Stephen B. Benisch, Esq.

American History:

  • Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776)
  • Constitution (1789)
  • Bill of Rights (1789)
  • President George Washington’s Farewell Address (September 19, 1796)
  • Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803)
  • Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856)
  • Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 ((1896)
  • “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof”  [Constitution, Amendment XVII, 1913]
  • Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 349 U.S. 294 (1955)
  • President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address (January 17, 1961)
  • On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. preached his “I Have A Dream” speech. In response, an FBI Deputy Director wrote an internal memorandum: “Personally, I believe in the light of King’s powerful demagogic speech yesterday he stands head and shoulders over all other Negroid leaders put together when it comes to influencing great masses of Negroes. We must mark him now, if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro, and national security.”
  • Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964)
  • Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964)
  • On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard marched in uniform, with bayonets affixed to their rifles, onto the campus of Kent State University.  Unarmed people were in an open courtyard participating in a peaceful protest against the Vietnam War.  Other unarmed people were on campus near the protest.  While under no threat from anyone, the Guardsmen shot and killed Allison Krause from 330 feet, Jeffrey Miller from 270 feet, Sandra Scheuer from 390 feet, and William Schroeder from 390 feet.  Nine people survived wounds from the more than 60 bullets that the Guardsmen fired in 13 seconds.  Nobody was convicted of anything.
  • In 1971, the song Imagine was a commercial success. It’s lyrics include: “Imagine there’s no heaven, It’s easy if you try, No hell below us, Above us, only sky, Imagine all the people, Livin’ for today”.
  • On October 12, 1973, during the Watergate Scandal, as the possibility of President Nixon being impeached and/or convicted of criminal behavior was increasing, President Nixon nominated Congressman Ford to be Vice President (to fill the vacancy left when disgraced Vice President Agnew resigned). During his Senate Confirmation Hearing, nominee Ford was asked whether he would give a Presidential Pardon to President Nixon; nominee Ford answered “I don’t think the American people would stand for it”. Nominee Ford became Vice President Ford. On August 8, 1974, President Nixon resigned. On August 9, 1974, Vice President Ford became President Ford. On September 8, 1974, President Ford gave a Presidential Pardon to former President Nixon.
  • Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000)
  • Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (October 16, 2002)
  • In November 2008, We the People gave Barak Obama our precious votes for President in return for his promises: (1) On December 15, 2005 he promised “We don’t have to settle for a Patriot Act that sacrifices our liberties or our safety — we can have one that secures both.”; (2) On December 20, 2007 he promised “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”; (3) On May 19, 2008 he promised “Yes” in answer to the question “When the Congress offers you a Bill, do you promise not to use Presidential Signings to get your way?”; and (4) On November 16, 2008 he promised “I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo.  I will follow through on that.  I’ve said repeatedly that America doesn’t torture, and I’m gonna make sure that we don’t torture.  Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America’s moral stature in the world.”
  • Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010)
  • In a Fourth Amendment lawsuit against President Barak Obama’s Administration, the Court said: “I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and hightech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval.  Surely, such a program infringes on ‘that degree of privacy’ that the Founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment.  Indeed, I have little doubt that the author of our Constitution, James Madison, who cautioned us to beware ‘the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power,’ would be aghast.”  [Memorandum Opinion by U. S. District Judge Richard J. Leon in the case of Klayman v. Obama, U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Civil Action No. 13-0851, December 16, 2013]
  • On January 3, 2017, the new Senate Minority Leader (Chuck Schumer) said President-elect Donald J. Trump was “being really dumb” by challenging the intelligence community. Chuck Schumer explained: “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you … So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this.”
  • On January 20, 2017 at 12:00 PM, President Donald J. Trump was inaugurated. On January 20, 2017 at 12:27 PM, “The Washington Post” published the following front page headline on its website: “The campaign to impeach President Trump has begun”.
  • Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi invited President Donald J. Trump to deliver the constitutionally-mandated State Of The Union Address in the House Chamber on February 4, 2020. Speaker Pelosi sat behind President Donald J. Trump’s back, and, on camera, physically shredded the document as he delivered his Address.
  • In February 2020, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi declared President Donald J. Trump is an “illegitimate” President.
  • “this Court is partly to blame for the breakdown in the appellate process.”  [Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Wolf v. Cook County Illinois, 589 U.S. _____ (2020), February 21, 2020]
  • On March 4, 2020, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer led a protest outside the Supreme Court, demanding the Supreme Court rule as he wanted in a particular action: “I want to tell you, [Supreme Court Justice] Gorsuch; I want to tell you, [Supreme Court Justice] Kavanaugh: You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You will not know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
  • On May 25, 2020, George Floyd died, while a Minneapolis police officer held his knee on Floyd’s neck as Floyd said “I can’t breathe”. A year of peaceful and violent protests throughout America followed. Protestors murdered and assaulted police officers and citizens, burned police stations, burned and looted private business, and hurled Molotov cocktails and other explosives. Protestors took possession and control of municipal territory and declared it to be free of the law, without objection by mayors or governors. Mayors instructed police departments to refrain from enforcing the law against the violent protestors, mayors defunded the police, and mayors permitted the protestors to violate all face mask and social distancing rules designed to protect America from the coronavirus pandemic that killed a million Americans.
  • In October 2020 (several weeks before the 2020 presidential election), The New York Post published an article that likely would have derailed Joe Biden’s candidacy.  The article exposed the contents of a laptop computer belonging to his son Hunter Biden.  The contents of the computer included documents and photographs that raised questions about Joe Biden being a national security risk, about Senator and Vice President Joe Biden being involved in criminal and unethical behavior, about Vice President Joe Biden threatening to withhold one billion dollars of foreign aid from Ukraine in order to assist his son’s business activities in Ukraine, and about Joe Biden lying when he said he didn’t know anything about Hunter Biden’s overseas business activities.  Without an investigation, Twitter immediately censored the article by The New York Post and put a freeze on its account. Without an investigation, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN immediately described the contents of the computer as Russian disinformation.  Without an investigation, more than fifty members of the intelligence community immediately published a joint October 22, 2020 letter describing the contents of the computer as Russian disinformation.  During the first presidential debate, the moderator Chris Wallace refused to allow President Trump to discuss matters related to the contents of the computer. On January 20, 2021, Joe Biden became President.  In the winter of 2022, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN admitted that the contents of the computer do not appear to be Russian disinformation and appear to be authentic.
  • On November 3, 2020, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi declared that Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett is “an illegitimate Supreme Court Justice”.
  • On January 29, 2021, Judge James Boasberg (nominated by President Barak Obama) imposed a criminal sentence Kevin Clinesmith (an FBI lawyer). Kevin Clinesmith had pleaded guilty to falsifying evidence used by the FBI to deceive a FISA Court, so President Barak Obama’s Administration could use the Patriot Act to get permission to unconstitutionally wiretap Donald J. Trump and his 2016 presidential campaign. The sentence imposed by the judge did not include any jail time.
  • In January 2021, the government deployed a seven-foot-high razor-wire-topped metal fence and 25,000 armed National Guardsmen around the Capitol for months, to protect the government from violent Americans.
  • In March 2021, Columbia University announced that it will have Graduation Celebrations for the Class of 2021 that are divided by culture, race, gender, and wealth.
  • “Two of the three most influential papers (at least historically), The New York Times and The Washington Post, are virtually Democratic Party broadsheets.”  [Senior Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman, Tah v. Global Witness, Case No. 19-7132, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, March 19, 2021]
  • On April 9, 2021, President Joe Biden signed an Executive Order that created a commission to re-imagine “the role and operation of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system”.
  • On June 18, 2021, Catholic Congressman Ted Lieu tweeted to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: “I’m Catholic and I support: Contraception, A woman’s right to choose, Treatments for infertility, The right for people to get a divorce, The right of same sex marriage. Next time I go to Church, I dare you to deny me Communion.”
  • “What is tragic here is that the Court has (yet again) rewritten — in order to weaken — a statute that stands as a monument to America’s greatness, and protects against its basest impulses. What is tragic is that the Court has damaged a statute designed to bring about ‘the end of discrimination in voting.’”  [Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, 594 U. S. _____ (2021), July 1, 2021]
  • In August 2021, an atheist was appointed head chaplain at Harvard University. He is the author of the book good without God.
  • On October 4, 2021, the Attorney General issued a Memorandum in which he said: “I am directing the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working with each United States Attorney, to convene meetings with federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial leaders in each federal judicial district within 30 days of the issuance of this memorandum. These meetings will facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff, and will open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment, and response.”
  • On December 15, 2021, Senator Elizabeth Warren declared the Supreme Court is “a court that, over time, is taking out the basic notion of the rule of law.”
  • On January 11, 2022, President Joe Biden declared “Sadly, the United States Senate, designed to be the world’s greatest deliberative body, has been rendered a shell of its former self.”
  • On April 3, 2022, Senator Ron Johnson said “I don’t trust the Justice Department.”
  • On April 28, 2022, President Joe Biden’s Administration announced the creation of the “Disinformation Governance Board” within the Department of Homeland Security.
  • On May 2, 2022, a draft Opinion stolen from the Supreme Court was leaked and published. The President declared he was not upset by the leak, but was very upset by the contents of the draft Opinion because it differs from his interpretation of the Constitution. The President’s supporters lit up the media with threats of violence, and with the home addresses of Supreme Court Justices who disagree with the President’s interpretation of the Constitution. The President declared that his supporters have the right to protest outside the homes of Supreme Court Justices, notwithstanding the existence of a federal statute to the contrary. The Supreme Court surrounded itself with an eight-foot-high metal fence, to protect itself from violent Americans. The Supreme Court moved the author of the draft Opinion from his home to an undisclosed location, to protect him from violent Americans. Heavily-armed, helmetted, battle-gear-uniformed troops from the United States Marshals Service were deployed to protect Supreme Court Justices in their homes in suburban neighborhoods.
  • On May 15, 2022, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said “Let’s not take our eye off the ball. The ball is this court [the Supreme Court], which is dangerous to the freedoms of our country. Beware in terms of marriage equality, beware in terms of other aspects of it, and so it is. Let’s not waste our time on that. The fact is, this is a dangerous court to families, to freedom in our country.”