Letters

Is what we are witnessing in Portland, which is about to be unleashed on other cities, a dress rehearsal for Election Day? Could that evil clown in the White House plan to use his camouflaged Brown Shirts to descend on vulnerable voting sites in Black, brown and/or Democratic neighborhoods, claim terrorist attacks on Election Day, and take possession of boxes of signed ballots?

I wouldn’t put it past him.

Is this not the time for the National Governors Association to put up a united front against Mr. Trump’s violation of the 10th Amendment, with its definition of states’ rights, and his voiced wish to abridge or abolish the First Amendment, which guarantees the people’s right to peacefully protest?

The U.S. Supreme Court probably has original jurisdiction in this matter, meaning that the National Governors Association could go directly to that court, and fast action is obviously required. The U.S. Supreme Court has original jurisdiction in cases where states are at odds with other states (which could happen here, especially with that Trumpophile running Florida), or with states having disputes with foreign governments.

Considering that Mr. Trump has acted like Putin’s poodle starting in 2016, the Trump administration with its multiple violations of the U.S. Constitution might qualify as a “foreign government.” It has certainly seemed foreign to me.

As it happens, the National Governors Association has just the right two governors heading it: Larry Hogan of Maryland, who has not hesitated to criticize Mr. Trump’s actions and more frequent and unconscionable inactions where this pandemic is concerned; and our own Governor Andrew Cuomo, who, with his daily demonstrations of the kind of reporting of the facts about the horrific state of the pandemic in New York State last spring, a model which our MIA president should have imitated, is the ideal partner for Governor Hogan in this matter.

The point is: Someone had better act now, while acting is still permissible! Otherwise, we may face another “Reichstag” with all the nightmare scenario that followed that fire. We already have the Brown Shirts. Are we waiting for the Gestapo before we act?

Evelyn Konrad

Attorney at law

Southampton