Morning Message 1.15

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Welcome to another Friday, hailing from Parts Unknown and weighing in at 226 pounds I’m John Henry with the Morning Message, lots to talk about today so let’s get right to it!

First, big shout-out to festering social disease Pat Robertson who made his contribution to Pride Month after a lifetime of blaming gay people for hurricanes by dying yesterday. Perhaps more than any other minion of evil in the American Theofascist movement Robertson, taught people how to weaponize religion through mass media to spread hate, ignorance, and fascism throughout American culture for profit and power. We note Robertson’s death is tragic primarily in that it didn’t happen fifty or sixty years ago.

The big news today of course is the return of a seven-count indictment against tribble hatchery and ongoing refutation of Darwinian theory Donald J “The J Is For Jeenyus” Trump on charges related to his illegal and deliberate removal and sharing of classified intelligence.

The most serious of these charges is being filed under the federal Espionage Act, and that’s super important for two reasons that aren’t being talked about much in the coverage I’ve read.

First, a conviction of espionage lays the groundwork for a much more serious charge of treason. Article 3 Section III of the US Constitution spells it out clearly: treason is committed when a person a) makes war against the United States, b) “adheres to” enemies of the US, “giving them aid and comfort.”

Without getting into the weeds on it, “espionage” generally involves spying on or stealing information. “Treason” is when you communicate that information in a way that is harmful to your nation (or attempt to harm primary officials). There’s a lot of overlap there, but it’s not complete.

Any given act has three requirements to be considered treasonous. First, it must be an act that harms an order to which the actor has a duty of allegiance – a citizen spying on their own country for a hostile foreign power, for instance. Second, the intent to violate that duty; you can’t accidentally commit treason. Third, there must in fact be an “act” or “action.” Without actually “doing something,” you’re talking about sedition but not treason.

If a conviction under the Espionage Act is secured, that establishes as a legal fact that “something” was “done.” This is key to prosecution for treason down the road.

The second thing that isn’t being talked about is the extraordinarily problematic nature of the Espionage Act. This act is one of the few clearly defined legal lines in the US where your right to free expression stops, cold. That such a line exists, and must exist, has been upheld repeatedly by courts left and right over more than a century now.

As with any such tool, it can – and has been – readily weaponized to oppress reasoned dissent against abuses of power. Socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs was sentenced ten years in prison under the Act in 1918; noted anarchist philosopher Emma Goldman was deported to the Soviet Union in the same year. The Act has also been used to stifle speech critical of war, or which portrayed US wartime allies in unflattering ways, and prosecuting a case under the Act was a key moment in the early career of infamous “Red Scare” senator Joe McCarthy.

This is one of those moments when there is no clear black and white picture. What we do know is that if the GOP gets the chance, they’ll attempt to use the same sets of laws against their enemies, because that’s what they do – they corrupt and bend and twist everything that can be made bad, to their own favor.

I’m absolutely on board with Trump’s indictment and I hope he, his enablers, and everyone who supported him ends up doing time over it. They are traitors to all our trust, and there must be a reckoning if the idea of trust is to have any merit at all.

I would be very, very careful about getting sucked in to cheerleading authoritarianism or the application of power that can readily be abused when held by someone who’s more like Donald J “The J Is For Jailbird” Trump than not.

That’s your Morning Message I’m John Henry reminding you that I am completely crowd-funded because it keeps me completely independent. You can help via PayPal, CashApp, Patreon and more at johnhenry.us/money, and don’t forget the best support is engagement so stay on those like, share, comment and subscribe buttons. Thanks again and have a great weekend!