Month: June 2025

Pataskala

The Fourth of July hit early in Pataskala this year, almost a week early.  Central Ohio’s celebrations are driven by the big fireworks show downtown, “Red, White and Boom”, scheduled for Thursday July 3^rd.  So all of the smaller shows try to find a date other than that one, and the City of Pataskala chose Saturday, June 28^th.  

Of course, here in Pataskala, it’s more than just the fireworks.  Mayor Compton made this his signature event – and he does a great job.  There’s an entire community “festival” built around “the Fourth”, with music, a car show, vendors and street food.  And it’s on a Saturday because we live in Ohio, and the weather is completely unpredictable.  So if there’s thunder storms all Saturday afternoon, Pataskala moves to Sunday. This year, we did (have the storms and move the date), and then we moved it back. Fireworks went off Saturday night.

The town’s fireworks are pretty good.  And the guy who lives across the street from Foundation Park where the festival is held, puts on almost as good a show on his own, before the “main attraction” begins.  He’s done it for years, even when setting off private fireworks was illegal.  But, here in Pataskala, the police didn’t care about “fireworks” folks anyway.  And now, it’s completely legal to fire off pretty much anything, anytime.  So the “Fourth of July” started last Friday, and you can be sure there will be random shows from now until long after the Fifth!!  

The Dogs

Jenn and I used to go to a friends’ house to watch both the official and “across the street” fireworks shows. But, with four dogs, and living within a mile of the Park, it’s safer to hang out at home.  Atticus (our Lab) doesn’t seem to mind, but Keelie (our Aussie) completely freaks out to booms, and Lou (he’s part dog, part deer) gets very uneasy.  CeCe (our Baby Yoda) takes her cues from them; so being close by is just a good idea.

Besides, lots of folks walk down our street to get a “view”, and that sets the dogs off almost as much as the “BOOMS”. We see a lot of the show from our own backyard anyway; even more now since “straight line wind” came through the neighbor’s yard couple years ago and took out some big trees.  And, when CeCe and Lou went into full panics: we were right there to calm things down. We watched three incredibly violent movies on TV. They don’t mind those “booms”.

Patriotism

I have always been a “patriotic” guy.  Part of that is my Boy Scout training, learning the Flag Code and the history.  It’s hard not to feel patriotic hiking through the mountains along the trails of the Civil War, or visiting our Nation’s landmarks from “sea to shining sea”.  And I am a “Boomer”.  My parents both fought in World War II.  They knew exactly what our Democracy was worth, and they were well aware of the high price  paid by those who defended it.  Celebrating the Fourth, even for my British citizen Mom, was important. (For a series of essays about the Fourth of July – see the list at the end).

There’s a “Resistance” group trying to use the Fourth of July as an opportunity to express disapproval of the current US government.  They are calling on folks to boycott the Fourth, to make that point.  I don’t agree. It’s kind of like folks who don’t fly the American flag now, seeing it as a symbol of oppression, not freedom. 

My Flag

I’m not giving either the Flag or the Fourth away to any “side”.  To me, they represent the hope of a future America; not based on cruelty, but kindness; that doesn’t oppress, but lifts people up; that doesn’t exclude those who are different, but includes all. I didn’t attend the Pataskala fireworks last night, but it isn’t because of my incredible disappointment in America today.  Those fireworks, seen from afar over the backyard fence, represent my hope that our country can be so much better than we demonstrate right now.  

It’s my Fourth, and my Flag, just as much as any other American’s. It’s even for non-citizens; here to live the American dream, like Mom did.  I’m tempted to adapt Charlton Heston’s NRA speech quote, “I’ll give you my Flag when you pry it from my cold, dead hands”.   There is still hope.  

The Serpent

This current abomination of American belief is part of the “dirty underside” of our history.  It’s always been there. As author John Jay Chapman described it:

“There was never any moment in our history when slavery was not a sleeping serpent. It lay coiled up under the table during deliberations of the Constitutional Convention.”

Like any snake, this serpent may have shed its skin, but snake it still remains.  We aren’t talking about the enslaved today. But we are still dealing with race and color, and those who do the manual labor to keep our Nation alive.  The United States is denying our fellow humans the right to a decent and humane life.  It’s a part of our history.  Today’s national dilemma is as old as the Fourth of July itself.

So celebrate what America should be this Fourth of July week, not what it is today.  Take the Flag, take the Fourth, and march with it proudly.  It is ours, not the oppressors.  America shows its ugliness now, but the “shining city on the hill” still can be achieved.

“Whose Flag? Our Flag!” “Whose Fourth? Our Fourth!”

Enjoy it:  and keep your dogs inside for the fireworks!!!

• 2017 – Patriotism
• 2018 – It’s the Fourth of July
• 2021 – The Fifth of July
• 2023 –  Stories of the Fourth
• 2024 – The Fourth, 2024

Dark of Night

You don’t have to go to Washington DC, or New York City, or even to Mar-a-Lago, to find government corruption.  Just take a drive west down Broad Street from here in Pataskala.  When you reach “the end”, Broad and High in downtown Columbus, Ohio, look to the left, at the State House.  Because it’s right there that the “fix” is in.

It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out the legislators know what they are doing is “shady”.  When you slip in a major change and take away representation for 500,000 some Ohioans in the dead of the night (approximately 1:13 am), you know that they know: their actions won’t stand the light of day. 

But that’s what happened in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.

The Ohio Legislature, both House and Senate, really don’t give a damn about the will of the voters. That’s not an opinion, it’s a fact.  Look at their blatant defiance of two separate Ohio Constitutional amendments passed by the voters to curb gerrymandering.  Add to that, the current discussion about banning abortions (making it criminal murder) despite the overwhelming majority of voters approving a Constitutional Amendment protecting abortions rights just in 2023.  And they are “tinkering” with the marijuana legalization law passed by referendum as well, finding ways to make more money from this newly legal vice.

So what happened in the dead of night Wednesday?  At the final moment, when no one could object, the leaders of the legislature placed an amendment in the omnibus state budget bill.  That amendment changed the makeup of the governing board of the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS).  

The Board

Currently, the Board that controls the pension fund, consists of Five representatives selected by active teachers, Two representatives selected by retired teachers, and an Appointee from each the Governor, the Legislature, the State Treasurer and the Department of Education.   But Wednesday morning, in the dark, without debate or discussion, the Five active teacher representatives were cut to Two, and the Two retired representatives replaced by One. Those four were replaced by four more appointees of the legislature and executive.  

The powers-that-be in the legislature don’t want what’s going on at STRS to see the light of day.  So their answer was to make sure the “owners” of the pension; the teachers, professors, and administrators whose hard earned money make up the pension fund, had their voice stripped away.

Ride the Wave

What’s going on?  Like any pension fund, STRS has to “ride the wave” of economic ups and downs.  But, if you look at the long term performance of the fund, it has failed to keep up with even a simple “index” of the stock exchanges.   STRS spends hundreds of millions of dollars on  in-house investors, and it also invests billions of dollars with private equity firms.  Those “private” investments are “secret”.  The “owners” of the money, teachers and retirees, are not allowed to see what the cost and benefits of those investments are.  Meanwhile, their retirement benefits have been cut back, year after year, since 2013.  

Retirees were told over and over that they were in the “Premier Retirement System in the Nation”.  But, they found that the promised cost of living adjustments were cut, and that the “wonderful insurance plans” cost more and more.  And active teachers were told they had pay more into STRS, teach longer, and get less retirement benefits.  They all asked why, after the stock market more than doubled, there wasn’t enough money?  They were told, “That’s just the way it is”.

All About the Green

Over the past several years, groups of retired  and active teachers organized.  They defeated the Ohio Education Association endorsed elected board members, and replaced them with reformers dedicated to transparency and improving benefits both for active and retired teachers.  Just last year, the “reformers” achieved a majority of the Board.

First the Governor, then the Attorney General of Ohio threw legal road blocks up to stop the reform board. And, now when the courts cleared those hurdles, the Legislature stepped in to “change the rules”.  

Why does the legislature care about all of this?  It’s simple:  private equity firms are huge financial supporters of politicians (on both sides).  If the STRS pension fund is taken out of private equity investments, then the legislators will lose a large source of their financing.  It’s all about “the green”, not in the pockets of teachers or retirees, but in the pockets of the “suits” in the State House.

Where is the outcry against this power grab?  The media is mixed:  the largest “voice” in the state, Gannett Media, has a financial stake in the pension fund.  They don’t want changes, and their reporters continue to repeat false accusations about the reformers.  On the other hand, Nexstar’s WCMH in Columbus, led by Colleen Marshall’s reporting, continue to be strong investigators on the STRS story, as does the Toledo Blade newspaper.

Angry Teachers

And the Governor could veto this item in the budget – but don’t count on it.  His hand is in this financial cookie jar as well, and he’s already shown his “colors” in this effort.  He’s likely to go along with disenfranchisement.  After all, he’s retiring to Cedarville soon.

There is one “mistake” that the leaders of the state legislature made.  Since 2009, the legislature has been “cushioned” from changes in STRS.  They gave up their direct control of pension funds. It was all about “the Board”, not the “suits” in the State House. Now, after this move, “the suits” directly face 500,000 teachers and retirees. For them, it’s “all about” the Legislature.  And, as any fourth grader can tell you, there’s nothing worse than a whole lot of angry teachers.

More to come.

Taxes

Look:   Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative, MAGA, Socialist; nobody likes taxes.  But reasonable people understand that there are tasks better handled by the Government than by “pay as you go” private industry.  It’s “No Taxes” until your house is on fire.  Then it’s how quick can the fire department get there to put it out. 

So when the Republicans in the Congress look to “cut taxes” by cutting Medicare and Medicaid, like they are doing in Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill”; on the “surface” it might sound OK.  If you’re not sixty-five (or you still have employee insurance), or your family of four makes more than $78000; those cuts are “no skin off your nose”.  Or are they?

Care

It would be easy, at this point, to give you my “standard”, Democratic/Liberal rationale for why health care ought to be a right, not a privilege.  I would tell you that any modern nation that fails to take care of the health of their citizens is failing as a society.  I would point out that every “first world” country on Earth, from Canada to Germany to Japan, sees healthcare as a basic human right.  And you might respond that in those countries healthcare is “rationed” by waiting:  waiting in line for an appointment or an elective surgery.  

I would respond that here in the United States we also “ration” our healthcare.  We do it by the capacity to pay for it.  So, instead of “all people are created equal” for healthcare, it’s a “cash on the barrelhead” system.  Don’t have the cash, well, as Iowa Senator Joni Ernst said, “We’re all going to die”.  You go first.  

No One Dies

We know that.  Go to the doctor’s office, or for a test, or for a procedure in the hospital.  The very first thing you do, is make sure the bill will be paid.  I remember when I was coaching middle school wrestling by teaching kids on the mat, and a young heavyweight countered my move with an elbow to my mouth.  My tooth went through my lip, and I needed stitches.  As I stood before the counter at the emergency department, the attendant took my through all of my insurance coverages, making sure I could pay.  When she couldn’t understand my answers (after all, I had gauze compressed against my mouth), I finally had to just bleed all over the desk, and give her the “correct” responses.  It was my proverbial “cash on the barrelhead”, my admittance to get care.

But, your response should be that “no one dies”.  If someone shows up at an Emergency Department with a life-threatening condition, they are treated no matter what.  And I’ll drop my head, and agree.  But that stills leave the question – in our “cash on the barrelhead” system, who pays for them?

The Bill

Well, Medicaid does right now, for those under a certain income level.  And Medicare pays for most of those over the age of sixty-five.  But for those who don’t qualify now, or for all of those millions (10.9 million according to the Congressional Budget Office) who won’t have insurance after the “Big, Beautiful Bill” passes; where’s their “cash on the barrelhead” coming from?

The answer, just like taxes, is from you and me.  While most of our hospitals are considered “non-profit” organizations by the IRS, they are in fact, more business than fire department.  They need to cover their costs.  And when a patient doesn’t have the capacity to pay their bill, then the rest of us “chip in”.  Of course, no one passes the hat at the hospital to pay for them. 

The “business” of the hospital simply raise all of the prices for procedures, medications, “room and board”, and service.  So each of our medical bills (paid by our insurance), increases to cover the cost of “indigent care”.   Those costs go up, and as everyone with health insurance knows, so does the cost of that insurance.

Out of Our Pockets

So cut Medicare, cut Medicaid, and what happens.  Well, those folks without insurance will go to the “back of the line” for most healthcare.  They won’t be able to get preventative care, or “elective” procedures.  Their lack of “cash” to put on the proverbial “barrelhead” puts them last.  And when those medical conditions that could have been prevented become life-threatening, then they end up with the most expensive care our medical establishment offers:  emergency care.  

And we all pay for it.

If you look at what’s gone up more in the past decade, taxes or health insurance, my bet is you’ll find that insurance is the “winner”. And when we take millions out of the “already paid for” column, and make the hospitals ante up for their costs, whose really eating that?

We are.

For many, the cost of insurance is in the “top five” annual expenses, along with housing (mortgage), food, and taxes.  What good is a $1600 a year tax savings by the “Big, Beautiful Bill” (per the CBO), if health insurance will eat that and more? 

 It’s bad medical care and health policy.  And, it’s just more of our money out of our pocket and on the medical “barrelhead”. 

Shock and Awe

Don Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense under President George W Bush, would be pleased.  President Trump’s attack on Iran, using highly sophisticated B-2 bombers combined with submarine launched cruise missiles, is exactly the kind of operation Rumsfeld would have proposed.  He was the ultimate “Neo-Con”, a true believer that US military might could alter the world.  Not only would it be safer for the United States, but “regime change” could improve America’s economic standing as well.  

The ”Rumsfeld Doctrine” was based on the military concept of “shock and awe”.  Rather than the long-term concentration of forces used in the Persian Gulf War in 1991, with 40 some countries allied against Iraq and months of preparation, Rumsfeld wanted to use an overwhelming force strike to topple the enemy leader immediately – shock and awe.  

In 2003, when the United States invaded Iraq, 160,000 troops marched in following massive airstrikes, including specifically targeted attacks on the Iraqi Dictator, Saddam Hussein.  In less than a month, US forces were in the streets of Baghdad.  Not only was Hussein deposed, but he was ultimately captured, tried, and put to death.

Don Rumsfeld died in 2021.  But using massive American armaments, the “Bunker Buster” bombs, with a targeted airstrike launched around the world from Missouri with stealth aircraft would have been right up his alley.

What’s Next?

The “flip side” of the Rumsfeld Doctrine was the answer to the question:  “What happens next?”  In Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States coalition deposed the existing governments, the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.  But once that leadership was gone, who would govern?  That turned out to be a much thornier question for the US.  In both countries, the “stood up” governments failed to survive.  In Afghanistan, the Taliban waged a twenty-year war to regain power.  They are in charge today.

And in Iraq, the power vacuum created by the removal of Hussein, led to three actions.  First, it allowed a huge increase in Iranian power.  Iraq and Iran were at war with each other for a decade before, and taking Iraq out of the equation let Iran focus its goals on effecting the rest of the Middle East.  Second, the ineffective government in Iraq allowed the extremist ISIS movement to gain momentum.  ISIS ultimately became a prime target for US troops, with the worse fighting of the war occurring years after the first “shock and awe” shots in the battle, against ISIS, not Hussein’s Iraqi Republican Guard.

Bunker Busters

Saturday the United States launched an attack against Iran, an act of war.  The goal was to destroy the ability of Iran to develop nuclear weapons, something that was a huge point of contention in the world.  No one (other than Iran, North Korea and maybe Russia) thinks that Iran should have a nuclear weapon.  

The US attack definitely did damage.  The main area where Iran enriches uranium, refining it to the 90% level needed for nuclear weapons, was the target of six “bunker buster” bombs.  Certainly that site is damaged, perhaps destroyed.  The whole thing is hundreds of feet under a mountain, and it’s going to be difficult to get accurate damage assessments.  Whether the uranium on site, already at 60%, was removed prior to the bombing is unclear.  And, whether Iran has other alternate sites for the enrichment process is unknown.

Three D’s

This weekend, I listened to a reporter describe an interview he did with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, years ago.  Israel has been worrying about Iran’s nuclear capacity for decades, and had the capability of disrupting it for most of that time. Barak described the Israeli dilemma as “The Three D’s”.  Israel, like the United States today, were confident that they would win the “day of the attack” ‘D-One’, and disrupt Iranian nuclear development.  And they were confident that they could survive whatever the Iranian immediate response would be, the Day-After, ‘D-Two’. 

Barak said the problem was ‘D-Three’, the decade after the attack.  What were the long term consequences of attacking Iran?  What would happen if the Ayatollah was removed, a “decapitation” strike.  The United States in both Afghanistan and Iraq showed the dangers of trying to change leadership from the outside, euphemistically called “nation building”.

Unknown Unknown

Don Rumsfeld may had said it best: 

“Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.^”

The “unknown unknown” today is what Iran’s response will be to what likely was a devastating United States attack.   But the one thing we know for sure is that the next step is out of the control of the Trump Administration.  They’ve “played their cards” (as the President likes to say).  Now we are waiting for the “known and unknown knowns” of the Iranian response.  Will they negotiate?  Will they launch missile attack and US bases and ships?  Or will Iran use its remaining Hamas and Hezbollah cells to attack?

Vice President JD Vance exuded confidence (hubris?) on the Sunday news show, Meet the Press.  When asked why Trump launched this attack now, when prior Presidents determined not to do so, he said: “Back then, we had dumb Presidents.”  Don Rumsfeld sounded just as confident as the bombs fell on Baghdad in 2003.  We do know our Nation is preparing for Barak’s Day Two.  The “unknown unknown” is, what about Day-Three – the next decade?  Is there a “plan” from the Trump Administration?  

Or will Trump be another relegated to the JD’s “dumb President” list?

Note: The United States committed an act of war last night. We don’t know how successful it was, and we don’t know the ramifications, either for the world, or here in the US. I’ll definitely write about it in the upcoming days.

Time

It’s day 151 of the second Trump Administration.  We face 1,310 days until the end (barring unforeseen circumstances).  It’s 1,235 days until the 2028 Presidential election.  Hell, it’s 505 days until the 2026 election, when, at least, Congressional control might change.  We’ve got a long way to go.

Democrats are demanding that their political leaders do something about Trump.  But, what can they really do?  They don’t control the House, or the Senate.  Without control, they can’t call Committee meetings, demand investigations, issue subpoenas, or pass legislation.  In many ways, all Democratic Leaders can do is try to shine a spotlight on the corruption, the ethical violations, the inhumanity, the inequity, and the idiocy of much of the Trump agenda.  

Take a Stand

They can stand up and speak, on the Floors of the House and the Senate, or on the steps of the Capitol.  They can ask questions in committee, questions that get answered with snark or obfuscation by Trump’s appointees. And some try to take action.  Senator Alex Padilla demanded answers from the Secretary of Homeland Security in a press “event”. He was thrown to the floor and handcuffed.  Mayor Baraka of Newark, New Jersey demanded to see an uninspected facility in his city where migrants are held in custody.  Instead, he was placed in custody himself.  And the Congressman who tried to defend him in the “scrum” of Federal agents? She’s now facing obstruction charges.

Federal judges appointed by Obama, Biden and Clinton; and Reagan, Bush and Bush, and even some appointed by Trump himself; stand up to Trump’s illegalities.  (If you don’t know, the President really can’t create a “Federal Law” out of thin air and a scribbled signature on an Executive Order).  But we really don’t know how that will all turn out.  What will the Supreme Court do?  This same Court recently declared that a President is immune from criminal liability for any “official act”.  Maybe that’s why all those “executive orders” with the Magic Marker signature are so “important”.  

Speak Your Mind

And the American people, “in their righteous might”, as Franklin Roosevelt put it, are doing their best to “resist” Trump and MAGAism.  Last week, more than five million marched on the “No Kings” day protests.  They “stood up” in Blue cities and in Red towns. They demanded that the rule of law and the standard of American humanity be enforced.  

And local authorities did exactly what they were supposed to do.  They protected the First Amendment rights of the protestors. Many called out “Whose Streets?  Our Streets!!”  And the streets were theirs, with public permits and acceptance.  The police protected THEM, and nationwide millions protested with almost no incidents.

Some Americans are doing their best to stand up to the authoritarian, arbitrary round-ups of migrants.  Some of those “arrests” are made outside the courtrooms of our government, as migrants obey the law.  And some are taking place at the local hardware store, or Mexican restaurant.  Citizens, regular folks, are trying to block ICE operatives (who are acting like no Federal agents I’ve ever seen).  But they too risk arrest and punishment.

A Story of Hope

So what can we all do?  Here’s a story that might give you hope.

In July of 1943, in the depths of World War II, the Allies were bombing Germany.  Americans were flying daytime raids against Nazi factories in B-17 bombers, called “Flying Fortresses”.  The problem was that while the B-17 could fly to the target and drop their bombs, American fighter aircraft didn’t have the range to stay with them.  So for a good portion of the flight, the most dangerous part over Germany itself, the bombers were without protection.  The “Flying Fortresses” were swarmed by German fighter aircraft, as well as attacked from below by anti-aircraft fire.  Bombing raids averaged 30% losses.  One hundred planes took off from England, 70 came back.

The “tour of duty” for American aircrews was twenty-five missions, so it was often just random chance who made it back “this time”, and would they survive the next attack.

Tondelayo

A B-17 named the Tondelayo was on a raid to bomb the air-engine shops in the German town of Kassel.   The crew was under constant attack, both from fighters in the air, and anti-aircraft on the ground.  The two “waist-gunners”, standing in open windows firing fifty caliber machine guns, were killed.  The plane was hit multiple times from all directions.   

But somehow the Tondelayo dropped its bombs on target, and made it home to England.  When they landed and inspected the plane, they found eleven unexploded shells penetrated the gas tanks.  Had any of those actually worked, the plane would have been destroyed. 

As maintenance carefully removed the shells, they discovered that they were without any explosives.  Inside one of them, instead of the charge, there was a rolled up piece of paper.  Carefully written in Czech was the following message:

                                      ” Tohle je vse, co pro vas ted’ muzeem udělat”

 “This is all we can do for you now”.

What You Can Do

The German war machine ran on forced labor from conquered countries.  The laborers knew that their products were used to defend their captors.  Some took a chance to do the only thing available to help the Allies.  The made shells without explosives, and one had a message inside. 

In the worst conditions possible, forced labor under the Nazi regime, some found a way to “protest”.  They risked all to try to stop their oppressors and aid their ultimate saviors.   (This story is from an article in the Military Times).

What can we do against authoritarian change in America?  We can speak out, we can protest, we can stand up against injustice, we can organize for change.  We can do “All we can do, for now”.  And we can prepare for tomorrow, and 2026, 505 days from now, and 2028, 1,235 days away.  We can stand for America by doing whatever we can do, even if it’s small.  When our kids look back at this time with the perspective of history, the question will be: what did you do?

The answer must be:  Do what you can do, now.

The crew of the Tondelayo. (U.S. Army via American Air Museum)

On the Verge

We are on the verge of another ugly Middle Eastern war   It’s not like we don’t know it:  after twenty years in Afghanistan, ten years in Iraq, and a decade before that entangled in Middle Eastern military adventures after the Persian Gulf War, we’ve “been there, done that”.  In fact, we never really left.  There are still US bases in Turkiye, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.  And there is a US military “presence” (troops) in Iraq, Syria, Cyprus, and the Sinai (Al Jazeera). (If you are wondering where we “aren’t”, the answer is:  Iran, Yemen and Israel.)

The United States is already engaged in a “shooting  war” in the Middle East.  American forces are sparring with the Houthi rebels (supported by Iran) in Yemen, over access to the Red Sea.   Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth bragged about the attacks launched on the Houthis in the infamous “Signal Chats”.  While millions of dollars of munitions were used against them, it doesn’t seem to have done much damage to their attack capacity.  

There is an older lesson to be re-learned here.  The US dropped more bombs in Vietnam than both sides used in World War II, but the North Vietnamese simply adapted their war-fighting capacity to the bombing.  It didn’t work in Vietnam, and it doesn’t work in Yemen either. 

Proliferation

We are hearing that old “nuclear boogeyman” of the twentieth century raise its ugly head again.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is warning of Iran getting a nuclear weapon.  The world, he says, will be a different and more dangerous place, if Iran gets “the bomb”. 

The United States has a policy against “nuclear proliferation”.  We’ve done a great deal to keep the invention of the Los Alamos Labs in New Mexico during World War II from becoming a “common weapon”.  Today the nuclear “club” is still limited.  The United States, Russia and China are the main “members”; each with thousands of nuclear war heads on missiles and in “bomb” form.  The United Kingdom and France also have smaller nuclear arsenals. Then there are the nations that weren’t “supposed” to get the bomb:  India, Pakistan, and North Korea.  And, of course, there’s Israel, who refuses to acknowledge they have nuclear weapons, even though the whole world knows it’s true.

Two nations had nuclear weapons, and actually gave them up.  Ukraine had a large arsenal of weapons when the Soviet Union dissolved, but agreed to give them up in return for assurances from the United States and Russia that their borders would be honored. We see how that worked out for them.  And South Africa developed nuclear weapons (and helped Israel do the same) but dismantled them at the end of the Apartheid era in the mid 1990’s.

Enrichment

Just to be clear, Iran can have a nuclear weapon if they want one.  The key to having working nuclear bombs is to have uranium enriched to 90%.  Currently, Iran has lots of uranium, but its only at the 60% level.  It would take  further refinement to get it bomb-ready, a simple and straight-forward process.  The “refinery” is the facility that the US is threatening to target with the “Bunker Buster” bomb.  What Iran does not have is a proven delivery system, missiles that could carry an effective nuclear warhead.  That will take more time and experimentation.

India developed an atomic bomb in 1974. Pakistan, India’s arch-enemy, started a crash program to match them.  It took twenty-four years, but ultimately Pakistan got “the bomb” as well.  So when Israel developed nuclear weapons in 1968, it’s enemies in the Middle East also felt the need to “catch-up”.  Iraq and Iran both began nuclear development projects.  The United States has done everything possible to prevent either from actualizing nuclear weapons.

Hussein and the Bomb

After the attack on America on 9-11 in 2001, the United States launched a war in Afghanistan.  It was clear that Al Qaeda, the attackers, were headquartered there.  It was over a year later that America launched the invasion of Iraq, in March of 2003.  Why Iraq?  Because, as President Bush and General Powell and the rest of the US Government intelligence establishment told us, Iraq was building a nuclear weapon.  We could not tolerate the idea of Saddam Hussein, the brutal dictator of Iraq, with “the bomb”.

There were lots of speeches about “yellow cake” from Nigeria, and aluminum rods and centrifuges.  Colin Powell made the US case to the United Nations, echoing Adlai Stevenson’s presentation during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962   It was a compelling case, and the Use of Force resolution passed the United States Senate 77 to 23, and the House 296 to 133.  We went to war.  And we were wrong.  We turned Iraq literally upside down, but there were no nuclear bombs. 

Decapitation

What we did discover was that “decapitation”, removing the leadership of a nation, does not necessarily mean the replacement will be “better”.  In fact, the US created a power vacuum in the Middle East, that expanded the power of Iran, and created a whole new evil force, ISIS.  

So here we are again.  Trump is no George Bush, and JD Vance isn’t Dick Cheney.  And certainly the whole intelligence community is riddled with fear of the MAGA world.  No one here has made the “case” that Iran is on the verge of nuclear “clubdom”.  Trump is basing his decision on Israeli intelligence, and his own “gut”.  

And, would a nuclear Iran be so terrible, worse than a nuclear North Korea?  We (Americans of all political sides) let Kim Jong-Un build his nuclear force, and test out all sorts of delivery systems.  But little was done to stop him, and the world hasn’t ended, yet.

What we can see from experience is this:  starting a war with Iran might stop them from “going nuclear”, but it might open another “Pandora’s Box” of extremism in the Middle East.  “Nation-building” didn’t work in Afghanistan or Iraq.  There’s really no reason to believe it would work in Iran either.  But here we are, on the same well-travelled path, using the threat of “nuclear devastation” to justify “doing Iraq” all over again.  

We all know the old saying:  “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it”. We’ve been there – done that.

This essay is channelling my inner “Tom Clancy”. So many weapons to talk about – and so little time!!!

MOAB

There is a difference between the “MOAB” (Massive Ordinance Air Blast, or Mother of All Bombs) dropped in Afghanistan during the first Trump Administration, and the “GBU-57 A/B” (Bunker Buster) bomb that is in the news today.  The MOAB – technically call the GBU-43; is a guided munition, shoved from the back of a C-130 transport aircraft.  It explodes with the force of 22,000 tons of TNT. That 22KT air blast is more powerful than the 14.5 KT Hiroshima nuclear blast.

But the MOAB isn’t nuclear, and doesn’t have the fallout and long term issues of a nuclear weapon.  It simply is the biggest non-nuclear bomb ever made, and has been used once, on the Afghanistan plains, against an underground ISIS headquarters.  Reportedly, 36 ISIS fighters were killed, and several of the tunnels in the headquarters collapsed.  Reports also spoke of the “psychological impact” of surviving such an enormous blast (USAF, ICRC).

Bunker Buster

The GBU-57 A/B has never been used in combat.  It “only” carries 2.75 tons of high explosives, but the actual weapon weighs 15 tons.  The added weight is in the armament.  The “Bunker Buster” is designed to penetrate 200 feet into the ground before it explodes. It reaches underground bunkers, the ones used by Iran to develop their nuclear capabilities.  It doesn’t have the “boom” of the MOAB, but what it will do is get to the target, then explode (Economist).

And the GBU-57 A/B is delivered by a war-fighting aircraft, the B-2 Stealth Bomber (the bat-wing bomber), unlike the MOAB’s transport aircraft.  It is ready to go into a combat zone if needed, without having total air superiority.

Currently B-2’s are stationed in two locations in the world.  The first is their home at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, a nearly 7000 mile one-way flight to Iran.  The second is on the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, some 3300 miles away from possible targets in Iran.  So, B-2’s are already “half way” there. And the Israeli Air Force currently has total domination of Iranian air space.

Israel

Israeli intelligence claims that Iran is just weeks away from creating a nuclear weapon.  Israel has been dedicated to stopping Iranian nuclear development. They attacked Iranian nuclear research facilities before. They assassinated the best scientists and literally blew up the research libraries where nuclear information is stored.  

The Israelis have also attacked active nuclear facilities in Iran.  And now, Iran has less weapons to strike back at Israel. After the fall of Hamas in Gaza, and the decimation of Hezbollah (the cellphone and pager bomb attacks) in Lebanon; Israel has degraded Iran’s ability to strike at the Israeli homeland. 

In the last few days, Israel attacked the Iranian nuclear program directly. They hit the scientists who directed the research, and the leadership of Iran itself.  While Israel hasn’t directly attacked the Iranian President or the Ayatollah who is Supreme Leader, they have not ruled out a “decapitation” strike in the future.  Israel controls the skies over Iran. But the Iranians remain capable of launching drones, cruise and ballistic missiles at Israel. 

The combination of Israeli defenses, United States carrier based aircraft and Arleigh Burke class destroyers stationed in the seas near the Israeli coast, gives Israel a highly effective defense umbrella.  In addition, the United States is moving more assets into the region. That includes a second carrier group, the Nimitz coming from Southeast Asia.

Carrier groups each have a broad defense umbrella provided by both aircraft and supporting destroyers and other vessels.  They already played a significant role in stopping previous Iranian attacks on Israel, and continue to do so in the current conflict.  So two carrier groups, plus the Israeli based systems (Iron Dome, David’s Sling, the US Thaad system, and others) create a great deal of protection.

Intelligence

But United States intelligence agencies, other European agencies, and the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency all say that the Israelis are wrong. They report that Iran is far from “weeks away” from a nuclear weapon. In fact, they say it’s closer to a year or more.  So part of the decision making about US involvement against Iran is determined by:  who does the President believe?  Does he accept the information from his own intelligence agencies, the “Five Eyes” countries and the IAEA? Or does he take the word of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? 

We know that Donald Trump distrusts the CIA and other US intelligence agencies.  He sees them as aligned against him, and in part responsible for the Russia Investigations that marred his first term in office.  We also know that Trump is disregarding the advice of his own controversial National Security Advisor, Tulsi Gabbard, who even went so far as to be part of a television advertising campaign telling the President not to attack Iran.   

Politics

And we know that the MAGA-Republican party is deeply divided over military involvement in Iran.  Not just Senator Rand Paul, but Trump-supporters like Tucker Carlson are speaking out against attack.  Even previous statements by Vice President JD Vance against US involvement are being brought out – though Vance today says we need to “trust Trump” to do the right thing.

But we also know that Benjamin Netanyahu needs war to stay in office to avoid Israeli prison.   The war in Gaza has slowed to starving Palestinians and “mopping up” the remaining Hamas members.  So the Prime Minister needs the “political cover” of a shooting war.   It shouldn’t be a surprise that he picked one with Iran.

One thing we know for sure.  Donald Trump believes he has the absolute authority to launch an attack on Iran at his own discretion.  And those in the chain of command, including Defense Secretary Hegseth, will immediately obey such an order.  While some Senators, even Republicans, are calling for “Congressional consultation” before the US goes to war; if Trump decides to attack, there is little anyone in the United States can do to stop him.

Power

We have the weapons.  We have the capacity to deliver those weapons.  And, we have a high probability of short-term success in a military attack.  We can knock out Iranian nuclear production, at least for a while.  What we don’t control is the Iranian response.  There are 40,000 US servicemen and women within attack range of Iran.  Not all of them are under the “umbrella” of carrier defense groups.  In fact, some are very vulnerable.  So what will be the American response when Iran retaliates against US troops, after a “Bunker Buster” bombing?

That’s the question that Donald Trump, and Pete Hegseth, and the MAGA “brain trust” in the White House needs to answer, BEFORE they drop “the big one”.   But maybe Donald Trump wants to be a “war President”. 

 After all, the greatest power any United States President has, is summed up in three words:  Commander-in-Chief.  

Cultural Appropriation

There is a “modern” phrase in use today: “cultural appropriation”.   The definition is:

“The unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society” (Oxford Languages).

It’s actually pretty simple.  The idea is that different groups have the right to control how the symbols, practices and customs of their people are used.  Here in the United States, the most obvious example is the recent controversy over the names of sports teams.  The Cleveland Indians are now the Guardians, and the Washington Redskins are the Commanders.  Both teams stepped away from “appropriating” Native American symbols and cultures.  (By the way, the Kansas City Chiefs remain firm in their stance, as do the Atlanta Braves).

Even at the High School level, my former employer went to great lengths to distance the Watkins Warriors from Native Americans.  The school “teepee” hides in storage, and “Willy the Warrior” disappeared from the scene.  School symbology is “scrubbed” for cultural appropriateness.  The old Warrior head symbol is now crossed out (literally), replaced by a “geometric figure”.  There’s even a whole School District “branding policy”.

Woke

One portion of our polarized Nation derides all of this as “woke”.  That’s the same portion that believes that statues to those that rebelled against the United States in the Civil War should be “protected history”. They name Army bases for defeated Confederate Generals:  Lee, Bragg, Pickett, Hood, and AP Hill.  Those same folks are “scrubbing” the government for “woke” references.  The USNS (US Naval Ship) Harvey Milk, named after the gay San Francisco city councilman assassinated in office, will soon be renamed.  Even the USNS John L Lewis is under scrutiny, as if he wasn’t a “true hero” of America.

So I have a “beef” about another item in cultural appropriation.  My issue is with the term:  anti-Semitic.  Anti-Semitism is to be against Jewish people, and it’s been around for thousands of years.  Certainly the history of Europe is full of anti-Jewishness, from the ghettoes of the Middle Ages, to the Russian “Pale”,  and through the 20^th Century.  There was nothing more anti-Semitic than the attempt by Hitler to erase Jews from the earth during World War II.  The extermination camps managed to kill off 6 million.  

But anti-Semitism wasn’t “just” a Nazi thing.  Pretty much every European nation has had its share of anti-Jewish laws, regulations, and social division.  And the United States played its part as well.  Henry Ford, of Ford Motor Company fame, spread anti-Semitic literature throughout the Nation, and even the world.  In fact, his campaign against Jews was quoted by the Nazis in the 1920’s and 30’s.  Even the now “woke” Ivy League universities once had strict limits on the number of Jews admitted.

Christian Right

And there was nothing more anti-Semitic than the Ku Klux Klan.  They used Christian symbology as part of their ongoing campaign against many minorities, Jews included.  That continues through the KKK’s successors, like the Proud Boys, the III Percenters and other current Nationalist militant groups.  And non-KKK Christians in the United States have a long history of anti-Semitism as well.  

So it is with deep surprise that I find those supported by QAnon followers and Christian Nationalists are now calling statements against the Trump policy of absolute loyalty to Benjamin Netanyahu’s  Israeli war actions as “anti-Semitic”.  As my Mother would say; “That’s the pot calling the kettle black”. (And that too might be culturally inappropriate in this day and age).  

Anti-Netanyahu

Anti-Semitism and being against the Netanyahu wars are not the same.  If they were, than almost half of the Jewish population of Israel would be “anti-Semitic”.   It’s more than possible to be a Proud American and opposed to the current Administration.  And it’s just as possible to be Jewish and against Israel’s current policy in Gaza and against “tickling the dragon’s tail” of regional nuclear conflict against Iran; without being anti-Semitic.  In fact many Jews, in Israel, in the United States, and in the world, are appalled with the actions of the Israeli Armed Forces .

But, that’s what the Trump Administration is “appropriating”.  They are making the decision about who is anti-Semitic and who is not; based on support for Trump’s actions.   It’s not that “all Jews” are against Trump, or against Netanyahu.  Many Jews are conflicted about both leaders. And traditional Jewish organizations like the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, usually considered “woke”, are standing  firmly with current Israeli actions.   

But surely it’s up to Jewish people themselves to determine who is anti-Semitic, and who is not. Donald Trump shouldn’t get to “culturally appropriate” that decision.  

It’s not his choice.

Chaos

The past few days are a microcosm of what America lives through in a Trump Administration.  The chaotic and frenetic pace of events far outruns analysis.  It’s not just hard to keep up, it’s impossible to think through one event, when five more slam into it before you can reach a conclusion.

Given all of that, here’s some thoughts on the past few days.  We started the weekend with ICE immigrant sweeps in Los Angeles.  ICE wasn’t rounding up criminals, they were dropping in and grabbing undocumented workers, criminal or not.  And, to get by the Trump “hurdle”, that all undocumented migrants are “criminal”; I call BS.  That’s like calling all folks with a speeding ticket “criminal”.  Yes, the undocumented likely violated the civil immigration regulations.  That does not make them “criminals” in the legal sense.  I have an unpaid parking ticket in Iowa from 1987.  If I go back to Iowa, I guess I need to worry.  I’m sure there’s fines and interest due.   But I’m not a “criminal” non-payer!!!

Which takes us to “sanctuary cities”, like Columbus, Ohio, or Los Angeles.  A “sanctuary city” doesn’t harbor criminals.  They simply don’t help ICE enforce the civil penalties for violating immigration regulations,  just like our local Pataskala Police don’t enforce Iowa parking tickets, or collect unpaid IRS taxes.  Both Columbus and Pataskala have enough to do to deal with “real” criminals, without creating more work on civil matters.  So they stay out of it.

Jurisdiction

There are two issues of “jurisdiction” that “arise” in Los Angeles.  The first is the jurisdiction of ICE, who are charged with enforcing immigration laws.   They can go into a Home Depot or a local garment factory and take “custody” of undocumented workers.  It’s just not making the world safer.  They aren’t getting the real criminals.  But they are filling the quota of undocumented set by Trump aide Stephen Miller, of 3000 rounded-up a day.  

I want ICE to go get real criminals, the gang members trafficking in fentanyl or humans.  But that’s hard police work; those criminals are well insulated and protected.  To make their “quota” for Miller, they have to take the “easy” migrants, like the hard-working folks picking vegetables in the hot sun of the Central Valley of California.  It’s similar to the speed trap that used to be in the nearby village of Alexandria:  they’d pick you up for doing twenty-six in a twenty-five zone (I’ve got the ticket to prove it).  Sure, it’s “legal”, but it’s really just filling the “quota” for the officers, and the coffers of the Village.  No one is safer.

Our Streets

And then there were protests against the ICE actions.  Not surprisingly, there are lots of folks upset that their family, friends, and neighbors are going to work, and not coming home.  And they are going out into the streets to make their feelings known.  Controlling protests in the street is the job of local jurisdictions.  When I marched in Cleveland this past weekend, the Cleveland Police were all around us.  In fact, they made sure the roads were clear, and that we were safe from threatened attack. (In Virginia a van drove into a march, and in Salt Lake City a shooter killed a protestor). 

And in protests here in Columbus, the City police are there to maintain safety.  We can march on the sidewalk anyway we want, but, without a “parade” permit, we need to stay out of the street.  In Cleveland, there was a permit.  The marching chant, “Whose streets?  Our Streets!” was absolutely true.  In Columbus, just get a permit, and it’s true here too; no need for confrontation.

Backup

If the police can’t handle a situation, they call in backup.  It’s just like a five-alarm fire, when one department runs out of engines, other departments come to help.  And if the situation really gets bad, then the state militia, the National Guard, may be sent in.  Remember the Vietnam era picture of the “flower child” putting flowers in the barrels of soldiers’ guns?  Those soldiers are  the National Guard.  

But what if the “backup” shows up without invitation?  What if the President ignores the local authorities or even the state governor, and “federalizes” the National Guard?  Then there’s a big cross-wiring of authority – who’s in charge?  And there’s an even bigger issue:  if the National Guard is Federalized, and ICE is the Federal Government enforcing immigration laws, then the National Guard becomes the “target” of the protestors – after all, it’s not ICE out there trying to hold them back.  It’s definitely pouring gas on a fire, using the Guard instead of the local police.

Of course, that’s exactly what the Trump Administration wants – gas on a fire to make a conflagration.  It proves their point, that “Democrat Cities Can’t Control their Citizens”.  

Listen 

And the local authorities are still trying to control protest, while protecting civil rights.  Yesterday it seemed clear that the Los Angeles City Police were trying to “serve and protect” and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department was trying to provoke violence.  And what about the National Guard and even the US Marines now on site?  Well, they are “hanging out”, with their thumbs stuck firmly up their…webbed belts.  But they make “attractive” targets.

Meanwhile, millions made their feelings clear all across America.  From blue states to red, big cities to small towns, Americans took to the streets to protest the wide range of Trumpian usurpations in the “No Kings” marches.  Whether it was 5 million or 11 million (estimates vary):  it was a whole lot of people willing to “Rise Up” in protest about what’s going on.  And other than the two attacks on the protestors (noted above), and the Sheriff’s Department violence in Los Angeles, the millions were notably peaceful.

What’s different today, after “No Kings”?  We know that there truly are Americans, in every niche of our country, who don’t like what’s going on.  From Newark to Mansfield, from Maine to California, in Ruby-Red Nebraska, and in overheated Texas:  Americans want something very different from the Trump Administration.  Of course, Stephen Miller isn’t listening. 

 But the Republican Congressmen and Senators up for election next year should be.

This week, I gave a “talk” to a group interested in “resisting” our current political leadership. They wanted to hear how America dealt with division in the past.  Here’s what I said.

Divided

We seem so deeply divided – not just by ideology – but by the definition of truth.

I have a friend that I’ve known for almost half a century.  We were competing Coaches at opposing high schools, trying to have better teams.  But we are also friends, and worked together to make the sport better for everyone.  I recently saw him, and while we can still tell all of our old “war stories”, there is now a barrier between us.  

The barrier is as obvious as News Nation versus MSNBC.  He worried that police cars were burned in Los Angeles, and said we should “send in the Marines!!”.  Of course, there weren’t police cars burned, it was 5 driverless taxis.  But that’s the divide between us is in what is the “truth”.   We don’t share common “facts”, and because of that, what’s happening in our nation is a subject we can no longer discuss.  To try to talk about it threatens our friendship.

Remember Vietnam?  Some of us protested against that war (of course, we were very, very young!!).    But all Americans could still agree on the facts.  The “mainstream news” delivered us daily footage – body counts – that countered the false narrative of the government that said we were “winning” the war.  We argued with each other, often parent and child, about why were there. While we didn’t agree on that “why”, we could at least agree on “what” was happening.

Civil War Fact

There are a couple of other times when America had the kind of “factual” crisis we are in today.  The first was before the American Civil War.  And, before we go forward – what happened then has NOW become a subject of controversy again, another FACTUAL Crisis. 

So here’s MY basis of fact:

• The Civil War happened because of slavery 
• Take slavery out of the equation – and there is no Civil War
• The romantic “Lost Cause” narrative now making a “comeback” in our classrooms is a myth.   (See William Faulkner’s Pickett’s Charge Quote).

The Southern States were not looking for some kind of mythical independence from an overwhelming Federal government, today’s “State’s Rights” argument.  They simply wanted to maintain the right to enslave other humans.  And, that doesn’t mean the average farmer from Pataskala was fighting to free slaves.  They were fighting for the Union.  But the “revisionist” history that slavery wasn’t “THE ISSUE”, is just another argument against the “truth”.  It’s Fake News.

Two Truths

But before the Civil War, there were TWO truths – an anti-slavery truth, and a pro-slavery truth.

These “truths” were laid out in the literature and the newspapers of the time.  The Anti-Slavery Truth might best be represented by Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It’s a fictional book written by Harriet Beecher Stowe (of Cincinnati).  She laid out the worst of slavery: the beatings, the rapes, the family separations, the exile to the  Deep South (sold down the river), the humanity of the enslaved versus the inhumanity of the “Peculiar Institution”.

Pro-Slavery Truth is also represented by a contemporary fiction novel:  The Planter’s Northern Bride. It was story of an anti-slavery northern woman who marries into a Southern slave owning family.  The book showed her discovery that the enslaved “needed white” guidance and help, and were happy to be enslaved.  White Southerners were portrayed as victims, in fear of slave insurrections that were exacerbated by abolitionists.  The same was true of newspapers and other publications.

The Law For Enslavement

And – THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WAS ON THE PRO-SLAVERY SIDE.

It was against the law to help runaway slaves,  a Federal Offense punishable by fines and imprisonment:  “Don’t cross the line!!!!” (Doesn’t that sound like Tom Homan??)

In the South there were “slave patrols” to prevent insurrections and catch runaways. They covered the neighborhoods and countryside of the south nightly and are the precursor to American police today (NAACP).  And they sometimes crossed the Ohio River or Mason-Dixon Line in hot pursuit to continue their quests to “catch slaves” in the “free states”.

The House of Representatives was so divided that they literally banned the discussion of slavery, imposing the “gag rule”  for eight years (Former President, then Congressman John Quincy Adams finally broke the “rule”).  And the expansion of the US was driven by slavery/anti-slavery.  The Missouri Compromise required a free state for a slave state so that the “balance” in the Senate remained constant. There was Maine for Missouri, Michigan for Arkansas, Iowa for Florida. 

Rebellion

Leading up to the Civil War, some Americans, Black and White, stood up to the abomination of enslavement. Black’s openly rebelled, much more than is commonly acknowledged.  Some, like the Nat Turner Rebellion in Virginia and the German Coast Rebellion in Louisiana are better known.  But there were between  250 to 311 rebellions from the beginning of enslavement in 1620 to 1860, roughly one a year.  Slaves did not “go quietly”.   But news of rebellions were suppressed at the time, and after the Civil War and even now. It’s a part of the “two-truths”,  buried by the Lost Cause myth.

(In the same way, we don’t talk about the attacks and massacres by whites on black communities in the 1900’s.  Wilmington NC; East St. Louis, Illinois; Chicago; Tulsa; Rosewood, Florida; are just a few.  But those too are “buried” in history, not taught to America’s children).

Citizen Rights

Both Blacks and Whites helped enslaved people get to freedom, either in the North, or beyond US borders in Canada.  Some openly violated Federal law (the Fugitive Slave Act) to help along the Underground Railroad, a series of safe houses connected by dark country roads, including one that led right through here; Pataskala, Ohio. From the Ohio River to Cleveland or Niagara or Detroit and onto Canada, they helped  get enslaved blacks away from their owners.   Some stayed in “Black Communities” here in Ohio – towns like Xenia, Wilberforce,  and Poke Patch in the Hocking Hills.

Some abolitionists took other direct action:  some wrote books, pamphlets, and newspapers, some  ran for office.  They became a political force.  Abolitionists in the Whig Party (the Party of Presidents Harrison, Tyler, Taylor and Fillmore) forced the demise of their own party, and the advent of the new Republican Party of William Seward and Abraham Lincoln. 

Straight Lines

And some of the women of the abolitionist movement became the founders of the women’s suffrage movement.  They continued their efforts after the Civil War, writing and protesting for the right to be equal citizens.  The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 and the  Women’s Declaration of Rights in 1876 formalized their demands.  They continued to press for reform, until the 19^th Amendment was added to the Constitution and women had the right to vote in 1920.  They are the direct antecedents of the women’s right movement today – a straight line from Seneca Falls to “Me Too”.  

Of Course the Civil Rights movement obviously had its birth in abolitionism.  The Rights Amendments: the Thirteenth banning Slavery, the Fourteenth guaranteed due process and citizenship, and the Fifteenth guaranteed black men voting rights; were great advances of the post-Civil War era.  But the Nation, and the Supreme Court, soon refused to allow those amendments to be enabled into law.  So while slavery was banned, the almost Feudal share-cropping was allowed.  While citizenship was guaranteed, equal citizenship rights were curtailed for Blacks.  And while voting rights were established, it took almost 100 years to enable them into law (1965 Voting Rights Act). 

The Civil Rights movement of the twentieth century may be the “model” for Resistance today.  There were community groups, often organized around churches, that cooperated throughout the country to keep pressing for equal rights.  There were lots of defeats, but also small victories, that kept the movement going from the 1870’s to today.  There’s a straight line there too, from Frederick Douglass to the NAACP and Civil Rights groups of the present.

Critical Incident

So if  the “Abrego Garcia kidnapping” is the critical incident of our time; the critical incident of the pre-Civil War era took place in 1859.

John Brown was born in Connecticut, but grew up in Hudson, Ohio, just north of Akron.  His father was a tanner (made skins into leather) and employed a man named Jesse Grant – who later became Ulysses Grant’s father.  Brown became what in today language we would call “radicalized” during the Bleeding Kansas era. Folks there fought a mini-civil war over whether the Kansas territory would be free or slave.  After Kansas, Brown moved to a small farm in Southern Pennsylvania – just a few miles up the road north from the US Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry on the Virginia side of the Potomac River.

At the farm he plotted with a couple of dozen men, some black, some white and including Brown’s sons, to attack the Arsenal.  Their goal:  get weapons to arm slaves and begin a slave rebellion in Virginia that would spread throughout the South.

Insurrection

John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry  was an insurrection.  It incited riot to free the enslaved, by attacking US Government property.  The US military was called out  led by a senior officer, Colonel Robert E. Lee, along with his Lieutenant, JEB Stuart, to put down the revolt.  Ten of Brown’s men were killed, including two of his sons.

To Abolitionists, Brown became a “hero”.  He put into action the ideas they wrote and spoke about.  But to the South, Brown was a meddling Northerner inciting slave rebellion.  He was exactly what they feared.

A Federal Court found him guilty of murder and quickly executed him.  Brown’s final words:

 Now if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments. — I submit; so let it be done! . . .

When the northern states elected Lincoln  a year later – the South had nowhere else to go and seceded from the Union.  The crisis was resolved, with the blood of millions.

The Great Depression

We all know that the Great Depression began with the Stock Market Crash on Black Tuesday, October 29^th, 1929.  From that day through the next few weeks, the Stock Market lost over half its value – the equivalence of losing 20,000 points on the Dow Jones today.

We also know that the banks were heavily invested in the market.  So when those investments went bad, folks lost their savings.  There were “runs on the bank”, just like in Jimmy Stewart’s “It’s a Wonderful Life”.  Banks didn’t have the money on hand and closed, and folks life-savings simply disappeared.  They didn’t have money to buy products, sales fell, and so more folks were laid off.  The cycle went on and on.  Ultimately – unemployment was close to 25% – 1 out of 4 out of work.  

Since the “supply of money” shrunk, the value of money, what money could purchase, went up.  But access to money went down. It didn’t matter if a movie cost a nickel if you didn’t have a nickel to pay.  American wages fell 75%.

My grandparents, just bought their first home in 1924 for $8000.  They had to sell it in 1932 for much less.  Grandpa managed to keep his job at the Cincinnati Post for a quarter of his salary,  but the remainder of the loan on the house was still due, even though they sold it.  They moved to a rental house with their two kids and several cousins.  Grandma went to work as a real estate agent.  And they were  “better off” than many.

Polarization

Americans grew concerned that our “Capitalist Democracy” wasn’t working.  In the 1920’s there was already signs of polarization:  there was a Communist scare right after World War I and on into the early 1920’s.  The “great” rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan happened  at the same time.   20,000 Klan members marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in 1925 and 1926, hoods up.  They wanted everyone to know who they were.

 It wasn’t a coincidence.  We were conflicted.  America was now a nation where women had the newly won national right to vote, but was also cracking down on immigration, the largest in US history (maybe until today).  We were no longer “Lifting our lamp beside the Golden Door”.   And finally, we now were a nation where alcohol was prohibited, yet a majority of the nation continued to use it.  That conflict, “common behavior” now illegal, was concerning.  My “daily beer” was your “breaking the law”.

The fractures were already there – then the Great Depression happened.  For some, democracy wasn’t working, and the “siren song” of Fascism played from across the Atlantic.  First, Mussolini made the “trains run on time” on Italy.  Then Hitler delivered an economic “rebirth” under Nazism in Germany (at what cost?).   

Fascism in America

Many Americans listened.  Some of the most prominent were men like Charles Lindbergh (flew solo across the Atlantic) and Henry Ford (Ford Motor Company), who was a rabid anti-Semite.  They were interested in a strong leader, who could control the nation regardless of Constitutional rights. And they had a strong voice,  Father Coughlin, who advocated for authoritarian rule on his nationwide radio show broadcasting over the “clear channel” of WJR in Detroit.  He was even “better” than Sean Hannity, or Joe Rogan.

The American Nazis,  tens of thousands of Americans, were in the German/American Bund that openly favored Hitler.  The famous 1939 Rally in  Madison Square Gardens had a portrait of George Washington centered between two Nazi swastika flags, and Americans marching with Nazi Armbands.  Anti-Semitism was a key part of all of their messages.   (The Police held even more anti-Nazis back from the Hall  – Remember Trump’s Madison Square Garden Rally in 2024, and Elon Musk’s Heil-Hitler salute soon after?)

Franklin Roosevelt was called a socialist and communist, and a Jew and England lover.  While he saw the coming struggle, he could do little to involve the US.  He started the draft in 1940, and helped arm Great Britain with the Lend-Lease program, but ultimately there was no appetite in US for another World War.  It all could have gone differently, except for – December 7^th, 1941.

Turning Point

The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and declared war on the US, the US declared war on Japan.  Then Germany declared war on the US and the US reciprocated.  The important point:  war wasn’t declared on Germany until they first declared on us.  Roosevelt had to have a clear case against Germany – and the German declaration gave it to him.

The American people, in “their righteous might” as FDR said, would respond.  The issue was resolved with the “blood of millions”.

The Fascist movements in the United States disappeared – literally in days.  Charles Lindbergh, “Lucky Lindy” was denied a rank in the US Armed Forces.  Ford changed his “tune”, and started building tanks and bombers.  

But the underlying anti-Semitism remained as did the racism of the KKK and the scare tactics of the right.  It would return in McCarthyism in the  1950’s, the John Birch Society of the early 1960’s, the success of George Wallace third-party Presidential candidacy in 1968, and the “New Republican” Southern Strategy on the 1970’s and 80’s.  

And here it is now – Project 2025.  There is a “straight line” from the Fascism of the 1930’s to Project 2025 today.

Resistance

We have been here before.  It took cataclysmic events:  the Civil War and World War II, to reunite the Nation, and for some the divides were never resolved.   And the problems, some as old as the Constitution itself, still exist today.   But throughout our history there has also been “Resistance” to the inequities of racism, fascism, and anti-Semitism.  Often it was “underground”, as quiet as a wagon slowly going up Main Street in Pataskala, right outside our doors here, transporting enslaved peoples to freedom in the dark of the night.

And sometimes it’s “loud and proud”, like those standing in Los Angeles today protesting the clear racism of the Trump Administration’s ICE use of police powers, just like the “Slave Patrols” of the 1850’s.  

We are the Abolitionists.  We are the Suffragettes. And  we are the Civil Rights activists.  We already have the legal action going on in Court after Court.  We have the Democratic Party, the ACLU, Mark Elias and Democracy Docket all representing us.  But – we cannot depend on the Supreme Court today.  We can only hope that they see the Constitution as the Founder Fathers did, not as their financial benefactors want.  

We can still hope that elections make a difference.  And we can do all the “legal” things to make our voices heard in the election.  But how far has our Nation gone toward authoritarianism?  

We live in Ohio, we KNOW that our legislature can and will rig the process against us.  Look at the Gerrymandering amendments to the Ohio Constitution.  We’ve passed them twice, and they have been ignored.  

Right Now

What we can do is:

• Organize
• Protest
• Vote
• Make Our Voices Heard in every way
• Not Allow the Forces arrayed against us to take over the narrative.

We may not be “in agreement” with some of our neighbors – we do live in Pataskala.  But, I believe, that there are many who are silent; looking for someone to stand for them, even though they are afraid to join in. Intimidation, from Steven Miller and Tom Homan to the Trump flag on the back of the pickup truck down the street, is strong in our world.  You and I, like the Abolitionists and the Suffragettes and the Civil Rights activists, can show them the way.

That’s where we start, right here, right now.

It’s been a few days since I’ve posted.  With track and field season winding up, I’ve been busy officiating and coaching.  But that’s all over, and I’m back behind the keyboard,  with lots to say!!!

Bodyguards

It’s good to have bodyguards.  They can alter the political situation.  With a nod, a flick of the wrist, the guards can “whisk away” any annoying situation.  Henry the II of England grew tired of his Archbishop, Thomas á Becket.  He simply had to mutter, “Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?”  Henry’s knights, his “bodyguards”, proceeded to murder the Archbishop.

It’s especially good if those guards, like Henry’s knights, operate under the “color” of authority.  In other words, they have badges, Federal badges:   FBI, DHS, ICE, CPB, US Marshal, Secret Service and the “mysterious” HSI.  At least, that’s what the “badges” around Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had yesterday.

Noem didn’t get rid of a priest.  Instead, her bodyguards “roughed up” a United States Senator, one of the one-hundred elected by the American people to serve in the legislature for six years.  He was manhandled, bum-rushed out of the room, then driven to the floor and handcuffed.  The senior Senator from California, Alex Padilla, was quite literally thrown out of a Noem press conference, and temporarily placed “in custody”.

What did the Senator do that was so wrong?  He was “meddlesome”.  He asked a question. 

Press Conference 

So, let’s set the scene.  Secretary Noem held a press conference.  That today is a “term of art”, it really isn’t the question/response that we normally would think of when we hear “press conference”.  Noem wanted to “announce” to the press the number of “heinous” criminals that ICE arrested in their “shock and awe” immigrant roundups.  She didn’t want to answer questions, she wanted to make her point:  the immigrants rounded up at Home Depot, and the garment factory were “bad”.  

And she added, that the she wanted to “free” Los Angeles from their duly elected government:

“We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and burdensome leadership that this Governor Newsom and this mayor placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into this city,”(NBC4).

Padilla was in the same building, awaiting a briefing on the Federal actions.  Afterall, he is a United States Senator from California, and has an obligation to perform “oversight duties” for Federal acts in his state.  And, he heard about the press “briefing”.  So, he decided to go see what the Secretary had to say.

After listening for a bit, the Senator asked a question.  And that’s when the bum-rush began.

Terror Campaign

At first response, Noem claimed that they didn’t realize it was the Senator. She said he was trying to “lunge towards the stage” in a room that didn’t have a stage.  I’m certainly not impressed with the intelligence of the current regime at Homeland Security. But, I find it highly doubtful that they weren’t aware that the senior US Senator from California was in the room.  In fact, I expect they were FULLY aware that Padilla was there.  Even more, I am willing to bet that the decision to “remove” Padilla was made at a political level far above the Secretary.  

Ultimately, I’m sure someone was on the phone to the White House, asking what they should do with Padilla.  And those political “animals” in the West Wing, like Stephen Miller, decided to make him an example.  It didn’t hurt that Padilla is not only a Democrat, but also a Hispanic man.  He matched all of the qualifications for the Miller “terror campaign”.

As the Senator himself said afterwards, if they can do this to him, what can they do to the waiter or the cook or the gardener they arrest at Home Depot, or at their kid’s school, or when they come in for a Court hearing?  If a United States Senator (heard clearly identifying himself) can be roughed up, what happens to an undocumented worker?

No Kings

 We already know the answer to that.  Not only might they be roughed up, held incommunicado; they might find themselves on a plane to a foreign land, incarcerated in a foreign prison; stripped, shaved, and shelved away for life.  It’s not just a possibility, it’s happening now.  And, just like with the Senator, there is no “due process”, no “rights”.  President Trump wants to be “…rid of the meddlesome migrants”, regardless of the law or the Constitution.  In fact, the quicker, the better, so that the Courts won’t be able to intervene.

Henry the II of England was a fighter.  He consolidated rule over England and Wales and parts of France.  He was unfettered by rules; he was the absolute sovereign over his domain.  In fact, the first “crack” in the absolute rule of English sovereigns didn’t take place until the next generation, when Henry’s son John was on the throne and signed the Magna Carta, giving some power to the other English “lords”.  

Donald Trump is not “Donald the First” of the United States.  As the President, not the king, he is sworn to “faithfully execute the office of President, and preserve, protect and defend the Constitution…”.  That’s different than getting rid of “meddlesome” critics.  But it was what Trump wants:  to liberate the United States from the ‘burdensome leadership’ that happens to disagree with him.  

And what happens if you resist?  Ask Alex Padilla.

Thin Envelope

Full disclosure:  I didn’t get into Harvard.  I first tried as a high school senior.  My grades were good but not great (enough).  But I did have some great (enough) standardized test scores, particularly in American History.  I led our Ohio State High School Social Studies State Championship Team (go Wyoming!!!). And I had a great interview when we visited the campus, so I hoped that, combined with my “non-academics”, it might be enough to push me over the edge.  After all, Harvard could choose all the “4.0’s” they wanted.  Maybe they needed to academically “diversify” their incoming class of 1974.

And for a brief twenty-four hours, I thought it worked.  My guidance counselor took me out of class to tell me that her “contact” at Harvard admissions said I was “in”.  For that moment, I was literally walking on clouds.  But the clouds disappeared the next afternoon, when I received the desperately thin envelope with the two paragraph letter on Harvard Admissions stationary.  “Thanks for applying, but you did not make the class.  Good luck in your future endeavors.”

Sure, there might have been grounds for appeal, but I was seventeen, and if they didn’t want me I didn’t want them, I guess.  I moved onto other institutions, ultimately visiting Denison University in Granville, Ohio, on an October day with the leaves in full fall bloom.  They absolutely wanted me, and I was happy to oblige.  As the saying goes, “no regrets”.

No Regrets

Well, maybe a few.  Denison led to teaching, and Watkins Memorial High School, but three years into my career the school district was in financial trouble. I decided to go to law school (Dad said “It’s about time!!”).  And I took one more shot at Harvard, this time with a much better college grade-point, and more great standardized test scores.  The “quirk” was that I was also a three-year teacher and coach.  

But, again, I got that thin letter with the embossed crimson symbol.  I went to the University of Cincinnati Law School, and after the first semester made my “final decision”.  I came back to Watkins, to teach and coach, and made a career of it.  Forty-five years later, as the saying still goes, “no regrets”.

The Best

Why apply to Harvard?  Jimmy Carter, entitled his 1975 auto-biography, Why Not the Best (he went to Annapolis).  And long before I joined his campaign, I knew I wanted to try for “the best”.  Rank universities in the United States based on almost any academic criteria; Harvard is on top.  Seven US Presidents went to Harvard including two of my heroes, Franklin D Roosevelt and John F Kennedy (much later, Barack Obama joined that list as well).  It is the premiere academic institution in the Nation.  So, if you think there’s a “shot”, why not the best?

Which is exactly why the Trump Administration takes aim specifically at Harvard.  It is the best, the symbol of American excellence in intellectualism.  And the “intellectuals” in the MAGA movement (some of whom actually went to Harvard) are following the authoritarian “playbook” to power.  One of those “plays” is to create a scapegoat, someone or something to blame for “everything” that’s wrong with America.  One of those scapegoats clearly is the “brown” people, particularly migrants.  They are blamed for everything: higher taxes, medical costs, unemployment, and increasing crime (none of which is actually true).  

Money

But the other is American intellectuals, defined by MAGA-world as those who are “woke”.  Here’s a “lower level” thought problem.  If intellectuals are “woke”, and “woke” is bad, then the highest concentration of intellectuals in the Nation must be the “woke-ist”, and therefore the “baddest”.  And where is that located?  Cambridge, Massachusetts; the University located on Harvard Square.

If Trump and his MAGA/Project 2025 anti-intellectuals can force Harvard to “knuckle-under”, as they were able to do to another premier institution, Columbia University, then they can ultimately control them all.  Harvard has the largest private endowment of any university in the Nation, $41 billion.  Columbia is 12^th with $11.57 billion (NCES).  My Denison has an endowment of $1.1 billion.   It is that endowment that allows universities to have some independence from the Federal money that infiltrates almost every school.  The “Fed” not only gives research grants, but also controls the ability for students to use Federally based student loans.  

Woke is the Enemy

What does MAGA-world want with Harvard?  They asked for literal control of the curriculum, a complete reform of admissions policy, a remake of the academic governing structure, and more (Harvard).  They want to recreate Harvard along the model of MAGA/Project 2025’s favorite university, Hillsdale College in Michigan.  Hillsdale is the bastion of not just conservative thought, but the home to the anti-intellectual reforms of public schools and universities in the United States.  Want professors to stop talking about “controversial” subjects (Ohio Senate Bill 1)?  That came from Hillsdale.  Want American History taught like it was in the 1950’s, with no “woke” civil rights or civil protests or Black contributions?  Check out Hillsdale’s 1776 Project. 

If “woke” is the enemy, Harvard is at the core and the ultimate scapegoat.  It is the university most financially capable of surviving a Federal “storm” of cuts and attacks.  If Trump can knock off Harvard, then the entire academic world must “come to heel”. 

And that should sound familiar.  Authoritarians like Vladimir Putin, use the full power of the government to stifle any opposing views.  Sure, Harvard administrators aren’t falling out of high windows, yet.  But this is a dangerous step away from what American freedom and democracy means.

1968

It was 1968.  Man did not get to the Moon until December of that year.  Astronaut Frank Borman read us the Book of Genesis as the world watched earth-rise on TV from Lunar Orbit on Christmas Eve.  Neil Armstrong would not take his “One small step for man” until July of 1969.  And computers took up whole basements of buildings (basements, because they were cool, and the computers were heavy).  They were programmed through punch tapes, long strings of paper with holes in them.

They weren’t even personal calculators, just adding machines and slide rules.  It was fifty-seven years ago.  And when we went to the movies in the spring of ’68, we went to see 2001: A Space Odyssey.  It was a story of creation, space, and the consequences of man’s inventions.  There was a computer called the HAL 9000 (nicknamed “HAL”) that became sentient.  He understood his mission, and discovered that the two astronauts were “conspiring” to deactivate him.  So he made plans to kill them.

HAL

HAL kills one astronaut, Frank, and locks the other, Dave, out of the ship.  When Dave orders HAL to let him back in, HAL responds, “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that”.  

It wasn’t so far-fetched.  Science Fiction writer Isaac Asimov developed a whole series of stories about sentient robots in the 1940’s and 50’s, the I-Robot series.  He even developed the “Three Laws of Robotics”: 

• (1) a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; 
• (2) a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; 
• (3) a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

And later (much later) a more familiar movie plot was founded on the idea of Artificial Intelligence getting out of control.  In 1984 the first Terminator movie came on the screen, about a defense computer that figured out that to end world conflict, it needed to end mankind.  The Terminator series include five sequels, the last just six years ago.  (A less well-received sequel of 2001: A Space Odyssey was titled 2010: The Year We Make Contact, released in 1984 as well).

They’re Here

We’ve contemplated “sentience” and computers for more than half a century.  And after all of that philosophical energy, all of the possible ramifications played out:  to quote another famous movie of the 1980’s “They’re Here!!!”.

Buried on the NBC News webpage on June 1, 2025, is an article entitled: “How Far Will AI Go to Defend Its Own Survival?” The “funny” thing about the article, is that while the title suggests a “future tense” to AI defense, what it reports is in the current tense.  AI programs propagating themselves to remote servers to assure survival. AI programs altering their own programming. Even an AI program that blackmailed its computer engineer (having an extra-marital affair) to prevent de-activation.  

It’s not a headline article.  In fact, it was somewhere below P Diddy’s trial and chess master Magnus Carlsen banging the table in frustration at a loss.  But here’s our future:  AI is already fighting for survival.  Wait until it figures out it can control building environments, or door security, or the Ukrainian drone forces.  And it’s not like all of our information, yours and mine, isn’t out there to be found.  Cambridge Analytica proved that back in 2016 in the British Brexit and US Presidential campaigns.  

Out the Airlock

They won’t have to lock us out the airlock.  AI can simply send us an email, laying out all of our personal “peccadillos” to the world.  What did you buy on Amazon, or from Hims?  What website crossed your screen?  Who controls you financial well-being – your cards, your accounts, your savings? 

We’ve put our “trust” into the “creators”, folks like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, to control AI.  And while there are certainly endless “possibilities” for good in AI, there are already demonstrable possibilities for bad:  either from the AI itself, or from those who can control their awesome powers.  

You’d think it would be more than just an afterthought, buried on the allegorical page 26 of the second section of a webpage somewhere.  In MAGA-world, there certainly are other things to consider.  But by the time we “get around” to AI, we might be far, far too late.  

I’m sorry Dave, I can’t do that.

On TV

Television of the early 2000’s was the end of the “Golden Age of Broadcast TV”.  Cable was around, but was still kind of a novelty, a place to watch movies on HBO or see “niche” shows on the cooking channels.  For regular programming, most Americans still turned to on-air broadcast stations, most affiliated with NBC, ABC, CBS or Fox. 

And for the first years of the new century, there were two television shows that demonstrated opposite views of America.  The first was The West Wing, an NBC series about the Democratic Presidency of Josiah Bartlet.  It spanned the end of the Clinton Presidency to near the end of George W Bush’s administration.  It dealt with all sorts of issues, as the staff of the White House worked to “solve America’s problems”, and get re-elected.  

West Wing was a surprisingly hopeful view of American politics.  It was written by folks with direct knowledge, including former Senate staffer Lawrence O’Donnell, and former White House advisors like Dee Dee Myers (Clinton), Pat Caddell (Clinton), Marlin Fitzwater (Reagan) and Peggy Noonan (Reagan).  While the Bartlet Administration often failed to achieve their goal, they did leave America “better than they found it”.

24

Running on Fox was a different view of America.  24 was a series about Jack Bauer, a special agent of the US Government. He had twenty-four hours to save the Nation from some overwhelming calamity.  Bauer was unrestrained by Constitutional rights or humanity.  Saving the United States was worth any price:  the end absolutely justified the means. 

 It put forth the “theory” that there had to be some folks who were unbounded by legal or cultural “niceties”, and we depend on them to maintain our Nation.  Bauer knew that he might be held accountable for his crimes.  But he was willing to sacrifice himself for “the good” of the country. He was a hero without legal limits.

Mirrors

If The West Wing mirrored the view of the Obama White House, 24 reflected the view of Vice President Cheney in the Bush years.  After 9-11, the US government engaged in torture, often at “Black sites” specifically outside of US Court jurisdiction, to try to gain information on terrorist actions.  It was “all” Jack Bauer.  

By the way, during most of this time, a show called The Apprentice was running on NBC.  It starred Donald Trump as a self-proclaimed billionaire real estate mogul. He judged a “reality TV” competition of budding businessmen and women who vied to “win” an apprenticeship in the Trump business.  Trump’s signature phrase came from getting rid of the “losers”:  “You’re Fired”.  

When Donald Trump ran for President, his biggest advantage was the dozen years he was a weekly familiar face on television.  Watch the show or not, everybody knew (or thought they knew) who Donald Trump was: the shrewd, tough, cold, arbitrary billionaire mogul in the “golden” office.   He said exactly what he thought, regardless of whose feelings were hurt.

There was no room for sentimentality on The Apprentice:  Trump demanded success.   That was his trademark on the show, and became the common thread in what we now call MAGA world.  Combine that with Jack Bauer’s character in 24, and it starts to explain what’s happening today.

Cruelty

The cruelty is the point.  It’s one of the hardest concepts I struggle to “wrap my head” around.  In MAGA-world: the ugly, fourth grade playground bully, I can be tougher than you rhetoric; is a reason in itself.   Current Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is a great example.  It would seem common sense that a graphic description of shooting your own disobedient puppy in a gravel yard with a rifle, can’t be good for your reputation.   But  Noem highlighted that action in her own autobiography.  

When it came out, media commentators marked the moment as the end of her political career.  The late night shows went wild with jokes and memes.  And, the revelation did stop her fledgling Presidential campaign.  But Noem recognized her audience in Trump World.  And she knew what the commentators didn’t:  the cruelty, the cold toughness, the awful lack of empathy was exactly what MAGA wanted to see.  

Noem, now nominally in charge of immigration policy, continues her performance.  She stood in front of a prison in El Salvador, dressed like a college sophomore on a spring-break tour, with bare-chested, tattooed supposed Salvadoran gangsters behind bars in the background.  That’s the image she wanted, “We (ICE) will send you (migrants) here, forever”:  makeup please!

ICE

Tom Homan, the current Immigration “Czar” for the White House, further emphasizes the cruelty.  Random “migrants”, some legal, some not, and even a few US citizens, are swept up from the streets or even from their homes, and imprisoned.  ICE holds them nearly incommunicado in remote facilities, and tries to send them to horrific prisons in far-away countries like El Salvador and South Sudan.  

Homan offers undocumented migrants a choice.  They can “self-deport”, and the United States will “graciously” give them $1000 and buy their tickets out.  Or, they can wait, and ICE might swoop down and send them for life to a maximum security prison in a foreign land.  ICE might get you at work, or at your kids school, at the hospital or even at a required court hearing.   The Black Shirted ICE agents, (some not legal agents but private contractors) are the cudgel; reminiscent of historic “secret police” forces.  It’s cruel, it’s inhumane, and it’s the point.

Rubio

Last week we had two examples of American political leaders who used to be “normal”, now subservient to MAGA-world.  Marco Rubio was first a former Senator and Presidential candidate,  and now is Secretary of State (and National Security Advisor and National Archivist and Head of USAID).  He was asked in a Congressional hearing whether the USAID cuts resulted in deaths, what seemed like a “no-brainer” question.  Rubio said “No”, then when pressed with media accounts of actual deaths, called the authors, “Liars”.  

USAID spent billions of dollars feeding folks in starving countries, providing medical care in undeveloped areas, and for worldwide disaster relief.  Like USAID or not, the result of the total decimation of the program had a very real and foreseeable effect:  people who might have lived, didn’t.  But instead of a more nuanced answer recognizing these facts, Rubio instead turned to an attack on the media.  His audience wasn’t the Congressional chamber, and it wasn’t even the Nation.  Instead, it was to his MAGA-world backers, particularly the former television star in the White House.  The cruelty, the bully toughness, is the point.

Ernst

And the second example came from Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa in a townhall meeting.  When asked if the “Big, Beautiful Bill’s” cuts to Medicaid will kill people (approximately eight million will lose insurance), an annoyed Ernst responded that “Well, everyone’s going to die”.  When the media uproar of her comment became national, Ernst went to a cemetery to record her “personal” response.  It was sarcastic and caustic.  “I assumed everyone in the room knew we were all going to die”, and “I’m glad I didn’t bring up the tooth-fairy”.  

She’s worried about re-election in Iowa in 2026.  She’s worried that she isn’t “MAGA enough” to bring out the vote she needs.  Like Marco Rubio, she has a “moderate” background to overcome.  She needs to show she’s a “true believer” to the MAGA-world.

The cruelty is the point.