Month: May 2019

Trump is Embarrassing

You’d think if you were President of the United States, you’d know the Constitution.  President Trump Thursday morning warned in his “press briefing,” held almost literally under the blades of Marine One, that he hasn’t even started using his “…Article II powers.”  At least he knew where the powers of the Presidency lie in the document.

But then he said he would go to the Supreme Court if the House of Representatives tried to impeach him. His argument:  that he has never committed, “ treason, bribery or high crimes and misdemeanors,” the Constitutional reasons for impeachment. You can’t blame him for seeking a more favorable venue than the House.  He appointed two justices to the Supreme Court, and there are three more who come from a Federalist Society background that Trump feels favors him. That’s five judges out of nine, a lot better odds than he has in the House of Representatives.

His problem is that another portion of the Constitution, Article I, Section 2, states that the House “…shall have the sole power of impeachment.”  A Federalist Society justice, committed to the original meaning of the Constitution, would have a difficult time trying to tell the House how they are to use their “sole power,” not talking about the four “more liberal” justices.   Clearly it’s a power that doesn’t include the Courts, and allows the House to interpret their authority as they choose.

What high crimes and misdemeanors were to the founding fathers was based on English Common Law. High crimes were crimes against the state, as opposed to “common” crimes that were crimes against individuals.  Kill a neighbor: a common crime, kill the King, a High crime. High crimes were not necessarily felonies, and not even necessarily crimes in the statutory sense. A President who fires an employee like the FBI Director, or directs another employee to lie to Federal investigators, may be acting within his authority, but may still be committing an act in the “impeachable” sense if that act abuses his powers and injures “the state.”

The classic “government class” scenario, is that the President shoots someone, say on Fifth Avenue. He cannot be arrested or charged (though I expect the NYPD would still try), he would have to be impeached and removed from office first.   The impeachment would be for the “high crime” of conduct unacceptable for the President of the United States. Then the common charge, murder, could be brought in Court.  President Andrew Johnson was impeached for breaking a Congressional law, the Tenure of Office Act, which had no criminal penalty attached.  The House determined he had committed a “high crime;” that was enough to bring on impeachment.

And one last “government class” reminder:  impeachment is the process of bringing the President (or other Executive or Judicial branch members) to trial in front of the Senate.  It is the House of Representatives’ duty, passed by a majority vote of the members.  The Senate then determines whether the accused is “convicted” with the penalty of removal from office, and requires a two-thirds majority vote.

So, surprise, President Trump doesn’t know the Constitution, even when it directly affects him.  You’d think all of those high-priced lawyers working for him would clue him in.  He probably doesn’t listen; he’s too busy tweeting.

It’s embarrassing.  

There’s a mythological concept called “drunk truth.”  It goes that if you say something when you’re drunk, it’s more likely to be true because – well – you’re drunk and less likely to be careful about your speech.

President Trump might have a different “truthiness disability” called “pre-dawn truth.”  In a 4:57 AM tweet storm Thursday, he sent out the following:

Russia, Russia, Russia! That’s all you heard at the beginning of this Witch Hunt Hoax…And now Russia has disappeared because I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected. It was a crime that didn’t exist. So now the Dems and their partner, the Fake News Media,…..…say he fought back against this phony crime that didn’t exist, this horrendous false accusation, and he shouldn’t fight back, he should just sit back and take it. Could this be Obstruction? No, Mueller didn’t find Obstruction either. Presidential Harassment!

Oops!!  Did he really confess that Russia helped him get elected? The tweet was soon denied (thank you internet for saving everything) and Trump reversed it to the media under Marine One,  but there it is.  And our President has made it clear; he is a VICTIM!!! A VICTIM of Presidential Harassment! Talk about a “snowflake,” I guess this harassment is waking him in the pre-dawn hours, making him sit up in bed in his expensive silk underwear and tweet; forcing him to tell the truth.

But the VICTIM is on the attack, back against Robert Mueller again.  

And it’s embarrassing, that the President of the United States lies to America like a sixth grader caught with a cigarette.  He tells lies, about why Mueller went to the White House (to advise the President on who to select for FBI Director, not get the job), and about the “thirteen angry Democrats” in the Special Counsel office, and about just about everyone else who has the courage to stand up against him, including Congressman Justin Amash, a conservative Republican from Michigan who actually read Mueller’s Report.  The lies are recognized by most Americans, and has become so common that little is said.  The Washington Post  (certainly not Trump’s favorite) keeps count: 10,111 lies in 828 days since Trump assumed the Presidency.

A President who doesn’t understand the Constitution or the law, who has “pre-dawn honesty syndrome,” who claims victimhood, attacks our most outstanding citizens, and constantly, consistently, and pathologically lies.  

Trump is embarrassing.

The Last Word of the Honorable Robert Mueller

Robert Mueller, Special Counsel for the Department of Justice, resigned yesterday.  He was appointed to investigate the “Russia” matter in the spring of 2017, after the firing of FBI Director James Comey, the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and the panicked meetings when wearing a “wire” to Presidential meetings was discussed. For the first time since he was appointed Special Counsel, Mueller spoke.

Robert Mueller hoped to get the “last word” yesterday. He made it clear he wanted them to be HIS “last words” on the subject.  His messages were simple:  Russia attacked America in 2016, and if we don’t do something more about it, they will do it again. His Report did not exonerate the President of the United States from any criminal acts, if it had he would have said so.  He didn’t say so.  

And finally, Mueller said, I have nothing more to say, everything I have to say is in the report: read it.

Mr. Mueller made it clear that Attorney General William Barr completely misrepresented the Report from the very first “summary” he published. In the matter of why the Report did not recommend charges for obstruction of justice for the President: Mueller said that that Department of Justice OLC (Office of Legal Counsel) policy that states that the President cannot be indicted, prevented him from even considering criminal charges. And, Mueller being an inestimably fair man, he could not even suggest charges should be filed, if there could be no trial to give the President the opportunity to clear his name.

Barr stated that the OLC Policy had no impact on Mueller’s finding.

Mr. Mueller also made it clear that the second volume of his Report, the section on obstruction of justice, was written as evidence for the one body that could bring charges against the President, the Congress.  Mr. Barr said that Mueller left the decision up to him.  And finally, Mr. Mueller emphasized that obstruction of justice can occur, even if the underlying “crime,” the evidence put forth in the first volume of the Report, is insufficient to charge.  In fact, Mr. Mueller made it clear in the Report that obstruction needs to be charged, as obstruction may be the reason why the underlying “crimes” cannot be charged.

Mr. Barr claimed that obstruction could not be brought if there are no underlying, indictable crimes.

Mr. Mueller, seventy-four years old, after a thirty-four year career of government service, made it clear that like an “old soldier,” he would like to fade away.  It is unlikely that the House of Representatives will allow that to happen.  As a newly private citizen, Robert Mueller is subject to Congressional subpoena. Mueller, perhaps above all else, does not want to get caught up in the “political circus” that recent Congressional hearings have become (see Peter Strzok.) But the House Judiciary Committee, led by Chairman Nadler, recognizes something that perhaps Mr. Mueller doesn’t understand.

The power of the Mueller Report is in its recitation of fact after fact, all showing the involvement of the Russians in the 2016 election, the interest the Trump campaign has in them, and the actions they took to hide that interest.  But the Mueller Report is 488 pages long, and the vast majority of the American people are not going to read it.

Mr. Nadler needs to have Mueller as the ultimate educational tool for the American people.  Just as Senator Sam Ervin told the Watergate story through witness after witness in the summer of 1973, Nadler needs Robert Mueller to tell the American people what he found, even if he just refers them to passages of the Report.  Mueller has suggested he would talk to the Committee behind closed doors, but that won’t be enough for the Chairman, or the American people.

So we will hear from Robert Mueller again.  

The Honorable Robert Mueller has called on the only legal body with the Constitutional power to act on the evidence he has uncovered, the Congress, to pick up this case.  Mueller is not concerned with the “political” consequences, he sees the Constitution as demanding that Congress act on the matter. 

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made a different political calculation.  She believes that if the House follows through with an impeachment of the President, the Senate wouldn’t give it a fair hearing, much less convict and remove him from office.  In her view, a Trump “victory” in the Senate could cost Democrats the House of Representatives and maybe even the Presidential election of 2020.  Instead of removing an offending President, the impeachment process might in fact assure four more years of a Trump Presidency.

That doesn’t mean that the Speaker doesn’t want the House to discuss the Mueller Report or the President. She wants multiple committees to investigate the President:  his actions in the 2016 election and after, his personal finances, the multiple corrupt acts of his cabinet appointees, and his abuse of the US intelligence agencies. 

The Speaker knows the power of Congressional investigation.  She knows that information damaging to the President can be dripped out of the House over the next eighteen months leading to the 2020 election.  The Democrats in the House can do this, and still provide political “cover” for members who are in political jeopardy.  

And if the hearings are able to educate the American people, as Chairman Nadler hopes, then perhaps the political environment will change, and Speaker Pelosi will alter her calculations. For that reason, yesterday cannot be Robert Mueller’s “last word.” The American people need to hear from him again.

The Rise of Nationalism

“History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes” is a quote attributed to Mark Twain.  While nothing in our story, the human story, is a carbon copy; the themes of our history come back again and again to influence our actions and establish our fate.

One world theme is the failure of “liberal” governance to deal with economic dislocation; the disparity between the increase in overall national wealth and the working and middle classes.  As the gap widens and those workers see the “rest of the world” move onto a higher economic plane while they struggle for the basics of life; they search for alternatives to the current governing regime.

(Note –using “liberal” in this sense is not the same as “liberal/conservative” in current politics.  Liberal governance is defined as:  governing with the consent of the governed, and equality before the law; hardly a controversial definition.)

In the “Western World,” North America and Western Europe, “liberal” governance has been the norm since World War II.  In fact, the War itself was a struggle between “liberal” governance and nationalism/authoritarianism.  And here’s where the rhyming begins.  The nationalist/authoritarians, better known as Fascists, came to power as a result economic dislocation, the Great Depression.  Working and middle class people, desperate to survive, turned to “leaders” (in Germany the “Fuhrer”) with simple solutions and someone else to blame for their plight.

The end of World War II made the world “safe for democracy” once again.  But now, seventy-four years later, we stand at the same threshold our forefathers faced in the late 1920’s.  Fascism has a new guise, the rise of “nationalism.”  It is clothed in seductive terms:  “lets go back to the ‘good old days’ when things were simple.” But the “good old days” were good for only select groups.  Our modern governments have, haltingly, worked to bring all groups the economic and legal benefits of our world.

The “select” groups are now faced with increasing economic hardships.  They are being seduced with a variation on the same general theme used in the 1920’s:  “there is not enough prosperity for all, sharing is costing YOU.” (If you don’t believe it, listen to the biggest argument against medical insurance for all in the United States:  there isn’t enough for everyone and “I’ll lose MY doctor and have to wait in line!”)It worked in Italy and in Germany in the 1920’s, and it had its adherents in the United States in the 1930’s as well.  It is the same playbook that Hitler and Mussolini used, rewritten by folks like Steve Bannon to appeal to a modern social media world.

Today it is displayed in phrases used by President Trump:  “America is packed, it is closed, turn around and go home.”  It is displayed in the ideology that sees the United States and Russia allied in a great “crusade” against the “Radical Muslim” world.  It is underlined by the theme “Make America Great Again,” as if the extension of equal rights to minority religious, ethnic and social groups has somehow made America less, not more. 

Donald Trump is not the cause of all of this.  He is a symptom, a chameleon who tapped into a dark ideology to his own benefit.  It has growing appeal, perhaps to the thirty so percent of Americans who would watch on Fifth Avenue as he shot someone. 

But it’s not just in the US. The United Kingdom’s Brexit is a similar movement, with similar support.  In the election for the European Parliament, the “Brexit” Party scored thirty-two percent of the vote.  The “anti-Brexit” parties scored thirty-two percent as well, with the remaining thirty-six percent split among the parties who are themselves split about what to do.  Other Nationalist parties in Europe didn’t do as well in the European elections as they expected, but they did gain twenty-five percent of the parliamentary seats, up from twenty.  

Nationalist parties in France and Italy, in Austria and Hungary; all are making inroads.  

Economics are the driving force behind all of this.  That will be the ultimate test for the “liberal democracies.”  Can they change the economic situation, allowing greater prosperity for all, or will they continue to allow the “one percent of the one percent” to prosper, while the rest remain stagnant.  Will the alternatives to nationalism find a way to appeal to the “better angels” of our political nature, or will the seductive forces of separation and hate win out?

History is rhyming.  We are at the point where the United States, and the world, can still make a choice between conflicting ideologies.  We can learn from the past, or we can ignore it at our peril.  We have seen all of this before, and we know where it ends.

Ohio’s NOT Clean Air Program

It’s called the “Ohio Clean Air Program.”  If you live in Ohio and watch television, you’ve seen the commercials for it.  A relatively young worker, talking about his or her job in the “clean energy” industry, worries that 2000 workers will lose their job to petroleum industry-financed forces who are against them unless House Bill 6 is passed.  It is reasonable to assume that those workers are making wind turbines, or solar panels, or electric cars.   

But they aren’t. The Nuclear industry has rebranded itself as “clean energy.”  They have somewhat of a point; they aren’t burning hydrocarbons and putting pollutants in the air.  But the “clean air program” in Ohio is actually a bailout for First Energy, the company that owns two nuclear reactors on Lake Erie; one at Oak Harbor near Toledo, and one at Perry northeast of Cleveland.  These plants currently provide twelve percent of Ohio’s electricity.  The Oak Harbor plant, Davis-Besse, started construction in 1970, while the Perry plant began in 1977.  The passage of the “Clean Air Program,” aka House Bill 6, would give First Energy a $190 million per year windfall.

They, like all nuclear plants, are “clean” energy (with the exception of thermal pollution) until they aren’t.  Standard operation produces nuclear waste that must be stored, currently onsite first in cooling pools, and then in concrete casks. With some of the byproducts hazardously radioactive for thousands of years, the ultimate disposal may be in deep mines.  Currently, those wastes remain onsite at the plants.

But the great concern with nuclear reactors is accidental release of radiation.  With both the two Ohio plants designed in the 1960’s and built in the 1970’s, fifty-year old technology is a serious concern.  Both plants are working past their anticipated lifespan.

In the meantime, the “Ohio Clean Air Program” would cut subsidies to other “clean energy” programs such as wind and solar.  In the political wrangling over the bill, when those industries refused their support, Republicans rewrote the bill to cut out what little access they had been given.  It also removes targets for clean energy production from other Ohio utilities using natural gas and coal.  And the “Clean Air Bill” would allow for coal-fired plants, the ones with the greatest amount of pollutants, to receive subsidies from their customers so they can continue to compete with cheaper natural gas plants.  

This is where the “petroleum” industry angle comes in, allowing supporters to claim that the natural gas producers are opposed to the bill because it supports nuclear and coal.  But they really aren’t. 

Whether nuclear power is an acceptable “environmental” alternative to wind or solar is a subject for a different debate.  As someone old enough to have lived during the Russian  Chernobyl plant disaster, not an American design, and the Pennsylvania Three-Mile Island crisis, I think there are credible arguments for not using nuclear energy.  But more importantly, the nuclear energy industry shouldn’t be using us.

First Energy is the main beneficiary of the House Bill 6, not the environment.  They have branded themselves as “clean energy,” but the Bill cuts funding for other clean energy sources.  They have picked the “straw-man” opponent of “big petroleum” as their opponent, trying to draw Ohio citizens to the conclusion that they are fighting petroleum-produced electricity in favor of the environment.

They aren’t.  The “Ohio Clean Air Program” is a gift to the twice-bankrupted First Energy, and will ultimately result in more pollution. It will remove standards first set in 2008 for Ohio’s electricity producers, and allow subsidized coal energy production, the worst offending polluter.

It’s a Republican dominated State House in Ohio, and the number of political donations from coal, gas, and nuclear energy producers is high.  It should be no surprise then, that the “winner” in the “Ohio Clean Air Program” isn’t Ohio’s clean air, or the citizens that breathe it.  Nor are the truly “clean energy” industries, the wind farms, solar, and geo-thermal encouraged to keep producing in Ohio (an estimated 112,000 jobs versus the estimated 4000 combined at Davis-Besse and Perry.)  They are left on their own, and we depend on the engineering of the 1960’s to protect us on Lake Erie. 

Not a great choice.

It’s Memorial Day Again

Memorial Day: the day to remember those who have died in the service of our nation.  As Lincoln said at Gettysburg:  “It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.” 

Generations are defined by war.  The beginnings of Memorial Day were in “Decoration Days” started during the Civil War, when both Northerners and Southerners placed flags and wreaths upon the graves of those lost.  After the War, that became a tradition for both sides to, at the beginning of the summer season, decorate graves.  In 1860 the population of the United States was just over thirty million; 600,000 died in the war, two percent.   (Two percent of today’s population would be almost eight million.)  There were plenty of graves to decorate; plenty of veterans to honor.  These ceremonies grew into the Memorial Day of today, along with the picnics and the politics that went along, both then and now.

I think of Memorial Day as a day to remember those who I personally knew earned the honor.  I think of my parents, part of the Greatest Generation, who lived amazing lives after their War. I think of my friends, who suffered from the effects of their war, Vietnam, for the rest of their lives. And I think of my “kids,” those who I taught and coached in school, who came back from their wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Many of them suffer from the physical and mental effects of America’s long involvement in the Middle East.  They all offered their lives up for their country, willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.

When I was a young teacher here in Pataskala, Ohio, there was an older man who wandered around town. He wasn’t homeless, but he was of “lost mind.”  He walked the streets talking to himself, and the young kids who saw him were scared. Older kids thought he was someone to be made fun of, but the local merchants took care of him.  There was always a cup of coffee, or a hamburger available as he wandered from place to place.

I found out his story, eventually.  He was a young man, only seventeen, when he volunteered to serve in the World War II Navy.  His ship went to the Pacific, and in the midst of battle, was torpedoed and sinking.  Somewhere between when the torpedo hit and when he was dragged from the ocean waters several hours later, he had lost his mind.

Young people go to war willing to sacrifice for their nation.  They think of death, they think of wounds, of amputations.  But they don’t ever think that they could lose what they value most, themselves, and survive.  But this young man did.

He lived with family here in town.  The kids in town learned his story, and most appreciated the ultimate sacrifice he had made, and more importantly respected his right to be left alone.  He was our little town’s Memorial Day, every day.

There are many veterans like him on the streets today. According to Government figures, there are over 40,000 homeless veterans, nine percent of the homeless population.  For some homelessness is a choice, made as a result of their service.  For most it is a combination of circumstance, disability, and substance abuse.  For all it is a lousy repayment for their record of service.  For some of us, it may be too much or too scary to directly interact with them, but as we walk quickly past with eyes averted, keep in mind, one in ten fought for us.

It’s Memorial Day. The sun is out, the burgers are on the grill, the beer is cold in the cooler.  As we celebrate the beginning of summer and the end of school; remember those we have asked for sacrifice.  To quote Hamilton (once again) – 

            “Raise a Glass to Freedom – Something they can never take away.“

Raise a glass to those who have sacrificed for our freedom.  Their service is something that “…can never be taken away.”  Then remember them as the friends they were – and drink up.  It’s what they would want us to do.  

Keeping Secrets

Julian Assange was indicted in Federal Court yesterday.  These new charges are called “superseding” indictments; they are replacing the original indictments that were secretly filed a few years ago.  We learned about those original indictments because of a mistake by an Assistant United States Attorney in the Federal Eastern District of Virginia, who copied “boiler plate” paragraphs from the sealed Assange document to an unrelated indictment, and included too much.

Julian Assange is the creator of Wikileaks, an international website that prides itself on publishing secrets.  Its first secret was released in December 2006, a Somali order to assassinate government officials.  Even in this first “secret” the United States was implicated, with Wikileaks commenting that the order might be misinformation put out by US intelligence.

Wikileaks took on other powers, including Swiss banks, Kenyan politicians, the Chinese suppression of Tibet, and Scientology.   But Assange often came back to US intelligence, including “procedures” used at the Guantanamo prison and internal Defense Department documents.  But the first big “hit” against the US came in April of 2010. It revealed unedited video of US helicopter airstrikes in Baghdad, where civilians were “collateral damage.”  One of those attacks killed two Reuters news agency staff and wounded several children.  

That information was given to Assange and Wikileaks by a US soldier named Chelsea Manning.  She leaked over 750,000 US diplomatic cables, videos, and other classified documents to Assange, most of them published on Wikileaks.  Manning ultimately was charged with espionage, confessed in Federal Court, and sentenced to thirty-five years in prison.  Her sentence was commuted by President Obama after serving seven years.

Assange went onto to publish the information stolen by National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, and, of course, the stolen Democratic National Committee emails during the 2016 election.  He was charged with sexual assault and rape in Sweden, and claimed asylum in the Ecuadoran embassy in London, where he stayed for seven years.  Last month the government of Ecuador kicked him out, and he was taken into custody by the British police.

The original sealed Federal indictment accused Assange of directly aiding Manning in stealing classified materials.  The US government had evidence of Assange helping Manning figure out the passwords to break into the system.  This indictment seemed like a clean case of aiding and abetting someone stealing classified materials.

Yesterday’s superseding indictment changed the entire legal nature of the charges.  It charged Assange with eighteen counts of espionage against the United States by publishing classified materials.  This alters the “criminal act(s)” from aiding in the theft of classified documents, to the actual publishing of those same documents.

I don’t like Julian Assange. He was a “tool” of Russian Intelligence in their attack on the US elections, and most particularly on Hillary Clinton.  And while I understand the “whistleblower” aspect of Manning and Snowden, there also was tremendous damage done to US interests by their releases.  

Wikileaks is a platform for the release of secret and often embarrassing information.  In the rapidly evolving world of information, it is hard to differentiate between “journalism” and something else.  Wikileaks claims to be a news source and a journalistic business, similar to a newspaper.  Like it or not, the Wikileaks releases, from Manning to Snowden to the Podesta emails; all ended up on the front pages mainstream newspapers like the New York Times, the Washington Post, and even the Columbus Dispatch.

The new indictments attempt to make it espionage to publish information that is classified.  The fact that it is filed against Julian Assange makes it little different than filing against the AG Sulzberger of the Times, Fred Ryan of the Post or Bradley Harmon of the Dispatch.  It also seems to be a government attempt to overturn the long established Supreme Court ruling in the 1971 Pentagon Papers case, where it was held that the Times and the Post could not be restrained from publishing leaked Pentagon documents.

For more conspiratorial readers, the new indictments may have an even more sinister intent.  Filing espionage charges against Assange for publishing will put the United Kingdom courts in their own “freedom of the press” bind.  It might well be that the UK will not extradite Assange to the US for such charges, thus keeping him out of the US Court systems.  It also will keep Assange from answering questions about the source of the Democratic National Committee emails, and whether Assange coordinated their release with official or unofficial members of the 2016 Trump campaign.

Regardless of the impact on the “Russia investigation,” the new indictments put the US on a slippery slope of First Amendment freedoms.  It is easy to argue that the Snowden releases were damaging to US interests, but it is more difficult to say that other “whistleblower” information should be stifled.  If Assange was found guilty on these charges, that would be the most likely outcome. The government could keep their mistakes secret, mistakes the public needs to know.

Chew Gum and Walk

The President of the United States walked into a meeting with the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Senate Minority Leader yesterday morning.  The purpose of the meeting was to reach some agreement on a plan to improve the infrastructure of the United States of America.  This is traditionally one of the most important roles of the Government.  From the building of the National Road, to the Cumberland Canal, the Transcontinental Railroad, the National Highway System, the Interstate Highway System, America’s system of airports and air traffic control:  all have been government projects.

Some have been done under difficult circumstances.  Abraham Lincoln, in the middle of the Civil War, was able to pass legislation to enable the transcontinental railroad.  It is a constitutionally mandated power of the Government – and it is a part of the job of being a leader of the United States.

With battered roads, aging bridges, threats to the power grid and worn out dams, it is clear that “infra-structure” shouldn’t be a punch line.  And the benefits in increased employment and more efficient transportation would add to quality of American life.

The President walked into his meeting yesterday, and instead of dealing with the very real problems confronting America today, he chose to “make his stand” over Congressional investigations of his Administration.  The President “expressed his outrage” over Democratic Congressional meetings about those investigations and the Speaker using the term “cover-up,” (some would say he threw a tantrum) and then, instead of turning to the real issues at hand, he walked out, moving to a pre-prepared press briefing in the Rose Garden.  He then said he would not work with Congress until they stop all the investigations.

Many Americans have had to do their jobs under difficult circumstances.  Some continue to work while under obtrusive scrutiny of their bosses, some are frequently audited and checked.  There is an American colloquialism for that, “knowing how to walk and chew gum at the same time.”

In Trump’s previous world, where he was the sole proprietor of his business enterprise, perhaps throwing tantrums and walking out of meetings was acceptable.  There was always another building to brand, another golf course to control, or another casino to run into bankruptcy.  It seems that Mr. Trump was enabled in his actions: when he failed to pay a billion dollar loan to Deutsche Bank and they called him on it, he sued the bank.  They then lent him even more money.

But the Congress of the United States isn’t Deutsche Bank  (hopefully they aren’t as indebted to Russia.)   Sometimes in government, and in life, you have to work with those you don’t like.  It’s your JOB.

The President doesn’t have to like what Congress is doing.  Certainly Mr. Trump is continuing to act like a guilty man, something he has done since that first meeting with the Intelligence leadership in 2016 at Trump Tower.  But regardless of his ultimate guilt, he currently holds a JOB, President of the United States.  Instead of doing that job, he is holding the well being of the American people hostage.

It is certainly possible that the Democratic leadership of Congress and the President will have difficulty reaching agreement on what needs to be done here in America, and how it will be paid for.  Negotiations are often tough, and frustrating.  But, for those who voted for Trump, isn’t that what you thought he could do?  Wasn’t he the “Great Negotiator” who was the master of the “Art of the Deal?”  So, Great Master, your JOB is to go figure out how to make this deal.

Bill Clinton negotiated with Newt Gingrich, passing multiple laws, while Gingrich was in the midst of impeaching him.  Richard Nixon signed lots of legislation, making deals with Congress, even as the Watergate noose drew closer around his neck.  They could “chew gum and walk at the same time;” and wanted to get things done as President despite the Congressional investigations.

So Mr. President, take your great deal making skills, and go make a deal on infrastructure.  Go fix our roads and bridges, go repair the damages from the extreme weather we seem to have created; you might even find a little more money for your vaunted Wall.  But please, Mr. President, do your JOB.  Get over your personal affront, and get onto America’s business at hand.  Do that, or, as President Harry Truman said, “if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

A Matter of Noses

Democrats in the House of Representatives are faced with a stark choice.  They can follow the politically expedient path:  keep questioning the Trump Presidency, but emphasize the other, more popular aspects of the Democratic Agenda.  This is the direction that Speaker Nancy Pelosi would like to follow.  She rightly sees all of the benefits:  it contrasts a Democratic platform of helping the working class, solving the insurance issue, and stepping back from brinksmanship on the Southern Border and the rest of the world; with the scattered and terrifying Trump approach. The Speaker sees that as the best plan to keep the House, gain the Senate, and win the Presidency.

The other option is to proceed with impeachment proceedings, even though there is little chance that, no matter what is revealed, the Senate would ever even take up the matter, much less vote to remove the President.  The “nose count” is simple:  it requires twenty Republican Senators and all of the Democrats to agree to remove Mr. Trump.  Impeaching the President would inevitably become the singular issue in the House of Representatives, and seems to be exactly what the Trump Administration wants.  

“We want to be investigated by someone who wants to kill us just to watch us die.  We need someone perceived by the American people to be irresponsible, untrustworthy, partisan, ambitious, and thirsty for the limelight.  Am I crazy, or is this not a job for the House of Representatives?” (CJ Cregg in the television series, – The West Wing– air date, October 24, 2001)

The President and his strategists must have watched a lot ofWest Wing over the years; echoes of the show turn up in many of the White House actions (not that I would ever equate Trump with the fictional Josiah Bartlet.) They have reached the same political decision:  that the best move for them is to let the House of Representatives investigate, and even better, move to impeach the President.  The Trump “aura” has always been that of a victim, treated unfairly first by the Republican Party, then by the media, then by the intelligence agencies, and now by the House.  What better  “victim” image then to be impeached.  Trump will claim that the House is trying to overturn the “will of the voters,” despite losing the election by over three million votes, and try to ride that victimhood to four more years of the Presidency.

And he can make that look even better, by trying to stymie every move of the House to gather information. Regardless of the law, the President has tried to prevent witnesses from testifying and House committees from gathering information.  He has even claimed “executive privilege” over the redacted portions of the Mueller Report, and is actively preventing Mueller himself from testifying to the House Judiciary Committee.  And if the Courts overrule him, then Trump can claim to be a “victim” and then show himself to his base as a winner, fighting the unrelenting “liberals,” the “Obama Courts” and the “media.”

With all of this, why would the House even consider the “I-word” impeachment?  The answer is simple:  duty.

The House of Representatives, according to the Constitution, has the ”sole power” of impeachment (US Constitution Art. 1, §2.)  With the Department of Justice’s ruling that the President of the United States cannot be indicted or prosecuted while in office, the House becomes the only check on Presidential power, behavior, or criminality.   The President can be impeached and removed from office for “…committing treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” (US Constitution Art II, § 4.)

The House is the ultimate check on Presidential powers and actions.  If the members of the House determine that the President has in fact committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” (high crimes are not necessarily legally defined felonies, but are actions that go against the interest of the Constitution or the US Government); then they have an obligation under the Constitution to proceed. Though impeachment has seldom been exercised, only three times in US History; that rarity emphasizes its importance. 

House members have a Constitutional duty to determine if a President has committed an impeachable offense.  That determination process is through investigation; it would be dereliction of that duty if the House failed to examine witnesses and documents to determine if offenses have occurred.  With the evidence already publicly available about President Trump’s actions presenting a “prima facie” case, it is difficult to see how the House cannot proceed.

My mother used to have an expression: “don’t cut your nose off to spite your face.”  It took a long time for me to understand what she meant by that, but what I finally determined was that I shouldn’t do something, even if it seemed like the right thing to do, if it ultimately made the situation worse. 

Duty: the House must investigate the President. The best and legally most effective way to do this is to start impeachment proceedings.  Politics:  Democrats want to end the Trump Presidency and the McConnell tyranny in the Senate. The best way to do that, continue to contrast Democratic ideas with Republican actions.

So Speaker Pelosi, and the Democrats of the House of Representatives are faced with that difficult choice, political expediency, or Constitutional duty — and the nose thing.   

Field of Dreams and History

Baseball– James Earl Jones soliloquy from Field of Dreams

I was a “track” guy.  I played baseball until I was thirteen, but when I was twelve, I read the Jesse Owens story and went to a flat spot in the back yard and dug holes for my starting marks.  I didn’t know then, that there were devices called “blocks” that you used to start, but I knew I could be fast.  My commitment was cemented by meeting Jesse Owens himself when I was fifteen; about ten minutes of two “220 guys” talking shop.  I ran; Junior High, Junior Olympic, High School and College, then onto a forty year coaching career and now officiating.  I was a “track” guy.

But I went to a Cincinnati Reds games this weekend, the first one since – well, I was working for Jimmy Carter in his first Presidential campaign, and the infield was Perez, Morgan, Concepcion and Rose:  the “Big Red Machine.”  We’d sit in the high, high seats in Riverfront Stadium, drink ‘3.2’ Beer, smoke cheap cigars and watch the “Machine” take the National League apart on their way to a second World Series Championship.

Riverfront was the massive 60,000 seat stadium then, home to the Reds in summer and the Bengals in the fall. It replaced Crosley Field (I always loved Crosley, I think because Dad worked for Crosley Broadcasting), where baseball was played from 1912 to 1970, and put sports front and center in downtown. Riverfront marked Cincinnati’s commitment to keeping major league sports, and the city re-upped their allegiance in the late nineties by building two new stadiums near the same site, Paul Brown Stadium for the Bengals, and the Great American Ballpark for the Reds.

Great American is a mix of the best of Crosley, Riverfront, and Cincinnati.  The concessions are lined with Cincinnati favorites: Graeters and Skyline, Frischs, and Khans.  Sitting behind the left field wall it seems you aren’t that far from home plate; there aren’t many “nose bleed” seats among the 42,000 available.  And when you sit in the sun and watch the game, you feel the history, the story, of the Reds, Cincinnati, baseball and America.

The Reds were in the “1912” throwback uniforms, but they really didn’t look out of place in 2019.  The game was about trying to beat the Dodgers (they didn’t) but it was also about making little kids become part of “the game.”  Before the first pitch, kids from Celina, a small town in Ohio, were put in all nine positions on the field.  When the Reds starting lineup were introduced, the players went to their positions besides the kids, and autographed their hats.  One kid wanted a hug; he got it right there at second base.

It’s about kids, it’s about a game that has been played since 1869, it’s about the pride of a mid-sized city and a common thread through America.   When I sit in the outfield at Great American, I think about walking with my Dad in the early 1960’s at Crosley.  I recall long trips in the car, marveling how we could listen to the Reds on 700 WLW radio even though we were hundreds of miles away from home, waiting for announcer Joe Nuxhall to sign off, saying he’s “…rounding third and headed for home.”  

I’m a track guy, but baseball is about American history:  the grand years of the 1920’s, and the sole entertainment of the Great Depression.  It’s story includes the influence of Jackie Robinson, the man who broke the color barrier in the majors in 1947, and the place where today “old white men” (like me) listen to rap, hip hop, and Latin music, as each player has his own “theme song” coming up to bat.

I’m a track guy, and there’s nothing that get me as fired up as a tight 4×400 Relay in the hot sun at the state high school track meet.  But even this devoted track fan has to admit, there’s a whole world of history and America, out there in left field, section 104  two rows up from the wall, at the Great American Ballpark. 

It’s a Matter of Faith

I had a long conversation with an old Republican friend the other day.  We were talking about what the Justices of the Supreme Court would do with the Alabama abortion ban.  I expressed concern that the five Federalist Society Justices would move to overturn the forty-six year precedent of Roe v Wade and its related cases.  He responded with “faith.”

He had faith that the members of the Supreme Court would stay with their conservative view of the power of precedence in the law.  Faith, that they would see the Alabama case for what it was:  a challenge to the Court’s power to interpret the law.  Faith, that the Court would defend the continuity of law; rather than fall into the ideological argument over this particular case. Faith in stare decisis, Latin for “stand by things decided;” taught as the bedrock of the law from day one of law school.

My faith in the “bedrock principles” of Republican leaders has been sorely tested in the past two years.  I have seen many, really most, abandon the principles they have avowed their entire lives, and fall into the thrall of the Trump Presidency.  The only ones who seemed to have the courage of their convictions were on their way out:  McCain, Flake, Corker, Kasich.  They stood for what they believed, then departed from the scene.

I have always believed in American exceptionalism.  I ascribe to the theory, that Americans will rise to the crisis, that a man who led no more than a platoon could rise to lead an army and a nation (Washington) or a country lawyer save it (Lincoln.)  This is what Americans do.

I was raised on the stories told by John F. Kennedy in his book Profiles in Courage; that Americans would be willing to sacrifice their careers for the Constitution and nation they served.  My favorite:  Edmund G. Ross, the Republican Senator from Kansas who turned against his party and voted to prevent the removal of President Andrew Johnson.  He had no love for the President, but he recognized that his impeachment and removal would fundamentally alter the Constitutional balance of power.  He gave up his career with his vote, but he stood for his convictions of what the Constitution, and the Country, meant.

That belief has been sorely tested in the past two years.  I have seen men that I disagreed with but admired, Republican leaders of our nation; silenced by a “Tweet.”  I have seen dedicated Americans who did their duty as they saw it, literally “flayed in the public square.”  Men like James Comey, John Brennan, Andrew McCabe, and even the terribly flawed Peter Strzok, all were faced with an apocalyptic choice. They could either investigate a possible arrangement between a Presidential candidate and Russian intelligence and risk their careers; or ignore what the evidence demonstrated, and allow the possibility of a Manchurian Candidate turned real.

There are those who have shown courage on the Democratic side:  Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Maxine Waters, Elijah Cummings, and perhaps most of all, Nancy Pelosi.  They have all been attacked, all excoriated by the President and his minions; and all have stood firm for what they believe is the good of our nation. 

There are only three paths from our current crisis.  The facts can be brought out into the light of day, as they were exposed in the Watergate hearings.  Americans can hear for themselves without the filter of Attorney General Barr or Rudy Giuliani; Robert Mueller’s unvarnished facts in cold, hard testimony.  Then the people can decide what needs be done.

That will require some bipartisanship, some breaking of the silent “red” wall.  Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina has allowed a crack, subpoenaing the President’s son, but it will take more than one to allow the American people access to the facts.

This will also require the Supreme Court to decide whether the President’s “stonewall” against all investigation and subpoenas can hold.  Stare decisis should determine their decision, but this Court has yet to be openly tested.  Of the five Federalist Society members in the majority, where will they stand?  At least one, probably Chief Justice Roberts, will need to fulfill my old friend’s expectation, his faith.

Or, as I now expect will be the case, the American people will decide themselves; educated by whatever means they have available, in the 2020 elections.  Republican voters will have to decide whether to stick with their leader, regardless of what he has done, justifying their gains in the Courts and the stock market against his personal and political behavior.  They will have to decide to exercise the courage their leaders have been unable to find, in the secrecy of the voting booth.

Or, finally; America will be unalterably changed, and the laws, norms and behaviors of the current Republican Administration becomes who we are. 

It just takes a little faith.

It Was Obama’s Fault

It is the “new” party line for Trumpsters.  It goes something like this:

1. The Mueller Report proves that Trump didn’t do anything wrong in 2016, but
2. President Obama didn’t do enough to stop Russian involvement in 2016, so
3. When Trump worked with the Russians in 2016, it wasn’t his fault, it was Obama’s fault.

So, Trumpers, now it’s time to stick your index fingers in your ears, wave with your hands and say:  “neener – neener – neener.”

Step One – The Report

The Mueller Report did NOT prove that Donald Trump, has children, or his campaign were innocent of helping and getting help from Russia in the 2016 Presidential election.  It actually proves the contrary:  that they not only were interested, but they in fact welcomed Russian involvement and help.  There are one hundred and one known contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians (Business Insider).  There are statements from the candidate (“Russia, if you’re listening, find Hillary’s missing emails”) and the son (“dirt on Hillary – love it”).  There are Campaign Chairman meetings with Russian agents in the Manhattan Cigar Bar, and phone calls from the future National Security Advisor and the Presidential son-in-law.

What the Mueller Report did say, was that they were unable to put together a case  “beyond a reasonable doubt” to bring legal charges. The Report also states that obstruction, perjury, and evidence tampering all had roles in their inability to reach that legal standard.

Step Two – What President Obama Did

President Obama took several actions prior to the 2016 election, including a warning from the US Intelligence Agencies to the American people.  That warning got lost as it was released, the day after the “Access Hollywood Tape” and the Wikileaks drop of the Podesta emails, but the warning was clear.  Obama wanted to do more, including a joint message from the Democrat and Republican leadership about Russian interference, but Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan chose not to agree.

So the President was faced with a choice:  speak out himself and risk looking like he was putting his “thumb on the scale” of the 2016 election, or work in the background against the Russian intervention. He chose, right or wrong, to avoid the perception of taking a side.  We certainly know that the Trump Campaign would have screamed from the farthest rally stage had he spoken out.  From Mr. Obama’s perspective, it was a lose-lose proposition.

Step Three – What Trump Really Did

We expect that most people who dare to dream of being President, bring with them a “norm” of patriotism.  Common sense would indicate, that working with or receiving help from a foreign power would be “de facto” unpatriotic, and unacceptable.  There aren’t “laws” written about that, because it was such a “given” that no one thought laws were necessary.  But with the advent of Donald Trump as a Presidential candidate, there were no such things as “norms.”  All of the respected rules of behavior were not only ignored, but those “norms” were in fact ridiculed and intentionally rejected.  Trump made “breaking the rules” a campaign theme.  Mueller was forced to try to stretch existing conspiracy law to fit what was clearly wrong, but didn’t fit into a neat legal statute.  

(This, by the way, is another reason Congress should investigate what happened in the Trump campaign.  Their primary duty is to write “good” laws for the United States, if the “norm” of not cooperating with foreign powers isn’t a law, then it should be.)

It isn’t President Obama’s fault, though hindsight would suggest he should have taken the chance and spoken out publicly.  What is true, is that President Trump portrayed himself as the ultimate “victim.” He was planning on losing; of being the victim of a “rigged” election.  He even threatened not to honor the election results.  When he (along with most of the rest of the country) was surprised and won, he soon claimed to be the victim of an attempted “intelligence coup” to stop his Presidency.

Step Four – “Neener-Neener-Neener“

The one thing Trump supporters get right – the right to thumb their noses at the rest of the country. They did, by hook or by crook, get the majority of votes in the Electoral College and win the Presidency; there’s no denying that.  The nation has been paying the price ever since.  But don’t buy Trump’s victimhood, and don’t buy the false narrative of the Mueller Report as proof of innocence.  And don’t let Barack Obama get stuck with the blame for Trump becoming President:  after all, it was you and me*. 

*credit where credit is due, thanks to the Rolling Stones for that phrase, and see you soon!!!!

Life, Politics and Alabama

I was wrong.  I thought that the pro-birth program to outlaw women’s choice to have abortions was a gradual one.  I thought that they were going to “chip away” at the right to choose, slowly convincing the Supreme Court to restrict the Roe v Wade decision. I thought the ultimate goal was to return the United States to a pre-1973 standing, when states would decide individually whether to restrict abortion, or ban it.

I was in good company in that thinking:  states like New York and Virginia had already altered their laws in anticipation of changes in the Court’s interpretation of the Roe case.  But the pro-birth supporters, the ones who look to ultimately ban all abortions in the United States have made a different decision. They are “going for it all.”

When a human life begins is an ethical and religious concept.  Science can outline in detail the progress of conception and pregnancy. We have absolute knowledge of the stages of development of the fetus.  What science cannot determine is at what point that potential human life becomes an actual, legal person.

Some, notably the Roman Catholic Church, believe that even contraception, preventing pregnancy, is wrong. Their view is the only moral way to prevent pregnancy is not to have sex.  They have gone onto legalize their view, joining others in going to Court to attack laws that require Catholic insurers to provide for contraceptive drugs and devices, most recently attacking the Affordable Care Act.  By the way, the Church has no problem with paying for drugs that support male erections.

Many other churches and individuals believe the human life begins at the moment of conception, the moment that the sperm fertilizes the egg.  Their view is that at that moment, the embryo deserves the legal right of “personhood.”  Personhood means that the only way that the embryonic “life” can be taken is to protect an equally protected “person;” the life of the mother.  

Some states have taken a third position for the purposes of their law:  that the “personhood” right is bestowed at the time that the fetal heartbeat can be detected.  Ohio is one of those states that passed a “heartbeat” bill, effectively outlawing most abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy.  Practically, most women don’t realize they are pregnant in the first six weeks; the legal result would be an almost total ban on abortion.

The Supreme Court in 1973, in its carefully nuanced decision, determined that those “personhood” legal rights, become an enforceable concern for states after the point of “fetal viability.”  Viability was determined as the earliest point in pregnancy when a child could be born and survive, somewhere after twenty weeks of pregnancy, or five months.

These are four differing standards of when a “potential” life becomes a legal “person.”  There is hardly a consensus view, but there are widely and strongly held opinions.  And given that those opinions are all about what an individual woman should do with her own body and her own life, it would be reasonable to assume that her individual opinion, her right to make a choice, should be protected.

But the pro-birth faction believes they can push their view into the law of the United States.  They have good reason:  President Trump’s two appointments to the Supreme Court, Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, are likely to vote to overturn the Roe decision. Along with conservative Justices Thomas and Alito, it would only take the one vote of conservative Chief Justice Roberts to change America.

The pro-birth plan had been to allow those conservative Justices the “cover” of restricting the Roe decision.  The Ohio “heartbeat” law was part of that cover; take the Roe reasoning, and change “fetal viability” to “fetal heartbeat.”  That would practically have the effect of banning most abortions, while not technically overturning the Roe decision.

But the “Great State” of Alabama has decided to go for it all:  the legislature has passed and the Governor has signed a total abortion ban, with the only exception being the life of the mother.  The legislature specifically considered and rejected exceptions for rape and incest:  their goal was to present the Supreme Court with a black and white choice.

Alabama is not asking the Supreme Court to turn abortion regulation back to the states, to run the clock back to before 1973.  Alabama is asking the Supreme Court to rule that human life, legal personhood, begins at conception.  They are “going for it all;” and trying to force the ultimate question on the Court. The conceit of the conservative Justices that they can maintain precedent, restrict abortion and not overrule Roe v Wade, would not be possible should they hear the Alabama case.  

Alabama’s actions are likely to mobilize the pro-choice advocates.  Since the Roe decision, the pro-birth side has had the advantage, and the motivation, to organize and pressure for change.  Pro-choice had it easy; the law was on their side. But Alabama’s law is likely to make “choice” a major issue in the 2020 elections, bringing voters out from all sides of the issue.  

According to Gallup polling, 48% of Americans identify as pro-choice, and 48% of Americans as pro-life.  In that same poll, 79% felt that abortions should be legal under any or some circumstances, while only 18% thought all abortions should be illegal.

All of which may influence the one man who will make this momentous decision for the entire nation. With five conservatives on the Court and four liberals, it will fall to the “middle” conservative, Chief Justice Roberts, to make the call.  The fate of women in this country, and of fetuses, and of the nature of the law, will be on his shoulders.

The Battle Against Smart

We seem to be in a battle; against history, against science, against education:  our society seems to be in a battle against “smart.”  There is a “meme” floating around Facebook; a cartoon showing a street sweeper working, and a woman commenting to her child “if you don’t go to college, you’ll end up like him.”  In the second panel, a woman beside her states to her child, “that man has a job with full union benefits, and makes more money than that b***h with her liberal arts degree.”  Is this a part of “Trumpism,” or, like many aspects of America today, is the Trump phenomenon just another symptom?  

Full disclosure:  I have a liberal arts degree, Bachelor of Arts from Denison University in Political Studies, and a Masters Degree in Education from Ashland University; both “liberal arts” institutions.  As a career public school teacher, there are a whole lot of people with a whole lot of different jobs that made more money than this “b***h.” 

Sherrod Brown, US Senator from Ohio, has made the touchstone of his career representing “working people.”  Brown calls it the “dignity of work,” the importance of not only earning a living, but of contributing to society by doing something of value. Brown makes it clear that how you make that contribution isn’t what’s important.  His line is, “…it doesn’t matter whether you take a shower before work, or after…”  It’s the fact that you contribute; everyone doesn’t need a college degree.

But many Americans today seem to want to relate “liberal arts” with “liberal” Democrats.   They obviously weren’t at Denison University when I was there:  most of the faculty may have voted Democrat during the 1970’s, but most of the students were Republicans.  The faculty served to challenge their views and beliefs, forcing the students to re-think (or think in the first place) why they took a particular stand, but I know that not many political affiliations were changed.

The campaign today against “science and knowledge” seems to tie into the Trump movement.  Does the reality of climate change interfere with driving your SUV:  deny climate change.  Does the gnawing fear of autism make you crazy:  don’t get your child vaccinated.  Do the factual statements of the media conflict with your world view: call it “fake news” and keep the television on Fox.

Don’t like abortion?  Write a law requiring ectopic pregnancies to be re-implanted into the womb, a procedure that doesn’t exist, but was still considered by the State Legislature for an Ohio law.

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.  – Franklin D. Roosevelt

We depend on educated voters to make decisions in our nation.  We have prided ourselves on the accomplishments of our knowledge; from the vaccines that some now deny, to the journey to the moon (also denied) that we now are trying to replicate. When we were confronted with the dangers of lead in our gas, or chlorofluorocarbons in our spray cans; we made the scientific and engineering discoveries and social changes that solved the problems. All these advances were made through education.

We called for more mathematicians and engineers in the 1950’s, and we got them in the 1960’s and 1970’s.  They produced the technology that we take for granted today. Americans need to be educated.  Americans need to be able to question, and to reason, and to learn:  all products of education.  

But today, in our era of unlimited information without shield or check, folks can choose their facts like they choose their socks.   Don’t like the consequences of global warming:  there’s a series on the internet that will explain how 98% of scientists are wrong.  Don’t want to be corrected about what you think; then don’t “fact-check” it, or don’t believe the results if you do.

In the 1900’s education was often a matter of literacy:  if you couldn’t read, the world wasn’t accessible.  But if you had that skill, then getting books, the “keys to the kingdom,” opened the world of knowledge.  The stories of how a young Abraham Lincoln spent his hard earned money on books and used so much time reading under a tree, or with his long legs propped on the desk, or by candlelight at night; those are the stories of how a man educated himself on the frontier.  And when the Civil War broke out, Lincoln read everything he could find on the tactics and strategies of war; he knew how to gain knowledge:  books.

Today that kind of information is as available as your laptop, or the phone in your pocket.  Anything you might want to know, from building atomic bombs to the Karma Sutra, is a “Google Search” away.  The trickle of knowledge available to Lincoln is now a fire hose of “facts.”

“Facts”:  the new education is not about memorizing dates or knowing names; it is in learning how to handle the volume of information that can be accessed. Information used to be about availability, it’s now about “vetting,” determining what is true or not.  That is the skill educators need to impart to their students.  Lincoln learned to read, opening the world.  The modern student needs to learn how to discern truth from fiction.

But to generations not equipped with those skills, it is easy to slip into the habit of finding only the “facts” that fit their political views and to denigrate those who stand up for the “real” truth.  What could be more comforting than denying those with “degrees” who bring inconvenient truths, and using the internet to provide the “facts” to do it.

There is dignity in all work.  The guy who drives the Waste Management garbage truck is important to our society.  So is the guy sweeping up the street.  But so is the professor who walks into class to discuss philosophy, and the students who participates in that discussion.  Education is not a threat to Democracy; like that introductory course in college, it is a prerequisite.  

Do We Care Why the Civil War Began?

There seems to be a “new” hot historical debate about why the US Civil War began.  I t’s been 154 years since the end of the War, you’d think that historians would have it pretty well figured out.  And, factually, they do; but current American politics, with its focus on “fake news,” has found a way to try to revise this story of America.

Fake news:  the Civil War was fought between two sovereign countries, a “War Between the States” not a technical “civil” war.  To reach that conclusion, it requires that the US Constitution be seen as a transitory document; one that could be dissolved at the “will” of a given state government.  But the founders, and the states that ratified the Constitution, did not see their “bond” that way.

The founding fathers, children of the Enlightenment era, were incredibly aware of the power of the words they wrote.  They parsed every phrase, in full knowledge that, as the musical Hamilton notes; “…history had it eyes on them.”  So when the Constitution starts with the words  “We the People of the United States…” those words were intentional.  The Constitution was an agreement among the people, a contract of the people, and as Lincoln later added, “…by the people (and) for the people.”  It used the structure of state governments to reach those people, but it specifically does NOT say that it was a contract among the states, unlike the Articles of Confederation, the previous organizing document.  The Articles of Confederation was an agreement of “…perpetual union between the states…” and proceeded to name each state.  The Constitution did not.

The Founding Fathers understood the “perpetualness” of their agreements, first with the Articles, then with the Constitution.  They recognized that the new “American people” were the union.

A contract of the people cannot be broken by the states.  This was the key argument that Lincoln made to preserve the Union, and was confirmed in the blood of 600,000 Americans on the battlefield.  

When the “states” of the South seceded from the Union, they were exercising a “right” they did not have. When the Union acted to preserve itself by going into the South to put down that War of Rebellion (as the United States government characterized the Civil War at the time) they were not “invading,” they were putting down insurrection and restoring civil government in their own nation.

The battle of interpretation started soon after the war, when Southern apologists pushed the phrase “War Between the States” to try to reassert a state basis for secession.  It was “fake news” then, and still is today.

And why did those Southern states find it necessary to try to secede?  The answer is easy:  slavery. Take slavery out of the equation, and there is no reason for Rebellion, and no Civil War.  

The United States had spent “four score and seven years” squirming under the inherent conflict in a nation, founded in the words “…all men are created equal,” enslaving millions of humans.  While just before the War, the law allowed slavery to continue in those places where it existed, the “compromises” reached in 1850 and 1854 restricted slavery’s expansion into new territories.  

The cotton growers of the South were trapped by the economics of their product.  Cotton growing and picking required massive amounts of human labor, most easily provided by slaves.  And cotton, by the nature of the plant, wore out the ground. Long-term cotton growth required new fields; if the cotton-growers were restricted to the old South, they would ultimately fail.  To those Southerners, slavery had to expand to the new territories, or their whole economic model would collapse.

They could not tolerate restriction.  Therefore, they had to either expand slavery, or rebel.  The rest of the Union, recognizing that slavery was incompatible with America’s founding principles, was not willing to allow that expansion. 

It is certainly true that the Civil War did not begin as a war to “free slaves.”  It was fought to preserve the Union, and as Lincoln said at the time:

“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

He wrote this just a few weeks before the battle at Antietam, where in one day over 22,000 men were killed, wounded, captured or went missing.  But it was right after Antietam that Lincoln authored the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in those parts of the United States in rebellion.  He did it to hurt the Rebels, and he did it to encourage the abolitionists.  But he also did it with full knowledge that once on the course of freeing slaves, there was no turning back for the United States.  He knew that Union victory and the end of the War would be the end of slavery.

In today’s politics many try to rewrite history. Some see an advantage in restricting the Federal government, particularly when it comes to expanding civil and religious rights.  To those who claim that the Southern states were simply claiming their Constitutional sovereignty by seceding, and therefore states have similar rights to ignore the Federal government today, it is simply not true.  And to those who claim that the Civil War wasn’t “about slavery,” and therefore the Secessionists weren’t fighting to maintain ownership of humans, that’s not true either.  

Political convenience today does not allow us to revise the sacrifices of our ancestors.  They knew what they were fighting for, and against, and so should we.

Stockholm Syndrome

 …Stockholm syndrome, in which hostages begin to develop positive feelings toward their captors, an effect thought to occur when victims’ initially frightening experiences with their kidnappers are later countered with acts of compassion or camaraderie by those same individuals.

The Stockholm Syndrome:  when a person taken hostage develops positive feelings towards their captor.  While this psychological state was named in 1973 after a bank robbery turned hostage situation in Sweden, Americans know it best from the Patty Hearst kidnapping.

In 1974, the nineteen year old heir to the Hearst newspaper fortune Patty Hearst was kidnapped by leftist radicals who called themselves the Symbionese Liberation Army.  They held her for nineteen months, demanding that her parents donate millions to feed the poor.  Her father donated $2 million to a San Francisco food distribution group.   Two months after her captivity,  now calling herself Tania, she joined her kidnappers in a bank robbery, holding an M-1 Rifle on the customers.  She recorded an audiotape for the public, stating that she had become a member of the SLA.

For the next several months, she crisscrossed the nation with her fellow SLA members, participating in multiple crimes.  While the majority of the group were killed in a shoot out with police, Hearst and a few others survived and tried to revive the SLA.  After participating in a bank robbery where a customer was murdered, Hearst was finally captured in in a San Francisco apartment.  On getting booked into jail, she gave her occupation as an “urban guerilla.”

Hearst was ultimately convicted of bank robbery and sentenced to thirty-five years.  She served less than two:  her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter, and ultimately she was pardoned by Bill Clinton.  

As a “Democrat/Resistancer” I watch the leaders of the Republican Party and wonder, have they become victims of the Stockholm Syndrome?  There certainly are true believers, the Lewandowskis, Millers and Sanders.  And there are those who have found Mr. Trump as someone “clearing the road” for them to lead a similar political life: Jim Justice, the governor of West Virginia, a multi-millionaire who refuses to even live in the capital of the State, is a great example of that.

But what of the “regular” Republican leadership, what happened to them?  Mitch McConnell is following his singular course of packing the Federal judiciary with his ideological view, and obviously is willing to pay almost any other price to achieve that goal.  But what about the Republicans that seemed “normal”:  Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Thom Tillis, and all of the rest who have taken an almost sycophantic position to Mr. Trump?

Christie, Graham and Paul all ran against Trump in 2016.  They all were pounded mercilessly by Trump criticism, tweet, and insult.  Like Patty Hearst when she was first kidnapped, they were faced with political death.  Don’t believe me – check the further career of Jeb Bush.   So they have made the choice, or maybe they in fact fell into the Stockholm Syndrome. If you listen to those politicians today, agreeing with every political move, justifying every outlandish tweet, and becoming “the President’s Men,” they aren’t pretending to agree with Trump. They are true believers, members of the cult.

Even the much-maligned Jeff Sessions still longs to be part of the “Trump Army,” spouting the Trump rhetoric even after his political neutering by the President.   

These “men of the Senate” are willing to give away the power and prerogatives of that body, allowing the President to set precedents that they would never accept from a Democrat.  They have allowed Mr. Trump’s perceived political influence to threaten them so much, that they have abandoned long cherished principles, and friends like John McCain, to kowtow to him.  Their incredible one-hundred eighty degree turnabout on tariffs is only the latest example.

Anticipation of political death must be so terrifying, that men of power are willing to give up, give in, and join the “SLA” to keep their careers.   They need to give up their names:  Lindsey, Thom, Marco, Rand, Chris, Jeff:  they can all be “Tania” now.

There is a 1990’s movie, made before the Clinton scandals and the extreme polarization of today’s political world.  “Dave” with Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline, was a story of a President who has a stroke, and his lookalike, Dave, is put in his place.  Dave ran a temporary job service in “real life,” and brought that perspective to his illegitimate Presidency.

In the climatic scene – Dave as President speaks to the Congress, and says: 

See, there are certain things you should expect from a President.  I ought to care more about you than I do about me… I ought to care more about what’s right than I do about what’s popular… I ought to be willing to give this whole thing up for something I believe in… (Dave “the whole truth”)

It’s an old movie, but it’s a message that the “Tania’s” in the Senate ought to hear. It might remind them why they were elected, and what their duty to America should be.

The Noose

Every junior high kid has a “talent,” something they can do that other kids can’t.  Some can cross their eyes, some wiggle their ears, some are double jointed and can pull their shoulders together.  I had a couple: I could “roll” my tongue like a wave, and I could tie a “legal” noose.

A “legal” noose is one with thirteen wraps.  It was something I must have looked up; in all of my Boy Scout training in knots and lashings, I don’t ever remember the “noose” class. But somehow I learned how to tie one, along with a bowline-on-a-bite and a diagonal hitch.  In junior high you could usually tell what classrooms I was in; the drawstrings for the blinds would often have one of my knots tied into the ends.  A noose was part of the repertoire.

In 1969 in Kettering, Ohio outside of Dayton, I never thought of the “noose” as a racist symbol. I thought of it as a cool knot with a symbolic history in the American West; that’s where the horse thieves and the murderers would find themselves, literally, at the end. And I could make a “legal” one.

Kettering was a very, very, white community in the late 1960’s.  It was a residential suburb of Dayton, a town that was booming with Delco, National Cash Register, Frigidaire, and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.  In my junior high there was one black family, my two friends from Scouts, but no one else.  I don’t know what they thought of nooses, or whether they knew they were mine. 

It’s a different world today, fifty years later.  We have a much greater understanding of the symbolism in racism, from calling someone a “boy” or worse, to “driving while black,” and to the “noose.”  We now know, and should have realized even back in 1969, that a noose is the symbol of lynching, of enforcing racist standards by torture and murder.  While in 1969 I didn’t have any idea of that, in 2019 one would have to be willfully ignorant not to make the connection. I wish that someone had told me of the racial significance then, I would have stopped in a second.  I didn’t believe that message then, or now, and I wouldn’t have wanted to send it.

This week in an elementary school in Palmdale, teachers found a noose tied into a length of rope. Palmdale is a community in Southern California.  Diversity is a big part of Palmdale, with 24.5% of the population white-Hispanic, 24.5% non-Hispanic white, and 15% black.  In 2019, finding a noose in a length of rope, even in an elementary school, sends a message. The teachers should have read it.

Instead, they took a group picture, four elementary teachers, smiling, pointing at the noose held up by one of them.  The photographer was their principal.   And like all such pictures, taken as a “joke” for the inner circle of teacher-friends, it got out.  The local TV station picked up the story (CBS 9) and the whole community blew up.

The community is right. Even though these are veteran and respected teachers, they have, at the least, revealed an ignorance and insensitivity to racism.  At the worst, they are in fact insensitive racists.  Either way, they have brought into question their twenty-year careers, and shaken the confidence of the community in their classes, and their school system.

As for the Principal behind the camera, she was applying to become Superintendent.  Now she, and her four staff members, are on paid administrative leave.  Whether they keep their jobs or not, they have displayed incredibly poor judgment, and lost the trust of the parents in Palmdale.

It wasn’t right for a thirteen year old back in 1969, even though there was no “intent.”  For five seasoned educators in 2019 California, or anywhere else in the United States, it is unacceptable.   We all need to get the message.

This is Our Solution?

Kids shooting other kids at school:  it seems that since the 1990’s we have been struggling with how to deal with this. We have tried lockdowns, run aways, and throwing rocks, balls, and soup cans.  The police went from waiting outside to negotiate, to charging in to take down the shooter.  

But the drumbeat of shootings goes on and on and on.  In the last two weeks we have had two school shootings, one in Charlotte, North Carolina, and one in suburban Denver.  And while we adults have come up with all sorts of ideas and training to prepare our students for what seems like the inevitable attack, nothing has worked.

So the students have found their own way.  Someone; some heroic kid, attacks the shooter.  They are likely to be killed in the attempt, but as long as the shooter doesn’t have an assault rifle, there’s a reasonable chance that the first attacker will slow up the carnage.  Then, others will have time to run, or to mass and overwhelm the “gun.”

Riley Howell:  he was a soccer goalie in high school, and now was studying environmental science.  When a shooter entered his classroom at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Riley Howell chose to attack rather than hide.  He knocked the shooter down, pinning him until the police arrived.  Riley died from gunshot wounds.  

Kendrick Castillo: four days from his graduation at the STEM School at Highland Ranch, he wanted to become a Marine.  He was a four-year member of the STEM School robotics club. When the shooter came through his classroom door, he charged rather than hide under a desk.  He took the shots, but knocked the shooter down.  His classmates then controlled the shooter until the police arrived.  Kendrick died from gunshot wounds. 

We need to celebrate their heroism.  We need to say their names, rather than the names of the shooters.  We need to be proud of their sacrifice, and we need to recognize the sorrow of their parents and friends.  These were obviously two very special men.

But Riley and Kendrick also represent an absolute failure of our society to deal with our problem.  We have given the students nothing:  no solution, no way to avoid what seems to be a more and more frequent tragedy.  We have said:  we can’t fix this, do it yourself.

We have allowed our political divisiveness to handcuff our actions.  Politicians; those elected officials to whom we have entrusted the honor of finding solutions to our problems, are so afraid of offending radicalized gun owners, that they do nothing.  Nothing, that is, besides sending their thoughts and prayers to the parents of Riley and Kendrick.

There are lots of solutions that might take the guns out of the hands of the shooters.  But we are so paralyzed by political fear that we can’t even agree to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, much less kids at the door of the classroom.  We have checked our courage at that door, and allowed these young adults, and the ones who have been marching since Parkland, to carry it for us.

We, adults in the United States, are making a choice.  We are ALLOWING this to go on.  We are making the political choice to do what is easy, nothing; rather than what is hard. By not reaching a solution, coming up with a plan better than sacrificing the best or throwing soup cans; we are failing the future, our children.

Other nations do it. Whether you like the solution or not, New Zealand took less than two weeks to react to a white nationalist attack, and ban assault weapons.  Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and most of the rest of the industrial world has found a way to protect their kids.  

We need to overcome our impotence.  We need to stop asking our best to sacrifice themselves to protect their classmates. We need to act as adults and find real solutions. It’s what our kids expect us to do.

No Taxation Without Representation

The “Sons of Liberty” were some of the “up and coming” men of Boston.  They were merchants and craftsmen, journalists and lawyers, and plenty of common workers.  They believed that they were English citizens, with the right to representation in the legislature.  But they had none, and resented taxes that were levied on them by the far-away British Parliament.

The most noxious tax for them, was the “tea tax,” a charge of ten percent on tea imported into Boston, and the rest of the American colonies.  Like coffee in America today, tea was the drink of choice for most Americans in the 1700’s. This tax wasn’t charged directly to the consumer, but to the colonial merchants who received the tea on consignment from the British East India Company, the primary tea exporter.

But the merchants then, like merchants today, didn’t “absorb” the cost of the tax.  They passed it onto the consumer.

In protest, the Sons of Liberty gathered at the Old South Meeting House on the night of December 16, 1773, and dressed in costumes resembling the Mohawk tribe.  They went down to the harbor, boarded three ships, and dumped 342 chests of tea into the sea.

The current President of the United States has said he will impose $200 billion in tariff (tax) increases on Chinese goods starting on Friday. Best Buy, Apple, and Wal-Mart are not likely to “absorb” the cost, just as the merchants of 1773 didn’t absorb the tea tax.  Like days of yore, the $200 billion will not be a tax on the Chinese, in the sense that they will be the ones who pay.  If the tariffs are enacted, then it will be the American consumer that will pay the increased costs. 

In the current Administration’s defense, China has been a unfaithful trading partner.  They underpay their workers and subsidize their businesses with government funds.   They also boldly steal intellectual property; ignoring American copyrights and patents by simply taking the plans and products, reverse engineering the processes, and make the goods themselves.  They are not fair partners.

There are few in the business world who defend the Chinese trading practices.  It is clearly time to “reset” the relationship.  But Americans be warned:  the “reset” is going to require Americans to suffer.  The $200 billion will not come from Chinese coffers; it will come from our bank accounts.

In the long term, it might encourage Americans to purchase American made products rather than “made in China.”  The problem: the vast majority of computer chips, electronic goods, and machinery come from China and are not made in the “good ol’ USA.”  So if you want an IPhone, or a Sony television (components),  you’re going to pay more.

And like any good trade war, don’t expect that China is going to accept their “punishment” without consequences.  China will retaliate on US imports:  aircraft (though they could probably get a good price on Boeing’s 737 Max’s right now,) optical and medical instruments, and agricultural goods.  China buys $9.3 billion in American farm goods.  They have already raised taxes on some. And China has gone shopping, getting products from other places and simply not buying from US farms. 

So Americans will be left baring the burden of this tariff fight, particularly the American farmer.  

Ross Perot was a wealthy businessman who ran as an Independent for President in 1992.  Perot advocated Americans “bite the bullet,” pay off the Federal debt, and reset our trade positions with the rest of the world. He let America know that his plan would hurt, causing financial difficulty for many, but was necessary in the long run.  He received almost 19% of the popular vote.

President Trump always ran as a “tariff” guy.  But he is about to “rip the bandage off” of America’s trade policy, and it will be the American people, and particularly the American farmer, that will feel the pain. He needs to make it clear that the $200 billion tariff increase on China is really a $200 billion tax increase on Americans.

Or perhaps modern day Sons of Liberty will go to the Port of Los Angeles, and dump IPhones into the Pacific.

No Collusion

Collusion – “a deceitful agreement or compact between two or more persons, for the one party to bring an action against the other for some evil purpose, as to defraud a third party of his right.” – Blacks Law Dictionary

Looking at the Black’s Law Dictionary definition of Collusion – it sounds bad, and it definitely sounds like it ought to be illegal.  To participate in “collusion” means having a “compact for evil purpose” and to “defraud.”  But as we have heard over and over again from the many attorneys that have peppered the media for the past two years, there is no US law against collusion.

Some of the Trump Campaign actions that are called “collusion” describe behaviors that might well fall under the definition of conspiracy against the United States under Federal Law (18 US Code §371):

If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

It is not a “legal mistake” that the President, his attorneys, the Attorney General, and the Republican Congressmen and Senators who are defending him keep chanting the same mantra:  NO COLLUSION, NO COLLUSION, NO COLLUSION.  Since the term doesn’t have legal meaning, it’s a safe thing to say.   No one is going to drag, for example, William Barr the Attorney General into court to determine whether he “lied” about collusion.  There is no legal definition to lie about.

All of them should have read the Mueller Report (though Mr. Barr, hearing his answers to the Senate, doesn’t seem to have done so, and Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham admits he hasn’t completed the 448 page task.)   I have; and while Mr. Mueller does not believe he uncovered enough evidence to satisfy filing charges under 18 US Code §371, there are lots of incidents of contact with Russia; with meetings, shared information, and joint benefits and goals.  That’s evidence of conspiracy violating Federal law. That Mr. Mueller does not believe he has a case rising to the criminal standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt” is quite different than the NO COLLUSION battle cry.

But Bill Barr’s actions in misrepresenting the report, leaving his interpretation as the only available information for almost a month, has solidified the Trump talking point – NO COLLUSION.  And what the President, his supporters in Congress, and the Attorney General are now doing is simply buying time.  The longer that their “narrative” is unchallenged by the actual testimony of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, or White House Counsel Don McGahn, or the multiple other possible witnesses; the longer the NO COLLUSION false conclusion will set into stone.  

I heard an estimate today that only three percent of Americans have read the Mueller Report.  I get that: even though it’s important, 448 pages of legal document with enumerated footnotes is a lot to get through, along with work and life.  So for many Americans, the only way to find out about the Mueller Report will be to hear it from Mr. Mueller himself, and the witnesses that he included.

We know the strength of spoken testimony.  In the past few years we heard Hillary Clinton testify for eleven hours, James Comey testify to investigating the President, and Michael Cohen call his former boss a crook and a racist. There is a tremendous impact from hearing the spoken word.  We heard them, and we will eventually hear Mueller, McGahn, and the others.  It’s how America will learn, just as we learned about Watergate from Nixon’s White House Counsel John Dean and the man who revealed the tapes, Alexander Butterfield.

For the Trump forces it’s all about time.  The longer they can stave off the investigation, the more firmly their false narrative becomes established, and the closer the election of 2020 will come. When we get within view of the Presidential election, we will hear the same false reasoning that Mitch McConnell used to stop President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court:  “…we are within a year of the election, we should let the American people ‘weigh-in’ at the voting booth.”  It’s the rationale that Mr. Trump has used to justify not releasing his taxes, and paying hush money to porn stars, and assaulting women: the people voted for me, so it’s over.

Literally, time will tell. The Courts are likely to rule in favor of the Congress in their fight for information, but it will take time, time that benefits Mr. Trump.  That’s why it’s important for Democrats to campaign on more than just Trump in 2020.  This issue may well be decided at the ballot box; for the sake of the nation, Democrats need to be in the right. 

Addendum: Secretary of Treasury Mnuchin has just denied the Congressional demand for Mr. Trump’s tax returns.  He is defying clear law (26 US Code § 6103 (f) (1)) but it just another part of the strategy – stall-stall-stall.

To read more on the House Ways and Means Committee and the President’s taxes  Click this link.

Stolen History

I have Facebook “friends” from all sides of the political spectrum.  We look for lost dogs, discuss repairs on the local roads, and share birthdays and funeral announcements.  We also confront each other’s politics from time to time, but no matter how opposed we are in political beliefs, we try to respect our differing views in order to maintain our friendship.

But sometimes I am dismayed by what they post.  Yesterday while perusing Facebook I found a repost on a friend’s site, that claimed the following:

“Thomas Jefferson founded the Marine Corps, and used it to attack Muslims (in the form of the Barbary Pirates),” and, “…the orders of the Marines were to confront Muslim pirates in battleand follow them back to their villages and kill every man, woman, and child they found.”

The post goes onto state that Jefferson himself spoke out against “Radical Islam.”  It claims:

 “…The Quran (Koran) – the Muslim holy book not only condoned but mandated – violence against non-believers of Islam and that was totally unacceptable to Jefferson.  (His) greatest fear upon leaving office was that someday radical Islamist (sic) would return.  He believed Muslims would pose more threats on the United States and its citizens as time went on.”

In our time of polarization, many search history to find justification for their current political stands.  A Google Search can find almost any information to back any political view.  But just because it’s on the INTERNET doesn’t make it true, and in this case my friend has chosen to absolutely distort history to support his current bias.

I was a history and government teacher for thirty-six years. While I haven’t done an in-depth study of Jefferson and Islam, it seemed to me that a Muslim massacre by the United States Marines would have quickly come to mind. It’s not that massacres of different people would be so incredibly unusual in US History; the record of US treatment of Native Americans demonstrates that the orders of “…kill every man woman and child found,”was not uncommon.

And Jefferson, our brilliant Enlightenment founding father, was certainly capable of holding incredibly contradictory positions.  The author of the Declaration of Independence, he wrote this:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

But he owned hundreds of slaves who made up such a big part of his economic fortune that he could not and would not allow them to have freedom.  He kept one slave as his “consort” (a great classical word) even though she was taken by him when she was fifteen.

Americans are full of contradictions, even from our Founding moments.  And the founding ideologue, Jefferson, was more apparent than most in his inconsistency.  

But you can’t make up your own history.

To start with, Jefferson didn’t “found the Marines.” The Marines were founded in 1775, when Jefferson was a delegate to the Continental Congress from Virginia. And when Jefferson did send those Marines to “…the shores of Tripoli” to contest the Barbary Pirates, it wasn’t about “Radical Islam.” It was about extortion: the pirates operating out of modern day Libya would force ships to pay tribute or be captured, and the new United States decided to flex its foreign policy “might” against them.

The US Navy and Marines were able to defeat the “pirates” in the First Barbary War in 1805 (there was a second War in 1815), paid a ransom for held American prisoners, and no longer paid the tribute. Neither of these conflicts had anything to do with “Radical Islam;” it was about respect for the US Flag vessels on the high seas.  And there was no massacre of women and children. 

Jefferson in the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, stated:“…that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion…”

In his unfinished autobiography, Jefferson further stated that he intended the Statute to protect:“the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination.”In the language of the 1820’s, a “Mahometan” was a Muslim.  Jefferson’s own copy of the Koran became a part of the Library of Congress.

We all have our political differences and opinions. But as Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan so famously said: “You are entitled to your own opinions, but not you are not entitled to your own facts.”

Particularly when you try to warp American History to make it fit your own political views.