Today is Tuesday, July 25, 2023. Boy, isn’t the summer flying by? It’s the end of July and we’re almost into August already. There are those horrible ads for back to school playing on the radio and on television. When I was off over the summer when I was an active pedagogue, I used to cringe when I would hear these commercials. I would even turn the jingle off when I heard it. Now these ads have no power over me anymore since I’ve been retired over 5 years already. Most of my friends are in the same boat with me, except for my Astoria friend, “Seth,” who still works for the Department of Education in an administrative capacity. So he doesn’t have a regular classroom as I used to have. He’s in a different league here.

More bad news is coming out of Trumpland, as a new online story for Raw Story mentions a recent Supreme Court decision that could help bury the former president in the ongoing January 6 case initiated by special counsel Jack Smith. The article is by Sarah K. Burris and is entitled “Recent Supreme Court decision could help bury Trump in Jan. 6 case: constitutional law experts.”

Those constitutional experts, Harvard Constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe and former federal prosecutor Dennis Aftergut, both wrote a column for Slate magazine in which they cited a recent Supreme Court decision that could make it a lot easier for prosecutors to use Donald Dumpf’s tweets against him.

In the article that was published just today, the two experts noted a number of threats-by-tweet that were sent out by the main insurrectionist to Vice President Mike Pence as the violent mob made its way through the U.S. Capitol.

In one of those tweets, Dumpf tweeted, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to . . . protect our Country.”

These legal eagles cited the recently released target letter from special counsel Smith to Dumpf. They said possible charges could involve “conspir[ing] to injure, threaten, or intimidate a person . . . in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States or because of his or her having exercised such a right.” Tribe and Aftergut honed in on the words “threaten” and “intimidate,” which they explained might be how that tweet is viewed.

Both men wrote that “Under the 12th Amendment, the vice president has the right (and duty) to preside over the Joint Session of Congress to certify the vote electing the next president, and to ensure that the electoral votes are lawfully counted.”

As we all know, Pence told his corrupt boss he was voting to approve the election, despite the Orange Hemorrhoid’s demands.

In the piece, the men write that Dumpf’s 2:24 p.m. tweet came 11 minutes after the mob breached the Capitol. “It also came, according to the House Jan. 6 committee, after White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows had notified Trump of the violence. Trump plainly had in mind one or more of three aims.”

The first goal, the men write, was a last attempt to intimidate and threaten Pence using the mob. Second, Dumpf sought to rile up the attackers, so they would go after Pence.

The piece continued to say, “Third, to wreak revenge on Pence for not yielding should the first two aims fail. This would constitute an attempt to punish Pence for just exercising his constitutional right, which is another violation of the statute.

What the archly conservative Supreme Court has to do with all of this stems from its June 27 ruling in Counterman v. Colorado in which the court decided, 7-2, that “a mental state of recklessness” for threatening violence is enough evidence to prove “true threats.”

The justices explained that these words “lie outside the bounds of the First Amendment’s protection.” So this would mean that Dumpf “consciously disregarded a substantial risk that his communications would be viewed as threatening violence.”

The former senior prosecutor for Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann, warned that the target letter indicates to him that Trump will be indicted for the election charges any day. We are all waiting here! It might happen on Thursday, from what I’m hearing right now on Lawrence O’Donnell’s show on MSNBC. Or it might not! The suspense is unbearable!

As all of this is happening, the complete reverse is being noted in Dumpf’s camp, which is that he’s actually perceived as being stronger ever since his two indictments. How this could be is beyond comprehension! On March 30, Dumpf had a 15-point lead over despicable Florida Governor Ron”DeMented” in national polls which was the date of the former president’s first indictment in New York on 34 felony counts related to a hush money scheme that came to the public’s notice.

Since then, his lead over DeMented, his closest rival, has grown to 33 points, according to an average of recent national polls. Can you believe that? The malignant narcissist’s approval rating actually went up among repugnicans since his second indictment. Wouldn’t you think this would negatively impact his ratings? Dumpf is the epitome of the Teflon Don if there is ever is one. But I sincerely believe he’s ready for a huge fall. It’s just taking too damn long here.

As a rebuke to Florida’s moronic new history standards for teaching about slavery in the middle schools, President Joe Biden signed a proclamation establishing a national monument honoring Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, marking the fulfillment of a promise Till’s relatives made after his death 68 years ago.

The Black teenager from Chicago, whose abduction, torture, and killing in Mississippi, in 1955 helped propel the Civil Rights Movement was just immortalized in a 2022 film simply called Till (which I saw).

The ceremony today at the White House is covered in an article in today’s late edition of the Daily News by Aaron Morrison of the Associated Press. The new National Monument will be located across three sites in two states which have now become federally protected places. Before signing the proclamation, the President said he marvels at the courage of the Till family to “find faith and purpose in pain.”

Today would have been Till’s 82nd birthday if he were alive. Biden noted the significance of the date, saying, “Today, on what would have been Emmett’s 82nd birthday, we add another chapter in the story of remembrance and healing.”

Biden addressed the ugly revisionism of history being exhibited in Florida and other states toward whitewashing our nation’s ugly past with respect to slavery and race, saying, “At a time when there are those who seek to ban books (and) bury history, we’re making clear, crystal clear.” He added, “We can’t just choose to learn what we want to know. We should know everything – the good, the bad, the truth of who we are as a nation. That’s what great nations do.”

Altogether, the Till national monument will include 5.7 acres of land and two historic buildings. The Mississippi sites are Graball Landing, the spot where Till’s body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River just outside of Glendora, Mississippi, and the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi, where Emmett’s killers were tried.

The Illinois site is Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago, where Emmett’s funeral was held in September 1955.

Speaking today at the dedication of the Till national monument was the Reverend Wheeler Parker, Jr. who was a cousin of Till and witnessed his cousin’s abduction when he was only 16 years old. Today Parker is 84 years old. During the proclamation signing ceremony, Parker said, “It has been quite a journey for me from the darkness to the light.” He added, “Back then in the darkness, I could never imagine the moment like this, standing in the light of wisdom, grace, and deliverance.”

For those who don’t know the Emmett Till story, it was the summer of 1955 when Mamie Till-Mobley put her son Emmett on a train to her native Mississippi, where he was to spend time with his uncle and his cousins. In the overnight hours of August 28, 1955, Emmett was taken from his uncle’s house at gunpoint by two vengeful white men.

What was Emmett’s crime here? Supposedly whistling at the wife of one of his kidnappers outside a grocery store.

Three days later, a fisherman on the Tallahatchie River discovered the teenager’s bloated corpse – one of his eyes was detached, an ear was missing, his head was shot and bashed in.

What fueled the nascent Civil Rights Movement at the time was Mamie Till-Mobley’s decision to show her son’s battered and bruised body in an open casket funeral that was attended by tens of thousands of people. Graphic images taken of Emmett’s remains, sanctioned by his mother, were published by Jet magazine and spurred the Civil Rights Movement.

At the trial of his murderers in Mississippi, Till-Mobley took the stand to dispute the perverse image of her son that defense attorneys had painted for jurors and trial watchers. As sadly expected, the two racists were acquitted of Till’s murder and it was only many years later that these men confessed to the brutal killing of the 14-year-old innocent. At that time, they couldn’t be charged with the same crime, so they got off without being punished for this heinous act. That’s justice for you!

Stay safe and be well.