A Boot in Your Face, A Knee on Your Neck

George Owell, describing life under totalitarian rule, asked his readers to "imagine a boot in your face, forever." 

Or, a knee on your neck.

For too many of our citizens, that takes no imagination at all. 

It's also said that history begins when the last witness dies; until then it's memory. If that is true, if God smiles, and if George Floyd is the last American to die for the "aggravating circumstance" of being black, our country is at least three generations away from that time when the viciousness of Jim Crow and the lynching era can be called history. 

What happened to George Floyd on May 25th, 2020, on that street in Minneapolis was viscerally maddening. The audio of him pleading with his killers, "Sir, I can't breathe, please," being taunted by men who were confident they would get away with it, is our national shame. 

Yes, Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota and the US Government appear to have had enough. What those police officers did, what was caught on video, appears to have sufficiently horrified enough people that someone will be held accountable. But the thug who knelt on George Floyd's neck and the men who stood by while he did it believed in their impunity. They thought nothing was going to happen to them. They taunted George Floyd and acted like it was all a lark. They did not behave like that in a vacuum.  That is our national shame, that they expected to get away with it.

George Floyd.was more than strange fruit his killers thought they left behind. He had a biography. He had a family, friends, hopes and a home. And he did not did not deserve to be suffocated in a gutter, hearing his killer's laugh as he lost consciousness. 

The Flynn Deals; it ain't over

As supporters of Donald Trump fume over alleged FBI perfidy in "persecuting" Mike Flynn, it is useful to remember that his indictment  (and subsequent conviction) for lying to the FBI was the result of his agreement to plead guilty to the least charge in exchange for cooperating with the government as it investigated Russian involvement in the 2016 election and related matters. 

Flynn faced a plethora of other, more serious, charges, some of which would have included his son. Among those charges: lying on financial disclosure documents he submitted prior to assuming his position as Trump's National Security Advisor (a felony). As a former intelligence agency head and retired general officer, he traveled to Russia, accepted compensation from Russia Today and failed to notify the Department of Defense and Director of National Intelligence before and after the trip. He also failed to include the compensation on his renewal application for a security clearance (more felonies). He failed to disclose his lobbying work for a Turkish owned consulting firm with close ties to the Turkish government until after he was fired from his White House post and was under investigation by the FBI (possibly a felony). 

But wait, there's more. In a September 2016 meeting with Turkish government officials attended by former Director of Central Intelligence James Woolsey, Flynn is alleged (by Woolsey) to have discussed forcibly detaining and renditioning Fethullah Gulen, a dissident scholar accused by Turkey's president of plotting a coup against him. Turkey had requested Gulen's extradition and was rejected because the application did not pass muster on it's merits by the Obama Justice Department, and is still rejected by Trump's Justice Department. Fethullah Gulen is a legal resident of the United States, so Woolsey's accusation -- if substantiated -- puts Flynn in the way of conspiracy to kidnap charge (a very serious felony). 

So before shedding tears over Mike Flynn's treatment by the FBI, consider this possibility. They didn't really want to go after someone with Flynn's record of service, but confronted with crimes committed -- possibly in fits of impetuosity and ignorance of the law; attributes those of us who've known and worked with/for Mike Flynn are very familiar with -- had little choice, and tried to give him the best deal they could.

Flynn got a good deal out of the FBI and the Special Counsel. He's probably gotten very bad advice from his current legal counsel. The Attorney General's decision to drop charges agaist him after he has already pled guilty (twice) and attested to his crimes, under oath, in court, is irregular and quite possibly irrelevant. The judge presiding over his case, Judge Emmett Sullivan, is the arbiter. And he isn't happy with Flynn or his lawyers, or William Barr, Esquire. 

It ain't over.