7/25/2020

My dear Friend & POTUS, DJT,

            As I listen to the birds chirp, I find it hard to reconcile the serenity of my enclave with the mayhem I saw in the videos of Portland last night. How can it be that a group of folks singing, “Hands up, please don’t shoot me,” in lullaby fashion are a threat to our domestic tranquility, so much so that they get tear gas blown in their faces and rubber bullets shot at their bodies?

I’m sure you’ve heard that another group has emerged to stand between the protestors and the marshals. They call themselves, the “Wall of Vets,” and were inspired by Naval Academy Grads, Duston Obermeyer (DO) & Chris David (CJD), who went to the protests to ask the marshals if they knew that “assaulting an unarmed protester who is exercising their first amendment rights is illegal, that’s an illegal order.” They’re worried about those young marshals because they observed that “they have no tactical cohesion to what they’re doing... There was no sort of command. They were running around and they were scared.” I’m sure that you don’t want to put our marshals in that kind of position. It makes them look bad. We are all agitated enough trying to avoid CV. We don’t need to worry about confused marshals attacking moms and disabled vets.

I know some elders in the Quaker community that might head up to Portland if the federal marshals keep over-reacting. I certainly hope the marshals wouldn’t tear gas them.

            As you play golf today, I hope you find some peace of mind so you can reconsider the need to use violence to quell protests. Feel free to call me if you’d like to talk it over.

            HYITL,