​"But if there is any matter upon which civilized countries have agreed—it is the evil of premature and excessive child labor."
-- Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., dissenting in Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918)
 
Today’s Republican Party strongly disagrees with Justice Holmes. Not satisfied with trampling upon the rights of Americans to be safe from gun violence, vote, choose whom to love, read what they wish, learn history as it really was, identify themselves gender-wise, and control their own bodies, the party is now zeroing in on child labor. Both the Washington Post and NBC News have run recent stories uncovering shocking violations of child labor laws, including young teenagers working night shifts cleaning up floors overflowing with blood and gore at meat packing plants, then having to attend school when their shifts ended.
 
Abhorrence of such illegal practices, however, is not part of the Republican playbook. On the contrary, a number of states, assisted by a Florida outfit with the misleading name, “The Foundation for Government Accountability,” are pushing legislation to wipe out child workplace protections.
 
The federal government regulates child labor with respect to businesses operating in interstate commerce. However, for companies that do business only within a state, federal regulations do not apply. Nevertheless, in the 80+ years since the Supreme Court upheld federal authority to regulate child labor, virtually every state has followed suit and promulgated similar, common-sense laws and regulations.
 
Republicans want to roll back these state protections. Arkansas, led by former Trump mouthpiece, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, has a new law that eliminates work permits and age verification for workers younger than 16. Iowa legislators this month voted to allow 14 year-olds to work night shifts and 15 year-olds to work on assembly lines. Missouri, Ohio, Georgia and Minnesota are also considering similar appalling legislation. The Foundation for Government Accountability has found state GOP lawmakers to be a receptive audience for its efforts to turn the clock back to the 19th century and bring back the worst abuses of the Industrial Revolution.
 
I wish I could say that I am shocked by this level of Republican viciousness. But then, this is the same party/cult for which contempt for humanity has become central to its existence. This is an organization that has demonstrated time-and-time again that it values human life only until the moment of birth, after which babies and children must fend for themselves. I would expect nothing more from folks who confirm every day that guns merit higher levels of protection than school children.
 
Moreover, promoting child labor is also consistent with Republican contempt for education and the pursuit of knowledge. They would rather have kids toiling away in dangerous jobs than learning.
 
The U.S. Department of Labor reports a 69 percent increase in minors employed in violation of federal law since 2018. Republicans cheer this statistic.
 
This movement is cloaked in the language of “parental rights” that Republicans have successfully marketed in their quest to cleanse public education, rewrite American history and ban books the hard right deems offensive. They argue that decisions about children working should be ones that parents make, not government.
 
An extremely tight labor market encourages employers to turn to younger, cheaper workers rather than attract experienced workers with wage and other incentives. These child labor bills speak to that yearning. Among child laborers, undocumented minors who come to the U.S. without their parents are most at risk. These bills embolden unscrupulous employers seeking to exploit this extremely vulnerable population. One would think that a party so firmly anti-immigration would be ashamed by the hypocrisy inherent in relaxing child labor restrictions so that more undocumented immigrant children can be oppressed. But shame is not a Republican attribute.
 
Enabling employers to hire children for dangerous jobs is immoral and should be illegal. Sadly, this latest example of Republican callousness is par for the course for a political party that has completely lost its way along with any regard for decency and humanity.
 
Dick Hermann
April 28, 2023

Twenty-one-year old Airman Jack Douglas Teixeira was arrested, handcuffed and whisked away to jail for alleged “unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents” and “unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information.” He is being held without bail and has already been arraigned. If convicted, he likely faces decades in prison.
 
The first charge alone, “unauthorized removal and retention…,” carries a prison term of up to 10 years - as well as fines - for anyone who "copies, takes, makes or obtains or attempts to copy, take, make or obtain" a variety of government documents.
 
If this sounds familiar, it is. Donald John Trump, who is accused of doing essentially the same thing (we don’t yet know if he also transmitted national defense information—he did that at least once directly from the Oval Office…to Russians!), in contrast gets to run around free, raging and ranting about his imaginary grievances and victimhood. The Mar-a-Lago documents case, which on its face appears to be a slam-dunk, is under what seems like eternal investigation.
 
We should now discard the much hackneyed phrase: “no man is above the law.” Trump clearly occupies an exalted, albeit completely unwarranted, position somewhere in the justice wild blue yonder, far above the law.
 
The Teixeira case also brings to light several troubling features of both the U.S. classification regime and our intelligence system:
 
First, how did Teixeira get past the extensive background checks that are a prerequisite to being granted a Top Secret clearance? When he went through this vetting process in 2019, he already had a history of racist and anti-Semitic utterances on social media.
 
Second, many of the secrets the young airman leaked on social media call into question why they required classification. The revelation, for example, that there is infighting among Russian military and political officials regarding the Ukraine invasion has been widely publicized by many news outlets. Many of his exposés are stuff you can learn simply by reading newspapers and watching the nightly news.
 
Third, why does the Massachusetts Air National Guard need to know this stuff? The vast majority of its members are, after all, merely weekend warriors. A 21-year old equivalent of an Army PFC doesn’t come close to meeting the “need-to-know” threshold.
 
Fourth, why did it take eight months and a New York Times story to discover that the very same website used by the military as a recruiting medium was home to these leaks? What happened on 9/11 should have been more than enough of a wake-up call for our disconnected intelligence community to get its act together.
 
Fifth, do we really need 1.7 million people with Top Secret clearances? That humungous number virtually guarantees that there will be numerous security risks.
 
What all this means is this:

1. Our classification regime is a hot mess and needs to be cleaned up immediately. A government that stamps “confidential,” “secret” or “top secret” on too many documents loses sight of the information that really needs to be kept secret. That means declassifying a ton of information that is not worthy of classification, drastically reducing the number of people cleared to see classified information, and instituting a monitoring system that can quickly identify security breaches.
   ​
2. If it is this clear-cut to quickly arrest Airman Jack, then Special Counsel Jack Smith should stop dithering around with the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation and bring Donald Trump to justice without any additional delay.

 
Dick Hermann
April 23, 2023

​“I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that.”
--Justice Clarence Thomas
 
Kudos to the stellar investigative reporters at Pro Publica who uncovered Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s unseemly relationship with billionaire Harlan Crow. Crow is the Justice’s personal angel, lavishing him and his wife, Ginni, with private jet travel to extravagant, luxury vacations in the world’s most exotic locations, cruises on his oligarch-worthy superyacht, tête-à têtes with his reactionary pals at his private Adirondack resort, as well as expensive gifts, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. He also overpaid Thomas and his co-owner(s) to purchase Thomas’s mother’s house and several vacant lots on the same street. Crow is a hard right Republican who, among other indulgences, contributes heavily to Ginni Thomas’s extremist causes, including her participation in the January 6 conspiracy to overthrow the government. The mogul also maintains an extensive collection of fascist memorabilia, including a signed copy of Adolf Hitler’s blood-curdling manifesto, Mein Kampf, and garden statuary of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Lenin and other tyrants.
 
Thomas never disclosed any of this massive deluge of gifts as required by law.
 
Fifty-four years ago, Justice Abe Fortas was forced to resign from the U.S. Supreme Court, pressured to do so by several of his Court colleagues, many members of Congress and public opinion. He had accepted a lifetime retainer from someone who was later convicted of insider trading. He had also been paid $15,000 for a number of speeches. His transgressions seem minor compared to what Thomas has been about. Explain why what Fortas did compelled his resignation while what Thomas is doing is perfectly acceptable. This should not stand.
 
Thomas has been a loyal soldier when it comes to his votes on decisions favoring Crow’s extremist ideological bent. Even if outright corruption cannot be proved, the appearance of impropriety is beyond disturbing.
 
Since 1972, Federal court judges, except Supreme Court justices, have been bound by a Code of Judicial Conduct. One of its basic principles requires that a judge not participate in a case with respect to which his/her impartiality might reasonably be questioned. In other words, such a case calls for the judge to recuse him or herself. Thomas never does, even when cases touch on the involvement of his wife in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Instead of adhering to an ethics code, each Supreme Court justice self-regulates. It has been clear for a long time that such self-surveillance doesn’t work.
 
Thomas won’t resign, as he should, and impeachment is unlikely given that the House of Representatives is under Republican control. Even as modest a step as expanding the Code of Judicial Conduct to apply to Supreme Court justices appears to be beyond the capacity of both Congress or the Court to mandate.
 
At the risk of adding to “Special Counsel Fatigue,” the Justice Department needs to launch an investigation into the extent of Thomas’s corruption. Who knows what else he has been up to? In addition, both Congress and the Judicial Conference of the U.S. also need to examine Thomas’s sleazy dealings. Scrutiny of the other justices, their contacts and transactions is also warranted.
 
Meanwhile, the Court’s steady loss of public esteem combined with increasing suspicion that it is not exactly a nonpartisan institution will continue, as will its determination to find new bottoms in which to wallow.
 
Dick Hermann
April 16, 2023

​I was stunned the evening following the first of what will likely be at least four well-deserved indictments and arraignments of Donald J. Trump. Many of the TV pundits remarking on the case were highly critical of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for leading the charge against the disgraced former President with what they labeled a “weak” case.
 
On the contrary, the case against Trump is really quite strong and, if justice is to be served, should result in a criminal conviction and jail time. While falsified business records (even 34!) are only misdemeanors under New York law, the fact that they were in furtherance of a conspiracy to influence the 2016 presidential election is a pretty serious matter. Untested is whether that will hold up as a crime under New York State law.
 
No matter. There is another crime that has been extensively tested under New York law: defrauding state tax authorities. Having falsely labeled as “legal expenses” the hush money Trump ordered paid to Ms. Stormy Daniels, and the “catch-and-kill” money he paid to Ms. Karen McDougal, to buy their silence about their Trump trysts in the run-up to the election Trump then claimed them as a deduction from his 2016 income taxes. Campaign expenses, which these payments actually were, are non-deductible. This is a felony. Al Capone, another notorious crime boss with countless crimes to his name, was finally brought to account for tax law violations.
 
Despite the current stürm und drang over the pros and cons of this particular case, it will soon be put in the rear view mirror by the other indictments coming down the pike. The Fulton County, Georgia case, where Trump was at least twice captured on tape attempting to suborn state election officials to overturn the 2020 election results, may see an indictment as early as May, according to sources. There is no ambiguity there regarding Trump’s criminal actions and intent. The case, which also involves fake electors, is about as close to a slam-dunk as it is possible to get.
 
Speaking of slam-dunks, the Mar-a-Lago documents case is also looming. Again, no uncertainty about Trump’s criminality here. He took documents with him from the White House that were not his to take. They included a host of highly classified documents, some dealing with nuclear secrets. Following his theft of the documents, he resisted returning them to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) for a year-and-a-half, leaving the government no choice but to have the FBI seize them. Moreover, he appears to have lied to his own attorneys so that they would certify that all the documents had been turned over to NARA. This adds an obstruction of justice count to the rap sheet.
 
That leaves the anchor leg, the biggest Trump crime of them all: his conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election and illegally continue in power after January 20, 2021. This is beyond any doubt the biggest crime ever committed by any American elected leader in our history. In every other country where such a coup d’état has been attempted, the punishment has been prison…or worse.
 
By the time all of these indictments and arraignments have ensued, there won’t be much hand-wringing over what took place in lower Manhattan on April 4.
 
Sadly, the wheels of justice turn slowly. While it is possible that trials in these cases will launch before the 2024 election, they are unlikely to conclude before then. This could lead to a nightmare scenario where Trump is elected and assumes office before verdicts are rendered. That would probably mean one of two terrible outcomes: (1) the 1973 Justice Department Memorandum Opinion stating that a sitting President cannot be indicted or criminally prosecuted would kick in and suspend all such trials; or (2) Trump would simply pardon himself.
 
The need for speed has never been so important.
 
Dick Hermann
April 9, 2023

​The Federal Reserve Board, the nation’s central bank, needs some work. Considerable work at that. Its performance under bank chair Jerome Powell has been mediocre at best.
 
The Fed’s most important responsibility is to monitor inflation and get ahead of it when necessary. Despite 3,000 employees in Washington, DC and many more around the country, a large percentage of whom are tasked with watching the economy for inflationary signals, the Fed missed all the warning signs of the current inflation and has been playing catch-up ever since.
 
Once we were in the throes of the inflation, the Fed compounded its bungling by assuring the public that the inflation would be transitory. Wrong again.
 
Another principal Fed function is bank supervision and regulation. The agency division responsible for this is staffed with a large number of people whose job it is to be alert to early warning signals that a bank, or the banking system, might be in trouble. Despite that, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the 15th largest U.S. bank, as well Signature Bank, appears to have come as a complete surprise to the Fed.
 
Chairman Powell was an enthusiastic proponent of Congress’s 2018 rollback of the Dodd-Frank Act provisions put in place only eight years before as a bulwark against the banking abuses that resulted in the Great Recession, the worst economic meltdown in 80 years. This bipartisan fiasco (50 Democrats voted for it along with virtually every Republican Senator and Representative) set the table for the Fed’s lax supervision and the ensuing bank collapse.
 
To say that the Fed fell down on its job is an understatement. If it cannot perform its key functions, the question must be asked: Has the Fed outlived its usefulness after 110 years? After so many years, institutions become sclerotic and distracted from their missions, instead turning much of their attention and brain power to bureaucratic survival. It’s simply the nature of the beast.
 
Congressional oversight of the Fed and the bank supervisory functions of the other government financial sector regulators can also be cited as a contributor to the current mess. However, no one expects much from congressional oversight of anything, given Congress’s track record of grandstanding in lieu of actual oversight (for example, the Tik-Tok hearings).
 
The series of recessions and banking crises of the late 19th and early 20th centuries demonstrated beyond any doubt that the nation needed a central bank. And for most of its history, the Fed did a passable job reining in inflation and promoting full employment (its two primary objectives). It has not done as well with respect to bank supervision and regulation, likely because these are duties it shares with six other federal agencies.
 
What all this indicates is that it might be time for Congress to take a deep dive into how we regulate financial institutions across the board. The system clearly does not work anywhere near as well as it must for the economy to be strong and stable. At a minimum, the current turmoil should prompt Congress to establish a bipartisan commission to study the matter and report back with recommendations for improvement.
 
P.S. to Congress: When constituting such a study commission, please make sure that Larry Summers is one of its members.
 
Dick Hermann
April 3, 2023