Where does it go next? Where does it end?...
By Ernest A. Canning on 8/15/2025, 4:59pm PT  

Coming on the heels of the presently enjoined, 4th Amendment violating, racial profiling mass roundups of Latinos in California, the Trump regime's effort to not only federalize law enforcement in the District of Columbia but also to target the homeless for removal resurrects the ghost of the late Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemà¶ller.

An acknowledged anti-semite, Niemà¶ller initially supported Hitler's rise to power. But he drew the ire of Der Fà¼hrer's totalitarian regime after he openly opposed the Nazification of Protestant Churches.

Narrowly escaping death after he was arrested by the Gestapo in 1937, Niemà¶ller spent the years 1938 to 1945 in infamous Nazi concentration camps.

Following his release from Dachau in 1945, Niemà¶ller penned the poem, First They Came...

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak up
Because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak up
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak up
Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak up
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak for me.

That is something that should concern all Americans even if the lawsuit, District of Columbia v. Trump [PDF], filed by the D.C. Attorney General, results in a court order that will enjoin the Trump Administration's federal takeover of the nation's capital...

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Ernest A. Canning is a retired attorney, author, and Vietnam Veteran (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968). He previously served as a Senior Advisor to Veterans For Bernie. Canning has been a member of the California state bar since 1977. In addition to a juris doctor, he has received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science. Follow him on Twitter: @cann4ing

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Article Categories: California, Accountability, Washington D.C., Donald Trump