Once again, the mob turned out to be wrong. The administration released a transcript of the president’s phone call with the Ukrainian head of state, and it says none of the things the news anchors claimed it would. Read it for yourself. It’s online. Try to find the extortion in there. There isn’t any. Trump never even mentions military aid. There’s certainly something unseemly about a president asking a foreign government to investigate an American citizen, but it’s not illegal, and it’s not all that different from three Democratic senators’ writing a letter to Ukraine just last year demanding investigations into Trump.

Now that the call turns out to be nothing like what the media told us it would be, some on the left have started a conspiracy theory that the transcript can’t be real; it must be doctored. These conspiracies aren’t confined to weird corners of the internet. Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Adam Schiff have already questioned the trustworthiness of the transcript, despite the fact that there’s no evidence of wrongdoing. Numerous career national security officials — many not fans of our president — have access to the original call and would have to be in on any conspiracy.

Lots of Democrats, including many of today’s party leaders, stood up when Bill Clinton was impeached to give impassioned speeches about the perils of taking away the American people’s choice. Here’s today’s impeachment ringleader, Rep. Jerry Nadler, in 1998:

“The impeachment of a president is an undoing of a national election. And one of the reasons we all feel so angry about what they are doing is that they are ripping asunder our votes. They are telling us that our votes don’t count.”

And here’s Nancy Pelosi in 1998 on the hatred behind the Clinton impeachment push:

“Today, the Republican majority is not judging the president with fairness but impeaching him with a vengeance … We are here today because the Republicans in the House are paralyzed with hatred of President Clinton. And until the Republicans free themselves of this hatred, our country will suffer.”

Sadly, Nadler and Pelosi were right in 1998. Republicans should not have impeached Clinton, and they paid the price. Democrats today hate Trump. It’s not about justice or truth. What they care about is winning the 2020 presidential election. Democratic leaders have decided that impeaching Trump is essential if they’re going to win next year. So they’re staking everything on this bizarre, flimsy scandal that the rest of us can barely understand.

Personal attacks on Trump have proven ineffective. If calling him a racist or a traitor actually worked, Hillary Clinton would be running for reelection right about now. That’s not going to work. If you want to beat Trump, make a case on the issues. He won on the issues. So make a countercase. But the geniuses can’t figure that out.

In the end, the loser in this impeachment nonsense is likely to be Biden, who, you will recall, is the apparent front-runner. He’s supposed to be the safe choice, the guy who’s going to reenergize the Obama coalition and win back the White House. Yet Democrats have now in effect demanded that we spend the next six months talking about Biden and his son’s alleged corruption. That’s what’s at the core of this Ukraine story.

The issues aren’t really complicated. Why in the world would a Ukrainian company pay Hunter Biden $50,000 a month? We still haven’t heard an answer. If we’re talking about Ukraine and impeachment, we’re talking about Biden’s alleged corruption. That can’t help his campaign for president. In fact, it’s likely to tank it. It looks like sabotage, really. They must have gamed this up. Or maybe Democrats have just become so obsessed with destroying Trump that they’re accidentally destroying themselves.

 Broadway Avenue Water Main Replacement Project Open House
October 15 at Howell General Baptist Church

The Evansville Water and Sewer Utility will host a Public Open House on the Broadway Avenue Water Main Replacement Project Tuesday, October 15, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at Howell General Baptist Church, 1520 Delmar Ave. The purpose of the meeting it to explain the project scope and answer questions from the public.

Mailers announcing the project were sent this summer to nearly 700 homes and businesses along the Broadway corridor and surrounding neighborhoods. Door hangers are being distributed starting this week to approximately 300 addresses that will be directly impacted by the work, and invitations will soon be mailed to nearly 700 addresses encouraging residents to attend the Public Open House.

The Broadway Avenue Water Main Replacement project will include the installation of over 11,000 feet of new 6-inch to 12-inch water main pipe along Broadway Avenue from Schutte Road to Red Bank Road, as well as along Frey Road from Broadway Avenue to the end of the public roadway. Related improvements include new valves and 26 fire hydrants throughout the corridor.

BMB, Inc. of Newburgh, Ind., was awarded the construction contract in the amount of $2.7 million. Works is anticipated to begin the week of October 14, 2019. The project is expected to be substantially complete in July 2020.

To learn more about this water main replacement projects as part of the Refresh Evansville Program, visit www.refreshevansville.com/broadway-avenue.

MAYBERRY WE MISS YOU

Gavel Gamut By Jim Redwine

In December 1991 my family and I ate at Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas. There was no trace of the bodies, blood and shattered glass from the October 16, 1991, mass shooting. We still felt their presence. Although I remembered the city riots of the 1960s and ’70s and had closely followed the violence of 1968, the utter randomness of the Luby’s murders stoked more personal concerns. To slaughter people, one did not even know struck me as much more horrendous than the misguided criminal actions of zealots.

While America’s 20^th century experience with deadly violence from 1900 up to the 1960’s was extensive and tragic, as Jasmine Henrique reported in her article Mass Shootings in America: A Historical Review (Global Research News, 2013), the victims were almost always members of the killer’s own family or were the unfortunate object of a felonious act such as a specific, intentional robbery that was committed in secret. However, in most of the last half of the 20^th century and the first nineteen years of the 21^st century, America has endured public mass killings of persons who were strangers to their murderers.

Memories of Luby’s came back to me as I participated in an internet class on the judge and courthouse security taught by my friend and fellow faculty member Judge D. Neil Harris from Mississippi. Judge Harris along with other faculty of the National Judicial College including me is teaching a six-week course to seventeen judges from across America. Of course, it is not just the judiciary that needs to be concerned about security.

If you recall, when this course on general judicial topics started three weeks ago I suggested in this column there was much we modern judges could learn by examining how courts and judges arose originally. That is when humans considered net-working to be making friends with the folks in neighboring huts. As for court security in those bygone days about all that was required was for the judge to treat people who came to court as the judge would want to be treated. This worked pretty well until the world began to fill up with people who were not comfortable living in a smaller area.

But now, as William Wordsworth (1770-1850) might say, “The world is too much with us”. Or as Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) might have nostalgically wished if he were in charge of courthouse security, “That security system is best that restricts the least”. Unfortunately, we can no longer simply return to nature. The world has moved on.

Whereas in 1950 there were 151 million people in the United States and it seemed space was infinite, in 2019 we have 327 million and it has become difficult to stretch out. Mayberry, our TV town of 2,000, has metamorphosed into what feels like a megalopolis from sea to sea and from Mexico to Canada. Sheriff Taylor, who did not even carry a gun, ordered Deputy Barney Fife to carry only one bullet and keep it in his shirt pocket.

It may be that overpopulation has impacted our behavior. Dr. John Calhoun (1917-1995) studied population density using lab rats as subjects. While many other scientists point out humans are not rats and are more able to adapt as conditions change, it may be our precipitous increase in mass shootings of random victims has come about as, at least, a partial result of population density. In their analysis of Calhoun’s theories, Doctors Edmund Ramsden and Jon Adams in their article Escaping the Laboratory: The Rodent Experiments of John B. Calhoun & Their Cultural Influence (Journal of Social History, Spring 2009) stated:

“As population density (of the rat city) increased it became ever more difficult for an individual to control the frequency of social contact. The result was unwanted interaction, leading to adverse reactions such as hostility and withdrawal, and ultimately, to the type of social and psychological breakdown seen during the latter stages in his (Calhoun’s) crowded pens.”

To solve a problem it helps to understand the cause of the problem It maybe there are more valid causes for mass shootings than increasing population density. If so, they should be defined. However, if our teeming mass of humanity is contributing, we should address it and use our Homo sapiens adaptability to assuage the carnage. Regardless, whatever the etiology of increasing societal, including the courthouse, violence there is no doubt is occurring.

As reported by Timm Fautsko, Steve Berson and Steve Swensen of the National Center for State Courts and the Center for Judicial and Executive Security, there were 199 incidents of courthouse violence from 1970-2009 with an increase noted each decade. As they posited:

“We live in a time when threats against judges and acts of violence in courthouses and courtrooms are occurring with greater frequency than ever before.”

As much as I yearn to return to Mayberry and rely upon my mother’s stated advice, “Jimmy, just be nice”, the evidence overcomes the myth. Society, including the judicial system, must face the reality of a 21st-century world. Security is necessary. That is why the Indiana Supreme Court in its Administrative Order AD19 requires each county court system to develop a security plan, seek approval for that plan, implement that plan and update the plan every two years.

I do not like it and my guess is neither does the Supreme Court. However, I, and I believe they, know it is necessary.

For more Gavel Gamut articles go to www.jamesmredwine.com

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