Lawyers, Bar Associations, legal support staff, court employees, and tens of thousands of US Citizens are fighting to save the Rule of Law across the country, on Law Day
Lawyers, legal support staff, law students and citizens across the United States are rallying tomorrow in hundreds of communities across the country on National Law Day, May 1, to Stand Up for The Rule of Law.
Individual lawyers, law firms, and judges, have found themselves under unprecedented political and external pressure over the past 100 days. It’s why a number of Bar Associations—such as the Bar Association of San Francisco, the Alameda County Bar Association, and the 104-year old Sonoma County Bar Association—have joined with national organizations like the Lawyers for Good Government, and are calling for involvement by individual lawyers, law firms, and their professional organizations to participate in a National Law Day of Action at Federal Courthouses across the country on this year’s Law Day, May 1.
Participating lawyers—on the steps of Federal Courthouses around the nation—will be reaffirming their oaths of office as members of their State’s Bar Association. The organizers of the Law Day of Action, are encouraging Lawyers to reaffirm their commitment to protect and uphold the Rule of Law. That call to action for practising lawyers reads like this:
“Retake the Oath”
“On Law Day, May 1st, we invite you to retake your Attorney’s Oath. We each took this pledge upon admission to the bar. The oath is the cornerstone of our profession, and it represents our promise to support the Constitution of the United States. It encompasses a duty to defend the Constitution, protect constitutional rights, ensure due process, and oppose laws or actions that undermine it. By retaking the oath, you reiterate your role as a guardian of the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law.”
Printed below is the full-statement of endorsement of the National Law Day of Action:
Core Principles for Law Day, 2025 Actions
“ These principles are intended to guide all participating organizations and individuals in planning and executing Law Day 2025 Events. They are designed to be a unifying framework, ensuring that our message is clear, consistent, and impactful.”
Upholding the Rule of Law: The foundation of our actions is a commitment to the rule of law as the cornerstone of a just and democratic society. This means:
Equality Under the Law: All individuals and institutions, including the government, are accountable under laws that are publicly promulgated , equally enforced, and independently adjudicated.
Due Process: Everyone is entitled to fair and impartial legal proceedings, including the right to counsel, the right to be heard, and the right to a decision based on law and evidence.
Protection of Rights: Fundamental rights and freedoms, as enshrined in the Constitution, must be protected for all.
Defending Judicial Independence: We believe that an independent judiciary is essential for upholding the rule of law. This means:
Freedom from Interference: Judges must be free to make decisions based solely on the law and the facts, without fear of political pressure, intimidation or retaliation.
Respect for Judicial Decisions: While disagreement with specific rulings is natural, attacks on the integrity and legitimacy of judges and courts undermine the judicial process.
Accountability & Transparency: Judicial independence does not mean lack of accountability. Judges must be held to high ethical standards, and the judicial process should be transparent and accessible.
Protecting the Independence of the Legal Profession: We recognize that a fearless and independent legal profession is vital to ensuring access to justice and protecting individual rights. This means:
Zealous Advocacy: Lawyers must be free to zealously represent their clients, within the bounds of the law, without fear of reprisal or undue influence.
Confidentiality: The attorney-client privilege must be protected to ensure open communication and effective legal representation.
Non-Partisan and Non-Violent Action: Our actions are non-partisan and focused solely on upholding the principles of the rule of law, judicial independence, and legal independence. This means:
No endorsements of candidates or Parties: We do not endorse or oppose any political candidate or party. Our focus is on principles, not politics.
Commitment to Peaceful and Lawful Conduct: All events and activities must be conducted peacefully and in accordance with the law. We reject violence, intimidation, and any form of unlawful disruption. We encourage constructive dialogue and respectful engagement.
Promoting Public Understanding: We believe that an informed citizenry is essential for a healthy democracy. This means:
Educating the Public: We strive to educate he public about the importance of the rule of law, judicial independence, and the role of lawyers in protecting individual rights.
Engaging in Civil Discourse: We encourage open and respectful dialogue about these issues, even with those who hold differing views.
If you practice law anywhere in the San Francisco Bay Area, and support this Statement of Principles, as a way of endorsing the May 1, 2025 Law Day actions on behalf of the Rule of Law, please take action immediately by contacting Law Day of Action organizers Rebecca Kagin (rebecca@burrellkagin.com) ,Jean Hyams (jean@vinickhyams.com) or Valerie Lescroart (valerie@acbanet.org).
Take action today, on Law Day, and everyday to stand up for the Rule of Law in the United States. There has never before been a more urgent time to use your voice, your position, your intelligence and your passion for the Rule of Law to protect the fundamental principles of this Democracy.
It takes a fraud to salute a fellow fraud as a “Future Leader” of the GOP. Maybe they’ll be running mates…
George Santos & Elise Stefanik. It takes a fraud to know one. (official GOP Photo)
Over the past year, I’ve written a few pieces about Georgie Santos, the former Drag Queen of a thousand lavish costume changes and faces, as he and his fellow blowhards like Steve Bannon, Elise Stefanik, Lee Zeldin and Kevin McCarthy inflated Santos, like a Diva Diribigle, onto the New York and National Political scenes.
Then, like the Hindenburg blimp bursting into flames over Lakehurst, New Jersey, the imposter immolated himself as he lied and lied as fast as he could flap his arms and his gums. First came a swath of indictments for breaking a number of federal laws, then his arrests, his criminal convictions, and finally, a 7 year jail sentence.
Now, Elise Stefanik’s favorite dragged queen—who cast a crucial vote to make Kevin McCarthy (briefly) Speaker of the House, is being kicked out of the Congress he faked his way into, and sent off to a federal penitentiary.
Sadly, it was only when House Ethics investigators discovered that Santos illegally used campaign funds for Botox, Spa Treatments, lavish hotel visits, fancy meals and expensive clothing—all such stereotypically Drag Queenie stuff—that they decided he was too much of a fraud, even for House Republicans—who have masqueraded as lawmakers, ever since they tried to burn the U.S. government down on January 6, 2021.
Trump, and his busted little valise, Elise, stooped to the cultishness SantosRia to a new low of fraud, deception, lying and lawlessness by defending the pardoning of 1,500 January 6 Felons—among them many violent criminals, pedophiles, wife-beaters and thugs.
High on her own Harvard-bashing hijinks—which paved the way for Trump’s university, law firm and business extortionism— Stefanik has proven to be a slimy little shape-shifter: one minute a House leader; the next an almost-UN Ambassador, followed by her latest costume change—a candidate for New York State Governor. Her upstate New York Congressional Constituents—abandoned by Elise’s raw ambition again and again—could be forgiven if they exhumed the long-dead body of Sam Stratton, and elected him in absentia to represent them. Even a Dead Sam would be better than being fleeced by an Elise Scam. Shades of Georgie Porgy Santos….
So before you even think you have to listen to the Busted Valise’s bloviation over “fraud,” “waste”, and “abuse,” being bleated by Crypto-craven GOP ghouls in Congress or scampering, like rats feet, through the Trump Administration, remember who was the chief cheerleader for George “The Felon” Santos as a key part of the “Next Generation of Republican Leadership.”
Isn’t that the kind of vision and judgement you want to see in Congress? Or in the Governorship of NY? A vote for Stefanik is a vote for Santos. If the Democrats don’t start buying billboards NOW all over upstate New York, featuring the official GOP photo of Elise and the Lyin’ Beast, they are more comatose then any of us have ever accused them of being.
I look forward to the day when Georgie Porgy Santos, sidekick of Elise Stefanik and future leader of the MAGA movement, is hauled off to jail. Like many law abiding Americans, I love the sound of GOP frauds, liars and cheats being handcuffed in the morning.
We’ve written and designed our own Passover Haggadah for the last 11 years, with themes of learning, life and love for our 3 granddaughters & friends This year the choice was clear.
For the past 11 years, our family has celebrated Passover with our own homegrown, family-designed and written Haggadah, the story of the special holiday, read at each night’s Seder.
It came about because I was frustrated and disappointed by the traditional Haggadah’s available. We used the free kind (offered by Chock-Full-of-Nuts) and the elaborate ones which cost $19.95 per book. None of them satisfied me.
I scoured book stores, Jewish Museums and temples for kid-friendly versions, which were not condescending, impenetrable, sexist and insulting to the intelligence of our three super smart granddaughters.
Finally, in desperation, I decided to write my own Haggadah, and, each year, build it around a theme that would captivate our girls attention. Fresh in my mind was a schtick Jon Stewart did on his Daily Show, about how we Jews were not very good marketers of our faith and our holidays, in comparison to Christians. Stewart compared our constant battles, and beatings and boils and mean tyrants to the Christian use of an Easter Bunny to soften the nailing to a crucifix of a socialist preacher, or the endless parade of gifts to celebrate the birth of Christ, an illegal immigrant, and illegitimate child.
So, I took Jon Stewart’s advice and decided to pin Passover to the latest passion of our granddaughters, and not only write it into a “book,” but acting it out in what our youngest called “The Passover Puppet Show.” It made them look forward to and plan for Passover each Spring. One year we celebrated a “Shopkin Passover,” with tiny toy Shopkins being led to the Promised Land by Moses; another, it was the “Sheroes” of TV fame who defeated the evil Pharoah; still another time, our stars of the show were “Axlotyls” those amazing, regenerative creatures who could neverbe defeated, because they give themselves rebirth, whenever they are attacked or harmed. A perfect metaphor for Jewish resilience, I thought.
This year in the face of ferocious political attacks on everyone who was “different” in some way, “Diversity” was our favored theme, hands down, especially since our family is rich with Neurodiversity, ethnic diversity, and sexual diversity. The girls “Grammy” led the way by carefully building the Lego “Rainbow People”, which served as the centerpiece of our “Rainbow Passover” Seder Table.
Everything else flowed from there, especially when our youngest granddaughter, G, Age 9, was told what the theme would be for this Passover. She handcrafted beautiful, intricately designed table place cards, with tiny creatures (frog, dogs, cats) peaking over each letter of her grandmother’s name. She drew, freehand, a delicious-looking piece of cake, which would have made the artist Wayne Thiebaud quite proud, and she dedicated it as a place card for her oldest sister, who was away at school and unable to join us this year.
I devoted four hours of Passover morning rewriting our Haggadah, around the theme of our “Rainbow Passover.” Events of the first 90 days of the terrible Trump Two Administration—with a wild-eyed war on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, attacking Sojourner Truth, Maya Angelou, Holocaust Survivors, the LGBTQ community, and ever single Black, Brown or Indigenous legend of history—made writing this year’s Diversity Haggadah, the easiest writing assignment of all.
The words and images poured out of me:
“Once upon a time, in a not too distant land, lived a mad, mad king. The Mad King was very cruel. He called people names, made fun of them if they were disabled, or if their skin were a different color than his, or if they didn’t bow to his God, or if they loved someone he thought they should not, or ESPECIALLY if they were smart, talented, creative, independent Girls…
“Because he hated anything or anyone different, the Mad, evil King ordered that ALL the Rainbows in the sky be turned off—and that ALL of the Rainbow People be shipped off to a dangerous prison, in a dangerous place, like El Salvador…”
The girls, two 13 year-olds and a nine-year old, loved the reference to current events. Our Miriam, Moses sister who saved him as an infant, was a Rainbow bedecked Grover, called “Princess Loving Heart” who:
“Gently wrapped Moses’ little boat in her Rainbow Coat; she hugged the cozy boat (designed by our 9-year old granddaughter), surrounding it with Rainbow Roses. (Brought to the Seder by our friends who were attending their first Seder ever.)
“She loved and raised her Rainbow Sisters, whose colors grew bolder, and they became resisters; they resisted all cruelty, evil and hate, because—in their hearts—all humans and animals were great!”
Our Rainbow People, symbolic for the Jews fleeing the Mad Pharoah of Egypt, resisted their Mad King’s efforts to beat them down, brought down a storm of plagues upon the Mad King, using finger puppets portraying each plague, played to perfection by the every participant at our Passover table.
And, just like the Lego model proudly occupying the center of our Seder table, the Red Sea parted to let our Rainbow People go.
“The Rainbow People were free at last, their days as slaves, now long past; their differences, valued; their DIVERSITY, a blessing; each with a dignity that left no one guessing…
“They had made it to the Promised Land, with each giving the other a helping hand; “Hope, Everlasting,” each Rainbow said, as they all dreamed as big as the Rainbows over their Heads.”
It was simply the best Passover celebration we ever had.
With some of the nation’s biggest law firms caving into threats from the Trump Administration, the Sonoma County legal community–where the majority of of our judges are women–is standing tall.
SONOMA COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION STANDS WITH ABA, NATIONAL LGBTQ BAR ASSOCIATION AND OTHER LOCAL, STATE BAR ASSOCIATIONS IN SUPPORT OF THE RULE OF LAW.
The Sonoma County Bar Association’s (SCBA) 29-member Board of Directors unanimously endorsed a statement by the American Bar Association (ABA) and bar associations from across the country reaffirming our commitment to the Rule of Law and the integrity of our legal system.
“As the pre-eminent legal organization representing nearly 1,000 legal professionals—and a population of nearly half-million residents throughout Sonoma County—we cannot emphasize enough that the Rule of Law is the foundation for a just and democratic society,” said SCBA Executive Director Steve Villano.
“The ABA’s powerful statement—endorsed by many other local, state and national bar associations—is a clear reminder that local bar associations like SCBA, and our attorneys, play a crucial role in defending democratic institutions, protecting access to justice, and ensuring that legal protection applies equally to all,” Villano added.
The SCBA and its member law firms and attorneys have served the people of Sonoma County since 1921, with the highest level of legal services. The joint statement appears below:
“We the undersigned bar organizations stand together with and in support of the American Bar Association to defend the rule of law and reject efforts to undermine the courts and the legal profession.
We endorse the sentiments expressed by the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in his 2024 Year End Report on the Federal Judiciary, “[w]ithin the past year we have also seen the need for state and federal bar associations to come to the defense of a federal district judge whose decisions in a high-profile case prompted an elected official to call for her impeachment. Attempts to intimidate judges for their rulings in cases are inappropriate and should be vigorously opposed.”
We support the right of people to advance their interests in courts of law when they have been wronged. We reject the notion that the U.S. government can punish lawyers and law firms who represent certain clients or punish judges who rule certain ways. We cannot accept government actions that seek to twist the scales of justice in this manner.
We reject efforts to undermine the courts and the profession. We will not stay silent in the face of efforts to remake the legal profession into something that rewards those who agree with the government and punishes those who do not. Words and actions matter. And the intimidating words and actions we have heard and seen must end. They are designed to cow our country’s judges, our country’s courts and our legal profession.
There are clear choices facing our profession. We can choose to remain silent and allow these acts to continue or we can stand for the rule of law and the values we hold dear. We call upon the entire profession, including lawyers in private practice from Main Street to Wall Street, as well as those in corporations and who serve in elected positions, to speak out against intimidation.
If lawyers do not speak, who will speak for our judges? Who will protect our bedrock of justice? If we do not speak now, when will we speak? Now is the time. That is why we stand together with the ABA in support of the rule of law.”
American Bar Association Alameda County (California) Bar Association Alexandria (Virginia) Bar Association Allegheny County Bar Association (Pennsylvania) American Immigration Lawyers Association Appellate Lawyers Association Arab American Bar Association of Illinois Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers Atlanta Bar Association Bar Association of Erie County (New York) Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis Bar Association of San Francisco Berks County (Pennsylvania) Bar Association Beverly Hills Bar Association Boston Bar Association Boulder County (Colorado) Bar Association California La Raza Lawyers Association Chicago Bar Association Chicago Council of Lawyers Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association Columbus (Ohio) Bar Association Connecticut Bar Association Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association Contra Costa (California) County Bar Association Cook County Bar Association Deaf and Hard of Hearing Bar Association Delaware State Bar Association Detroit Bar Association and Foundation Durham County Bar Association East Bay La Raza Lawyers (California) Association Erie County (Pennsylvania) Bar Association First Judicial District Bar Association (Colorado) Filipino American Lawyers of San Diego Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Greensboro Bar Association Hampden County Bar Association Hawaii Women Lawyers Hennepin County (Minnesota) Bar Association Hispanic National Bar Association Hudson County (New Jersey) Bar Association Illinois State Bar Association International Academy of Trial Lawyers International Society of Barristers The Iowa State Bar Association Kansas Bar Association Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Foundation Lawyers Club of San Diego Long Beach (California) Bar Association Los Angeles County Bar Association Louisville Bar Association Maine State Bar Association Maricopa County Bar Association Marin County Bar Association Massachusetts Bar Association Massachusetts LGBTQ Bar Association Metropolitan Black Bar Association Middlesex County (New Jersey) Bar Association Milwaukee Bar Association Minnesota State Bar Association Monroe County (New York) Bar Association Multnomah Bar Association (Portland, Oregon) Muslim Bar Association of Chicago Nassau County (New York) Bar Association National ABS Law Firm Association National Arab American Bar Association National Arab American Bar Association – Michigan Chapter National Asian Pacific American Bar Association National Association of Women Lawyers National Conference of Bar Presidents National Conference of Women’s Bar Associations National Filipino American Lawyers Association National LGBTQ+ Bar Association National Native American Bar Association New Jersey Women Lawyers Association New Mexico Black Lawyers Association New York City Bar Association New York County Lawyers Association North County (California) Bar Association Ohio Women’s Bar Association Oregon State Bar Board of Governors Palestinian American Bar Association Passaic County (New Jersey) Bar Association Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Philadelphia Bar Association Queen’s Bench Bar Association of the San Francisco Bay Area Queens County (New York) Bar Association Ramsey County (Minnesota) Bar Association San Diego County Bar Association San Fernando Valley (California) Bar Association Santa Clara County Bar Association (California) Sonoma County Bar Association South Asian Bar Association of North America South Carolina Women Lawyers Association Southwest Colorado Bar Association State Bar of New Mexico Virgin Islands Bar Association Washington Council of Lawyers Washington State Bar Board of Governors Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York Worcester County (Massachusetts) Bar Association
I’m having a tough time putting my head around the death of a long-time friend, boss, mentor, adversary, colleague, confidant, and Yoda-like wise man.
(The concept for this 1980 Jimmy Carter campaign button was pure John Dornan.)
I’m having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that John Dornan is dead.
Five years older than I, John was an important part of my life for 50 + years.
John Dornan was my boss, my foil, my mentor, my counselor, my colleague, my confidant, my cheerleader and my friend, not always in that order, with varying degrees of intensity. As our lives advanced in different directions, and different parts of the country, the intensity of my admiration for him, for who he was and was not, only increased.
Our paths first crossed, when I was less than two years out of college and working as a field organizer for the teachers union in upstate New York. John was part of a team of trainers—steeped in Labor history and the labor organizing philosophy and techniques of the legendary Saul Alinsky—who taught us “field reps,” how to get teachers to join the union.
That was not an easy task in hot beds of Right Wing Richard Nixon Republicanism like Palmyra, New York, where thousands of Mormons flocked each year to visit the birthplace of their sainted founder, Joseph Smith. In fact, I was accused of being a “Communist” by a male high school teacher, when I made a pitch for Palmyra’s teachers to join the union.
For political activists like myself, who marched against the Vietnam War, and for Civil Rights, labor organizing for the teachers’ union was sacred work, with Nixon in the White House, and the soon-to-be-imprisoned authoritarian John Mitchell as Attorney General. To us, John Dornan, and the other Alinsky acolytes he traveled with, were our Joseph Smiths.
“Oh, no,” I could hear Dornan mutter, shaking his head with a smirk. He’d want nothing to do with a comparison to a Saint, especially a Mormon Saint, who’d have no tolerance for John’s lust for life.
A few years later, I was working for NEA’s large, Prince George’s County, Maryland affiliate, and John was already in a senior position at the Coalition of American Public Employees, working with the Civil Rights leader, James Farmer. I was looking to return to New York—where I was born, raised and went to college– and John was putting together a National Education Association team to join him in Albany, NY, to make a direct challenge to Albert Shanker’s tyrannical grip on the teacher union movement.
Dornan greeted me on the expansive patio of his stylish DC apartment, and we drank wine and talked about politics and education into the night, and I told him how, three years later, I was still angry at Shanker for supporting the Vietnam War Hawk, “Scoop” Jackson in 1972, over George McGovern for President.
I don’t remember how I got back to my Maryland condo that night, but I knew I liked this bright, feisty guy, and saw in him an easy melding of class, grace, intelligence, and a political passion for the underdog. We’d go on to work together for the next five years and remain friends for the next 50.
John was the Director of Communications for the NEA in New York, and I was his Editor-in-Chief of our statewide publication “The Advocate.” On the job, he was a creative person’s ideal boss—encouraging, nurturing, supportive of wild ideas—but when I became active in the Staff union, and squared off against his management team, both of our competitive natures, made us adversaries.
Our male ego game-playing continued on the tennis court, where we were evenly matched, building mutual respect for each other’s toughness and refusal to ever give up. I was young, full of myself, and self-righteously obnoxious, and delighted in testing how far I could push Dornan at work, sometimes feeling as if I were daring an older brother to rein me in. Time and time again, John surprised me, always backing me up, and standing behind decisions that might have made other supervisors uncomfortable. Two specific incidences come to mind.
One involved a crusading story I wanted to do exposing sweatshop conditions at a cap and gown facility in Albany, NY, at a building where the family of one of my coworker’s had a financial interest. The co-worker complained loudly to Dornan, and to our Executive Director Pat Orrange–one of the few female union leaders in the country–who would later become John’s life partner. Orrange, an effusive & charismatic Buffalo native, and Dornan, gave unwavering support for my reporting—and for what the story exposed. It was, they said, the right thing to do, and reflected our values.
Another, tougher call, involved the 1980 Presidential Campaign, when the NEA and its affiliates were supporting Jimmy Carter for re-election. Carter had delivered on his promise to create the first federal Department of Education in American history, and the NEA, appropriately so, felt an obligation to support him for that enormous achievement and his strong support for public education.
John Dornan, always bubbling with creative ideas, conceptualized the button design that would mark the campaign for Carter’s re-election in New York State. It contained a peanut-shaped mouth full of grinning teeth, with the typeface saying: “NYEA/NEA says… (teeth) for president. The idea was quintessential Dornan: irreverent, clever, smart, fun and to the point.
Despite Dornan’s going all-in for Carter—and working with my future boss Mario Cuomo, who headed Carter’s New York State campaign—I was out there, as a leader in the Albany County Progressive wing of the Democratic Party, campaigning for Teddy Kennedy in the NYS Democratic Primary against Carter, which Kennedy won handily in the Spring of 1980. Not once did John Dornan come down on me for opposing the NEA’s choice, even though Al Shanker’s AFT was backing Kennedy, and opposing Carter, and the NEA was paying my salary. John had every right to pull me back into the NEA/Carter fold, but he never exercised that option, and my respect for Dornan only grew.
In fact, over the years, he made clear his mutual respect for me, without being overtly dramatic or too demonstrative, which was not part of Dornan’s DNA. John introduced me at one NEA Convention, as “our Communications scholar,” after I completed my Masters Degree in Communications. He recommended me to succeed him to teach in the Labor Studies Program for Cornell University, a position which I prized and continued to do for 22 years, always making sure I used John’s recommended Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky, as one of my required texts. Each time I picked up the book, to read a phrase or a bullet point to my class, I was reminded of Dornan’s devotion to Alinsky’s Rules.
Our lives fast forwarded to 2016, when Hillary Clinton ran for President against Donald Trump, and North Carolina, with 15-electoral votes, loomed large in the Democrats strategy to win the White House. John and Pat were now living in Raleigh, following their long and illustrious careers in education. Both were deeply involved in the political, educational and social justice issues across the State of North Carolina. I wanted to come to a key “swing state” to do voter protection for the Clinton campaign against the Trump troglodytes, and John Dornan and Pat Orrange, welcomed me to fight the good fight alongside them, once again..
I arrived in Raleigh in early October, 2016, bought a return airline ticket for the day after Election Day, and settled in for what I hoped would be three weeks of good solid, voter protection work, all on my own dime. John and Pat had arranged for me to stay with a friend of theirs who had a spare room, and paved the way for me to be part of the Clinton campaign’s North Carolina operation.
John Dornan and Pat Orrange and their friend Millie Ravenel, welcomed me with open arms, to the North Carolina campaign. The first week went well, participating in several voter protection training sessions across the State, and working out of Clinton’s Raleigh campaign headquarters, making phone calls. Then something strange happened.
A little-used GOP back office in Chapel Hill, a heavily Democratic Area, was firebombed. What made the firebombing immediately suspicious–aside from the fact that the Orange County, NC, GOP is virtually non-existent in elections — was that Donald Trump began “Tweeting” about the bombing immediately after it happened, blaming “Hillary Clinton supporters” and “Democrats” for the crime, without any shred of evidence.
In fact, every single Democrat or Hillary supporter I’d encountered in North Carolina was gravely concerned about doing everything the law provided to prevent violence in the election. It was the reason many of us were willing to put our lives on the line in that open-carry, gun-loving state.
Trump’s feigned hysteria carried the stench of another famous fire: the one in the German Reichstag, started by the White Nationalist Party of Adolph Hitler during the German national elections of 1933, and blamed on the Communists. The Reichstag Fire, was immediately pounced upon by Nazi leaders as “evidence” of terror from the left, and the need for the authoritarian rule which their leader promised. It was instrumental in leading to the election of Hitler as German Chancellor. No evidence was ever produced to support the Nazis’ wild claims.
I wrote about this suspicious fire for my blog, and the article was picked up by my friend, the writer Joe Conason, in his The National Memo, an on-line publication with about 300,000 readers nationwide.
When the Clinton campaign people found out about my article, entitled “Trump’s Reichstag Fire in North Carolina,” they demanded that I either take the article down (as if that were possible after it went viral nationally) or leave the campaign—for which I was volunteering on my own time, and at my own expense.
I refused. I told them they knew I was a writer, when I volunteered for them, and that I would not censor myself, especially since everything I wrote was so supportive of the campaign. The Clinton campaign’s 28-year old communications director in North Carolina, clueless about what the Reichstag Fire was, told me I was too militant, and had me escorted out of the building.
So, a few weeks before the Presidential election of 2016, I found myself adrift in Raleigh, N.C, 2500 miles from my California home, “fired” from a cowering campaign I was volunteering for, with a return plane ticket back to the West Coast the day after election day, still several weeks off. I got into the Red Toyota pick-up truck I was renting, and drove, almost instinctually, over to John & Pat’s house, where I found John Dornan home. He was my port in the storm.
“You’re not going to believe this,” I told him, as he opened the door, and I proceeded to tell him what had just transpired.
“Are you serious?” John asked, shaking his head in disbelief. “Are you serious?” I can still hear John’s distinctive voice and emphasis of incredulity.
Then, John Dornan and I sat on the beautiful back deck of his house in a lovely section of North Carolina’s Capitol city, and drank wine all afternoon, looking out at the lush greenery of his yard, with some of the majestic trees beginning to try on their fall clothes, and we talked about the trajectory of politics and our lives, and the weakness of the Clinton campaign, and the impossible insanity of Trump becoming President, and I was transported back to the spacious patio of his DC apartment some 40 years earlier, where I felt safe and protected from anything that could come our way, since John had a far more pragmatic and straightforward look at things than I did, and instinctually knew how to approach each situation with a sense of humor, and his despair in check, just enough to allow his natural sense of hope, and humanity, light the way.
He needed no translation when after each good person’s death I’d say “All the wrong people are dying,” especially when there were so many other prospects to choose from. And, now, it’s happened again, to the wrong person, leaving an irreparable rip in the lives of those who loved him.
Damn it, Dornan, I’m gonna miss you. You lived longer than you ever expected; longer than your father did, and more years than Saul Alinsky, who died at age 63.
But in your wry wisdom you left us with a legacy straight out of Rules for Radicals, fittingly, from the last paragraph of the last page:
“When Americans can no longer see the stars, the times are tragic. We must believe that it is the darkness before the dawn of a beautiful new world; we will see it when we believe it.”
I re-read that line, on the day after I learned of Dornan’s death, and was stunned that it was exactly my mother’s mantra: “Always darkest before the dawn.” A 92-year Polio survivor, and a devout Catholic, my mother was the ultimate organizer of hope, everlasting.
You made me a believer, once again, John, in the darkest of times, and left us forever with the image of Jimmy Carter’s grinning teeth lighting-up your own mischievous, Yoda-like smile.
One year to the day after his finest hour in the U.S. Senate, Chuck Schumer shows that time, and courage, have passed him by.
(Photo by Haiyun Jiang for the New York Times, 3/14/25)
Last year on March 14, then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, was a profile in courage.
He stood in the well of the U.S. Senate and directly challenged Israel’s recklessly disproportionate slaughter of tens of thousand of Palestinian children and women in Gaza, and the lawless reign of terror of Israeli Prime Minister, Bibi Netanyahu, beholden to Israel’s xenophobic Extreme Right Wing.
Schumer, the highest ranking Jewish public official in American history, knew what he was risking. His hold on Senate leadership was tenuous, if AIPAC—the Right Wing political action committee doing Bibi’s bidding in US Elections—shifted their considerable financial support behind Republican Senate candidates instead of Democrats. Yet, he fearlessly confronted the bully Bibi, and the Extremist cabal controlling Israel.
Schumer, never a spellbinding speaker, was eloquent:
“I speak for myself, but I also speak for so many mainstream Jewish Americans — a silent majority — whose nuanced views on the matter have never been well represented in this country’s discussions about the war in Gaza….
“I speak as a member of a community of Jewish Americans that I know very well. They are my family, my friends. Many of them are my constituents, many of them are Democrats and many are deeply concerned about the pursuit of justice, both in New York and around the globe. From the Talmud — Tikkun Olam, the call to “repair the world” — has driven Jews around the globe to do what is right….
Schumer detailed the horrific crimes committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, when 1200 Israelis and other were murdered, the forcible kidnapping of over 200 hostages, and the disportionate response of the Israeli Government—in direct contravention of the IDF’s own Ethical Code of Conduct in War—resulting in the indiscriminate bombing and slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian children and women.
“The only real and sustainable solution to this decades-old conflict is a negotiated two-state solution — a demilitarized Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel in equal measures of peace, security, prosperity, dignity and mutual recognition,” Schumer said from the Senate floor…I also believe Prime Minister Netanyahu has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel.
Schumer was surgical in his slicing up of Netanyahu’s assault on the highly regarded Israeli Judiciary, calling it a “weakening of Israel’s political and moral fabric, “ pointing out Bibi’s contemptuous disregard for the Rule of Law, and his embracing a lawless, extremist fringe of Israeli society—some of whom had been convicted of acts of terror, and tied to groups responsible for the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin– which did not recognize the legitimacy of the Judiciary, or any limits to the use of violence.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu has put himself in coalition with far-right extremists like Ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir, and as a result, he has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza…As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me:
The Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel… The world has changed — radically — and the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past”
Schumer’s courageous comments stunned the Biden White House, itself caught up in playing a duplicitous game with Israel, condemning its slaughter of innocent civilians and deprivation of humanitarian aid to Gaza residents, and continuing to supply Israel with the huge, 2,000 pound American bombs that were causing massive destruction and loss of human life in Gaza.
American Jews, like myself and my own Rabbi, were proud that at last a major Jewish leader in this country was finally willing to confront the anti-democratic, anti-Jewish, Netanyahu government, which had wiped out Israel’s original governing laws, and the fundamental tenets of Judaism which emphasized a reverence for humanity.
A New York Times story of March 19, 2024, entitled “Part of my Core: How Schumer Decided to Speak Out Against Netanyahu,” noted that Schumer too, was influenced by what his Rabbi was saying.
Rabbi Rachel Timoner, from Schumer’s Reform Synagogue in Brooklyn, who had spoken movingly about the excruciating moral questions raised by this war in Gaza, told Schumer that the Far Right Extremists in Netanyahu’s government were: “endangering all of us because their agenda is about dehumanizing Palestinians, and it’s undermining Israel’s democracy and dearest values.”
Timoner told the New York Times, that she and Senator Schumer:
“share the belief that Israel has a right to defend itself against Hamas but talked about the desperate need to bring the hostages home and end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza through an agreement… even if we would only care about Israel’s safety and security, this war was actually harming Israel on the world stage and its relationship with the United States.”
Rabbi Timoner went on to tell The Times, what she thought of Schumer’s speech calling for new elections in Israel:
“This was him trying to discern the moral path and trying to step up in a way he knew was risky for him, to do something that he felt deeply was right.”
That delicate balancing act blew up in Schumer’s face when, three months later, Netanyahu came to address a Joint Session of Congress, with Schumer’s blessing, despite Bibi’s blustering, predictably, being full of calls to blatant Israeli nationalism, and accolades to Donald Trump, who was locked in a close Presidential campaign with Joe Biden.
Fast forward to exactly one year later, to March 14, 2025, and the stirring memory of Schumer’s courageous speech, dissolved into the shadow of his own cowardice, and his own failure to recognize that time and circumstances had made his old style of politics obsolete. Schumer had become, as he accused Bibi of being one year earlier, “stuck in the past.”
In what may well have been the worst and most damaging speech of his long public career in the Senate, Schumer failed to seize the moment and articulate the extraordinary damage being done to ordinary Americans every single day by Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Stephen Miller, Russell Voight and the anti-human rights, anti-Semitic screeds contained in Pogrom 2025, the call for a Christian, non-Jewish nation written by Voight and other Christian Nationalists, conducting a jihad against anyone “different” from their definition of who belonged in “Christian America.”
A year earlier, to the day, Schumer fearlessly confronted Bibi and his phalanx of fascist Right Wing extremists, threatening Israel’s very existence as a Democracy. Yet, when it came time to muster the same kind of courage at a crucial moment in the fight for democracy in his own country—and beat back the forces of extremism, nihilism and techno-terror tearing fundamental US government services away from veterans, the elderly, children and those most in need, Schumer flinched, slipping behind a shadow of cowardice.
Fearing a “far worse” outcome for the country if he stood strong against the Republican’s Continuing Resolution (CR) designed to cripple social programs for most Americans, Schumer gave away the only power card he held, whimpering away into the night, without as much as a flicker of a fight. It was hard to imagine how much worse things could get than the Trump/Musk/Voight troika had already made them for millions of middle-class families.
Instead of caving, Schumer could have held the Senate Floor for many hours, allowing Democratic leaders and veterans like Senator Mark Kelly, Tammy Duckworth and Ruben Gallego to filibuster against the life-threatening impact the Trump/Musk/Voight attack upon the VA, for example, has had on Veterans Services, and how it was Veterans and people of color who were suffering the greatest personal damage and loss of income from the wholesale elimination of tens of thousands of their jobs.
Holding the Senate floor open for hours could have enabled Senators to express the outrage of their constituents from across the country, dominated media coverage for as long as they kept the debate burning, inundated social media, TV and all media with scorched earth attacks on how the GOP was fire-bombing all public human services, the way White Supremacists set Black Wall Street ablaze in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921.
A vote delayed by Schumer, would have allowed time for citizen advocacy groups like Indivisible, Vote Vets, the ACLU, Democracy FORWARD, the SCLC, the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund and others to challenge and condemn Elon Musk’s illegal mass firings and his theft of the private, proprietary data of hundreds of millions of Americans.
And, if Schumer signaled he was ready to fight into the night, instead of hiding in his own shadow, public employee unions whose members are reeling from a frontal attack on the US Government by a band of felons, would have had the time to organize by the tens of thousands in DC and in communities and states across the country, where most public employees labor to improve the lives of their neighbors.
Chuck Schumer, who has relinquished his leadership position in the US Senate by failing to galvanize the forces of common sense and humanity against the CR—or Catastrophic Resolution—needed then, more than ever, to remember what his Rabbi said about him during his finest hour, one year earlier, when he stood up to Bibi Netanyahu and extreme Right Wing forces in Israel:
“This was him trying to discern the moral path and trying to step up in a way he knew was risky for him, to do something that he felt deeply was right.”
We needed that kind of courage from Schumer last week in the face of Trump and the extreme Right Wing forces in our own country, not the cautious cowardice that caused him to slip behind the shadows of the night.
