Month: February 2024

No Good Options

No Brainer

The twice-impeached, four time indicted, ex-President of the United States is looking for a “get out of jail free” card.  His lawyers are claiming, as President and former President, anything he did is immune from criminal prosecution. The only exception: he is impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate.  

His claim should be a “no brainer”.  In a Nation founded on equality before the legal bar, no one, not even the President or former President, is above the law.  That was considered “Black Letter Law”, a “given” of American jurisprudence.  If he really shot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue, he could (and should) be brought to justice.

It’s one of those “norms” that Americans accepted for two-hundred and thirty years of history.  But, as in so many other areas of our political life, Trump ignored the “norms”. He went over the guardrails that informally governed the actions of our leaders.  So, common sense is out the window, and the Courts are faced with a “novel” argument. An individual with the ability to take any course of action, unfettered by law.

The Washington DC Court of Appeals underlined the absurdity of this argument.  One of the judges asked Trump’s attorney, if a President sent Seal Team Six to assassinate a political opponent, would that action be immune from criminality?  The attorney stepped right into the trap.  His argument:  unless that President was impeached and convicted, he could NEVER be held accountable for using government forces to kill off his opponent.  Sounds a lot like Putin in Russia, doesn’t it.

Frivolous Argument

Trump’s attorneys are making the immunity argument in two different cases:  the Washington DC case for interfering with the Congress (January 6th), and the Fort Pierce mishandling of classified documents case (Mara Lago).  That this argument is being made in two different Federal appellate jurisdictions, District of Columbia and the Atlanta, is important.

So even though it may be a frivolous argument, it’s one that the Courts have to deal with.  In the January 6thcase, Judge Chutkan went into detail to deny the claim.  The Trump lawyers, following the now-familiar Trump tactic of delay, delay, delay; immediately appealed Chutkan’s ruling to the Appellate Court. After hearing arguments, a three-judge panel of the Court wrote a detailed opinion denying it.

Trump did NOT appeal that ruling to the Supreme Court.  He did ask the Supreme Court to delay Judge Chutkan’s trial until the full Appellate Court heard the case.  In his response to the Trump appeal, Special Prosecutor Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to deny the claim.  He added that if they chose to act on the claim, they should act on the whole issue (rather than send it to the full Appellate Court).  And if they did that, Smith also asked that the Chutkan trial be allowed to continue.

A Clock and a Calendar

There is a clock running on the January 6th case.  It’s simple math:  Judge Chutkan promised both sides three months to prepare for the case.  Jack Smith’s team said it will take close to three months to actually try the case in front of a Jury.  And the Department of Justice has a policy: no Federal actions within sixty days of an election.  So, counting back from the Presidential election of 2024, two months before election day is September 5th.  Three months before that (the trial) is June 5th.  Three months before that (the prep) is March 5th – that’s next week.

None of those dates are “set in stone”.  The Judge could give less time to prepare, and the Department of Justice can “flex” their sixty day rule if the trial in imminent.  But legitimately, the calendar pages are turning on the January 6th case, and time is definitely running out.

Normal Process

The Supreme Court could have accepted the Appellate Court ruling. Or it could still let the case go to trial in Judge Chutkan’s Court.  Or they could decide to hear the case, but on an expedited basis, with hearings in a couple of weeks and a decision soon after.  But they didn’t do that.

Instead the Supreme Court set a hearing date of April 28th.  That’s just the oral arguments; there’s no reason to believe the Court will decide the case soon after that.  Traditionally, cases heard in April aren’t “decided” until the end of June, the end of the Supreme Court’s term.  And since the Court didn’t allow Judge Chutkan to proceed  with the case, their decision likely means that Donald J Trump will not face a trial for his actions around January 6th; at least until the Presidential election is over.

First Impression

There are few areas of our Government more secret than the decision-making process of the Supreme Court.  All we can do is speculate why the Court reached their conclusions.  So here’s some speculations:  my guesses about the inscrutable judicial machinations of our highest Court.

When the Court receives an appeal (like Trump’s) it takes four Justices to agree for the Court to accept the case.  So we do know one thing for sure – at least four of the nine, want to hear this case.   Before we get to the “nefarious” reasons why the Court  might act this way, let’s look at “legal” reasons that all nine Justices, both the Conservative majority and the Liberal minority, might agree that they “have” to hear it.

First, it is a case of “first impression”.  This improbable scenario, a President accused of trying to overthrow the results of a general election, strikes at the very heart of the American experiment in Democracy; the peaceful transition of power.  The Justices may feel it is a case of national import which deserves the full attention of our highest judicial body.

Dual Interpretations

Second, if the Court just affirmed the District of Columbia Appellate Court decision (what Prosecutor Smith asked), that decision does not bind the Atlanta Appellate district.  So the Court may be looking at a possible conflict of interpretation between two Appellate Courts; different rulings, one in DC, and one in Atlanta.  Better to step in and resolve the issue once and for all, for every Federal Court in the country, right now.

Third, while the Court is aware of the “clock and the calendar”, it’s not a clock or calendar of their doing.  In the end, the Merrick Garland Department of Justice delayed for almost two years before they brought Federal charges against Donald Trump.  Don’t like the calendar:  blame Garland, not the Federal Court system.

Bad Intentions

Those aren’t the reasons my “progressive” friends are thinking about.  The worst case scenario:  at least one Justice is positively considering the merits of Presidential immunity.  In fact, maybe one or more actually agree with Trump, and the whole Seal Team Six scenario.  Or, like many other facets of this incredibly conservative Court, maybe they really do think that the Congress must first impeach and convict, before Presidential “immunity” is removed.  I can hear the argument now:  the House did impeach, but the Senate failed to convict on the January 6th issues; why should Courts intervene when the Congress didn’t?

Or perhaps some of the Justices are falling in with the Trump strategy of “delay, delay, delay”.  If so, they found the perfect way to do so – handling the Trump case as a “normal” case in the Court, with hearings, briefs and counter-briefs, majority decisions and dissenting opinions.  All of those actions require the one thing Jack Smith doesn’t have – time.

Pass the Buck

But here’s what I think is the most likely scenario.  A coalition of Justices around the Chief Justice, John Roberts, want to keep the Court out of the Presidential election.  The Supreme Court lost a lot of public esteem in the past decades, and it can be traced straight to the “political” decision in the Bush v Gore case, when five Republican Justices decided in a way that gave the Presidency to Republican George W Bush.  The Chief Justice doesn’t want the Supreme Court, or any Federal Court, seen as putting their “thumb on the scale” of this November’s election.  

Sure, ultimately the Court will decide against Trump. There really is no “get out of jail free” card for current or former Presidents.  But they will do so in a way to keep Federal Courts from convicting Trump until after the Nation decides who the next President will be.   A “national jury” will make the decision, 160 million citizens instead of twelve.  If the country chooses Biden, then the Trump trials will go forward.  If they choose Trump, then the jury on this case, “is in”.  

Either way, it’s not the Court’s fault.

My Little Town

Thanks Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel – for a lifetime of amazing music like My Little Town

Tenure

I live in Pataskala, Ohio, but I am not a native “Pataskalan”. I didn’t go to public school here, and my ancestors didn’t own a farm or a store nearby.  Nope, I’m a long-term interloper.  I first arrived when I was twenty-one years old, a fuzzy haired student-teacher from nearby Denison University.  The only thing I knew about Pataskala was that a charity food and clothing center, a place called LEADS, was located here.  It’s where Denison students donated their clothes and excess dorm room furniture.

Now, I know that LEADS isn’t even in Pataskala, it’s in Summit Station, an even smaller town nearby.  But, when Pataskala became a city in the 1990’s, Summit was incorporated.  So while LEADS wasn’t in Pataskala then, it is now.

And I later learned that the high school where I student-taught, and then got my first and only teaching job, served Pataskala, but wasn’t actually in Pataskala. It was in the nearby township of Etna.   Etna itself was a village on State Route 310 between State Route 40 and I-70. It was surrounded by cornfields and cow pastures.  Now, it’s one “distribution center” after another, lined up for miles along the National Road and spreading out north and south along the adjoining country lanes.  

Build in America

I came here in 1978, and except for a brief six-month sojourn to the University of Cincinnati Law School, I’ve stayed.  That’s forty-six years; watching a farm community turn into a suburb, and now into a mix of industry, housing. The few remaining farmers are left tilling the land that’s been in their families for a century or more.

I’ve been a teacher, a coach, and the High School Dean of Students.  I’ve volunteered with the Scouts, and worked to get school levies passed.  When I now substitute at the high school, I’m that old guy who can tell stories about “our” school from nearly a half-century before.  But to “native” Pataskala, I’m still that new guy from Denison over in Granville.

All of that history is to prepare you for what’s  happening now.  As industry arrives all over; giant Amazon warehouses and the American Electric Power’s storage and training facility; there’s one business creating a local uproar.  One of the giant buildings is a company called “Illuminate USA”.  It’s one of the very few US manufacturers of solar panels.  

Like Intel’s  giant computer chip facility just a few miles to the North, Illuminate USA is entering a market dominated by foreign manufacturers.  With computer chips, Taiwan makes 60% of the worlds semi-conductors, and 90% of the advanced ones.  The Intel plant is part of the US Plan (Joe Biden’s plan) to bring that critical industry back to the US.  78% of world solar panels are made in China.  So Illuminate USA is also part of the “build in America” plan.  And it’s not just about “jingoism”; the Covid pandemic showed how vulnerable America was to specific international product shortages.  So better to make it here, than depend on getting it from there, wherever there is.

China, China, China

US companies are highly invested in China.  The computer I’m on right now (Apple MacBook Pro), the phone in my pocket (I-Phone SE), the shirt on my back, all were produced in China or have Chinese parts.  And companies like McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and of course, Coca Cola are heavily invested in China.

Illuminate USA is a United States company, but has connections to China.  It makes sense:  China makes most of the solar panels in the world, and has manufacturing expertise.  Instead of “reinventing the wheel”,  Illuminate USA is building on Chinese technology to produce solar panels here in Pataskala, Ohio.  It’s what any reasonable company developing a new industrial process would do.

There are forces in America who are opposed to any connections to China.  They describe it in lurid, 1950’s terms:  Red China, Communist China, “The Red Menace”.  And there’s big money behind them; the conservative think tanks like the Claremont Institute and Center for Strategic International Studies, all sponsored by right-wing billionaires.  And while their pseudo-academic “credentials” look good, the reality is they are the same right-wing extremists that are polluting much of the American discourse.

Red Scare

They are good at stirring things up. The “money” groups sponsor a local front of “proud Pataskalans” who are “standing against Communist aggression” here in my little town.  They call themselves “Not In Pataskala”. 

Keep in mind, “my little town” is already “Red”, Republican “Red”.  In 2020 Joe Biden got less than 35% of the vote. But the city leaders, the Mayor and Council members, are “regular Red” Republicans, not necessarily MAGA-REPUBLICANS.  But the “Not in Pataskala” crowd, the “citizens group” with the expensive webpage, are going after those leaders, for “…allowing Communism to creep into our town”.  Notably, the Illuminate USA factory building is located on the “Red Chip Parkway”, and will be right next door to the land purchased by that “woke-ist corporation of all”, Microsoft.

There is a long-standing battle in Pataskala.  The transition of the past half-century has been from rural to industrial-suburban.  There are traffic lights and fast food restaurants, bars and housing developments where corn and soybeans used to grow.  The critical issue is summed up in one word:  “change”.   Many Pataskalans, even newcomers who weren’t here in the “good old days”, long for the “rural life”.  It’s got nothing to do with “Red Chinese Communism”.

The local Mayor does his best to sooth fears,  showing up at every public event, and publishing sunset pictures from his front porch.  And the “Not in Pataskala” crowd really ain’t so crowded.  It’s all just another sign of our polarized society; vulnerable to “Red Scare” tactics that cherry-picks “facts” to generate fear.   Frankly, most Pataskalans just watch “the show”; some in support, some in disgust, and some just waiting for the “car wreck”.  

It’s our little town, Pataskala;  a microcosm of America.

US and Israel: A Contrast in Politics

Politics

Israeli and American politics are different.  Israel has a parliamentary system of government.  Their citizens vote for Knesset members (the legislature); choosing from various political factions.  Then those factions join with each other to find a majority. The process is dominated by one of the two major movements. Either it’s the religious, conservative and militant Likud Party, or the more secular, moderate, and willing to negotiate “centrists” Parties (Yesh Atid, National Unity, Labor). A government is formed, and the senior members of the “executive” are chosen. Elections in Israel are narrowly decided, with splits among progressives, moderates and conservatives, and secular versus religious.  The citizens of Israel are divided as well, with strong factions on both sides.

Israel is like the United States, which, since the 2016 Presidential election, is also closely divided.  Currently, we are a nation that’s 40-40-20.  Forty percent of Americans are going to vote for a MAGA candidate. Forty percent would literally vote for anyone else but the MAGA candidate. And a slim twenty percent determine the outcome, time and time again.  And it’s not only in Presidential elections.  The  US Congress is just as evenly split. The Senate Democrats control by only a couple of votes. And the House of Representatives Republicans have power by a narrow seven vote majority (out of 428 filled seats). 

Zionists

Israel is a homeland for Jewish people.  It is essential to their national being: a country founded by Zionists who believe that Israel is the holy land given to the Jews by God.  It was ratified by the United Nations, as a sanctuary for European Jews who survived the Holocaust.  But even then, the founders of Israel created a secular government. It was not a theocracy, but a democracy that recognized its religious origins.

There is a strong movement in Israel to give more power to the religious fundamentalists, the Ultra- Orthodox Jews.  Their views are already influencing the government to increase Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Palestinian territory.  Building settlements “plants the flag” in land that would be a part of a new Palestinian state, if the “two-state solution” were ever  implemented.  Almost half a million Jews are living in the West Bank now, with an additional 220,000 living around East Jerusalem.  Those half-million are intentionally “putting down roots”, in order to make a full separation into two different nations more difficult.

And Israel has a full “religious court” system, operated by Orthodox rabbis. It determine’s civil issues such as marriage, divorce, and child custody.  There is no such thing as a “civil” marriage in Israel, (though there are Islamic, Christian, and Druze Courts).   The fundamental issue of the Israeli democracy is religious.  If there is a “one state” solution, then mostly Islamic Palestinians are equal in number to mostly Jewish Israelis.  There is an inherent conflict in a nation founded in secular Judaism, and still governed in part by religious law. Either Israel is a democracy with a “two state” solution, or a nation where a “democratic minority” rules over an occupied majority in one state.

Christian Nationalism

There is a rising Christian Nationalist movement in the United States, encroaching on the secular philosophy of the US Constitution. (In contradiction of the Christian Nationalist claim that the United States is founded on Judeo-Christian principles, in fact, the founding fathers specifically kept religion out of the Constitution and its Amendments.)

The most recent example of this is the Alabama State Supreme Court determination that fertilized eggs for Invitro-Fertilization are human beings.  The Court opinion directly invoked the deity in its opinion:  “All human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory,” (WAPO).  Religious justification for civil law rulings is not common in the United States, and the Alabama Supreme Court opinion demonstrates its rising power (as does the current makeup of the US Supreme Court). 

Christian Nationalists see the “establishment clause” of the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishing religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”) as not applying to their version of Christianity.  They see the United States as a “Christian Country” (their “Christianity”) that tolerates other religions, rather than a secular nation that treats all religions dispassionately. 

Revolution

Politics is often polarizing.  Passionate political views, whether they are about the economy, foreign policy, or the so-called “wedge” issues that are used to drive voter turnout, is the nature of democracies.  And religion has always been a driving influence to conflict.  The seeming inability of humans to believe in a deity, and allow others to believe in a different deity or none at all, drives us to conflict all of the time.

And now we see the worst of it all; politics and religion mixing to create a “devil’s brew” of conflict.  It’s a foundational issue of  Israel, and it’s a growing problem in American life as well.  What once were political issues, like education, immigration, and medical care; are now phrased in religious terms.  Even some speak in terms of “the end of American democracy”; to be replaced by a Christian Nationalist philosophy.

“Welcome to the end of democracy,” Posobiec said, also referring to the Capitol riots. “We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here.” Posobiec then held up his fist, and added: “All glory is not to government. All glory to God.” Some people in the crowd responded with applause.  (Newsweek).

To quote Maya Angelou – When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

Truth or Consequences

Liar, Liar

It’s a town still located on the “high plains” of Eastern New Mexico. Or,  it was a game show your grandparents (my parents) watched on television.   But the term “truth or consequences” has a simple meaning:  tell the truth, or suffer the consequences of your lies.

Truth or Consequences used to be a bedrock of American politics.  Much like the Lincolnesque phrase about fooling some of the people, some of the time; while a politician might get short-term gains from lying, ultimately the truth would win out, and the liar wouldn’t.  But in our “post-truth” political era, the consequences of not telling the truth seems to have little impact on American politics today.  You can take that in two different ways.   One is that old joke: “You know a politician is lying when their mouth is moving”.  It’s a cynical outlook; they all lie, all the time, so don’t believe any politician; even the ones that agree with you.

Or you might believe there no longer is a single political “truth”, and that “fact” is whatever fits your current political proclivity.  That way, you can only listen, read, and immerse yourself in those that agree with your view; and shut off any information to the contrary as being “political horse puckey!!”

But sometimes, like the Eastern sun cutting through the dust rising off the New Mexico plains, a truth blazes across the silos of information.  And like any good story, the truth of this one should bring consequences to those politicians who depend on the lie.

Ukrainian Corruption

 It starts in 2015, when then-Vice President Joe Biden was given the “portfolio” to deal with Ukraine by President Obama.  The United States wanted to support the nation and particularly support their breakaway from Russian sponsorship.  In the “Revolution of Dignity” in 2014 Ukraine declared independence from Russian influence. Russia responded by taking the strategic Crimean Peninsula and Eastern Ukraine with military force, the beginning of the current Ukrainian conflict.

But, even severed from Russia, much of the Ukrainian government was corrupt. It didn’t matter whether they supported Ukrainian independence, or wanted to remain in the Russian sphere of influence.  You might remember that the last Russian supported President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, fled a decadent palace with; “…a bowling center, swimming pool, super-modern boxing ring, tennis courts, massage rooms, therapeutic baths, cryo sauna, salt-cave, and other facilities” (Mezhyhirya).  He’s the one that employed the future Trump Campaign Chairman, Paul Manafort.

Biden encouraged Ukrainians to clean-up their government by prosecuting corrupt officials.  When a US aid package to Ukraine came up, Biden used that cash to leverage Ukrainian leaders to get rid of a corrupt prosecutor and appoint a new one.  Biden actually made the comment that either they got rid of the old prosecutor, or the US would not provide the one billion dollars in promised aid.

Russian Fable

Russian Intelligence  specializes in mis-information.   They take the facts of a story, then misdirect conclusions to further their own policy goals.  By 2019, it was clear that Russia’s goals were advanced by the then-President of the United States.  Donald Trump was shaking the foundations of NATO, the major alliance protecting Eastern Europe.  Trump envisioned foreign policy as a series of bilateral transactions, summed up best by the phrase:  “…what have you done for me lately”.  

The long-term, carefully crafted American foreign policy of world alliances protecting against Russian (and Chinese) aggressions was at risk.  And the chaos that ensued played perfectly into Putin’s hands.  So when it became clear that the main opponent to Trump in 2020 was Joe Biden, Russian intelligence went to work.

And Biden did have a vulnerability, a son who clearly used the Biden name to advance his own financial well-being.  And, of course, there was the cocaine habit.  Hunter Biden was contracted by a Ukrainian firm, Burisma, to represent their interests in the United States.  The Biden family name certainly helped.

Creating “Facts”

All of those are facts.  And it didn’t take much to twist those facts into Russian misinformation.  Vice President Biden didn’t have the prosecutor removed because of corruption.  He did it to protect his son from criminal charges.  And Burisma didn’t just hire Hunter, they paid the Vice President himself to influence US policy, perhaps while he was still in office.

Trump was searching for “proof” of this misinformation, when he made the “perfect” phone call to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, the subject of Trump’s first impeachment.  Rudy Giuliani went to Ukraine before the 2020 election, to find the source, the “star witness” to the phantom Biden criminality.  And he found him, a dual Israeli-American citizen with the perfect “James Bond” spy name, one that would make Albert Broccoli himself proud:  Alexander Smirnov.

Giuliani’s own “henchmen”, Lev and Igor, warned him that Smirnov was a Russian plant.  But Smirnov’s “facts” were too good to pass up:  supposedly each Biden was given $5 million to protect Burisma.  And then, out of “nowhere”, Giuliani obtained a laptop with Hunter’s whole sordid private life on video.  Some of the emails, with a little “stretching”, seemed to confirm Smirnov’s story.  

Rudy couldn’t get the Trump Justice Department to touch it.  They recognized that it had the imprimatur of Russian intelligence.  And after the 2020 election passed, and the Insurrection occurred, Smirnov’s story faded away.

Impeach Biden

That is, until the MAGA-Republicans narrowly gained a majority in the House of Representatives in 2022.  They came in with a goal:  do to Biden what the 2018 House did to Trump, impeachment.  So all they had to do was find “facts” to fit their goal.  And Smirnov’s Russian fairy tale exactly fit their bill.

The Director of the FBI warned them; Smirnov was an undependable source, probably tainted with Russian money.  But the committee Chairman, Comer and Jordan; like Trump himself and Giuliani, found the story to good to pass up (it should have been too good to be true).

They staked their Congress, the 118th, on impeaching Joe Biden.  And they staked their impeachment on Alexander Smirnov.

This week, the Republican Special Prosecutor, David Weiss, appointed to investigate and prosecute Hunter Biden; arrested Mr. Smirnov.  He is charged with making false statements while an FBI informant.  Smirnov himself admitted during questioning to having contact with “high level” Russian intelligence officials.

The story that Trump, Giuliani, Comer and Jordan couldn’t resist was a Russian plant. The warnings of Republicans Bill Barr and Chris Wray, and the current Department of Justice, were ignored.  The truth is, that this current House leadership wanted to impeach Biden so badly, the bought into a Russian fable.

We will soon see if there really are consequences to that truth.

By a Thread

CNN

Since October 2023, the beginning of the fiscal year, the Army has spent over $430 million on various operations, including training Ukrainian troops, transporting equipment, and US troop deployments to Europe. “We’re basically taking it out of hide in the Army,” a senior Army official told CNN.

So far, that bill has been paid from the Army’s Europe and Africa Command. Without a 2024 budget approved by Congress, and without additional funding specifically for Ukraine, the command has roughly $3 billion to pay for $5 billion of operations costs, a second senior Army official explained. That includes not only the operations related to Ukraine support — training and ferrying weapons and equipment to Poland and Ukraine — but other operations for the US command throughout Europe and Africa. (CNN).

Burning

There’s an apocryphal tale about Roman Emperor Nero – that as the city of Rome caught fire, he played a violin.  Thus was created the phrase, “He fiddled while Rome burned”.  Whether Nero did that or not, the saying has come to describe anyone or group that allows a crisis to go by without trying find a solution, usually to a “bad end”. 

Here in the United States, we are fiddling away.  Well, maybe not all of us, in fact, not even the majority of us.  Most of the  US government, the Congress and even the House of Representatives would prefer action to “fiddling”.  But those that have the power to set the agenda for the House, the Speaker and his leadership team, seemed determine to allow Ukraine to “burn”, to fall to the Russian invaders, rather than step in and support their just battle.

No Man’s Land

Ukraine isn’t asking for direct military intervention.  They actually have the strategic situation well in-hand.  They’ve held off the Russian invaders for two full years, driving back into the territories Russia “annexed” nine years ago.  In fact, Ukraine was poised to drive Russia out of all occupied territories.  But the Ukrainian offensive stalled, stopped by the greatest concentration of land mines the world has ever seen.  And so, instead of a World War II battle of movement and strategy, this struggle has become a World War I battle of attrition and stalemate.

In World War I, the battle over “No Man’s Land” lasted for almost four years.  Both sides poured massive amounts of blood and treasure into maintaining that stalemate.  It nearly bankrupted Germany; France and Great Britain weren’t very far behind.  And an entire generation of leaders was left mangled in the mud-filled craters of France.

Ukraine and Russia are in a similar situation.  Russia, in spite of its relatively weak economic standing in the world, has resources to overwhelm Ukraine,  given time.  Ukraine, on the other hand, has the determination to drive Russia from much of their national soil, as long as they have the weaponry and supplies.

No Brainer

And that’s where the United States comes in.  Sure, part of it is the moral obligation of the world’s most visible democracy helping defend against an autocratic invader.  But there is a much more self-serving goal for Americans.  Russia represents one of the two preeminent threats to democracy and world stability.  The Russian military can be worn down: leaders, supplies, and hundreds of thousands of soldiers lost on the open plains of Ukraine.  The US can weaken a major world opponent.  And it doesn’t cost American lives.

It does require American treasure.  Just as Ronald Reagan doubled the US Government deficit to drive the Soviet Union into bankruptcy; the United States, for a much smaller cost, can dissipate Russian wealth and might.  

To what end?  Putin has made it clear that his goal is to rebuild the Soviet Empire.  It’s likely a “binary choice”:  support Ukraine now, or fight, with real American troops, in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania or Poland later.   It’s a “no brainer”, a decision that takes little intellect or nuanced understanding to make.  

But here we are, fiddling away. 

Northern Christian White Alliance 

What’s even scarier; it’s not just about keeping Biden from getting a “win”; or the 2024 Presidential election, or satisfying the ravenous political appetite of Donald Trump.  Underneath the raw politics is an ideology, expressed most clearly by former Trump advisor (and future Federal inmate?) Steve Bannon.   He believes in a world of the “great Northern, Christian, White Alliance”; a confederation of two autocratic nations, the United States and Russia; against the great “brown masses” of the rest of the world; and of course, China.  Bannon wants an alliance with Russia, and allies let other allies do whatever the hell they want.  If Putin wants Eastern Europe, so be it, and NATO obligations be damned.

Political Courage

We are fiddling away, but we are, willfully, allowing an extreme ideology take hold.  Put it to a vote, and a bipartisan majority of the House would join the Senate and supporting Ukraine (and Israel, and Taiwan, and even make changes at the Southern Border),  But the incredibly narrow majority of Speaker Mike Johnson, and his absolute desire to keep his job, is preventing our government from acting.  

It’s not just about the Ukrainian dead.  And it’s not just about 2024.  It’s about the future world “order”.  

There’s a way to stop the fiddling.  An arcane parliamentary maneuver, a “discharge petition”, will get the job done.  But it will take something in short supply in 2024 America, a few Republican Congressmen with courage to stand up to the MAGA majority. 

The fate of our future world is hanging by a thread.  Some three Republican Congressmen will decide what happens next. 

Ukraine Crisis

Down At the Crossroads

With a nod to Mr. Clapton

A Russian Moon

Wednesday was crazy.  Mike Turner, Dayton’s Congressman and the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, leaked  Russian plans for putting nuclear weapons in space.  It brings back the famous Lyndon Johnson quote from the early days of the 1960’s “Space Race” (and the movie The Right Stuff): 

“I do not believe that this generation of Americans is willing to resign itself to going to bed each night by the light of a Communist moon”.

If not a “Communist” moon, how about a Russian nuclear weapon, orbiting earth.

That’s the vision that Mike Turner wanted Americans to see, even though both President Biden and National Security Advisor Sullivan painted Russian plans as more aspirational than real.  In fact, Turner wasn’t even briefed on those plans, yet.  And the Kansas City shootings at the Super Bowl celebration took over the headlines.

So why is Turner, known as a stalwart member of the senior House leadership, “flipping cars ”?  Perhaps he’s trying to make the point:  Russia is a threat now.  Keeping the Russian military in a long, men-and-materiel sucking war in Ukraine is a good thing for the United States.  For just a “little” treasure, and no American blood, we can sap Russian strength.

Get Trump Elected

The Senate passed an Israel/Taiwan/Ukraine military aid bill.  Speaker Johnson in the House claims that he will not allow that bill on the floor for a vote, where it would certainly pass with support from all of the Democrats, and many Republicans.  Johnson is under pressure from the MAGA-Trump camp to deny-deny-deny any action that might be seen as a “Biden Win”.  Long term policy isn’t a factor anymore; it’s about keeping Biden down so Trump might do better in November’s election.

The Speaker controls the agenda (the greatest power of his office). Sure, there is an arcane parliamentary move to circumvent his authority, the “discharge petition”.   A majority of House members can demand a bill come to the floor without the Speaker’s approval (after thirty days).  But it will require at least a couple of Republicans to stand against the Speaker, and more importantly, Trump and his MAGA-caucus.  And that hasn’t happened in a while.

But with all the worry about Ukraine, and deeper concern about what China will try to do to Taiwan, there is an even more important issue.  The United States is at a crossroads, and not just Biden versus Trump, or Democrats versus MAGA-Republicans, or even the existential crisis of American government.  We are also at a crossroads of world authority.

Woodrow Wilson

At the end of World War I, American President Woodrow Wilson led the US delegation to the Versailles peace conference.  Wilson had a world vision, where there would be less warfare.  He wanted to allow ethnic groups to have their own nations.  Wilson’s world had an international governing body, the League of Nations, to act as the referee when international conflict arose. And Wilson had the Fourteen Points of human rights, an aspiration for a better world.

And even though the victorious nations of Europe were more interested in getting treasure in the form of reparations from the defeated powers, they were willing to humor Wilson.  The American thumb on the scale helped tip the balance of war in their favor: they owed him that.

But they weren’t committed to Wilson’s vision, and as it turned out, only he truly was.  When the US Senate refused to ratify the peace treaty, and kept the United States out of the League of Nations; the dream of world peace soon went by the wayside.  America isolated itself behind “Fortress America” of the Atlantic and Pacific.  World War II wasn’t the “fault” of the United States, but it could have been prevented by the United States.  It’s the lesson that Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and the American leadership learned.

Pax Americana

So America took the lead after World War II, now clearly the military and economic power in the world (and Oppenheimer’s addition:  the US had the only nuclear weapons).  Not only did we sponsor the United Nations, but we led a series of alliance systems throughout the world.  The most important of those was (and is) NATO, the alliance system designed to offset the power of the then-Soviet Union. 

Like him or not, Ronald Reagan “won” the Cold War.  He did it by forcing the Soviet Union to try to match US defense spending.  The US spent six percent of Gross Domestic Product on the military, but to match it, the Soviets were forced to spend over twenty percent of theirs.  The Soviet Union fell during the George HW Bush administration, and Russia has been a mess ever since; a kleptocracy, as state owned industries were “privatized”, often for kopecks on the ruble (pennies on the dollar).  And the kleptocrats found a “defender” who “legitimized” their money – Vladimir Putin.

Russian Empire

But Putin made it very public that while he is no longer a Communist, his goal is a return of the Soviet Empire.  Ever since he consolidated power, he has pressed former Soviet states like Georgia, Belarus; and taken advantage of world instability to gain footholds in Syria and Africa (NATO: Canada).  And, of course, there was the open invasions of Chechnya and Ukraine.  

Until the second invasion of Ukraine, there was little the United States could do besides economic sanctions.  And Putin was happy to pass the pain of sanctions onto the Russian people:  even more reason for them to support him, and blame the West.  But when the Ukrainian people stood up to Russia, the United States found a lever to stall Putin’s long-term plan.  By the US supplying Ukrainian forces, Russia was forced into the largest ground war since World War II.  

A Choice

So here we are at the “crossroads”.  The MAGA-Republicans echo the 1920’s Senate, trying to step away from world authority and hide in “Fortress America”.  It’s the same policy with the same name:  America First.  But, as Congressman Turner pointed out, we are in a world where Russian satellites armed with nuclear weapons can bridge the oceans in minutes.  To turn our back on the threat is simply to invite them to our door.

NATO literally waits with bated breath.  Will the United States live up to their promise, to Article Five of the NATO Treaty and defend NATO Eastern Europe?  Or will we end up in Steve Bannon’s tacit alliance with Russia (and maybe China), splitting the “spoils” of treachery?  It starts in a trench in Eastern Ukraine, on the floor of the United States House of Representatives,  and in the ballot box and towns across America this November.  Is it 1921, or 1945?   That is the decision we face, which road to take.  We are at the “crossroads”. 

Note: As I publish this essay – word comes that Alexei Navalny, the courageous Russian opposition leader, died in a prison. He so believed in the cause of Russian freedom, he risked certain death to go back. He made the ultimate sacrifice, willingly. What will we do?

Long Island Speaks

Fools

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!!  

New York’s Third Congressional District, as George Bush would say, won’t get fooled again.  In 2022 they elected a fraud, Republican George Santos.  He lied about his upbringing, his education, his employment, his religion.  He even lied about his mother.  And voters in the Third could have, should have, known.  But in out “post-truth” world, he still got elected.  It wasn’t that folks didn’t care; they just didn’t believe what the North Shore Leader was saying.  We live in the age of Trump, where it’s “OK” to call facts, fiction, or fiction, fact.

So the Third definitely won the contest for the “Most Embarrassing Representative” (a hard fight in a Congress with Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene).  And finally, reluctantly, even the MAGA House Republicans realized that George had to go.  He was expelled from the House, triggering a special election.  

Moderate Democrat Tom Suozzi won by eight percentage points.  He won in a District that went for Trump in 2016, Biden in 2020, and Republican Lee Zeldin for Governor in 2022 (and elected Santos).  Sure, Suozzi had a leg up.  He held the same seat before Santos, resigning to run for Governor.  But the composition of this “bell-weather” District hasn’t changed, a middle-class suburb of New York City.  Tom Suozzi hasn’t changed either.  And that’s the point.

Moderation

He’s a moderate, much like Joe Biden.  In a political (and Democratic) world that is so often polarized; the Bernie Sanders, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez progressives versus MAGA world Republicans “conservatives”, Suozzi isn’t pinned on one side or the other.  And that’s a lesson Democrats need to learn.

We know the story of Joe Biden winning the Presidency in 2020, but what we often lose in the fog of the Covid pandemic, is how Joe Biden won the primaries.  The first caucus in Iowa chose Pete Buttigieg.  The first primary in New Hampshire chose Bernie Sanders, who also won Nevada.  Going into the South Carolina primary, Joe Biden was charitably in fifth place, behind those two, Klobuchar, and the rest.

The Democratic Party of South Carolina is heavily African-American, but it’s also moderate.  They aren’t wedded to an ideology; they just want a government that can make things better for people, and get things done.  South Carolina Democrats are pragmatic; led by Congressman James Clyburn.  And Clyburn made it clear – they needed to vote for Joe Biden in the primary.

They did, giving Biden’s campaign the oxygen it needed to make it through to Super Tuesday.  And even in that Covid marred election (it was the week the world shut down) Biden was able to win decisively.  The 2020 race for the Democratic nomination was over.  To “steal” a thought from an article by former Meet the Press host Chuck Todd, some Progressives think Biden won because Covid stopped the world.  But that’s not what really happened.  Biden won because Democrats wanted a moderate who could defeat Donald Trump.  And he did.

Get Over It

I am a Progressive, a Liberal Democrat.  But I recognize, maybe because I’m a Blue drop in a Red sea here in Licking County, that there are many on both sides looking for moderation, not polarization.  That’s how Biden won, and that’s how he can win again.

And another point to make here; that’s not what pollsters believe.  We keep seeing polls showing Biden versus Trump, with Trump winning (all within the margin of error).  Just like we saw the polls last week, showing Suozzi close to his Republican opponent.  But today’s modern polling is designed to take the smallest sample possible, and fit it into a “model” of what the pollster thinks America is.  And if they see the “model” as so polarized that there is no room for moderation, then a moderate candidate gets pushed aside in the results.  It’s not about counting opinions, it’s taking opinions to fit into their mold.

No Rest

That doesn’t mean that Democrats don’t need to work their butts off to get Biden elected.  And it doesn’t mean that Trump can’t “thread the needle” and still somehow end up in the Presidency again.  We are at a moment of existential crisis, and there’s no rest for the weary.  We can sleep after the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

But what Long Island told us yesterday is exactly the point.  The extremists in the Democratic Party need to “get on board”, and recognize that Biden represents much more than just “half a loaf”.  Biden, in the past four years, found ways to get things done to make our country better.  We  (progressives) didn’t get everything we wanted, and we lost in the Supreme Court, a problem that will take years to overcome.   But the next four years with Biden means more “progress” for “progressives”.  

But it sure is better than four more years of Donald Trump.  We might not recognize Amerika at the end of his Presidency.

Soundtracks

Nothing But Calamity

I’m definitely an MSNBC guy.  It’s the “soundtrack” of my life, on in the background most of the time at home. Even in the car (with modern technology) I’m following what’s going on through the Sirius Radio app.  Some would say that kind of immersion would “warp” my mind, building a silo to block outside information.  But I do check other media sources, including even (deep breath) Fox News.  I don’t stay for too long.

But NBC seems to stand for  “Nothing But Calamity”, at least  for the past several months.  First, to be honest, MSNBC was instrumental in “mainstreaming” Donald Trump back in 2015.  Their shows, particularly the now four-hour long “Morning Joe” show, gave Trump millions of dollars of free air time in the pivotal period when he was transitioning from NBC television “star” known for a single line (“You’re Fired”) to political candidate.  Now, every morning when the dogs demand I get out of bed, I make a little “bet” with myself.  It’s thirty seconds:  that’s how long it takes to turn on “Morning Joe” and hear the name Donald Trump.  I seldom lose.

Old is Old

And recently, NBC broke “big news”; the results of their polling.  They made the “amazing” discovery through their shrewd questioning:  over 80% of Democratic voters think that eighty years-old is too old to be President! (Oh, this just breaking – NBC found that almost 60% of all voters think both Trump and Biden are too old – it took them an extra three days to let that little secret out). 

No kidding.  I’m a Democrat and I think that eighty years-old is too old to be President too.  But what NBC failed to ask (or at least publicize) is the next question:  will you vote for Joseph R. Biden in 2024, anyway.  And the answer for this Democrat, and I’m sure the vast majority of my Democratic compatriots, is yes.

Look, the Democratic “bench” is incredibly rich.  Not only is there the obvious “next-in-line”, Vice President Kamala Harris.  There’s the Senators:  Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Chris Murphy, and more.  Then there’s the Governors: Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, and Wes Moore.  And don’t forget Pete Buttigieg serving in the cabinet.   And I’m sure there’s more I haven’t thought of.  If 2024 is an existential threat to democracy, 2028 should be a lot of fun.  

Cancelling Out

But there is no question:  Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee.  If it were anyone else, Joe Biden is the absolute wrong candidate.  But with Trump as the MAGA-Republican, Biden is the right answer.

It’s all about that mathematics: the concept of “cancelling out”.  Biden is eighty-one, but Trump is seventy-seven.  That issue cancels.  Biden can’t remember names, Trump can’t remember the current President, or the former Speaker of the House; cancels.  Biden presides over the greatest economic miracle in modern history, Trump the greatest collapse; more than cancels. And most importantly, Biden ran in 2018 on the basis that Trump was a danger to our democracy.  Trump continues to prove that Biden was right then, and right now.

No other Democrat brings those credentials to the table. 

Fair and Balanced, Ain’t

So what’s the deal with my “friends” at MSNBC?  Why is the “progressive” news channel seeming to lead the way in finding critical anti-Biden information?  I think there are a couple “for sure” reasons, and some speculations.  For sure, MSNBC (and the New York Times) are falling into the same trap that snared them in 2016.  With so much negative news about Trump (trial, trial, trial; botched speech, trial, trial) there is the tendency to try to “balance” the news to make it “fair”.  

But there’s nothing “fair” about Trump.  Has actions, and his problems are unprecedented.  “Fair and Balanced”, the old (and abandoned) Fox News slogan, can’t apply.   If forces those media sources to literally create negative news about Biden, to “balance” Trump.  And that’s not fair.

And, for sure, progressive MSNBC is troubled by what really is a moderate Biden.  The consensus builder (in a world that doesn’t “do” consensus anymore) still is trying to put together coalitions in Congress, and the Nation.  That seems to require compromises that my fellow “progressives” can’t tolerate.  

Progressive Choices

And, speculating only, it seems that there’s a major ideological crisis at MSNBC over the Israeli/Hamas War.  Some commentators are more Israel oriented, some more Palestinian oriented (none are Hamas supporters).  That internal conflict spills out into their support or opposition to the Biden Administration.  Or at least, that’s how it looks to me.

We tried to watch more CNN, just to “flavor” our mornings.  But the problem with CNN, political switch or not, is that it’s still, just, boring.  And distracting – I struggle paying attention to what folks are saying, and what’s “crawling” across the bottom of the screen.  So it’s still MSNBC.

Except for long drives in the afternoon.  I re-discovered a different “media” choice; music.  Yesterday’s playlist on the road to Cincinnati:  Grateful Dead, Sublime, Crosby-Stills and Nash (of course) and Billy Joel.  Now that’s a “progressive” spread!

A Sad, Sad, Boy

This is a Sunday Story – no politics here, just another “dog” story.

Dahlman Dogs

There’s a whole “series” of these “Sunday Stories” about dogs:  finding dogs, taking care of dogs, and even losing dogs.  But what you need to know for this particular story, is that Jenn and I have five dogs.  They are all rescues, two from even before we knew about Lost Pet Recovery, the charitable organization we help that finds lost dogs for owners and, returns them home.

The other three are what they call in the dog “business”, “foster fails”.  They were dogs we brought into the house on a temporary basis, until LPR found a suitable “forever home”.  But, as John Wayne said, “…My fault, your fault, nobody’s fault…”; we fell in love with them, and now we have five dogs in our “forever home”.

Five dogs are a life altering experience.  They need to go out, they need to eat, they need medical care, and most of all they need love and attention.  It’s not just fifteen minutes morning and night, let them out and back in from the fenced back yard.  It’s time, it’s love and in return, all of them, from the eleven year-old Buddy to the four year-old Cece, are loving dogs back to us.  We had to buy a bigger bed.

Baddicus

Our second dog, a “before LPR” dog, is Atticus.  He’s a Yellow Lab, big and goofy, taken from the Franklin County Shelter before he was “put-down” for major ear infections.  It turns out they weren’t infected; Atticus is allergic to most animal proteins.  He can’t eat beef, nor buffalo, nor chicken, turkey, deer or even duck.  If he does, he gets crazy reactions in his ears, so much so that when we brought him home from the shelter, we thought he might be deaf.  

Shelters don’t have the time or money to work out those slow problems on stray dogs found wandering the park, but we did.  So, after trial and error, and with the help of our outstanding Vet Dr. Hicken, we found what Atticus could eat.  He’s a sweet potato and salmon guy, and for treats he can also have carrots (and celery, though too much isn’t good for him).   And he hears just fine, even if you stand up at the other end of the house.  He’s right there, an escort, ready for whatever you’re going to do.

Atticus is a “needy” guy.  He wants snuggles, he wants attention, he does not like to be left alone.  Anxiety often is Atticus’s middle name (not the “Baddicus” we nicknamed him.  All of our dogs have dual names, Buddy Budreau, Atticus Baddicus, Lou-Easyiana, Keelie Lee, and Cece Baby Yoda).   

Game Time

And they all like to run around and roughhouse in the backyard.  Even Buddy, at eleven, on good days will go out and bark at everyone else, trying to get them “in-line” as any good herding dog should.  

So we don’t know what happened.  But  a few weeks ago, Atticus was limping on three legs.  He just didn’t want to put his right-rear leg down, except for the times he required it to take his stance.  Both Jenn and I examined it, but couldn’t find a place where we elicited pain.  So we figured he bruised a pad in his foot, or stressed a muscle.  He didn’t seem particularly upset, and found a new, high-speed limp that worked for him. We gave it a couple weeks.  But the limp didn’t get better.  So it was a visit to the Pataskala Animal Hospital. Dr. Hicken wasn’t available, so we saw another great veterinarian, Dr. Borders.  And she gave us the bad news.

ACL

I was a track coach, and over forty years I became very familiar with knee injuries. The ultimate bad news in knees is the dreaded initials “ACL”, the anterior cruciate ligament that keeps the thigh bones from grinding against the lower leg bones in the knee joint.  When the ACL is torn, the knee is unstable, and surgery is the only answer.

Now ACL surgery for athletes is a big deal.  There’s a minimal six months recovery rate.  When an ACL is torn this season is over, and there’s a ton of rehabilitation to get ready for the next year.  And there are few shortcuts in successful ACL surgery, pretty much getting the diagnosis means the entire plan – from the Bengals Joe Burrow to a high school girls cross country runner.  

And for dogs it’s even worse.  The knee joint in dogs isn’t the flat-on-flat of the human knee.  A dog’s knee joint is at an angle, with serious shearing forces against the ligaments.  So when a dog’s ACL tears, the knee just doesn’t work right.  And meanwhile, all of those shearing forces are doubled on the other knee.  Fifty percent of Labs that tear one ACL will tear the other within a year.

So you know where I’m going – Atticus tore his ACL, just like Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow and that high school girl runner.  And there’s only one solution.  It’s a different surgery in dogs than it is in humans, one that requires a total change in the geometry of the knee.  Bone is altered, plates are screwed in:  it’s a big deal.  For most dogs, it’s a two to three month recovery rate to get back to about 85% of “full”.  Atticus won’t be catching passes in the “Puppy Bowl” (and he won’t be playing the piano either!!).  

Exile

He had surgery yesterday.  It’s tough – he was so excited to “go for” a ride, and meet new people at COVE – the veterinary hospital where Dr. Howard did the surgery in Delaware, Ohio. Rochelle, his surgical assistant, quickly made Atticus her “best friend”, and is managing us in managing his care.  When we picked him up, he was still stoned on the anesthesia, headed into exile in a crate in Jenn’s office.  He can’t jump up on the bed to sleep beside us, can’t hang with the rest of the pack, and has to figure out a new way to poop (without spinning at least three times).  

Atticus is drugged, big time.  It’s the only way to keep him down for at least the first two weeks until the staples come out.  We did get rid of the “cone of shame”.  We’ve switched him to a more palatable air cushion ring, like the thing frequent flyers use to sleep on a plane.

 But he’s still miserable, clearly trying to figure out what he did wrong to get crated in exile.  Jenn spent the night with him last night, I’ve got the day shift right now.  CeCe, Keelie and Lou are just outside the office door, desperate to see their friend.  We are on Day-One, at least ten days to go before our new “stoner-boy” will be allowed to get sober.  At least he’s sleeping – now.  But there’s a nose under the crack of the door.  Inquiring minds want to know — what’s up with Atticus!

The Sunday Story Series

A Counting Problem

Vengeance

The Republican caucus in the House of Representatives can’t count.  We saw it when the entire country waited for a week, fifteen full House votes, for them to choose Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House.  We saw it again, as they dumped poor Kevin (the next Chairman of the MAGA-Republican Party??), and went through candidate after candidate (Scalise, Jordan, et al) until they finally reached Mike Johnson,  an unknown with only five terms in the House, as Speaker.  He wasn’t around long enough for folks to know – ignorance has advantages.

Now Mike is leading the House on a “vengeance tour”.  First it was the “Biden Crime Family”, with all sorts of noise about impeaching the President himself.  When their “investigation” revealed nothing, they switched to Hunter Biden, surviving son of the President, and a man with a dark past of drug addiction, tax evasion, and idiotic choices in computer repair shops.

Hunter

Hunter was a mess (seems better now), but out of all of that, the House committees were only able to come up with what the Department of Justice already knew.  He evaded income taxes (now all paid with penalties).  He, for a week, possessed a gun as a drug addict.  And Hunter got jobs that seemed above his “paygrade” (even with a Georgetown University bachelor’s and a Yale Law degree).  There is no question:  his employment likely had more to do with his last name and his father,  than his experience or expertise.  It’s unsavory, almost as ugly as the pictures from the “lost” laptop, or the Trump profits from the Old Post Office Hotel. 

But it wasn’t illegal, and neither were the naked pictures Marjorie Taylor Greene got so much pleasure displaying to the Nation in an open committee hearing.  (Is there an underlying theme here:  are MAGA-Republicans really hung up on sex?).

But when the House thought they had Hunter boxed in –  he refused a subpoena requiring him to come in for a “private” interview – Hunter’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, brought him to an open Committee meeting and demanded an interview in front of the cameras, the Nation, and God.  So while the House could still refer charges to the Justice Department, Hunter’s very public willingness to testify in an open hearing makes criminal charges less likely.

SOMEBODY

So Mike and “the gang that couldn’t shoot straight” couldn’t get Joe, and they couldn’t get Hunter.  But they HAD to impeach SOMEBODY, after all the noise, they needed a success.  So they turned their sights on Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security.  Mayorkas, (Cal. Berkley, Loyola Law School) a veteran of the Department of Justice, was pursuing the Biden agenda for the Southern border. That’s “ground zero” for the Trump and MAGA-Republican campaigns:  they are working hard to convince the Nation that all of our troubles are coming over from Mexico with backpacks full of fentanyl and a willingness to work for nothing and vote Democratic.

(Let’s be clear – the migrants would LOVE to work, and will work for less; at jobs the vast majority of American citizens won’t do.  And the vast majority of fentanyl is coming over the border in semi-truck trailers or in shipping containers on the docks, not the tattered backpacks of migrants fording the Rio Grande or wandering the Great American desert.  And even when those migrants do get here, THEY CAN’T VOTE.  ONLY US CITIZENS CAN VOTE; and citizenship is an arduous process of tests, recommendations and time).

Inconvenient Impeachment

But there was one minor inconvenient fact about Mayorkas:  he hasn’t committed a “high crime or misdemeanor”, the language of impeachment described in the US Constitution.   So “the gang” is shooting for a lower standard (but another “I” word), incompetence in office, claiming that makes him “impeachable”.   

Now it’s true that impeachment technically is anything that the majority of the House says it is.  So all it came down: could Mike and the “gang” count to the 216 votes needed to pass a Bill of Impeachment to send to the US Senate. (Where the Senate would deal with it appropriately and with dispatch.  There’s nowhere near the two-thirds majority to convict Mayorkas in the Senate. Senators can count).

It was always going to be a near thing.  There are only 219 Republicans in the House (they started with 222), and Speaker Mike counted on one Democrat, Al Green, to stay in the hospital after emergency abdominal surgery.   But Green decided it was important for his voice to be heard, and was wheeled onto the House floor in his hospital scrubs to cast a last minute vote.  The vote total stood at 215 to 215, Green’s vote crucial creating a tie (and therefore a fail).  Ultimately one Republican switched his vote for parliamentary reasons, and the final total was 216 against, and 214 for impeachment.

Missed Again

The “gang that couldn’t shoot straight” missed again.  They couldn’t count, in front of the entire Nation, again.  But they blamed Democratic “trickery”, bringing Green back “from the brink” to sink their plan.  Johnson and the gang need to blame somebody.  I guess if it wasn’t Green, it would be their high school math teachers.  They just can’t count, and they don’t learn other repeated lessons either.  

Don’t worry, they haven’t given up on Mayorkas yet.  Next week their own hospitalized member, Steve Scalise, will be back from his chemo treatments.  Maybe they’ll be able to find a majority then.  But I wouldn’t count on it – because clearly, they can’t.

Put A Bow On It (Please)

Election Issue

Let’s make one thing clear.  The most important issue in the United States isn’t foreign policy.  It isn’t the economy (stupid), and it isn’t what’s happening on the Southern Border.  The most important issue is the clear fork in the road America will take on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.  On that day, election day, we will be choosing the next President of the United States.  Our choice is the current President, Joe Biden, an eighty year-old Democrat, or Donald Trump, the former President, a seventy-eight year old “Republican”.  

I put “Republican” in quotes, because Trump leads the Republican Party away from its traditional roots.  Republicans stood for a strong America with a powerful role in the world. Today, Trump would have us leave Ukraine alone against Russia.  Republicans were the Party of a strong economy.  But today, Trump would have Biden left as a “Hoover” so that Trump can win the election.  

Grand Old Party

And Republicans have been the Party of strong borders.  That’s the stand that the Republican (and conservative) Senator James Langford took in Senate negotiations on legislation to “fix” the border problem.  There’s a lot in that legislation that Democrats readily agree to:  better fentanyl detection, more legal aides and judges to determine asylum claims.  And there are parts that Democrats stand against:  more deportations, closing the border when the number of asylum seekers get too high, more “militarization” of the physical border.  

President  Biden and the Democratic leaders of the Senate determined to accept Langford’s compromise, in return for aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and increased help for the Gazan Palestinians left destitute by Israeli action in retaliation for October 7th.  Those are all issues “regular” Republicans support too.  It was a balanced package, one that, frankly, looked a lot more like something George Bush or even Dick Cheney would advance, rather than Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer.

As the legislation reached its final form, it had bipartisan support.  Sure, some Democrats would struggle to accept it, but for many Republican Senators, this was everything they wanted.  And in our narrowly divided Congress, it was a bill from the center of the political fray.  Even in the fractious House, if that bill ever reached the floor for a vote, it likely would pass.

Donald Trump couldn’t allow it.

“Republicans”

The “Republican” Party of Donald Trump stands for only one thing:  what’s good for Trump, is good for the Nation.  And the twice impeached, four-time indicted, facing ninety-one felony charges former President needs chaos at the border as a hammer to pound away at the Biden Presidency.  So instead of taking a huge step forward to solve the border problem, the first since 1986, Trump ordered his Party to block the bill.

Senators and Congressmen don’t work for Donald Trump.  They are elected to represent their constituents and the American people, paid for through tax dollars raised by the US Treasury, and under oath to protect the United States Constitution.  There is no direct “line of authority” from the former President to any of them.  But, almost as a block, the bipartisan legislation became, as Republican Speaker Mike Johnson stated, “…dead on arrival”.  

“Republicans” are now willing to allow Ukraine to fall to Russia.  They are willing to let the People’s Republic of China take Taiwan.  They want the nonsense at the border, from Texas defying the United States Supreme Court, to “surprise” buses of unaware migrants dumped in the streets of Washington, New York and Chicago, to continue.  And they even  are willing to hold back support for Israel.  All to give Trump his issue.

Whose Fault?

President Biden spoke to the Nation on Tuesday afternoon.  He asked, in fact, he demanded, that the Congress move forward with the legislation.  Some will say that Biden sounded “weak”, imploring Congress to do its job.

But Biden made the salient point.  This isn’t about what’s good for the country, and this isn’t about what’s right.  It’s not even about what the Republican Party believes.  It’s about Trump, and Biden made sure that the blame is placed where blame is due.

The border was going to be a problem for the Biden campaign.  Now, they have their answer.  We had the fix, one that we had to “sell” to our own Democrats.  But, through old fashioned political compromise, working from the center out, the Biden Administration went a long way towards solving the problem.  Trump stopped it – and it’s his problem now.

Ask Biden, ask Harris, ask Schumer, ask Jeffries:   what are Democrats doing about the border?  Now the answer is simple:  it’s Trump’s fault.  He couldn’t have given Biden a better “election” present.  Trump gave Democrats the answer to the border problem.  It’s his fault.

He even put a bow on it.

Our Pataskala Kroger’s

This is a “Sunday Story” even if it isn’t Sunday.  I was at a track meet yesterday, and since it was 100 miles away, I didn’t get the chance to finish this one up until Monday morning.  

Checking Out

So I was checking out at the local Pataskala Kroger’s.  Back before I retired, I hit that Kroger’s every couple of weeks for a “full re-supply”, and maybe did a “drive-by” for a roast chicken or a steak once a week.  But now, I’m one of the old-retired regulars, stopping every few days and hovering in the wine aisle trying to find our latest favorite (Meimoi’s Pinot Noir) or searching for that one spice needed to make the smoked baby-back ribs “more special” (not more Cayenne Pepper). 

It’s a “full service” Kroger, with a bakery and a deli shop, a sushi bar and even a liquor store.  The liquor store is big here in Pataskala.  When I first moved here, back in second half of the last century, Pataskala was dry – no bars, no booze stores, no carry-outs for beer.  Now, of course, we’ve modernized:  there’s beer in every gas station, “pubs” right in “downtown” Pataskala, and a liquor store – in Kroger’s.

Pick a Time

There are times to avoid Kroger’s:  Friday afternoons, and Saturday before games.  Friday you’ll run into everyone you’ve ever known in Pataskala, older folks coming up to me and saying “Hey, Mr. Dahlman, you haven’t aged a bit”.  Since they started with “Mr. Dahlman”, I know I had them in class once, but since it was back in 1984, they’ve changed (just a little).  In fact, they’re in their mid-fifties; and it sometimes takes a bit of “contextual” conversation to figure out who they are.  But that’s important.  They want to know you remember them:  “that time in class when you jumped on the desk” or “on the playground when you body-slammed that kid in a fight”, or “when they (not me) wore ‘MC Hammer Pants’”.  

And I usually can figure it out.  But if I’m in a hurry (after all, it’s Friday for me too.  Even retired, Friday night usually means something more than just watching “Blue Bloods” on CBS at 10:00); it takes time.  So I try to avoid Friday afternoons.

Old Man

The “old man” time (as opposed to “old woman” time, I guess, though I shouldn’t say THAT in public) is Tuesday or Wednesday about 10:30 am.  Then you get to see a bunch of white haired geezers, searching aisles that were re-organized about six months ago, and frustrated that what was always there in aisle six is now in aisle ten.  They’re doing a lot of standing and looking.   You might see an old friend, or an old not-so-friend (head down, cut to aisle 8!!).  And you hope that no one comes up with the “Mr. Dahlman!!” line; you can’t be so old as to have taught these guys in school!!  It still happens.

Kroger’s consigns me to the “elderly”, and it’s working.  They’ve cut the regular check-out aisles, the ones with a cashier and a bagger, in half.  On either end, there’s eight self-checkout stations, guaranteed to frustrate because you didn’t put something in a bag quick enough.  The machine  stalls and calls on some busy seventeen year-old to come help, no matter what.  

Touch Screen

And then there’s the “new” self-checkout, with a kid at the end to bag, but you do all the scanning and placing.  That one really bugs me: so here I am taking my stuff out of my cart, finding the bar code to scan, and placing on a conveyor.  If it doesn’t like what I did, the conveyor stops, and the screen demands I do “something”.  So while you’re taking a crash course in grocery cashiering, the kid at the end, bagging, is looking at you like you’ve never seen a touchscreen unit and you get up to change the channel on the TV by hand.  

Hell, I’d rather bag, I’ve always bagged; it’s what I’m good at in the checkout world.  Let the Kroger kid talking with the other Kroger kid about working too many hours, or looking for a date, or betting on a football game come up here and do this part – I’d rather that than the orange juice he bagged blowing through the bottom and crashing to the World War One no-man’s-land shell-shot parking lot.  

2/1/2003

But that’s not what the “new” checkout is about.  If you really want to see the old people in Kroger’s, line up in the only “full service checkout” line left open.  It’s still the seventeen year-olds, trying to determine if those are tomatoes “on the vine” or “organic”.    But at least someone else is doing the “hard” part.  All you’ve got to do is get the stuff out of the cart, and remind them there’s  a case of water in the bottom, and wait for “code 21 on checkout 14”,  because no seventeen year-old is allowed to check out the Pinot Noir.  Once in a while they ask for my Driver’s License, mostly, I think, to marvel that someone, anyone, was alive in the 1950’s. 

It does sting, just a little.  When cashiers are in a hurry, they tap in the “minimum” date to purchase alcohol, 2/1/2003.    2003 – I’m wearing a jacket that was old in 2003, in fact, the Jeep I’m driving was built in 2003.  They don’t seem that old, but they’ve been around long enough to buy booze.  A lot longer than the kids, and even the managers, working here at our Pataskala Kroger’s.

The Sunday Story Series

Carrier Groups

October 7th

The President of the United States sent two US Navy Carrier Groups into the Middle East after the October 7th Hamas attack; the Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Gerald R. Ford. Those groups aren’t just the aircraft carriers themselves, the most advanced military “hardware” in the world.  There’s the carrier, then two guided missile cruisers, two anti-aircraft ships, and two anti-submarine ships.  Often there’s an attack submarine trailing the group as well.  That’s sixteen US Naval vessels in the Middle East total, split between the Mediterranean, and the Persian Gulf.  

A carrier group represents the greatest extension of US power short of landing troops on the ground in the region.  And they were put in the area for a single purpose:  to put Iran on notice that the United States would not tolerate their direct involvement against Israeli operations in Gaza fighting Hamas.  Practically, the message was:  Israel will deal with Hamas, and if Iran tries to intervene, they’ll face the full might of the US Navy. 

Militias

Iran not only supports Hamas, the terrorist group in Gaza that began this round of Middle East violence with their October 7th attack on Israeli civilians.  Iran also supports “irregular” forces in many Middle East nations, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, the Houthis in Yemen, and multiple groups in Iraq.  All of these “militias” are directly supported by the Iranian Republican Guard Qods Force, the “tip of the spear” of Iranian military intervention in other Middle Eastern countries. The Qods Force commander, Qasem Soleimani, died in a US drone strike in Iraq during the Trump Administration.

Those groups give the Iranian government itself “plausible deniability” for their actions.  While they may only exist with the support of the Qods Force, Iran claims not to have direct control over them.  This way, Iran can deny responsibility for the October 7th attacks, even though it’s unrealistic to think Hamas could plan such a dramatic move without Iranian support and consent.   

But more importantly, Iran has, at best, turned a “blind eye” towards many of those militia groups attacking US personnel in the region.  For the past several weeks, US forces have engaged in a “tit-for-tat” response, particularly with Houthi attacks on merchant shipping and US forces in the Red Sea leading to the Suez Canal.  

US Bases

And there are a number of US bases, with US troops physically there, throughout the Middle East.  Some US troops are protecting the oil fields in eastern Syria, some are watching the remains of ISIS in Iraq, and some are “advising” Jordanian and Iraqi government forces.   There are US bases in Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.   30,000 troops are stationed in the region. And that doesn’t include the fifteen thousand in the Carrier Groups (Reuters).

President Biden made it clear that a direct attack on US Forces would trigger a direct response. Last weekend, three American soldiers in their barracks in Jordan died in a drone attack.  Friday the United States launched a massive assault on seven locations in Syria and Iraq, hitting eighty-five separate targets.  US Naval forces participated, and B-1 Bombers stationed in the continental United States as well.  

Notably, there were no direct attacks on Iranian soil.  American leaders stated that this was a “campaign”, not a “one-off” strike.  They also noted that they were avoiding direct attacks on Iran, to prevent a further expansion of the ongoing conflict in Gaza.  

Simple Message

It’s a simple message:  we put the carriers in the region as a warning, and the Iranian “proxies” ignored it.  Yesterday’s attacks were a direct result of their targeting US personnel, the first of many.  The goal is no longer just deterrence; it’s to degrade the ability of  those militia groups to continue their attacks.

It’s a fine line.  If Iran, using its “proxies”; responds in kind, it’s a further step towards confrontation.  On the other hand, the United States cannot allow direct attacks on US Forces. Nor can we withdraw and allow Iranian domination of the Middle East.  

And as that goes on, Israel and the United States are dividing. Israel seems to be razing Gaza. And President Biden is still committed to a “two-state” solution to the Palestinian issue. Prime Minister Netanyahu opposes that idea.  So, as we are drawn farther into Middle East conflict, our own alliance with Israel is under stress.

And don’t be surprised when this issue “bleeds” into the American political campaign.  Republicans in the Congress want direct attacks on Iran.  The campaign issue may be:  Republicans want full war in the Middle East, Democrats are trying to “hold the line”. 

It will be interesting to see where the American people stand.