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Monthly Archives: May 2025
who got railroaded?
ADX Florence
The following story came to my attention yesterday: that President Trump is considering pardons for participants involved in a plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer. In comments at a swearing-in ceremony for the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro.
See “Trump weighs pardons of people convicted for Whitmer’s 2020 kidnapping plot,” by Amanda Friedman, Politico, May 28, 2025
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/28/trump-whitmer-kidnapping-pardon-00372633
“Trump,” it is noted in the article, “insinuated that the trial had not been handled correctly by the legal system.”
“I will look at it — take a look at it,” he said when asked if he is considering pardons. “It’s been brought to my attention, I did watch the trial. It looked to me like somewhat of a railroad job, I’ll be honest with you. It looked to me like some people said some stupid things.”
“They were drinking and I think they said stupid things but I’ll take a look at that, and a lot of people are asking me that question from both sides actually,” he continued. “A lot of people think they got railroaded.”
The leaders of the kidnapping plot, Barry Croft Jr. and Adam Fox, were convicted in 2022 of conspiring to abduct the governor from her vacation home. Croft, who also faced weapons charges, received a prison sentence of nearly 20 years. Fox was sentenced to 16 years.
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This brings to mind (mine) the following post of mine:
“British Man Sentenced to 40 Years in Al Qaeda Plot”
It concerns the case of Minh Quang Pham. He is incarcerated in ADX Florence, the supermax prison in Colorado. His release date is March 27, 2051.
Note what Trump says: “A lot of people think they got railroaded.” This is Trump’s way of (i.e., Trumpian) dissembling.
Pham, an operative for Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, agreed to carry out an attack targeting Americans and Israelis at Heathrow Airport in London.
He never carried out the attack.
Pham pleaded guilty to three terrorism-related charges and was sentenced to 40 years in May 2016. His lawyer had asked the judge to impose a 30-year sentence, the minimum.
One commentator who read my post wrote: “The minimum sentence was 30 years. I would have given him 50. In any event, it is good to know that when I’m flying overseas in the future, this bad ass will be in jail.”
There was little sympathy for Mr. Pham.
He did some “stupid things.” (Read my post for more details about how he got involved in the purported plot and then desisted.)
He did not have a Donald J. Trump to advocate for him.
— posted by Roger W. Smith
May 29, 2025
posts on immigration
photo by Roger W. Smith
I have reposted my post on immigration from June 2018
immigration policy, Walt Whitman, and Donald Trump’s wall; or, the Berlin Wall redux
Plus, see my post
Sympathy has nothing to do with it.
— Roger W. Smith
May 26, 2025
”Sympathy has nothing to do with it.”
‘Two Bakers Face Trump’s Immigration Wrath’ – NY Times 5-17-2025
Sympathy has nothing to do with it. In the words of one Trump supporter, who said: “Sympathy has nothing to do with it. The law is the law.”
Oh, really?
He was commenting on the case of Leonardo Baez and his wife, Nora Alicia Avila, proprietors of a bakery in Los Fresnos, Texas. They have been charged with conspiring to transport and harbor undocumented migrants and face sentences of up to ten years in prison.
See:
‘Whom Shall I Fear?’ In South Texas, Two Bakers Face Trump’s Immigration Wrath.
By Edgar Sandoval
The New York Times
May 17, 2025
“Harboring charges used to be saved for cases where criminal groups would help smuggle undocumented people into the U.S. illegally,” one of the lawyers for the couple, Jaime Diez, said.
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This is another example of cruelty masked as policy
Every law is not enforced. Is not and has not ever been the case. If the law were enforced this way — by Stephen Miller type idealogues totally lacking in humanity — half the population would have criminal records and there would not be enough jails, or personnel to staff them.
I am not a legal scholar or expert, but I know whether to bring criminal prosecutions is a “judgment call” in many cases. Common sense — or whatever one would call it — is required.
The law should not be used as a weapon.
Read the Times article and tell me what you think.
— posted by Roger W. Smith
May 2025
“Truman was right, even if there was such carnage.” … “There was no reason to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.”
‘The Lonely Voyage of the Enola Gay’ – Washington Post 5-15-2025
Posted here:
“The lonely, 80-year voyage of the Enola Gay”
By Samuel Hawley
The Washington Post
May 15, 2025
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/05/15/enola-gay-history-anniversary-atomic-bomb/
As well as readers’ comments on the Post site.
— Roger W. Smith
May 18, 2025
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See also my posts:
a letter to editor re the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
more thoughts about Hiroshima and Nagasaki
thoughts about Hiroshima
music that catches shades of meaning
I was listening today to the enchanting “Lida Rose” duet (barbershop quartet and soprano) from The Music Man (track above).
In another blog, I wrote that “music distills, packages, and holds emotion.”
This is true — I guess one would say obvious. You hear music and recall precisely the circumstances when you first heard it and your state of mind at that time.
The thought that occurred to me today was that some of the best music — the best songs — are not, in this sense, “obvious”; and that they convey a sort of “intermediate” or “indeterminate” state of mind (a mind in flux); unique to the circumstances and characters they portray (and who are portrayed by the singers) — in this case, in Broadway musicals (see tracks below). that we can all relate to. They are often moments of realization, epiphany. and yet the words and music are simple and sincere: unpretentious,
Listen to these songs. The characters are at a moment of acute realization. Something is happening — they don’t quite know what, foresee the outcome.
This makes me think about — realize — the complexity of human experience.
Yours and mine.
We remember when we first fell in love. It was unique (the experience) in that it was ours alone, yet “general” in the sense that it connected us to humanity. to human feelings. Which, at the time, we would not have known to define; or have known quite what was happening.
This can be seen in the songs below.
Pop music (e.g. rock ‘n’ roll) never achieves this — needless to say — is not subtle.
Till There Was You
The Music Man
This Nearly Was Mine
South Pacific
Happy Talk
South Pacific
If I Loved You
Carousel
When the Children Are Asleep
Carousel
People Will Say We’re in Love
Oklahoma
Hello, Young Lovers
The King and I
Something Wonderful
The King and I
I Have Dreamed
The King and I
Come to Me, Bend to Me
Brigadoon
The Heather on the Hill
Brigadoon
Love, Look Away
Flower Drum Song
— posted by Roger W. Smith
May 13, 2025
The Doxology
The Doxology (“praise God from whom all blessings flow”)
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
How often I heard it in the North Church Congregational in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the First Parish Unitarian Universalist in Canton, Massachusetts when I was growing up.
At the second of these two churches, played on a booming organ by my father: Alan W. Smith. Usually without the choir.
North Church, Congregational, Cambridge, MA
First Parish Unitarian Universalist, Canton, Massachusetts
— posted by Roger W. Smith
May 2025
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Addendum:
The Doxology is quoted repeatedly in Virgil Thomson’s The Plow That Broke the Plains.
the second most beautiful Broadway song?
“We Kiss in a Shadow”
Tuptim, Lun-Tha
Rogers and Hammerstein, The King and I
PDF (below) contains production credits from performances by the St. Paul’s Theatre Guild in Dorchester, MA
My father. Alan W. Smith, was Musical Director.
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See also:
— posted by Roger W, Smith
May 2025