Month: August 2019

Last night I woke up in the chair, in the middle of watching All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC.  Somewhere between the “Trump International Doral” and the “Monmouth Poll” I drifted away.  It reminded me of my father.  

I wrote so much about him that I broke it into parts, yesterday and today – so here’s the second installment of “Turning into Dad.” Click on this link to read the first part – Turning into Dad – Part 1

Part One began with my childhood and Dad’s amazing ability to fall asleep. It then goes on to highlight the early part of his career as a broadcaster. Dad helped start and sell the Phil Donahue Show. They changed the world of broadcasting from Dayton, Ohio.

Part Two

Back Home in Cincinnati

The Phil Donahue Show took off, and Dad found himself managing WLW-D and back on the road selling the show to individual stations.  At its highest point, the Donahue Show was in 224 television markets in the United States and internationally.  

We moved out of Dayton and back to Cincinnati, where Dad was made President of Syndication for the new company, Multimedia.  He had a whole staff of salesmen, including both Lee and Grant, and his favorites, Joe Cifereilli and  Bruce Johansen.  The prime property was the Donahue Show, but Dad also produced and sold Sally Jesse Raphael, After School Specials, and the beginnings of The Jerry Springer Show.  

On the Road with Dad 

The travelling wasn’t just national, Dad went to Europe to sell shows.  Mom and I went along for the Scandinavian trip; Denmark, Norway and Sweden. We stayed in nice hotels,  and I didn’t realize that putting laundry in the bag was a big deal.   Dad wasn’t too happy about a 4000 kroner bill for four pairs of underwear and blue jeans.  

But he didn’t stay mad for long, he had a luncheon meeting with Swedish television.  In Sweden, business meetings began with a vodka toast, then continued with toasts through each course of the meal.  I don’t know if Donahue ever made it on Swedish television, but I do know that Dad was smashed when he got back from lunch.  Of course, he needed a nap.

They were making big sales. Dad closed one in Philadelphia, a million dollar contract signed on the placemat of a restaurant.  He had the mat framed and hanging in his office.  But perhaps his best story was with one of his salesmen, making a big “pitch” to a client.  They took a break, and his salesman came back from the restroom with a problem, he couldn’t get his zipper back up.  He pulled and twisted, but it was still down, and the clients would be back shortly. Finally Dad offered to help out, and there he was, pulling on another man’s zipper, when the clients came back in.

By now it was the mid 1970’s, and I was in college.  I’d come home some weekends, arriving on Friday evening to tell all my tales to Mom and Dad on the couch.  I had to talk fast, because it wouldn’t take long for Dad to start snoring.  Nothing changes.

One Last Story

Dad was retired when the Donahue show ended, but Phil was always grateful to him.  Dad took the risk of starting the show, backed it up with hard work and sales, and changed television.  When it finally came to an end, twenty-nine years later, Phil took everyone involved with the show on a cruise.  

He rented the entire Seabourne Legend (the ship in the movie Speed 2)and cruised out of New York to Bermuda.  He wanted to make it special for Mom and Dad, so he arranged for my sisters and I to be a part of the cruise.  We were flown to New York, and “hung out” at Phil and Marlo Thomas’s apartment until it was time to board.  Then we were snuck onto the ship, and locked in a stateroom (with caviar and champagne) until we put to sea.

We watched the Statue of Liberty fade behind us from the crew deck, then waited until the opening cocktail party.  Phil presented Mom and Dad to the crowd (they were like parents to many), then gave them his “special present” — us.

The Dining Room 

Mom and Dad had a party one night, and a man there was describing his office downtown.  The guest said it was strange, he could see into an office in the building across the street. He didn’t know whose office it was, but the TV was on ALL THE TIME.  He figured that the guy didn’t work, just watched TV.   After a little bit of geographic geometry, we realized he was looking into Dad’s office.  Dad always had a TV on, no sound, but the picture on from the time he walked in until he left for the day. Oddly enough, it didn’t put him to sleep, I guess it was work.  He wanted to know what “his” station was showing, even if he didn’t hear it, and even if he wasn’t managing one anymore.

Mom and Dad were always, always up for a party.  They were energized by conversation.  Politics, government, history, business,  and travel:  all were argued around the dining room table in my parent’s house.  There were “formal” dinners several times a month, with different friends and guests. Mom always wanted interesting people at the table.

The “dinner” itself took less than an hour, but no one left the table.  The conversations went on long into the night.  Dad was wide-awake for all of that. (That table, and the furniture that went with it, now are in my niece’s dining room.  The food there is great, and the conversations are as just as intense.)

Dinner at the Dahlman’s

I remember sitting at that table one night, talking about US spending on defense.  The Chardonnay had done its part, and the conversation was growing.  One of my parents’ friends was an aircraft engineer at General Electric, a big industry in Cincinnati, and started describing a plane he was working on.  It couldn’t be seen on radar, and could fly undetected against the enemy.  We didn’t know if he was kidding or not, but I definitely expected the FBI to bust down the front door and take us all away.

This was before we knew about Stealth technology, or the Skunk Works in California where it was developed.  And it was long before the stealth fighter or bomber was public.  But they were public that night, at least around the dining room table. 

Those dinner parties became a tradition.  When I was there, I took the “liberal” side, backed by Mom and some of their friends. Dad was a “business Republican,” but some other friends were true dedicated conservatives.  We debated every issue, except for religion and the Queen of England (Mom’s rules.)  We all learned a lot, respected each other views, and drank a lot of wine.

 Both my parents had long lives; at ninety-two they were still throwing those parties.  It might be a couple of days of naps on the couch (and the chair, and wherever else) to recover, but they were still up for it.  It was their lifeblood.

A Seat at the Table

I’m glad that table is still set, now in Cleveland, ready for the next dinner and debate.  I miss those evenings with Art and Louise, Dick and Lois, Peter and Luce, and the other friends who joined in.  I miss Mom sitting at the end, managing dinner and conversation, and Dad running his end of the table, and looking for more chocolate cake.

And I am a Dahlman. I’m writing in the same chair as last night, in front of the TV on our favorite station. You probably didn’t notice the long pause in the typing – well – 

 I took a nap!

Last night I woke up in the chair, in the middle of watching All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC.  Somewhere between the “Trump International Doral” and the “Monmouth Poll” I drifted away.  It reminded me of my father.  I wrote so much that I broke it into parts – so here’s the first installment of two, of “Turning into Dad.”

Part One

Jilly and Jampot

When my sisters and I were small, he used to tell us bedtime stories.  Dad was creative, he told us about  Jilly the kangaroo and Jampot the turtle.  (Hey siblings:  did Jilly wear a red bellhop cap and Jampot kind of a floppy black hat, or did I conflate that from somewhere else?)  Jilly and Jampot had great adventures, but their stories always seemed to have one problem:  they never ended, or at least, never concluded.  Sometime during the story, as Jilly and Jampot were invariably travelling down a road, the story would dissolve into snores.  It worked; Dad fell asleep, laying beside us.  

I usedto make fun of Dad, he had the “Dahlman gene.”  He could fall asleep anywhere, anytime, anyplace; but he particularly could fall asleep in front of the TV.

Live on Television

Funny how a man who made his reputation and livelihood in television would snooze so easily in front of it.  Dad started in television at the beginning in the early 1950’s, when much of television was “live” because there weren’t good ways to store shows.  Videotape wasn’t around yet, and film required time for processing.  Mom and Dad would often be part of the “audience” in those early days in Cincinnati, the whole station staff of WLW-T, including an announcer named Rod Serling (he was already writing scripts that would lead to The Twilight Zone) would come to fill the studio.  

Dad sold television advertising then, better known as commercials.  After several years at WLW-T, he switched to selling actual television shows to individual stations throughout the country for  Ziv Productions.  You have to be older than me to remember most of them, but a few, like The Cisco Kid, Sea Hunt,and Highway Patrol (that show popularized the “10-4” signoff) became national hits.

Traveling Man

Sea Hunt was a story about a scuba diver, played by actor Lloyd Bridges.  It was the number one rated show in 1958.  Dad travelled all over the country selling it, and we had the little “scuba guys” to play with that he used as trinkets to remind the local station managers about the show.  He told a story about signing one big station; they decided to celebrate their agreement by signing the contact underwater. Dad didn’t know a thing about scuba gear, but gamely went down to make sure the contract was signed.  He said he damn near drowned, but he closed the deal.

Dad was a travelling salesman.  Through my early life in the late 1950’s and early 60’s, he was on the road Monday through Friday.  Sometimes he would fly, but quite often Dad was driving the car with the license plate “DD 19.”  DD was Don Dahlman, and was his plate for at least fifty years (it’s on my Jeep now.)  He’d call from Des Moines or Chicago, and we’d see him on the weekends.  He had lots of stories from his travels.  

One was about a quick flight.  New York was the center for television broadcasting, and Dad was late.  He rushed to the airport, jumped out of his car, and barely made it onboard.  It was two days later, on his way home, that he couldn’t quite remember where he parked the car.  He arrived at Cincinnati Airport, then realized he left it right in front of the terminal.  Luckily they hadn’t towed it too far.

The travelling became so embedded, that thirty years later, the night after heart surgery, the nurses found Dad wandering the halls, dragging wires and tubes behind him.  He had a meeting in Indianapolis, he thought. 

Dayton, Ohio

By 1962, Dad tired of being on the road.  Ziv sold the company to United Artists, and Dad went back to work for Avco, the company that owned WLW-T.  He became the sales manager of WLW-D in Dayton, Ohio, and soon rose to station manager. 

Dayton was a booming town in the late 1960’s.  Wright Patterson Air Force Base was the major employer (still is) with several Air Force Commands headquartered there.  National Cash Register (NCR) was a founding industry in Dayton, as well as Delco (the electric car starter was invented by a Dayton native, Charles Kettering.) Frigidaire had an assembly plant in town, and the University of Dayton was there, so there were plenty of jobs around. Sadly, all but the University and the Air Force Base have now left the town.

Dad had “grown up” with live television, and the “WLW” stations (it really didn’t mean world’s lowest wages, did it?) all produced their own variety shows.  WLW-D had the Johnny Gilbert Show, featuring the host’s singing talents.  Johnny went to find his fortune in Hollywood (you know him today, “…Johnny, tell them what they won,” on The Price is Right) and Dad put Phil Donahue in the time slot for a 60-minute news/talk show.

Is the Caller There?

Donahue changed television. The mid-1960’s was still the time when most women were “homemakers.”  They had TV’s on during the day, and the Donahue show aired from 10 to 11 am.  Instead of presenting songs, dances, and how to best get the dishes clean, Phil talked about the real issues of the time.  It was the sixties:  civil rights, Vietnam, women’s rights, the draft, hippies; there was a lot to talk about. The “hook” of the show was a phone. Viewers could call in and ask questions of the guest, or Phil.

Phil did a show about “Little Baby Brother,” a male doll that had all of the appropriate anatomical parts.  The idea was that it would educate girls about the differences in anatomy. People wanted to talk about that, so much so that the phone lines jammed.  Dayton Bell, the local phone company, couldn’t handle the load and phone service for the south part of Dayton crashed.  

Phil also interviewed Jerry Rubin, one of the Chicago Seven charged with causing riots during the 1968 Democratic Convention.  Rubin was known for his “colorful” language, he dropped the “F-Bomb” a lot.  It was the 1960’s, a TV station that aired such language could lose their broadcast license.

The station had to have some way of “bleeping” language, but there wasn’t the technology for what we now call tape delay.  So the engineers set up two videotape machines, one to record, and the other, literally across the room, to playback the show onto the air.  There was a stretch of videotape going across between the two machines, and Dad was on the “bleep” button on the broadcast side:  he made sure he kept WLW-D’s license.

Tomorrow – The Second Installment of Turning into Dad

The Law

There is a phrase in the legal profession:  “black letter law.”  Most laws are a matter of interpretation, of looking at past judicial decisions to determine what a law means or how it should be enforced.  But sometimes the law, as written, has a clear meaning, and a clear understanding.  That is called “black letter law,” law that is clearly written and clearly understood.

Several months ago the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee asked for the President’s tax returns.  This was not a “subpoena” or a request, it was a demand made under “black letter law,” 26 US Code § 6103 (f) (1) to be exact. The wording clearly allows the Chairman to demand any individual tax return.  The IRS Commissioner, and the Secretary of the Treasury both refused to turn the President’s return over.  The case is now in court, but it’s difficult to see how any judge, even a Trump appointee, could ignore the letter of the law.

Article I, Section 9

And now we have returned again. The President himself is violating the “black letter law,” this time the words of the United States Constitution itself. Article I, Section 9 states:

No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines an emolument as: “A salary, fee, or profit from employment or office.”  The critical word is “profit,” especially critical for a President who remains enmeshed in his personal businesses.  

Trump Doral International

On Monday, the President of the United States appeared beside the host President of France at the end of the G7 Summit.  After answering multiple questions, President Trump announced that the G7 in 2020 will be held at his own resort property in Doral, Florida.  Trump then proceeded to give a five-minute “infomercial” for Trump International, Doral (transcript below.)

The President extolled the beauty of Doral, the multiple “bungalows” with beautiful views, the ballrooms and meeting rooms that the nations could book.  He even mentioned the proximity to the Miami Airport, and parking, all of the parking available on the hundreds and hundreds of acres.  

Prices aren’t outrageous at the Trump International Doral. A hotel room, king deluxe, is only $111/night.  If you want something more luxurious, try the “Spa Grand Two Bedroom Suite” at $847/night, or even the “Presidential Suite” at $5011.30/night.  The views do look nice, and it is easily accessible to Miami and the airport.  

To hold a world conference like the G7 at the hotel would fill every room, from the king deluxe to the Presidential Suites.  It would fill every restaurant, and every conference and ballroom.  The golf courses would be packed with dignitaries, each paying the $250/ player cost. It would financially “make” the year for the struggling Trump International.  Even the host/owner US President would pay the fees, carefully billed to the US Government, for his stay and activities.

Emolument

So when the seven world leaders come to Doral next summer, completely filling the Trump International Hotel and Doral Golf Club, who will profit from all of those foreign visitors?  The company owned by the President of the United States, the Trump Organization.  It’s the definition of accepting an “emolument.”

It’s a violation of the Black Letter Law of the US Constitution. But like most of the Constitution, there are no “penalties” attached for violation.  Penalties are written into US Code, the laws passed by Congress.  Since no President has attempted to take foreign money before, there is no precedent for Trump’s action, no penalty available. Presidents of the past have abided the Constitution, at least this particular clause.  

Impeachment

So what?  There is nothing new that Donald Trump is breaking precedent, and law, to get what he wants.  We know that the Justice Department will do nothing; the Attorney General has conveniently written them out of Presidential criminality by hiding behind a single obscure internal opinion written in 1973.  The only body left to check the President:  the US House of Representatives.

Violating the Constitution is by definition an impeachable offense.  The House can argue about the Mueller Report, the can discuss whether the Trump Campaign colluded, conspired or cooperated with the Russians in 2016, they can debate obstruction of justice.  But this is a straight-up, Black Letter Law offense:  the President is profiting from foreign states.  He spent five minutes on Monday telling the world how he was going to do it.  It doesn’t get any clearer than that.

Transcript

Transcript of the Trump Press Conference at G7, 8/26.19

Speaker 8 – … And on next year’s G7, you alluded today, dropped several heads (hints) about Miami, about Doral, and hosting next year’s G7 at your property. What reassurances, if any, can you give the American people that you are not looking to profit off the presidency?

Donald Trump: Well, I’ll tell you what. I’ve spent, and I think I will in a combination of loss and opportunity, probably it’ll cost me anywhere from $ 3 to $5 billion to be President. And- Three to $5 billion to be president. And the only thing I care about is this country. Couldn’t care less, otherwise I wouldn’t have done it. People have asked me, “What do you think it costs?” And between opportunity, not doing thing … I used to get a lot of money to make speeches. Now I give speeches all the time. You know what I get? Zippo, and that’s good. And I did a lot of great jobs and great deals that I don’t do anymore. I don’t want to do them because the deals I’m making are great deals for the country. And that’s, to me, much more important.

Donald Trump: Doral happens to be within Miami. It’s a city, it’s a wonderful place. It’s a very, very successful area of Florida. It’s very importantly, only five minutes from the airport. The airport’s right next to it. It’s a big international airport, one of the biggest in the world. Everybody that’s coming, all of these people with all of their big entourages come. It’s set up so … And by the way, my people looked at 12 sites, all good. But some were two hours from an airport, some were four hours, I mean, they were so far away. Some didn’t allow this, or they didn’t allow that. With Doral, we have a series of magnificent buildings, we call them bungalows. They each hold from 50 to 70 very luxurious rooms with magnificent views. We have incredible conference rooms, incredible restaurants, it’s such a natural. We wouldn’t even have to do the work that they did here. And they’ve done a beautiful job. They’ve really done a beautiful job.

Donald Trump: And what we have also is Miami. And we have many hundreds of acres, so that in terms of parking, in terms of all of the things that you need. The ballrooms are among the biggest in Florida and the best. It’s brand new and my people wanted it. From my standpoint, I’m not going to make any money. In my opinion, I’m not going to make any money. I don’t want to make money. I don’t care about making money. If I want to make money, I wouldn’t worry about 3 billion to 5 billion, because that’s what … I mean, at some point I’m going to detail that and we’ll show, but I think it’s just a great place to be. I think having it in Miami is fantastic, really fantastic. Having it at that particular place because of the way it’s set up, each country can have their own villa or their own bungalow, and the bungalows, when I say they have a lot of units in them, so I think it just works out well.

Donald Trump:  And when my people came back, they took tours. They went to different places. I won’t mention places, but you’ll have a list because they’re going to give a presentation on it fairly soon. They went to places all over the country and they came back and they said, “This is where we’d like to be.” Now, we had military people doing it. We had Secret Service people doing it. We had people that really understand what it’s about. It’s not about me, it’s about getting the right location. I think it’s very important.

Donald Trump: Jonathan.

Speaker 9: You’re not concerned about the ethics, like you’re trying to boost your own brand.

Donald Trump:  No, not at all. Go ahead, Jonathan.

Land of Emails

I get lots of emails, hundreds a day.  I’m responsible for most of it, when you give money to one Democratic candidate; somehow you get mail from them all (full disclosure – that only gets worse when you give to several candidates, as I have.)  I delete most, read a few, and actually respond to a couple a week.  But somehow I’ve also mistakenly ended up on a few conservative email lists too.

I get emails from Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina (but I donated to Jamie Harrison his Democratic opponent) and Rob Portman of Ohio.  I also get letters from the “Response Action Network,” and from “Conservative HQ.”  Conservative HQ is:

 “…The online news source for conservatives and tea partiers committed to bringing limited government constitutional conservatives to power.”

Tea Partiers Live

Richard Viguerie, the famous conservative direct mail “king” who changed campaigning back in the 1980’s, is chairman of the site.  It represents the small remainder of the conservative movement “BT” (before Trump.) They were willing to accept this current President to get some of their agenda, even though he wasn’t “one of them.”  Former House Speaker Paul Ryan is the best-known swallower in this group.

In the latest edition there’s an article by George Rasley, the editor of HQ, making a philosophical case for their brand of conservatism. He harkens back to Atlas Shrugged, the seminal conservative novel by Ayn Rand published in 1957.  In Atlas Shrugged (as well as her previous novel, The Fountainhead) Rand makes the case for unbridled capitalism with little or no government involvement or regulation.  

Business Republicans

Mr. Rasley laments that the prescient Rand was right, and that current America is losing its way in a decline to socialism.  His latest example is a statement made by the Business Roundtable, a grouping of 200 of the top corporate chief executives in the United States, led by Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan/Chase.

The Business Roundtable:

“…(Is) committing to delivering value to customers, investing in employees in ways that go beyond financial compensation to include training and education to ensure their skills are kept up to date, and embracing diversity and inclusion, dignity and respect…”

Sounds pretty reasonable, and in fact, pretty “business Republican,” right?  Value to customers, training and updating employees, diversity and inclusion, dignity and respect; how can these be bad?

Here’s Mr. Rasley’s answer:

“The fiduciary obligation to maximize shareholder value has been a fundamental tenet of American corporate and securities law for going on 85 years. It is also a fundamental premise undergirding the system of trust that enables the world financial markets that power modern wealth creation.”

In plain language, companies are supposed to make money for their owners; full stop.  That’s their job, and when they start “caring” about other things, including employees, diversity, or the environment; they are undermining the conservative view of AMERICA.

When they start doing something else, like “corporate responsibility” or “pursuing diversity” they are ignoring their “fiduciary responsibility.”  Put simply, it gets in the way of making money.

Ayn Rand’s World

This is the world they want, a world where competition is unlimited, and regulation is unacceptable.  Government should do the minimum to police, put out fires, and wage wars.  Maybe they can print money too, but public education, and the Post Office, and heaven forbid, government sponsored health care, are all areas where someone should be making a profit.  Unbridled Capitalism can do it better, in every situation.

In fact, the idea of corporate leaders in the Business Roundtable having some sort of social conscience is anathema to their extreme conservative view.  Mr. Rasley calls on their shareholders to “…go on strike,” sell out of corporations who have more than a profitmaking goal, and invest only in wealth creation.

When is Capitalism Right

I found myself in a similar discussion with a friend the other day. He was trying to apply capitalism to health care, using Internet streaming services as an example of how capitalism would take care health care pricing.  And he was right, at least, that the competition among Hulu, You Tube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Sling and the rest probably is keeping the prices down. 

But if you have slow or erratic Internet, they don’t work. And in the same way, if you are really sick, unable to afford health care, or (at least until the ACA) had pre-existing conditions, the health insurance industry only wanted your business at an outlandish price.  In Ayn Rand’s world, I guess that’s too bad, charity might help, but there is no obligation of our capitalist society to take care of you.  Just like there’s no obligation to provide streaming to those who don’t get the Internet.

I can miss the next series on Netflix; I can even miss the college football games on Sling.  But that’s certainly not the model we should be using for the health of Americans.  In capitalism there are winners and losers, and that’s all good when we’re watching TV, but not when it’s about America’s health care.

But that’s what Mr. Viguerie and his editor, Mr. Rasley, would have us do. They would say strike until we get it. And Tea Partier former Congressman Joe Walsh just declared his candidacy for the Republican nomination. It’s all a good reminder for the rest of us: it’s not just about Donald Trump.

“We see the chaos because we see the tweet”  – Zerlina Maxwell, MSNBC Commentator

“…He said I was stupid, I’m not stupid…”Alexander Hamilton in Hamilton the Musical

Chaos Theory – A branch of mathematical and physical theory that deals with the nature and consequences of chaos and chaotic systems  – Webster’s Dictionary

Not Stupid

The President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, is not stupid, as badly as many Democrats want to believe it’s true.  President Trump is a manipulator, a man solely focused on his own benefit.  He knows what he wants, what he needs, and how he thinks he can get it.  That’s not a stupid man, that’s a self-centered, brilliant strategist.

The Brand

President Trump has lived his life by the motto:  “any publicity is better than no publicity.”  The “Trump Brand” is his greatest asset, and he better than anyone knows how to build that “brand.”  When Twitter was invented and popularized, it was the perfect tool for Donald Trump’s needs. It gave him an outlet for any and every random thought; and as President, those thoughts monopolize the national conversation.  

It maximizes the Trump Brand.  It dominates American “news,” so much so that the President’s Twitter feed is the real “fake news.”  “Fake news” because much of his musings, and ranting’s aren’t about real things.  Trump issues “fake” orders, last week ordering US businesses to withdraw from China.  He constantly attacks the media, declaring that stories like Trump’s desire to drop atomic weapons on hurricanes are false despite multiple confirmations.  The President rails at his critics, he attacks his own appointees, and he defends his allies.  

He keeps the spotlight directly on Trump.  

Chaos in the Oval Office

Twitter gives America an inside view of what’s going on in the Oval Office.  It’s a scary view, a picture of a leader constantly distracted by differing interests.  America sees inside “…how the sausage is made” in this White House, and it’s not a pretty sight.

But it continues to serve Trump’s purpose, keeping the focus directly on him.  And it absorbs America’s attention, leaving other “powers,” from the Democratic Presidential candidates to Congress, starving for “oxygen.” It’s not a mistake, nor is it the “rambling” of an out of control leader.  The Twitter feed is intentional, and it absolutely serves the President’s purposes.

The Intellectual Presidency

In a larger sense though, Twitter gives America an insight into the Trump Presidency.  We had a “normal” vision of a Presidency:  wise advisors respectfully putting their views to the President, discussing and perhaps even arguing about the best path for America to follow.  A President taking in their wisdom, studying the relevant facts and information, deliberating and determining what course the nation should take.

It’s been an American tradition, from George Washington with the competing intellects of Hamilton and Jefferson, to Lincoln’s “team of rivals,” to Roosevelt’s “New Dealers” and Kennedy’s “Best and Brightest.”  Barack Obama, magna cum laude from Harvard Law, epitomized this “intellectualization” of the Presidency.

 Hillary Clinton offered a continuation of that “intellectual Presidency,” bringing her own academic credentials from Wellesley and Yale Law. She too offered her version of advisors as the “best and brightest.” Trump offered a radical alternative, a candidate who despite his own Ivy League credentials saw intellectualism as a flaw, and “facts” as flexible. Many Americans were looking for dramatic change in 2016.  Those voters got what they wanted.

Trump’s Oval Office

We are now presented with a Presidency where the President isn’t told information he doesn’t want to hear, and where it seems like the “last word” in the President’s ear is the deciding opinion.  Where young men of concerning backgrounds, Stephen Miller and Jared Kushner, far outweigh the influence of more seasoned and veteran officials.  And where sycophancy is more highly valued than respect or effectiveness.

It all looks crazy, and scary.  It looks like a nation careening out of control, a President randomly smashing the stock market, arbitrarily changing border law, and whimsically starting trade wars.  But the capriciousness is intentional; it keeps the opposition, and the nation, off balance and constantly focused on the President. It gives Donald Trump control over the attention of the nation.  

 And we know all about it:  we read it on Twitter.

Trade War

President Trump is waging war, a trade war against the second largest economy in the world, China. It’s an “old fashioned” tariff war, just like the 19^thCentury battles over sugar and coal.  We are raising taxes on their goods, and they are raising taxes on our goods.  Everyone pays more, and everyone loses.

China isn’t blameless. They stole US technology, violated US patents and copyrights, and shamelessly profited from the thefts.  They are building a world-class economy, based on state-sponsored industry, low waged workers and purloined processes.  

US Companies Profit

But the US isn’t blameless either.  US companies have moved to China to take advantage of the cheap labor and sales in the fourth largest consumer market in the world. And it’s not just making computer chips. Here’s the top-ten American corporations in China:

Corporation	China Market Share	Product(s)
Kentucky Fried Chicken	40% Share	fast food
General Motors	12.7% Share	cars
Microsoft	99.3% Share	Computer Operating Systems
Boeing	52% Share	Commercial Aircraft
Nike	unknown – $2 Billion Profit	sportswear
Coca Cola	26.9% Share	Soda
Proctor & Gamble	55% Share	Hair care products
Intel	14.9% Share	Semi-conductors
Starbucks	70% Share	Retail Coffee
Apple	51% Share	tablets

Emergency Powers

China has a lot to lose in a trade war with the United States.  Today, President Trump “tweeted” that he could invoke the powers of the “Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977” to force US companies out of China.  While the 1977 law was written to replace the “Trading with the Enemy Act,” a wartime provision, the language of the law allows a President to determine the “emergency” and enact the powers.  That’s true, even if the President himself is the one who created the crisis.

And while Congress has the ultimate authority to control the President’s use of that emergency power, we’ve seen how well that worked when Mr. Trump declared an “emergency” on the Southern Border.  As long as Leader McConnell stops the Senate from action and allows the President to continue, Congress is impotent.

But when you look at those companies operating in China (and that’s only the top ten) and consider the losses those companies would take if forced to leave, the US has a lot to lose in the trade war too.  If the President is concerned about China, he also should be concerned about America’s future economy.   With warning signs of impending recession already visible, and the negative impact of trade warfare hitting farmers, the auto industry, high tech products and others; Trump seems to be trading his “war” for the US economic future.

Allies Help

There needs to be a US adjustment with China, no doubt.  In the past this kind of trade move would have included many of the United State’s allies, and would have had a greater impact on the Chinese economy.  A quick example:  the Chinese raised tariffs on US soybeans, cutting the amount sold to China, the world’s largest soybean consumer.  The Chinese then moved to Brazil to maintain their soybean supply. In the past, the US would have allied with Brazil first, to keep pressure on the Chinese market.

President Obama negotiated the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, for the purpose of arraying the economic powers of the Pacific against China.  Japan, Mexico, Canada and others were members.  Their coordinated actions to control trade with China would have had a greater impact than any one of those nations, including the United States, acting alone.  But President Trump withdrew the US from the TPP.

In addition, Mr. Trump has engaged in tariffs “tiffs” with many of those TPP members, including Canada and Japan.  That reduces the likelihood of their cooperation in any US trade battles.

All Alone

So here we are, the United States, without friends.  Like any war, economic or military, it’s good to have allies to share the burdens and sacrifices. But the current administration has intentionally placed us in an isolated position:  America First has come to mean America Alone.

While we are still the biggest economic power in the world, in our trade war with China we will be forced to make all of the sacrifices.  Other nations, already “put-off’ by Mr. Trump, will do what’s in their own best interest, and sell China the products we don’t.  They’ll make their money, China will suffer less, and the US will struggle more.  

We’re the “Lone Ranger” – and, “Ke-Mo-Sabe,” we could use some help.  It’s too bad we won’t get any.

Don’t call me “Pocahontas” 

 I did the DNA test, I know exactly where my ancestry came from.  From Mom’s side, 24% of my genes come from Ireland and Scotland, and 16% comes from England.  That’s 40% total.  The other 60% is from Dad’s side, European Jew.  The more recent Jewish relatives came from Alsace in the mid-1800’s, the province strategically placed between France and Germany.  I have cousins who have walked the cemeteries of small Alsatian towns, finding distance Dahlman graves.

Mom was Roman Catholic, barred from the Church for marrying my father.  Dad was a non-practicing Jew, he went to synagogue for funerals, but that’s about it.  We were raised in the Episcopal Church, as close as Mom could get to the Catholic Church here in America, but I don’t espouse any specific religious belief now.

Ethnic Jew

So, as far as Judaism is concerned, I’m not.  The religion “runs through the mother,” so since Mom wasn’t Jewish, I’m not considered a part of the “chosen people.”  But as far as society is concerned, as a person of Jewish heritage, I am often considered Jewish.  I’m an “ethnic” Jew (at least 60%) not a “religious” Jew.

As a person of Jewish ancestry, I have studied the history, and particularly the recent history, of Jews. It started with the Diaspora, when Jews were driven from the Jerusalem by the Roman Empire in 152 AD. Since that time, Jews have prayed to return to the Holy Land, saying (in Hebrew) “L’Shana Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim,” next year in Jerusalem.  

Jews were persecuted in Europe far before Hitler and World War II.  In the mid 19^th Century, about the time my great-grandfather Isaac came to America, the Zionist movement gained influence in Jewish Europe, encouraging them to return to the Holy Land, Palestine, to re-establish the nation of Israel.  At the time, Palestine was a province of the Ottoman Empire, and Jews from Europe began to settle there.  

Twice Promised Land

 During World War I, the British were fighting against the Ottoman Turkey as well as Germany and Austria.  Desperate to drive the Turks away from the Suez Canal, the British military promised local Arabs power over the area after they won.  But the British were also desperate for Jewish support during the war, financial support in particular, and promised that Jews could settle there after the War in the Balfour Declaration.  It was the “twice promised” land.

After World War I, Palestine became a part of the British Empire.  Both Arabs and Jews expected the British to live up to their promises.  More Jews came to Palestine, and the Palestinian Arabs did not get the control they expected.  The British maintained sovereignty.  The Jews saw the British as the enemy, and Arabs saw Jews and British as invaders.  Then World War II began.

The Enemy of My Enemy 

During World War II, Hitler made it clear his intentions for Jews, and Jews in Palestine saw no alternative.  They fought with the British.  Arabs, on the other hand, saw German actions as an opportunity to end British control and remove Jews, and took a more neutral stand.  When the war ended, the world saw the Holocaust, the genocide Nazis inflicted on the Jewish people, and international support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine grew. While the British struggled against it, the United Nations ultimately authorized the creation of Israel in 1948.

The Arab nations surrounding Israel immediately attacked.   Arab leaders ordered the Palestinian Arabs to evacuate, to return after the Jews were conquered and removed, “driven into the sea.”  This was the beginning of the diaspora of Palestinian Arabs from their homeland, unable to return while Israel existed.   And this was the beginning of the modern Middle East today; after four wars against Israel, the nation still stands, and the Palestinians still wait.

A Democratic Jew

I am an ethnic “Jew,” aware of the conflicted history of the founding of modern Israel.  I support Israel, not just because of my ethnicity, but because it is “the light of Democracy” in a region dominated by authoritarian regimes.  But just because I have Jewish ancestry and support the concept of the nation of Israel, doesn’t mean that I blindly back everything the current regime in Israel does.

Today’s Prime Minister, Netanyahu, administers a plan of military domination of Palestinians.  He constantly provokes them, and they respond, giving him greater excuse for suppression.  He denies a “two-state solution,” the bedrock of American policy towards the area for the past half-century.   Not only are his actions creating violence, but also a potential new era of terrorism as another generation of Palestinians grows up without hope.

Yesterday, the President of the United States stated:

“In my opinion, you vote for a Democrat, you’re being very disloyal to Jewish people, and you’re being very disloyal to Israel,” Trump told reporters outside the White House Wednesday, “and only weak people would say anything other than that.”

A Message to the President

First of all, Mr. President, who the Hell are you to determine what loyalty to Jewish people is?  Who believes you have that power, other than that obscure American commentator who called you the “…the King of Israel. They (Israeli Jews) love him like he is the second coming of God.” Do you think that all Jews are diehard Netanyahu fans, or even diehard Israel fans?  Isn’t that the definition of bigotry:  determining that “all people” who are Jews believe the same thing?

Weak people, Mr. President, are folks who cannot stand opposing viewpoints.  Weak people, Mr. President, can’t defend their own views without resorting to personal insults.  I’ve taught sixteen year olds how to do this, but clearly you aren’t able to intellectually defend your views.  

You are using religious bigotry to further your personal political gains.  Even your friend Sheldon Adelson can’t be happy about that, though you surely will get more millions from him when the time comes.  

As a 60% Ethnic Jew, Mr. President, I can support Israel without supporting the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu. And as a 100% American, I can support our nation without supporting you.

Note:  for the purpose of this essay, I am not going to get into the AR-15, AK-47 semi-automatic weapon technicalities.  We can all agree on one thing – that these weapons were originally designed for fighting wars, to rapidly inflict grievous injuries and death on the enemy. So call them what they are:  weapons of war.

Weapons of War

It was Saturday, August 3^rd, 2019, less than three weeks ago.  That morning a shooter walked into a Wal-Mart in El Paso armed with a “weapon of war” and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.  He killed 22 people, and wounded 24 more.   In the evening, another, unconnected shooter went into the “Oregon District” of Dayton, Ohio, the local party area.  He too was armed with a “weapon of war” with a 100 round capacity magazine attached.  Police shot him dead 32 seconds after he fired the first shot, but he managed to kill nine people, including his own sister, and wound 27 others.  

On Sunday morning the nation was in shock:  dozens dead, and even more wounded, and everyone looking over their shoulder.  If Wal-Mart and public streets, well patrolled by the police weren’t safe, then what places were?  America needed to address the problem, a problem that is unique to us in the “developed” world:  mass shootings.

A Moment for Change

On that Sunday, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, seemed to be looking for ways to solve the problem.  The obvious answer, used by “developed” countries throughout the world, is to ban “weapons of war” from public ownership.  But the President’s Party, Base, and finances are tied to support of “guns:” even discussing control of those weapons wasn’t politically feasible.

But the House of Representatives had already passed a bill that would require universal background checks on anyone purchasing a gun.  While checks are “around” today, there are multiple ways to avoid the requirements. The House bill would close many of those loopholes.

The National Rifle Association is the premier gun “rights” organization in the United States.  Before 1991, the NRA was a gun safety organization. As a Boy Scout back in the 1960’s, I learned to shoot rifles in the NRA safety program.  I imagine I had an NRA card at the time.

But the NRA ain’t what it used to be.  Today, it is the premier lobbying group in the United States, using their money, and more importantly the influence they have among the millions of members, to control politicians.  It is now associated with more than just gun rights, supporting a host of other right-wing causes. And they support the current President, Donald Trump.

Talking Points

The NRA has lots of slogans supporting their views.    

• 1. “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
• 2. “Any gun legislation is a slippery slope to repeal of the 2^ndAmendment.”
• 3. “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”
• 4. “Mass shootings aren’t a gun problem, they are a mental health problem.”
• 5. “You can have my gun when you take it from my cold, dead hands.”
• 6. “Violent films, television programs and video games create mass killers.”
• 7. “Taking any right is wrong.”

On that Sunday morning we heard most of those points from Republican leadership.  In particular the “violent films” and “mental health” slogans were trotted out (The good guys with guns slogan didn’t seem to work well in Dayton.)  But, there seemed to be a national consensus for mandatory background checks.  Word came out that the “weapons of war” used by the shooters were purchased online (NYT,NPR) where no checks are required.  Changing the law was not only appropriate, but also reasonable.

The President seemed to be onboard.  He talked with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and came back saying that there would be an agreement on background checks.  He also called for passage of “Red Flag” laws, laws that would allow for rapid legal removal of guns from individuals who were thought to be at risk of violence.  For a brief few days, it seemed like the United States might actually take some steps towards ending the violence.

The NRA Plan

Then the President went on vacation.  He spent two weeks at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf resort.  In the past, Mr. Trump has made some radical moves while at Bedminster, including the decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, the pivotal event that led to the Mueller Investigation.  

This time he spent a lot of time with the NRA, including lunch with NRA Executive Director Wayne LaPierre.  After meeting with him, the President began speaking in NRA slogans, including numbers 1,2,4, and 6 above.  Yesterday in a press “scrum” in the Oval Office, he said that the current background checks were “very strong,” and that universal checks were “off the table.”

The NRA has a well-worn strategy for mass shootings.  The first step is to keep quiet, letting the emotions and horror go by without comment. Then they allow politicians to parrot the talking points, but let the hue and cry for change run its course. The news cycle in America is fast; murders on Saturday are old news by Thursday.  Then the NRA applies the pressure:  to Trump, to McConnell, and to the membership.  

Daddy’s Calling

Wayne LaPierre has Donald Trump convinced that the 2020 election depends on gun rights.  Some voters choose candidates based on gun rights, and they are a key block in the Trump “base.”  La Pierre obviously made the “call” to pull Trump back in.  The fact that there is nowhere else for those voters to go (there is certainly no Democrat who fits their position) doesn’t seem to matter. 

“Mr. Trump, Wayne LaPierre is on the phone.”

“Daddy’s calling.”

Wow, Report Just Out! Google manipulated from 2.6 million to 16 million votes for Hillary Clinton in 2016 Election! This was put out by a Clinton supporter, not a Trump Supporter! Google should be sued. My victory was even bigger than thought! — Tweet from President Donald Trump – 8/19/19

Psychologist lists 14 reasons why voters support Trump, from “practicality for Trump’s morality” to “racism and bigotry.” Psychology Today– 12/27/18

We Are Divided

The United States is dramatically divided over President Donald Trump.  As we approach the 2020 Presidential election, we still argue about what happened in 2016.  Psychologists are weighing in on both sides of the discussion. 

It’s not helping.

A recent Facebook post highlighted the “psychological explanation” of how voters support Trump. It sets out fourteen points explaining the “psychology” of Trump supporters, all of them derogatory.  In summary, the report claims that Trump supporters are:

• Immoral
• Distracted by Trump’s showmanship
• Obsessed with celebrity
• Wanting to watch “the world burn”
• Overly sensitive to threats
• Afraid of dying
• Pretending to have more political expertise than they really have
• Possessed with a misguided sense of entitlement
• In a bubble of their own making
• Mentally vulnerable
• Narcissists
• Wanting to dominate others
• Authoritarian personalities, and
• Many are racist bigots.

“Pop” Insults

Now, there are a whole lot of people who support Donald Trump.  I’m as baffled as the next Democrat about how he attracts them.  But I’m not willing to call all of them names, nor say they are all somehow “mentally deficient”.  Perhaps that’s why this “study” appeared in a popular magazine, Psychology Today, rather than in some scientific journal under more rigorous scrutiny.  

It’s “pop” psychology, and while it might be personally satisfying for anti-Trump folks to read how “deficient” Trump voters are, it is neither true nor useful in the battle against Trumpism.   First of all, it boils down to just name-calling. That’s not going to win votes, and it’s not going to convince those who voted for Trump in 2016 to change their minds in 2020.  Insults are more likely to harden their position. It doesn’t add to constructive change in the American electorate, it simply makes the divide worse.

Second, it doesn’t recognize the real issues that Donald Trump finds in American politics.  The first step in defeating Trump is that Americans need to realize that his version of populism did connect.  It can’t just be about the mental “defects” of his supporters; we can’t just write-off 46% of the American electorate.  It should be about what he does that resonates with Americans.  Then Democrats need to convince some of them that either it’s not true, or a Democrat can do it better.

Bias and Google

Calling someone immoral, distracted, obsessed, vulnerable, and of course narcissistic and racist is not likely to change their mind, or vote.  But using psychologists to prop up your view works both ways.  Yesterday the President quoted a psychologist’s study claiming that Google searches persuaded 16 million voters to choose Clinton over him.  

Again this was a “pop psychology” study (CNN), published in a way to avoid the rigors of actual scientific research.  The study examined “Google Searches” on issues to see if Clinton would come out on top of Trump in the search listings.  The researcher claims that Google was “slanted” for Clinton, by having 95 people, including 21 self-described independents, rate the relative positiveness of Trump or Clinton searches.

The Australian Extrapolation

The defects in the study were numerous.  First, Google DOES favor “real” news sources, such as CNN, or the Wall Street Journal, or the New York Times over such sources as Breitbart or the Blaze.  Since Trump certainly got more “play” in the latter, it’s not too surprising that he didn’t “win” this part of the study.

Taking those “biased” results, the study’s author extrapolated that between 2.5 million and 10 million American voters were swayed by Google’s pro-Clinton leanings.   That was based on research he did in an Australian election.

The extrapolation, based on a different population in a different part of the world, seems far-fetched. Add that it uses twenty-one independents to predict millions of votes, and it seems beyond belief. But even that wasn’t as far a reach as the President tweeted, turning the number into 16 million voters. 

Hillary Clinton noted in her responding tweet:

The debunked study you’re referring to was based on 21 undecided voters. For context that’s about half the number of people associated with your campaign who have been indicted.

Enough Troubles

There’s enough bad news, fake headlines, and misleading tweets in the world, without adding pop psychological studies that have little basis in fact.  What happened in 2016 is explainable without psycho mumbo-jumbo.  Division played into the hands of Trump’s forces then, and continues to do so today. 

 The election of 2020 is critical to putting America back together again. Looking for ways to further divide is the Trump strategy.  Democrats need to focus on the opposite.

I just heard the school bus go by again.  It’s the first day of school.  That was an important day in my life for a very long time.

Schools and Colleges 

 For the first thirteen years, it meant new teachers and classrooms, and seeing old friends.  Whether it was Clifton School in Cincinnati, Van Buren Junior High in Kettering, or Wyoming High School back in Cincinnati, the first day was always an important one.  For me, it was usually a good day, one that I looked forward to:  even that first day in a brand new high school in Wyoming. It’s a scary things to do, walking into a high school in a small town as the “new kid” sophomore.

Then for the next four years, the first day of school was at Denison University.  That first day of college was scary too, especially when I was walking back to my dorm room with a couple hundred pages of reading to do.  But, after some struggles, I got the hang of college, learned a lot, and had a great time.  Denison let me “try on” my life, from running political campaigns to teaching in public school.

It’s My Job

Then the first day of school became my job.  With one year’s exception, from 1978 until 2014 the first day of school was always a new beginning.  No matter how bad or good the last year was, whether I succeeded in getting those students to buy into my class and learn or not, the first day was always starting over. It was one of the best parts of being a public schoolteacher; every Day One was a new beginning, and a new test. 

“This is as good as it gets.”

That was written on that antique communications device I used in my 28 years in the classroom.  It was called a black board, using a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock to leave tracks on a dark smooth surface.  The first class discussion:  what does that mean?  It was the first day of senior year, is that what’s so good?  We were going to talk about government and life and what happened in our town and the world, is that it?

Or was it the reality that my handwriting on the board was really, really bad.  It wasn’t going to get any better – “this is as good as it gets.”

Today they don’t use black boards, someone might be allergic to the dust. You can’t find them anyway, every class has a “dry erase” board, and most have a computer driven “smart board.”  Try being left handed with a dry erase marker – it takes “writing gymnastics” not to erase everything you write.

Winning their Minds

Those twenty-five or thirty kids in first period didn’t care whether I got any sleep the night before, or how last year went.  They were, for what might be a brief moment, open to learning. In forty minutes, could I get them to want to be up at 7:22 in the morning, sitting in a freezing cold room with no windows?  Could I convince them that American Government was something worth knowing, something they would want to participate in?  

If I was good, if I found the “key” to their interest, I could get them walking out of class with a little surprise:  they wanted to come back.   I could fill the “senior lunch room” with the issues we discussed in class that morning.  And when first period filed out, those seats were quickly filled with second period. I began again.

For parts of four decades the first day of school welcomed students into my domain, my classroom.  

Being the Dean

Then I made a big change; I became the Dean of Students at the high school.  There was no longer “my classroom.”  Instead it was “our school,” a team of three administrators trying to make it a good place to learn.  It was no longer 150 kids a day, it was 1200, most of them never interacting with me more than a nod and a wave.  

But then there were “my kids,” our “frequent flyers.”  They were “sent to the office” all the time.  I got to know them, their parents, their hopes and their problems.  I counseled, punished, and some got suspended.  A few required the sheriffs department, handcuffed privately in my office and slipped out the side door.  

I don’t like goodbyes, and high school graduation ceremonies are one really long, usually hot, goodbye.  But one of the good parts of the “Dean” job was getting to congratulate kids as they stepped up to the stage to get their diploma. We took particular pride in the “frequent flyers” that made it to graduation, celebrating our shared success in their making it “across the stage.”

If you’re the “discipline” guy in a high school, eight years is a long, long time.  It’s not so much the job itself; you can find a lot of joy in helping kids grow.  But your always making some kid mad.  And the teacher that sent them wants them killed, so you’re probably making them mad as well.  And if not that, there are always the parents who think their kid “couldn’t have done that.” After a few years, all of that adds up, and it’s time to go.

So my last “first day” was in August of 2013.  

Back Again?

I retired from teaching and “Deaning” in June of 2014.  So here I am, five years later, thinking about going back into a classroom – who’d believe it – a substitute teacher?

You’d think after forty years I’d have it down.  But there’s another “first day” out there again.  I’m nervous, a little excited, and dismayed at getting up at five in the morning.  But the kids in the class won’t care.  

This is as good as it gets.

Cutting the Pie

Winning Presidential elections in America in the past twenty years was pretty simple.  The Republican candidate could depend on about 40% of the vote.  The Democratic candidate could depend on about 40% of their vote.  Whoever manages to persuade a majority of the remaining 20%, wins. Sometimes they haven’t even needed a majority.  George Bush in 2000, and Donald Trump in 2016 were able to “thread the needle” in the Electoral College to win the Presidency while losing the popular vote.

The battle became persuading the 20%, and getting a bigger slice of that voter pie then the opponent.

What this also means is that there is a voting group who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, and Donald Trump in 2016.  That’s hard to imagine, but it seems to be the case especially in the critical electoral states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.  It’s also true in Ohio; a state that gave 51.5% and 50.7% to Obama, then 51.7% to Trump.  

Winning the Middle

So if you accept the historical divisions in America, then the election will be won by winning 11% of the middle voters.  This requires that the successful candidate appeal to the Obama/Trump voters, by finding the odd commonality in those two men.  There are two places where Obama and Trump touched a similar theme.  

The first is the plight of the “working man.”  It isn’t just about employment, but also about the fact that a “working wage” in America doesn’t provide enough for the “American Dream.”   In households with kids, 63% had both parents employed (BLS). The America those parents grew up in usually had one parent working, making a wage that could provide for the needs of the family.  Now that same family requires two wage earners, and is still struggling to live “the Dream.”  

Change Gonna Come

The second is the desire for change.  Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2016 both represented “change” candidates, running against the current government and bureaucracies.  Both times, voters wanted someone different, new, and not committed to current policy.  And both times they got their wish.  But once in office, Obama found himself stymied by his own Party in Congress, unwilling to move forward on his program of “change we can believe in.”  He spent most of his political capital passing the Affordable Care Act, a moderate Republican measure, and it’s passage cost Democrats control.

For the next six years, the goal of the Senate Majority Leader (McConnell) was to stop Obama from getting anything done.  And, like it or not, McConnell was damn good at his job.

Trump ran on the “Make America Great Again” slogan, the idea that we could change “back” to an America where “things were better,” at least for the Midwest, white, working man.  He promised steel and coal jobs that could provide for a family on one income.  It was the kind of change a frustrated Pennsylvania (or Ohio) worker wanted to hear.

Traditional Pieing

So this was the “traditional “ model of campaigning.  Hillary Clinton followed this strategy, and so did Trump.  And, without getting into the impact Russian intervention, social media or the FBI had on the election returns; Trump seemed to narrowly get the best of it.  

Candidates in 2020 running on the same theory would have to do the following.  President Trump would need to convince folks that he has come through, and that the “change” he promised is here, or at least just around the corner. He needs good economic numbers to tell those Midwest, white, workers that they will see financial gains soon, and will have the opportunity to live the “American Dream” they hoped to find.

The Democratic candidate must not only convince those voters that President Trump didn’t come through for them, but must offer alternate plans that would help fulfill their goals. The Sherrod Brown “dignity of work” philosophy is particularly geared to that theme added to by his famous phrase “…whether they shower before work or after.”  Democrats recognize the power of the worker. But they also know at the same time they need workers, they must get both a high percentage of minority votes, but also a huge turnout of minority voters.  So while they speak to the 11%, they can’t forget about getting their 40% to the polls.

Pie Expansion

But there is an alternative theory to the 2020 election.  Folks like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren hope to turn out a whole new faction of voters who generally haven’t voted before.  The 20 to 35 year old voters have traditionally had a low turnout percentage.  The most progressive wing of the Democratic Party hopes to reach those voters and get them to the polls. They are offering changes that will specifically impact those voters: reducing student debt, and protecting the environment.

The Trump campaign also has an alternate theory of 2020.  They believe that there is a faction of Americans who normally don’t vote, but are being encouraged to do so now by the President’s rhetoric.  This is the “Stephen Miller” strategy, named for the Presidential Advisor.  He believes that you can bring this new faction to bear, by the high rhetoric and actions of the President towards immigrants on the Southern Border.  This “fear of invasion” tactic attempts to create a black and white contrast. 

 The Trump Campaign claims that Democrats want open borders and unregulated migration.  They say that those folks will come and commit crimes, spend your government money, and, most importantly, take you jobs. The President is trying to stop those things from happening to you.  Building a wall, separating children from parents, and rounding up illegals is all part of the plan to “protect you” from their incursions.   As President Trump himself said, you really don’t have a choice; you have to vote for him.

Place Your Bet

So the election of 2020 will determine which  “philosophy of pie” is correct.  For the Democrats, if the traditional pie holds true, then a more traditional candidate will likely be successful.  There is no one more traditional than Joe Biden, and no candidate more poised to reach those workers in the Midwest.  And Biden, in part through his association with President Obama, is able to energize the minority voters as well.

But if this is an expanding pie election, Biden may not be the right guy.  The younger, more progressive candidates are more likely to appeal to the 20-35 voting block.  Harris, Warren, Buttigieg, Booker all fit that model.  And while Bernie Sanders is much older, he still has the “outsider” and “maverick” appeal that reaches those swing voters.

Will the pie be sliced the same old way, or will it become a bigger pie?  That is the critical question in the 2020 election.  And it’s not just “any old” Presidential election in 2020, it certainly seems like an “inflection point” in American history.  The result of  2020 may well determine the future of the America’s experiment in Democracy.  

We have two of the best dogs ever:  Buddy and Atticus.  They are different ages and breeds, and both come from unknown backgrounds. They are Rescues, with their own personalities, quirks, and endearments.  We love them both, and they get along great with each other.

Sick Puppies

Both have health issues. Buddy, our seven-year-old Border collie mix, is a cancer survivor.  When he was diagnosed in 2016, he was given maybe a year to live.  After surgery and a year of chemotherapy, its more than three years later and he is currently cancer free.  His every three-month blood test is normal.  He is the subject of research papers and medical seminars by his Veterinary Oncologist, with pictures of him chasing a ball in the back yard and sunning on Atlantic beaches long after he was supposed to be gone.   He is a medical success story, and we hope he’s saving other dogs.

Atticus is our two-year-old Yellow Lab.  We found him on the “kill list” of the Franklin County (Columbus, Ohio) shelter. His ears were completed infected, so much so that he really couldn’t hear.  The Shelter wouldn’t begin treatments without surgery, and couldn’t afford to take care of him.  We saw him on Facebook, and we couldn’t let him die.  

It took over six months to clear up his ears.  We found he was allergic to almost everything he wanted to eat:  beef, dairy, grains.  Atticus is now on a strict diet of a fish and sweet potato mix.  He can have very little else, except for carrots. Both Atticus and Buddy love carrots, and celery when they can get it.  

The Cost of Health

Special foods, medication for both, and the usual purchases of flea and tick pills:  walking into the Vet’s office is never a cheap deal.  Last month, it was cost $319.  As I was paying at the counter, I jokingly said, “…can I get these guys on my health insurance plan?”  

Instead of the expected giggles, I got information on Dog Insurance.  Nationwide Insurance, located here in Columbus, is a big “mover” in the pet insurance business.

There’s nothing cheap about Dog Health Insurance.  An average cost might by $40 a month per dog; but a dog as old as Buddy is closer to $80. But, when you add up our actual costs a year, we are way beyond that, at least $3000 last year, not including special foods.  So maybe we should sign up.

Now this is a political site, about politics and America and what’s going on today.  So you know there has to be a political side to this essay.

Pre-Existing Conditions

That operative term is: PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS.  If you don’t get pet insurance from puppy-hood, which ain’t happening with Rescue dogs; then all of those problems we’ve had with Buddy and Atticus aren’t covered.

Sure Buddy’s covered for accidents and new problems.  But if it relates back to his lymphoma or treatments, it’s off the table.  He’s considered in “remission,” but never “cured.”  And sure, if Atticus comes up with something new, then the insurance would help.  But his main health issue, allergic reactions to most normal dog diets; doesn’t count.

So while we could go ahead and purchase dog insurance for them, the cost would be more of an addition to their current health costs than a savings. While it might avoid some future catastrophic costs, we would likely end up paying more annually.

Life without the ACA

It’s a lot like the alternative to the current human insurance rules under the Affordable Care Act. Humans may be covered under their parent’s coverage from birth, but once they leave “puppy-hood” and become adults (defined as 26 under the ACA, but it used to be 21) they are forced into the open market to find their own insurance, usually through employment.  And if their employer’s coverage doesn’t include the pre-existing conditions they bring with them, as many didn’t before the ACA, they are stuck.

So if you are considering “on the market” dog insurance, get it early, when your dog is a puppy.  That way, all of their health issues will be covered, and, as long as you don’t lapse coverage, it continues to be covered.  And since, unlike human insurance, they can’t “age out” of your coverage, you and your dogs will be protected.

And what about those Rescues, those dogs that enter the health world with problems in the first place? Just like those humans unable to get coverage for pre-existing conditions, they are going to struggle to afford health care.  Maybe they’ll get lucky, like Buddy and Atticus, and find people who will pay the price to take care of them.   

Some humans got lucky and found employers with insurance coverage of pre-existing conditions. But if the Affordable Care Act, or whatever replaces it doesn’t force insurance companies to accept those conditions, then those humans will be out of luck, and out of money.

I’m a Democrat.  I’ve been one since 1960.  I was three years old, and Mom pinned a JFK for President button on my sweater.  

Fear Itself

But being a Democrat isn’t just about tradition, or parentage (Dad was a “Rockefeller Republican”.)  It’s about a series of ideas that the Democratic Party represents.  I am a Democrat from the political party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the President that told us:

 “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

Roosevelt took office in the depths of the Great Depression, when the unemployment rate was approaching 25%.  One in four Americans could not find a job.  But his assertion about “fear” applies just as firmly today.  Our nation, through the voice of the current President, is in the grip of a different kind of fear:  fear of change, fear of “others,” and fear of the future.  It is unreasoning and unjustified, but it is driving the Republican base to turn to Donald Trump.  We are retreating, not advancing.

Freedom of Man

And as my button (wish I still had it) indicated, I am a Democrat from the political party of John F. Kennedy.  He is the President that told us:

“…And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”

Kennedy assumed the Presidency at a time when the world was poised on the edge of nuclear holocaust and choosing between Communism and Democracy.  He urged Americans to rise to a calling higher than themselves; to serve both their country and the world.  Today, our world seems to be turning to authoritarian leaders rather than trust “the people.”  And our nation is being told that we should not only look within, but should “cleanse” ourselves of “others.”

This week President Trump nominated Steven Menashi for the Federal Appeals Court.  Menashi has specifically written about the need for “our liberal democracy” to become “ethnonationalist” to survive.  “Ethnonationalist” is a code word for racial and ethnic purity.  This future jurist, chosen by our leadership, is calling for a white America. (Here’s Menashi’s treatise on the subject – University of Pennsylvania.)

Example of Sacrifice

I am a Democrat from the political party of Jimmy Carter, who I had the honor of working for in the 1976 campaign. Carter recognized that America’s energy consumption gave control of our nation to the Middle East.  He prophetically knew America must move to alternative energies, and while the nation made fun of his sweater and solar panels at the time, it’s not so funny now. 

Jimmy Carter after his Presidency is an example of service.  From building for the homeless, to ending blinding disease in Africa, to assuring election fairness:  Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter continue to show Americans how to take power and influence and use it for good, even today, well into their nineties.

I am a Democrat from the political party of Walter Mondale, who did not become President, but warned America that taxes needed to be raised.  It cost him the election, but his words, still largely ignored today, warned of the Republican Presidency that tripled America’s debt.  Republicans, the party of “fiscal responsibility,” have continued to expand our debt each time they have been in office.

A Rainbow

I am a Democrat from the party of Jessie Jackson, who in 1988 presented America with the “Rainbow Coalition.” They called on Blacks, Jews, Hispanics, Muslims, Gays, Whites, Men and Women to join together to change America. It didn’t work in 1988, but it set the stage for the American Democratic coalitions today.

And finally, I am a Democrat from the party that nominated and elected Barack Obama, a man of vision who offered a different, kinder, America.  President Obama led with grace, and presented America with stable leadership, empathetic understanding, and powerful intellect.  He raised the level of American discourse, and must have threatened segments of Americans who felt left behind.  Certainly Mr. Trump is a symbol of that counter-reaction.  

Today

I am a Democrat.  I am a member of a political party that has diversity even in its Presidential candidates.  We will choose from White, Asian, Black, or Latino candidates: from men or women, gay or straight.  We will choose from North and South, East, Midwest, Mountain and West.  Our candidates represent the spectrum of our nation, not just a narrowing class of the privileged.  That’s why I am a Democrat, a believer in the great liberal spirit that has run through my Party for the past one hundred years.

Armored vehicles line up on the border.  The “special relationship” between China and the city of Hong Kong seems on the verge of destruction.  The rest of the world, including the United States, has said little about it, helpless to even protest against possible Chinese actions. The memory of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, when tanks rolled over thousands of protesting students in Beijing, is clear.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong, smaller than Los Angeles but with more than twice the population, is one of the major trading centers in the world.  A British colony until 1997, the United Kingdom ceded the city back to China under very specific terms.  Hong Kong was to maintain a democratic government, a separate capitalist economy including its own currency, and a legal system based in English Common Law.

That special relationship has benefitted China as well.  A big part of Chinese modernization into the world economy has been through the window of Hong Kong’s capitalism.  Hong Kong itself is one of the top-ten import/export nations in the world. 

Over the twenty-two years since Hong Kong became part of China, the Beijing government has quietly inserted itself into the Hong Kong government.  The Chinese government appoints Hong Kong’s Chief Executive.  This executive controls the courts, as well as the ability to veto laws and dissolve the elected legislature.

Democracy Threatened

The current crisis began when Chief Executive Carrie Lam proposed a law allowing the Chinese Government to assume judicial jurisdiction of some Hong Kong cases.   Those accused of “political” crimes would no longer be tried under Hong Kong law, but could be transferred to Mainland China for trial and punishment.

The young people of Hong Kong began protests in the streets, demanding that the proposal be withdrawn. After weeks of marches, Lam delayed the proposal but refused to completely withdraw it, and the protests grew more intense.  Police and protestors battled in the streets, and armed “provocateurs” sponsored by the Chinese government attacked protestors and created riots.  Hong Kong’s international airport, eighth busiest in the world, was closed for two days.

The Chinese induced riots create a pretext for direct Beijing intervention in Hong Kong and threatens the “special relationship” as well as the personal and political freedoms of the City.  

So what’s the “downside” of Chinese military action in Hong Kong?  The world seems willing to stand on the sideline.  The power of the Chinese economy over world trade and financial markets has silenced Europe, and particularly the United Kingdom. The United States has said little as well.  There is nothing to stop China from acting.

Tough Business

President Trump treats the threat to Hong Kong as an “internal Chinese matter.”  He tweeted (the official form of Presidential communication):

I know President Xi of China very well. He is a great leader who very much has the respect of his people. He is also a good man in a “tough business.” I have ZERO doubt that if President Xi wants to quickly and humanely solve the Hong Kong problem, he can do it. Personal meeting? Trump – 8/14/19

The “great leader” and “good man” is in a “tough business”.  Will President Xi take the “tough business” comment as permission to actually be “tough” and roll tanks into the streets of Hong Kong?  And would a personal meeting with President Trump simply grant him even more latitude to deal with Hong Kong?  

The Trump Administration is ingnoring the strong stand for democracy in Hong Kong.  With Trump’s transactional form of foreign diplomacy, it may be that he is willing to trade Hong Kong for a better trade deal with China.  The US is already faltering in that effort. Trump delayed raising tariffs on China so that the American people can get their “Christmas shopping” done. 

Dealmaker

The US cages migrants on the Southern Border, and supports the leader of Saudi Arabia after he butchers a newspaper correspondent. The Trump Administration has made it clear that they are willing to accept almost any behavior if they can “make a deal”.  We have a government policy without a moral compass, so “tough business” in Hong Kong probably won’t shake it.

Hong Kong’s democracy will be another pawn traded in the chess match of US world trade policy.  The American people may soon be forced to stomach the picture of Hong Kong’s youth, demanding democracy, being crushed under Chinese armor. 

 It will be part of “the deal.”

Nope – not talking about Epstein’s autopsy.  

Failure Analysis

On March 11, 2013, the leadership of the Republican National Committee released their “autopsy” on the 2012 Presidential election.  Incumbent Democrat Barack Obama soundly beat Republican Mitt Romney.   At least, it was a sound beating in the Electoral College, with Obama getting 332 votes to Romney’s 206.  The electoral outcome belied the closeness of the popular vote: Obama had 51.1% to Romney’s 47.2%, a mere five million votes more out of the 127 million cast.  

The Republican Party had lost four of the last six Presidential elections, and the popular vote in five out of six.

• 1992 – Clinton over HW Bush 
• 1996 – Clinton over Dole
• 2000 – W Bush over Gore* (Gore won the popular vote)
• 2004- -W Bush over Kerry
• 2008 – Obama over McCain
• 2012 – Obama over Romney

Regional Winners

But, Republicans were winning on the state level.  The “Red Map” gerrymandering plan was effectively gaining control of more state legislatures.  Thirty states had Republican governors.  Congressional maps were altered to improve GOP chances in the House of Representatives, gaining and expanding their majority control.  And the Republican “voter ID program” suppressed Democratic votes and impacted turnout, particularly in non-Presidential years.

But, on the national level, the Republican leadership felt their relevance slipping away. As the “autopsy” put it:

“Public perception of the Party is at record lows. Young voters are increasingly rolling their eyes at what the Party represents, and many minorities wrongly think that Republicans do not like them or want them in the country. When someone rolls their eyes at us, they are not likely to open their ears to us.” (Atlantic)

The Party of White Men

The “autopsy” recognized the Republicans must reach minorities, youth, and women to stay relevant in national races.  Otherwise the party would have influence only on regional matters.  They would become the Party of white men and demographically, a party doomed to fade away.

In 2013, the Republican leadership looked at the changing demographics of America, and agreed they needed to reach Latino communities.  The report stated:

“If Hispanic Americans hear that the GOP doesn’t want them in the United States, they won’t pay attention to our next sentence. It doesn’t matter what we say about education, jobs or the economy; if Hispanics think that we do not want them here, they will close their ears to our policies. In essence, Hispanic voters tell us our Party’s position on immigration has become a litmus test, measuring whether we are meeting them with a welcome mat or a closed door.”(Atlantic)

The “Autopsy” also pointed out that the Republican Party needed to reach out to women.

“The RNC must improve its efforts to include female voters and promote women to leadership ranks within the committee. Additionally, when developing our Party’s message, women need to be part of this process to represent some of the unique concerns that female voters may have.” (Atlantic)

Golden Escalator

All of this was thrown out the window when Donald Trump came down the “golden escalator” and said about Mexican migrants; “…They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” (Time)

Or was it?

Yesterday I listened to Michael Steel, aide to former Republican Speaker Boehner.  Steel worked for Jeb Bush in the 2016 Presidential campaign. He made it clear that the Republican Party was forced to choose in 2016:  either to follow the “Autopsy” into the future, or cobble together the “old” coalition one more time.  

Donald Trump forced that choice by bringing a powerful combination of racism, nationalism and star power to a primary packed with “policy wonks.”  Bush, Cruz, Kasich, Rubio, Paul; all made their marks as serious men talking about serious issues.  Trump blew them away with his disregard for policy, the truth, and social norms.  It was the exact formula to gain mass appeal that the others couldn’t match.

It worked in the general election as well, with Hillary Clinton the archetypical “wonk:” perhaps she would make a great President, but she was a poor candidate.

But the longer course of history will run in favor of the “autopsy results.”  The election in 2018 demonstrated the change:  even in Republican Georgia with the full force of voter suppression in play, Democratic Governor candidate Stacy Abrams came within a couple of percent of winning.  A Democrat won the Senate seat in Arizona.  If that can happen in these “Red” states, then it foretells a dwindling future for the Republican Party.  

Change or Fade

All of this doesn’t guarantee a Trump loss in 2020.  Democrats will need to field a candidate who can reach beyond “policy wonk” to touch American lives.  A successful nominee needs to bring more voters to the polls than Clinton did in 2016, knowing full well that Trump will maximize the “old white” vote, and may have the “hidden hand” of election meddling on his side.  It is a critical election.

But in the longer term, Trump will fade.  His “special mix” will be near impossible to replicate.  Lindsey Graham, Mike Pence, Donald Junior: all may hope to inherit the mantle, but none of them seem to have the “super power” that Trump has with his base.  

The 2012 “Autopsy” wasn’t wrong.  The Republican Party will either change or stop being a national force.  What Trump has managed to do, is delay the inevitable for four years.  

Democrats: nominate a strong enough candidate to make sure it’s not eight.

The United States has turned inside itself.  We are focused:  on Donald Trump, on the border, on the Democrats running for President.  And the Trump Administration continues to re-focus Americans internally.  Yesterday they issued two new policies.  

Species Endangered

The Trump Administration wants to revise the Endangered Species Act to factor in an “economic cost” in saving endangered species. Put simply, they want to allow consideration of the value of the lumber that could be logged out of a forest, over the survival of a species in that forest, such as the “Northern Spotted Owl.” This economic analysis is specifically prohibited in the original law passed by Congress. They thought that the fact that a particular species was endangered and could become extinct was a “beyond price” kind of problem. Bald eagles, grizzly bears, timber wolves, and many other species exist today because of the law.

The current Secretary of Interior, David Bernhardt, did legal work for a variety of businesses prior to coming to the Department. Familiar names like: Halliburton, Cobalt International Energy, and the Independent Petroleum Association of America were his clients. All of these groups were looking for oil wherever they could find it. Pesky endangered species got in the way of drilling.

Who Gets to Enter

The Trump Administration also announced that they would revise immigration regulations to require legal immigrants to be financially self-sufficient.  Immigrants applying for “green cards,” the symbol of permanent legal immigration status; would have to have “private” insurance, a good “FICO Score,” and a bank account.   

That might seem reasonable, except that’s not what legal immigration has been about for literally the entire history of the United States. Almost everyone has his or her own “immigration story.” Here is mine.

An American Tale

 Isaac Dahlman came from the border area between France and Germany called Alsace. He arrived at New York in 1869, before the Statue of Liberty or Ellis Island, and went to join relatives already in Cincinnati.  He married Clara Dreyfoos, became a “rag” dealer, and had four sons.  One of those sons, Ben, became the sports editor for the Cincinnati newspaper, the Post. His son, Donald, became a successful broadcast executive, developing a popular national talk show.  That was my Dad.

Many Americans have that literal “rags to riches” story to tell. Isaac didn’t have private insurance, or a FICO score, or a bankroll when he came to America.  Neither did any of the millions who arrived with him, including Frederick Trump, who emigrated from Germany sixteen years after my great-grandfather.  He started as a barber, and then joined in the gold rush of the 1890’s by running restaurants and brothels for the miners in the state of Washington.  

He ultimately ended up as a hotel manager in Queens, New York, where he began to acquire property.  His son, Fred continued buying up property, and set up his son, Donald, in the field.  The rest is history.

This is America’s story.  But the Trump Administration decided that we don’t want “those” kind of people, probably because today’s immigrants are coming from Central America and India not Germany or France.  The Trump view of the traditional American dream is not just in black and white, it’s in white only.

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane

So we worry about the borders, and we worry about the next attack on the American Dream from the Trump Administration.  And while we worry about all of that, we better worry about what happened in the world this week as well.

There was an explosion at a military base on the White Sea in far northeast Russia.  At first, it was described as a failure on a “test platform” with several casualties. But then radiation levels in a city twenty miles away went up 200%.  It now looks like the Russian’s were testing their vaunted “nuclear powered” cruise missile, what they call the “Burevestnik” but NATO has named the “Skyfall” (thank goodness.)  This test failed, and at least five were killed.

The “Skyfall” cruise missile, if it worked, is a “game changer” in the nuclear missile field.  It uses a small nuclear reactor to superheat air, and then propels it out of the tail of a missile.  This “scramjet” engine could produce speeds of up to 20000 miles per hour, and could remain in flight for – wait for it – months.

Extinction Isn’t Just for Animals

The combination of speed, flight time, and a traditional cruise missile profile of near-ground flight; makes it near impossible to defend against.  Up until last week, these kinds of missiles were banned by treaty, the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF.) But the Trump Administration let negotiations collapse, and a nuclear weapons race seems ready to takeoff.

Yes, this test failed.  The five scientists killed have been buried with full honors, “Heroes of Mother Russia.” But while we are focused on our internal problems, we better look out. 

 It isn’t just the Northern Spotted Owl that is threatened by the Trump Administration.

Jeffrey Epstein:  child predator, friend to high society and government, a man of wealth and privilege; is dead.  Sometime on Sunday morning before 6:30 am, he died in a cell in one of America’s most notorious prisons, the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in lower Manhattan, New York.

Down at the MCC  

The MCC is one of the Federal system’s best-known prisons.  911 mastermind, Khalid Sheik Mohammad, complained the MCC was worse than Guantanamo.  Mafioso John Gotti and Mexican drug lord El Chappo both said the conditions, particularly the isolation, were near intolerable.  And all of these men were being held for trial, theoretically “presumed innocent:” just like Jeffrey Epstein.

Did Epstein manage to commit suicide?   Certainly most Americans would understand why he would; he was accused of recruiting young girls to “service” himself and his friends.  If convicted, he would never see his New Mexico ranch or Caribbean island getaway again.  The inside of a prison cell would be his lifetime view.  

But Jeffrey Epstein was connected to some of the most powerful people in the nation.  The current President, a former President, the former Governor of New Mexico, a Prince of the United Kingdom, a prominent law professor at Harvard, the richest man in Columbus, Ohio; all were “friends” or “former friends” of the shadowy finance guy.  If you have a conspiratorial bone in your body, Epstein’s death raises your suspicions.

Suicide Watch

So what happened to Epstein in that cell in the MCC?

The current theory is that he managed to hang himself in his cell; completing the suicidal act he started a couple of weeks ago.  Then, he was in a different cell, one with a cellmate, when he was found curled on the floor, unconscious, with marks around his throat.  The MCC revived him and placed him on suicide watch.

Suicide watch makes a prison even worse.  No sheets, no belts, no shoelaces, no cellmate, a cell with no way to tie off a makeshift rope.  The prisoner is watched twenty-four hours a day, and is evaluated twice a day to determine suicidal status.  It not only is tough on the prisoner, it’s expensive.  The MCC is already faced with a guard shortage; present employees routinely work 16-hour shifts.  The cost of keeping one guard eyeing one prisoner is exorbitant.  The financial pressure is to get a prisoner off of “watch” to cut the costs.

So perhaps the MCC did the expedient thing:  they judged Epstein safe and left him alone.  They put him on an “every 30 minute” watch, giving him plenty of time to create a makeshift rope and find a way to tie it.  They found him hanging in his cell; he died despite attempts to revive him.

Conspiracy Theory 1

It just seems so unlikely. The highest profile prisoner in the United States, perhaps the world, who already tried to kill himself:  and they left him alone.  Epstein has always has “a way” with people.  Les Wexner, the billionaire founder of Limited Brands, gave Epstein unlimited access to his fortune.  In return, Epstein made Wexner an even greater fortune, and managed to steal about $40 million along the way.  And the guards in Palm Beach, turned themselves into Epstein “security detail” while he was serving a thirteen month solicitation sentence.  He went to his office every day, and at night the door to his cell was left unlocked.

Epstein had a way of influencing people.  Perhaps he influenced the guards, or the psychiatrist at the MCC.  Maybe it was just bribery, but more likely, it was the “Epstein guile” that served him so well in life.  Maybe they just fell for it.

Conspiracy Theory 2

Or maybe Epstein represented a threat so great to so many important people; that the guards were influenced to turn away and let him die.  Trump, Clinton, Prince Andrew, Dershowitz, Richardson, and how many others were implicated in Epstein’s sex scandal.  How “nice” for all of them that he just “went away” with all of his memories.  For those on the list who were innocent, now they have no way to prove it.  And, perhaps more importantly, for those who enjoyed Epstein’s perversions, now it’s harder to be implicated.  

It will make a great movie someday, whether it’s true or not.  How the rich and powerful managed to “seal off” this access to their sordid lives.  Whether Epstein did it himself, or whether he was assassinated, it will be a blockbuster.

Justice

The sad part about Epstein’s death is that it makes it unlikely that there will ever be justice, or closure, for those young girls.  They were lured by money, power, and fame to Epstein’s homes, then pushed to become sex objects.  They were kids, dragged into a dirty adult world of massages turned into orgasms.  There is little chance of retribution, or of a world saying to them:  even the powerful shouldn’t get away with what he did.  That’s the only sadness in Epstein’s death; the victims lose their chance at vindication.  

However Epstein died, we can only hope that the investigation doesn’t die with him. There are plenty of “co-conspirators” to go around, even if they are rich and powerful.  They believed their power gave them the right to commit crimes. Justice demands that we call them to the bar for their actions.

We are haunted by the actions of the Founding Fathers.  They have left us a legacy, the “wonder” of the Constitution.  Their diverse group, from plantation owners and Boston merchants; lawyers, doctors and bankers; aged philosophers and young stars; found a path to compromise.  They also found a way to establish a long lasting experiment that survived civil war, the industrial revolution, and growth into a world power.

A Long Hot Summer  

They spent May to September, the long hot summer of Philadelphia in 1787.  No one likes August in Philadelphia, but they recognized that if they didn’t fix the government, the United States would no longer be. Our nation would become a series of squabbling states, probable prey to European expansion.  Their hot work in Philadelphia saved the American dream.

But it wasn’t over when they left for home in September.  There was fear that the rights of Americans hadn’t been explained.  The conventioneers came from the tradition of English Common Law, believing that those protections were inherent, a part of the “self-evident truths” that Jefferson espoused in the Declaration of Independence.  They were afraid that delineating those rights would serve to limit them:  if they said a “right to this” but didn’t mention “that,” then “that” was not protected.

But those who feared the power of a central government more than any other threat demanded a “Bill of Rights.”  They wanted clear delineation of what the government COULD NOT do, and they wouldn’t ratify the Constitution without it.

Restrictions, not Freedoms

So the Founders wrote and ratified the first ten amendments, mostly clarifying the limits of the new Federal government.  For example, our “School House Rock” education of the First Amendment says Americans were guaranteed five freedoms:  religion, speech, press, assembly and petition.  But that’s not really what the First says.  In part it states: “…Congress shall make no law respecting establishment of religion…or abridging freedom of speech or of the press…” 

It was a prohibition on Congress, and through that body, the Federal government as a whole. We already had those freedoms; this was simply a further statement protecting all citizens from an overreaching Federal government.

The Founders, and particularly the actual authors of the Constitution and Bill of Rights who put pen to paper, were men of the Enlightenment.  They believed in the power of the written word, and they understood that both law and government could hinge on the placement and order of each sentence.  Nothing was “left to chance,” nor written carelessly.

The Written Word

The Second Amendment was written in clear language:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Our “School House Rock” version is “the right to bear arms.”  But that’s not the clearly stated wording in the Amendment.  The Founders simply did not say that.  They included the opening clause, demanding a “well regulated militia” to protect our “free state.”  So what did that mean, then; and what application does that have today?

The Second Amendment was not written about hunting, or gun sports.  The Second Amendment was written in fear of a national standing army. Americans in 1787 had a clear memory of the British Army enforcing the will of the King on the American people. More than half of the Declaration of Independence delineates those abuses.  Many were so concerned about the threat of tyranny a powerful Federal government represented, that they did not want the sheer force a national Army added to it.

So, in this sense, the “Second Amendment crazies” are right.  Those who pressured for the Second Amendment in 1787 were worried about an overreaching Federal Government; they wanted a counter force to the National government and its Army.  

But the counter force was not about individuals keeping weapons of war under their beds or in their closets.  The language of the Amendment makes it clear what the Founders intended:  “A well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free State…” 

A Balance of Power

The Battle of Lexington and Concord, the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World;” happened when the British Army was out searching for weapons stores and met armed resistance.  “Weapons stores and well regulated militias” are not the same as having a weapon of war at home.  The Founders would not have accepted someone having personal “cannons.” Artillery was for the well-regulated militias controlled by the state governments.  Today we would call that the National Guard, organized by the States.  

The Founding Fathers did not envision every citizen as a personal army.  In fact, they would have seen that as an ultimate form of anarchy. They wanted to balance the power of the Federal Government with that of the States.  When we argue, again, about the power of our personal weapons, we need to be clear what the authors of the Second Amendment intended.  They balanced personal freedom with controls.  

We cannot afford to do less.

Remember Rob Blagojevich?  He was the two term Democratic Governor of the Great State of Illinois, known best for his “mop-top, Davey Jones” hair.  Besides being the Chief Executive of the home of Lincoln, he joined in a great Illinois political tradition:  he’s in jail.

An Illinois Tradition

Some of his fellow Governors spent time for more “exotic” charges, like Dan Walker who in his post political career was convicted for bank fraud. And, of course, Illinois political leaders going to jail is a bipartisan phenomenon. Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert served time for bank regulations violations. It was really about paying hush money to an athlete he molested as a high school coach.  

But Blagojevich’s corruption was pretty much straight forward; he traded influence for money while in office.  In fact, he tried to sell the US Senate seat vacated by newly elected President Barack Obama to the highest bidder.  For that, he was impeached and removed by the Illinois legislature. So the former Governor went on a publicity tour.  

From Letterman to the Daily Show, Blagojevich proclaimed his innocence.  He also developed a “celebrity” career, starting a two-hour weekly radio show. And, he made a fateful appearance of the 9^th season of Celebrity Apprentice, where he earned high praise from host Donald Trump.  That was right before he was fired in the fourth episode.

The US Attorney for Northern Illinois wasn’t impressed by the notoriety, and charged the former Governor with 24 Federal charges of corruption. It took two trials, the first ending in a mistrial, to convict him on 17 charges.  Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years in Federal prison.  He is now held in a minimum-security facility in Englewood, Colorado, just outside of Denver.

Ask the President

This week President Donald Trump “tweeted” that he is considering commuting the former Governor’s sentence.  It’s been seven years in jail, and Trump’s famous “many people” asked him to look into ending his prison term.  

Trump told reporters that Blagojevich was imprisoned “…over a phone call were nothing happens,” and that he “…shouldn’t have said what he said, but it was braggadocio.”  The Governor was recorded on a wiretap asking for money in exchange for appointment to the Senate seat.

But it makes sense that Trump would relate to Blagojevich’s fate. Both Trump and “Blago” are “media” politicians, using their personal charms to speak directly to voters.  They also both have penchant for strong language, with “Blago” stating about the Senate vacancy: “I’ve got this thing, and it’s f**king golden.  And I’m just not giving it up for f**king nothing.”

The President knows what it’s like to hear his own voice on secret recordings.

And, of course, they both are known for their hair.  But what cuts closest to the bone for the President, is that “Blago” tried to use his office to financially enhance himself.  That’s something the President can directly relate to. He continue to receive profits from the various Trump properties benefitting from his Presidency. Who knows if that might be considered corrupt by some future Administration.

Perhaps Mr. Trump is trying to establish some kind of precedent.  Corruption is office isn’t such a big deal, as the President said:  “being stupid, saying things that every other politician, you know, that many other politicians say.”

It’s About the FBI

The President also took the opportunity to criticize the FBI and Justice Department officials who prosecuted Blagojevich, saying “…And it was the same gang — the (James Comey) gang and the — all these sleazebags — that did it.”  That actually isn’t quite true; Comey was in private practice and wasn’t with the FBI or Justice Department at the time of the prosecution.  But we get why the President might be sensitive to investigations.

And finally, Trump clearly admires something that Blagojevich has.  

“I’m very impressed with his wife,” he said. “She’s one hell of a woman.”

Don’t be surprised to see Rob Blagojevich released from custody soon. Maybe he’ll be back on television, perhaps a Celebrity Apprentice reunion show after Trump leaves office.  Or maybe sooner, surely the President would have time to record one while still President. We’ll see.

It’s a Saying

My English mother had a saying:  “that’s the pot calling the kettle black.”  It’s from a time so long ago, that many don’t even “get” the expression. Cooking in my mother’s house in 1920’s England was done over a coal-stoked stove.  The flames would coat the cookware with carbon.  Both the pot and the kettle were black.

On Fox News

I watched Fox News for a bit last night.  That’s not a common occurrence in my household, but I wanted to see Tucker Carlson. I remember Tucker as a much younger man: he was the “conservative” voice on MSNBC a decade ago.  It was a different time, when CNN and MSNBC tried to have conservative voices balancing their more progressive “stars.”  At the time, Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann were the liberal lights on MSNBC.  Former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough and Carlson were the “balance” on the other side.

MSNBC seemed “smaller” then. They were closer to “mother” NBC News during the daytime, mostly “hard” news.  It was in the early morning and the evenings that it’s “Progressive” flag flew. But it was in the late afternoon that Tucker got his time, and he tried to present a “reasonable” conservative view.

The White Nationalist “Hoax”

I turned to Tucker last night, because the night before he claimed that the “white nationalism” issue in America was a “hoax, not a real problem.”  It shouldn’t be surprising, Fox as a whole claims that lots of things are “hoaxes” including Russian involvement and the Trump campaigns’ cooperation in the 2016 election.  But I wanted to see how the murder of 22 people in El Paso by an avowed white supremacist was somehow a hoax.

Carlson’s logic last night was quite contorted.  His argument: that “white nationalism” is a “straw man” presented by MSNBC to distract from the real issue of, wait for it; economic inequality!  Carlson argued that the rich commentators of MSNBC were defending their “class” against changes that would make economic improvements.  This, about the same network that Fox claims is “in the pocket” of progressives, like Sanders and Warren who absolutely want changes to reduce inequality.

Let’s start with this: Tucker Carlson makes $6 million a year. His direct MSNBC competitor, Chris Hayes makes about the same.  MSNBC’s star Rachel Maddow makes about a million more than that, while Fox’s Sean Hannity outdistances everyone at $36 million a year.   Looks like everyone, on both networks, are in a class way above that of the “average worker.”

So the argument that somehow Carlson and Fox are representing the “common man” while MSNBC represents “rich elites” is a little hard to swallow.  

Distractions

But it is a distraction, something that Fox, and the President they represent, desperately need. The Presidential tweets and statements that were racist and incited violence are too clear.  The violence of El Paso is too real.  It is hard not to draw a straight line from one to the other.  The President, and Fox, needs to somehow blur that line, and make someone else at fault.

So MSNBC is a great candidate.  

Carlson used one commentator of MSNBC as an example of their “craziness.”  Frank Figiluzzi is a former FBI Assistant Director for Counter Intelligence.  On MSNBC he has often expressed his concerns about the dismantling of the Countering Violent Extremism program in the government.  That program had in-depth knowledge of the white supremacist movement.

Figiluzzi pointed out that white supremacist’s have a known symbolic “code” around the number 8. “88”  to them stands for “HH” which are initials for the Nazi salute, “Heil Hitler.”  The White House ordered that flags be lowered to half-staff because of the Dayton and El Paso shootings, then raised back on August 8^th, or 8/8.

Figiluzzi didn’t say that the White House was intentionally signaling white supremacists.  His point was that they blundered into an action that supremacists will take as a “dog whistle” of support.  If the programs with that in-depth knowledge were still active, the White House would have known better.

But Carlson cherry-picked Figiluzzi’s comments, claiming that the former FBI agent was saying the White House was intentionally calling out to the supremacists.  He used that to buttress his claim that MSNBC was inflaming America against the President.

On Both Sides  

Carlson called on MSNBC to “calm down.  His words:

This is not a white supremacist country, plotting the slaughter its own people. It’s a kind country, full of decent people of all races who, like all people everywhere, make bad decisions from time to time, but mean well and generally try their best. Going forward, give them the benefit of the doubt, even when you disagree. Maybe especially when you disagree. These are your fellow Americans. Cut them a break. They deserve it. And remember: The alternative is disaster.

Isn’t that sweet: Tucker says that everyone is well meaning.  It’s just like the President:

 “…there are good people, on both sides.” 

Guess I’ll go back to Chris Hayes.