Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

Danny Westneat frets that Seattle Indivisible and other resistance activists are turning toward the crash-and-burn tactics of the far-right. But all we want is for Washington’s U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray to stand up to President Donald Trump’s bullying, prevent a humanitarian crisis and pass a popular piece of legislation—the DREAM Act.

In this year of national crisis, as the Trump administration targets immigrants and people of color with authoritarian consistency, we expect our senators to act with the urgency of the times and stand firm against the deportation of an entire generation of immigrant Americans. Our senators took a stand when they voted “no” budget without a DACA fix on Dec. 21 and again Jan. 19. We don’t understand what was different on Jan. 22.

When we express our disappointment in Sens. Murray and Cantwell’s vote to reopen the government without Dreamer protections, we aren’t “bludgeoning” our own, we are asking them to do better and use every tool available to the minority party to protect the Dreamers.

People frequently complain they don’t know what the Democratic Party really stands for—now is the time to show them.

Iga Kozlowska, president and co-founder, Seattle Indivisible

This memo totally vindicates “Trump” in probe. But the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on. Their was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction (the word now used because, after one year of looking endlessly and finding NOTHING, collusion is dead). This is an American disgrace!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 3, 2018

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Here.

Here.

Donald Trump's approval rating is 49%. Barack Obama's approval rating at the same time during his presidency was 50%.

It's been 40 years to the day since I ingested alcohol. Okay; I may have gotten a few drops of alcohol in fruitcakes I've eaten over the years (or in jalapeño beer bread). As for why I stopped drinking back in 1978, I simply decided that I wanted to confront the world head on, with no altered consciousness. I don't miss alcohol a bit, and I certainly don't miss being around people who drink. I consider alcohol to be the bane of civilization and the root of a great many personal and social problems, from drunk driving to spousal abuse to aggression to addiction to obesity. In my view, the world would be a much better place without alcohol.

To the editor:

The president of the United States stood before Congress and peddled his disgusting lie that immigrants are violent criminals and that cutting back on immigration is the only way to protect this country. ("In State of Union, Trump calls for unity in hopes of altering a threatening tide," Jan. 30)

President Trump drew a sharp distinction between "Americans" (by which he presumably means native-born citizens) and "Dreamers." He implicitly criticized as somehow being anti-veteran and anti-police those individuals (mostly citizens with a somewhat darker skin tone) who have had the courage to protest against police brutality and murder.

This was not, as your headline put it, a "call for unity." And Trump did not, as the lead paragraph of the article proclaimed, try to "shed [his] polarizing image." Instead, he doubled down on his dog-whistle bigotry in a campaign speech designed to rile up his base.

Steve Ellis, Los Angeles

Note from KBJ: How are you hearing the dog whistle, Steve? Are you a bigot?

“Trump the orator outlines the greatness of America to Democrats’ disgust” https://t.co/XpirrtTY6V

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 2, 2018

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The lack of new information supporting Custer's early turn westward and the way the turn frustrated the plan of cooperative action strongly suggest that there was no "sufficient reason" for this deviation from Terry's orders.⁸⁰

⁸⁰ This is my current view of the matter, despite the warning by Graham "that between wilful disobedience of orders and justifiable disregard of instructions there yawns a gulf both wide and deep" and that the "Commander on the scene is entitled to the benefit of every doubt, if there be room for doubt." If my view is correct (and I must say that in the past I have felt differently), the question becomes, why did Custer disobey? This is a subject of endless fascination, and I can only list some of the theories:

(a) Custer and several of his officers wanted to finish with the Sioux quickly so that they could attend the opening of the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition on July 4.

(b) Custer was desperate for victory to protect his Army career. "Only a towering public reputation can protect an officer from the sort of Presidential displeasure Custer had provoked. Without some new military accompishment he was probably finished. . . ."

(c) Custer wanted to defeat the Sioux by himself because he was jockeying for the Presidential nomination of the Democrats, whose convention was about to open in St. Louis.

(d) Custer acted from his intense pride in the Seventh Cavalry and his conviction that it alone could whip the Sioux. This characteristic helps explain Custer's rejection, with the comment that the Seventh "could handle anything," of the offer of four companies of the Second Cavalry just before his departure up the Rosebud.

(e) Custer acted consistently with his nature. He had never been a "soldier to march away from the enemy's known position." "Every victory he had ever won had come from plunging to the attack." Colonel Gibbon later wrote, "'Poor fellow! Knowing what we do now, and what an effect a fresh Indian trail seemed to have had upon him, perhaps we were expecting too much to anticipate a forbearance on his part which would have rendered cooperation of the two columns practicable.'"

(Samuel W. Calhoun, "The Law and the Little Big Horn: What Beginning Law Students Can Learn from General Custer," Journal of Legal Education 36 [1986]: 403-19, at 417 [citations omitted])

Don't watch this if you're faint of heart.