By the Editorial Board of The Washington Post:

The events of the past week in Virginia mark a dark new stage in President Trump’s effort to turn federal law enforcement into a personal tool of oppression and vengeance. He is undermining a core promise of the American justice system: the fair and equal enforcement of the law.

On Thursday evening his handpicked federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, obtained an indictment of the former F.B.I. director James Comey on highly dubious charges. The indictment came just four days after Mr. Trump installed her on an interim basis and just days before the statute of limitations on the charges would have expired.

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The charges were filed in the eastern district of Virginia only after Erik Siebert was forced out as US attorney for reportedly finding no grounds to indict Comey. The justice department replaced him with a Trump loyalist with little prosecutorial experience, Lindsey Halligan, and shortly after, a grand jury indicted Comey on one count of making a false statement to Congress and one count of obstruction of a congressional proceeding.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/26/james-comey-indictment-reaction

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About Lindsey Halligan

Before she was sworn in Monday as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, a 36-year-old former White House aide and Florida insurance lawyer, had no prosecutorial experience. Less than four days into her new role, she brought charges against former FBI director James B. Comey, despite the objections of career prosecutors that there was insufficient evidence to do so.

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Scraping’s the worst . . . but every look-see into the paranoid delusional work of the world’s now foremost malignant narcissist tells of the methodical degrading of American law, national security, and power. Donald Trump has become his own worst enemy, inspiring contempt, not respect, for his unchecked authoritarian stance and the cowardice and sycophancy required for him to achieve and sustain it. His persecution of James Comey — criminals hate investigators and judges — will play before a cognizant and reasoning public, and he will find his place in memory beside Hitler, Mussolini, Putin, and Stalin–only he will be judged more backward, cowardly, deranged, and smaller than any of the others on which he appears to have modeled himself.

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On X: https://x.com/JS_Oppenheim.

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Call it the Morning Gloss: The American Prospect kneecaps the Trump Administration in relation to other sordid episodes involving corruption at the Department of Justice; in the same feudal-medieval mafia Donald dimension, the indictment of James Comey plays this morning as another act of his personal brand of retribution and the further degrading of America’s governance; for The Washington Post, Emily Yahr recaps Jimmy Kimmel’s triumphant 6.2 million viewer return to the televised and streaming stage; Global Trends, a national security contemplation of global threats published every four years has been found politically inconvenient by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and therefore eliminated;

If you are an American, I don’t care who you voted for, but I might care about what you voted for if you didn’t mean to vote America’s secular democratic republic out of business.

This sort of American bigotry, a product of Adolph Trump’s fondness for the manipulation of American white Christian nationalists, AKA American White Supremacists and related political and racial species, appears typical: “The latest target of the Trump administration is one of the world’s most influential foundations, funded by one of the right wing’s foremost boogeymen: George Soros.” For additional background on Soros: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2020/08/08/ftac-a-short-note-on-the-demonizing-of-george-soros/.

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Humor Helps

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“All general officers in command in grade O-7 through O-10 and their general officer senior enlisted advisers are directed to attend within operational constraints,” the order states, according to one person who saw a copy. O-7 through O-10 refers to the military’s classification for all generals and admirals.

None of the people who spoke with The Post could recall a defense secretary ever ordering so many of the military’s generals and admirals to assemble like this. Several said it raised security concerns.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/09/25/hegseth-generals-quantico-meeting/

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I love speculation in fiction; I hate it in reportage.

However, there are possibilities: will Donald Trump exact an oath of loyalty to himself from America’s admirals and generals?

Is Trump preparing for a civil war?

Or a war with Russia?

Whatever announcement, cause, or program Donald Trump has in mind, it’s certain to be adverse to America’s national security in the dimensions of force readiness — the senior leadership will be in Quantico (so The Washington Post reports) — and possibly force cohesion and trust if or as as the assembly of commanders suffers dismissals on the spot.

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Being American: United States of America — Basic Training

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At this end of summer 2025, the days slide by in a relentless slurry of desktop impressions involving the defense of western civilization, liberalism, and modern Christian compassion, reason, and tolerance. Here I will let the critics of Trumpian authoritarianism (his malign narcissistic pursuit of power) and nominally “Christian” power-seeking zealots have their say.

#AmericanChristianCommunity #ChristianityInAmerica | Commentary x #MonteMader ->https://t.co/2QZd7rK0xs

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) September 10, 2025

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#AmericanEthane #AmericaForSale #AmericaUnderAssault x #AmericanTraitor #DonaldJohnTrump | Commentary x #VicMeyers ->https://t.co/wRBdlWmR1u #AmericanNatSec #EuropeanSecurity #UkraineDefenseDignityFreedom

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) September 10, 2025

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"Donald Trump is collapsing in popularity, yet he is getting more powerful by the minute . . . ." ->https://t.co/yJdJYvcGwx

x #SteveSchmidt

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) September 10, 2025

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#AmericaUnderAssault

Related to previous post: #AmericanDefenders; #AmericanDefense; #AmericanResistance | x #HeatherCoxRichardson ->https://t.co/BM6K5zS6fj

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) September 10, 2025

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"In Salem, “witches” were frequently convicted through “spectral evidence.”#AmericanNationalSocialism | x #JimStewartson #MindWar https://t.co/punzX0m6At

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) September 10, 2025

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I’ve noticed on X that my pointed responses to the insults launched at my nation by dumb Donald’s melange of thoughtless bigots, Christian zealots, corrupt and Greedy Old Pigs (GOP) and creepy trolls without real names appear to place a dozen posts beneath their targets thus minimizing their views. That’s a form of modern X-based attack “from above”, i.e., from Elon’s coding zombies.

Why play along with the bigot and lout from South Africa?

He’ll lose X sooner or later for proving a traitor (along with so many of Trump’s cowardly or unprincipled ass kissers) to his adopted — and targeted — American homeland.

AI on Religious Coercion, Corruption, and Tyranny

The Founding Fathers strongly opposed any form of religious coercion, including undemocratic actions by Christians, because they believed it would lead to tyranny and corruption. Influential founders like James Madison and Thomas Jefferson had witnessed firsthand the persecution of religious minorities in the colonies and viewed the separation of church and state as the best way to protect both individual liberty and the integrity of religion. [1, 2, 3]

Religious freedom as a safeguard against tyranny

The founders viewed religious freedom as an inalienable right of conscience that government should never infringe upon. They believed that forcing religious views or practices on others was a misuse of power.

• James Madison argued that forcing individuals to support a religion they did not believe in was a form of tyranny. He considered religious coercion a “dangerous abuse of power” because if the government could establish Christianity, it could favor one Christian sect over another.
• Madison, who witnessed Baptist preachers being jailed for their beliefs in Virginia, believed that the state should not have any jurisdiction over religious matters. He wrote that “Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance”.
• Thomas Jefferson shared this view, arguing that “the legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.” He concluded, “But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg”.
• Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786) established that no one could be compelled to support any religious worship or be penalized for their religious opinions. This law protected the rights of “the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination”. [3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]

Separation of church and state to protect religion

Many founders believed that an established state church would corrupt religion. They felt that state support made clergy and laity indolent, while competition in a free marketplace of ideas produced more virtuous religious practice.

• James Madison observed that where religious establishments existed, they bred “pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution”.
• He later reflected that separating church and state led to an increase in “the number, the industry, and the morality of the Priesthood,” as well as “the devotion of the people”.
• In his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists, Thomas Jefferson described the First Amendment as building “a wall of separation between Church & State”. He was concerned that allowing religion to interfere in governance would create a polarizing environment and lead to oppression. [1, 2, 9, 10, 11]

The founders’ mistrust of religious politics

The founders’ concern with undemocratic, manipulative religious actors was not merely theoretical. Their political opponents often wielded Christianity as a weapon, which hardened their resolve to prevent religious factionalism from entering politics.

• During the election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson was accused of being an “arch-infidel” for his views on religious freedom. He was convinced that this rhetoric came from “pseudo-priests” and “charlatanerie” who sought to manipulate the public.
• Jefferson explicitly rejected the idea that a secular government was a “slander” on religion, but rather a necessary condition for it to flourish free of manipulation by ambitious clergy.
• In 1790, George Washington wrote to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, assuring them that the U.S. government “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance”. This sentiment reflected the founding generation’s rejection of religious persecution that had defined much of Europe’s history. [2, 6, 12, 13, 14]

AI responses may include mistakes.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/groups/463786557152746/posts/2765626433635402/

[2] https://www.bridgew.edu/stories/2023/doctrine-separation-church-and-state

[3] https://firstliberty.org/news/james-madison-mastermind-of-religious-freedom/

[4] https://constitutioncenter.org/museum/historic-document-library/detail/james-madison-memorial-and-remonstrance-against-religious-assessments-1785

[5] https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/thomas-jefferson-and-religious-freedom/

[6] https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/thomas-jefferson-and-religious-freedom/

[7] https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/jefferson-memorial-education-religious-freedom.htm

[8] https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/memorial-and-remonstrance/

[9] https://www.heritage.org/political-process/report/james-madison-and-religious-liberty

[10] https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/memorial-and-remonstrance/

[11] https://hc.edu/news-and-events/2020/02/26/the-war-on-religious-liberty/6/

[12] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/americas-true-history-of-religious-tolerance-61312684/

[13] https://www.reddit.com/r/Presidents/comments/1dj1q7p/the_founding_fathers_on_religion_and_the/

[14] https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/jefferson-thomas-and-religion/

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#AmericanElections #AmericaForSale #AmericaUnderAssault x #DonaldTrump & #FixedElections #MAGA #RiggedElections –>https://t.co/aplQYchtvf

What Donald Trump said on July 27, 2024 before his Turning Point Action audience in relation to elections: “It’ll be fixed. It’ll be…

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) September 10, 2025

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