Month: May 2025

Everybody’s Fault

The government of the United States of America might be controlled by Republicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives, internationalists or populists. But one thing is the same.  No matter who controls the Presidency and the Congress, or even when the power was split:  almost everyone spends more money than the government brings in.  

OK, not ALWAYS. Eisenhower balanced three budgets in his term, and  Nixon balanced the budget in 1969. Bill Clinton balanced it for four years, from 1998 to 2001.  And before the Great Depression, 1933, there were balanced budgets most of the time.  But in the “modern era”, since the New Deal, the Government has consistently run a deficit.  The few exceptions just highlight the reality.  Over nearly a century, eighty-two annual budgets exceeded income.

Unlike the “several states”, there is no law requiring Congress (or the President) to balance the budget.  Before the “modern era”, Federal deficit spending was reserved for times of  crisis:  the Civil War and World War I.  But the Great Depression, followed by World War II, made deficit spending a kind of “regular thing”.  The Cold War continued that trend, with Ronald Reagan intentionally out-spending the Soviet Union on defense in order to break their economy.  It worked, but left the US nearly $3 trillion in debt, three times more than when his Presidency began.

A Clock

Let’s take a moment to explain the terminology.  A deficit is simple:  this year the US government will spend $6.8 trillion, and bring in $4.9 trillion.  That’s a $1.9 trillion deficit (makes Reagan look like a spendthrift).   Add all of the annual deficits together, along with the few years when the US Government ran a surplus, and that’s the total debt: what the US Government has spent more than it brought in.  The “butcher’s bill” is now around $36.9 trillion.  You can see a running total on the US Debt Clock.

(By the way, there’s a “DOGE Clock” on the “Debt Clock”.  It claims that DOGE saved the Government almost $500 billion.  But all the non-DOGE audits show that Mr. Musk’s “wunder-kind” actually saved about $150 million, while spending around $120 million.  Sure, $30 million is “real” money.  It’s about the cost of one of the two Navy fighters that rolled off USS Harry Truman and into the Red Sea last month. But it doesn’t make much of a real dent in the deficit or the debt). 

Why is the clock running?  Because, just like my credit card bill, the money in debt is “borrowed” in one way or another.  And like any borrowed money, the borrower is charging interest against the debt.  So, just like the monthly credit card bill, it’s constantly growing, even if the government isn’t spending more on something else at the moment. 

Economics 101

In case you missed it, the 2025 US Government is ten times more indebted than the it was thirty-five years ago.  Part of that amazing expansion is mitigated by the “value of the dollar”.  What cost $1 in 1990, now costs $2.47 today (Inflation Calculator).  The dollar is worth, in purchasing power, about 40% of what it used to be.

But it’s all tied together.  The value of the money, what a dollar can purchase, is mostly determined by the amount of money in circulation.  It’s “Economics 101”, supply and demand.  If there is more money in supply, and the amount of goods to be purchased is relatively stable, than those goods will cost more.  The “good purchased” didn’t change, but the value of the dollar to buy it went down.  We call that inflation.  And since the “supply of money” is increased by the tools the Government uses to finance the debt, then we can say that the money supply is increased by $36.9 trillion and growing.  That’s the amount of the debt.

Tools

What are the “tools”?  The US Treasury issues government bonds, a loan, a very safe investment for the public (and other Nations).  They are “safe”, because “everyone” trusts that the US Government will ultimately pay off those bonds, with interest, without fail.  And when those bonds (loans) come due – the Treasury sells more bonds to pay off the old ones.  80% of those bonds are owned by the public, both in the US and by foreign investors. 20% is owned by other parts of the US Government (US Debt).

It’s kind of like using a credit card to pay off another credit card.  Sure, Mastercard is clear, but now Discover is a lot bigger.  And the interest keeps adding up.  Last year, the US Government spent $1 trillion, or about 15% of the annual budget, for interest payments on the debt.

Big, Beautiful Bill

So what about the “Big, Beautiful Bill” (BBB) just passed by the US House of Representatives?  Well, the BBB cuts a lot of US spending, particularly on Medicaid and the SNAP (food stamp) programs:  $1 trillion.  And it saves more money by cutting Student Loan and Clean Energy  benefits.  And it also cuts a lot of taxes, particularly to the wealthy (CNBC).  The Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan part of the Government, scores the BBB as adding $2.7 trillion to the debt in the next ten years. 

But part of that “scoring” was based on the Government income from the Trump Tariffs.  As the courts are now asserting that those tariffs are Unconstitutional, the BBB might add much more to the total debt, as much as $10 trillion in the next decade.   In his first term, Trump added $7.8 trillion to the National Debt.  In contrast, Obama added $9 trillion (in two terms), and Biden added $4.7 trillion.  As already noted, almost everyone knows how to spend money.

So what’s the worry?  Well, first of all, the government will continue to spend more and more just to “service” the debt.  That’s money not going to education, or healthcare, or even fighter jets rolling into the sea.  And second, the increased debt continues to reduce the value of the dollar.  That’s fine, as long as incomes continue to go up, a “break-even” deal.  But for those on fixed incomes, pensions and the like, increased prices means decreased quality of life.  And for those dependent on government help, Medicaid and Medicare, they will face a double whammy:  higher prices, and less help.  

That’s America’s problem, no matter what your political “flavor”.  

This essay is for my sister and brother Democrats.  Everyone else is welcome to read it, and I’m sure some of my Republican friends will enjoy a laugh.  But don’t miss the last paragraph. We’re Democrats, we will beat each other up for a while.  But then, we’ll get to work.

Denial

November 6, 2024 was more than just the day after election day.  For Democrats, it was a return of a nightmare, a nightmare that came to a blessed end in the middle of a pandemic four years before.   But on that Wednesday, we were right back in it.  It was even worse, knowing almost exactly how the nightmare would play out.  We had knowledge aforethought, like the dream where the car is about to go off of the cliff, but there’s nothing you can do about it.

For the next two and a half months, we could pretend it wouldn’t happen.  Deep down in our subconscious we were in the first stage of grief, denial.  We kept thinking that some terribly dramatic action would occur, and somehow we could avoid the reality of what our Nation was about to do.  It was like lying on the gurney, waiting for the operation.  Perhaps, if you just got up and walked away, the problem would end, and there would be no need for anesthesia or the scalpel or the shocking pain of recovery.  

Anger

Now, four months into the Trump Administration, we are in the depths of the nightmare.  And denial is past.  We are in the “anger” stage of grieving for our Nation.  And, my fellow Democrats, in our complete inability to stop the Project 2025 juggernaut, we have turned anger onto ourselves.  

At first it was just the usual “Monday morning quarterbacking” of the Harris Campaign.  The “Campaign of Joy” immediately was criticized for letting the Trump craziness “off the hook”.  Instead, the Harris team focused on the joy they offered the Nation.  But this Nation seemed to  look more to blame someone rather than be uplifted.  

And then Democrats complained about the lack of unifying leadership, as if having lost the Presidency and the Senate, there should be an “automatic” fallback leader.  There’s not.  While the future of the Democratic Party remains bright, with many brilliant Presidential possibilities, and new young leadership in the Party itself; it’s tough to lead when there’s no “power” to exercise.  What do we expect Hakeem Jeffries to do with a House minority?  What actions should the “candidates”; Newsom, Whitmer, Buttigieg, Moore, Murphy, Klobuchar, Beshear, Shapiro, Booker, and others, take?

More Anger

Next the old Bernie Sanders versus Hillary Clinton rivalry somehow came back.  If only, some said, we had “given” Bernie the nomination in 2016, we would have avoided the entire nightmare of Trumpism.  It’s the “autocrats” of the Democratic Party, the Clintons and Obamas and their old staffers, who pushed first Hillary and then Joe Biden down “unwilling” Democratic throats.  That rewriting of recent history gained impetus with the huge crowds Bernie and AOC drew to rallies across the country.

And most recently, we’ve spent days gnashing our teeth about whether Joe Biden failed us, by getting old. CNN’s Jake Tapper has found his fifteen minutes of fame and fortune, building a “conspiracy” of Biden staffers hiding infirmity.  But the reality was that nothing was hidden.  We saw Biden have good days and bad days in public.  I watched the 2024 State of the Union address, the one that was good enough that MAGA-world claimed that Biden must be drugged.  And I agonized through the June Debate, where Biden clearly was exhausted before he entered the room.  There were no secrets, no conspiracy.  He was both good, and bad, and the evaluation was that it was time for him to go.  The leaders of the Democratic establishment, with the blessings of Pelosi and Obama, made it happen.  What was hidden?

Bargaining

So Democrats are angry.  And some have started bargaining:  bring back Bernie (or AOC), dump all of the old Democrats in office (David Hogg on the DNC),  throw out all of the “Washington Political Class”.  Change in the Democratic Party is inevitable.  There a place for the energy of AOC and Sanders, and for the youth vote the David Hogg represents.  They need to have a place on the bus, but they probably shouldn’t be driving.   

Our deal has to be with the American people, not with each other.  We need to find the tools to reach out to the millions of Americans who decided to sit out the 2024 election, and truly believed that wasn’t a “difference” between the candidates.  I bet their seeing the difference now.

Depression and Acceptance 

Depression is next.  It’s still seventeen months before we can even begin to curb Project 2025 and the MAGA Presidency, November of 2026 until we can change the makeup of the US House and Senate.  That’s a long time to be stuck in “our long national nightmare”.  Gerald Ford had no idea.

But like last night’s nightmare, there is always a “morning after”.  Democrats should spend the next year organizing, fighting all we can against the injustices of the Trump dictatorship by executive order, and assuring that when the time comes, we are ready.  We will  continue to struggle with our own internal issues, after all, we are Democrats.  Our Party is known best for heading in a dozen directions at a time.  But “acceptance” is knowing that we will need unity of purpose to reach “the morning after”.    We can self-flagellate for a time more.  But then we need to get to work.  This nightmare will not end itself, it requires all of us to wake-up and join together.   

The sooner we reach acceptance, the sooner we can begin.

Inexorable:  impossible to stop or prevent

Ice Age

I always think of the word “inexorable” when I think of the last Ice Age, about 12,000 years ago.  There were humans around at the time, and I wonder what they thought of the changing climate.  What was the “normal” four seasons became a literal and eternal winter.  The walls of ice moved slowly across “their” land, inexorably changed everything, even the hills and valleys.  It must have seemed like a curse, like whatever deities they worshiped chose to punish them.  The Nordic mythical “Hell” was a place of eternal freezing; perhaps an ancestral memory of the Ice Age contained in their DNA.

And yet, humans survived, they adapted, they even lived on the ice sheets.  Perhaps, in one sense, the Ice Age pushed them intellectually, challenged them to discover differing ways of existing.  I’m sure a pre-historic human wouldn’t think of the Ice Age as a “blessing”, but maybe it was, if you take the really, really, long view.  The challenge forced them to adapt, to grow, to change; or to perish.

I also think of the word “inexorable” when I think of folks with terminal cancer.   The disease is going to “get them”, it’s going to take their lives.  For some, it’s a fight to the finish.  For others, it’s a time of surrender.  And for still others, it’s kind of an enlightenment, a freeing of “earthly bonds and rules” that allows them to transcend the tragedy they must live.  The cancer will kill them, but on the way, it might “free” them to be more human.

America’s March to Justice

And I always thought of the word “inexorable” when I thought of America’s march towards a more free and inclusive nation.  As a history teacher, I looked at progress through the Amendments to the Constitution, each adding a slice of inclusiveness.  Just look at voting rights.  In 1788, the beginning of our Constitutional experiment, most states allowed only white men with property the right to vote.  Then it became just white men.  The 15^th Amendment added Black men to the eligible, though it took over a century for that to happen in real terms.  

The 17^th gave Americans direct election of Senators, and the 19^th allowed women the right to vote, enfranchising over half of the population.  The 23^rd added the District of Columbia to those that could elect a President, the 24^th banned a tax on the vote, and the 26^th lowered the voting age to 18 years.    Each time, more and more Americans gained the right to “chime-in” on our leaders. 

Melting Pot

And throughout American history, we have been a “melting pot” of cultures and races, each adding a piece to the “story”.  In 1960, it was a huge deal that a man of Irish descent, and even more, a Catholic, could be elected President.  That’s a limitation that I don’t think would even cross someone’s mind today.  And in 2008, Barack Obama literally called the future; a Black man became President of the United States, something that even a few years before was unimaginable.

So, in 2012, I thought our national march to add to the “pot”, to include more and more differences to our character, was as inexorable as the Ice Age.  I saw our “story” in Martin Luther King’s terms:  “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice”.

What Celebration?

Here in Pataskala, this year’s Memorial Day (or at least the nights before) have been filled with fireworks, like the Fourth of July.  But the Fourth is a celebration of Independence.  Memorial Day is to remember the sacrifices of the past, and celebrate the consequence of their dedication.  The “flash and bang” of color doesn’t seem appropriate now. What are we celebrating?

Today is Memorial Day 2025.  Memorial Day used to be, for me, a day of memory, but also of celebration. It was a day to remember sacrifice, the sacrifice of Americans who gave Lincoln’s “last full measure” so that we could maintain our freedom and our “inexorable” path to justice.  We celebrated their courage and dedication, and we rejoiced in the Nation they gave us.

But today, in 2025, our “march to justice” doesn’t seem so inexorable.  We are not so sure today that the “arc of the moral universe” is bending towards justice.  In fact, in our short term, it’s bending away from justice; just ask the immigrants, or the LGBTQIA, or those that might oppose Trump’s plans for our nation.  

America’s Fate

As a history teacher, I look back on the times when the “USA” didn’t seem so inevitable.  In 1863, when the Civil War became a grinding battle of “total warfare”, it must have seemed like there was no inevitability to the American experiment.  In 1932, when the US Army itself was set upon the Word War I veterans protesting on the Washington Mall, the “Bonus Army”, it must have felt to many that our experiment failed.

And even in my own lifetime, there was the ever-looming fear, like the glacier on the horizon, of nuclear holocaust.  We knew that our “inexorable path” could be cut short in a blinding flash of searing light.  For the survivors, if there were any, it would be like those early humans learning to live on the glaciers.   Maybe, in some long, long, term, it would improve us, but nuclear nightmare would cut short our current march to freedom.

My parents faced Fascism in World War II.  They risked their lives to stop it.  So didn’t most of their generation, many of whom will receive flags on their gravesites today.  My great-grandparent’s generation fought a war to decide how America would be, enslaved or not.  And some from the generations I taught in school paid the “last full measure” as well.  They sacrificed for our shared “dream” of America.

Memorial Day 2025

This Memorial Day, the first of the Second Trump Administration, we should remember not only those that sacrificed – but why.  They fought and sacrificed for their American “dream”.  And this Memorial Day we should take solace in their actions and courage.  As Lincoln said:

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion.”

Let us,  this Memorial Day, realize that America’s “inexorable” march to justice is only impossible to stop or prevent, because “We the People” make it so.  We are the America of Franklin Roosevelt’s “Righteous Might”.   We choose what is inevitable.  And we must pick up the fight, and make the sacrifices, to make sure that the “arc of the moral universe bends toward justice”.  

It is our choice, and it is clearly our duty.

My World

I live in three universes.  In this one, the universe of politics, I spend a lot of time listening, reading, and writing about the current incredible changes in American politics and life. The word “incredible”, like the word “extraordinary”, can be both a “good” or “bad” thing.  That was an incredibly good piece of pie, or, an incredibly bad haircut.  Politics, and politics “writ large” as history, has been a passion of mine since I was three years old, and Mom pinned a “John F. Kennedy for President” button on my blue sweater.

The second universe is the one of our family, my wife and son and sisters and all of their families.  We are constantly updating, constantly involved, and constantly considering (also good and bad) what’s going on.  And the dogs are a part of that, of course.  They too are our family, our constant bed mates; counting on us for sustenance, as we count on them for companionship.   

The third universe is the one of track and field.  I spent forty years as a coach, and now I’m in my seventh year as a “fulltime” track official.   In this universe the world is very precise.  We measure time to the 100^th of a second, and distances to the nearest ¼ inch.  Like any good track official, I can “do” almost anything from firing the gun to start the race, to organizing the heats of runners, to conducting the javelin competition.  But my niche in this universe is the vertical jumps, and more specifically, pole vault. 

Setting Standards

So I know a whole lot about standards and bars.  Not only can I set the bar to the right height, but I can zero the bar to the exact correct spot, and align the standards so that they are mathematically accurate not only in the vertical, but in the horizontal plane as well.  I carry precise tools to measure height, distance, and position.  And, I finally discovered the answer to the age old high school math question:  why do I have to learn this?  Well, Mr. Rex Parker, my sophomore geometry teacher (and eater of white chalk), now I know.  

And it is in this, the setting of “bars and standards”, that Universe 1 and Universe 3 collide.

Let’s say that in the pole vault, the opening height of the bar is 3.65 meters (that’s about 12 feet).  That bar height is the same for every vaulter.  While some may decide to skip and pass higher, the minimum standard to “score” in the competition is 3.65.  Don’t clear that, and you get the dreaded “NH” on the scoresheet, “No Height”.   “NH” denies you even the dignity of a place in the competition, you are simply a name on the list, never fulfilled.

What kind of official would I be if I allowed some to start at 2.50 (a little over 8 feet) while requiring the rest to clear 3.65 in order to gain a place?  I would be, correctly, accused of favoritism, or at least gross incompetence.  In Universe 3 it’s not something that would ever be considered.

Biden’s Standard

But that is exactly what’s happening in Universe 1 today.

This week I travelled to officiate track meets an hour and a half away.   On one of the trips, I listened to a podcast about the “conspiracy” to hide Joe Biden’s aging from the world.  The well-known commentators were full of umbrage:  how dare Biden “hide” his condition; how dare the “politburo” of Biden family and staff shelter him from “discovery”.  And, perhaps as important to the commentators, how dare others took them to task for talking about it.  They made it very clear:  they place the blame of Trump’s second term squarely on Joe Biden.

There is no question that Joe Biden aged in office.  But there’s also no question that it wasn’t a secret.  Most of us in Universe 1 were well aware of Biden’s shortcomings, long before we got to that fateful summer of 2024 when the debate confirmed our fears, and Trump was anointed with god-like “immortality” by an assassin in Pennsylvania.  It didn’t take a conspiracy of Soviet proportions, the “Politburo”, to fool the nation.  We knew what we saw.

We held Joe Biden to a standard.  We required him to clear 3.65 to earn his place in the competition.  And when we thought he couldn’t, we Democrats went through a heart-wrenching process to replace him.  We were right to stand with him, and when he withdrew, we were right to move on.  No conspiracy was necessary.

Trump’s Standard

But what standard did we hold Donald Trump to?  In fact, what standard do we require him to meet today, as President?

We questioned Joe Biden’s acuity, but gave Trump a complete pass on those crazed speeches during the campaign.  We called Biden out for not being more accessible to the press, but we allowed Trump to literally dance in front of a crowd (with Kristi Noem) for forty minutes. So, we required Biden to clear 3.65, but the bar for Trump was even lower than 2.50.  It was about a 1.00.

And we are still doing it.  Many Americans held Biden accountable for the actions of his son, Hunter.  But those same Americans don’t have a problem that Trump himself took over $400 million in “gifts” from mostly foreign investors in a cryptocurrency scheme. He celebrated the “rewards” at a private dinner last night.   This week we learned that Trump “accepted” another gift, another $400 million, in a “Flying Palace” from the nation of Qatar.   And his son Don Junior, is now profiting from a new “clubhouse” in Washington, where the entry membership is a $500,000.  But somehow, we give those known “oddities” a “pass”.

Our Standards

Some commentators hold Democrats to a higher standard.  They want penance served for “fooling us” about Biden, some term of sentence.  But they fail to acknowledge the lowered bar for Trump.  I wish Joe Biden hadn’t aged.  I wish America was willing to accept a brilliant woman of color as President.  And I wish the Secret Service wasn’t so incompetent in Butler, Pennsylvania, to let a known gunman get in position to shoot at the President.   

But what I really wish is that we hold our Presidents and candidates for President to the same standard.  In my Universe 3 that’s only fair.  And in Universe 1, it would be right for our Nation.

Kith and Kin:  a phrase from old Middle English of the 1300’s, meaning “friends (Kith) and relatives (Kin).

NOT WELCOME  

There’s one thing that the Trump Administration has made very clear.  Immigrants are NOT WELCOME in the United States.  Even those that were welcomed in the past, like the Haitians escaping gang rule, or the Venezuelans fleeing the Maduro regime, are now shown the door.  They settled here, they work here, they raise their children here.  Those refugees got Temporary Protected Status, legal standing here in the United States.  Now, Donald Trump is telling them – “You must leave”. 

That is, except for one “exceptional” group of people (exceptional – forming an exception, rare – Merriam-Webster Dictionary).  The Trump Administration went far out of its way to find the Afrikaners and literally invite them to America.  So who are they?

Boers

The Dutch explored and settled the Southern tip of Africa in the late 1600 and early 1700’s .  They established a trading post at Cape Town, and settled the surrounding territories.  Their descendants in Southern Africa were originally called the “Boers”.   When the British took over the territory around Cape Town in the 1800’s, many of the Boers moved north in the “Great Trek”.  They established farms and ranches and their own countries, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.  The largest city in modern South Africa with five million people, Johannesburg, is located in that region.  

Like the American settlement of the West, the Boers and later the English, didn’t recognize the land ownership of any native populations living in the area.  The Bantu people had the land, but were under invasion from the Zulu tribe.  This led to conflicts between the tribes and with the “settlers”; particularly as the Boers took over more and more territory.

The British also fought a series of wars against the Boers, in the late 1800’s, and ultimately brought the Boer countries into the greater British colony of South Africa.  My grandfather (Mom’s side) fought for the British in the Second Boer War as a young man in 1900. 

Apartheid

There remained a division between English speaking South African whites, and those whites descended from the Boers who spoke Afrikaans, a Dutch dialect.  They are the modern Afrikaners.

In 1934 the British gave the nation of South Africa self-rule within the Commonwealth.  Voting in South Africa was restricted to whites, and in 1948, the Afrikaner dominated National Party gained the majority.  They instituted a strict plan of racial segregation called Apartheid, denying anyone of “color” (including migrants from India and Pakistan as well as Black Africans and folks of mixed race) the vote.  Strictures were worse than even the Jim Crow segregation of the United States.  Separate neighborhoods, schools, and government institutions were set aside for white, black, mixed or Asian communities. 

The National Party remained in power until the 1990’s, when civil unrest became so great they were forced to grant rights and the vote to people of “color”.  In 1994 Nelson Mandela of the Africa National Congress, imprisoned under apartheid for 27 years, became the first majority elected President.

Not surprisingly, when the Black majority gained power, they began to redistribute the land and wealth away from the minority whites.  Afrikaners in particularly felt the brunt of the new majority rule, losing a lot of the privileges they held under Apartheid.   Now, thirty years after, the white Afrikaners of South Africa claim to be “persecuted” by the majority government their own ancestors controlled for generations.

Victims

Which brings us back to the original question:  why is the Trump Administration bending over backwards to prioritize Afrikaner immigration to the United States?  On a purely political level, it might be because of Elon Musk, himself an Afrikaner who migrated first to Canada and then to the US.  Musk donated $240 million to the Trump Campaign, and then lent his influence to the “DOGE” cuts of the first 100 days of the Administration.  

But there’s a more important “kith-ship” between the leaders of the Administration and Afrikaners.  Part of the common ideologic core of the Stephen Miller/Steve Bannon/Project 2025 mentality is white male victimhood. They claim that the “woke” changes of the past decades in the United States hurt the “regular white guy”, unfairly.  Much like the Afrikaners, they claim that the changes in America that allowed minorities and women to advance in business, education, government and the military, are at the expense of “white guys”.  They’re right.  

Until the 1970’s, white men had extraordinary (forming an exception, rare) advantage in almost every employment category.  Categories that were “women’s jobs”, teaching and nursing for example, were paid less simply because of the gender classification.  For minorities,  opportunities to advance were truly extraordinary (forming an exception, rare). 

Kith

So any changes to make things “fair” were going to impact white men.  When more women and minorities were admitted to Ivy League colleges, fewer white men got in.  In the finite number of jobs and placements, the competition became much tougher.  Many white men, who presumed that they should advance, found that they were no longer entitled, just like their “Kith” the Afrikaners.

So when Mr. Trump highlighted the “plight” of Afrikaners to the current President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, at the White House yesterday, he wasn’t just “representing” Afrikaners.  He was, implicitly, representing all those white, male, “victims” here in the United States, who lost jobs or opportunities to better qualified women and minorities.  

It’s all about “Kith and Kin”.

Disunited Nation

There are many things that divide Americans today.  Issues like race, religion, gender identity (or even the concept of gender identity), politics.  America today seems more about the divide than about the union.  But there is one “notion” that we all hold dear:  Freedom.   

No matter what side of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle we stand on (and some of us over time shifted from one towards the other), we can all rejoice at the freedom of surviving hostages, taken on that desperate day of October 7^th.  Edan Alexander, a twenty-one year old Israeli/American was released this week, after eighteen months of captivity. But fifty-eight hostages remain unaccounted for. As many as twenty of them are believed to be still alive.  The joy in his face, and the emotions of his family; reminds us all that there are ties that bind us together, regardless of our politics:  family, life, hope, and just as important, freedom.  It’s something that Americans often take for granted. 

Greatest Generation

It seems that certain generations in our history are called to defend freedom, and other generations get a “pass”.  My parents understood this on a fundamental level.  They faced the stark threat of Nazism, Mom as bombs literally fell on her home in England.  She lost many friends, even her fiancé, to the battle against Hitler.  And she answered the call of her country to serve in the Special Operations Executive, the clandestine service of Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

And my Dad answered the call of his Cincinnati Draft Board. He served in the US Army that went to Europe to save Democracy.  It was a simple as that.  At a young age, barely older than Edan, they placed their lives on the line for freedom.  (And they met, fell in love, married and survived the World War).

Bully

Our Freedom is at risk today here in America.  There’s no other way to put it.  Our freedom to speak out against the government is being challenged.  When the Mayor of New Jersey’s largest city spoke out against a private prison in his jurisdiction, the Federal Government placed him in custody.  A US Congressman standing beside him protested the arrest. She is now charged with the Federal crime of obstruction.  A judge directed a defendant to take a back entrance to the Court. She too is charged with a Federal crime.  

When Federal employees speak out to defend the laws that created their positions and agencies, illegally violated by the Executive Branch, they are fired. When Wal-Mart and Amazon state the plain fact that their prices will go up due to the President’s tariffs, they are attacked and threatened.  And when foreign students in our Nation demand accountability for American actions, they are swept up and removed.  The “Bully Pulpit” of Teddy Roosevelt, has become just the “bully”.  

Three Letter Secrets

And most of all, there are people, legally resident, living in fear in our country.  They are afraid of the “secret police”, abducting folks on the street or at their workplaces, placing them in custody without the “common” rights of counsel and judicial review.  Many are taken to jurisdictions far from their homes and alien to their backgrounds.  And some of those residents find themselves sent to the worst Hell holes in our world.

 Our Nation, the United States of America, is spending millions of our dollars to fly to these “specially selected” prisons in El Salvador and other foreign nations, the “Devil’s Islands” of our current era. This isn’t the infamous Gestapo, or the Savak, or the KGB:  it’s the United States Federal Police tasked with immigration enforcement: ICE, INS, and HSI.

Our Duty

What is our present generation required to do?  We can choose to follow the path of meekness, turning a blind eye to the depravations of our government.  We can justify it: “Well, they aren’t really Americans, they don’t really have ‘rights’, they haven’t ‘earned’ the right to be here”.  But it’s all just excuses to avoid the obvious.  Freedom is hard, it has to be won, and defended, and won again.  It is beyond clear that our Freedoms are threatened by our own government.  Like my parent’s generation, we all really recognize this on a fundamental level, excuses or not.

So we must stand, as my parents did, and as other generations stood at risk to defend the ideals that make the United States a different kind of Nation.  We must speak out, we must march and protest, and yes, perhaps some of us will go to trial or jail along with the Mayor and the Congressman.   Because if we don’t, our generation will have failed the ultimate test.  We will have failed to defend our Nation and our Freedom. 

And that’s something we should ALL be united about.

Beat Down

To say that Democrats in Ohio are “beaten down”, is to understate the problem. For most of my lifetime, Democrats had an uphill struggle to win office in Ohio, but still managed to maintain a foothold in State government.  Sure there was Jim Rhoades, a Republican who dominated the state for sixteen years.  But there was Democrat John Gilligan in the middle, and Dick Celeste after that took us into the 1990’s.  Since then though, there’s been only one Democrat as Governor, Ted Strickland for four years, gone in 2010.

But we had Democratic Senators, from Howard Metzenbaum to John Glenn and Sherrod Brown, who proudly represented Ohio for over half a century.   Sherrod was the last of those, losing to car dealer Bernie Moreno in 2024. And now, Jennifer Brunner, one of seven Ohio Supreme Court Justices, is the only statewide elected Democrat.  The State Legislature is gerrymandered to a failsafe majority for Republicans, and the remaining Dems are left to make deals with “sides” of the Republican extremists.

Up For Grabs

In 2026, there are two high-profile statewide offices up for grabs.  The current Republican Governor, Mike DeWine, is term-limited out of office.  And the Senate seat of JD Vance, now Vice President, was filled by appointing former Lieutenant Governor John Husted.  There will be an election for the position.  It’s a big deal, both for Republicans trying to cement MAGA-Republican sovereignty in the Buckeye State, and for the 45% of unrepresented Democrats still living on Ohio.  

And 2026 nationally may be a good year for Democrats.  Traditionally, the off-year election is good for the party not in power. Republicans are making a mess of their control of the Presidency, the House and the Senate.  So Democrats ought to take heart, even those who happen to live in Crimson Ohio.

Billionaire Cincinnati-born financier Vivek Ramaswamy is running for the Republican candidacy for Governor.  He not only has an unlimited bank account, but also the direct support of President Trump, who made a major difference in the JD Vance Senate race in 2022.   Vivek managed to chase other Republicans, notably Attorney General Dave Yost, out of the race already.  

Appointed Senator John Husted is certainly hoping to hold onto his seat, but other Republicans might look to challenge him in a primary, rather than face Ramaswamy in the Gubernatorial contest.   But Husted will likely prevail, setting the Republican side for the two high offices.  So what will Democrats do?

Hamlets

There are two “princes” of the Democratic Party waiting in the wings.  Both are statewide “names”, who have a huge head start in any political contest.  And both are “interested” in running again, but also suffered the sting of recent failure.   

Sherrod Brown wasn’t ready to leave the Senate in 2024, and the Husted seat in an off-year election seems like a perfect opportunity.  And former-Congressman Tim Ryan suffered a tough loss to Vance in 2022.  Though Ryan seemed to run the “perfect campaign”, the National Democratic Party pulled a lot of his funding and the rug out from under his campaign in the final weeks.  That left him without the weapons to “close the deal” against Vance.

And both Brown and Ryan are concerned that the Democratic Party “image” plays against their needs here in Ohio.  Brown got hammered in 2024 by a Republican effort to tie Democrats to transgendered women (preying on “real” women).  Ryan watched that, and also Brown’s inability to match Republican spending dollar for dollar as the 2024 campaign closed.  

Dignity of Work

Brown and Ryan share a common theme:  the dignity of work.  They are both concerned that Democrats are too tied to “wedge issues” like gender and migration, instead of focusing on the needs of working folks.  As Brown often says:  “It doesn’t matter whether you shower before work or after, your work has value”.   

I suspect both are waiting for assurances from the National Democratic Party of two things. First, to succeed in Ohio, both need an alignment of issues between Ohio and the Nation.  Ohio needs a Democratic National Committee commitment to make the “value of work” the center of the 2026 campaign.  Any other path, and Republicans will use a differing national debate to “change the subject” here, and clobber Democratic candidates.

And, Brown and Ryan won’t be left “holding the bag” again.  Any successful campaign in the state will cost millions, and certainly a battle against Ramaswamy will be even more expensive.  These two Democrats aren’t willing to run for office for “a future race”, or to act as a placeholder.  They will only run to win.  And they need to have the assurance that winning is possible in Crimson Ohio.  It take more than great campaign themes.  It requires a national commitment of Democratic funds and ideas.

Hearts and Minds

Chuck Colson was a political advisor to President Richard Nixon.  Colson was a former Green Beret, and part of the “take no prisoners” attitude of the Nixon Presidency that led to the excesses of Watergate, and the downfall of the Administration.  Nixon is the only President to resign from office.   Colson served time in Federal prison for his actions during that time.

 Hanging on his office wall in the Nixon years was a sign, “If you have then by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow”.  It was a “demonstration” and a warning about Colson’s determination.

Starvation

That’s a phrase that Prime Minister Netanyahu is putting into practice in the Middle East, with a genocidal turn.  While Colson used the phrase to show how “tough a conservative” he was, Netanyahu is actually doing it in Gaza, with a slight difference.  His sign would say, “If you got them by the stomach, their hearts and minds will follow.”  

It’s simple:  Israel is starving the Palestinians in Gaza.  Here’s the “stats”:  there are 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza.  The United Nations, responsible for getting food aid into the area, states they are delivering 250,000 meals a day.  The math is simple, one meal a day for about a tenth of the population.

What little other food is available costs extraordinary prices and is in questionable condition.  But for the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza, starvation is real, and it’s now.   And Israel is responsible for it.

Governance

This is the “final solution” to the “Hamas Problem” for Israel.  Hamas is the terrorist group that was the governing authority in Gaza for over a decade.  They were terrorists, but they also were the police, ran the hospitals, and controlled all of the supply to the population.  And Hamas launched the October 7^th attack on Israel, killing 1200 mostly civilians, many tortured and abused.   Israel, justifiably, responded with an all-out attack on Hamas.  But caught in the middle of this ongoing battle are the Palestinian civilians trapped in Gaza, the most densely populated area in the world. 

Israel refuses to take control of the “governing” duties in Gaza.  Instead, they continue their military operations designed to unearth the last vestiges of Hamas.  In order to strangle supplies to those “vestiges”, Israel has decided to allow the starvation of the entire population.   The United Nations, and many individual nations in the world, protest, but nothing is really being done.  The nation that has the greatest influence over Israel is the United States.  But Israel virtually ignored the Biden Administration attempts to curb their brutality.  Israel bet on the 2024 election to change American leadership.  Their bet paid off.

The Trump Administration seems fully committed to Trump’s close friend “Bebe” Netanyahu (the godfather of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner).  So the manmade food crisis in Gaza grows even worse. And here in the United States, the impact of ICE intimidation is that there are few protests against Israeli actions.  The risk of being abducted off of the streets and whisked away to a facility in Louisiana keeps students at bay.  And the extortion of US universities, with Federal funding threatened each time there’s a protest, adds to the blanket of silence.  

Irony

The irony, of course, is that the Nation founded in response to the Holocaust, to the genocide of the Jewish people by Hitler during World War II, is now doing the same to the Palestinian people.  The Israeli slogan of “Never Again” must only apply to actions against Jews, but not Israeli actions against others.  

And, there’s a clear political reason for Netanyahu to extend the Gaza military operations.  He faces judicial action in Israel, only staved off by the “wartime conditions”.  As for the few hostages that remain alive after the October 7^th attack:  they seem to be more of an impediment to Netanyahu’s ultimate plan, rather than a goal to return them to freedom. 

Israel has the Palestinians by the stomach.  They don’t particularly care about their “hearts and minds”, they simply want to punish everyone in Gaza for the actions of Hamas.  The human suffering is unacceptable, the irony unbelievable, and the rest of the world’s passive acceptance of genocide revolting.  And the one other nation that could do something about it, the United States, just becomes more complicit in the what in other times we would call “ethnic cleansing”. 

But don’t hold your breath.  Reminiscent of Chuck Colson and the Nixon era, the folks around Donald Trump like Stephen Miller, are determined to prove their “conservative ideological toughness”.  You hear it in almost every statement they make.

And besides, there’s money to be made from the Israelis, and newly “cleared” land in Gaza.  Why, there’s a beautiful beaches just right for a new “Trump Hotel”.   Ask Jared.

Constitution of the United States – Article I, Section 9

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.

Gifts

When the high officers of the United States travel abroad, of course they receive gifts.  Swords, hats, chess sets; items that represent the traditions of the country they are visiting, all are part of diplomacy.  But all of these gifts are NOT considered personal.  They are gifts to the representative of the United States, and therefore, are property of the United States, not the individual.  So when the Prime Minister of India gives the US President an exquisitely hand carved chess set, it’s not the President’s set.  It is a gift to the people of the United States.  

Gifts are carefully cataloged and identified.  While some gifts might remain at the White House or the State Department, many are stored in the National Archives.   For example, the desk now used by President Trump, the Resolute Desk, was a gift from the Queen Victoria of Great Britain to American President Rutherford B. Hayes.  It is made from the timbers of the British warship, HMS Resolute.  It did not “belong” to Hayes, nor any of the other Presidents that use it, now in the Oval Office.  It is the property of the United States.  Some Presidents chose not to use it (most recently, George HW Bush) and then it is stored for the next President.

Bribery

The reason is obvious.  It would be easy to persuade an American “officer” to give favor to a particular country.  We use words like “influence” or “leverage”, but Section 9 is really about bribery.  A foreign state, Prince or King might try to “bribe” an American officer:  by paying them (profit), gifts (presents), items or currency of high value (emolument), or granting them titles (Lord, Duke, Count, etc.).   Americans have been Knighted or “raised up” by the Queen, but only those Americans who are NOT in public office: Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Jamie-Lee Curtis (for examples).

The first Trump Administration violated the Emoluments clause at will.  Donald Trump owned a hotel in the “Old Post Office Building” just down the street from the White House.  Many countries, notably Saudi Arabia, spent millions of dollars on rooms in the Trump Hotel, often not even occupying them.  It was a way to “pass onto the President” their financial gratitude.  In addition, Trump was indebted to Russia for covering large loans through the German institution, Deutsche Bank.  So he was already compromised, to Russia, and to Saudi, and to other countries that realized that doing “business” with the Trumps was good for their foreign policy.

Cookies

Congress talked a lot about emoluments, but never brought impeachment charges on that particular issue. There were plenty of more pressing matters.  The Supreme Court never weighed in on what, exactly, an Article I, Section 9 violation might be.  And like most of Trump’s actions, if there is no pushback, he simply takes it farther.  As the children’s story goes:  “If you give a mouse a cookie, he’ll ask for a glass of milk”.  That’s by Laura Joffe Numeroff, as quoted in the movie Air Force One.  

Speaking of Air Force One, the Royal Family (“King, Prince”) of Qatar (“Foreign State”) wants to give one to President Trump, as a “present”.  It’s a Boeing 747-8 Jumbo, nicknamed “the Flying Palace”. 

And while Trump claims the “Palace” is a gift to the US Air Force, the “deal” is that the “Palace”, would be donated to the “Trump Presidential Library” at the end of his term in office (hopefully 2029).  But don’t think of it like the old Air Force One parked at the Reagan Library. The flying “Palace” would be in use for the former President for the remainder of his travel life.

Get Off My Plane

So there’s the Article I, Section 9 issues.  But there are also the security issues involving the President of the United States. The Air Force has already ordered two new Air Force One’s from Boeing, but they are mired in cost overruns.  The problem is that the plane to transport the President has to fill so many roles.  It’s a transport aircraft for hundreds of people.  It’s a mobile command post, capable of running the US Defense establishment while in flight.  And it’s a warplane, with detection and evasion capabilities in case of attack.  

It’s not an “average” plane, not even an “average Flying Palace”.  So even if the Air Force accepted the “gift” from Qatar, it would have to be revamped into the military communication and defense aircraft required for the transport of the President of the United States.  Right now, there are two 747-B’s, vintage aircraft at twenty-five years, that serve as Air Force One when the President is travelling.  (Though not as vintage as the B-52 bomber fleet of the US Air Force.  The last one of those came off of the production line in 1962.  76 still remain in active service). 

Flying Palace

So what does it say that the President of the United States wants to be in a “Flying Palace”, designed for the Royal Family of Qatar?  Beyond all of the security issues, and the expenses of re-purposing the aircraft for Presidential use; what does the proposed Air Force One deal mean?

It means that Donald Trump would be indebted to Qatar, and so would the United States of America.  It meets the very definition of why the Founding Fathers authored Article I, Section 9.  And for Qatar, it would be the gift that kept on giving.  

Next he’ll want a title to go with it.  

King Donald the First of America, the Gulf of Mexico and Canada;  that fits.

• First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out
  Because I was not a Communist.
  Then they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out
  Because I was not a Socialist.
  Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out
  Because I was not a trade unionist.
  Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out
  Because I was not a Jew. 
• Then they came for me,
  And there was no one left to speak out for me.  
• – Confession of Martin Niemoller – 1946

No Guardrails

Yesterday, they came for Ras Baraka, the Mayor of Newark, New Jersey and candidate for Governor of the state.   They came for him because they could.  All of the “curbs” that control Federal government behavior are set aside.  They came for a man standing outside their gate, demanding justice, a clear exercise of free speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.  But they came anyway, because he dared to oppose the Department of Homeland Security.  They came because he called out the Black Shirted Thugs of ICE.

The guardrails are intentionally gone.  We can talk about all of the incidentals:  Baraka is a Black man who is outspoken in his opposition to ICE actions in his city.  The Acting US Attorney for Northern New Jersey is Alina Habba, the losing attorney for Trump in the E Jean Carroll civil trial where the former President was fined $83 million.  She has something to prove to her “boss”.  Baraka was a great target.  

Lying Eyes

And if you’re “from the other side” (“…I can see by your ‘hat’, my friend, you’re from the other side…” If you know, you know – thanks, Stephen Stills) your sources of information say that Baraka and two US Congressmen “stormed” the door of a newly opened private prison in Newark.  You need to believe you own eyes and watch the videos.  Baraka was standing on the sidewalk, in “free, public” space, when twenty or more Black Shirted Thugs of ICE (and the more mysterious HIS) surrounded him, physically shoved the Congressmen aside, and took the Mayor into custody.  They manhandled him into handcuffs and an unmarked car, and whisked him off to another location.  It doesn’t get any more “thuggish” than that. 

“Godwin’s Law” states that in an argument, the more heated the discussion, the more likely one side will compare the other to Hitler.  The corollary to the law is that the side that mentions Hitler first is the “loser”, as using Nazi comparisons are beyond inflammatory, similar to calling the other side profanities.  But it’s difficult to avoid referencing the dreaded Nazi secret police, the Gestapo, when referring to the current actions of the United States government.  There’s another old saying (not a “law”).  “If it walks likes a duck, and quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck – it’s a duck.”  

Terror is the Point

Sure, Baraka was only held in custody for a few hours. But keeping him an imprisoned martyr wasn’t the reason for the arrest anyway.  The exercise in brute force, the terror and intimidation, that was the point.  It’s the same “point” that ICE has been making since Trump took office. They burst into Columbia University housing without a warrant to imprison Mahmoud Khalil in a Louisiana detention facility. And they arrested a sitting Wisconsin state judge in her courtroom.  It’s not the “legal” outcome; it’s the action itself that tells Americans:  don’t oppose us.  We will find you and take you away.

Tom Hohman, the brutish “Czar of Immigration” is boldly clear about the subject.  “If you stand in ‘our’ way, we will arrest you”.  And Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, (boy, the Godwin’s Law reference fits him to a tee) goes even farther. He suggests “they” might suspend the writ of habeas corpus. That’s the Constitutionally enshrined right to know why the government is holding you.  

Our America?

It’s the same terror tactic that was used to send “gang members” to a hell-hole prison in El Salvador.  Even if they were gang members, (and we don’t know, because that was never adjudicated in Court, that Habeas Corpus thing) we should be talking about cruel and unusual punishments, the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.   But for a fortunate Court order, another set of migrants were to go to a Libyan jail last week.  Homan’s been “prospecting” for prisons in the worst situations in the world, from Sudan to Uganda to Rwanda.  It’s all about fear.  Ain’t that America? 

It’s not.  Instead, it’s an image of America that relishes the historic mistakes in our past.  The “Red Scare” of the early 1920’s, when “Palmer Raids”, named after the then US Attorney General, rounded up supposed Communists and deported them.  Or “McCarthyism” of the 1950’s, when a politician’s lies of rumor and innuendo were used to “blacklist” thousands from government and private industry.  Or, the worst, the internment camps of World War II, where born American citizens, among others, were placed in confinement because they were of Japanese ancestry.  

They came for a judge last week.  They came from the Mayor of a US city yesterday.  

If we don’t speak out… 

Balance of Power

We all know the “traditional” balances of power from our “Schoolhouse Rock” days in 8^th grade history. There’s the Legislature that “writes the laws”, the Executive that “executes those laws”, and the Courts that determines whether “the laws” are allowed under the Constitution or not.  But there are less obvious areas of “balance” that Congress, the President and the Courts have agreed to, usually about issues they think are “too important” to politicize.  

Money is the obvious example.  America doesn’t want the value of its money to become a political football.  And since the “value” of our money (measured in how much that money can purchase) is no longer linked to a precious metal, like gold or silver (since 1933), the main factor that “controls” the value of the dollar is the amount of dollars in supply.  

Gold Standard

How much money is worth (can purchase) has been a major issue since the founding of the Nation.  One of the great debates of the 1880’s and 90’s was that the money, tied directly to gold in the US Treasury, was is in too short a supply.  This forced prices down (a good thing) but it also made it difficult to actually have money.  It didn’t matter how low prices were; poor Americans couldn’t get any.  The average worker wage in 1885 was $589…a year.  That’s less than $50 a month, $12 a week, or $.20 an hour.  Even if goods were cheap, the average American just didn’t have much money to use.

The debate at the time was about silver.  If silver was added to the gold standard regulating American cash supply, then the money supply could be greater.  Sure, prices would go up, but average Americans would have access to more cash, to increase their purchasing power.  William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic candidate for President in 1896, gave his most famous speech on this subject, advocating for adding silver.  It was called the “Cross of Gold” Speech. 

So why bring up Bryan, other than to quote his stirring final paragraph:

If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.

It seems that most of President Trump’s economic strategy comes right out of the high tariff and no business regulation days of the 1880’s.  So it might give us insight into his thinking to look back.   But there is no “gold standard” no “cross of gold”, these days.  The value of US money isn’t actually regulated by precious metals, it’s “controlled”.  The Federal Reserve Board, a part of the government but supposedly independent of the President (or the Congress) tries to control our money supply by determining how much it costs banks to borrow money from the Federal Reserve Bank (kind of bank for banks). 

Reserve Rates

If the “Fed” raises interest rates (the cost for banks to borrow money), it limits the amount of money in supply, and keeps prices down.  If it lowers interest rates, it puts more money in supply (reduces the value) and prices will trend up.  For example, during the Covid crisis, the stock market went down by more than a third and millions of Americans were out of work.  The supply of money went way down, and the “value” of the dollar was up.  Sure, prices for some things, like gas, went down.  But there were shortages of products (like toilet paper) and those prices went up.

The Fed responded by lowering their interest rates virtually to zero.  If you had money, the summer of 2021 was a great time to buy a house, with a 30 year mortgage of 2.8%.  But the problem was, like in the 1880’s, many Americans didn’t have the opportunity, because unemployment was up.  Americans were worried about paying monthly bills, not buying houses.

The Biden Administration poured money in to “jump-start” the post-Covid economy.  That increased the supply, and reduced the value.  the country got going again.  But prices and wages went up, and Americans experienced major inflation for the first time since the 1980’s.  The Fed moved to slow inflation.  In October of 2023, a 30 year mortgage was 7.7%.  

Stag-Flation

Trump’s 1880’s style tariff policy jolted the US economy once again.  Since tariffs are taxes on imported goods, and since the vast majority of consumer goods in the US are imported, prices are likely to go up.  And combined with the Trump draconian immigration program raising the costs of labor as well, America may well be looking at a near future of less development, less expansion, and higher prices, called “stagflation”.  It’s the economic recipe that afflicted the 1970’s Carter Administration, and helped elect Ronald Reagan.  

So Trump wants the “Fed” to lower interest rates, even though it would cause prices to go up, something his tariff policy is already going to do.  And, not surprisingly, the Fed, led by Chairman Jerome Powell, is saying “no”.  It’s an “open” legal question whether the President can fire the Federal Reserve.  It’s one of those “other” checks and balances on the government, outside of the “Schoolhouse Rock” version.  But if Trump did fire Powell, the stock market would plummet, wiping out large “supplies” of US money.  That’s something, at the moment, the President seems unwilling to do.

Donald Trump wants all of the economic “levers of power” in his own hands, from tariffs to employment to Federal Reserve rates.  Jay Powell is holding firm, no change in Federal rates yesterday.  He’s giving his subtle version of Bryan’s speech:  “You shall not crucify the United States on a cross of tariffs”.  We’ll see how long he lasts.  And, by the way, that “cross of tariffs” better not be made of Canadian lumber.  The tariff on that is scheduled to more than double from 14% to 34%.  

It might as well be made of gold.

Track Coach

I am a high school track official.  There’s a basic principle for that job:  know the rules.  And I do, sprint exchanges to shotput weights, cross country flags to high jump markings, pole weight labeling to hurdle infractions.  It’s the job.   And I’ve been an official for over thirty years.  

I became one, because I was a track coach.  I thought that I needed to know the rules as a coach, and the best way was to become an official, pass the test, and participate in all of the rules meetings where, like Hassidic scholars, we pick apart each rule and apply it to varying scenarios.  When I had a question as a coach, I had the advantage of “knowing the book”.  When a serving official made a questionable call, I didn’t “get crazy”.  I simply said, show me in “the book” where it says that you can do that.  I usually won the argument.

Shocked, I Say

There’s very little that President Trump can say or do that shocks me anymore.  After more than a decade of Trump’s ascendance, I’m used to the lying and creative reasoning, the “everybody says” and “no one knows” to back up his odd positions.  But I was surprised with a statement Trump made over and over on his Sunday interview with Kristin Welker of NBC News.

When she asked him what the Constitution says about his proposed actions, his answer was:  “Well, I don’t know.  I’m not a lawyer, but I have really good lawyers to advise me”.  

The Presidential Oath is the only one prescribed by the US Constitution.  The wording is plain, even though it was written almost two-hundred and forty years ago:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

There’s a phrase from the movie Ocean’s Eleven that’s currently in vogue:  “You had one job to do”.  The President of the United States, according to the oath, really has one job:  preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.  Wouldn’t someone seeking the highest office have, at least, read the “rule book”?

Pope of America 

(including Canada and Greenland)

I know, I know; some think that Trump is being disingenuous.  They think that Trump knows full well what the Constitution says about things like “two terms”, or “due process”, or “legislative powers”.   But I’m willing to take him at his words, and his actions.  He doesn’t seem to know the US Constitution, nor does he care.  The Constitution clearly defines the process of establishing a “law”, including the detailing of the powers of the Congress in the process.  But Trump is using executive orders like he was the “Pope” of America (which his own White House has proffered).  Trump issues “edicts”, as if from God’s word, without reference to Congressional oversight or powers.  

He doesn’t understand what due process is. He equates it with his own experience; the millions of dollars of legal fees he spent to stall out the justice system until he could run for office again.  The President thinks that giving due process to migrants, means giving each one a “trial”, like the one he sat (and slept and farted) through in New York City last year. (He was convicted on 34 felony counts, our first “Felon President”). 

 For our own edification, due process in the immigration area may just be a judge hearing from the migrant and from the United States, and making an immediate decision.  For example, Mr. Garcia, sent to a beyond-maximum security prison in El Salvador with no notice or process, was in the United States under the order of a Federal judge.  He was given due process, and granted “temporary protected status”.  The violation was not by Mr. Garcia, it was by the Department of Homeland Security.

Scary Concept

And the President doesn’t seem to know that the 22^nd Amendment is explicitly clear.  

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

Instead, he seems to think he can make some “choice” in the matter of running for a third term.

He either hasn’t read the rule book, the Constitution, or he doesn’t care what it says.  That’s a pretty scary concept – kind of a like a coach who doesn’t know the rules of his own “sport”.  

Only this is a whole lot worse.

Corruption

Ohio seems to be a typical, Mid-West state. Up to a decade ago, politically Ohio was a “swing state”, but with the advent of Donald Trump, the state has made a hard political “right”.  Still, even in the 2024 Presidential elections, 44% of the state voted Democratic.  But with “malice aforethought”, the Republican Party here in Ohio has designed a gerrymandered legislature, so biased that Democrats are represented by less than 35% of the legislators.  

They’ve done it through complete disregard for two different State Constitutional Amendments to end gerrymandering and several rulings of the State Supreme Court.  The Republican Party of Ohio today is the party of “how much power, and how much money”.   The $60 million bribe that put the former Republican state Speaker of the House and the Party State Chairman in Federal prison is only the tip of the iceberg.

You don’t have to be a Democrat to see what’s going on.  Republican candidates know that they won’t face a contest in the “general election” due to the skewed voting districts.  So they only worry about the highly biased and divided primary elections in their own Party.  And since it’s the most partisan and extreme voters that show up in the primaries, the race is to cater to their right-wing views.  We get what we “ask for” in Ohio – an extremist legislature, beholden to the money that gets them re-elected time after time.

The Teaching “Deal”

Here’s a “granular” look at the impact of money on government in this state, one that cuts close to home for me.  Teachers in Ohio, like most of the nation, are paid less than others with similar educational backgrounds.  They love to teach and they love the impact they have on kids.  But teachers also had a “special benefit”.  While annual earnings weren’t particularly high, teachers who made it through thirty or more years in the classroom got a “premiere retirement”.  Up until 2011, those teachers could retire at 35 years, and get close to 90% of their annual income. They also were guaranteed low cost health insurance, and a 3% cost of living allowance.  

You could teach for a career, and retire with dignity.  That was the state’s promise.  But in 2012, the legislature broke the deal.  They gave up their authority to set rates, and turned absolute control over to the State Teacher Retirement Board.  Essentially, the legislature “washed their hands” of the matter.  Almost immediately the Board, partially elected by active and retired teachers, but including appointed board members by the legislature, the governor, and the state department of education, acted. They ended cost of living adjustments, reduced the annual retirement income available, and raised insurance costs.

Follow the Money

So where did the money go?  The State Teacher Retirement System (STRS) took their $100 billion pension fund and invested some in private equity funds.  They signed confidentiality contracts with them. No one knew what the money was invested in, how much profit it made, and how much the Fund fees cost.  It amounted to almost $10 billion unaccounted for.  In addition, STRS put another $10 billion into the more volatile commercial real estate market.  Again, there was little transparency in how those funds were spent, or how much profit was made or money lost.

The other 80% was managed in more public funds by the STRS professional staff themselves.  They were paid at the “going Wall Street rate” of their counterparts in the private equity firms.  Everybody involved was making “good”, except for the teachers and the retirees.

And the private equity firms made substantial contributions to the Ohio politicians who controlled the board.  Even the Ohio Education Association (OEA), the teachers’ union, who dominated the elected board members, seemed to be in the “hand-out” line.  They weren’t (probably) taking bribes. But they were dependent on politicians to deal with the rest of their education agenda.  So not “rocking the boat” at STRS became the OEA mantra.

Meanwhile, teachers were required to work longer, for less retirement income.  And retired teachers were forced to live on the same amount, year after year.  I’m a retiree who depended on the “deal” for thirty-five years of employment. I’ve lost the over 25% of my spending power in the past decade. There’s been 4 ½ percent cost of living allowance, but inflation has reduced the value of a dollar by over 30%.

Money Talks

Both retirees and active teachers wanted change.  Retired teachers organizations led the way to elect Board members to reform the system.  They wanted to end private equity “deals”, control real estate losses, and make the entire process both transparent and safer.  Over time, and despite the fierce opposition of the OEA, and the Gannett Newspapers, the reformers gained a majority on the Board.

When the Board reached a reform majority, Governor Mike DeWine immediately tried to fire his own representative, Wade Steen (a reformer). He replaced him with a big campaign donor and private equity guy.  DeWine violated the law when he removed Steen, but it took almost a year to get him reinstated on the Board.  And when elected Reformers regained control of the majority, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost  almost immediately filed to have two removed, using an “anonymous letter”, written by (no surprise) the STRS staff as evidence claiming that the reformers were not “meeting their fiduciary responsibilities”.

Black Hearts

Now it looks like Yost will lose in Court.  So the state legislature’s mostly inactive Ohio Retirement Study Council is jumping into action.  After ignoring the losses at STRS for a decade, now the “Council” (made up of State legislators) has plans to change STRS governance.  They want more financial “experts” on the Board, appointed by –  guess who –  the State legislature and Governor.  They want to out-vote the reform members, and keep them at bay.  But what they really want is to keep the private equity money flowing to their campaign coffers.

Who wins if the Legislature changes the Board?  The highly paid STRS staff, the private equity firms, and the politicians with their palms greased by private equity contributions.  Who loses?  Both the teachers now working, looking to retire, and those retirees left empty handed.

Oh, and the children of Ohio lose too.  Because what new college graduate is going to want to work in the public schools, if they specifically know their retirement isn’t secure?  But, of course, that’s OK with today’s state legislature.  They don’t like public education anyway.  There’s lots of profit, and campaign donations, to be made in private education.  

Ohio, is really the corrupted heart of it all. 

Our Long National Nightmare

I remember waking up on Wednesday, November 9^th, 2016.  I hoped it was a nightmare, that the election results I watched until the darkest hours of the night had somehow changed.  I wished that Hillary Clinton, up on the stage, doing her best to show “what was right” and acknowledging the unthinkable, was a dream.  Donald Trump was the next President of the United States.  It was the sublime to the ridiculous:  Barack Obama to Donald Trump.  It took days to even believe it was possible, and it didn’t take much effort at all to wonder if it was true.

It was in that first month of the Trump Administration that I began to write the essays, now called “Our America”.  And some of those questioned the veracity of the election results, decided by such a fractional margin of the popular vote: the number 77,744 is etched in my brain. It was the difference in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that put Trump in charge.  

Crossfire Hurricane

Then we discovered “Crossfire Hurricane”, the FBI investigation into Russian connections to the Trump campaign.  And while MAGA world did (and still does) everything they could to discredit them, there were connections.  Paul Manafort, the Trump Campaign Manager, was passing inside campaign information to the Russian government.  There were connections between Mike Flynn and Russia, and even more with Türkiye (the modern spelling of Turkey – just like Peking became Beijing).   Jared Kushner was on the phone to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov.  But it wasn’t enough, even after the Mueller Report; enough to “bring down the king”.

There’s a saying attributed to Emerson: “When you strike at a king, you must kill him”.  Crossfire Hurricane struck at a king, and the result was ridiculed like a seventies sit-com as “Russia-Russia-Russia”.  Even the gravitas of Robert Mueller and Adam Schiff were unable to save the investigation from the machinations of Attorney General Barr and the propaganda wing of MAGA-world.   What we learned is that if you strike at a King, you can’t afford to be “close”.  This ain’t horseshoes or hand grenades.

That was strike one.

A Perfect Call

Then came the “perfect phone call”.  It was absolutely obvious: Donald Trump, the President of the United States was using US aid to Ukraine to extort Ukraine’s President for “evidence” against Trump’s likely opponent in 2020, Joe Biden.  My gosh; it that isn’t illegal, using public money to get personal political gain, I don’t know what is.  And while Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the House, was slow to acknowledge it, other Democrats in the House felt they MUST hold Trump accountable.  They impeached him.

The evidence was clear.  But political partisanship and MAGA threats were more important than the truth.  So the Republican controlled US Senate failed to reach the 2/3 majority required to remove Trump from office.  It wasn’t even that close, despite the “prima facie” case that Trump committed an actual crime.  The expectation, that somehow Republicans would show “Profiles in Courage” in the face of the truth, showed to be the nonsense of political fiction.  It still is.

That was strike two.

Insurrection

And it emboldened MAGA-world.  Two strikes at the “King”, two failures.  No wonder they thought they were invincible.  Only Covid was able to “strike down” the Trump Presidency, and then by an even narrower margin than he won the first time.  So it shouldn’t have been a surprise that January 6^th, 2021 happened.  And no matter how hard MAGA-world tries to rewrite the history of that moment, we can all honestly still feel the fear and nausea as we watched the crowd on the steps of the Capitol.  We could literally feel the strain of our democracy, our Constitution, nearly tearing in half, as our Representatives and Senators determined to go back in the night and finish their work.

Trump had to be held accountable.  He was impeached again in the House, and tried again in the Senate.  And this time, there was a clear choice for Republicans.  They could end the Trump era, for good, for all.  Or they could hope to endear MAGA-world to themselves, to assure their own political future.  And their leader, Mitch McConnell, who clearly acknowledged to the world that Trump was responsible for the devastation, chose to vote against conviction, taking the needed 2/3 majority with him.  

Democrats weren’t wrong.  But it was still strike three.

You’re Out

Three strikes, in American culture, that means you’re out.  No wonder Joe Biden and his Attorney General, Merrick Garland, were in no hurry to investigate Trump.  But the January 6^th Committee held their feet to the fire of Trump’s planned “coup d’état”.  And so, with almost visible reluctance, the Jack Smith investigation began.   It was really a matter of too little, too late.  The Supreme Court stalled, then intervened.  While Smith’s report made it clear he had “the goods” on Trump, it didn’t matter.  In the end, Trump’s lawyers were able to run out the clock.  Trump had to run for President in 2024; it was his only way to avoid conviction.  

Think of that all or nothing proposition:  win and be President, or lose and be in jail.  What would a billionaire give to make sure he won?  What deals would he make, and what lengths would he go?  Was the 2024 election somehow rigged?  This time, the number was around 255,000; the difference in the swing states that put Trump back in the Oval Office instead of a prison cell.  

That was strike four.

We probably will never know.  Even if somehow our Constitutional system survives this growing authoritarian regime; even if Democrats win back the Congress in 2026 (a fair election?) or the Presidency in 2028.  No one will go back; they’ll be no American “Truth and Reconciliation Commission”.  It’s likely we’ll simply put Trump and MAGA behind us, like the Japanese Internment Camps or McCarthyism.  That is, if we get the chance to do so.  Otherwise, America, already radically changed in just over 100 days, will be unrecognizable, to us, and to the world.  

There will be no strike five.

Earlier Essays about Elections

• 77744 – 3/22/17
• Put on My Foil Hat 4/29/19
• Foil Hat Two – 1/26/22
• Foil is Real!!!! – 1/27/23

With a Roar

Donald Trump came into office with a “roar”.  He put his “richest-man-in-the-world” friend, Elon Musk, in charge of slashing the government.  They even came up with a “catchy” name for their project:  DOGE.  The Department of Government Efficiency was neither a Department (only Congress can create Departments) nor was it particularly efficient.  In fact, they were nothing if not ruthless and destructive.  There wasn’t any analysis of the “impact” of the DOGE cuts.  Elon said it best – he took a “chainsaw” to the US Government.  

President Trump is fond of using the “disease” analogy for the impact of his actions on Americans.  He says that sometimes “the medicine” makes you feel sicker before you feel better.  But the medical analogy for DOGE is the battlefield hospital in the Civil War, with arms and legs stacked outside the tent, hacked off by bloodied surgeons as quickly as casualties come through the door.

Waste, Fraud and Abuse

Musk planned on “saving” $2 Trillion from “waste, fraud and abuse”.   Then, he quickly revised the number to $1 Trillion.  But here we are, one hundred and some days later, and DOGE is “proudly” claiming to have saved $150 Billion, and Musk is going back to save Tesla.  Now, $150 Billion isn’t really “chump change”.  It’s the annual cost of climate change on Americans (CNN), or the border crisis according to the Republicans (House Budget Committee), or how much more Congress wants to spend on Defense next year (Air and Space).

But DOGE doesn’t come cost free.  In fact, estimates of the cost of DOGE’s cost-cuts, are $135 Billion (CBS).  That means that all the turmoil, all the real, actual, deaths caused by DOGE cuts, all the damage to our government and economy, might have saved $15 Billion.  That’s just about the cost of one Ford Class Aircraft Carrier (NPR).

What costs? There’s the cost of all the folks who were fired, but promised months of pay (fired in February, paid until September).  That’s money paid without work gained.  And it’s not even counting the cost of defending the myriad of Federal lawsuits DOGE created, argued “for free” by the Justice Department.   That’s work created, without funding for it.  And, of course, it doesn’t include the cost of the elderly or Veterans spending hours waiting to get through to Social Security or Medicare or the VA. And the future costs of unemployment, as the fired Federal workers can’t find jobs in the struggling economy that Trump has created. That’s not on the DOGE bill either.

Big Brother

Meanwhile, the internal government processes DOGE hacked and cut might never recover.  The actual numbers that track government inventories have been deleted from the files.  Stacks of “things”, from soup to nuts, are no longer accounted for.   And the data the “DOGE Kids” lifted from the Internal Revenue Service (and yesterday, the Postal Service) may turn up in all sorts of places.  Those of us old enough to remember 1984, the book, recognize the phrase “Big Brother is Watching”.  It was all about the eyes of the government on everything you do, public and private.  Well, “Big Brother” has a whole lot more information now, and can cross-check it, “harvesting” all the data about you and me.  To mimic my MAGA friends, “Thanks Donald Trump!!”.  

Have it Both Ways

And meanwhile, the Trump Administration is literally promising two opposite things from the tariff policy.  On the one hand, they argue that tariffs will raise so much money, that the government might consider wiping out income taxes for those making $200,000 or less.  Of course, since it’s consumers who pay the costs of the tariffs, it’s not really a “tax-cut”; it’s more of a “tax shift”.   And it’s a regressive tax shift. More of the tax burden lands on lower income Americans; forced to pay higher prices for all sorts of imported goods.

On the other hand, they promise that the tariffs will be “negotiated”, and won’t impact prices.  So if the tariffs are negotiated, and therefore not collected at the rates that Trump first imposed, then where will the money be to “cut taxes”?  Republicans in Congress are depending on the tariffs to generate the revenue to cover their proposed budget. That includes more than $1 trillion in deficits without tariff money. How will all that work? 

Congress wants to cut taxes.  Congress wants to spend money. Trump says he may not collect that money, because he’ll “make a deal”.  It all sounds like a scam…doesn’t it?

The real title for this essay should be, “…figures lie and liars figure”.  And there’s a whole lot of figuring and lying coming out of DOGE, Congress, and Trump today.