A BRIDGE TOO FAR

from The Trump Diary

11/21/2016 

Monday afternoon in Trump's America-To-Be and just catching a segment of dear Andrea Mitchell's MSNBC show. (I had wondered during the long election years - lets face it, MSNBC has been covering this election since the Second Obama Inauguration- if there was more than met the camera eye with Andrea's coverage of Hillary. She at times seemed almost belligerent toward the former Secretary of State-  

an attitude that did not manifest when she was reporting on or interviewing other presidential candidates at least it seemed so to me and I have been watching Ms Mitchell for quite some time, certainly longer than she has been married to the strange and well-connected ayn rand comrade, Alan Greenspan, which made me snarkily remark once that Andrea didn't think Hillary was John Galt enough to be president, but that may have been during my late afternoon cocktail hour.) She was interviewing Senator Bob, Bob Corker, who is Chair of the Committee on Foreign Relations which should be quite busy in the coming months plodding through President Trump's multifarious foreign business dealings which he says he is leaving for his talented kids to handle but Bob and the Gang will probably find more important matters to investigate. I missed most of the interview but couldn't help notice the background that framed the closeup of Senator Bob. Corker was seen in front of what I think I recognized as the (should be famous) Walnut Street Bridge in Chattanooga, Tennessee- Cork, a lifelong Republican, used to be mayor and from what little I have read was a very civic-minded public servant. He did very well for himself in Chattanooga-business ventures in real estate and construction he could have retired long ago- I know this 'cause I'm 6 months older and spend my retirement hoping my postman is having a good day. But ol' Bob wanted more and so became a United States Senator in striding the halls of power where he makes sure he gets to keep his and makes it even harder for the working person to eke out a decent living by denying healthcare and a living wage whenever he is asked for his precious vote. There was some shady posturings back when he voted against the automaker "bailout" that did save the industry and his dealings with Volkswagon and an anti-union vote but Senator Bob is a much more important man now. So there he was with that bridge  just behind him- big as you please and I remember where I saw this bridge. On the cover of a book, entitled Contempt of Court by Curriden and Phillips detailing the story of the lynching of Ed Johnson and the subsequent criminal trial conducted by the Supreme Court itself as it brought contempt charges against the sheriff and members of the lynch mob. It was the only time the SC ever directly did that - about the time the Cubs won their First World Series. Mr. Johnson was hung and shot on that bridge. (see below from an earlier posting in our Spade in the Dark Loam Page)

     

(The WALNUT STREET BRIDGE spans the Tennessee River in Chattanooga. Built in 1890 it originally connected the white section (south) of the city with the Black section (north)- no kidding, I copied this info straight from the every-cop source, the Wikipedia-.On MARCH 19, 1906 a Black man named ED JOHNSON after a most mockingly unfair trial was hung and shot on this landmark by a white lynch mob for allegedly assaulting a white woman. Mr. Johnson's conviction was officially overturned 94 years later. Today the bridge is one of the longest pedestrian bridges in the world and every year- as far as we know- on March 19, the community remembers Ed Johnson with an organized memorial walk to the bridge)

America's story is certainly big enough to remember the murder of Ed Johnson and the court actions that it instigated. Unfortunately not many of us know of this particular incident nor of the historic court case (United States v. Shipp) that came as a result; our Supreme Court today with obvious exception is only rife with partisanship and a narrow willfulness to do the bidding of one political party. As the authors state in their epilogue : "Nearly every single federal constitutional issue raised by Mssrs Parden and Hutchins (the two African-American attorneys that appealed on behalf of Ed Johnson) became legal precedent in the decades that followed. Most notably, the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution are applicable in state-court cases- a position argued by them and supported by Justice John Harlan: a few cited are a 1923 case in which Justice Holmes said that a "trial in which a lynch mob puts undue pressure on the judge, the lawyers, or the jury is a violation of the defendant's constitutional rights of due process; in 1932 the SC ruled that people accused of capital crimes in state or federal cases must be afforded the effective assistance of a lawyer-(Scottsboro Case)- that right has been extended to all criminal cases; in 1948 it was decided that all criminal trials in state or federal courts must be open to the public; in 1963 the Court ruled in the Miranda v Arizona case; in 1967 the justices ruled that a defendant has the right to have an attorney present when police conduct a witness-identification lineup; in 1970 the Supreme Court ruled that local courts may not systematically exclude Black people from juries; in 1972 it ruled that the death penalty could no longer be used as punishment in rape cases.

According to Prof. Thomas Baker from Texas "this case is the clearest example of the Supreme Court preserving its place in history and the integrity of the law."

Perhaps Senator Bob should have a change in heart and reconsider his "principled positions" of not extending unemployment benefits in emergency situations or denying COBRA payments to those suddenly out of work or denying a woman's right to choose because he Sen Bob is a man of principle and character- perhaps he would be better off taking his esteemed colleague and attorney general designate Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions and His party's leader Mitch McConnell and maybe quite a few others - take them all in hand -including Rep Paul Ryan and have a long, slow walk on the Walnut Street Bridge.