![]() ![]() (For more information about the clinic’s work supporting veterans with bad paper and PTSD, see our PTSD Discharge Upgrades page). Nearly a third of these veterans erroneously received bad paper discharges as a result of undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental health conditions exacerbated by combat or military sexual trauma. Without these benefits, these veterans become more likely to experience homelessness and prolonged unemployment, all while suffering from the psychological effects of their trauma and the profound stigma of their discharge status. These discharges, also known as bad paper, generally bar veterans from receiving vital federal benefits, including those related to disability, health care, education, housing, employment, and burial rights. Norman L Eisen served as President Barack Obama’s ethics czar, was special impeachment counsel to the House judiciary committee in 2019–20 and is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.On November 30, 2016, President of Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) John Rowan penned an open letter to President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump to urge the issuance of a Presidential Pardon for thousands of post-9/11 veterans who unjustly received other-than-honorable discharges after being separated from the military without the due process of a court-martial. Fortunately, a New York judge also showed us that the institutions of law remain strong and the impulse to autocracy is being held at bay. This week, we were reminded again how close we came to a coup here in the US. As John Adams, signer of the declaration of independence and second president of the United States, wrote in 1775 to his wife, Abigail, “ Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. For its members, the end justifies any means.įrom ancient Greek democracy to the Roman republic to the French Revolution, history tells us again and again that gravitating to autocracy comes back to haunt a nation. Greene is a charter member of the anything-goes-for-Trump club. The evidence of efforts to overturn the election includes step-by-step plans which, taken together with yesterday’s texts, read like a recipe book for a coup, including all the ingredients and even the cooking instructions.įor those on the American right who profess to believe in liberty, imposing martial law to put a strongman atop American government a la Putin should be unthinkable.īut do not hold your breath waiting for outrage from the right over texts such as the one Greene was just revealed to have sent Meadows. To pick but one example from almost 200 pages of exhibits, there is testimony that the secret service warned Meadows and others of the risk of January 6 violence, and they proceeded to discuss sending marchers to the Capitol. His meritless effort to rehash legal arguments already rejected by other courts is nothing more than a ploy to run out the clock, and the damaging evidence filed by the committee makes clear why. These texts take on an even more ominous cast when read together with emails disclosed by the January 6 committee’s recent legal filing in a civil suit Meadows brought to block the committee’s subpoenas. We should not be so inured to extremism from the Republican right that such a text message fails to shock us We should not be so inured to extremism from the Republican right that such a text message fails to shock us. Multiple elected federal officials sworn to uphold the constitution were contemplating abandoning it for the law of the jungle. ![]() By passing the idea along, she suggests she is willing to entertain it herself. Greene was telling the then White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, that some Republican members of Congress were allegedly advocating to end the 225-year tradition of power transferring peacefully after elections and instead using force to keep the loser in office. Rather, she was referring to “martial law”, the use of the military to control all features of American life and to shut down our constitutional system of government. Nor was she referencing the former secretary of state George Marshall. She wasn’t referring to Thurgood Marshall. ![]() On 17 January, 11 days after the violent Capitol insurrection and three days before the scheduled transition of power to Joe Biden, she wrote: “In our private chat with only Members several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call Marshall law.” The most striking text was an exchange from Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman from Georgia. ![]()
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