Category: Uncategorized

The Line

It must be a mark of growing older.  For most of my life, I was near the front of the line as the polling place opened on election day.  I wanted to hear the talk, get the feel of my precinct and city, standing in line in the cold November darkness.  It was my inner politician getting a final input – my last finger on the pulse of the electorate, even if I wasn’t involved in a particular campaign.  Then it was onto school, practice, then home for a steak and a late night of analyzing the election returns.  That was mandatory:  my lesson plan for Wednesday was often a recap of what happened on that Tuesday night.

But I no longer have a classroom of bleary-eyed high school seniors to face in the mornings.  Instead, it’s the dogs, literally bright eyed and bushy tailed (at least three out of four), ready to go out in the yard to clear off the bunnies and squirrels and then eat breakfast.  And my polling place is now a centralized location, with multiple precincts all voting in the sanctuary of a church.  It’s just not the same as standing outside the old firehouse talking to the locals.

Early Voting

So we don’t vote on election day anymore.  We go early, to avoid the crowds, and to make sure that are ballots don’t have to travel.  They never leave the Board of Elections in downtown Newark, Ohio.  Jenn and I voted yesterday.  And currently almost half a million Ohioans have joined in.

We were surprised, and I bet the Board of Elections wokers were too.  For Presidential elections they take over the basement of the County Building, and make it just like any polling place.  You line up, then go to a station of four or five workers.  One checks your identification, then prints a ballot specifically for your precinct, city, district and state.  Then you go to a second room, with voting machines along the walls, and insert your ballot to vote.  The final phase, your ballot is printed (I make a final check), then you insert it into the electronic ballot box.  That’s when it’s counted.

But for smaller elections, they do the whole thing right from their office on the first floor.  I guess they thought this one was going to be smaller. The line went all the way down the hall to the fire exit, then back up to the lobby of the building.  And, for the first time since we last ate at Bob Evans, Jenn and I actually lowered the average age when we joined at the back.

So it took a little time to get into the office, get through the process, and vote.  

What’s Public, What’s Private

There’s some confusion about voting information.  The fact that you voted is public record.  So is your voting address and precinct (4A, Pataskala, Licking, Ohio).  And your choice of political party in the primary, is public (Democrat, Republican, Independent).  So campaigns can access all of that data to target voters.  For example:  if I wanted to reach Democrats in Pataskala that voted in all of the last six elections, including primaries and local elections, I can get that list (it’s a pretty short one). 

What is secret is your actual ballot selections – who you voted for.  That’s your secret, to reveal or not as you choose.  It’s confidential so that you can’t sell your vote.  If it were a public vote, then candidates could make sure that they got their “quid” for your “quo”.  The reason the two dollar bill is so unpopular (considered unlucky by many today) is that it was the most common price for a vote.  If you had two dollar bills, it was assumed your vote was up for sale.  

My Choices

But that doesn’t mean you can’t say who you voted for – you just don’t have to.  So here’s what my ballot looked like:

That was just the offices.  Then there were the issues – whew!!

• Issue 3 – Amend state constitution to require picture ID to vote
• I voted No – This is already state law
•  School Bond Issue – To build more schools for the school district
• I voted Yes – The kids are coming – it’s never going to get cheaper
•  School Tax Issue – To revamp school tax towards income tax
• I voted Yes –  The state took away some property tax funding – the school needs the money. And – it’s easier on retirees then the current system
• Public Library Tax – to renew funding for the local library
• I voted Yes – It’s the library – of course we need it
• County Park District Tax – to renew funding for county parks
• I voted Yes – It’s the parks – we need them too
•  Pataskala Charter Amendments (3) – to “tweak” city governance  
• I voted Yes – They need to make things work for a growing city.
•  Pataskala Charter Amendment – to ban data centers
• I voted No.
• OK – let’s talk about Data Centers.  They’re coming.  Companies bought land in our city years ago.  That would make this an “ex-post-facto” law, and generate millions of dollars of lawsuits against the city.  We need to work with the Data Center folks to reach agreements, but banning them just puts the city in court where we are likely to spend a fortune, lose, and lose control of the process.

Go Vote

There’s my ballot.  “I’ve been there, done that, got the sticker.” 

Whatever your choices are, I urge you to vote.  This is your opportunity to make a difference.  And for those who say it doesn’t matter:  you can’t complain about the outcome if you refuse to participate in the process.  

Or to paraphrase an old Democratic phrase:  “Vote Early and Vote…”  It used to be “vote often,” but for today, vote your mind, and your heart.  Get out and vote.

Into the Pile

Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy jumped into a pile of sticky, smelly, nasty, disgusting, “trash” yesterday.  He decided to drag Amy Acton’s estranged mother into the election.  We don’t know if or how many of Vivek’s millions it cost. The campaign claims they didn’t pay her. But he did get Amy’s birth mother to call the Democratic candidate a liar, who can’t be trusted by the people of Ohio.

So let’s talk about Amy’s mother.  Amy and her brother were taken from her when Amy was twelve. That’s when Amy’s step-father was indicted for molesting her.  The kids went to live with their real father, and have had no contact with their birth mother since.  “Mom” stuck with mister step-dad/child molester who fled the state and never stood trial.  

She clearly has an axe to grind against the daughter she failed to protect.  “Mom” made her choice back in 1978.  Does it sound like I’m taking a side in this family dispute? I am.  I’m taking the same side the police and the Court took, the side her younger brother confirms.  This was in the era when the mother was almost always presumed to be the best custodial parent.  So, if there’s a presumption of truth to be made, then it seems reasonable that the Court, and Dr. Acton and her brother, should get that presumption.

Campaign Strategy

Who is the “Mom calls Amy a Liar” advertisement supposed to convince?  Are the few remaining undecided voters left in Ohio going to be swayed by this naked revelation of parental disaster?  Has Vivek determined that the remaining voters are so stupid, they’re going to fall for this trash?

Or is this advertisement a poor attempt to drive Vivek’s supporters to the polls.  Is this some MAGA mind-flash for a Get Out the Vote strategy.  “I wasn’t going to vote, but now since Amy’s old Mom called her a liar, I’m running out to back Vivek!”  I can’t imagine even the most dedicated Red Hatter going for that.

What this is about is desperation.  Vivek’s spent $55 million on this campaign.  Outside PAC’s have added over $82 million.  And the billionaire has “loaned” his own campaign $36.3 million.  But, after all that cash was spent, Ramaswamy remains behind in public polling.  The most recent poll (Marist) shows Acton up by 7 points, beyond the margin of error.  Four of the last six polls show Acton up.  Even the two they show Ramaswamy ahead, are by 1 and 2 point margins (Real Clear). 

Selling His Soul

Ramaswamy is losing in a Red State.  And he’s doing it with a virtually unlimited war chest.  No wonder he’s throwing a “kitchen sink” at Acton.  But using this kind of ad, one that’s bound to have as much rebound against him as it will hurt her, says something.  In fact, Vivek promises to put $4 million to make sure Ohioans see it.  All of this should tell Ohioans exactly what kind of man Vivek is.  

Character is a difficult issue in our modern political world.  There are many politicians who will do anything and everything to get elected.  And there are others who manage to find some middle ground, getting and staying elected, without giving away their souls.  

But there’s no question what Vivek is willing to do.  He’s showing us now.

My guess:  Ohio already knows what kind of man he is.   And that’s why the polls are so close in this Red Republican state.

Broadcast Decision

The next question is, will the broadcasters of Ohio air this commercial on their stations?  Perhaps they will claim that it’s a “free speech” issue; that they can’t stand against the First Amendment.  Or maybe they are afraid of the millions of dollars Vivek might use to take them into Court.  Or perhaps even worse, that the Trump controlled Federal Communications Commission might threaten their broadcast license.

But if the “suits” in the managers chairs of Ohio’s broadcast stations can’t ban this ad, then they are true cowards.  It doesn’t even matter that some are working for Sinclair Broadcasting, noted for its conservative stands.  This isn’t about political ideology.  It’s about human decency, about showing respect for the profound courage of a twelve year-old girl. 

Ban this ad: it’s simply the right thing to do.

Two Weeks

It’s two weeks before election day.  When historians look back at this era, they will see a series of decision points.  The United States is clearly deciding what kind of country we will be. In a lot of ways, what happens in the next two weeks and the months after, will determine the course of the American Experiment in Democracy. As Bobby Kennedy (the father, not the son) used to say:  “There’s an old Chinese curse, may he live in interesting times.  Like it or not, we live in interesting times.”

First:  Americans need to show up on election day.  In fact, many (almost half) of voters will show up before election day, voting early or absentee.  Traditionally voting in non-Presidential elections falls off.  Since 2004, Presidential elections gather 60% or more of the eligible voters.  The highest turnout in the modern era was in 2020, when 66.6% came out.  But midterm election turnouts are usually much lower.  From 2002 through 2014, they averaged around 40%.  The “slow-motion Blue Tsunami” of 2018 was only 50% of the electorate.  And 2022 showed 46% turnout (Ballotpedia).

As of yesterday here in Ohio, nearly 678000 absentee ballots have been requested, with close to 217000 turned in. And nearly 360000 Ohioans have already voted early (OH-SOS).  That means that over 13% have either voted, or are preparing to vote.  And that’s two weeks out. In 2024 43% of the total vote was early and absentee – so there’s a long way to go (Ohio).  As Larry Sabato, University of Virginia political scientist and election expert points out:  “Every election is determined by the people that show up”.    Want to be a part of history – vote.

Breaking the System

For over a decade, Donald Trump has consistently called the “veracity” of the American election process into question. He already softened that ground in 2016, when he was shocked to find he won.  He continued to question the veracity of election results up to the 2020 Presidential vote.  Then he literally sent a mob to the Congress to try to disrupt the confirmation of those results.  That action, in spite of the current re-writing of history, still stands as the January 6^thInsurrection, the only time a sitting President tried to stop the peaceful transition of power.

Today, every part of the voting process is challenged by Trump:  registration, voting by mail, voting early, electronic voting at polling places, the safe transportation and counting of paper ballots, and the process of certifying the election results.  The outcome of all this doubt-sowing, is that some people do have doubts.  Those are then used to justify draconian changes to the election process, likely of itself, to create the failed process that Trump warns of.  In other words, he wants the system broken, so he can take advantage of it.

What’s Coming

So what can we expect in the next two weeks, and two months?  We can expect that voting will be made more difficult.  We already have doubts about the mail service, whether those who mail absentee ballots will count.  The Postal Service no longer postmarks envelopes upon arrival; only when they are processed.  Should that processing take days (or even weeks), the ballot will arrive too late to include.

We can expect that there will be polling places where Federal agents arrive, likely in critical locations like Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Houston, Milwaukee and Cleveland.  Those agents might be under the label of the Department of Justice, the FBI, or one of the numerous alphabetical agencies under the Department of Homeland Security.  They will arrive to “secure the vote”, but their real purpose is to delay the process, so that fewer folks get to vote, and to try to intimidate those who persist in exercising their right.

We can expect that even in those polling places where there is no Federal interference, there will be “observers” with malignant purpose.  They are there to make sure the process is fair, but the reality will be that some will try to interfere with legal voting.  They will serve as “internal” intimidation, as well as disrupting the voting process to, again; delay, delay, delay.

After the Vote

And we can expect that those in charge of counting the votes will continue to be intimidated.  It’s already happened in Atlanta, where then Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard led the FBI seizure of six year old Presidential ballots.  What happened to those ballots is unknown, but the intimidation of the Fulton County Board of Elections is already applied.  

The Department of Justice is also threatening those who count the votes in California. They include criminal charges and even prison terms, if they include the votes of 20,000 that the Feds have determined “might” be ineligible.  Nevada has already been put through the wringer on this issue.  The Feds issued a list of 15,000 “non-citizen” voters.  Nevada narrowed it to 185, and through investigation, found that the actual number was zero.

Finally, we can expect that the process of certification will be contested every step of the way, if Democrats win close elections. Republicans might even try to refuse to seat winning Democratic Congressional candidates. That process would require the current Speaker, Mike Johnson, fire the non-partisan professional Clerk of the House and replace him with a Republican stalwart. 

In short, the campaigns are only the beginning of the battle for the fate of the American Experiment.  But we don’t even get to begin to defend our view of America, if we don’t show up.  It’s easier to question a narrow margin, harder to challenge an overwhelming decision.  

So, go vote America.

Classic Beatles –Can’t Buy Me Love

A Matter of Scale

Elon Musk just dumped $158 million in support of Ken Paxton’s campaign for the Texas US Senate seat.  In case you’re wondering, that’s about $8.00 for every registered voter in the state.  He’s tried this before.  In 2025 the world’s richest man put $20 million into a Wisconsin Supreme Court race.  That was $8.70 per vote cast. 

First things first:  I guess if you are a Trillionaire, dropping hundreds of millions is proportional. It’s kind of like someone who has $100,000 dropping fifteen bucks, all a matter of scale.  

Second, these incredible displays of wealth haven’t had the impact you’d expect.  Musk’s $20 million didn’t buy the Wisconsin Supreme Court seat.  In fact, his chosen candidate lost by ten points.  So while $158 million is an incredibly large amount of money to spend on any political campaign, it’s no assurance of a Paxton victory.

The Talarico/Paxton race will be the second most expensive Senate race in history.  It looks like costs will top out at over $500 million.  That used to be the amount a Presidential campaign spent just a couple of decades ago.  But there’s now one Senate race even more costly than the Texas campaign bill.  It’s estimated that the Brown/Husted Ohio Senate campaigns will spend over $720 million. I guess you’d have to say “GONE BUCKS!!”.

Money or Message

An aside:  as an Ohio resident, knowing how much money is being spent, you’d expect that the campaigns would have better ads on the air.  Their theory must be quantity over quality – stick a cheap ad out there with a nasty message, and play it over and over and over again rather than pay for production.  I can’t speak for every Ohioan, but even my overly political brain has turned off to what’s coming over the airwaves (or cable channels).

Money is everywhere in this election season.  President Trump “promised” Americans a $5000 award, if Republicans remain in control of the House and the Senate.  He’s pushed out $500 to Affordable Care Act users in several swing states, and sent $90 to those who pay for Medicare B.  If that all feels like bribery; acknowledge your feelings.  Except for the $5000, they were all payouts that just coincidentally happened to be sent within a few weeks of election day.

I took my Medicare $90, gave half to Sherrod Brown and half to Amy Acton, the Democratic candidate for Governor running against Vivek Ramaswamy.  It’s not close to Musk’s millions, but proportionally, still a lot for me!

Diminishing Returns

I listened to Treasury Secretary Bessent Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press.  He spent a long time trying to explain why the increasing inflation figure really doesn’t mean that prices are going up.  Of course he might be right, if you take out the cost of energy.  If diesel prices were at the same level as the beginning of the year, then the cost of all sorts of goods, especially food, would not be as high.  

And, if pigs could fly, they wouldn’t need to walk.  But they can’t, and energy costs are up, as a direct result of President Trump’s choice to wage war against Iran.  Telling the American people that they aren’t feeling those rising prices is just foolish.

So here’s the question:  how much money must be spent, how many commercials must be aired, how many emails and cell messages and phone calls must be made; to convince the American electorate that everything is ok?  After all, if you’re wealthy, and looking at the stock market, we are at historic highs.  President Trump and Secretary Bessent, with their billionaire perspective, think “affordability” is a made up issue. And, I guess, if $158 million is chump change, they’re right.  

But regular Americans know what’s up.  And no amount of commercials, or $90 refunds on a $2435 annual Medicare expense, changes that. By the way, that expense is projected as $2514 next year: more inflation.  Another thousand commercials about “radical Sherrod Brown” or “drunk Amy Acton” won’t alter the reality of rising costs.  And, the impact of all those commercials (all that money) is now far along the curve of diminishing returns.

Money can’t buy Republicans’ love.  

This is a part of the “Sunday Story” series.  There’s no political purpose today, just a story that needs to be told!!!

Back on the Course

My retirement side gig is officiating track and field and cross country.   My niche is officiating pole vault, but I coached all the events in high school track, and I can (and have) officiated most of them.  And in the fall, I put my thirty years of cross country coaching and meet management to work.  This year, I’ll take roles at thirteen different cross country meets.

Sometimes you’re part of a crew, doing an assigned task.  Yesterday I was at the Licking County League meet, working the finish line but also helping with some meet management issues.  But last Tuesday, I was the referee/starter/clerk at the MOCAL (Mid-Ohio Christian Athletic League) meet.  In other words, I was the only official there.  

Course Inspection

As the referee, it’s important to know the entire cross country course.  There  can be issues with any course, and some may rise to the level of requiring a fix or not even allowing competition.  The only way to know is to go out and see.  So Tuesday I arrived at the Ohio Christian University campus in Circleville early, so I had plenty of time to walk the 3.1 mile path.

In general, it’s a nice course, almost all on grass.  It’s plenty wide enough for the relatively small races of the MOCAL, and loops across the campus, and out into nearby soybean fields.  The only issues were some walnuts and a few hedge-apples.  Not a big deal at all.

The course is also located on part of  the OCU Frisbee-Golf course.  While most of my inspection walk was solitary, as I came up a hill I ran into a man hauling what I thought was a cart full of picnic supplies.  But as I got closer, I realized it was his bag of Frisbees for his game.  I greeted him, and he asked what was going on.  I explained that the MOCAL was about to run their championship cross country meet.  He immediately explained that he ran cross country at a nearby high school, thirty-six years ago.

Back in the Day

Of course I responded that I was coaching cross country thirty-six years ago.  He then told me his name, and about the successes he and his brother had in Central Ohio cross country.  Then he asked where I coached.  I told him, thirty years of cross country at Watkins Memorial High School.  

“We always thought you guys were cool,” he said.   “You had a secret battle cry that you’d yell in the middle of the race.  We didn’t know what it meant, but we knew the Watkins kids would respond right away.” 

The secret battle cry of Watkins Cross Country was really just a directive.  As distance runners get tired, their arms literally shrink up towards their shoulders.  Shorter arm swings meant shorter strides, which means running slower.  The “secret cry”  started out as “use your arms”.  But that was a lot to say, and at places like the old Lancaster High School course with its quarter-mile uphill climb, I needed a long-distance solution.  So it turned into just a bellow:  “ARMSSSS!!!”  

My kids hated it.  They knew if I was yelling, I was also demanding they focus on working harder.  I’m sure there were a few profanities uttered between halting breaths, and suggestions about what I could do with my “ARMSSSS!!!”  But it worked, and became a Watkins Cross Country trademark, along with our mystical “KSA” break from the team huddle. (That’s a story of its own).

Battle Cry

I was teased by other coaches, “What the Hell are you yelling out there?”  But, for a quarter-century, those who knew, knew.  They knew that Watkins was in the race, and probably moving up through the field.  The “battle cry” was bouncing between the hills, and along the final straightaway.

Today it’s a lost language. When I see my old runners, they often joke about it. If I yelled “ARMSSS” today at a meet, the current runners wouldn’t have a clue.  But it was still pretty cool to meet a stranger in a field in Circleville, Ohio. He reminded me of the time when “ARMSSS” made a  difference, and the kids in Black and Gold moved to the front of the race.

The Sunday Story Series

2021

• Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21
• Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21
• A Track Story – 2/7/21
• Ritual – 2/14/21
• Voyageur – 2/19/21
• A Dog Story – 2/25/21
• A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21
• Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21
• Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21
• More Lessons from the State – 4/4/21
• Stories from the Road – 4/11/21
• A Bear Wants You – 5/1/21
• My Teachers – 5/9/21
• Old Friends  – 5/23/21
• The Gift – 6/6/21
• Echoes of Mom – 6/20/21
• Stories of the Fourth – 7/3/21
• Running Memories – 7/25/21
• Lost Dog of Eldora – 8/1/21
• Dogs and Medals – 8/8/21
• The New Guy – 9/5/21
• Stories of 9-11 – 9/12/21
• The Interview – 9/26/21
• Night Moves – 10/3/21
• Funeral for a Friend – 10/11/21
• National Security – 10/24/21
• Boots on the Trail – 10/31/21
• Taking Care of Mom and Dad – 11/14./21
• Dogs Found and Lost – 11/21/21
• Watching Brian 12/12/21
• Stories from Shiloh – 12/19/21
• Team Trips – 12/26/21

2022

• Uphill, Both Ways  – 1/9/22
• Old Trophies – 1/30/22
• The Last Time – 2/7/22
• Olympic Miracles – 2/13/22
• Mind Numbing – 2/20/22
• Track Weather – 4/3/22
• What’s Missing – 4/11/22
• A Scouting Story – 4/17/22
• Waterproof Paper – 5/8/22
• Origin Stories – 5/22/22
• Origin Stories – Part Two 5/29/22
• Back at State – 6/5/22
• Out in the Country – 6/19/22
• Pataskala Downs – 7/4/22
• Car Stories I – 7/24/22
• Car Stories II  – 7/31/22
• Old Man Experience – 8/7/22
• Cross Country Camp – 8/14/22
• New to the Pack – 8/21/22
• Car Stories III – The Bus – 8/28/22
• A Day in the Life – 9/4/22
• Stupid Human Tricks – 9/18/22

2023

• Fair or Foul – 2/26/23
• Immigrant Story – 3/12/23
• Busy Season – 5/15/23
• Of Jeeps and Bucks – 5/28/23
• A Pole Vault Story  -6/11/23
• End of an Era – 6/25/23
• Paybacks – 7/2/23
• Graying in Pataskala – 7/17/23
• Being a Goat – 7/23/23
• Toy Truck – 8/20/23
• Medical Terms – 8/27/23
• Missing Margaritaville – 9/3/23
• The McGowan – 9/10/23
• Who’s Watching – 10/22/23
• The Saturday Before – 10/29/23
• A Tale of Turkey, and Dogs – 11/26/23
• Bruno’s Story – 12/3/23
• Out in the Country – 12/10/23
• Christmas Eve – 12/24/23

2024

• Rube Goldberg – 1/12/24
• Our Pataskala Kroger’s – 2/5/24
• A Sad, Sad, Dog – 2/11/24
• Singing in the Tornado – 3/3/24
• Your Safe Spot – 3/17/24
• Easter Dawn – 3/31/24
• Swarms – 4/14/24
• Lowest Common Denominator – 4/28/24
• Seniors – 5/12/24
• Season’s Over – 6/22/24
• Camp Morning – 6/30/24
• Jeeping – 7/7/24
• How Mondo Won the Gold and Started a Dog Fight (almost) – 8/6/24
• Fifty Years of the McGowan – 9/8/24
• A Walk in the Woods – 10/22/24
• Smokin – 12/6/24
• Coal for Christmas 12/16/24
• Provenance – 12/22/24

2025

• Lost and Found – 2/22/25
• Catching Cars – 3/2/25
• PV Mentor – 3/31/25
• Dogs, Jeeps, Fireworks and Beer Coolers 7/6/25
• It’s About Time – 7/27-25
• Gas War – 11/30/25

2026

• The End of My Nose – 1/18/26
• The End of the Jeep – 1/25/26
• Fat Chipmunk – 2/15/26
• A Flash of Unity – 2/23/26
• Lessons Learned – 4/12/26
• Blue Sky Rain – 5/10/26
• A Union Dog House – 8/2/26
• Thinking Outside the Can – 8/9/26
• Selling an Era – 9/6/26
• Fixer-Upper – 10/4/26
• Secret Battle Cry – 10/18/26

Lessons

The lessons of World War II were clear.  A dictator overthrows a democracy.  He has a “vision” of world domination.  In the middle of global economic crisis, he pushes against the “great powers”, taking slices of territory, a little at a time.  The “great powers” turned inward to their own problems, let him go.  After the Rhineland, Austria, the Sudetenland the “Great Powers” belatedly react.  But it’s too late and the dictator too powerful.  Instead, the choice was World War after the invasion of Poland.

The lesson:  if the “Powers” had intervened at the beginning, perhaps the world would have been spared the ultimate bloodletting of World War II.  Almost all of the international cooperative agreements; like the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; are aimed at preventing the next big war.  Their goal:  to put out the fire before it becomes a conflagration.

Right now the “powers” are turned inward once again.  Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy all face the crisis of growing internal right-wing extremism, driven by immigration.  Here in the United States, we are facing even greater internal struggles, as the forces surrounding Donald Trump seem to be tearing our Constitutional rights to shreds in front of our eyes.  

Aggressors

As history has proven time and time again, there is no such thing as a power “vacuum”.  If the “leader of the free world”, the United States, turns its back on aggression, the aggressors take quick advantage of it.  Donald Trump likes to say that Putin would never have invaded Ukraine if he won the 2020 election.  But the reality is that Putin would never have invaded Ukraine if Hillary Clinton had won the election of 2016.  The vacillation and sickening infatuation of Trump for the Russian leader gave Putin the confidence that the US would not respond.  And even when Biden won, Putin cunningly realized that the division created by Trump was not over.

Biden committed the United States to the defense of Ukraine.  He led NATO to full support against the Russian invasion, lending many assets short of direct intervention.  But Joe Biden was weakened by the continuing influence of Trump on Congress, so much so that in the lead up to the 2024 election, the historically mandated support of Ukraine became a political issue.

Cutting a Deal

Donald Trump is more worried about domestic fuel prices than he is the fate of Ukraine, and possibly the world.  The fact that the crisis was caused by the foreseeable consequences of Trump’s chosen war against Iran means little.  And since form is far more important to the current President than substance, he “cut a deal” with Putin.  The United States is easing the sanctions against Russian diesel fuel, in order to put more on the market. (The fact that even if the sanctions were completely removed, Russia has only 3% of the world supply notwithstanding).

Cutting Ukraine

For the American voting public, Trump is showing that he is trying to reduce fuel prices.  But to the world, Trump is allowing Russia to profit from oil sales, a profit that certainly will go into further devastation in Ukraine.  And this “deal” clearly had other provisos.  Trump called for Ukraine to choose another President.  The American controlled  satellite defense network used by Ukraine, Starshield, is all of a sudden limited to the Ukrainian defense forces.  And the satellite internet system, Starlink, was also limited.  Elon Musk, the creator of both systems, is a firm ally of Donald Trump.  

Trump called for a ceasefire by both sides on energy production targets.  Ukraine went along for three days.  Russia continued their efforts to take out Ukrainian energy infrastructure.  Ukrainian President Zelenskyy is now faced with more Russian attacks, a reduced ability to intercept missiles and drones, and winter with a compromised energy delivery system.

The Long Game

Meanwhile Germany, the nation that took up a lot of the “slack” in Ukrainian support when Trump regained the Presidency, is wearying of its burden.  Their internal right-wing forces are gaining strength, using the ongoing war and migration as their key causes.

Putin, undeterred by the suffering of his own citizenry, is playing the long game.  The US under Trump is turning its back on Ukraine.  Europe isn’t too far behind.  And if Ukraine falls, what’s next for the Russian leader with visions of a new Soviet Union, a Russian Empire even greater than before?  If the line isn’t in Ukraine, will it be in Latvia, Lithuania, or Estonia?  Or maybe it will be drawn in Poland, Hungary, or Serbia?  Is Ukraine our modern Sudetenland? 

Even with NATO membership and Article 5 guarantees of support, will the United States under Trump step in to stop further Putin aggression?  Nothing in Trump’s history demonstrates that kind of determination.

If the world won’t stand against this kind of aggression, why should Xi in China wait to invade Taiwan?  What would be the impact of China controlling the island where 70% of the world’s semi-conductors are made?

It’s not just about Ukraine; it’s about the preventing aggression in the world.  And Donald Trump, the man who demands the Nobel Peace Prize, is leading us down the path towards another worldwide conflict.       

Focus

I listened to President Trump this weekend, as he praised the dictator of Russia. He demanded a democratic country replace their leader in Ukraine.  As anyone who reads these essays know, I am not a supporter of Donald Trump.  In fact, the “casus belli” of my writing was my opposition to Trump from the beginning of his Presidency in 2017.  Of the 2050 essays I’ve written in the nine years since, many are about what’s wrong with Trump.

But this weekend I had an epiphany. (No, I’m not a MAGA follower now.)  Perhaps it might better be described as “focusing”, a clearer understanding of who Donald Trump is.  And, at the risk of being branded an extremist, I now see him as a traitor to the people of the United States of America.

Benedict Arnold

The general definition of traitor is one who betrays his nation’s interests.  It is the ultimate treachery, often to the personal benefit of the betrayer.  Major General Benedict Arnold is the archetypical “American Traitor”.  He is the “Judas” of our origin story.  As one of the young, up and coming leaders in Washington’s Revolutionary Army, he offered up the critical Continental fortress at West Point on the Hudson River to the British.  In exchange, he took money (negotiated at £20,000, but only paid at £6000) and rank (British Brigadier General).  His treason failed.  The British never did take West Point.  But they did honor much of their “deal”, and Arnold’s name became synonymous with traitor. 

Arnold’s attempt outlines three reasons for treason.  First of all is a perception that the betrayer has been slighted by the Nation.  Arnold saw himself as the “shining star” of Washington’s coterie of young officers, and felt that the Commander was ignoring his needs.  Second, there was the money and stature of gaining a command in the vaunted British Army.  And finally, there was Britain’s desire to break the Continental Army and end the Revolution, making them willing to pay in cash what they couldn’t get in blood.

Donald Trump

Cash, recognition, advantage:  all pushed Arnold to the ultimate act of betrayal.  So what about Donald Trump?

Clearly Donald Trump feels slighted.  His incessant need to remake the America’s “symbols” to focus on himself shows a man who needs to be recognized, perhaps even worshiped.  He wants his “mark” on America’s iconic emblems:  from the Kennedy Center to his new “Triumphal Arch” overshadowing both the Lincoln Memorial and the Arlington National Cemetery.  He wants to re-write history into his own image, changing the historic narratives of the Smithsonian Institution and the National Parks to fit his own personal bias.  

Trump wants to be a “big boy” in the world, alongside the leaders he perceives as exercising massive personal power:  Putin, Xi, Kim.  He finds that the give and take of democratic rule is distasteful.  The leaders he denigrates:  Carney, Zelenskyy, Macron; all take opposing paths to Trump in the world, and are therefore subject to insult.

He also wants to “hang” with the “big boys” of money:  Musk, Zuckerberg, Ellison, Bezos, and the like.  Trump acts like the sad teen who wanted to be a “cool kid”, but could never fit in.  Now he uses the power of the Presidency to get with the “in crowd”.  

Corruption

Donald Trump is clearly the most corrupt President in American history.  His personal wealth has increased to over $6.5 Billion during his Presidency.  Every aspect of his Administration is for sale:  from knick-knacks in the White House, to Presidential pardons, to direct exercises of Executive authority.  An obvious example:  he demanded and got millions of dollars from the petroleum industry in support of his 2024 candidacy.  In return, Trump has devastated the renewable energy industry, cutting support for solar and wind technologies.  And he has opened up America’s natural wonders, from Bears Ears to the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, for exploitation. Big petroleum paid their “quid”, Trump provided the “quo”. 

Now, the soaring prices resulting from his war of choice in Iran generate record profits for those same companies.  So much the better for them, at the expense of Americans.

America is for sale to the highest bidder.   And it really doesn’t matter if the sale endangers our future.  Petroleum use is changing our environment, but attempts to alleviate the damage are denied.  Artificial Intelligence raises huge questions about our future, but Trump demands that they be kept free of governmental controls, and their creators allowed to self-regulate.  Now Putin offers cheap diesel fuel to get Trump out of the fuel-cost political jam.  Even though the amount is a pittance compared to America’s needs, Trump is giving the dictator more “cover” to destroy Ukraine.

Guilty

The 47^th President of the United States, Donald Trump, chooses the few over American citizens at almost every turn.  He mortgaged our future in the world, gave aid and comfort to  dictators, and allowed the very real risk of climate or Artificial Intelligence catastrophe.  And he did it all for personal gain:  cash, recognition, and advantage.

He betrayed the American people.  And now, he’s offering access to funds to a nation that is actively supporting our chosen enemy in the Middle East, Iran.  That money may well pay for missiles to strike our soldiers.

And if that’s not a traitor, then what is?

Vote in Person

The first rule of writing the news is, “Don’t bury the lead”.  So here’s the lead of this essay.  Don’t depend on the US Post Office to get your vote counted.  Do it yourself.  You can vote at the polls the day of the election.  You can vote early at your local board of elections.  You can even take your absentee ballot to the board of elections ahead of time.  But don’t mail it.

Over the past fifty-six years of my involvement in politics, I’ve been a believer in the Postal Service.  I’ve told folks to vote by absentee and done so myself.  I’ve spent “big” campaign dollars to get campaign literature into the house via the mail.  And I still respect the folks who deliver the mail.  They live the unofficial creed:

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

Evidence

Direct evidence is simple:  The butler did it with a candlestick in the library.  But direct evidence is often difficult to get.  Anecdotal evidence is a series of experiences that all seem to amount to a pattern.  We can project what is happening, even without direct evidence of why it’s occurring.  So here’s my anecdotes, my experiences, that lead me to believe that using the mail to send a ballot is not secure.  I wish I could come up with a different conclusion – but here it is.

I am the treasurer of a non-profit charity.  We do good work finding lost dogs.  It’s all volunteer, but there are still expenses:  equipment, gas for travel, vet care for dogs, subscriptions for cameras, food for rescue dogs, and more.  We depend on donations to pay the bills.  

In this modern age we get donations through PayPal and other Meta sources, Venmo and direct deposits.  But we also take cash, and, of course, checks.  (If you’d like to donate – here’s a link).

Swift Completion

Over the last six months, there’s been a multitude of problems with the Postal Service.  It  started last July, when a found-dog owner, grateful for our help, held a fundraiser for us.  She promised to forward the proceeds to us that week.  But for weeks, and then nearly a month and a half, we heard nothing.  Finally, I emailed her to find out what was going on.  

She answered that she was wondering why we hadn’t cashed her check, a check that never arrived in our Post Office Box (it still hasn’t to this day).  She promised she’d send a second check right away.  But it also didn’t arrive, weeks after our conversation.  I finally called and offered to drive the hour and a half to her house to get a check. She agreed.

She cancelled both mailed checks.  The day before I drove to her house, the second check showed up in the mail, three weeks after it was mailed.  But since it was already cancelled, we drove over to pick up a new one, and returned the old.

We thought, maybe it was her village post office.  

Friday, October 7^th, I stopped by our PO Box to pick up the mail.  Inside were two checks, one from Memphis, Tennessee and one from Northern Kentucky.   Both checks were dated July 23^rd, 2026.  The Memphis check was postmarked on August 4^th, two months ago.   The Northern Kentucky check was postmarked August 24^th, almost six weeks ago.  

A check from 100 miles away never arrived.  The second check took three weeks.  A check from Northern Kentucky was postmarked on August 24, but written a month before.  And the check from Memphis, postmarked ten days after it was written, took two months.

Process

For all of my life, when you took mail to the Post Office, it was “postmarked”.  That meant it was in the possession of the USPS, and the “clock” began to run on delivery.   But last year, that “rule” was changed.  

…while the presence of a postmark on a mailpiece confirms that the Postal Service was in possession of the mailpiece on the date of the postmark’s inscription, the postmark date does not inherently or necessarily align with the date on which the Postal Service first accepted possession of the mailpiece. (Fed Register).

What happened?  Instead of sorting mail at individual post offices, the sorting machines were removed, and the sorting process consolidated into Regional sites.  Only when it’s sorted at the Regional site, is a postmark normally applied.   Back “in the day” I could drop a letter at my local Pataskala office addressed to a Pataskala address, and it would be delivered the next day.  

But now, it goes from Pataskala to the eastside of Columbus.  There it is sorted, postmarked, and sent back to Pataskala to be delivered, maybe in a couple of days.  And if that mail’s going farther, it goes from the Columbus facility to another regional facility where it’s sorted again, then sent to a local post office, where it’s delivered.  

And, at least for my charitable organization, when and where it gets delivered is now up in the air, or perhaps better put, lost in the mail.

Absentee Ballot

Attention: Ohio election law has changed.
Ohio law now requires all absentee ballots be received by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day. Your absentee ballot must be received no later than 7:30 p.m. on Election Day to be counted. (Franklin County Board of Elections).

It doesn’t really seem to matter how early you mail your absentee ballot.  You can’t guarantee that your ballot will arrive in time – and neither can the Postal Service.

So here are your choices:

•      Vote in person on election day
•     Vote early at the Board of Elections in person
•     Get an absentee ballot – fill it out – return it to the Board of Elections yourself
•                         – There’s a drop box 
•      Or, you can hand it to the workers at the Board.

Or roll the Postal dice, and put it in the mail.  You can track whether the Board of Elections receives it on their website.  But if it doesn’t get there, it’s on you, not on them.

Because now you know.

Attribution

A lie will go round the world while the truth is pulling its boots on.

There is a great deal of controversy about where this phrase originally came from.  Jonathan Swift, the famed Irish satirist, used a similar idea back in 1710, saying, “Falsehood flies, while the truth comes limping after it.”  Mark Twain is often attributed as the author of this phrasing in the late 19^th century.   After all, Twain did come up with many ironic phrases describing public life, including, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything,” and, “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.” But this one wasn’t his.  

English Preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon gets the credit, from a sermon delivered in 1859.  

But the concept, regardless of who crafted it, was true in 1710, and in 1859.  And if it was valid in those days of printing presses and telegraphs; then it is multiplied by a billion when it comes to the present day.  Even Mark Twain didn’t foresee the internet or I Phones delivering lies with the speed of light.  But that is our current state of affairs.

School Tax

Here’s an example from today’s life in Pataskala, Ohio.  The local school district is trying to pass a complicated school levy (About the School Issues).  It comes in two parts:  one is a property tax “bond issue” to build a new school in this rapidly growing area east of Columbus, Ohio. We’re part of the “Silicon Valley of the Midwest” development, led by the Intel Chip production plant.

That part of the school funding is pretty cut and dry.  This district has been growing for decades, requiring new and updated schools and more classrooms for kids.  And the expansion is really at the early stage; near fifty percent of the “developable land” is still farm fields in this “Right to Farm” community.  The future seems to be a Hobson’s Choice of industrial or housing development.  

It’s the second part that gets complicated.  Ohio school funding is a mess.  The state, which used to fund forty-five percent of education costs, has cut its contribution to around thirty-five percent.  That burden was switched to the local communities, that already were shouldering their own forty-five percent.  So the state gets to be the “good guys”, supposedly cutting costs, while the local school districts are the “bad guys” asking for more money to sustain services.

Earnings Tax

Schools in Ohio traditionally depend on property taxes.  But, as property values skyrocket, there is a growing movement against taxing property to maintain local services.  So the state, as the “good guy”, rolled back a significant amount of income from current local taxes.  That left the schools, the “bad guys”, to search for even more income sources.

Our local school already has a ¾ of a percent income tax to raise operating funds.  So the school board determined to try to re-source their income to another different income tax, rather than an additional property tax which is likely to be cut by the state.  In this election, the community is voting if we should: cut the ¾ percent tax on all income, then add a 2% tax on earned income.  Earned income is money from a job, and does not include retirement benefits including pensions and social security payments.  This way, folks on fixed incomes actually get a break.  The ¾ percent income tax they are paying now is cut, and they aren’t part of the 2% earned income tax.

As expected, there’s a big controversy over the tax issues.  The community is squirming about building another school building. (Why can’t new people pay for it?  Because they aren’t here yet!!)  And a 2% income tax is a big ask, even if us retired folks get a break.   But then there’s the lie “going round the world”.

Liar

Any sentence that begins “on Facebook” is already suspect. But here goes.  On Facebook one author made a breathless post.  They “discovered” that the school district was “lying” about the 2% tax!  Only fixed incomes of $40,000 or less would be exempt from the tax, over that, those (mostly) retired folks would have to pay like everyone else!

This “discovery” is not true.  Whether it’s a “lie”, an intentional mis-truth in order to alter the vote, or whether the author is just mistaken, with an erroneous interpretation of a rule for property taxes, it really doesn’t matter.  It went “round the world” of Pataskala so fast, that the school levy supporters couldn’t even get their “Sketchers” on.

School supporters are careful not to call it a “lie”.  That would be mean spirited.  And many of those school people (full disclosure:  that was me once) are trained not to use insults in correcting “students”.  But, intentional or not, it is a lie.  I’m not a part of those “school people” anymore, and I’m calling it out.  After multiple gentle “corrections” including “cover” for the mistake, the liar is still standing firm.  That’s today’s politics:  if you get caught in a lie, double-down on it.  Ask Eric Schmitt, the Senator from Missouri (Gotcha).

So the $40,000 lie is going “round the world”.  It’s giving an excuse to vote “no” to some who know better.   It’s easier than facing facts:  the state of Ohio is letting us down, and the school district is doing their best to pick up the pieces.  But facts don’t “lace ‘em up” fast enough, especially when folks don’t want to hear them. And this is especially true in our “small world” of Pataskala.

Every Point

Back in 2011 my track team was in a fight for the Conference Championship.   Nearby New Albany had a really good team, and we battled through the meet, the score seesawing back and forth.  We were in the lead going into the last two events.  But New Albany nearly swept the 3200 meter run, and had a strong 4×400 relay.  We had a great 4×400 too.  We were ahead in the score by three points, going into that race.  New Albany finished second (8 points) and we were right behind, in third by just four hundredths of a second (6 points).  But third was enough – we won the Conference meet by 1 point, 156 to 155.

The year before, we won the Conference by 49 points.  On our Championship T-Shirt, we put a quote from my Assistant Coach, “Not even concerned”.  For the 2011 shirt we used my quote of that conference day, “Every point makes a difference”.    

In athletics a win is a win. 

Elections

It used to be that way in politics as well.  As a twenty-year old campaign operative, I spent 90 hour weeks working for the 1976 Carter/Mondale campaign in Southwestern Ohio.   I still remember the joy of that early Wednesday morning after Tuesday’s election results were counted, walking across Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati.  “We”, at that moment, Jimmy Carter and ME, won Ohio by 5000 votes. (In the final count, it ended up being 11,000 out of over 4 million.) As our campaign crew strolled to our Fountain Square headquarters, we knew:  we shook 5,000 hands, we put up 5000 signs, we knocked on 5000 doors; we made the difference.  Ohio was instrumental in the Carter Presidential win.

In politics a win used to be a win as well.

Worries

I’ve been involved in election politics for fifty-six years.  I can’t say that every election was always on the “up and up”.  I’ve been in situations where I thought results were pre-determined, altered at the count.  And, especially in the early days, “street money” in campaigning often meant the difference between winning and losing.  Was it a matter of paying someone who had so much influence that their endorsement persuaded voters, or was it a matter of changing results, I don’t know.  But it was always a possibility.  

Today those worries are even greater.  Let me count the ways that the 2026 election could be at risk.

The Mail

The US Supreme Court stopped the Republican plan to gain control of mail-in voting.  In case you missed it, the US Postal Service was going to take a notoriously inaccurate citizenship list from the Department of Homeland Security, and only deliver absentee ballots to voters on the list.  There are two problems with this.  

First, the US Constitution specifically places the conduct of elections under the authority of the states, not the Federal government.  Second, the Homeland Security lists are wrong.  In Nevada, for example, they found 15,000 non-US citizens registered to vote.  But on further examination, only 130 or so were possibly non-US citizens.  And then on final analysis, there were ZERO non-US citizens on the list.

And, for states that refused Federal access to the non-public voter registration files, the USPS wouldn’t deliver any ballots.  That included California, Colorado, and Oregon; all of which are largely mail-in ballot states.  

So the Court stopped that – what’s the concern?  

Anecdotal Evidence

There is scientific evidence, and anecdotal evidence.  Scientific evidence is provable, repeatable, and clear.  Anecdotal evidence is a “story”, taking incidents and drawing possible conclusions.  So here’s my anecdote.  I am the treasurer for an animal rescue group, Lost Pet Recovery.  We are all-volunteer and depend on donations for our operating costs.  We get some of our donations by check to our Post Box.  In the past few months, multiple donation checks have been in the mail for weeks, some sent from less than four miles away from our Post Office. 

One check disappeared in the system.  Its replacement took over three weeks to arrive in our box.  Another check took a month to get from Wheeling, West Virginia to Columbus, Ohio.  One check arrived without ever being post-marked.  One check was mailed from five miles away on September 2^nd, post-marked September 21^st, and arrived on October 1^st.

If that’s what’s happening with the regular mail, what might happen to absentee ballots?  Ohio is among those states who will count absentee ballots after election day, as long as they are post-marked by election day.  But if mail can sit at a post office for weeks, before it’s even post-marked, then what’s the good in that?

There’s an old Democratic saying; “Vote early and vote…(often)”.  Well, we won’t fill in that phrase anymore.  But my recommendation is that if you’re voting early, do it in person.  If you need to vote by absentee, then hand deliver it to the Board of Elections.  I love the post office, I love the dedication of the postal workers, I stand with them.  But I don’t trust wants going on there right now.

Bad Actors

There was a “foil hat” rumor in 2024 that the Pennsylvania voting was compiled by computers using Elon Musk’s Star Link system.  The “final straw” of that story is that Elon seemed to “know”, before election day, that Trump would win the state.  Now I’m not sure about all that, but I can say there are obvious “bad actors” in the voting world that worry me.  Homeland Security has a “ready force”, tens of thousands of “agents” to send into polling places. 

 Why would they do that?  Obviously to “protect the integrity” of the voting process.  The question is, who defines what “integrity” means?  Is it the same Federal officials who sent in the FBI to Fulton County (Atlanta), to seize all the ballots from the 2020 election?  Are they still looking for the 11,700 votes to make Donald Trump the winner in 2020?  

The White House is filled with election deniers.  They follow with Biblical precision the litany of the “stolen election”.   Are these the men who will defend the honesty of our election?  Or are they more likely to do whatever is necessary to sway the election to their own ambitions?

The Army won’t likely be called to the polls. But don’t be so surprised if the Department of Homeland Security sends forces into the Democratic cities to “protect” the vote.

Our Solution

This election cannot be close.  If it’s a narrow win, then the election deniers will place their Federal thumb on the scale to take the prize.  “One point” may make the difference in a track meet, but this particular election will require a much more convincing win. It demands overwhelming results.  Results so clear, that any amount of “rebalancing” cannot change the outcome.

While every vote makes a difference, it must be a ground swell of opposition to the current “regime”; against the corruption, the transfer of wealth to the rich, the inordinate cruelty of so many Federal policies.  It must be clear that this Nation reclaims its freedom.   Vote early, vote in person, vote by mail if you must – but you must vote.

A Man

Nine years ago I wrote about “being a man” and the Trump Administration.  I titled the essay, John Wayne Had It.  I grew up with a view of what a man was, and John Wayne, regardless of his personal political views, played that guy in the movies.  Now, almost a decade later, the Trump Administration has embraced a version of manhood that John Wayne would distain. 

Instead of the men “of honor” that stood around Trump in those first years:  folks like Generals Kelly, Mattis and Milley;  his new version of being a “man” is represented by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.  This toxic aberration sees a “man” as a “physical specimen”.  Hegseth’s “man” is measured by the high school locker room standard, testosterone levels, just like his mandatory blood tests require.  In a high school locker room, “manhood” is the guy who needs to shave every day or has the longest penis.  They gain an advantage over others, who are still waiting for testosterone to do its “thing” to them.  

Central Casting

Today, that high school “ranking” has new significance.  Boys become addicted to sculpting their muscles, a new affliction called “bigorexia”.  Social media influencers engage in “looks-maxxing” even establishing a looks scoring scale (two actually, PSL and Looks Maxxing).  Adolescent boys can determine where they fall on the scale, then work to “move up”.  

In my day (a really long time ago), getting ripped meant to get so drunk you passed out, as in “He was so ripped, he fell off the porch and slept in the flower bed.”   In today’s looks-maxxing world, getting ripped is to bulk up muscles, then slash food intake so that the muscles stand out under near-fatless skin.  That raises your PSL score.

That’s adolescent boys, hopefully a phase they  survive and grow out of.  But Hegseth has embraced many of these same “standards” for the US military.  And it’s not just about “washboard abs”.  In his “State of the Force” address, Hegseth, channeled his inner George Patton, and prowled the stage in front of a giant American flag. He preached to the military leadership what his “locker-room” should look like.

“We are no longer the woke department or the weak department. Simple translation of that, no fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals, just warriors, just tough, ready, committed troops. The war department, as you know, is colorblind, gender-neutral, and merit-based. Or as the president likes to say to me, Pete, central casting. I want central casting”.

At Any Price

In short, Hegseth is measuring “his Warriors” on a looks-maxxing scale, just like those adolescent boys.  And his version of “Warrior” is one who follows without question, acts without regard, and never apologizes.  Did Americans kill 120 children by a mistaken (I hope) attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Iran?  Too bad.  Hegseth’s “men” will go to any length to “win”, and if killing children is part of that, so be it. 

The same “win at any price” attitude is reflected in other parts of the Trump Administration.  They enforce extreme immigration standards on children, even demand that a thirteen year old boy decide, on his own without parents or legal counsel, whether to “voluntarily deport or be deported” (CNN).  The kid just broke into tears.  This is Trump’s America: cold, cruel, unfeeling, “looks maxxing” without regard for right or wrong.  The cruelty is the point.  Because, according the White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, being cruel encourages migrants to “self-deport”, and saves the government the trouble.

Cruelty

The cruelty is the point.  Stand up against the cruelty and you could be shot down.  That’s not some apocryphal imagining; forty-two people were shot in immigration enforcement “actions”.  Some were targets, some demonstrators, some were “inadvertent” incidents.  

This is the “manhood” that the Trump Administration worships.  “No beardos, no weirdos”, just cold, calculating, maxxed out machines.  No wonder Trump doesn’t want control of AI.  Like the Hegseth’s model soldiers, AI won’t question orders, and won’t have scruples about completing whatever the task might be.  

John Wayne would have smacked Hegseth right in the mouth. And maybe Trump too.

This is a Sunday story – no politics today.  Just a story about aging – the truck, that is, not us!!

Pick-em-up

For decades I always had two vehicles.  One was a “personal” vehicle, usually a Jeep.  The other was a “transportation” vehicle, one I could use to haul kids to track practices or cross country meets.  There was a long line of those vehicles, starting with a VW Bus, the old “hippie van” back in the 1980’s.  Then there was a 15 Passenger Dodge Van, two Suburban’s, and finally a GMC Yukon.  

But I retired from coaching in 2017.  We kept the Yukon for another couple of years, as Jenn and I tried the “camper” lifestyle.  That Yukon was great for hauling our camper and good for long trips with the dogs (then, two or three).  It went all the way to Florida multiple times, even out to Colorado and New Mexico as well.

But by 2019 Jenn was doing a lot of finding lost dogs.  And while even the five-foot trap would fit in the Yukon, we ended up needing something more substantial to haul all the  equipment required to do the job right.  So we sold the Yukon, and bought ourselves a 2011 Chevy Silverado; a pick-em-up truck.

By 2020 in the middle of the Covid pandemic, we had five dogs.  And while some might try, we knew five dogs in the camper was far more work than fun.  So we sold the camper, and became a two vehicle family, the Jeep and the Chevy.  The Jeep finally “died” in 2026 (for that story, The End of the Jeep) and we bought a Buick Envision, a modern 2018 “grocery-getter” that’s actually fun to drive.  That’s the “fleet” in the driveway right now, the Envision and the Chevy.

Older Folks

The Chevy runs great (knock on wood), even with over 150,000 miles on it.  But it’s fifteen years old. The nemesis of Chevy trucks is rust.  Ours looked pretty good, except for around the back wheel wells. There the rust was eating its way through the side panels.  So this workhorse started looking like an old nag.

We decided we still needed a truck, and went to a local body shop to get an idea how we could fix it up.  The body guy clearly thought they had a “ringer”.  As he went over the truck you could see the dollar signs ringing up in his head.  When he blew through the book value of the whole vehicle ($11,000 at best) he tried to justify it this way:  “You know, some older folks don’t want a new car.  They are comfortable with what they have, and spend the money to fix it up.”  Clearly, in his eyes, we were those “older folks”.  With that, us “old folks” will not be going back to his shop for any work, ever.

So “J and M” “old body” repairs (Jenn and Marty) went to work.

Face Lift

For around $500 we could make the truck look a lot better.  It wouldn’t stop the aging process, but it could make the truck respectable, back to the strong workhorse vehicle it is.  And, just because the animal analogy is there, the repairs are so much better than just “lipstick on a pig”.  

The first step was to get the old running boards off, and install brand new ones.  Actually, the driver’s side board was already off, crashing down with me standing on it at a Lancaster gas station.  But that turned out to be a pretty easy job, stripping the old equipment, some rusted solid, then replacing it with brand new.  

Then there was the real issue – the rust.  With wire brushes, sand paper, and even tin snips, we were able to clear all the rusted “debris” from around the wheel wells.  The goal:  get down to bare metal, that wasn’t “diseased”.  Then there was coatings of “rust preventing” paint.  The advertising says the coating would “chemically alter” the rust, and make the metal “immune” to further deterioration.  Hopefully, better than “lipstick on a pig”.  

Sporty

And finally, we installed what are called “fender flares”.  They’re plastic add-ons that go around the wheel well.  It makes the truck look “sporty”, but in our case, it covered the fact that the top of the wheel well was gone.  We had to get creative in attaching the flare – normally it would screw into part of the side panel, but that structure was already gone to rust.  So we used “fancy bolts” through the wheel well to fix it to the side.  

So our pickup got a face lift (or more like a tummy tuck).  With fancy flares and new running boards, we hope we can gain a couple more years of use without driving a “junker”.  The rust will surely return, but we hope not too soon.  

‘Cause you know, those “old folks” can spend enough money to buy a new/old truck.  

But we don’t want to.

The Sunday Story Series

2021

• Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21
• Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21
• A Track Story – 2/7/21
• Ritual – 2/14/21
• Voyageur – 2/19/21
• A Dog Story – 2/25/21
• A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21
• Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21
• Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21
• More Lessons from the State – 4/4/21
• Stories from the Road – 4/11/21
• A Bear Wants You – 5/1/21
• My Teachers – 5/9/21
• Old Friends  – 5/23/21
• The Gift – 6/6/21
• Echoes of Mom – 6/20/21
• Stories of the Fourth – 7/3/21
• Running Memories – 7/25/21
• Lost Dog of Eldora – 8/1/21
• Dogs and Medals – 8/8/21
• The New Guy – 9/5/21
• Stories of 9-11 – 9/12/21
• The Interview – 9/26/21
• Night Moves – 10/3/21
• Funeral for a Friend – 10/11/21
• National Security – 10/24/21
• Boots on the Trail – 10/31/21
• Taking Care of Mom and Dad – 11/14./21
• Dogs Found and Lost – 11/21/21
• Watching Brian 12/12/21
• Stories from Shiloh – 12/19/21
• Team Trips – 12/26/21

2022

• Uphill, Both Ways  – 1/9/22
• Old Trophies – 1/30/22
• The Last Time – 2/7/22
• Olympic Miracles – 2/13/22
• Mind Numbing – 2/20/22
• Track Weather – 4/3/22
• What’s Missing – 4/11/22
• A Scouting Story – 4/17/22
• Waterproof Paper – 5/8/22
• Origin Stories – 5/22/22
• Origin Stories – Part Two 5/29/22
• Back at State – 6/5/22
• Out in the Country – 6/19/22
• Pataskala Downs – 7/4/22
• Car Stories I – 7/24/22
• Car Stories II  – 7/31/22
• Old Man Experience – 8/7/22
• Cross Country Camp – 8/14/22
• New to the Pack – 8/21/22
• Car Stories III – The Bus – 8/28/22
• A Day in the Life – 9/4/22
• Stupid Human Tricks – 9/18/22

2023

• Fair or Foul – 2/26/23
• Immigrant Story – 3/12/23
• Busy Season – 5/15/23
• Of Jeeps and Bucks – 5/28/23
• A Pole Vault Story  -6/11/23
• End of an Era – 6/25/23
• Paybacks – 7/2/23
• Graying in Pataskala – 7/17/23
• Being a Goat – 7/23/23
• Toy Truck – 8/20/23
• Medical Terms – 8/27/23
• Missing Margaritaville – 9/3/23
• The McGowan – 9/10/23
• Who’s Watching – 10/22/23
• The Saturday Before – 10/29/23
• A Tale of Turkey, and Dogs – 11/26/23
• Bruno’s Story – 12/3/23
• Out in the Country – 12/10/23
• Christmas Eve – 12/24/23

2024

• Rube Goldberg – 1/12/24
• Our Pataskala Kroger’s – 2/5/24
• A Sad, Sad, Dog – 2/11/24
• Singing in the Tornado – 3/3/24
• Your Safe Spot – 3/17/24
• Easter Dawn – 3/31/24
• Swarms – 4/14/24
• Lowest Common Denominator – 4/28/24
• Seniors – 5/12/24
• Season’s Over – 6/22/24
• Camp Morning – 6/30/24
• Jeeping – 7/7/24
• How Mondo Won the Gold and Started a Dog Fight (almost) – 8/6/24
• Fifty Years of the McGowan – 9/8/24
• A Walk in the Woods – 10/22/24
• Smokin – 12/6/24
• Coal for Christmas 12/16/24
• Provenance – 12/22/24

2025

• Lost and Found – 2/22/25
• Catching Cars – 3/2/25
• PV Mentor – 3/31/25
• Dogs, Jeeps, Fireworks and Beer Coolers 7/6/25
• It’s About Time – 7/27-25
• Gas War – 11/30/25

2026

• The End of My Nose – 1/18/26
• The End of the Jeep – 1/25/26
• Fat Chipmunk – 2/15/26
• A Flash of Unity – 2/23/26
• Lessons Learned – 4/12/26
• Blue Sky Rain – 5/10/26
• A Union Dog House – 8/2/26
• Thinking Outside the Can – 8/9/26
• Selling an Era – 9/6/26
• Fixer-Upper – 10/4/26

Mr. Parker

I was a horrible tenth grade geometry student.  The subject combined two of my least favorite subjects:  art (shapes and drawings) and math (numbers, numbers, numbers, or worse, letters, letters, letters).   And then there was Mr. Parker, Wyoming High School boys basketball coach and my geometry teacher.  I was a new student at Wyoming that year, trying to find my way “in” the school society.  And I was a wrestler and a track guy, not a basketball player.  When I got cut from the fifth grade team, the coaches were right!!  

So it was math, with drawings, taught by a basketball coach.  And, truth be known, he was a basketball coach with an addiction to chalk.  It wasn’t that he used it too much; he ate it. He would lick his fingers, then run them through the dusty chalk tray, then lick the chalk off (really!!).  So there was that distraction.   (Now a retired teacher and coach, I recognize that there are all sorts of things kids pick up that we don’t notice!!) 

I think I got Wyoming’s version of the “gentlemen’s ‘C’”.  I did enough work to pass the course, but really didn’t get it.  As my college Spanish professor would later say, “I will give you a ‘B’ if you promise to never take Spanish again”.  I raised my hand in a sacred oath. But in Geometry I did learn a couple of things, including about axioms and postulates. 

The Rules

Axioms are self-evident truths (I remember that because of the Declaration of Independence, my specialty).

• Things which are equal to the same thing are also equal to one another
• If equals be added to equals, the wholes are equal.
• If equals be subtracted from equals, the remainders are equal.
• Things which coincide with one another are equal to one another.
• The whole is greater than the part.

Postulates could be “derived” from the axioms.  Here are some examples:

• To draw a straight line from any point to any point.
• To produce a finite straight line continuously in a straight line.
• To describe a circle with any center and distance.
• That all right angles are equal to one another.
• That if a straight line falling on two straight lines makes the interior angles on the same side less than two right angles, the straight lines, if produced indefinitely, will meet on that side on which the angles are less than two right angles. (SFU).

Axiomatic

OK, now that I’ve given all the “math-block kids” among us renewed nightmares, let me get to the point.  I recently heard a debate about the future of Artificial Intelligence.  One of the debaters took an “axiomatic” view of AI.  To paraphrase:  we will see in five years that AI is “good” for society, but we will need to live through the turmoil, wide-spread unemployment for example, that will occur in the meantime.  To him, AI was a done deal, beyond control, and humanity needs to “ride-out” the storm to reach the benefits on the other side.  

Several other participants in the conversation agreed, seeing AI’s expansion as an “axiom”.  AI is happening, it’s too late to stop it, and no one can control it, perhaps, including the billionaires who are building AI in the first place.  In Islam, there is a term, Inshallah:  only Allah controls the future.  In this case it’s Insh-AI, an AI inevitability that cannot be controlled.

Derivative

But another commentator took exception to this axiomatic approach.  He argued that there is no guarantee of five years to “AI Paradise”. And while he didn’t suggest an “AI Armageddon” either, what he did say is that the economic dislocation, unemployment, and upheaval of an “AI Revolution” has no guarantee of good outcomes for humanity.  He spoke up for rigorous regulation by government, in spite of the supposed “good faith” promises of the billionaires who will grow even richer from an AI boom whatever else happens to the nation and world. 

This commentator also asserted a controversial “fact”.  He said that the younger generation, particularly adolescents, don’t like AI.  Perhaps they realize that the entry level of many of the professions they aspire to, could soon be filled by Claude, or Gemini, or Chat GPT.  Regardless of the veracity of that “fact”, the reality is this.  If AI fills the lowest level positions, how will future employees get the experience to become the “middle managers” and more in the future?

I take a similar view.  None of us can really foresee the future.  But we can reasonably expect that there will be economic dislocations (real life unemployment) due to Artificial Intelligence.  It’s already occurring.  And the idea that the “founders” of Artificial Intelligence, the ones who have the most vested financial interest in these programs, should be put “in charge” makes no sense.  Self-regulation by those who have the most to lose by restriction makes the control “equation” completely unbalanced, regardless of what Mark Zuckerberg says. He is the best example: how well did self-control work with social media?

Fly the Plane

The United States Government regulates air travel.  That seems logical:  air travel is inherently dangerous.  It’s not like pulling the car over with a flat tire; if a plane fails, it falls from the sky.  It’s reasonable that the government should take control of both quality and traffic control.  

And the obvious example is Boeing, one of the largest manufacturers in the world.  Like Meta, Anthropic and Open AI, Boeing had the most to lose by an “out of control” product.  Boeing makes billions of dollars in profit, all predicated on their airplanes being safe.  And they marketed the Boeing 737 Max 8 as the newest, “best-est”, safest, passenger aircraft.  

Except for one “little” glitch.  Somewhere buried in the computer program that balanced the aircraft in flight was a flaw.  It was designed to keep the plane from stalling and falling from the sky.  If a sensor detected a possible stall, the program forced the nose of the plane down to increase speed and keep it flying.  But, the sensor failed.  And the computer did exactly what it was supposed to do:  it pushed the plane into a dive, one that pilots were unable to correct manually. 

Three hundred and forty six people were killed in two different crashes.  Boeing ultimately found the sensor issue, and adjusted the computer program.  But they didn’t do it “on the fly”. In fact, the 737 Max 8 fleet was grounded for over a year and a half, by the government.

The Public Interest

Today, we hear folks say that Congress can’t regulate Artificial Intelligence.  It’s noted that many Congressmen don’t even know how to operate  simple computer functions, like checking Google or using email.  So how could they regulate Artificial Intelligence, especially as the field is advancing so quickly? 

The vast majority of Congress (Senator Mark Kelly excluded) can’t fly complicated aircraft.  But they still manage to regulate air travel.  In the same sense, Congress doesn’t have to be able to program Artificial Intelligence.  It doesn’t stop them from getting experts, not tainted by the future profitability of the field, and empowering them to write regulations. 

We can’t just hope that AI will be “good”.  The first axiom should be:  protect ourselves. 

Senate Judiciary

The Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate is a long-hallowed institution.  Every Justice of the Supreme Court, every Federal judge, passes through this committee.  If changes are made to the number of Supreme Court Justices, it will begin there.  The Judiciary Committee dates back to 1816.  Famous Chairman include Martin Van Buren, John Crittenden, Lyman Trumbull, Patrick McCarran,  James Eastland, Strom Thurmond, Orrin Hatch,  Ted Kennedy, Patrick Leahy, Arlen Specter, Dick Durbin and Lindsey Graham. 

But yesterday, the Judiciary Committee abandoned its dignity.  The current Republican nonagenarian Chairman, Chuck Grassley, dragged the committee into another “viral moment” in the service of Donald Trump.  

Grassley called former Special Prosecutor Jack Smith to the witness stand, and tried to batter him with questions.  The intent was clear:  to push one of the brightest legal minds in the United States into committing perjury, so that a spectacle of a man who dared to charge Donald Trump with crimes standing trial himself could occur.  

Smith’s Dilemma

Smith’s problem was pretty apparent. He was intently aware of the “goal” of the Republican majority.  He knew that every question could be a “perjury trap”, and that even an inadvertent statement could be duct-taped into charges that the Trump Justice Department would quickly prosecute.  But he came to the Committee anyway, without subpoena, to tell his truth.  He is certain that his team had proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the then-past, now-present President of the United States committed felonies both in inciting insurrection and keeping classified materials.

One after another, the Republicans tried to trip Smith up.  Grassley tried to connect Smith to former Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan (another bête noire of MAGA world).  But Smith answered the question definitely:  “I’ve never met John Brennan”.  Grassley was slow to pick up the response, and  got half-way into his next question about the Smith-Brennan relationship before he realized that the answer was no.

That didn’t stop the old Chairman from excoriating Smith for his “partisan prosecutions”.  

The Play

But the ultimate “gotcha” was left to the Senator from Missouri, Eric Schmitt.  He had been preparing it for days.  The “catch” was so good, he had his staff float a rumor about a potential Vice Presidential candidacy with JD Vance in 2028.  An array of interviews were scheduled on Right-wing media after the hearing to celebrate the question that would “put Jack Smith behind bars”. 

After all, it couldn’t be a coincidence.  Schmitt’s staff discovered that Jack Smith was at a “Hawks” basketball game on February 3, 2024.  It was the day after Atlanta Prosecutor Fanni Willis confessed that she was having an affair with her lead Assistant Prosecutor.  Willis, another lawyer on the MAGA hit list, charged Trump with state felonies in the “find me 11,780 votes” phone call.  In fact, Willis not only charged Trump, but required him to submit to a Police booking.  That mugshot now adorns the Department of Justice in Washington today, in a huge banner reminiscent of Mao’s Communist China.

They had the seat location that Smith reserved by row and letter.  In fact, they had the texts among his US Marshal security team identifying that he was at the game.  It wasn’t much of a reach to believe that Smith flew down to Atlanta to “huddle” with the Willis team, and try to get them through their crisis, and caught the game as a cover.

The Shot

So Schmitt confidently asked Jack Smith if he was in Atlanta on February 3^rd, 2024.  And when Smith hesitated, confused by the question, the Senator bored in, with detail about the game between the Atlanta Hawks and the Golden State Warriors. Smith said he never went to an Atlanta Hawks game, or even to Atlanta (though he might have passed through the airport). Schmitt moved in for the “kill”.  “Here are the text messages from your staff”, and a giant poster, with texts bubbles and pictures of Fanni Willis and her lover was quickly flashed behind the dais.

Smith stopped, asking to see the poster again.  But the Senator, convinced he had his convictable moment, wanted to move on.  He claimed that Jack Smith committed perjury, and was a “dirtbag”.  He thought that his “gotcha” mission was accomplished.

Upon Further Review

But the Democratic Senator from Minnesota, Amy Klobuchar, wanted to see the texts again.  Nowhere in the “bubbles” was Atlanta mentioned.  And Jack Smith did remember going to a basketball game around that time.  It was an NCAA game between Maryland and Iowa women.  Kaitlin Clark, the phenom of the Iowa team was playing that day (she scored 30 points).  And even better, Klobuchar explained Schmitt’s confusion:  it was the Maryland Terrapins versus the Iowa Hawk-eyes, not the Atlanta Hawks.  

Schmitt’s sure “shot” at perjury came down to a “brick” on the hoop.  He (or his staff) was so excited about tying Smith to Willis, that they confused the Hawks with the Hawkeyes.  A later video showed Jack Smith at courtside at Maryland’s College Park campus (a block away from the District of Columbia, Washington DC).  

Bricked

All of the venal rhetoric against Smith fell away.  All of the great quotes about a Democratic Partisan Prosecution were swept from the floor.  What was left was Senator Eric Schmitt, making a fool of himself trying to tie real tweets to fake actions.  That’s what the world will remember from Chuck Grassley’s attempt to nail Jack Smith.

And as far as Eric Schmitt’s future Vice Presidential aspirations are concerned – they’re as solid as his evidence on Jack Smith.  I guess we won’t have him to kick around in 2028.

Negative Ads

There are some essays that might be better left unwritten.  This might be one of them, but here goes.  If you live in Ohio, you’re likely to be familiar with the battle between appointed Republican Senator John Husted and former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown.  In fact, you’d have to be near dead not to know about it.  Republicans are spending over $100 million on ads, and Democrats are countering with about $60 million of their own.  

At this point in the election season, it’s “negative ad time”.  Brown is running ads talking about the First Energy scandal, where a power company put $60 million in the hands of the Ohio Republican Party in return for billions of dollars of state aid.  Husted was right in the middle of that, First Energy’s “Golden Boy”, as they called him.  Brown is going to remind Ohioans of Husted’s role in the scandal over and over again.  

And Husted is falling back on the “transgender” issue.  Two years ago, when Brown was defending his seat against now-Senator Bernie Moreno,  Brown’s supposed stand on the specter of “men in women’s sports” is credited for taking him down.   The fact that Trump was on the ballot in that Presidential year is discounted.  Brown lost to Moreno by 3.6%, in a state where Trump beat Harris by 11.21%.   But Republicans aren’t giving up on “talking dirty”.  

Soren’s Story

So there’s this advertisement running now, showing a young woman, Soren, who has a tragic tale.  She was troubled from the time she was eleven, and at seventeen was diagnosed with gender dysphoria.  In short, she thought she wanted to be a boy.  So she began to take female hormone blockers and male hormones, all under medical supervision.  Two years later, as an adult, she had surgery, a double mastectomy.  After the operation there were long-term complications, and during that recovery he determined to “de-transition” back to a girl.

Now all of this happened in Texas.  Soren has no connection to Sherrod Brown, or Ohio.  Soren had drug therapy at seventeen, but no surgeries were performed until she was nineteen, her second year of legal adulthood.  So Soren, a legal adult in Texas, determined to have a mastectomy.  Now Soren, a twenty-three year old, still in Texas, regrets that decision.

The Law

Here in Ohio (and in Texas), it’s illegal to perform gender-affirming surgery on minors.  But that didn’t happen to Soren anyway.  So why are we seeing pictures of her, as a cute, smiling eight-year old in the ad? Or a young looking person with “Harry Potter glasses” and a bandaged chest in bed?  Even more, why are we seeing this ad in Ohio? (Oddly, Republicans aren’t using the ad in Texas where Democrat James Talerico is running a strong race against Ken Paxton for US Senate.)

In a 2023 interview, Sherrod Brown said he felt it was best for the parents, the child and the medical team to make determinations about gender-dysphoria treatments, rather than government.  It seemed like a reasonable decision. That’s all it took for Republicans to “hook” Soren’s sad story to the Ohio candidate.

Soren’s tells her story, ending in the line, “I was just a kid.”  But, of course, she wasn’t a kid, she was an adult, in Texas. Republicans infer that somehow Sherrod Brown is in favor of gender-affirming surgery on children, something that doesn’t happen here in Ohio, and Sherrod hasn’t supported. 

Playing Us Stupid

Republicans (paid by the Republican Senate Leadership Fund) want to distract from sky-rocketing gas prices, and Husted’s very real involvement in the First Energy scandal.  They want Ohioans to go out and vote to save children from “forced” mastectomies, hysterectomies, and castrations.  But there are no forced surgeries, and those elective surgeries aren’t legal here in Ohio today.  And, by the way, they’re not legal in Texas either.

A young adult made a decision, one that she regrets now four years later.  I’m sorry for her.  Looking with the benefit of hindsight, she can claim that she was given bad advice from her doctors and her parents.  But she was wholly responsible as a legal adult in Texas (and would have been in Ohio). 

To be blunt:  she’s not Ohio’s problem, and former (and hopefully future) Senator Sherrod Brown has nothing to do with her, her decisions, or the laws that controlled them.  She did this to herself.  And she did it in Texas.

Most Ohioans know when they’re being “played”.  And the Republican Senate Leadership Fund is playing us for stupid. 

That’s just one more reason to vote for Sherrod, and against the “Golden Boy”. 

10 Millionths of a Percent

No matter what you hear on social media, or on grainy black and white commercials on TV, or on your favorite podcast; Democrats want US citizens to vote, and non-citizens not to vote.  That, quite literally, is still the American way.  And if you think that’s “doubtful”, go to that conservative bastion of thought, the authors of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation.  They studied illegal voting for years.  The bottom line:  it does happen, but it’s so rare, that it doesn’t impact the outcomes.  How rare?  Here’s what I wrote in an earlier essay (Your Vote):

In data for every state going back forty-four years, there is a total of 1,382 criminal convictions for voter fraud.  That’s an average of 31.4 a year (Heritage).  Just counting Presidential elections over that time, over 1.4 Billion votes were cast. The number of illegal votes is vanishingly small (about one 10 millionth of a percent).  

And keep in mind that twenty-seven of the fifty states have Republican State Attorney Generals.  They have every opportunity to “fix” the problem, the one that doesn’t really exist.  So the argument that our elections are being determined by illegal, non-citizen aliens that were allowed over the border by Democratic machinations is, quite simply, not true.  

Sooth Their Fears

The next point that some Republicans make, is that there’s a “public perception” of cheating, so we need to fix the process to assuage their fears.  But that perception is only among the Republican supporters who have spent now more than a decade, listening to Donald Trump.  The President has been crying “sore loser” since 2015 when he came down the Golden Elevator in Trump Tower.  For the thirty-some percent of his followers who will wear the Red Hat to the end; they are unassuageable.  For others, they believe the lies presented by some Republicans.  

In short, Republicans created a perception that there is a problem, crying from the rooftops about an issue that doesn’t really exist, then presented all sorts of ways to fix it.  It’s like the person who sets up a “Go Fund Me” for cancer treatments, but doesn’t have cancer.

At What Price?

But, some say, what’s the “harm” in making elections more secure?  

After all, doesn’t everyone need a state ID.  You can’t cash a check, or buy cigarettes or beer, or get into a night club without one. And, doesn’t everyone have a driver’s license anyway? Here’s a surprising statistic:  10% of Ohioans of driving age do not have a driver’s license (FHWA).  Who doesn’t have a license, or doesn’t cash checks, or go to bars, or the other things?  A lot more folks than you think.  

You have to access a load of documents demonstrating your identity, your citizenship (usually by birth), your address, your job, and your social security status (Ohio).  For folks who don’t have all the paperwork, or don’t have a job, or a permanent residence; they can’t access a State ID.  In Ohio that means you can’t exercise your right to vote.

What the “paperwork” laws really do is narrow who has the right to vote.  When the Founding Fathers were writing the Constitution, most states restricted voting to US  and state citizens who were white men, at least the age of twenty-one and owned property.  It’s taken two-hundred and forty years to reach our current requirements:  a person eighteen or older who is a US citizen and a resident of the state.  

Burden of Proof

Now Republicans are demanding  a “reinstatement” of restrictions, based on employment, income, and access to paperwork.  Here in Ohio, we have the most restrictive voting laws in the Nation.  Back “in the day”, when I proudly registered to vote in Cincinnati, I filled out a form and sent it in.  My signature was my “bond”, and the single way that the polling placed checked my identity.   Today, laws “protecting the vote” are really squeezing the doors shut on legal Americans who want to vote, should vote, and have the right to vote.  

So where should the “burden of proof” be?  For most areas of our legal system,  there is a presumption of innocence, of truth; one that is only overturned by clear evidence of falsification.  When I signed my voter application, I acknowledged the truth of my application.  If there was suspicion that I lied, it was up to the Board of Elections to do the (easy) investigation to prove my crime – a felony in Ohio.

Republicans are shifting the “burden of proof” onto the voters.  The assumption is that our citizens will lie, cheat, and try to vote illegally.  That’s not how our system is supposed to work.  But it is does work, at least for one side of our political equation.

Access

It used to be that you could walk to your polling place.  Where I grew up, voting was at the elementary school, just down the street.  Here in Pataskala, the “village” voted in the old Fire Hall at the center of town.

But “modernization” has placed multiple precincts in a single place, not necessarily close or convenient to the voter.  Sure it’s about “economy of scale”.  There’s computers and scanners.  It’s not just dropping a paper ballot into a box anymore.  But access is now limited to those who can get transportation. It requires time; to get there, and time to wait in line.  

And so many folks who can’t get off work during voting hours, vote by mail.  But we all know what’s happened to that process.  Even if all of the President’s plans to disrupt mail-in balloting fail, my beloved Post Office has already fallen.  Just in the past month, multiple letters that should have arrived in a couple of days took weeks.  How can we depend on them to deliver Absentee Ballots in a timely manner?

Voting has become a “luxury” activity.  It requires time:  to gather the paperwork, register, to vote early, or get an absentee ballot, or to line up to vote.  And time is a luxury that many Americans don’t have, with two or more jobs, kids, and life. Not surprisingly, the folks squeezed out are the ones most likely to vote for change.  Here in Ohio, that means those lost votes are mostly Democrats.  

And Republican think that’s just fine.

At the State House

2010 – sixteen years ago.  That was the last time Democrats controlled one side of the State Legislature, or the Governorship here in Ohio.  In fact, for the past fourteen years, Republicans have held a “veto-proof” majority in the Legislature.  

So it’s always kind of a “hoot” when you hear Republicans blame Democrats for what’s wrong here.  After all, the GOP controls all the levers of power in the state, without check or balance.  Democrats at the State House are down to deciding which “crazy-right” faction of the Republican Party they would support, in a kind of, “they’re bad, but the other guys are nuts,” choice.

Here in my little town, Pataskala, our school district went from financial stability to “instant” crisis.  It wasn’t because they did anything wrong.  The State Legislature has cut funding to schools for the past decade, dropping from 45% of the costs to 37%.  Many schools, including ours, made up for the difference by going to the people and passing property tax levies for operating costs.  

But that wasn’t enough cutting for the folks at the State House.  They mandated a property tax “rollback”.  So now the school is pleading to the voters again, asking for an income tax this time, to make up for the more than 10% deficit the state legislature created.  Meanwhile, the taxpayers of Ohio are paying almost $1 billion to send kids to private schools, including religious schools, with vouchers.  That’s 8% of Ohio’s state education money, public money going to private schools, in what euphemistically is called “school choice”. Do the math.

Bread and Butter

There’s a famous quote,  inaccurately attributed to Mark Twain; “No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.”  Ohio’s “experiment” with one-party rule is a great example of that.

But it’s election season, thirty-eight days until the vote is finalized.  And Republicans are faced with a rare crisis of their own.  While incessant gerrymandering will still guarantee a Republican majority in the legislature; the statewide offices, particularly for Governor and the US Senate are up for grabs.  In the most recent polling both Democrat Amy Acton (Governor) and Sherrod Brown (Senate) hold 3% leads over their Republican opponents (although within the polling margin of error). 

The biggest campaign issue isn’t the war in Iran, or even the “horrifying specter” of transgendered girls competing in women’s sports.  Ohio is literally a “bread and butter” state, and both are costing a whole lot more than they did just two years ago.  A lot of that’s because both bread and butter, and almost every other commodity, is arriving at the retail store on a truck.  That truck runs on diesel fuel, that used to cost $3.50/gallon, way back in January.  Today, down at the I-70 interchange, it’s now doubled to $7.04.

Gas isn’t much better. After New Year’s it was $2.53/gallon, today it’s right around $4.50.  Ohioans aren’t dumb.  They know that the costs of oil are driven by events in the Middle East, most of which were caused by President Trump’s  “war of choice” with Iran.  But knowing that doesn’t make them feel any better, as they hear that giant sucking sound in their wallets, filling the tank one more time.

Back in Session

And state Republicans are afraid the voters are going to take those “negative feelings” out on them.

Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton made a suggestion last week.  Ohio charges a $0.38/gallon tax on gas, and $0.47/gallon on diesel.  She called for a suspension of the tax for ninety days, allowing Ohioans a little financial breathing room.  The Republican candidate for Governor, Vivek Ramaswamy, thought that was such a great idea, that he called for the state legislature to come back into session and pass it.

Now Vivek doesn’t hold an office in Ohio; he never has.  His qualifications are that he is a self-made billionaire, who grew up in Cincinnati, and ran for President in 2024, for a minute.  Ohio still has a Republican Governor, Mike DeWine, who expressed grave doubts about the tax suspension.  But Republicans need something to turn this election around, both for Vivek and for John Husted, running against Sherrod Brown.  So the Republican Speaker of the House, Matt Huffman is all-in on Ramaswamy’s suggestion (not, of course, Acton’s). 

Sugar High

Don’t be surprised if the Legislature meets in emergency session, and suspends the tax for ninety days.  And don’t be surprised if Mike DeWine gets “over” his doubts, and signs onto the legislation.  The few Democrats in the legislature aren’t fools, they’ll join in too.

The question is:  will the “sugar high” of gas going down to “just” $4.00/gallon be enough to change voter opinions?    

Like I said before, I don’t think Ohio voters are stupid.  They’ll see this for what it is – a short-term solution to a much greater long-term problem.  They’ll take the money, but I don’t think it will buy their votes.  Ohioans might even do something they haven’t done in over a decade. They might, “throw the bums out,” and let the Democrats have a try at making things better.  

It’s hard to see how they could do worse.

The Federalist Judge

I was listening to Judge Michael Luttig the other day.  If you don’t know, Judge Luttig was a “shining star” of the Federalist Society, retired from the Federal Appellate Court.  He was (and to many, still is) the conservative alternative to “liberal” folks like Harvard Professor Lawrence Tribe.  Judge Luttig speaks slower than he did “back in the day”, a stroke took its toll.  But his mind is still sharp.  

He looks at our current government as the antithesis of what “conservative” government is all about.  When he talks about the Constitution, it has little to do with our current runaway executive, granted a full “get out of jail free card” from the United States Supreme Court.  Luttig believes in Madisonian checks and balances, and sees most of his former Federalist Society colleagues jettisoning history in order to gain and maintain power.  It clearly saddens him, a life work betrayed not by his adversaries, but by his allies.

What made me sad was that the Judge could see no way “back” to the Constitutional government we once depended upon.  Even if Democrats regain some power in November,  even if Trump is finally done in 2028; Judge Luttig sees our nation as altered.  What will come out of this will be different, our past system beyond repair.

I don’t pretend to speak for Judge Luttig.  But I do think I have an idea about what he means.

Conflicted Men  

The Founding Fathers were conflicted men.  We know this:  they wrote of “liberty”, of “all men are created equal”, while enslaving humans.  And they had differing ideas of what the government should look like.  These same men who fought the Revolution, fought just as hard for their own ideas of what the American experiment should be.  

As a history teacher, I taught about that chamber in Philadelphia in 1787, hot in the August sun, the windows nailed shut for privacy, where the Founders crafted the Constitution.  I tried to give my students a sense of what political men of strong feelings did; crafting compromises between small and large states, northern and southern states, those who wanted a strong executive and those who feared it.

But I didn’t usually mention the men who weren’t there.  For example, Virginia elected Patrick Henry (of “give me liberty, or give me death” fame) as a delegate, but he refused to go.  The goal of the convention, to create a stronger Federal government to resolve the problems of the current confederation of states, was an anathema to him.  He fought the Constitution from outside the room, debating against ratification in Virginia.  It was Henry’s opposition, in part, that required Madison to author the Bill of Rights, outlining specifically the rights of individuals in this new Constitutional structure.

A Greater Goal

Henry remained opposed to the Constitution.  By 1799, a dozen years after the ratification,  both Virginia and Kentucky wrote Resolutions raising the state above Federal authority.  It threatened the very structure of the Nation.  Henry’s former President and fellow Virginian, George Washington, persuaded him to work from within the new system.   

If I have erroneously supposed that your sentiments on these subjects are in unison with mine; or if I have assumed a liberty which the occasion does not warrant, I must conclude as I began, with praying that my motives may be received as an apology; and that my fear, that the tranquillity of the Union, and of this State in particular, is hastening to an awful crisis, have extorted them from me. With great, and very sincere regard and respect, I am—Dear Sir Your Most Obedt & Very Hble Servt.

Go:  Washington

Henry changed his view.  He once again gained a seat in the House of Burgesses, this time to defend the Constitution.  He gave a pivotal speech against the anti-Constitutional Resolution, in spite of the cancer that was already ravaging his body. 

It was near the end of both of their lives.  Henry (63) died before he could officially take his seat.  Washington (67) died at the end of the year.  But some of their last acts were to defend the Constitution.  They were two men, two old friends; who overcame differences to protect the Nation.

Failed Norms

The Founding Fathers, as flawed as they might be, created a Nation.  Much of their work was done in what we would now call a “political” way, “wheeling and dealing”.  A handshake, the word of an opponent, was enough to “seal the deal”.  Much of the founding structure of the United States was, literally, a gentlemen’s agreement.

Can you imagine that happening today?

Judge Luttig knows that “the old way” was based on precedent, what we call “norms”.  That the actions of men like Washington or Lincoln or Patrick Henry established the pattern of our government, not necessarily by rule, but by tradition.  But the traditions, the “norms”, no longer matter.  The new standard is that our leaders do whatever they can get away with, and perhaps even beyond that.  It there’s not a law against it, do it.  If there is a law against it, break it.

The fact that President Biden allowed the Justice Department to investigate and even bring charges against his own son, seems a little quaint in today’s environment, only three years later.

There are no more gentleman’s agreements.   

Black Letter Law

Luttig is an older man, five years older than Washington at his death.  He knows that even if our Nation begins to undo the damage done, it is a generational task, far beyond his lifespan.  There is an obvious sadness in him, the knowledge that what he thought was inviolable, indestructible, he will not see again.  All he can do is stop the bleeding, and begin the healing of America.  He can foresee what must be done, even beyond his own remaining years. 

I can’t speak for Judge Luttig.  But as an older man (two years younger than Luttig, three years older than Washington at his death), I look to our future.  I can prescribe what must come next, to avoid the growing shadow of an authoritarian America, even if I might not live to see it.  Gentleman’s rules can no longer apply.  Norms can no longer be depended on.

We need the “cold steel” of black letter law.  And we need to begin in January, or we may never begin at all.

School funding in Ohio is brutal. For decades, the state government has put less and less into public schools (but more and more into private schools!!!) So local communities struggle to finance good public education. Here’s what’s happening in our local schools in the Pataskala area.

Bond Issue

First, let’s get one thing straight.  There are two separate issues on the November ballot for the Southwest Licking Schools (SWL).  One is 2.87 mill bond levy, to build an additional school for the exploding number of students in the District.  It’s really a “no-brainer”.  We all know what’s happening in our communities (there are seven different political sub-divisions in the SWL).  Housing developments are growing faster than corn and soybeans, and in the same fields.  Those kids are going to school in the SWL, and in spite of all the building that’s already been done, there’s more to do.  

We all know that our property values have gone up.  And while we complain about property taxes, we also know that keeping our values up is good for us, and our community.  Having enough school facilities to support the number of kids makes sense.  We may not like it, but we need to do what’s right, and meet the need.  For a $300,000 house (tax value, not sale value) it’s a $300 annual tax increase, $25 a month; about what a pizza costs from one of the many shops in our District.

That’s the simple one.

Earned Income Tax

What’s not simple is the second issue, a 2% “earned income” tax.  First of all, we are currently paying a .75% tax on allincome here in Southwest Licking.  The current tax includes pensions, and other forms of retirement incomes.  The new tax would withdraw the .75% tax, and replace it with a 2% tax on earned income, mostly W-2 income.  

If you’re retired and living on a pension, you likely will not pay any school income tax if this issue passes.  For those who worry about living on a fixed income – here’s the “fix” for you.

For everyone else, it’s a tax increase.  And it’s a tax increase from a school district that just a year ago said they were “set” for the rest of this decade.  So what happened?

State Cut

The State of Ohio cut how much schools can collect in property taxes.  Much of what the SWL now collects is bond levies, passed for all of the new construction required by our expanding communities. Those can’t change.  So the big “cut” to SWL was in property tax money generated to operate the schools.  

The state mandated cut mean that there will be a reduction in property tax payments. But it also puts the SWL District in an immediate financial crisis.  What was a solid “set” District, suddenly becomes “at financial risk”.  That’s not because of anything the local district did, but because of the State’s action.

Is an income tax better than a property tax?  Well, it’s on “real income”, not “anticipated income” that’s only becomes real when you sell or borrow on your property.  When you have a good income year, you pay more.  When you have a bad year, you pay less.  And this income tax directly taxes every resident in Southwest Licking, home owners and renters alike.

Who gets a break?  Well I do, and so do many other older people in the District, living on their retirement incomes.  Those incomes wouldn’t be taxed, at all.  The .75% tax that we pay on our pensions and retirements now would no longer apply, and the 2% doesn’t either.  But we will still pay property taxes.

Failure  – a Bad Option

What’s the immediate impact?  If the income tax doesn’t pass, the school district goes into an immediate financial crisis.  It’s just like the “bad old days” when schools couldn’t pass operating levies.  All the good stuff that the schools do, from extra-curriculars to busing to classes outside the “core curriculum” are on the chopping block.  It only gets uglier.  The community already committed to provide the money through property taxes, but the state cut that.  So now the community needs to re-up and support the schools we want to have through the income tax.

If the bond issue doesn’t pass, then the schools just start packing kids in schools again.  The District would probably have to cut all-day kindergarten (to serve more kids), and long-term “modular” classrooms and even split sessions would be likely.  

Our national and even state political environments are divisive and concerning.  The one place where folks of differing political views can come together is to support our local communities, and our local schools.  I urge everyone to vote for both the income tax and the bond issue.  We need good schools to keep our communities strong, to maintain our property values, and, most of all, to take care of the next generation.  

Marty Dahlman, Pataskala

The Constitution of the United States

• All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. (Art 1, § 1)
• The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. (Art 2, § 1)
• “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” (Art. 2, § 1)
• Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. (First Amendment)

Logic

It’s a logical sequence built into the Constitution of the United States.   Right up front, the Congress is granted the legislative powers.  Those are the powers to create the laws (from the Latin term for “belonging to the law, legis”).  It is up to Congress to decide what the laws of the United States are.  The Constitution defines which areas Congress has the ability to govern – to write laws about (Art 1, §8); and what areas are prohibited (Art 1, §9).

The power to execute those laws, that is, to put them into effect, is “vested” in the President.  The President does NOT have the power to legislate, to create, laws without the Congress.  

A note: One of the  great issues raised in the last half-century is the Presidential use of executive orders.  While the Presidency may be granted (by Congress) some powers to act within the guidelines of the Constitution and laws (passed by Congress), there are only a very few areas (military action, foreign policy) where the President can legally “create” policy on his own.

The President pledges to follow this Constitutional mandate.  In fact, the Presidential Oath is the only Oath prescribed in the Constitution.  The President has only two duties:   execute the office of the Presidency, and “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution..” 

And to complete this logical sequence, the very first amendment to the Constitution, guarantees that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech or the press”.  

So if Congress can’t make a law, then the President can’t execute an action that would be tantamount to creating a law to abridge the “freedom of the press”.  It would be logically inconsistent with the intent of the US Constitution, the one thing that the President must “preserve and protect”.  

Fatty Price

Friday the President of the United States banned three news organization from the White House:  CNN, Politico, and MS-NOW.  He declared that he was tired of their “lying” with “fake news”; and on Saturday morning, they were denied the access to the White House that the press has been granted since the 1890’s.  In fact, the press was given dedicated work areas in the West Wing since that area opened in 1902.  

“Freedom of the press” is determined by the ability to access decision makers, including those around the President. Grover Cleveland informally recognized this when Washington Star reporter William “Fatty” Price posted himself outside the White House on the Portico, and “buttonholed” folks coming to talk to the Chief Executive.  William McKinley formalized the relationship with reporters, coming out to the “Porch” to give them information.  

The relationship between the press and the President has been useful for both.  The reporters make their living getting information from those around the President.  And the President and his staff use the reporters to communicate with the American people.  No President has done this more than Donald Trump, who constantly brings the press into whatever he’s doing.

Divided Journalism

There were times when reporters criticized the President, and times when the President attacked the press.   Vice President Spiro Agnew once called the White House press, “nattering nabobs of negativism”.  (A note:  that phrase was written by speechwriter William Safire, who later became a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the New York Times).  But, over the past century and a half, both sides benefitted from the relationship.  That is, until this President determined that he was going to ignore his sworn duty to the Constitution.

We live in an era of divided journalism, but that’s not new.  Fatty Price was familiar with the great journalistic divide of the late 19^th century. The battle between newspaper magnates William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer led to “Yellow Journalism”. We would refer to it as “fake news” today. Yellow journalism, in part, started the Spanish-American War.  And throughout American history, journalists have been advocates as well:  for increasing Federalism or State’s Rights, or for or against slavery.  

Today’s journalism is divided in a different way, often along political lines.  The President has reporting organizations that support his every action, from Breitbart to Newsmax to even “mainstream” Fox News.  But there are other organizations that will report critically about his actions; mainstream news like the AP, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, Politico and the New York Times.  And there are also more partisan news organizations that take an editorial stand, but still report factually.  MS-NOW is one of those, as is the Wall Street Journal. 

Unconstitutional

But Donald Trump doesn’t feel bound to his oath to uphold the First Amendment.  He’s grown tired of  criticism, particularly by MS-NOW, and he’s retaliated by cutting them off from White House access.  He’s done it before.  When the Associated Press (AP) refused to “rename” the Gulf of Mexico to Trump’s Gulf of America, he tried to cut them off.  Courts ruled that he could keep them from some areas, the Oval Office and Air Force One, but that other spaces allowed to the press must be allowed to them.

So the law is already established.  But Trump broke it anyway.

I’m sure the three most recent victims will be in Federal Court on Monday morning, demanding an injunction against Trump’s actions.  And they’ll likely win, just as the AP did.   There’s little that the White House lawyers can argue that hasn’t already been hashed out in the Courts before.

So why?  Why did the President of the United States break the law?  Why did he violate his own oath and duty to protect the Constitution?  Can all this just be another distraction, a way to win the twenty-four hour news cycle for the weekend?

Freedom of Essayists

He got me.  I’m not writing about China, or AI, or the elections, the secret Iran War death toll,  or the Kennedy Center this morning.  I’m spending my literary efforts on a President who is a scoff-law. He cares more about the news cycle than his sacred duty to the country.  It’s an exercise of my freedom of the press (and of the internet essayist).

Donald Trump is trying to intimidate and silence his critics.  If we let him get away with violating the First Amendment, even for a weekend, we are one more step down the slippery slope towards authoritarianism.

Opposing that is worth the fight.