washington’s successor was unable to fill his shoes, but his numbers weren’t atrocious. In 1988 the Tribune polled residents on a number of questions about his performance; 55 percent thought he was not “strong, decisive, and independent”; 54 percent thought he was not an “effective leader”; and 45 percent said he wasn’t “good at getting things done.”
Richard M. Daley
For most of his tenure, Da Mare maintained high approval ratings: 80 percent in 1991, 79 percent in 1999. After the Hired Truck scandal, arguably the biggest of his time in office, it slipped to 53 percent in 2005. By late 2009, after the parking-meter deal turned into a disaster, even the great Daley slipped to a Byrne-level 35 percent.
As for Rahm? His highest job approval ratings are among whites, but they’re bad, too: 37 percent, a mere four points above Harold Washington’s approval rating among whites in 1985.
Editor: Mr Stephens assumes that his particular reader won’t bother to check readily avavalable sourses of information! He is a propgandist by avovation and temperament. In this particular instance Mr. Stephens dons the weak guise of a Political Reformer of the New Democratic Party, fogetting that the Neo-Conservatives and the New Democrats have made an allience in the 2024 election. That Bill & Hillary Clinton, Braack Obama are now desperate to begin a political reinvention, post the resounding victory of Trump.
Mr. Stephens wastes no time in presenting Rahm Emanuel as the answer, yet the first paragraph above makes plain the fact Stephens wastes no time pointing out that Progressive Left as a natural enemy of the Parties hierarchy and presents Rahm Emanuel the natural enemy of : ‘The progressive left despises his pragmatism and liberal centrism’. Stephen’s re-invents Emanuel?
There’s a buzz around Rahm Emanuel — the former Bill Clinton adviser, former Illinois congressman, former chief of staff to President Barack Obama, former mayor of Chicago — possibly becoming the next head of the Democratic National Committee. The progressive left despises his pragmatism and liberal centrism. He has a reputation for abrasiveness. And his current job, as ambassador to Japan, has traditionally served as a posting for high-level political has-beens like Walter Mondale and Howard Baker.
But he also has a gift for constructing winning coalitions with difficult, unexpected partners.
…
Editor: Mr. Stephens relies on the well worn bad actor of ‘the progressive left’ that always falls into line with the New Demcratic majorty!
Editor: Here is a New York Times essay on ‘The Brothers Emanuel’ of June 15, 1997 by By Elisabeth Bumiller
The best Rahm Emanuel story is not the one about the decomposing two-and-a-half-foot fish he sent to a pollster who displeased him. It is not about the time – the many times – that he hung up on political contributors in a Chicago mayor’s race, saying he was embarrassed to accept their $5,000 checks because they were $25,000 kind of guys. No, the definitive Rahm Emanuel story takes place in Little Rock, Ark., in the heady days after Bill Clinton was first elected President.
It was there that Emanuel, then Clinton’s chief fund-raiser, repaired with George Stephanopoulos, Mandy Grunwald and other aides to Doe’s, the campaign hangout. Revenge was heavy in the air as the group discussed the enemies – Democrats, Republicans, members of the press – who wronged them during the 1992 campaign. Clifford Jackson, the ex-friend of the President and peddler of the Clinton draft-dodging stories, was high on the list. So was William Donald Schaefer, then the Governor of Maryland and a Democrat who endorsed George Bush. Nathan Landow, the fund-raiser who backed the candidacy of Paul Tsongas, made it, too.
Suddenly Emanuel grabbed his steak knife and, as those who were there remember it, shouted out the name of another enemy, lifted the knife, then brought it down with full force into the table.
”Dead!” he screamed.
The group immediately joined in the cathartic release: ”Nat Landow! Dead! Cliff Jackson! Dead! Bill Schaefer! Dead!”
Rahm Emanuel and Israel It was inevitable that the world would eventually realize the unhappy fact that President-elect Barack Obama will not represent a complete break with the past 60 years of American diplomacy. By tapping Rahm Emanuel, a fierce partisan of Israel who volunteered as a mechanic in northern Israel during the first Gulf War, it is fair …
By David Kenner, Middle East editor at Foreign Policy from 2013-2018.
Editor: This from Jewish Journal
November 6, 2008
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His father, a pediatrician still practicing near Chicago, immigrated to the United States from Israel and spoke Hebrew with his son, when Emanuel was a boy. Emanuel volunteered as a civilian volunteer in the Israel Defense Forces during the 1991 Gulf War, serving in one of Israel’s northern bases, rust-proofing brakes.
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Mr Stephens avoids the mention that he and Emanual are not just Zionists but of the the most belicose iteration of that cardre. Mr. Stephens acts as a conduit for Emanual’s politics, which he characterises as: But he also has a gift for constructing winning coalitions with difficult, unexpected partners.
With Hillary Clinton’s hysterical attack on the Constitutional guarantee of Free Speech, and calling her students Foreign Agents: and Biden Pardoning his son- when will be the propitious moment arrive for Rahm Emanuel to take the lead role of The New Democratic Party ? Mr. Stephens is a propagandist and constructs a senario dubed ‘Flip the Script’, that reeks of the arcaine vocabulary of those mythically re-engeneered ‘Mad Men’?
In the Rostov region, in southern Russia, the owner of several stalls that sell local produce says she dreams of having her own fuel tanker. “They can all go to hell with their ideas and grand ambitions,” she says. “They” include Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky, Emmanuel Macron and local governors. “We used to live just fine. Now all you do is scramble from one problem to the next.”
Elena Panfilova, who conducts focus groups in Moscow, says the mood is turning from frustration to seething hatred of the authorities. It is not just the fuel shortages and internet outages that make people angry, but the widening gap between reality and the Kremlin’s rhetoric. “The only way out is to stop [hostilities],” says Valery. “We have been hearing upbeat reports that ‘Russian troops are confidently advancing along the entire front line’ for all four years. Yet if you look at the maps, everything is bogged down in a swamp.”
Mr Putin continues to insist that the war is mostly going to plan. In a recent interview, reading his answers from an autocue, he said: “Everything is operating steadily and with a substantial margin of resilience.” His bare acknowledgment of the change in circumstances suggests he may still be deciding on his next course of action. Many Russians fear that instead of cutting his losses and scaling back, he will double down on the conflict.
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Noticeably fewer men are now on the streets. “The atmosphere in the city is terrible,” says Elena, a resident. “I forbade my husband from leaving the house. When I go out, I lock him from the outside. We keep the curtains drawn all day.” Andrey Surkov, Penza’s military commissar, claimed the raids were simply to hunt for draft dodgers and deserters.
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“Vladimir Vladimirovich, pay attention to this. Invite me to meet you. Otherwise the army will turn its weapons on the Kremlin.” The man was predictably arrested (and later released), but by then the video had gained 20m views. From soldiers to street merchants, discontent is rising. As Sergei in Nizhny Novgorod says, “Nobody understands what all this is for, other than perhaps to satisfy Putin’s ego. If people protest, they go to jail. All we can hope for now is that he dies.”
Editor: True to form Zanny Minton Beddoes does not provide a transcript! Hardley a surprise! This is Propganda!
Episode summary
Russia is under pressure. More than four years have passed since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the war is still not going to plan. Ukrainian attacks are reaching deep into Russia, disrupting fuel supplies and adding strain to the country’s economy. Ordinary Russians are feeling the pain.
Andrey Melnichenko, one of the country’s richest—and most understated—oligarchs, fears for Russia’s future. He has shared his vision for what must happen in an essay and nearly 60 hours of conversation with The Economist. It is a remarkable intervention from an insider living in Moscow who understands the risks of speaking out in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Zanny Minton Beddoes, The Economist’s editor-in-chief, and Edward Carr, deputy editor, discuss Mr Melnichenko’s manifesto with Arkady Ostrovsky, our Russia editor, and Oliver Carroll, our Ukraine correspondent.
Editor: True to form Zanny Minton Beddoes does not provide a transcript! Hardley a surprise! This is Propganda!
Episode summary
Russia is under pressure. More than four years have passed since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the war is still not going to plan. Ukrainian attacks are reaching deep into Russia, disrupting fuel supplies and adding strain to the country’s economy. Ordinary Russians are feeling the pain.
Andrey Melnichenko, one of the country’s richest—and most understated—oligarchs, fears for Russia’s future. He has shared his vision for what must happen in an essay and nearly 60 hours of conversation with The Economist. It is a remarkable intervention from an insider living in Moscow who understands the risks of speaking out in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Zanny Minton Beddoes, The Economist’s editor-in-chief, and Edward Carr, deputy editor, discuss Mr Melnichenko’s manifesto with Arkady Ostrovsky, our Russia editor, and Oliver Carroll, our Ukraine correspondent.
Michelle Cottle: I’m Michelle Cottle. I cover national politics for New York Times Opinion, and this week I am here with the oh-so-illustrious columnist David French and — just to keep me on my toes — our other favorite David, David Wallace-Wells, is back. Davids, how goes it?
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Wallace-Wells: How about “humiliation”? I’m thinking of, you know, the embarrassing spectacle of America’s 250th. I’m thinking about the U.S. soccer team embarrassing itself on the field against Belgium. I’m thinking about the online left somewhat embarrassing itself with Graham Platner. I’m also thinking about President Trump’s desperate need to avoid humiliation in this conflict with Iran.
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French: Well, yeah. So, we had more information about Graham Platner that is changing the American political landscape, and casts the Senate into even more doubt as to how this is going to all unfold. And also, The Wall Street Journal had some very interesting series of articles about the way in which the rest of the world is handling Trump. And it really exposed the extent to which the rest of the world is making this determination that they cannot count on the United States anymore, and laid bare that they just don’t trust us.
They just don’t trust us, maybe for reasons that we might talk about here in a few minutes.
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Cottle: OK, I like that. This is a very intriguing entree into our discussion. I’m going to latch onto the exposure and humiliation of Graham Platner. I myself cannot stop rage-texting my friends and colleagues about this — I’d like to apologize to David French, who’s already had an earful about this — and the epic disgrace that was the Democrats’ now ex-Senate nominee in Maine. We also do need to talk about the mysterious disappearance of Senator Mitch McConnell, who has been hospitalized now for nearly a month, with no clear explanation of what’s going on, which is stirring up all kinds of crazy rumors on the right — and resurrects the question of how much Americans are entitled to know about the private lives and health of our elected officials.
But first, I think we’ve got to go global. We’ve got to look the Iran cease-fire that basically never was. So, at the NATO summit this week, Trump suggested that the cease-fire with Iran is over. Turns out that that loose agreement, announced last month, left a little too many sticky issues on the table, and so here we are. As of our taping this Thursday morning, there have been tit-for-tat strikes, along with Trumpian threats to, of course, take it farther.
So, how are you guys feeling about this situation? Any chance the administration’s going to sort this out and reach a deal before the mid-August deadline, set by the memorandum of understanding? David French, you go first.
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Editor: On and on this pretentious chatter tries the patience of the reader! The ‘as if’ here or the ‘mighe be’, reminds me of Black & White Television of another time place, before the advent of Color Television?
Frank Bruni & Bret Stephens ‘Kick The Gong Around’ about the evil Graham Platner.
Frank Bruni: Bret, you and I have talked quite a bit about Graham Platner and his candidacy — which he finally suspended Wednesday night — so we should probably parse this pathetic, ugly last chapter of it. Which, I’m guessing, doesn’t exactly surprise you?
Bret Stephens: I was about as shocked to hear about Platner’s demise as Captain Renault was to find out that there was gambling at Rick’s.
Frank: I appreciate the levity, because I’m feeling a significant measure of despair. I fear that Senator Susan Collins, the Republican incumbent, has now effectively won re-election from Maine — and thus crushed Democrats’ hopes of a Senate majority — but let’s come back to that later. First, I’m curious what lessons, beyond the elegant analysis in your most recent column about political parties falling prey to their “worst ideological impulses,” you divine in the Platner debacle. I’m definitely mulling that myself.
Bret: The most obvious: When you see lightning, you will soon hear thunder. Lyndsey Fifield, a former girlfriend of Platner’s, told The Times earlier this year that he had “twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so that she couldn’t get out,” while also describing him as “the most toxic literally abusive man on earth.” That came out before Platner won the Maine primary. What else did Maine voters need to know about him before suspecting that even more serious allegations would emerge?
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Editor: This is the stuff that deguiles those NYT readers, at the breakfast table?
Editor: The first paragraphs of Stephens commetary are just the very beginning of this exploration, that gathers momentem as his historical mentions of toxic political actors on the Left, in service to his adoration of ‘the Bushes or John McCain or Mitt Romney’ is demonstative of a fractured political nostalgia!
I grew up in a conservative movement that thought it had gotten the better of its worst ideological impulses.
True, there were the usual Father Coughlin throwbacks, people like Pat Buchanan, who were against free trade, sympathetic to Vladimir Putin, down on the Jews and inveterately hostile to immigration, legal or otherwise. There were outright bigots and conspiracy theorists and militia types and their assorted followers, avid or furtive. And there was an outsize share of moralizing hypocrites, inevitable among people too fond of speaking in the name of religion and character.
But that wasn’t the conservatism of the Bushes or John McCain or Mitt Romney, pragmatic men who, whether you agreed with them or not, operated on the center-right side of the liberal-democratic tradition. They were the conscience of the Republican Party, maintaining its decency by occasionally calling out the bad guys on their own side.
That was until the moment the G.O.P. chose to delete its conscience by becoming the party of Donald Trump. A similar moment may soon be upon Democrats if they aren’t careful.
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All this is especially true when the more ideologically extreme candidates are energetic, unstuffy, authentic, and able to stir up an audience. Zohran Mamdani, the New York mayor, is emblematic of the type; so was Graham Platner, the Maine Democrat, at least until allegations about his past behavior finally caught up with him.
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Against this tide, the position of many mainstream Democrats is to dodge the ideological fight with the left while warning that, outside of deep-blue districts like those in New York City, democratic socialism is an electoral loser that only provides Trump with political ammunition. In Michigan, Haley Stevens, El-Sayed’s opponent in the Democratic primary, is campaigning on the argument that “no one wants Abdul to win more than the Republicans” — that is, that Republicans see him as the more beatable opponent come November.
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Socialism as a political program was born in the 19th century and died in the 20th (including in Sweden). Democracy requires a clearly defined citizenry, an idea that becomes meaningless if a country pursues a lax or open-border policy of the kind advocated by democratic socialists. The brainstorms of the far left, like the billionaire surtax on the ballot in California, have failed repeatedly wherever they’ve been tried (including in France). And “justice for Palestine” surely can’t mean taking sides with the killers and rapists of Hamas while insisting that the only nation-state on earth with no right to exist is the Jewish one. The word for that is antisemitism, the politics of the double standard toward Jews, which is yet another terrible idea from a terrible past.
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Editor: the final paragraphs of Stephens — It does not occure to Stephens, that the Left he defames is the watershed of both the New Democrats and The Republicas, who are the bought and paid for AIPAC hirelings! (Stephens is member of the club!)
Is there a rising Democrat who will give this speech — the one that says that Democrats stand for freedom and fairness, not radicalism and self-righteousness; the one that never disdains tradition even if it seeks to improve it; the one that knows that utopianism is no substitute for pragmatism, and that purity is not superior to compromise?
That Democrat needs to stand up now, before his party gets swept away by the flood it vainly believes will soon recede.
The Financial Times on : ‘Putin is running out of options’
Yet reader look to this use the of this portion of an FT headline?
Putin is Running Out of Options: George Friedman on Negotiation vs. Escalation
Will a Russian energy crisis finally lead to a negotiated settlement, or are we headed towards nuclear war? On this episode of Talking Geopolitics, GPF Chairman George Friedman joins host Christian Smith to discuss Ukrainian target shifts toward energy infrastructure and their impact on Russia’s already fragile economy, the impending political crisis inside the Kremlin, and the viability of Russia’s potential next steps, including “tactical” nukes, Belarusian involvement, and fully mobilizing reserve forces. Episode recorded on June 29, 2026.
Christian Smith: Hello and welcome to this podcast from Geopolitical Futures. I’m Christian Smith. It’s no great insight to say that energy is about as fundamental for the Russian economy as oxygen is for its citizens. Between 2014 and 2024, oil and gas made up anywhere between 30 and 50% of federal budget revenues. With the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, fears grew in the west that it could mean a bounce for Russia’s economy and its war chest. And while that could still be the case, with Ukraine targeting Russian refineries and energy storage in recent weeks, including massive attacks with hundreds of drones over the weekend, Vladimir Putin has now acknowledged that the country faces fuel shortages. So today on the podcast I am joined by George Friedman, Geopolitical Futures chairman and founder, to discuss where to from here for Russia and whether the country may try to force Belarus or even nuclear weapons into the war. George, hello. Before we get to that, let’s just set the scene as to how we go got here. Talk us through the details of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure attacks. Why is it doing this? Why is it doing it? Now?
George Friedman: It’s clear that the Russians are not prepared to reach understanding via the United States or any other source to end the war. Therefore, the Ukrainians have reached the conclusion that they must strike Russia at one of its central points, and they have now the drones technology to strike Russia at a critical point, which is its energy capability, its oil capability. Russia has to obviously have oil. It also exports oil and is one of, at this point doing quite well in the exportation of oil, given the price of oil these days. And he sends it to countries like China, India and many others. By attacking their oil capability, they strike at a fundamental asset that Russia has, both in terms of making its economy more viable by selling it overseas, but more so inside the country, dramatically reducing the amount of oil available, therefore further hurting the economy and production and the citizens as well. So for the Ukrainians, this is a major escalation, a thing designed to bring Russia to the table. And the Russians are obviously not going to want to do that under these circumstances.
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The American geopolitical scholar, George Friedman, has divided his country’s history into three 80-year institutional cycles: from its birth in 1787 to the end of its civil war in 1865; from the latter until the end of the Second World War in 1945; and from there to 2025, when Trump will be sworn in for the second time.
Friedman also identifies 50-year socioeconomic cycles. From our viewpoint, the relevant ones are the last two: the so-called Roosevelt cycle from 1932 to 1980, marked by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal – which overlapped US economic thinking with John Maynard Keynes’ theories – until the end of the 1970s; and the Reagan cycle, which was intellectually monopolised by Milton Friedman’s monetarism.
According to George Friedman, we are still in the Reagan socioeconomic cycle, which is projected to end in 2030.
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